“Which required seven stitches,” Macester said in a growl.
So Kale hurried the harper back into the Hold and shouted for the healer.
“I had so hoped to hear some new music this evening . . .” the Lord Holder began wistfully.
“Oh, you will, you will,” Robinton said, dismissing his injury. “You’ve Struan here—” He grinned at the prospect of seeing his old dorm mate, now a very competent journeyman. “And I understand Lady Adessa plays harp as well as any harper.”
“But your wound . . .”
“Didn’t touch my throat, Lord Kale.” And mentally Robinton reviewed the sort of songs that might alter Kale’s indolence. He could but try. In ordinary times—and these were definitely not—Kale would be the ideal Lord Holder, tolerant, easygoing, affable, immersed in his Hold’s business and sure of its continuing prosperity.
After Robinton’s wound was tended to, he climbed to the drum tower, greeted the young holder on duty there, and asked for and received permission to signal the Harper Hall of his imminent return.
The child, Lessa, appeared briefly at the beginning of the evening entertainment but fell asleep in her father’s lap: Robinton was amused, since he’d been singing a rousing song that had occasioned much stamping of heavy boots and rhythmic clapping. One of the nearby holders who had been invited to the evening meal was clever with spoons and joined the other players.
Ruatha’s main Hall, with its excellent acoustics, was marvelous to sing in, though Robinton rather thought the wall hangings helped. He sat opposite the largest one, a stunning spectacle of dragonriders hovering above what was obviously Ruatha Hold, though the design of the facade had been improved since the tapestry was hung. There were queens, too, their riders carrying long wands from which flame spewed, matching the ones used by the crews on the ground. He could even make out the Fort Weyr device on the ground crews’ shoulders, so detailed was the scene.
Lady Adessa had certainly taken Hold here. He recalled the Hall from a previous visit with Lord Ashmichel, and at that time the chamber had been dark and dingy, the hanging dulled by dust. What was the old saying about new spouses and brooms?
The next morning, after a good sleep in a wide and comfortable bed, Robinton felt well-rested for the remainder of his journey. He only wished, as Jez gave him an experienced leg up to Big Black’s back, that he had been able to get more cooperation from Lord Kale. At least the Holder had agreed to setting up border patrols along the Nabolese border and erecting fire beacons on the heights.
“I doubt they will ever be used,” Kale had said in parting, leaving Robinton sighing as he turned the black’s head south and east to the main ford of the Red River.
On the way back, spouses and brooms did a stately dance in the MasterHarper’s mind as he took the incident and tried to make it musical. Melodies seemed to plague him at the most inauspicious moments, but he was grateful for the return of such spontaneity. He used it as a gauge to check his grasp on the essence of his responsibilities.
Nip returned to the Hall several weeks later, looking gaunt and weary.
“You’re staying until Master Oldive says you’re fit for it,” Robinton said, escorting Nip to the healer premises beyond the Harper Hall.
“It?” Nip said, grinning up at his MasterHarper with mischief as he tried to keep up with Robinton’s long stride.
“Whatever it is you’ll be up to next.” Robinton shortened his steps in deference to Nip’s condition.
“Let me report first, Rob,” Nip said.
“I won’t listen to a word until you are gone over, washed, and fed,” Robinton said firmly.
Nip knew when to give in to a superior.
Master Oldive commented on the number of bruises and scrapes, and the two swollen and enpurpled toes on one foot.
“He must bounce,” the Master said with a sly grin after he had completed his examination. The spinal deformation that marred the healer’s back and brought him to the Hall in the first place seemed to fascinate Nip, who kept trying not to look at it. Long since, Oldive had become impervious to such scrutiny. “Sound, if contused, but no lasting harm that a good hot bath, a double portion of whatever Silvina has in the hearth pot, and several days in bed will not cure.”
“Several days?” Nip would have jumped from the examining table but for the restraining hands of both healer and harper. “I wouldn’t mind a bath, I can tell you,” he said more meekly, rubbing dirt-encrusted fingers together. “And some decent food.”
