Holders, tend each furrowed field
through fire, flood and 'fall
Let sun and rain
bring forth the grain
in golden bounty, standing tall.
Holders, tend each furrowed field
and tithe the best tenth of the yield.
Crafters, tend each forge and mill
through fire, flood and 'fall
Keen hands and eyes
your wares devise,
enriching lives far from your Hall.
Crafters, tend each forge and mill
and tithe the workings of your skill.
Weyrmen, tend your dragons bold
through fire, flood and 'fall
The greens and blues,
browns, bronzes too,
and golden queens that spare us all.
Weyrmen, tend your dragons bold
and tithe your lives while we grow old.
Mid morning, 15.12.34
High Reaches Weyr
In many respects, life at one Weyr was much like life in any of the others. Moving from Ista to the High Reaches, the obvious and most predictable difference had been the climate. Rahnis had expected to see snow, and plenty of it, throughout the winter. What she was still struggling with was how impossibly varied the fardling stuff was, and how relentlessly it would insist on coating Alaireth's ledge. There were muscles in her lower back that she honestly hadn't known she possessed until they'd made their complaints known to her the day after the first snowfall. She'd listened to M'gan's advice about not clearing the snow before it had finished falling but by the time it had finally stopped, her slippery, trampled path had turned to such a mess of compacted ice that her shovel could barely make a dent in it. Having turned down the offered assistance of three separate bronzeriders, M'gan included, requesting help from weyrlings or drudges was quite simply out of the question. It was a matter of principle almost as much as it was one of pride, and the job hadn't seemed too big at first, even if a queen's ledge was larger than most. She'd watched with considerable envy some of the smaller dragons using the last flames left over from their firestone drill to melt their ledges clear, high above her own weyr. Another advantage of riding a flaming dragon. Runnels of meltwater had trickled down the sheer walls of the Weyr, forming spectacular displays of icicles as they quickly re-froze. Today, with the sun finally out and now risen above the Weyr's rim, the whole place seemed to sparkle. She had to admit, there was a harsh beauty to it.
A shame her own weyr didn't really match up.
Rahnis rested her shovel beside the broom already leaning against the rockface and surveyed her work. Two piles of dirty snow, this time placed where they wouldn't slump down onto unsuspecting weyrfolk passing below. A thin, dry and well-gritted trail for her own feet, surrounded by enough more-or-less clear space for Alaireth to get in and out of the weyr. The queen would be walking on lumpy brown ice rather than rock, but at least her claws would give her sufficient traction, and she wouldn't coat her tail with snow in the process. Not pretty in the least, but it would do. Rahnis ducked back into the weyr to collect an extra layer of knit and her old coat from Alaireth's couch, where she'd left them earlier. The new one was better made – warmer, too – but even after paying H'koll her own marks for his craftmanship, she still didn't feel quite like wearing it. An unexpected expense, but some debts were more costly to bear than others, and far less welcome. Oh, F'ren had made excuses enough for his behaviour the night she'd arrived in the Weyr, but not one of them changed the fact that he'd intentionally chosen to hurt her. He was right that he'd never hurt her like that again, but not for the reason he thought. And the gall of the man, to claim he was doing her a favour by his interference! Favours like that she could do without. Perhaps she'd change her mind – about the coat, not F'ren – when the weather turned colder, as half the Weyr told her it would. Even so, it was hard to believe they weren't merely making the most of their chance to tease a southerner. She knew her fair share of jokes about the northern Weyrs, too – all riders did – but somehow, quips like Why do riders from the High Reaches take so long going between? / So that they can warm up! didn't seem all that funny when your fingers and ears and nose were stinging with the cold already. And still another month and a half to go before Turnover!
