Broken Harmony

34.02.24, StarRise Weyr

Even from a distance, the docks crawled with movement. Crates, wagons, and people moved from ship to dock to warehouse, and back again. There was already one merchantman tied up and being unloaded. Zabryna watched as another sailed slowly out of the harbor as her own ship rowed in. The seabreeze blew fresh and cool against her and she wondered if the temperature would always be this pleasant, or if the advancing turn would become hotter and more humid. It would be a significant climate change for her and the children.

"You're brooding again," Brant said lightly, coming out on the deck and leaning against the rail beside her. "You need to stop."

Zabryna scowled at him. "I'll brood all I like, thank you," she said sharply. "I have reason."

"For a sevenday, you had reason," Brant granted with a nod. "It's long past a sevenday now. He's not worth this."

Zabryna sighed. "Whether he is or isn't doesn't matter, Brant. He's my husband. He's not on this ship. He chose not to be on this ship. That says something, don't you think?"

It said that he wasn't her husband anymore, in Brant's opinion, but Zabryna wasn't quite ready to hear that yet. "What are you going to do?"

Zabryna wrapped her arms around her torso and hugged herself, shivering as a chill danced down her spine. The weather wasn't cold, but her spirit was. "I'm going to raise my children, and do my work," she said quietly. "He'll join me here. Or he won't."

"And if he doesn't?"

"I was a crafter when we married," she said quietly. "If he's changed so much that he can't accept what that means, then he's changed enough that he can't love me anymore." She glanced at her brother and her full lips trembled with the tears she was holding back. As he watched, the welling moisture in her grey eyes spilled over and her shoulders slumped. "What if he doesn't love me anymore?" she asked in a small voice as the first tears trickled paths down her cheeks.

Brant came off the rail and put his arm around her. They were almost the same height, but Zabryna's head drooped to rest on his shoulder. "I'm sure he does," Brant said soothingly. "How couldn't he?"

"Then why didn't he come? Why didn't he answer my messages?" Zabryna's voice was all but lost against him. Brant didn't have an answer, and after a moment Zabryna sniffed and lifted her head. Her shoulders straightened and she relaxed her arms so they fell to her sides. He watched as she pulled a calm serenity over her demeanor. A merry sparkle danced in her eyes and her lips curved into a gentle smile.

"What are you thinking?" he asked softly, saddened by the transformation.

"Of Mariss playing in the sand and Zachree's laughter when he starts chasing the waves," Zabryna answered. "The children will love it here."

Brant didn't doubt it. Children always loved the beach. The beach was a bonus. There were dragons here, and Brant didn't know of a single child, ever, who didn't love dragons. His nieces and nephews had been wild with joy when they'd been told of their mother's posting. The fact that he, their favorite uncle, would be there, too, had simply been glaze on the bubbly pie for them.

What he didn't know was if Zabryna herself would be happy here, or if this posting would come to represent her husband's unexpected defection. He didn't have much more time to ponder it, either, as the ship eased into the dock and ropes flew from sailors on board to the dockhands below. Zabryna turned away from the rail and headed below deck to gather her four children, and Brant followed.

34.03.01, Evening

"Eastward toward the Weyr horizon

Dragons dance in morning light.

Rainbow splendor in the sun,

Joyous is the dragons flight!"

Zabryna's voice rose in song, matching easily and perfectly with Brant's own as they stood together on the harper dias after StarRise's evening meal. Brant held a gitar and played it as they sang, but Zabryna had never learned to play an instrument. Her time had been taken up with healing, while his had been devoted to harpering. Their entire family, however, could sing. She and Brant had the best voices, but music had always been a family activity.

Brant, she remembered, had written this song shortly before walking the tables to journeyman. He'd written it for her birthday, because she wanted 'a happy song, with dragons!' It never failed to make her smile, and this time was no different. The remembered joy and enthusiasm of when he'd first sang this for her returned to her now, and she freely shared the emotions of that memory, allowing it to reflect in her voice and on her face. 'What you give to others,' she thought as Brant played a bridge between verses, 'you give also to yourself.' For days she'd struggled to hide her fear and loneliness, but for this moment of time she was happy.