So he was given both, and he probably did not notice that Oldive, who joined him and Robinton in Silvina’s little office, slipped something in his klah. He had finished his meal before the drug took effect: he was just pushing back the final dish of sweet pudding when he abruptly sagged down to the tabletop, his face just missing a splash of the pudding sauce that had spilled there.
“Good timing, there, Oldive,” Robinton commented.
“Yes, rather good, if I say so myself.”
Silvina gave them each a jaundiced glance. “The pair of you! You’re wretches, dyed-in-the-bone wretches.”
“Ever at your service, my pet,” Robinton said, giving her a flourish that ended as he took one side of the unconscious Nip while Oldive took the other, lifting the limp form off his bench. With Silvina opening doors ahead of them, they carried the runner up to the harper’s quarters where he was carefully laid down on the bed in the spare room and covered to sleep himself out.
“That was a rotten trick, Robinton,” Nip complained when he woke a day and a half later. Then his face dissolved into a grin that was singular enough to give him a totally different appearance. “I needed that.” He stretched and took the cup of klah that the harper had readied as soon as he heard noises from that room.
Robinton was privately glad that Nip’s timing was good. He had begun to worry about the man’s whereabouts.
“So I’m ready to listen,” Robinton said, as he started to pull the chair forward, “unless you wish to eat first.”
“No, I’d rather not turn my stomach while I’m eating.” And with that dour statement, Nip warned Robinton that his report was bad.
“It’s as well Tarathel sent so many. Vendross, who captained them, is a good man and a canny leader. He took no chances. There were more of Fax’s louts camped at the Crom border. Vendross spread his men out across the border and turned back those that tried to sneak into Telgar lands. There were a good number of Tarathel’s regular guards, and those Vendross set to watch at the river holds and report any sightings. The others he sent back home.”
Robinton nodded. At least Tarathel would take no chances that Fax might be coveting the broad Telgar valley, not to mention the Smithcrafthall at the junction of the Great Dunto River.
“I sort of went forward three steps and back a few, trying to keep track of how many were splitting off. But the main group of fourteen continued on back to Crom. When I was sure that Vendross . . .”
“Does he know you?”
Nip made a face, tilted one hand back and forth, and then grinned again. “Sort of. He never asks. I never tell. But he trusts my reports.”
“As well he should.”
“Thank ’ee kindly, MasterHarper sor,” Nip retorted cheekily. “So I kept on, ahead a bit, to see which way they might go.” He shook his head, his expression sad. “I wouldn’t want to be under that man’s Hold for any reason. What he does to those unfortunates there . . .” He shook his head, sighed, and then seemed to shake himself out of such reflections. “I’ll tell you this, now, Harper, in case you ever need to know.” The tone made Robinton regard Nip fearfully. “Oh, I’m not saying you ever do need to know, but times being as they are, a little precaution is not untoward. Lytol who was L’tol”—and Robinton nodded to show that he knew who was meant—“is trying to keep his family’s Crafthall going. Managing in spite of Fax, and I have a safe haven in the storage loft. It could well be that a dragonrider and a harper will bring that man down when the time’s r
ipe.
“On the good side, I’ve found Bargen!”
“Have you now?” Robinton sat up straight with real pleasure at such tidings. “Where?”
Nip gave one of his little chuckles. “Not dumb, our young Lord Holder. He’s up at High Reaches Weyr, with one or two others that made it safely out of Fax’s clutches. Last place that one’d go.”
“What’s Bargen doing? Is he well?”
“Well, and doing a few exercises that may annoy Fax.”
“Nothing that would endanger any of the innocent . . .” Robinton raised an anxious hand.
Nip cocked his head, grinning. “Little that can be traced back to anyone in particular. I think Bargen’s grown up—a bit roughly, but it’ll work to his advantage.”
“Do remind him that the Harper Hall will assist him any way it can.”
Nip smiled ruefully. “When and if the Harper Hall is able, my friend, considering harpers are in nearly as bad odor as dragonriders these days. At that, he could do little with the few men he has except wait.” And that ruined Robinton’s fleeting dream of seeing Bargen Holding High Reaches in the near future. “Any luck with Lord Kale?”
