Alta (8 page)

The Jouster shook his head again. “And she speaks to a Nestling-Priestess, as if she were a tame thing. No
tala,
then. I believe I can leave it all safely in your household, my Lord, and by your leave, I will report this to the House of Jousters and the Great Ones.”

The Lord Ya-tiren nodded, and the man rose, and took himself out of the courtyard.

“And you, Healer?” Lord Ya-tiren asked.

“I am satisfied, my Lord,” the Healer said, with a little smile. “This boy is stouter than I had judged. Call upon me if you wish, but I believe my services will not be needed anymore. If I, too, may go?”

The Lord Ya-Tiren nodded, and the Healer departed as well.

That left the girl and her father, who regarded Kiron benevolently. “Well, my young rescuer,” the lord said. “Do you think you could manage to eat something? Or is that a foolish question?”

Kiron’s stomach growled before he could answer, and the girl chuckled. Her father smiled.

“In that case, I will summon you a servant and a meal, and go about
my
duties. Aket-ten, I leave him in your hands. Do not overtire him, but I suspect that between you, there are several
kilons
of unanswered questions, and most of them are things that would not interest me. Goodnight, my children.” And with that, Lord Ya-tiren rose and followed in the wake of the Jouster and the Healer, leaving Kiron alone with the girl, who still sat like a little miniature oracle on her three-legged stool.

She had changed from her short tunic of the swamp into a robe very like those of the priestesses he was familiar with, although there were some differences.

There was no elaborate wig, for instance; she wore her own black hair cut short, like a helmet that framed her face and skimmed the nape of her neck. And the robe was not pleated tightly to her slim body; it hung loosely from her shoulders and was confined with a beaded belt. Around her neck was an enameled and beaded collar that depicted a flame with two wings, like the wings of the Haras-falcon.

“Um,” Kiron said, feeling tongue-tied. Then the one thing he really wanted to know just burst out of him. “How can you know about Avatre?”

“What she’s thinking, you mean?” the girl replied. “I’m a Nestling-Priestess; I have the Gifts. I mean, I
will
have the Gifts when I get older and more training and if they come to me, but I’ve always had the Gift of Silent Speech with animals. That’s how they knew I was going to be a Winged One when I grew up.”

He blinked. A Winged One? “You mean—you’re going to be a sea witch?” he blurted, then blushed. “I mean, that’s what they call—the Tians—”

She giggled again; she had a charming laugh, and he was relieved that she seemed to be the sort of girl who refused to take herself too seriously. “I know that, silly! I know that’s what the Tians call us! But no, I’m not going to be one of the Magi, people that have real magic. I’m going to be the kind that can see and hear and know things that people without the Gifts can’t. That’s what a Winged One is. The others aren’t really priests and priestesses at all. Magi, we call them. They serve the Great Ones. We serve the gods.”

He digested that for a moment, trying to sort it all in terms of the things that he was familiar with. He’d never heard of anyone who could “speak” with animals, but that might not mean anything. He wasn’t exactly conversant with the ways of priests. “It’s a good thing you can talk to Avatre. I mean, thank you for trying, and getting her calm. She must have been really scared.”

“She was, but she was fine as soon as I told her we were going to take care of you,” the girl said, with complete equanimity, as if she “spoke” to dragons every day. Well, if she “spoke” to animals all the time, perhaps that wasn’t such a stretch! “Then she was all right, but she wouldn’t be parted from you, so that’s why you’re in my courtyard instead of in a proper room. She’s very nice, a little like a hunting cat, and a little like a falcon, and I talk to those all the time. Father likes to hunt, and he relies on me to find out how his cats and birds are feeling.” She looked up at the sky, now dark, and filling with stars. “I hope it doesn’t rain—”

That was the least of his concerns. “During
kamiseen?
Surely not!”

She laughed. “Oh, of course not. You’re right. So—you’re Kiron, and I’m Aket-ten. And you saved my life! That was terribly brave and clever of you, and I hope you
realize
that I really am awfully grateful, and so is my father, and we’re terribly in your debt.” She flushed. “You really did, you know, even though I have Silent Speech. I
can’t
talk to beasts unless I touch them, and I think that the river horse would have bitten me in two before I could have made it calm down, so you really did save me.” She took a deep breath, her flush faded, and she sobered and bit her lip. “Poor Larion-al. I wish you could have saved him, too.”

