The second was replaced and his successor fared no better. He was caught diverting goods—the best of the goods, at that. Fax had had him executed. His bony head still rolled around in the main firepit above the great Tower.
The present incumbent had not been able to maintain the Holding in even the sorry condition in which he had assumed its management. Seemingly simple matters developed rapidly into disasters. Like the production of cloth. Contrary to his boasts to Fax, the quality had not improved, and the quantity had fallen off.
Now Fax was here. And with dragonmen! Why dragonmen? The import of the question froze Lessa, and the heavy door closing behind her barked her heels painfully. Dragonmen used to be frequent visitors at Ruatha—that she knew and even vaguely remembered. Those memories were like a harper’s tale, told of someone else, not something within her own experience. She had limited her fierce attention to Ruatha only. She could not even recall the name of queen, or Weyrwoman from the instructions of her childhood, nor could she recall hearing mention of any queen or Weyrwoman by anyone in the Hold these past ten Turns.
Perhaps the dragonmen were finally going to call the Lords of the Holds to task for the disgraceful show of greenery about the Holds. Well, Lessa was to blame for much of that in Ruatha, but she defied even a dragonman to confront her with her guilt. If all Ruatha fell to the Threads, it would be better than remaining dependent to Fax! The heresy shocked Lessa even as she thought it.
Wishing she could as easily unburden her conscience of such blasphemy, she ditched the ashes on the stable midden. There was a sudden change in air pressure around her. Then a fleeting shadow caused her to glance up.
From behind the cliff above glided a dragon, its enormous wings spread to their fullest as he caught the morning updraft. Turning effortlessly, he descended. A second, a third, a full wing of dragons followed in soundless flight and patterned descent, graceful and awesome. The claxon rang belatedly from the Tower, and from within the kitchen there issued the screams and shrieks of the terrified drudges.
Lessa took cover. She ducked into the kitchen where she was instantly seized by the assistant cook and thrust with a buffet and a kick toward the sinks. There she was put to scrubbing the grease-encrusted serving utensils with cleansing sand.
The yelping canines were already lashed to the spitrun, turning a scrawny herdbeast that had been set to roast. The cook was ladling seasonings on the carcass, swearing at having to offer so poor a meal to so many guests, some of them of high rank. Winter-dried fruits from the last scanty harvest had been set to soak, and two of the oldest drudges were scraping roots to be boiled.
An apprentice cook was kneading bread and another carefully spicing a sauce. Looking fixedly at him, Lessa diverted his hand from one spice box to a less appropriate one as he gave a final shake to the concoction. She innocently added too much wood to the wall oven to insure the ruin of the breads. She controlled the canines deftly, slowing one and speeding the other so that the meat would be underdone on one side, burned on the other. That the feast should result in fast, with the food presented found inedible, was her whole intention.
Above, in the Hold, she had no doubt that certain other measures, undertaken at different times for this exact contingency, were being discovered.
Her fingers bloodied from a beating, one of the Warder’s women came shrieking into the kitchen, hopeful of refuge there.
“Insects have eaten the best blankets to shreds! And a canine who had littered on the best linens snarled at me as she gave suck. And the rushes are noxious, and the best chambers full of debris driven in by the winter wind. Somebody left the shutters ajar. Just a tiny bit, but it was enough,” the woman wailed, clutching her hand to her breast and rocking back and forth.
Lessa bent with great industry to shine the plates.
Watch-wher, watch-wher,
In your lair,
Watch well, watch-wher!
Who goes there?
“THE WATCH-WHER is hiding something,” F’lar told F’nor as they consulted in the hastily cleaned great chamber. The room delighted to hold the wintry chill, although a generous fire now burned on the hearth.
“It was but gibbering when Canth spoke to it,” F’nor remarked. He was leaning against the mantel, turning slightly from side to side to gather some warmth. He watched his wingleader’s impatient pacing.
“Mnementh is calming it down,” F’lar replied. “He may be able to sort out the nightmare. The creature may be more senile than sane, but . . .”