As the song ended, there was applause and cheering from those weyrfolk who'd gathered to listen to them. Zabryna enjoyed the evenings in the Weyr. It was different than hold and hall life. She was finding that the dining and living caverns of the Weyr were the central places to socialize. Weyrs and apartments were largely for sleeping and tasks, but almost all social activity was here. Meals were communal, and after meals groups gathered, then drifted around the two huge caverns. Areas of each were clearly set aside for certain things. Such as here, where the harper's dais was a permanent structure and a large square of floor was polished to a high gloss for dancing. Small tables surrounded that dancing square, but more numerous were the chairs and couches. Across the room, she could see other tables set up, with patterns painted on their surface, for dicing and card games. Other table-top games were set up around the room, as well as the far corner arranged with chairs, couches, and low tables in several separate groupings. Weyrfolk lounged at their ease there, talking with friends and family. She could see several family groups, obvious from the children that played near – and sometimes on – the adults close by.

Even now she could see the Weyrhealer and his weyrmate sitting together on a small couch, with two children on the floor in front of them, and another boy sitting in a chair nearby, concentrating on something in his hands. Even as she watched, Aerden lowered his head to hear something his diminutive weyrmate said, and a wide smile flashed around his face before he laughed.

A sharp stab in her heart made Zabryna catch her breath sharply, and she looked away. With their song done, she touched Brant's elbow to let him know she was taking her seat and leaving the stage to him. He, after all, was the harper. It was his duty to entertain, not hers. But she enjoyed it so, and didn't mind singing with Brant. It let her forget for a time, and this evening she desperately wanted to forget.

She'd finally heard from Matoren. Her husband had sent her a letter – by ship. Given how quickly it had reached her after her arrival, it had to have been the next ship out of port headed for StarRise territory, too. He gave no reasons for it, but his note advised her that he would not be joining her at StarRise, and that he had not missed their ship on accident. He had asked only that she not try to contact him again.

Zabryna didn't know what to think, or what to feel. She didn't know what to tell the children. Ahsten was old enough to know something was wrong. She felt him watching her whenever he thought she wasn't paying attention. She could tell he was angry and didn't know what she could do to dispel that anger. Mariss, at ten, only knew her daddy wasn't there and he should be. She asked about him every night, as did Zachree. Bralynne, thank the first masters, only asked occasionally and didn't seem to truly understand that Matoren wasn't here.

"Momma!" Zachree ran up to her and climbed into her lap. "Look!" He held up a shiny stone proudly. It was about the size of his hand and polished smooth. "E'dano said he found it on the beach and I could keep it."

"Who's E'dano, dear?" she asked, dutifully examining the rock.

"Him." Zachree's finger – just this side of dirty and she knew he'd washed thoroughly before she brought him and the others in for dinner – pointed towards a dark-haired rider who had joined the Weyrhealer and his family. "Zalden's uncle."

Zabryna examined the rider carefully from a distance, then decided that the gift was little more than the kindness a man accustomed to small children would extend to yet another child and not indicative of any darker intent towards her son. She turned her attention back to him, automatically noting where Mariss and Ahsten were, and gently touching Bralynne's golden-brown curls.

It was getting late, and past time for the children to be in bed. Zabryna shifted Zachree off her lap and picked up the toddler instead. "Let's go home," she told her quartet of youngsters.

"Fort?" Mariss asked eagerly. "To Daddy?"

Zabryna swallowed hard, then smiled warmly at her eldest daughter. "No, sweeting. To our apartments here. This is home now. It's time for bed."

Mariss's face fell and her grey eyes welled with tears. Her lower lip stuck out. "I want Daddy."

"I do, too," Zabryna sighed and shifted Bralynne on her hip. "Come along, now."

"Dah-dee?" Bralynne looked around with wide, sky-blue eyes. A frown slowly gathered on her face as she realized that her father wasn't anywhere near. "Dah-dee!" she demanded.

"I'll take Mariss and Zachree," Ahsten said quietly, taking his sister's hand from Zabryna's hold. "That one's going to throw a fit now." He cast an accusatory glare at Mariss for prompting that fit.

As the toddler's demanding shrieks for her father rose in volume, Zabryna hurried out of the living cavern to the privacy of the apartments she'd been given off of crafter alley. There, at least, her youngest's shrieks would only disturb her neighbors and not the weyr at large.

34.03.03

"It's like a broken song, uncle," Ahsten said quietly. He idly tuned a harp and ran his fingers lightly over it. Brant watched approvingly. Ahsten had a harper's instinct for music; the question remained whether he'd have the voice. Voice or not, though, didn't matter much. As long as the boy wasn't tone deaf, he could be taught to make the most of what he had.

