What happened to all those people exiled over the last 2500 years on the Eastern Islands? Do their heirs and successors deserve to be exiled - are the sins of the fathers visited on the generations following?
St'ven sighed as he picked up another bundle of dirty clothing and dropped it into the laundry basket he was hauling along. These bronze riders were so very careless of their belongings, and it made his punishment tasks a lot harder. He sneezed as he tossed another dirty shirt in the basket, and began to sort out bedding.
"Hump the mattress, don't just flap it," he muttered, one of his mother's maxims. He stripped off the dirty sheets and dumped them in the basket, and found fresh bedding, leaving it in a neat pile to make the bed on his way back from the various bedrooms in the Weyr.
"First the foot and then the head, that's the way to make a bed," he chanted as he made the bed in the next room. This one was tidier; G'frey was neat and bookish, and St'ven wondered what he had found to read from the archives. St'ven smoothed the bedclothes and moved on.
"Hss!"
He jumped in startlement and looked around, and saw R'ding beckoning from the window.
"What is it?" St'ven asked irritably as he went over. "I've six more rooms to clear - "
"You won't want to miss this! Look - the Harper's back."
R'ding pointed and St'ven peered. The diminutive figure of Piemur the travelling Harper and a lot else besides showed on the lower levels. His queen fire-lizard carolled above his head, showing off, and St'ven heaved an envious sigh.
"Where's he been? He doesn't often visit here, does he?"
"He's been a couple of times," R'ding said, lounging against the stone wall as they watched the Harper disappear. "How much longer will you be?"
"As long as it takes, and less if you don't bother me," St'ven snapped back. "About an hour or so, I suppose, then I'm on kitchen duties."
"Oh my, you really did get up their noses this time, didn't you?"
St'ven glared at him. "It wasn't my fault! How was I to know the lid wasn't on properly on that can of paint? It looked firm enough!"
"Did you kick it?"
St'ven's face crimsoned. "No I did not. If you must know, my foot caught in the rug, and I tripped, and it went - everywhere - "
A slow remembering grin spread over his face, and then he shook his head with a sigh and turned back to his duties.
"See you then," R'ding said, and St'ven heard his footsteps going away. He sighed again and pulled on the laundry basket, trying to get through the door, banging his shoulder painfully and losing his grip. The basket rolled backwards, and spilled everything over the floor. St'ven stifled a curse he had heard from the Weyrmaster and began picking everything up, trying to remember the order he had put the items into the basket. That purple shirt belonging to C'topher, he knew that. It was a lurid and horrible colour to St'ven's eyes.
St'ven reached the laundry caverns and recoiled from the heat. With Thread falling soon no one was going to risk washing outdoors.
"Over here," Tasha called briskly, and St'ven pulled the basket across.
"Bronze riders' stuff," he said, and she nodded and marked the basket and the washtub.
"What's your next task?" she asked.
"I need to go back and make a couple of the beds - then I'm for the kitchens."
"I'll call you when this lot is dry and ironed."
"Thanks."
He made his way back to the bedrooms, and was annoyed and discomfited to find J'mes in residence, pulling off his boots and tossing them carelessly into a corner.
"Who - oh it's you, is it?"
"I need to make your bed."
J'mes yawned hugely as he pulled off his shirt.
"Go on then. Is G'frey here?"
"I didn't see him."
"Good enough." J'mes caught up a towel and padded through into the washroom and St'ven quickly and competently made the bed, smoothed and tucked, and then fetched the boot stretchers and inserted them, hung J'mes' jacket up.
"You were on punishment duty two days ago," J'mes said, startling him.
"Yes. And I'm on it again."
"You were on it last week as well," G'frey said from the doorway, coming in with a page of writing. "Does someone have it in for you, youngster?"
St'ven flushed. He was short and skinny, and looked ten years younger than his true age, but after a second, he realised G'frey did not mean it as an insult.
"I don't think so, bronze rider," he said respectfully. "I just seem - to be accident prone."
"Oh - the can of paint?" G'frey's lips twitched, his grey eyes twinkled. "I heard about that."
"I tripped on the rug."
"You often trip on things," J'mes said unexpectedly. "I've seen you do it."
"The Weyrling Master says I don't think - he says I just sort of - rush at it."
G'frey nodded. "I expect he would say that. Carry on, then."
Dismissed, St'ven hurried back down to the kitchens. Lamora, the Headwoman was there, inspecting the menus, and glanced at him.
"Off you go, St'ven."
"Off - I've duties - I need to report - "
"You've done so," she said briskly. "Now off you go - your dragon was asking for you."
"Maranath was asking?"
"Yes. Off you go."