“I doubt it,” F’nor concurred helpfully. He glanced with apprehension up at the web-hung ceiling. He was certain he’d found most of the crawlers, but he didn’t fancy their sting. Not on top of the discomforts already experienced in this forsaken Hold. If the night stayed mild, he intended curling up with Canth on the heights. “That would be a more reasonable suggestion than Fax or his Warder have made.”
“Hmmm,” F’lar muttered, frowning at the brown rider.
“Well, it’s unbelievable that Ruatha could have fallen to such disrepair in ten short Turns. Every dragon caught the feeling of power, and it’s obvious the watch-wher has been tampered with. That takes a good deal of control.”
“From someone of the Blood,” F’lar reminded him.
F’nor shot his wingleader a quick look, wondering if he could possibly be serious in the light of all information to the contrary.
“I grant you there is power here, F’lar,” F’nor conceded. “But it could as easily be a hidden male bastard of the old Blood. And we need a female. But Fax made it plain, in his inimitable fashion, that he left none of the old Blood alive in the Hold the day he took it. Ladies, children, all. No, no.” The brown rider shook his head, as if he could dispel the lack of faith in his wingleader’s curious insistence that the Search would end in Ruath with Ruathan blood.
“That watch-wher is hiding something, and only someone of the Blood of its Hold can arrange that, brown rider,” F’lar said emphatically. He gestured around the room and toward the window. “Ruatha has been overcome. But she resists . . . subtly. I say it points to the old Blood and power. Not power alone.”
The obstinate expression in F’lar’s eyes, the set of his jaw, suggested that F’nor seek another topic.
“I’ll see what may be seen around fallen Ruatha,” he mumbled and left the chamber.
F’lar was heartily bored with the lady Fax had so courteously assigned him. She giggled incessantly and sneezed constantly. She waved about, but did not apply to her nose, a scarf or handkerchief long overdue for a thorough washing. A sour odor, compounded of sweat, sweet oil, and rancid food smells, exuded from her. She was also pregnant by Fax. Not obviously so, but she had confided her condition to F’lar, either oblivious to the insult to the dragonman or directed by her Lord to let drop the information. F’lar deliberately ignored the matter and, except when her company was obligatory on this Search journey, had ignored her, too.
Lady Tela was nervously jabbering away at him about the terrible condition of the rooms to which Lady Gemma and the other ladies of the Lord’s procession had been assigned.
“The shutters, both sets, were ajar all winter long, and you should have seen the trash on the floors. We finally got two of the drudges to sweep it all into the fireplace. And then that smoked something fearful till a man was sent up.” Lady Tela giggled. “He found the access blocked by a chimney stone fallen aslant. The rest of the chimney, for a wonder, was in good repair.”
She waved her handkerchief. F’lar held his breath as the gesture wafted an unappealing odor in his direction.
He glanced up the Hall toward the inner Hold door and saw the Lady Gemma descending, her steps slow and awkward. Some subtle difference about her gait attracted him, and he stared at her, trying to identify it.
“Oh, yes, poor Lady Gemma,” Lady Tela babbled, sighing deeply. “We are so concerned. Why my Lord Fax insisted on her coming I do not know. She is not near her time, and yet . . .” The lighthead’s
concern sounded sincere.
F’lar’s incipient hatred for Fax and his brutality matured abruptly. He left his partner chattering to thin air and courteously extended his arm to the Lady Gemma to support her down the steps and to the table. Only the brief tightening of her fingers on his forearm betrayed her gratitude. Her face was very white and drawn, the lines deeply etched around mouth and eyes, showing the effort she was expending.
“Some attempt has been made, I see, to restore order to the Hall,” she remarked in a conversational tone.
