Chapter 4

Carlinna was still on duty when Lord Bargen came into the booth with a couple of soldiers.

"Ah, weyrartist apprentice… can you take some likenesses from description?" the Lord Holder asked, waving her down as she rose.

"I'm not as good as Geri, My Lord" said Carlinna honestly.

"Is she here still? Fardles take that thunderskulled and Threadwitted father of hers, is she losing the baby?" he asked, suddenly concerned.

Carlinna shook her head quickly.

"No My Lord; we take it in turns to be on duty here, and she needs the necessary a lot of course so her stints are short."

"Ah, quite" he nodded understanding. "When is she to return?"

"If it's important, Boral will run for her now" said Carlinna. Boral nodded eagerly.

"If you would lad…. If you would; my compliments to the Weyrartist and if she feels up to it I would like her services" said Bargen.

Boral shot off without further ado.

oOoOo

Geriana sat down and listened to a full description of a man seen by one of the guards standing over a body with a bloody knife in hand, emptying the pouch. He had run and the guard had been unable to catch him.

"Of course he might have pulled out the knife another man put in there and took the opportunity of theft; and then run because he was afraid of looking guilty of murder; or even to avoid being arrested for theft" mused Geriana.

"True enough; but he still needs to be questioned whether he is guilty of murder, of theft, or even of nothing but looking for anything to identify the dead man" said Bargen "But he IS a man known to be violent, and to have been rumoured to have killed before. My guard recognised him as a man pointed out to him as trouble."

"Well you are one of the most just men around" said Geriana "You are pulling a face at my drawing, soldier, nose not right?"

"Thinner, My Lady" said the soldier "And bent slightly to the - er – the bulge THAT side" he pointed.

Geriana nodded and amended the sketch.

"That's awfully close" said the soldier admiringly "But I think the eyes do be a bit far apart now the nose is thinner."

Geriana made the change patiently.

"Shards, you could almost hear the Threadbegotten shardhead curse!" said the soldier in admiration.

"LANGUAGE before ladies Sellen!" barked Bargen.

"Sorry Me Lord, sorry ladies" said the soldier, flushing.

"No problem" said Geriana "I've heard worse let loose in a longer burst from a Rider got out of his furs before dawn to fly Thread over Tillek in a gale."

"I wager" grinned Sellen.

"You want copies?" Geriana asked the Lord Holder quickly before he reprimanded the poor man again for familiarity.

"Can you manage that?" asked Bargen, diverted to the business in hand.

"If you don't mind me spoiling this one a bit" said Geriana "Boral, grind some chalk very finely."

"Yes, Weyrartist!" said Boral crisply.

Geriana took a heavy pin and judiciously pierced the picture at strategic points. By the time she had finished, Boral had ground down some chalk to a fine dust.

Geriana selected several dark leaves of paper of brownish cast; they made good portraits with shadows in charcoal and highlights in chalk for relatively little effort and were made with a mix of dark fibres from beneath the bark of birch trees and the outer covering of maize for strength of fibre. Geriana was taking an interest in paper making in order to experiment with getting perfect paper to work on. She pounced the chalk dust through the holes onto the sheet beneath it; and lifted the top sheet to reveal on the lower one an outline of chalk dots.

"Shadows or highlights?" she asked Carlinna.

"Oh you do the highlights; it takes more talent and skill" said Carlinna.

"Only on a good framework of shade" said Geriana, passing her the first framework of dots. Carlinna worked the shadows in from memory of the original while Geri prepared more; and was ready for the second by the time her Journeyman had finished the pile of copies and was ready to take the first to add highlights.

Sellen was much impressed and had to be restrained from leaning forward breathing heavily and blowing the chalk dots right off again! Bargen drew him back, not unkindly: he was delighted.

"What do I owe the Weyr?" he asked.

"We charge a mark a portrait" said Geriana "You have a score of copies plus the original that will be twenty one marks please."

"I'll make that twenty five for the added difficulty of the portrait being described" said Lord Bargen, paying up scrupulously.

oOoOo

"That was a nice commission" said Geriana when he left. "I wasn't going to add more for the difficulty as churning out copies was easier."

"Well they mostly appreciate our talents though" said Carlinna "Holderfolk I mean. That's saved a lot of trouble for Lord Bargen in finding this man. And means the logicators won't have to, probably!"

"Heh, it was a logicator job as much as an artist one really" said Geriana "Translating what that man Sellen said into what he meant and getting Ochre to get visualisation from his thoughts without him noticing."