Rahnis sighed. She'd always loved the Turnover celebrations in Ista: the feasting, the music, the jokes and most of all, the dancing. Not just the dances she had with M'ton, though she'd miss those most sorely of all, but all the weyrfolk in their finery, dancing together as couples and in groups. The greenriders and their partners making the most of the absence of bigoted Holders and Crafters, everyone delighting in their lives and their loves and the simple fact that they'd lasted another turn. A time to celebrate new beginnings, and by rights, she ought to be one of those doing just that. Why did it have to be so difficult? She'd scarcely had a moment to herself since getting here, and just when she did, when her thoughts turned inevitably south, all she managed to do was tie herself in knots over M'ton. What chance did she ever have of settling in to her new home when half of her heart still lingered at Ista? The separation tore at her, tangling her emotions even more. Nights were the worst, even cocooned in Alaireth's constant tender presence while the dragon slumbered. You couldn't be lonely as a dragonrider, never that...but her bed was far too cold and quiet and empty for her to sleep easily in it. When she did sleep, even her dreams were lonely: more than once, she'd found herself wandering back and forth up the same desolate, wilderness valley of her imagination. She ached for M'ton, desiring his easy company as much as his physical presence. Imagining him there beside her did little to soothe her mind: all the hurt and resentment, the guilt for being too tired and busy to think of him during daylight hours, and when she did have the chance, hating herself for how hard it was, struggling not to fall apart.
My dearest Rahnis. I'm here.
Choking back a sob, Rahnis mentally leaned in to her dragon's offered comfort, and ran the half dozen steps back out onto the ledge. Oh, Alaireth. I thought I was stronger than this. How can I miss him like this, so much, when I can't even bear to think of him half the time?
I miss Narnoth, too.
Do you talk to him?
When I can. They have so little time. Much like ourselves. I know M'ton thinks of you, as you do of him-
Rahnis tightened her grip on her coat. Not like I do. He's a better person than me. Can't say I blame him for doing exactly as I asked.
Oh Rahnis. You need to see him.
He's a Weyrleader now. He doesn't have time for me. I don't even have time for me.
Alaireth's mind quietly, defiantly denied the truth of what her rider had said. Rahnis found her eyes drawn to those of her dragon, high up on the Weyr's rim. Too far to see clearly, but she was held by them all the same.
No, the dragon said. But that doesn't matter. Let me talk to Narnoth.
Rahnis nodded. Can't make things worse, can it?
Certainly not! I will speak to him later, when Ista Weyr returns from Threadfall.
Thank you, dearest.
And now you should eat. You've worked hard. Have one of those sweet rolls you like.
As if it had been listening in, her stomach rumbled. Surely it hadn't been that long since breakfast?
You barely touched it. You were talking to That Woman from the Lower Caverns.
Rahnis peered over the edge of the ledge, eyeing the entrance to the Lower Caverns. "Well, hopefully she'll be ready to talk some more. Those tithe alterations shouldn't have taken this long to work out." The Weyr's logistics seemed to be getting worse with time, rather than better. From what Rahnis had been able to make out, a minor discrepancy in the stillroom supplies on the day of Maenida's fateful injury had grown like a burrowing Thread, with new problems appearing in different areas of the Lower Caverns almost daily. The confusion over cloth supplies had worsened even further, there were regular shortfalls of kitchen essentials, and the dragonhealers were continually bemoaning the fact that they'd had to repay Ista for the loan of medicines far sooner than was sensible. The day after she'd arrived, Healer Tarkan had discovered that some enterprising kitchen-worker had filched half his herb supplies and wasted them trying – and failing – to cover up spoiled meat. The tithe goods arriving from High Reaches Hold ought to have been sufficient to fix matters, but even with some judicious back-bartering, the Weyr remained in the embarrassing position of sending riders out with marks almost every other day, to buy more of whatever essential item had just run out.