Robinton shook his head. “The man’s too good, too trusting. He’s already had Fax as a guest, selling him runnerbeasts, so why would I suggest that Lord unconfirmed Holder Fax would not continue such blameless behavior?”
“Spare us!” Nip waved a hand over his head in despair at such innocence.
“He has agreed to mount a border patrol and build beacons.”
“That’s quite a concession,” Nip said with a degree of sarcasm and a grim smile. Then he rolled his eyes thoughtfully. “You know, as a proper harper, I could drop a word in his ear now and then, keep him on his toes?”
“Have you . . . ever . . . been a proper harper, Nip?” Robinton asked, grinning.
“Oh, now and then,” Nip said, wiggling the fingers of his right hand. “Not that I’d dare flaunt the blue in Fax’s vicinity.” He finished the last of the klah and stood. “I need another bath. That one only got off five layers of dirt and two of ache. Then I’m for another of Silvina’s meals. She’s quite a woman, isn’t she?”
“One of a kind, as her mother was,” the MasterHarper said blandly.
Nip chuckled and, whipping the towel off its peg on the door, whistled as he made his way to the bathing room. The MasterHarper’s quarters had its own facility.
CHAPTER XVIII
NIP DEPARTED SEVERAL mornings later, riding the most nondescript runner in the Hall’s beasthold.
“Out of deference to my toes,” he explained. He also had a fresh set of clothing—which Silvina had taken out of storage, no doubt outgrown by some apprentice. “Not too good, but at least in one piece,” had been his request.
Between them, Silvina and Robinton forced him to take a fine fur rug for use until such time as circumstances made him abandon it.
“There are more holdless than holded up north,” Nip said, fingering the rug. “Ah, a few nights on the ground and it’ll look no better than the old one I . . . lost.” And he grinned.
Although Nip reported at intervals, in a message forwarded with others to the Fort Runner Station, the urgency to defend against Fax gradually dissipated as nothing much happened that was reported outside those six Holds.
Nothing much, Robinton thought, that Fax would wish bruited about the continent.
How Nip managed to get his information, Robinton never knew, but the self-styled Lord of Six Holds had internal management problems of mysterious natures. A mine collapsed, a very productive one. Several of the larger ships of the High Reaches fishing fleet disappeared in stormy weather. Timber, stacked to season, either burned dramatically or ended up in splinters on its way down the rivers. A blight was discovered infecting grain fields and reducing the yield. Fax’s men were forced to attend to all these minor disasters, for which no one could be seen to be at fault, by omission or commission. There were rumors of minor rebellions among the overworked holders, but the revolts were viciously suppressed by Fax’s brutal guards, the “culprits” sent to the mines, their families turfed out to fend for themselves as best they might. There were fights among his guards, fights that usually produced several corpses, often those of his more brutal captains and stewards.
So, gradually over the following Turns, even Groghe slackened his vigilance, though he kept his border guards. Tarathel died—of natural causes, Robinton discovered by asking the Telgar Hold healer outright.
“Oh, quite natural causes, my dear MasterHarper,” the man said. “I attended him myself. Bad heart, you know. Never quite forgave himself that the Weyrleader was killed in Telgar Hold while guesting. Though it was trying to keep pace with younger men, like Vendross and young Larad . . . I should say, Lord Larad, now, shouldn’t I? Well, old bones can’t do what young ones can.”
Larad was confirmed by the Conclave after an hour’s deliberation. Larad was young, at fifteen, though a well-grown lad so most of the time was spent picking his mentors, Vendross and Harper Falawny, a former dorm mate of Robinton’s and an excellent teacher. There was a brief flurry when Larad’s elder half-sister, Thella, insisted that the Conclave had to hear her right to the Holding. Lord Tesner of Igen, the most senior of the Holders, was outraged at her impudence and refused her admittance. The other Lord Holders and Masters were only too happy to second his motion. Robinton looked for her during the following reception, wanting to see a woman who was brave enough to speak up as eldest in the Bloodline but there was no sign of her. He often wondered what happened to her because she disappeared from Telgar Hold shortly afterward.