Carlinna chuckled.

" THOUGHT you had it down fast!" she said "And there was I thinking it all your natural talent!"

Geriana laughed.

"Craft secret, hmmm – let's not let anyone who isn't a logicator know!"

oOoOo

Carlinna shared her meeting with Fomitty with Geriana, laughing over how his own pride and refusal to believe she might have changed had made him look a fool – which she had not discouraged.

Geriana looked angry.

"He suggested you had killed weyrlings? Why I never heard such a WICKED thing to say! The more so if he truly believed you incompetent, that you should be made to wonder if any accidents might be your fault!" she said.

"We don't have any weyrling deaths though; R'gar's way too strict!" said Carlinna.

"HE didn't know that. It's known – spoken of in whispers – that some weyrlings die from overflying their dragons, or fail to return from Between. And just because R'gar is so fardling strict doesn't mean it couldn't happen with a particularly dim or wherry-brained kid; some of these youngsters don't even have two thoughts to rub together that they could manage to leave Between if they've got something more exciting on their minds than minding R'gar. It's why he terrifies the boys into the HABIT of obedience; it's easier to lighten than to tighten. That nasty old caprine tried to lay a terrible burden of guilt on you; and I am seriously minded to get some revenge. Commons do NOT so insult weyrfolk!"

"Oh…. Do we count?" asked Carlinna.

"To be sure we count" said Geriana "We are technically weyrwomen – without the capital – like Calla and Keerana are! Can you see Pilgra letting anyone insult either of them – or their staff? And she'd not take this lying down either!"

Carlinna was convinced.

In truth she had been rather upset by Fomitty's unkind comments – and in front of his own apprentices and the lads who were her own juniors too. She willingly gave a visualisation of Fomitty to Geriana through the Weyrartist's firelizards; and soon Geriana was producing a series of wicked little caricatures in which Fomitty featured as a caprine.

"I'll do them all" said the Weyrartist "So you can truthfully say you never drew any of them. And even if he disbelieves it, that means he has to admit that you'd be good enough to do them."

"I wish I was" said Carlinna "I love that one – with the door hiding his rear end as he peers round it and the expression on his face…." She chuckled a dirty little chuckle.

"Yes I liked it too" laughed Geri "Looks er, taken aback as you might say!"

They leaned on each other laughing helplessly; and sent Boral and Sessel to quietly lay the sketches all over the Gather ground to ensure a wide audience.

Several Holderfolk thought that there was a competition to spot the goat and they began listing all the pictures!

It caused a lot of discussion and hilarity; and a lot of pointing at Fomitty and laughing; and some disappointment when there was no prize being offered for listing the most!

Lord Bargen rectified this when he heard of it – and saw the pictures – and sent the youth who found all thirteen sketches the quickest to collect them up, and swapped them for a pregnant nanny!

Bargen had no time for Fomitty, whom he recognised immediately in the caricatures, and he knew Geriana's work when he saw it and was determined to own THAT collection!

To anyone who listed all thirteen – and a surprising number assumed that there must be twelve – he gave a chit to come and collect a kid in the spring. It was well worth it.

As for Fomitty, he left the Gather in a huff.

That several Dragonriders bleated as he passed did NOT improve his dignity!

"I do NOT appreciate these insults, Blue Rider!" he said to one Rider, who was, unluckily for him, T'rin; who later described him as having bleated the comment.

"The apprentice talked, you know" said T'rin conversationally "And we want you to know that we don't appreciate commons insulting one of our weyrwomen, however junior. Just a gentle reminder rather than taking recourse to … sterner measures. Word to the wise, laddie; just live down your wicked slanders accusing a youth of causing deaths; and our little payback."

Fomitty had little choice but to try to do just that!

And he was still puzzling how Carlinna had firstly improved her techniques so much and secondly made herself popular enough that all the Riders would hang together to punish an insult!

The High Reaches Riders would have done exactly the same thing had they disliked Carlinna; because she was still weyrfolk. Indeed some of the bleaters could not have put a face to her name but it was the principle of the matter!

oOoOo

The first Gather day was long and busy; and many people rested during the early evening because there was to be a Turnover Feast as the Turn changed at midnight. The weyrartists were no exception; Geriana firmly sending the little boys to bed to sleep for a few hours promising faithfully to wake them.

oOoOo

It was worth waiting for. The rich brown smell of Hog Roast drifted through the mass of quietly assembled people as the midnight hour approached; and Samwil the Harper watched the passage of the lesser moon most carefully, counting to himself with reference to the star charts Master Wansor had provided. The first loud BONG! Of the Hold drum caught the attention; then sounded at second intervals whilst those assembled counted down: 'Ten….nine…..eight…..' until finally with the loudest drum beat booming the voices raised to shout 'ZERO!'