He wavered, looking around the kitchen, and Lamora came over and walked him to the door, her hands on his shoulders.
"You are a dragon rider, not a drudge," she said firmly. "Now off you go! Oh, and take this - you're so thin I can feel all your bones!"
"Thank you - I mean - thank you - "
He clutched at the cloth bag and hurried off, careful to put a hand on the stone wall as he climbed the stairs, counting under his breath, remembering the oddly chipped step second from top, and came out into daylight.
He blinked at the strong sunlight, aware of sweating already, and made his way around the shaded verandahs to where the young dragonets were disposed on a stone shelf soaking up the sunshine.
One large brown rose on hind legs, flapped its wings and squealed, rousing the others to a muttered litany of complaints as Maranath called his rider.
- you came! I asked the kind lady with the soft mind to tell you to come.
St'ven recognised the description of Lamora and grinned as he hurried to his dragonet and sat himself down comfortably between the huge front legs. Maranath dropped his head gently onto St'ven's head and the young man caught the odour of food. It made his own mouth water and he opened the cloth and spread it out. Lamora had put in a wedge of hard cheese, some bread, redfruit and a bottle of drink. St'ven sighed contentedly and began eating, looking out over the landscape.
From this ledge he could see the various stone terraces dropping to the river and beyond it in the eyewatering distance the far hills rising towards the snowy wastes of the south. Two wings of dragons were exercising far above, and he focussed on them and saw C'topher's bronze leading his wing.
"Spare me a drink, youngster?"
St'ven jerked around, coming out of communion with his dragon, his eyes unfocussed, seeing only a blur of brown and white in front of him.
- it is the Harper-man and his golden queen.
"Oh - ah - Master Piemur - "
Piemur dropped to a sitting position.
"Thanks for the shade - what's your dragon's name?"
"Maranath."
"Maranath. Thanks for the shade."
The dragonet's eyes whirled in blue pleasure, as Piemur took a sip of the water.
"Thanks. What were you watching so intently?"
"C'topher's wing exercising. His blues and greens are all quite young."
Piemur squinted.
"How can you tell the Wingleader at that distance?"
"Oh - I just guessed," St'ven said hurriedly, licking a finger and picking up the breadcrumbs on the cloth, not looking at the legendary Harper.
"Hmm. How far along are you in training Maranath? He's a big brown, isn't he?"
"The biggest of the Hatching," St'ven said proudly. "He'll be as big as - as Canth when he's finished."
- bigger. As big as the biggest one.
Piemur grinned. "He said he'd be bigger, I bet?"
"They aren't increasing in size as much now," St'ven said. "Up to the beginning of this Pass, they were always getting bigger, but since then they've stayed at a uniform size. As if - this is as big as they're going to get, ever."
"How d'you figure that one out?"
St'ven shrugged, and Piemur did not say anything more, seemingly content to sit and watch the activities of the Weyr on this sunny day when Thread was a full day away.
"Someone coming," Piemur said softly. "The Weyrling Master, by the look of it."
St'ven groaned and focussed on the approaching figure as the Harper stood up and brushed himself down.
"What are you doing idling here?" K'neth demanded angrily. "I put you on punishment duty."
"Lamora sent me out here," St'ven said, stumbling to his feet, tripping over Piemur's feet, and nearly overbalancing.
"You've been asleep? I'll soon put a stop to that!"
"He was pointing out and naming some people to me," Piemur said mildly. "In the heat of the day, Weyrling Master, you couldn't expect him to be scrubbing pans, surely?"
K'neth scowled at them both.
"Class in an hour," he snapped and strode off. Piemur watched him go.
"You surely are not his favourite," he said ruefully.
"He doesn't have favourites, but no, he doesn't like me very much."
"Are you weyr bred?"
"No, I came from along the coast that way. A small fishing hold, with some cropping land behind it."
"Any fire lizard nests?"
"Not a one," St'ven said. "We used to look along the beaches, but nothing."
"Is the land grubbed?"
"Yes, and we've stone roofs, and some - cover for the crops."
"That's good. I think I'll drop in on your class - in an hour."
St'ven watched him go, and wondered why he had said that, with that particular intonation, as if he was displeased with something. St'ven reviewed what he had told the Harper. Nothing, he thought with relief. Nothing about the crop cover they used, nor the unusual things they sometimes found buried in the sands. His father was a strict and stern man, and did not like an idle mouth to flap out all their business.
- I would like to see your home, when we are allowed to do more than fly in circles.
St'ven fervently agreed as he checked the dragonet for flaky hide and then made his way to the classroom to endure more of the Weyrling Master's reproofs and unkind remarks.