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Your going there as a child, and as a journeyman, has given you an admirable contact in F'lon. He's making himself a shade unpopular with some of the Lord Holders. If you could give him some advice ..."
"Which F'lon's not likely to take from anyone. Including me," Robinton said sourly.
"I think you underestimate your influence on him, Rob," Ge
"And I think you've more influence throughout the land now than you may realize. Are you still able to talk to dragons?"
Robinton nodded. "Simanith, at any rate. I suspect that's only because of F'lon. Not that our conversations are anything to write ballads about."
Ge
"That's true enough."
Ge
"Except in the High Reaches."
"Fax will overstep himself. That sort of man always does. There've been others like him before; there will be more like him in the future. When we live by the Charter, everyone prospers. When it is abrogated, the whole continent suffers."
Robinton nodded in complete agreement, though the prospect of trying to ensure that the Charter was obeyed was daunting. Especially in the face of Fax's active aggression.
"So, Master Robinton, I have named you my choice of successor."
Robinton demurred, muttering about his youth and the fact that there were plenty of men who would be more logical choices.
"None of them wants the job," Ge
"Mi
"Including ... Petiron?" Robinton asked, gri
"Oddly enough, yes. Oh, I doubt he would have suggested you, but he did not oppose the selection."
That did surprise Robinton.
"I admit that I got the position more by default than ambition," Ge
"You're too kind," Robinton murmured ironically.
"I've had you marked as my successor from the moment I saw you talking to the dragons. Do you remember that day?"
Robinton nodded; that had been one of the high points of his childhood. Once F'lon had mentioned that dragons were whimsical about talking to non-weyrfolk. Sometimes they would. More often they would not. F'lon had added with one of his mischievous smiles, "The dragons do like you, Rob." But Robinton had thought that was a secret between himself, the dragons and their riders.
"I didn't realize that anyone was watching."
Ge
"Have I ever thanked you, Ge
"Pssst." Ge
"I was your MasterHarper then, as I am now. Be a good Master to all within this Hall and I am doubly repaid. Do not let a tyrant like Fax still the voices of any more harpers."
To that Robinton swore purpose and loyalty.
"Did you hear the drum message this morning?" Ge
"Yes." Robinton smiled. "A new baby at Ruatha Hold. A girl, small but healthy."
Two days later, both Robinton and Ge
"Talk some sense into him, can you, Ge
"You can't cut into him," Lady Winalia said, weeping. "You can't. That's barbaric."
Ginia shook her head. "It is not. It's as simple as removing infected tonsils from a throat, and you permitted me to do that for your children."
"Lord Grogellan will not have his body violated, mutilated ..." Lady Winalia shuddered with repugnance, her expression stubborn. "His person ca
"Mother, if it's a question of his life ..." said Groghe, trying to reason with his parent. "I saw it done at Tillek, didn't I, Rob?"
Robinton nodded. "Clostan performed it on a seaman taken with terrible belly pain. He was back on his ship the next week."
Lady Winalia kept shaking her head, her lips pressed together.
"We will not permit it," she repeated, pressing her handkerchief to her lips as she opened the door to her spouse's room. Grogellan's moans could be heard. "Oh, he must be in such pain, Ginia. More fellis, please. How can you let him suffer so?"
"He wouldn't if he would permit me to..."
"No, no, never. How can you even suggest such a thing?"
"He didn't object when I sewed up that shin wound ... it's much the same thing," Ginia said urgently.
"But that was a natural wound," Lady Winalla protested. "Oh, listen to him. Surely you can give him more fellis?"
"Yes, I can give him more fellis," Ginia said through gritted teeth. "I can fellis him right into death!"
"Oh, no, don't say that, Ginia. Please don't say he'll die."
"I can't say anything else and be honest, Winalla. If I do not operate..."
Winalia clamped her hands to her ears and, with a little shriek of protest, half-ran to her spouse, where he twisted and writhed in bed.
He died later that day, in a terrible agony which not even the massive doses of fellis or the application of numbweed on his abdomen could dull.
"No violation, no mutilation, just death," Ginia murmured as she wearily stumbled away from the tragedy. "Once we knew so much more ..." She shook a little and leaned on Oldive.
So the Telgar Gather was cancelled and, instead, the Lord Holders came to Fort Hold to confirm Groghe as the new Lord Holder. Fax was conspicuous by his absence.
"But then, he wasn't invited," Ge
"I doubt that bothers him," Robinton remarked. "I wish I knew what he had pla
That question was answered, in part or in whole, when Lady Relna of Crom and her two youngest children begged sanctuary from Lord Ashmichel and Lady Adessa at Ruatha Hold. Neither her spouse nor their two oldest boys had survived Fax's forcible entry into their Hold.
Groghe began to drill every man in Fort between the ages of sixteen and fifty. Tarathel and Melongel grimly followed his example and doubled their border patrols.
The following winter, another bitterly cold one, MasterHarper Ge
Her mother had retired to her family home in South Boll three turns before and Silvina, as dark-haired and energetic as her mother had been, was headwoman in the Hall. Robinton liked her matter-of-fact attitude towards the duties and the disasters of the Hall – and the fact that she had been quite willing to bed him whenever he stopped there long enough to renew their friendship. She had more sense than to mention any sadness in his eyes, though she knew the memory of Kasia had not dimmed in the ten turns since her death. Vina accepted him as he was and made no demands, and gave him considerable relief and kindness. He was grateful, and that seemed to be enough for her. She was as big-hearted as her mother.