Fortunately, the tithe from Tillek Hold was due to be collected in the next few days. This far north, the traditional tithe trains became impossible after the first snows of the winter. Threadfall was an ever-present risk, and the larger shelters were too few and far between, especially for a slow-moving caravan hampered by the weather. It would have been a different matter during an Interval, when slower travel times wouldn't matter and work crews could afford to spend sevendays at a stretch clearing isolated stretches of road. A single person wearing snow-slats could still make it through the mountain roads, but it was easier by far to send messages by drum or by firelizard, and for the Weyr to collect its tithes by dragonwing. As well as all the bounty of the ocean and the wine that the Hold was rightly famed for, Tillek's sheltered valleys, warmed by the ocean air, gave the Weyr its last fresh goods for the turn. The dark green sea-bread with its salty tang, oil-cheese, sacks of winter wheat and tubers, sweet-beet, jars of marshberries, the left over wrinklies from Tillek's vineyards, and fish, fish, fish. And it wasn't just food that Tillek supplied: there was also the wool-stock sheared from the Hold's ovines and caprines; cut sea-reeds of all sizes, fit for every use from matting to furniture; oils and hides and metalwork, and every other kind of essential.
The Weyr sorely needed more of almost everything. Rahnis had done what she could to coordinate a full inventory over the past few days, and the results she'd seen so far had been worrying. Supplies were running far lower than they should have been at that time of the turn, and she didn't think that the Weyrfolk were being anywhere near as inefficient or wasteful as the Headwoman claimed. Nor did she believe that dragonriders had been pilfering luxuries. Most of the Lower Caverns workers were making do with what they had rather than making an issue of what they lacked, trusting in the new tithe to solve the problem and stretching their resourcefulness to the limits in the meanwhile. Regardless of everything Egritte had said, the Weyr would need to ask a larger tithe of Tillek and the other Holds that winter, but how much more and what it should comprise was still in doubt.
I really ought to go and find Egritte, Rahnis mused. I know she was given the kitchen inventory first thing this morning, and that was the last of them. Doesn't take this long to do the numbers, even if she does have to use her fingers.
Eat first.
Rahnis grinned, and started down the steps towards the Weyrbowl. Don't worry, I don't need any more persuading! How is the sunlight, up there?
Weak, Alaireth said, wryly amused, but who knows when we'll see it again?
Making the most of chance to do some basking?
Hmph. I think I've earned it, after Crom with the weyrlings.
Rahnis winced, and sidestepped a patch of ice lying across her path. Alaireth's frustrations at moderating her pace that morning had been palpable, especially given the unpleasant weather they'd been flying through over Crom. The Weyrlings hadn't liked it much either, but they'd perhaps been more willing to accept it as essential training than Alaireth had. No, that was unfair on Alaireth – Rahnis had been equally impatient to return, and in a worse mood besides. Small wonder the queen had picked up on it. Of course you've earned it. The next flight will be better, with just Ormaith for company; you'll be able to stretch your wings properly even if the sun hides away again. Enjoy it for me while it's here.
Up on the rim, Alaireth fanned her wings open and re-settled them to better catch the light – and the eyes of the dragons sunning themselves beside her. I'll have you know, I've been doing more up here than merely-
Basking is basking, whether it's in sunlight or good company, Rahnis interjected. Don't think my eyes are so poor I can't see all those bronzes on the rim.
High above, the dragon gave a snort of disdain. I can't say I'm terribly impressed. They boast and jostle and preen, as bronzes do, but why should I believe one over another? They go on so much that it does become hard to listen at times. Besides, they won't prove themselves to me with words. Hollow boasts, for a hollow Weyr.
Hollow?
Alaireth fell into a thoughtful silence. I'm not sure I can explain it. They circle each other in all their petty ambitions and you were right, there's only really one true faction here. It feels senseless and pointless, like a stagnating rock-pool, with all that's alive and vital drying up and draining away. That's how it feels to me. And it's not just the bronzes, but the other dragons as well.
Sh'vek mentioned...do you remember what he told me? Kiath spends so much of herself on Maenida, and Linnebith holds herself aloof for Delene's sake, as far as I can tell. Is it their absence you're feeling? The guidance and support a Weyr needs from its queens?
It's more than that. They need us here, and I understand that now better than I did before. But I still think there's more.