The Turns were punctuated by the usual Solstice and Equinox celebrations, Gathers, the round of duties that was the MasterHarper’s. C’gan was a frequent visitor, always welcomed by Robinton. The blue rider usually brought something for Camo—a toy or a confection from the Weyr’s kitchens. He even tried to get Camo to put his fingers right on a pipe and breathe properly through it.
“It’s such a relief to talk to you,” C’gan would often say. “You’re the only one else who cares a tunnel snake’s droppings about the Weyr,” he often said during his frequent reminiscences about the “better” days when F’lon had been Weyrleader and the Weyr had still been popular and active. R’gul followed a policy of keeping the Weyr to itself, rarely permitting dragonriders to attend any but Benden’s or Nerat’s Gathers.
“He’s afraid—” C’gan paused to be sure that Robinton was aware of his total disgust “—to annoy the Lord Holders. Especially Nerat and Benden, who tithe as they should—and so does Bitra, when Lord Sifer happens to remember to send any. Raid is charmed by his attitude.” He rolled his eyes.
“How are the sons progressing?” Robinton wished he had more contact with F’lar and F’nor, and not only because they were F’lon’s lads. He could have wished for one of them as his. He had once wished that Camo wouldn’t survive his first Turn, as so often happened to babies. It was hard sometimes, Robinton knew—he forced himself to the task—to ask others of the welfare of their children. Like prodding a sore spot to be sure if it was still tender. So, resolutely, he promised himself that he would go to the next Nerat Gather. He would hope to entice his father to leave Half-Circle and meet him there. If C’gan were to drop a hint to the two lads, he could meet them, too.
“Grand boys, and F’lar’s got his head screwed on better than F’lon ever did,” C’gan said proudly. “And they believe! They believe! I see that they do. Not that they’d dishonor their father’s memory by forgetting,” he added. Then he sighed. “We’ve had more losses. I’ve never seen so many empty Weyrs and that lazy—” He closed his lips over whatever he might have called weyrwoman Jora. “I cannot understand why S’loner thought she’d do. Do nothing, of course. Thread’s coming and even the Weyr is unprepared.” He shook his head sadly.
Robinton, too, wondered. Over three thousand strong the six Weyrs had been at the end of the last Pass. Now, unless he miscounted,
there were barely three hundred. And not all of them able to fly Thread. Even C’gan was fast approaching an age when he and his Tagath would be considered liabilities to a fighting wing. The refrain of the Question Song briefly hovered in his mind.
“Gone away, gone ahead . . .” How?
Robinton had more urgent worries than puzzling answers to an old song. His greatest pleasure was in watching Sebell’s development as apprentice. In another Turn, he’d probably walk the tables.
With distressing regularity, he heard the ways Fax treated his folk and how few now made their escape. He kept up pressure with the Lord Holders as often and as adroitly as he could. One can pipe a tune only so long before no one hears it as more than noise.
Nip made reports. Robinton even received a brief note smuggled in from Bargen, repeating the promise to reclaim High Reaches as the legal Bloodline heir.
Then Nip appeared late one night, exhausted from having run most of the last day from Nabol.
“He’s doing . . . something . . .” he gasped as he hung on the door into Robinton’s quarters.
The harper got the man into the nearest chair and poured him some wine.
“Clever as sin, he is,” Nip said, after a long pull of the wine. “I didn’t notice they’d disappeared, and then I didn’t know where they could have gone. But half the barracks at Nabol are empty. He didn’t even let the other half know where their mates had gone.”
“Which way?”
Nip shook his head. “I must have been watching the wrong places, that’s for certain, and I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry. I thought I was on to his little ways.”
“What ways?”
“Strike and grab.” Then he sat bolt upright, his face stricken. “Ruatha. I should have gone there! Warned them!”
“Ruatha!” Robinton cried in the same moment.
“Get me a runnerbeast, the fastest you’ve got,” Nip said.
“I’ll go with you.”
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