Lord Khumun-thetus was not paying any attention to Kiron. All his attention was on Avatre, who knew a true admirer when she saw one. Kiron’s tension eased a little. If their welcome here rested on Avatre’s shoulders, then there was very little to worry about.

“You know, she gets better on second viewing, when she’s rested, fed, and clean,” said the Lord of the Altan Jousters. “I’d like to see her after a proper sand bath and oiling. And when she’s full-grown, she’ll be amazing. I don’t suppose she’d let me touch her, would she, young Kiron?”

This was the first of the Jousters, the first of any of the visitors save Orest and Aket-ten who had asked to touch Avatre, and given how positively she was acting, Kiron saw no reason to forbid the contact. “I believe she will accept that, my Lord. The soft facial skin is particularly sensitive.”

Khumun-thetus approached confidently, but with care, holding out his hand to Avatre, who stretched out her neck and sniffed it before permitting him to lay hands on her. From his demeanor, Kiron had no doubt that this man enjoyed working with animals and was good with them, and his next comment told the truth of that. “I was a cavalry officer before I became a Jouster,” he said, to no one in particular. “Though I was not reluctant to give over my dragon when I was made Lord of the Jousters, if I had a dragon like this, there would have been a fight! What a wonderful creature this lady of yours is!” As she stretched out her neck so that he could reach the soft skin just under her jawline, he chuckled. “She’s very like a horse in her enjoyment of being petted.”

“More like a great hunting cat crossed with a falcon, my Lord,” said Kiron diffidently. “She has much of the independent nature of both. I tended the adult dragon who was raised as she was. I found that Kashet was strong-willed and sometimes needed to be humored, and he was given to sly pranks, but on the whole he was as intelligent as a dog but without a dog’s fawning nature.”

“And she has the pleasure-loving nature of a great cat, too, I see.” Again the Lord of the Jousters chuckled. “It is a great pity that so few of my men are willing to invest three years of their dignity and lives in order to attain an achievement of this sort. If I had a wing of just ten fighters—”

Kiron refrained from mentioning that the same was true among the Tian Jousters. But Khumun-thetus was not finished. “However, as I have made some inquiries among the young, I have found some few who find it no hardship to become the slaves of an egg and a dragonet. Your host’s son is one among them, I am told.”

“So he told me, my Lord,” Kiron agreed, concealing his relief. Well, it appeared that they had been accepted, just as he had hoped, and with remarkably little interrogation.