Rahnis could feel the determination in Alaireth's mind as she pushed open the door and stepped into the shadows of the Weyr's dining hall. The tables and benches were all stacked and scrubbed, but across the room a kettle of klah and the remains of the breakfast rolls still lingered on the service counter. She slung her coat onto the nearest peg, and started across the room. You're never cared much for Weyr politics before, but I'll help you with this however I can.
This isn't politics, the dragon chided. Riders always make more trouble there, and riders can char it themselves. Oh, I don't know. I'll show you what I mean, next time I feel it strongly. Perhaps together we can understand this place better.
We'll get there, I promise. Sooner or later.
Rahnis ladled out a large mug of luke-warm klah and helped herself to a pair of meatrolls. She was too late for sweetrolls – only crumbs and a few lost pieces of fruit filling remained on the second platter. Drinking as she went, she carried on through the side entrance into the Weyr's main living cavern. A few small groups of Weyrfolk and riders were gathered around the three of the six Crom-coal stoves which were lit, but aside from them the cavern was empty. The Weyrfolk rarely remained indoors when the winter sun was out; there were too few hours of it each day as it was. Recognising one of the women sitting with her back to her, Rahnis headed for the group surrounding the stove closest to the main passage leading back out to the Weyrbowl. Of the many people she'd already got to know among the High Reaches Lower Caverns, Quaiya was possibly her favourite. The old auntie had charge of supervising a number of the Weyr's many young children, whenever they weren't with their foster parents or off doing chores. A good dozen or so of them sat on plump cushions scattered on the floor around her, ranging in age from no more than a handful of Turns up to one girl old enough to be apprenticing as a creche-worker herself. Two other women were sitting with the group, as well as a pair of greenriders busily wielding knitting needles. The younger children were gathered around the beginnings of a rag rug, while the older ones were occupied either knitting or mending clothing, all of them softly singing one of the more harmonic memory-songs while they worked. A feline nestled in amongst the cloth scraps added its own rumbling percussive accompaniment, while one of the younger children stroked it.
"Good morning, Quaiya," Rahnis said. "May I join you?"
The old auntie looked up from her own knitting. "Why, Rahnis. Of course you may. F'lyn and O'kash here are helping the youngsters learn the feather-pattern. What better time for you to start, eh?"
Balancing her plate on top of her mug, Rahnis pulled a folding stool out from the nearby stack, jiggled it open with one hand, and sat down opposite Quaiya. "I can't stop long, much as I'd like to."
"You can't avoid picking up some needles forever, girl," the old woman said, waving hers around pointedly, "not if you're going to stick around with us up in the Reaches."
Rahnis took a bite of her food, and washed it down with a gulp of klah. "Maybe when I've been released from the extra drills, after Turnover. You can teach me yourself." That would be something to look forward to in the new turn. The keen-witted old auntie was good company, warm and kindly and far less meddlesome than many others of her advanced age. In the few short hours Rahnis had spent in her company, she'd already proved her worth as a good judge of the characters of various weyrfolk: who could reliably get things done, who could be trusted to work without supervision or to supervise others, which workers had extra skills, and which would cover up their failings by blaming others. Hardly surprising, seeing as she'd apparently had a hand in raising almost everyone in the Weyr. Even better, she usually couched her advice within the most amusing anecdotes. Rahnis wasn't sure she believed half of them, but they were certainly entertaining to hear as well as being a much more memorable way of getting all the different names and faces straight in her head than the wing- and weyrfolk-lists she'd been supplied with several sevendays before.
"Nonsense," Quaiya scoffed. "I'll set one of my brats to the task, and you'll start tomorrow."
