Joust by Mercedes Lackey Read Free Book Online Page B

plain, honey-colored limestone walls, narrow openings near the ceiling to bring in air and light while excluding the full cruelty of the sun and the kamiseen. It even had a stone floor. The only buildings that Vetch had ever seen that were made of stone like this were temples, and he found himself trying not to gape. Along one side of this room were ranged full terra-cotta jars of water as tall as Vetch was, with wooden or horn ladles hung on their sides. There were also neatly-folded piles of fabric on shelves above the jars, what looked like smaller pottery jars of unguents and possibly soap. And to clinch that this room was for bathing, there was a drain in the center of the floor.
    Haraket shoved him inside as he stood hesitantly on the threshold. “Strip,” he ordered Vetch, abruptly. “I hope you know how to wash.”
    He sounded dubious, which woke some smoldering resentment, but Vetch didn’t have to be told what to do twice. The last proper bath he’d had was—
    He cut off the unwanted memory—of washing off blood. His father’s blood. . . .
    It was enough that he would have a proper bath now.
    He pulled off the rope belt and the rags, and hesitated with them in one hand. Surely he should wash them?
    “Feh, boy, you don’t think that’s worth saving, do you?” Haraket barked with distaste. “Throw it there, and get on with it!”
    He pointed to a rubbish pile, and not at all loath to rid himself of the rags, Vetch tossed them aside. He headed straight for the water jars and ladled dipperfuls of water over himself, scrubbing himself down with a handful of lye soap and a loofah sponge. And he scrubbed every inch of himself as well, fingernails, toenails, even his back, though the soap got in the cuts and stung until he had to bite his lip, trying to get stains off his legs, wishing he had a razor so he could shave his skull bare as his father had used to do for him. . . .
    He scrubbed himself twice over, rinsing himself with more water from the jars, and was about to start on a third round when Haraket grunted. “That’ll do, boy. Any more, and you’ll have the skin off. I want you clean, not raw.”
    Haraket tossed him a folded piece of cloth to dry himself with, then another bundle of fabric when he’d done with that; he caught it, and unfolded it to find, not just a loincloth, but a proper linen kilt, such as he had not worn in—
    —in too long. Not since the moment he had been made a serf.
    But he still remembered how to wrap a simple kilt, or his hands did, anyway. Then, skin tingling and arrayed in that real linen kilt of his own, he turned obediently to the Overseer for the expected inspection.
    Haraket surveyed him, and nodded with satisfaction. “Not so bad,” he said, with reluctant approval. “You clean up better than I’d have guessed. By the way, dragon boys don’t wear sandals; you’d lose them in the sand wallows. From the look of your feet, they’re tough enough. Now, turn your back to me.”
    Vetch did so, as Haraket got one of the jars of unguent from a shelf, and applied it generously to the whip marks.
    And the pain vanished, replaced entirely by a cool tingling. Vetch couldn’t believe it, and as Haraket put the jar back on the shelf, he turned, wondering if he should thank the Overseer.
    But Haraket forestalled him with a question. “Hungry?”
    Vetch tried, tried so hard, not to look too eager, but—
    —well, he was only a little boy, after all, and not too practiced in disguising his expression except by the simple expedient of staring at his feet. Haraket, for the first time that day, actually smiled.
    “Now it is me who is the fool. Of course you are. You look like a sack of gnawed bones. Come along.”
    Haraket strode out of the bathing chamber and Vetch scrambled after him, beginning to feel very dazed by this marked change in his fortunes. This morning, he had been filthy, starving, and about to be beaten. Now he was clean, well-clothed, and so far, he hadn’t