Leaning against the half-open panel, Lessa gave a tired laugh and looked down at her muddied condition.
“Ramoth says she’s tired and dirty and wants a bath.”
“She’s not the only one,” F’lar promptly agreed. He made a vain effort to close the door, then laughed. “I don’t suppose anything will happen overnight. Back to Cove Hold.”
“You’ll join us, Toric?” Lessa asked, cocking her head to look up at the big Southerner.
“I think not this evening, Lessa. I’ve a Hold to manage and cannot always please myself,” he said. Jaxom saw the Southerner’s eyes on him, the implication obvious to Jaxom. “All things being equal, I’ll return tomorrow for a time to see if Fandarel’s mound proves more profitable. Shall I bring more strong hands and spare your dragons?”
“Spare the dragons? They’re enjoying themselves hugely,” Lessa said. “I need the relief. What do you think, F’lar? Or should we draft some Benden riders?”
“I can appreciate that you’d like to keep this for yourself,” Toric went on smoothly, his eyes on F’lar.
“This Plateau will have to be available to everyone,” F’lar said, ignoring Toric’s implication. “And since dragons enjoy earth-moving . . .”
“I’d like to bring Benelek with me tomorrow, F’lar,” said the Mastersmith, rubbing his gray-mudded hands together and flicking the dried pellets off his clothes. “And two other lads with good imaginations . . .”
“Imagination? Yes, you’ll need a lot of that here to make sense out of what the ancients have left for you,” Toric said, the faintest hint of scorn in his tone. “When you’re ready. D’ram?”
For some reason Toric’s manner toward the old Weyrleader was more-respectful than to anyone else. At least to Jaxom’s sensitive ears. He was inwardly seething over Toric’s insinuation that he did not manage his own Hold but pleased himself. He seethed because it was a valid accusation. Yet why, Jaxom sought to console himself, would anyone have expected him to return tamely to Ruatha, which prospered under Lytol’s expert management, when all the excitement in the world was happening here? He felt Sharra’s fingers curl around his arm, and he reminded himself of his own analogy between Toric and Dorse.
“I’ll have a job getting Ruth clean,” he said with a rueful sigh as he undid Sharra’s fingers from his arm and clasped them tightly, drawing her with him to Ruth.
As the dragons broke from between over the Cove, the Harper’s tall figure was visible on the beach, his impatience to hear of their explorations echoed by the fire-lizards who did dizzy spirals about him. When he saw the state the group was in, and how impatient they were to swim clean, he simply divested himself of his clothes and swam from one to another, hearing their reports.
It was an altogether deflated group that sat about the fire that evening.
“There’s no guarantee, is there,” the Harper said, “that even if we had the energy to excavate all those hundreds of mounds, we’d find anything of value left behind.”
Lessa held up her spoon with a laugh. “No intrinsic value, but it does give me a tremendous thrill to hold something my hundred-times ancestress might have used!”
“Efficiently made, too,” Fandarel said, politely taking the small object and examining it again. “The substance fascinates me.” He bent toward the flames to scrutinize it. “If I could just . . .” and he reached for his belt knife.
“Oh, no you don’t, Fandarel,” Lessa said in alarm and retrieved her artifact. “There were other bits and pieces of the same stuff discarded in my building. Experiment on them.”
“Is that all we are to have of the ancients, their bits and pieces?”
“I remind you, F’lar,” Fandarel said, “their discards have already proved invaluable.” The Smith then indicated the spot where Wansor’s distance-viewer had been sited. “What men have once learned to do, can be relearned. It will take time and experimentation but . . .”
“We’ve only begun, my friends,” said Nicat, whose enthusiasm had not been daunted. “And as our good Smith says, we can learn even from their discards. With your permission, Weyrleaders, I’d like to bring some experienced teams, and go about the excavations methodically. There may have been good reasons for the rank system. Each file might belong to a different craft or—”
“You don’t believe, as Toric suggests, that they took everything with them?” F’lar asked.