“Some,” F’lar admitted dryly, glancing around the grandly proportioned Hall, its rafters festooned with the webs of many Turns. The inhabitants of those gossamer nests dropped from time to time, with ripe splats, to the floor, onto the table, and into the serving platters. Nothing replaced the old banners of the Ruathan Blood, removed from the stark brown stonewalls. Fresh rushes did obscure the greasy flagstones. The trestle tables appeared recently sanded and scraped, and the platters gleamed dully in the refreshed glows. Those unfortunately, were a mistake, for brightness was much too unflattering to a scene that would have been more reassuring in dimmer light.
“This was such a graceful Hall,” the Lady Gemma murmured for F’lar’s ears alone.
“You were a friend?” he asked politely.
“Yes, in my youth.” Her voice dropped expressively on the last word, evoking for F’lar a happier girlhood. “It was a noble line!”
“Think you one might have escaped the sword?”
The Lady Gemma flashed him a startled look, then quickly composed her features, lest the exchange be noted. She gave a barely perceptible shake of her head and then shifted her awkward weight to take her place at the table. Graciously she inclined her head toward F’lar, both dismissing and thanking him.
He returned to his own partner and placed her at the table on his left. As the only persons of rank who would dine that night at Ruatha Hold, Lady Gemma was seated on his right; Fax would be beyond her. The dragonmen and Fax’s upper soldiery would sit at the lower tables. No guildmen had been invited to Ruatha.
Fax arrived just then with his current lady and two underleaders, the Warder bowing them effusively into the Hall. The man, F’lar noticed, kept a good distance from his overlord—as well a Warder might whose responsibility was in this sorry condition. F’lar flicked a crawler away. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the Lady Gemma wince and shudder.
Fax stamped up to the raised table, his face black with suppressed rage. He pulled back his chair roughly, slamming it into the Lady Gemma’s before he seated himself. He pulled the chair to the table with a force that threatened to rock the none too stable trestle-top from its supporting legs. Scowling, he inspected his goblet and plate, fingering the surface, ready to throw them aside if they displeased him.
“A roast, my Lord Fax, and fresh bread, Lord Fax, and such fruits and roots as are left.”
“Left? Left? You said there was nothing harvested here.”
The Warder’s eyes bulged and he gulped, stammering, “Nothing to be sent on. Nothing good enough to be sent on. Nothing. Had I but known of your arrival, I could have sent to Crom . . .”
“Sent ot Crom?” roared Fax, slaming the plate he was inspecting onto the table so forcefully that the rim bent under his hands. The Warder winced again as if he himself had been maimed.
“For decent foodstuffs, my Lord,” he quavered.
“The day one of my Holds cannot support itself or the visit of its rightful overlord, I shall renounce it.”
The Lady Gemma gasped. Simultaneously the dragons roared. F’lar felt the unmistakable surge of power. His eyes instinctively sought F’nor at the lower table. The brown rider, all the dragonmen, had experienced that inexplicable shaft of exultation.
“What’s wrong, dragonman?” snapped Fax.
F’lar, affecting unconcern, stretched his legs under the table and assumed an indolent posture in the heavy chair.
“Wrong?”
“The dragons!”
“Oh, nothing. They often roar . . . at the sunset, at a flock of passing wherries, at mealtimes,” and F’lar smiled amiably at the Lord of the High Reaches. Beside him his tablemate gave a little squeak.
“Mealtimes? Have they not been fed?”
“Oh, yes. Five days ago.”
“Oh. Five . . . days ago? And are they hungry . . . now?” Her voice trailed into a whisper of fear, her eyes grew round.
“In a few days,” F’lar assured her. Under cover of his detached amusement, F’lar scanned the Hall. That surge had come from nearby. Either in the Hall or just without it. It must have been from within. It came so soon upon Fax’s speech that his words must have triggered it. F’lar saw that F’nor and the other dragonmen were surreptitiously searching every face in the Hall. Fax’s soldiers could be disqualified, and the Warder’s men. And the power had an indefinably feminine touch to it.
One of Fax’s women? F’lar found that hard to credit. Mnementh had been close to all of them, and none had shown a vestige of power, much less—with the exception of Lady Gemma—any intelligence.
