Joust Read Free Page B

defense he had—when the village boys plagued him and threw stones at him, when Khefti beat him. He couldn’t strike back, but at least he could keep from weeping, giving them the satisfaction of knowing that they hurt him. Crying would make him into a greater target for torment than he already was; tears were a sign of weakness he couldn’t afford.
    But he was truly the most miserable of boys, and sometimes he thought that anger was the only possession he had that could not be taken from him.
    And anger was, perhaps, the only thing that kept him alive, in the midst of a life hardly worth living.
    He slept on a pile of reeds he had cut, under the same awning that sheltered the wood for the bread oven from rain, in the outer back court, beyond the kitchen court. His clothing was a loinwrap of whatever rags were deemed unsuitable even for household use, and only when it was little more than a collection of holes held together by dirt and threads like spider’s silk was it ever replaced. Thus Khefti gave lip service to the provision of “food and shelter” for his serf. Under Khefti, Vetch had nothing that was not scant, except for anger and hunger.
    Well, one thing more, perhaps. He had hatred.
    He hated Khefti with a despairing, dull hatred that was as constant as the anger and hunger and was surpassed only by the fear that Khefti inspired.
    His stomach growled again, and grated painfully. Sweat prickled Vetch’s scalp, and a drop of sweat trickled down his temple, down his face, and down his neck, leaving behind a trail of mud in the dust that coated him. But the hot, dry wind swiftly dried it before he could free a hand to wipe it away, adding one more itch to all of the insect bites and healing scratches he was always plagued with. His stomach pressed urgently against his backbone, and he was tired, so tired—even that anger that never left him was not enough to overcome how tired he was.
    What had he done that the gods should treat him so?
    How was it fair, that Khefti claimed him and could work him like a mangy donkey because he had bought the house and a thin strip of the land that had once belonged to Vetch’s father? How was it right, that the Tian thieves had taken the farm that had been Vetch’s home from those who had lived and worked it for generations? What justified what had been done to Vetch’s family, to a man who had not so much as raised a hand in self-defense against the Tians?
    Anger lived in his belly, waking and sleeping, but it was an impotent anger with nowhere to go. And at times like this, it was a weary anger that had worn itself out on the unyielding stone of his life.
    A few steps more, and he made it to the side of the above-ground stone cistern. With a sigh of relief, he eased the bucket to the ground, and went up the two steps that allowed a little fellow like him to reach the cistern lid. He slid the wooden cover aside, pausing for just a second to savor the momentary breath of cool damp that escaped, then groped behind him for the bucket handle, ready to haul it up again.
    It wasn’t there.
    The anger in him roused, and gave him a flare of energy. Vetch whirled, expecting to find that one of the Tian boys who apprenticed with his master had tilted the bucket on its side, allowing it to spill its precious burden into the thirsty, hard-packed earth. Or worse, had stolen the bucket—which would force him to go to Khefti, who would beat him for losing it. Then he would have to fill the cistern with whatever Khefti gave him, crippled by a back aching and raw.
    Someone had taken the bucket, all right, but it wasn’t an apprentice.
    Behind him, a tall, muscular Tian—a warrior, by his build, and one of the elite Jousters, by the heavy linen kilt, the wide brown leather belt, and the empty leather lance socket hanging from it—held the heavy bucket to his lips, gulping down the master’s well water with the fervor of one who was perishing of thirst. Vetch stared at him, the surge of