“That’s irrelevant,” Nicat said, dismissing Toric’s contentions. “The bed, for instance, was unneeded because they knew they could obtain wood wherever they went. The little spoon for another, because they could make more. There may be other pieces, useless to them, which might very well form the missing elements of the Records which did come down to us, in whatever mutilated fashion. Just think, my friends,” Nicat held up one finger along his nose, closing an eye conspiratorially, “the sheer quantity they had to take from those buildings after the eruption. Oh, we’ll find things, never fear!”
“Yes, they had to take great loads from those buildings after the eruption,” Fandarel murmured, frowning as he lowered his chin to his chest in deep thought. “Where did they take their possessions? Certainly, not immediately to establish Fort Hold!”
“Yes, where did they go?” F’lar asked, puzzled.
“As far as we could tell from the fire-lizard images, they headed toward the sea,” Jaxom said.
“And the sea wouldn’t have been safe,” Menolly said.
“The sea wouldn’t,” F’lar said, “but there’s a lot of land between the Plateau and the sea.” He stared at Jaxom a moment. “Can you get Ruth to find out from the fire-lizards where they did go?”
“Does that mean I can’t excavate more thoroughly?” Nicat asked, sounding irritable.
“By all means, if you’ve the men to spare.”
“I do,” Nicat replied a bit grimly. “With three mines worked out.”
“I thought you’d started to reopen the shafts Toric found in the Western Range?”
“We’ve been examining them, to be sure, but my Hall hasn’t reached a miner’s agreement with Toric yet.”
“With Toric? Does he hold those lands? They’re far to the southwest, well beyond Southern Hold,” F’lar said, abruptly intent.
“It was an exploring party of Toric’s which located the shafts,” Nicat said, his eyes shifting from the Benden Weyrleader’s to the Harper’s and then to the Smith’s.
“I told you my brother was ambitious,” Sharra said softly to Jaxom.
“An exploring party?” F’lar seemed to relax again. “That doesn’t make it a Holding then. At all events, mines come under your jurisdiction, Master Nicat. Benden supports your decision. I’ll just have a word with Toric tomorrow.”
“I think we should,” Lessa said, holding her hand out to F’lar to assist her from the sands.
“I was hopeful you’d support my Hall,” the Miner said with a bow of gratitude, his shrewd eyes glinting in the firelight.
“I’d say a talk was long overdue,” the Harper remarked.
The dragonriders took their leave quickly, N’ton to deliver Master Nicat to Crom Hold from where they’d collect him the next morning. Robinton took Master Fandarel with him to Cove Hall. Piemur dragged Menolly off to check on Stupid, leaving Jaxom and Sharra to douse the fire and clear the beach.
“Your brother doesn’t plan to hold the entire Southwest, does he?” Jaxom asked when the others had dispersed.
“Well, if not all, as much as he can,” Sharra replied with a laugh. “I’m not being disloyal to him telling you this, Jaxom. You have your own Hold. You don’t want Southern lands. Or do you?”
Jaxom considered that.
“You don’t, do you?” Sharra sounded anxious and put her hand on his arm.
“No, I don’t,” he said. “No, much as I love this Cove, I don’t want it. Today on the Plateau, I’d have given anything for a cool breeze from Ruatha’s mountain, or a plunge in my lake. Ruth and I will take you there—it’s suc
h a beautiful place. Only a dragon can get to it easily.” He picked up a flat pebble and skated it across the quiet swells that lapped the white sands of the beach. “No, I don’t want a Southern Hold, Sharra. I was born in Ruatha, bred to Ruatha. Lessa obliquely reminded me of that this afternoon. She reminded me, too, of the price of my Holding and of all she’s done to insure that I remain Lord of Ruatha. You do realize, don’t you, that her son, F’lessan, is a Ruathan half-blood. That’s more than I am.”
“But he’s a dragonrider!”
“Yes, and weyrbred, by Lessa’s choice so that I would remain the uncontested Lord of Ruatha. I’d better start acting like one!” He rose and drew Sharra up.
“Jaxom?” and her tone was suspicious, “what are you going to do?”
He put both hands on her arms, looking her squarely in the eyes. “I’ve a Hold to manage, too, as your brother reminded me . . .”
“But you’re needed here, with Ruth. He’s the only one who can make sense out of fire-lizard images . . .”
