She wouldn't settle down and go to sleep while he was there, however, so when his own stomach growled, he decided that he had given her enough attention for the first day, and he would leave her alone until morning.
When he arrived at the kitchen court, he paused for a moment in the entryway. And although conversation didn't stop, it paused for a moment, and everyone—literally, everyone—stopped to take a look at him.
Then they went back to their food. But in that brief moment, he had a sense of what had been going on while he had been shuttling between two dragons. The reaction his presence caused could not have been more remarkable. In those looks had been caution, respect, just a touch of fear, here and there. From the slaves and few fellow serfs, he saw pride, admiration. No contempt.
And when he sat down at his usual table, the two serfs and two slaves who shared it with him gave him quick, congratulatory smiles. No more than that, but those smiles, and the approving pat on his back from his favorite serving woman, created a surge of warmth inside him that took him by surprise. The serfs and slaves then turned the discussion—among themselves—to the rumors that they had been hearing. None of them mentioned Vetch, Sobek, or Coresan by name, nor did any of the conversationalists speak to Vetch directly, but it was clear that they were using this method to let him know just what was being said about him.
But best of all, truly the top to his day, was when a still-weary, but not-so-haggard-looking Ari arrived at Kashet's pen after sunset. And for once, Kashet could not be roused, not even by his beloved Jouster.
"We flew the equivalent of three combats today," Ari said, after calling the dragon's name and getting no response. "And to tell you the truth, he's not in fighting condition after the rains. So I'm not surprised he won't awaken." Ari stretched, and winced. "I'm not in fighting condition either, to be honest."
"You should get another massage," Vetch said severely, knowing by now that such boldness wouldn't even earn a rebuke from Ari. "It doesn't do me any good to take care of Kashet if my Jouster won't take care of himself."
Ari chuckled. "Truth to tell, I just wanted to come and tell you that you have done a very fine thing with Coresan today. It was brave of you to take her and stand firm and let her test you, and braver still to work with her afterward. You gave her nearly a full day of the best possible care, and I do think that she will respond to that."
Vetch felt himself flushing, with embarrassment, and pleasure. "Ah—" he stammered, " —I just didn't want to see her made into a mar dragon after you'd gone to all that difficulty in catching her.
And after all you've told me, I thought I could probably read her aright."
"If what I've told you is helping you to get her properly tamed, then I am well-rewarded," Ari said, with warmth. "You've done well, Vetch. It may be presumptuous of me to say this, but I'm quite proud of you."
"Oh…" Vetch was quite taken aback, both by the praise and by his own reaction to it. "Ah, thank you." He tried to think of something else to say, and couldn't.
Ari didn't seem to mind. "It's been a cursed long day for all three of us," he said, into the awkward silence. "And I'm going to follow Kashet's example and your advice. You should probably do the same. Good night, Vetch."
He limped off, but Vetch did get the last word after all, for he called after the Jouster, "Get another massage!"
Ari's chuckle floated back in the darkness, making him feel warm inside.
Everyone seemed to take it as a given that Coresan would lay eggs, even though she'd only mated the once. Vetch could only shrug his shoulders at that; the only things with wings that he had any experience with were geese, ducks, and chickens. He would have thought, if dragons were a species that required multiple matings, that she would be mad to get at a male as soon as she'd slept off her enormous meals—and he was perfectly prepared for that, when morning came. He'd even shorten her chains if he had to, though he hoped it wouldn't come to that.
The next day, though, when the dragons flew overhead on their way to morning practice and the first patrols of the season, she yearned after them a little, but that could have been the eagerness to fly rather than to mate again. The moment that her meat appeared, she was much more interested in it than in the dragon shadows passing over her head.
Haraket could not tell Vetch if—or how many—of her eggs were likely to be fertile after just one mating. Ari, who might have known if one mating was enough for the eggs to be good, was, well, not really available. Vetch found out that morning that Ari was now flying two patrols, his own and Reaten's, just as he had expected would happen. Vetch vowed to manage on his own, with the information he already had, and not trouble his Jouster further. He knew from experience that Ari might well start to continue to talk on his favorite subject, then stay awake far too late to do so, in the hope that what he told Vetch would help him with Coresan.
And he didn't want to ask Ari for another reason, besides sparing him; Ari was sharp-witted, and might very well guess just what Vetch was planning from the tenor of Vetch's questions.
He wanted no one, not even Ari, to guess what his real goal had been in taking on Coresan's care. But how could anyone, having been exposed to Kashet, not fall under the spell of dragons, and want one like him?
He did not know how Ari would feel about that; if he'd been freeborn, there was no doubt that the Jouster would have encouraged him, but a serf? And a serf born free, born Altan? However Ari felt about the war, personally, he still fought Altans; how could he countenance putting another dragon in the hands of someone who could only be described as an enemy?
Even if the enemy himself didn't yet know what he would make of such a situation…
But that was counting one's chickens—or in this case, dragons—long before they were laid, much less hatched. There were a great many obstacles to overcome before Vetch could find himself a-dragonback. And many more pitfalls, and a thousand ways in which the plan could go horribly wrong.
He also couldn't find anyone who could tell him how long after mating it would take a dragon to lay her eggs, which was a good thing, because it meant that no one would be expecting eggs on a given day. That was totally in his favor, for it meant that he had a measure of time in which he could act before he had to admit that there were eggs and allow the slaves to take them away to discard them.
The one thing that everyone agreed on was that Coresan would take her time about becoming a mother. Absolutely no one expected an egg the next day, or the one after that; eggs took time to form, after all, even in chickens. Especially something as big as a dragon egg.
Vetch had wondered, despite what Ari said, if he would have to compete with other Tians for the eggs, perhaps would-be Jousters who had not yet gotten a dragon, or even other boys who decided that they wanted to emulate Ari. It seemed logical, after all; maybe no one wanted to dare stealing eggs from wild clutches, but here was Coresan, about to go to nest, and the eggs were practically begging to be taken.
Surely there would be one boy (other than himself) here in the compound who would want to become a Jouster by getting himself a dragon.