He gulped, recalling that poor rower, engulfed and being shaken like a dog shook a rag. “So do I. What were you
doing
out there, anyway?”

Now, for the first time, she frowned. “We were sent to catch a special sort of fish for Magus Kephret. That is,
I
was sent, and my brother Orest wouldn’t let me go alone. The Nestlings all take training together, you see, so the Winged Ones or the Magi that are teachers can give assignments to whomever they wish. He said that with my Gifts I should be able to know where the fish were, and get them to come to my spear. I tried to tell him that my Gift wasn’t that strong yet, and anyway, I wasn’t sure it could be used for something like that, but he said how could I know if I didn’t try—” Now she paused, and seeing the odd expression on her face, Kiron got a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“Anyway, Father went straight to the Teachers, the Teachers went to the Pedagogues who are in charge of all Nestling and Fledgling training, and
they’ve
said that there is to be no more sending of Nestlings out on dangerous errands like that again,” she continued, her face clearing. “I mean, it wasn’t as if it was time for my ordeals or anything, I’m not nearly old enough! So, anyway, that was why we were out in the swamp. And I didn’t realize that our boat had gotten between a river horse and her calf until it was too late, and she was charging us.”

He sighed as she gave him a long look. “I’m glad we were there when we were,” he said sincerely, and just then, several servants arrived, burdened with food, and for a time, he and Aket-ten were too busy eating for many more questions.

He was absolutely ravenous, but there was still time between bites to have a look at his surroundings. As a courtyard, this was a singularly austere spot. There was no ornamental pool, such as the Jousters of Tia shared, and hardly any plantings, just a tree in each corner in a big stone box. He was beneath the branches of one of these trees, an orange tree, he thought. Avatre was in the barren middle of the courtyard, surrounded by charcoal braziers, which must have been keeping her warm enough or she would surely be complaining. The walls around the courtyard were white stone, and there was one door in the middle of each of the four walls, making it enough like Avatre’s former pen that she probably felt perfectly secure here.

The meal was delicious; spiced lamb, hot and oozing juice, and chickpea paste with herbs in it, goat cheese pungent and tangy, sharp onions and some green stuff he wasn’t at all familiar with that went well with all of it. It came with a flat round of something that Aket-ten used to scoop up the chickpea paste and wrap around the lamb and vegetables. He followed her example and found it was a sort of chewy bread. There were also dates in honey, and a much better date wine than he’d gotten from that overseer. The head of his bed could be propped up, as she showed him, even though it made him dizzy to sit up at first. It felt quite luxurious to be sitting, eating in bed, with servants to wait on him.

Aket-ten quite sensibly concentrated on eating rather than chattering, which was something of a relief. From what Kiron vaguely recalled of his sisters, they had spent a good half of the time at every meal gabbling like a flock of hens.

She didn’t seem much like a typical girl. On the other hand, he didn’t know a great deal about girls, other than the little that he remembered of his sisters. The fact was, the only females that Kiron had even seen much of once he’d been taken into Ari’s service were the serfs, slaves, and servants in the compound’s kitchen area. And most of those weren’t
girls,
but women old enough to be his mother. He really didn’t know what to expect from this one; Altan
and
noble
and
female. And he certainly didn’t know what to say to her.

Fortunately, he was saved from having to make any attempt at conversation by the arrival of her brother.

“Father says our hero is awake!” called a cheerful voice from the darkened door nearest them, and the young man himself sauntered out into the courtyard a moment later. “And so you are! Did you leave me any dates, little oracle?”

“Yes, if you want them, unless Kiron needs them,” Aket-ten said.

“No, no, they’re too sweet for me,” he replied—the truth, since he wasn’t used to anything as sweet as a honeyed date after all that time in the desert.

