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F'lar gri
In an unusual display of maternal approval, Ramoth followed Lessa and F'lar as the Weyrleaders helped Breda escort Amaranth out of the immense cavern.
"Never for a moment did I think I'd be chosen, Weyrwoman Lessa," Breda said. "I've never been out of Crom, not even to a Gather."
"Did your family come?"
"No, Weyrwoman Lessa, my parents are dead. The Hall raised me."
In an uncharacteristic gesture, Lessa laid her hand on Breda's arm. "And you are to call me Lessa, my dear. We are both queen riders."
Breda's eyes widened.
"Who knows, my dear?" F'lar said, half joking. "You may be a Weyrwoman, too, one day soon."
Astonished, the girl stopped in her tracks. Amaranth pushed at her, urgently creeling her hunger.
Lessa tightened her hand on Breda's arm and led her briskly to meet the weyrfolk bearing huge bowls heaped with herdbeast flesh. "It is a possibility, you know. But first, we'll show you how to feed Amaranth. Don't let her bleating bother you. They always think they're starving after they've hatched."
Breda needed little instruction in feeding Amaranth, settling to the task with such ease that Lessa thought the girl had probably had to feed youngsters in the Hall that had raised her. Life in the Weyr was going to be quite different: Breda had just acquired a huge family.
Then Lessa turned to discharge the less enjoyable task of an Impression day: comforting the unsuccessful candidates. F'lar had already begun that process among the young men and boys. When Lessa looked about her for Nataly and Lord Groghe, she found them in a family knot at one of the tables. Manora was there before her, serving wine, klah, and fruit juices. Nataly was struggling to hide her disappointment and managing nobly, Lessa decided. Better than Silga and Tamara, who were in tears, with their families not really knowing what to say to console them. Cona was nowhere to be seen. Lessa wondered who had spirited her away, but decided that the girl's preferred kind of consolation might mend matters more effectively than any other available method.
She paused long enough to speak to Nataly and Lord Groghe and then moved on to help assuage the disappointment of Silga and Tamara.
The harpers had started to play, and although there were some long faces among the visitors, the music would soon brighten them. Weyrfolk were already busy pouring from wine sacks and serving enormous platters of the pit-roasted herdbeasts and wherries. Food was so often a sovereign remedy, Lessa reflected.
Finally, once the sated hatchlings were asleep on their pallets in the barracks, the Weyrlingmaster permitted the new dragonriders to join their families. With the honored guests present, the festivities went into full swing.
"A most positive young queen, hmmm?" Robinton said, sliding into an empty space beside Lessa. He raised his cup in a toast to F'lar, opposite her. "Made rather an entrance, didn't she?"
Lessa smiled and offered to fill Robinton's glass from the skin of Benden white that hung on her chair.
"Is Amaranth why F'lessan's been so interested in the vacant stakeholds in the South?" Robinton delivered his query in the guileless fashion that told Lessa and F'lar that he guessed a new Weyr was required.
F'lar gave a knowing snort. "He offered."
"He's more in Landing than he is here," Lessa added wryly. With three sons by as many weyrgirls, F'lessan had need to be absent from their entreaties. He had provided well for each of his children, but he was no more ready to settle down with one than any young, handsome, and popular bronze rider. Manora had even suggested that the absence of that young charmer for a while might result in one or more of the girls settling for an older rider in a more stable, lasting attachment.
Robinton cocked an eyebrow, suggesting to Lessa that he already knew about the demands on F'lessan. "He's an excellent choice of explorer. Is a Weyr situation the only thing he's to investigate? "
F'lar picked up on that. "Why? Is Toric restless again?"
Robinton took a judicious sip from his cup. "Not really. Now that Denol's tenure of the Big Island has been settled, Toric's making up for lost time with Aivas."
"And?" F'lar prompted.
"He hid his chagrin rather well when he discovered just how mmm... less than vast the Southern Continent actually is. Fortunately he's decided that Southern must have Halls of both new Crafts. I believe that he and Hamian had rather a vociferous confrontation over the filler plant Hamian's been developing as an insulating material."
"The fibrous stuff that Bendarek's been going on about?" Lessa asked. "You know that he's genuinely concerned about the amount of trees that are needed to supply the demand for paper."
"Indeed." Robinton nodded vigorously. "I do see his point that a weed that grows rampant in Southern should be utilized instead of chopping down those magnificent forests of his."
"I thought that Sharra discovered the plant and recognized its usefulness," Lessa added.
"I believe that's Toric's contention," Robinton replied, his eyes sparkling with mischief. "That she found it on his holding while on a sweep for him."
"Will the man never be satisfied?" Lessa demanded with some heat.
"I doubt it," Robinton replied equably.
"Will we end up having to fight him for holdings in the South?" Lessa went on, shooting him a fierce glance for his casual ma
"My dear Lessa, no one, absolutely no one, is going to challenge a man, or a woman, mounted a-dragon! And let us devoutly hope that there never is a point at which that is even remotely possible."
"Southern Weyr?" F'lar reminded the Harper severely.
"Well, yes, now, but that was not aggression-it was abduction." Robinton had good cause to remember the time Ramoth's egg had disappeared from the Hatching Ground and how very near Benden dragons had come to fighting the Oldtimer Southern dragons. Not wishing to remind the Weyrleaders that they had ostracized him at that point in time, Robinton held up his glass, looking plaintively at the wineskin hanging on Lessa's chair. She filled it for him. "Mind you, I think you're wise to send F'lessan to explore the tantalizing potential of Southern. When is he going?"
Lessa gri
The great plains rolled on below F'lessan and Golanth as the big bronze glided on a south-southwest path, aided by high thermals. A slight twinge of guilt marred F'lessan's happy contemplation of the scenery. He really should have been working up those equations for Aivas, who was under the impression that the young bronze rider's presence was required at the Benden Hatching. As F'lessan had no wish to have to explain to Nera, Faselly, and Bri
Golanth was so thoroughly enjoying himself that F'lessan decided it was unsuitable to belabor himself with u
One thing he hadn't dared to ask Lessa and F'lar: If he found a suitable site for another Weyr, was he in line to be Weyrleader? He dismissed that notion almost instantly. F'lessan had few illusions about himself. He was a good Wingleader, he understood draconic abilities, he knew which were the best riders in every Weyr and who were the most likely weyrlings in Benden, but he didn't think he was anyone's immediate choice for the next Weyrleader. And he was well aware of how such matters were decided: open mating flight for all unattached bronzes.