The Stone Dogs by S.M. Stirling

that Ali had been sired by Tom.
    Contraception had been more difficult then, and Rahksan careless about it; the three of them had been play-pleasuring, and the Afghan had decided to keep it on impulse. Not that half-Draka bastards were uncommon, but mostly they grew up in Quarters and it made no particular difference. Ali had run tame in the manor; looking at it from his point of view, she supposed it was natural enough for him to be more discontented than most. To make it worse, he was completely besotted with Colette, her son John's new French concubine.
    Who is a gorgeous mantrap and a teasing bitch of the first water, Johanna thought sourly. The wench had been a present from her cousins Tanya and Edward, who had a plantation west of Tours in the Loire valley; John certainly hadn't complained—he indulged the wench—but his mother was beginning to think her kin had unloaded a troublemaker.
    Tanya's bloody sense of humor , she mused.
    "Rahksi, that boy needs some serious talkin'-to," she said.
    "Half a dozen times I've talked Tom out of kickin' his butt good an' proper. Fightin', drinkin'; he's first-rate with the horses, but he's back-talked the head groom enough to get anyone else triced up to the frame fo' ten-strokes-an-' one. Freya, honeybunch, I cain't let him ruin discipline." Bending the rules too far for a favorite was an invitation to trouble.
    "Ah knows, Mistis." A deep sigh, and the serfs brows drew together. "Blames myself, really do. Too easy on that chile; I get set to rake him down, an' then remembers him so little an' sweet.
    He too land treated, never reminded strong of his place; it better iff'n y' learns that young."
    Rahksan looked suddenly older; Johanna sat up and gave her a gentle squeeze on the shoulder. "Isn't easy bein' a mother, Rahksi. Don't worry, we'll straighten him out."
    The Afghan shrugged and smiled ruefully. "I'll tells him yo'
    threatenin' to sell him to the mines," she said.
    Johanna snorted. "Bettah use somethin' he'll believe," she replied. The Ingolfssons and her own von Shrakenberg clan had definite ideas about managing their serfs; they did not sell them to strangers, except as punishment for some gross crime like child-abuse. Such extreme measures had not been necessary on Claesrum since the brutal days of the settlement, right after the War. Besides which it would break Rahksan's heart, which was not to be contemplated.
    "Say we might send him down to the boats fo' a year," she continued. Claestum had a part-share in a tuna-fishing business on the coast, run in cooperation with a half-dozen neighboring estates. The Landholders oversaw their hired managers carefully, but it was rough work.
    Rahksan winced slightly and made a palms-up gesture. "Tell yo' true, Mistis, I've thought on that. Might do him good't'see how soft he's had it, an' get him away from his momma's skirts.
    But—"
    "I know, he's yo' own and yo'd miss him." Johanna rested one of her own hands on the serfs. "Look, Rahksi, this just an idea.
    Tom was sayin' Ali makes a terrible houseboy but might do well as a soldier; we could get him a Janissary postin', if he volunteered."
    And it would be just what he needs to make something of himself , she thought. The boy's strong an' smart enough, it's the attitude's the problem . An induction camp's hard-bitten Master Sergeants had no interest in the anguished sensitivities of the adolescent soul, or anything else beside results.
    "Eehh." Rahksan bit her lip. "That generous, but they mighty rough an' he ain't nohow used to it." A talented serf could rise far in the military. Not just to non-commissioned rank in the subject-race legions; Janissaries had opportunities for education, training of every sort. There were ex-Janissaries throughout the serf-manned bureaucracies that ran the Domination, below the level of the Citizen aristocracy. "Though…
    I wouldn't see him much, that way," she finished softly.
    "Rahksi," Johanna said seriously. "He's not yo' little boy