"How do you mean?" he asked now, leafing through the ballads he planned to teach the children of the Weyr. They needed a more rounded education – more knowledge of hold and hall life and less of weyr life.

Ahsten frowned. "When you're singing a song, you can get the words right. The music, pitch, tone – it can all be right. But something can still be off. It's broken. You can't quite put your finger on it, but it's there. Or maybe it's not there." He shrugged, frustrated that he couldn't verbalize what he felt. "That's mom right now. She says the right thing. She acts the right way. She pays just as much attention to us as she did before we left Fort. But something's off. Something's broken."

Brant nodded. He knew what Ahsten meant, but he was surprised the boy had picked up on it. At fourteen, he should have his head turned by pretty girls and rushing to prove he was already a man. He shouldn't be quietly worrying over his mother's broken heart and his missing father. Zabryna needed to tell the children what was going on. The problem, as far as Brant could see, was that she didn't know herself.

"Life is a song," Brant said quietly, settling aside the hides and giving Ahsten his full attention. "When the harmony is broken, you can feel it. You can't always hear it, if the break is a small one or if someone uses different chording to cover the flaw, but you can almost always feel it. The song of your family, the harmony that has threaded through your life, has changed. It's different, and not what you're expecting, so it feels broken."

"And mom is chording around that broken part so we can't tell that it's there," the boy murmured insightfully. "Mariss and Zachree haven't noticed, and Bralynne is too little care about anything but what she wants."

Brant chuckled, remembering when he'd been just as impatient and disgusted with babies. "Your mother is a strong woman. She's hurting right now, but she'll be fine."

Ahsten's lips thinned and he bent his head over the harp. The instrument wasn't made with martial music in mind, but what the boy managed to produced definitely had a warlike tone. "She shouldn't be hurting at all," he grumbled.

"No," Brant agreed, picking up the sheet music again. "She shouldn't be."

34.03.04

"Good morning, handsome!" Zabryna sat in a chair next to the cot that held her patient. The carter looked at her sourly, then grimaced.

"I'm sweaty, dirty, unshaven, and I have a broken leg. If you find that handsome, I pity the man you find ugly."

Zabryna chuckled and pulled his chart off the hook by the wall. "We can fix the sweaty, dirty, and unshaven part," she assured him lightly. "The leg will heal. Then can I call you handsome and get a smile instead of a growl, Burgun?"

Burgun's eyes glittered and he gave her an appraising look, followed by a cheerful leer. "If you give me the bath, you can call me handsome and I'll give you a smile," he said.

Zabryna laughed again and flipped the chart closed. "You lecher," she accused cheerfully. "I'm a married woman with children. I'm afraid they wouldn't understand."

Burgun relaxed back in his bed, his mood improved by Zabryna's easy manner. "I saw the children," he said slowly. "But I've not heard about the husband. Word around the Weyr is that you came with your brother and the little ones."

Zabryna smiled easily as she stood up. "Matoren is still at Fort," she explained and poured water into a cup. Handing it to him, she shrugged. "He wasn't ready to leave when we were. Now, drink this. I don't want you getting dehydrated. I'll have one of the apprentices come over and help you to the bathing room so you can get cleaned up and shaved. You'll be fine in your own quarters, but I want you to stay off that leg as much as possible until I take that cast off."

"Healer?" Zabryna stopped in the process of turning away, and looked back at Burgun curiously. "How I was raised, a man didn't let his family go off without him because he wasn't ready to leave," the carter said soberly. "A man stayed with his family."

"I was raised that way, too," Zabryna agreed. "But if a woman doesn't trust her husband in difficult times, then what value is her trust in the good times? He's a good man and a good father." She smiled gently. "Don't you fret yourself about me and my family, handsome. You need to worry how you're going to fix that cart you decided to break over your leg!"

"Hmph." Burgun grunted and watched her walk away, shaking his head. "Smart women can sure be stupid," he commented to no one in particular.

"I heard that!" her voice drifted back to him, edged with a laugh.

Zabryna kept her smile as she moved on to other patients, and the light conversations she held with them didn't nearly approach the somber tone that Burgun's had taken. She was usually able to set aside her personal problems and difficulties when she passed through the infirmary's entrance, but she'd not taken into account the relatively small community of the Weyr, and how quickly gossip and news would spread. It was impossible to hide that her husband had chosen not to come with her. Her children spent the day in the nursery, and they talked about their father – and that they didn't know why he wasn't here. The child tenders heard, and doubtlessly gossiped about it themselves. Word would spread from there.