One of the Hall women? So far he had seen only the sorry drudges and the aging females the Warder had as housekeepers. The Warder’s personal woman? He must discover if that man had one. One of the Hold guards’ women? F’lar suppressed an intense desire to rise and search.
“You mount a guard?” he asked Fax casually.
“Double at Ruath Hold!” he was told in a tight, hard voice, ground out from somewhere deep in Fax’s chest.
“Here?” F’lar all but laughed out loud, gesturing around the sadly appointed chamber.
“Here!” Fax changed the subject with a roar. “Food!”
Five drudges, two of them women in such grimy brown-gray rags that F’lar hoped they had had nothing to do with the preparation of the meal, staggered in under the emplattered herdbeast. No one with so much as a trace of power would sink to such depths, unless . . .
The aroma that reached him as the platter was placed on the serving table distracted him. It reeked of singed bone and charred meat. Even the pitcher of klah being passed smelled bad. The Warder frantically sharpened his tools as if a keen edge could somehow slice acceptable portions from this unlikely carcass.
The Lady Gemma caught her breath again, and F’lar saw her hands curl tightly around the armrests. He saw the convulsive movement of her throat as she swallowed. He, too, did not look forward to this repast.
The drudges reappeared with wooden trays of bread. Burnt crusts had been scraped and cut, in some places, from the loaves before serving. As other trays were borne in, F’lar tried to catch sight of the faces of the servitors. Matted hair obscured the face of the one who presented Lady Gemma with a dish of legumes swimming in greasy liquid. Revolted, F’lar poked through the legumes to find properly cooked portions to offer Lady Gemma. She waved them aside, her face ill concealing her discomfort.
As F’lar was about to turn and serve Lady Tela, he saw Lady Gemma’s hand clutch convulsively at the chair arms. He realized then that she was not merely nauseated by the unappetizing food. She was seized with the onslaught of labor contractions.
F’lar glanced in Fax’s direction. The overlord was scowling blackly at the attempts of the Warder to find edible portions of meat to serve.
F’lar touched Lady Gemma’s arms with light fingers. She turned her face just enough so that she could see F’lar out of the corner of her eye. She managed a socially correct half-smile.
“I dare not leave just now, Lord F’lar. He is always dangerous at Ruatha. And it may only be false pangs . . . at my age.”
F’lar was dubious as he saw another shudder pass through her frame. The woman would have been a fine Weyrwoman, he thought ruefully, if she were younger.
The Warder, his hands shaking, presented Fax the sliced meats, slivers of overdone flesh, portions of almost edible meats, but not much of either.
One furious wave of Fax’s broad fist and the Warder
had the plate, meats and juice, square in the face. Despite himself, F’lar sighed, for those undoubtedly constituted the only edible portions of the entire beast.
“You call this food? You call this food?” Fax bellowed. His voice boomed back from the bare vault of the ceiling, shaking crawlers from their webs as the sound shattered the fragile strands. “Slop! Slop!”
F’lar rapidly brushed crawlers from the Lady Gemma, who was helpless in the throes of a very strong contraction.
“It’s all we had on such short notice,” the Warder squealed, bloody juices streaking down his cheeks. Fax threw the goblet at him, and the wine went streaming down the man’s chest The steaming dish of roots followed, and the man yelped as the hot liquid splashed over him.
“My Lord, my Lord, had I but known!”
“Obviously, Ruatha cannot support the visit of its Lord. You must renounce it,” F’lar heard himself saying.
His shock at such words issuing from his mouth was as great as that of everyone else in the Hall. Silence fell, broken by the splat of crawlers and the drip of root liquid from the Warder’s shoulders to the rushes. The grating of Fax’s boot heel was clearly audible as he swung slowly around to face the bronze rider.
As F’lar conquered his own amazement and rapidly tried to predict what to do next to mend matters, he saw F’nor rise slowly to his feet, hand on dagger hilt.
“I did not hear you correctly?” Fax asked, his face blank of all expression, his eyes snapping.