There was a whizz, a screech and a bang; coloured stars fell!

The minecrafters had set up startubes to entertain the people, filled with iron filings and copper filings to burn orange or green and more esoteric chemicals for other effects to entertain the Gather goers. Some women shrieked in fear; others in excitement, and there were cries of awe and wonder at the spectacle.

Geriana absorbed; and Carlinna knew that on the morrow a new painting would be started!

Then it was all over; and people were calling out 'Happy New Turn!' on their way to fill plates with succulent hog meat, sausages of all kinds and tubers backed in the embers of the great roasting fire!

Carlinna grinned to watch the two younger apprentices' excitement, and wished that she had quite as much resilience not to care that one had to balance being too hot on one side near a fire or brazier, and too cold on the other side from the sub-zero air temperature! Hot roast hog in cheese bread did however go a LONG way to alleviating discomfort! And, Carlinna reminded herself, she was much better dressed than many, and used to being so. The child of well off parents, she had never wanted; and the Weyr made sure that all its people were adequately clad for the weather; nobody went out without stout wherhide boots lined with wherry down. And the Weyrweaver may not have wanted to take apprentices, but he wove beautifully soft caprine and llama wool for long underwear!

oOoOo

The Gather re-started a little desultorily the next day; many people slept in! the Curling playoffs were not to start until mid morning; and the unkind said that it was to allow the hangovers of the curlers to subside enough to decide which of three blurred stones to take hold of…

The Weyr curling team had no hangovers – or had harder heads, one sage observer nodded wisely, seeing Harper knots on two of the team, T'rin and T'arla. M'gol had trained his team well; and they won match after match!

There were a few mutters that dragons made them unbeatable and it wasn't fair; Geriana heard Tragen scotch THAT rumour.

"They're good at aiming of course; they practise aiming in a general way by aiming at thread" he said "And I for one am glad that they do. But they're not as good as my team."

When the Weyr was knocked out by a neat curving shot by Northfork's captain Kirissa, one wag shouted,

"You riding your runner beasts against Thread, then, Tragen?"

Tragen laughed.

"Oh, Runnerholds produce good dragonriders you know; Ruatha's said to produce the best Weyrwomen, but I say it's only because they also produce some of the best runnerbeasts!"

There was good natured laughter.

Everyone knew that Tragen's wife had a brother who was a Bronze Rider; and rumour said a sister who was a Green Rider! Northfork had a good relationship with the Weyr and there was plainly a friendliness about the intense rivalry of the game!

Northfork went on to win the final too; despite, as M'gol said, not having that Marthengol fellow on the team this turn!

oOoOo

Neither Northfork nor the Weyr fielded an Ice Hurley team; Tragen considered the risk to his jockeys to be too high and T'lana had asked what was the fun in a game that appeared to be armed violence with the intent of murdering a stone by pitching it from one end of a frozen lake to another whilst passing it through as many of the opposing team as possible?

Hurley and ice hurley had their following in the Weyr; and informal games were played but T'bor forbade serious matches outside the Weyr.

It was as much for the protection of non-riders as for the good of his own people; dragonriders were generally better fed and fitter than the majority of the populace and trained to a level of strength matched only by Minercrafters and a few smiths. It would be too easy to accidentally break bones of opponents, leading to recriminations and resentment as would not occur so readily even if bones were broken in matches between Holds.

Hurley was therefore a game followed by and bet on eagerly by dragonriders, many of them knowledgeable enough about it from playing for fun; but without the personal interest they took in their own curling team.

Sessel and Boral joined the fun; except they bet only with each other from massive imaginary stakes neither owned; Geriana heard a bet of seven hundred thousand smithcraft marks laid against four hundred clutches of firelizard eggs; and chuckled at their simple amusement and good imaginations!

There were broken bones in the ice hurley of course; it was inevitable. One man was carried off unconscious with a cut over his eye; one had a broken nose; another a stove in rib, and the numerous fractures to arms and legs scarcely counted. It was said to have been a good series; no-one died.

Geriana thought T'bor's injunction very wise!