She sighed as she washed her hands after changing a bandaged Threadscore, then checked the time to see it was past time for her shift to be over. She made one last round of the resident patient's, ensuring that water pitchers were full, blankets and pillows comfortable, and every need accounted for. With a cheery farewell to each, she left the emotional shelter of her craft and faced the uncertain reality of her personal life.

What she'd told Burgun was true. Trust meant nothing if you only gave it during good times, when it couldn't be tested. She didn't want to trust blindly, but sixteen turns of love, laughter, and shared living had to mean something. Matoren couldn't simply throw it all away, could he? Their life, their children, their love? Was she wrong to force herself to believe there was more going on here than what it appeared to be on the surface?

With a sigh, she headed for the nursery to collect her children and begin the evening routine of dinner, playtime, baths, and bed.

33.03.05, Fort Hold, afternoon

Brant slid down the blue's side then handed a mark to the rider. The youngster grinned cheekily and took the mark, tucking it into his belt pouch before he sauntered off towards the hold. Brant checked the position of the sun, then headed towards the vegetable gardens. They were near the hold itself, since the cooks frequently harvested the produce shortly before preparing it for a meal. Matoren had always worked in the vegetable gardens at Zabryna's various postings. Uncrafted through he was, his skill and knowledge was valuable enough to always ensure he had a place on the staff.

He'd done some investigating, with the help of Trumpet. The bronze firelizard even now soared overhead, reveling in the praise that Brant had heaped on him when he'd brought the message back from Brant's contact at the hold. Matoren had taken some finding. It was a large hold and hiding from even Zabryna and Brant's extended family had been relatively easy for him. Hiding from scullery maids, cooks, and food servers, however, apparently hadn't occurred to him.

Matoren was standing on the edge of a large plot as Brant approached. Legs spread, hands planted firmly on his hips, and a wide-brimmed straw hat on his light brown hair, he was an imposing figure. Tall, powerful from hard, manual labor, and dark with exposure to sun and weather, Brant supposed he could see his sister's physical attraction to the man. Brant had never cared for his personality, but he had always believed him to be a solid, reliable man.

He had obviously been wrong.

"Matoren."

The gardener turned around and froze for a moment when he recognized Brant. Then he sighed. "Brant. I should have expected you." He tilted his head to look behind the dark harper, then raised his eyebrows when he noted Brant was alone. "What? Didn't bring your brothers and nephews, uncles and cousins, to help?"

"Do I need them?" Brant asked quietly, stopping a couple of feet from him. "What are you doing here?" he demanded. "Why aren't you with your wife and children?"

Matorlen sighed and swept his hat off, running his hand through his flattened hair. "I don't know if I could explain it, Brant."

"Try," the harper said shortly.

"It just…wasn't right." Matorlen looked up to the sky, squinting against the bright, afternoon light. A light breeze came up and ruffled through the ends of his tossled hair. Strands shimmered as gold as his youngest daughter's hair, and when he looked at Brant again, his eyes were the same bright, sky blue. "I'm tired of being the healer's husband. I'm tired of moving from place to place, following her. I'm tired of taking my position and my rank based on her craft and her needs. Every time we moved, I had to start from the bottom again. But here…we've been here long enough that I've worked my way up. I have rank of my own, respect of my own. The master of the kitchen gardens is retiring soon. He's chosen me as his replacement." Matorlen shook his head and put his hat back on. "I'm tired of just being Zabryna's appendage. I'm past ready to be my own man."

Brant stared at him, his fists clenched at his sides. "Zabryna has never treated you as anything but her equal, her partner."

"No," Matorlen agreed. "But she's only one woman. Everyone else drowned her out."

"She loves you."

"I know." Matorlen shrugged. "I loved her, too, Brant. But people change."

"Obviously." Brant took a deep breath and turned away. Then he stopped. "Matorlen?"

The gardener, already turning back to his work, glanced at him. "What?"

The harper moved with a speed that Matorlen didn't expect, and pain exploded in his knuckles even as Matorlen went sprawling on the ground. The man groaned, pushing himself upright and holding a hand to a nose that poured blood in a bright wash down his chine.

"Find another Hold to live in. This one's not going to be safe for you," Brant advised coldly. His family, after all, was extensive – and they avenged their own.