“Hmm! Thank you! My brothers always gobble them up like locusts on a wheat field, and I never get my share.” Orest said with a grin, helping himself to a bit of flatbread and a sticky-sweet handful of dates before a servant could offer them. Orest looked like a lanky male version of his sister; they even wore their hair the same length, though he had a tunic like his father’s instead of a gown, and his pectoral collar was of plain gold and turquoise beads without the winged flame.

“Brothers?” Kiron replied, a little surprised. “There are more of you?”

“Five more boys; Aket-ten is the youngest and the only girl. And the only Winged One.” Orest made a face at her. “Well, if she
had
to be a girl, at least she’s going to be doing something useful with herself and her time. Not one of those stupid creatures that spends all her time giggling with a claque of others like her.”

Aket-ten sniffed disdainfully at him; this was apparently a joke of long standing between them. She tossed her head. “Whereas unless you stop skipping your lessons with your tutors, you aren’t going to be of any use whatsoever!”

“Ought to be glad I skipped today, little oracle!” he retorted gaily, and turned to Kiron with a face full of avid curiosity. “So, just
how
did you get a dragon? I mean, you weren’t exactly dressed like a noble or even a Tian Jouster, so how did you get a dragon like
her?
She’s
wonderful!
”

Avatre muttered sleepily, as if in agreement with that sentiment.

“I stole an egg, and hatched her myself,” he said, and found himself telling the whole story all over again. Not that he minded. There was nothing he would rather talk about than Avatre. This time, since the adults weren’t around, Aket-ten asked several of her own questions, and it was perfectly obvious from them that she hadn’t been in the least exaggerating her ability to communicate with animals. The things she asked proved to Kiron that, if she wasn’t actually speaking in words as such, she was surely getting the general tenor of Avatre’s thoughts.

And that could be very, very useful, he suddenly realized. In further training, he wouldn’t have to teach Avatre what he wanted in tiny little increments. Oh, no—he could have Aket-ten or someone like her actually
tell
Avatre what he wanted!

“Look,” he said, finally, after another of her questions. “I want to know something. If you can talk to the dragons, why aren’t you Winged Ones helping with the training for the Altan Jousters? It seems as if your dragons are a lot more dangerous than the Tian ones, and if you could—”

“Because we don’t have any tame dragons,” Orest answered for her. “Ours are really, really wild, maybe wilder even than the Tian dragons, because we trap ours fully grown. Truth to tell, they’re more than wild, they’re dangerous, and some of them have been killers when they aren’t drugged with
tala.
They’re kept muzzled when they aren’t eating.”

He blinked at that. No wonder there were fewer of them than Tian dragons! He digested the ramifications of such a system, slowly. Fewer dragons; harder to manage. Less cooperative than the wildest of the Tian dragons. Which meant the Jouster had to spend more time controlling his mount and less time in fighting.

“The only time they can be handled is when they’re full of
tala,
” Aket-ten added. “And then, not only is it still very hard for anyone but their Jousters and dragon boys to get near them, their minds are too dull to talk to. I’d have to touch one, anyway, and everyone says that’s too dangerous for me to try. I don’t know anyone with the Gift of Silent Speech that can talk to an animal without being really near to it.”

“Oh, she won’t say it, but young and silly as she is, she’s the one with the strongest Gift of Silent Speech they’ve seen in two generations,” Orest chuckled, poking at his sister with his elbow. “She’s afraid it’ll sound like boasting if she says it. They expect great things from her.”

She wrinkled her nose. “They can
expect
all they like, but if the Gods don’t put more Gifts in my hands, you’ll probably find me explaining to the horses in the Great Ones’ stables why they need to pull the chariots properly in battle.”

“But if you’re in training to be a priestess, why aren’t you living at a temple?” Kiron asked, as another question occurred to him. What was she doing
here?
All the girls connected with the temples in Tia were kept carefully behind the temple walls at all times. And nobody would have sent one into a swamp after fish!

“Because I’m a
Nestling,
” she replied patiently. “Oh, if I were from quite far away, or if my parents were poor, I’d live there. But Nestlings stay with their parents. That’s why we’re called Nestlings, you see? I won’t move into the Temple of the Twins until I become a Fledgling.”