“And with Ruth, I can handle both responsibilities. Manage my Hold and please myself. You’ll see!” He drew her closer to kiss her, but suddenly she broke away from him, pointing over his shoulder, her face mirroring hurt and anger. “What’s the matter? What have I done, Sharra?”
She pointed to the tree where two fire-lizards were intently watching.
“Those are Toric’s. He’s watching me. Us!”
“Great! Let him have no mistake about my intentions toward you!” He kissed her until he felt her taut body responding to his, till the angry set of her lips dissolved into willingness. “I’d give him more to see but I want to get back to Ruatha Hold this evening!” He rapidly drew on his riding gear and called to Ruth. “I’ll be back in the morning, Sharra. Tell the others, will you?”
Do we have to leave? Ruth asked even as he bent his foreleg for Jaxom to mount.
“We’ll be back in no time, Ruth!” Jaxom waved to Sharra, thinking how forlorn she looked standing there in the starlight.
Meer and Talla circled once with Ruth, whistling so cheerfully that he knew Sharra had accepted his precipitous departure.
His abrupt compulsion to return to Ruatha and set in train the formalities of his confirmation as Lord Holder was by no means entirely due to Toric’s barbed comments. His own suppressed sense of responsibility had been heightened by Lessa’s odd nostalgia at the mound. But it had also occurred to him, at the fireside, that a man of Lytol’s vitality and experience might find the Plateau’s mysteries a challenge sufficient to replace Ruatha. His return to his birthplace had the same inexorable quality of his decision to rescue the egg.
He asked Ruth to take them to Ruatha. The sharp bitter cold of between was instantly replaced by a damp moist cold as they entered Ruatha’s skies, leaden and showering a fine light snow that must have been in progress for some time to have piled drifts in the southeast corners of the courts.
I used to like snow, Ruth said as if encouraging himself to accept the return.
Wilth trumpeted from the fire-heights in surprised welcome. Half the fire-lizards of the Hold exploded into the air about them, giving raucous greetings and spurts of chittering complaint about the snow.
“We won’t stay long, my friend,” Jaxom reassured Ruth, and shuddered with the damp cold even in his warm flying gear. How had he forgot the season here?
Ruth landed in the courtyard just as the Great Hall door opened. Lytol, Brand and Finder surged to the steps.
“Is anything wrong, Jaxom?” Lytol cried.
“Nothing, Lytol, nothing. Can fires be laid in my quarters? I forgot it was winter here. Ruth is going to feel the difference even through dragonhide!”
“Yes, yes,” Brand said, jogging across the court steps. Ruth obediently followed the steward.
“You’ll take a chill changing climates like this,” Lytol was saying. “Why didn’t you check? What brings you back?”
“Isn’t it about time I did return?” Jaxom asked, striding to the fireplace as he stripped off his flying gloves and let his hands take warmth from the blaze. Then he burst out laughing as the other men joined him there. “Yes, at this fireplace!”
“What? At this fireplace?” Lytol asked, pouring wine for his ward.
“This morning, in the hot sun of the Plateau, while we were digging up one of the mounds the ancients left to puzzle us, Lessa told me that she had been taking ashes out of this fireplace the day my unlamented sire, Fax, escorted my lady mother Gemma to this Hold!” He raised his cup in a toast to the memory of the mother he had never known.
“Which obliquely reminded you that you are Lord of Ruatha now?” Lytol inquired, a slight lift to the corner of his mouth. His eyes, which before had seemed so expressionless to Jaxom, twinkled in the firelight.
“Yes, and showed me where a man of your talents could be better used now, Lord Lytol.”
“Oh, tell me more,” Lytol said, gesturing to the heavy carved chair which had been placed to get the most benefit of the fire.
“Don’t let me take your chair,” Jaxom said courteously, noticing that the cushions bore the recent imprint of buttocks and thighs.
“I suspect you’re about to take more than that, Lord Jaxom.”
“Not without due courtesy,” Jaxom said, dragging a small footstool beside the chair for his own use. “And a challenge in its place.” He was relieved at Lytol’s placid reaction. “Am I, sir, ready to be Lord of Ruatha Hold now?”
“Are you trained, do you mean?”
“That, too, but I had in mind the circumstances which have made it wiser to leave Ruatha in your charge.”
“Ay, yes.”
Jaxom keenly watched Lytol to see if there was any constraint in his manner as he answered.
“The circumstances have indeed altered over the past two seasons,” Lytol almost laughed, “thanks to you, in great part.”
“To me? Oh, that wretched illness. So, there is now no real bar to my confirmation as Lord Holder?”
“I see none.”
Jaxom heard the Harper’s soft intake of breath but he was watching Lytol closely.
“So,” Lytol almost smiled, “may I know what has prompted you? Surely not just the realization that pressure is eased in the North? Or is it that pretty girl? Sharra, is that her name?”
Jaxom laughed. “She’s a large part of my haste,” lightly emphasizing the last word and then catching Finder’s grin from the corner of his eye.
“A sister to Toric of the Southern Hold, isn’t she?” Lytol pursued the subject, testing the suitability of the match.
“Yes, and tell me, Lytol, has there been any move to confirm Toric as a major Lord Holder?”
“No, nor any rumor that he’s asked to be.” Lytol scowled as he reflected on that circumstance.
“What’s your opinion of Toric, Lord Lytol?”
“Why do you ask? Certainly the match is suitable, even if he hasn’t rank to match yours.”
“He doesn’t need, the rank. He has the ambition,” Jaxom said with sufficient rancor to attract the undivided attention of both guardian and harper.
“Ever since D’ram became Southern Weyrleader,” Finder remarked in the silence that ensued, “I’ve heard it said that no holdless man is turned away.”
“Does he promise them the right to hold what they can?” Jaxom asked, turning so quickly on Finder that the Harper blinked in surprise.
“I’m not sure . . .”
“Two of Lord Groghe’s sons have gone,” Lytol said, pulling at his lower lip thoughtfully, “and my understanding from him is that they will hold. Of course, they retain their birthrank of Lords. Brand, what was Dorse promised?” he asked as the steward returned.
“Dorse? Has he gone south looking for a hold?” Jaxom gave a chuckle of relief and wonder.
“I saw no reason to refuse him the opportunity,” Lytol replied calmly. “I didn’t imagine you would object. Brand? What was promised him?”
“I think he was
told he could have as much land as he wanted. I don’t believe that the term hold came into the discussion. But then, the offer was made through one of the Southern traders, not directly from Toric.”
“Still, if a man offered you land, you’d be grateful to him, and support him against those who had denied you land, wouldn’t you?” Jaxom asked.
“Yes, gratitude would be reasonably expressed in loyalty.” Lytol moved restlessly, considering another aspect of the situation. “However, it was clearly stated that the best land was too far from the protection of the Weyr. I gave Dorse one of our older flamethrowers, in good repair of course, with spare nozzles and hose,” Lytol added.
“I’d give anything to watch Dorse in the open in Threadfall without a dragonrider in sight,” Jaxom said.
“If Toric is as shrewd as he appears to be,” Lytol said, “that may be the final consideration as to who may hold.”
“Sir,” Jaxom rose, finishing the rest of his wine, “I’ll return tonight. Our blood’s not yet thick enough for a snowstorm in Ruatha Hold. And there’s a task set for Ruth and myself tomorrow. Would you be free to come South again? If Brand can hold matters in our absence?”
“At this time of year, I would welcome the sun,” said Lytol.
Brand murmured that he could cope.
When Jaxom and Ruth returned to Cove Hold, grateful for the balmy warmth of the starlight night, Jaxom was more certain than ever that Lytol would not find the change hard to make. Even as Ruth circled to land, Jaxom felt himself relaxing in the warm air. He’d been very tense at Ruatha—tense not to rush Lytol and still achieve his own ends, and worried by the report of Toric’s clever machinations.
He slid down Ruth’s shoulder to the soft sand, at just the stop where he had so recently kissed Sharra. Thoughts of her were comforting. He waited until Ruth had curled into the still warm sand and then he made for the Hall, tiptoeing in, surprised to see even the Harper’s room dark. It must be later than he thought in this part of the world.
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