That was the other thing Rahnis liked about Quaiya: the woman wasn't afraid to disagree with a weyrwoman to her face. She admired the woman's persistence, too, but there was no getting around the fact that she just didn't have the time to learn any kind of new crafting. What with caring for Alaireth while the dragon regained her post-clutch stamina, drilling with Sh'vek or R'fint, sweep flights, Threadfalls, servicing Delene's 'thrower as well as her own, assisting the Weyrwoman and getting to grips with the Weyr's records, Rahnis scarcely had time to bathe or eat. On top of all that was all the work needed in the Lower Caverns, most of which involved some form of argument with Egritte. The fardling woman seemed to think that making sense of the Weyr's logistics took second place to ensuring that the Weyr's newest goldrider was suitably attired to flirt with the bronzeriders. Oh, the headwoman didn't deny that there were issues to be overcome, but she was utterly convinced that the Weyr's problems could all be laid at the feet of a few incompetent underlings and wastefulness on the part of the weyrfolk and riders. Rahnis had sworn that, the next time Egritte chose to chant Dragonman, avoid excess! at her, the woman would find a few of those age-old laws adhering to her very uncomfortably indeed. She shook her head, trying to put the Headwoman out of her mind. She'd have to deal with her again soon enough as it was. "Will that be before or after I have to..."
Quaiya wasn't going to be easily put off. "Pshah! Busy hands focus the mind and clear the head. I think you need a bit of that, and don't deny it."
The old one is right, my dear, Alaireth said.
"Besides, you'll pick it up quick enough," Quaiya continued. "Think of all the time you've saved drying your hair since you got it cut, eh? Less than that will be plenty enough for the basics."
Rahnis self-consciously ran a hand over her newly shortened hair, and groaned. "Beset on all sides, I am. Tomorrow, then. Send your youngster while I'm helping the Weyrwoman with her breakfast."
"I shall, girl. Next winter, you'll be wearing knits of your own." She reached down to take a finished piece of mending from one of her charges, and inspected it carefully. "A good repair, Malleny. I can barely see your stitches along the seam. Hopefully M'dex will be a bit less careless with it in future. Some types of damage are easier to fix than others." Her eyes lifted from the shirt she was holding, and bored into Rahnis' own. "No change today then?" she said softly.
"Not today."
"Tsk. Poor Maenida."
"She's better than everyone seems to think. It's just so exhausting for her. There's so much she has to relearn, and she's still sleeping most the day. And then there's all the fellis. It'll take a while yet before she's back on her feet again."
"So everyone says." Quaiya sighed loudly, tossed the rider's shirt into the basket of mended clothing, and set to work with her knitting needles once again. "You don't get to my age without losing a lot of your peers. Most to Thread or childbirth, when I was your age, but now it's all just age and infirmity. Hearts and lungs and winter chills, weak bones, growths, and plain old senility. And the falling sickness, too. Quite a few to that one, some fast and some slow. The slow ones were some of the saddest. Trapped in their bodies, half-paralysed most of the time, but sometimes they just weren't the same person any more, between one moment and the next." The look on the old woman's face was far too knowing. "Never riders, though. Dragons take 'em between right off when that happens."
Rahnis finished off the first of her meatrolls, and wondered whether Quaiya's words meant anything more than a simple statement of fact. When Rahnis had been a child, one of the men at Ista's beasthold had suffered a nasty fall from a runner. The man had been the best rider and trainer they'd had in generations. It had been several sevendays before he'd come to his senses again, but when he finally did he couldn't remember how to walk or ride, or much else either. He'd had to learn it all from scratch, just like a little child. Everyone could see how frustrating he'd found it, but he was riding again before he could walk. Maenida had a lot to re-learn as well. Physically, she could control her own limbs and bodily functions at least as well as a small child. Communication was difficult for her, but even dulled by all the fellis she was taking one could tell that her mind was still intact, especially when Kiath passed on her thoughts directly. Master Rynder was certain that she'd continue to show improvements, so Sh'vek said. She'd only spoken to the Master Healer once herself, but he'd been very reassuring: 'The human mind has remarkable powers of recovery,' he'd said, and: 'Anything she learned once, she can probably learn again'.
One of the greenriders looked up from his yarns. "Happened to old J'rap and Yenarrath, that did, back when I was a weyrling. Not right off, mind."
"They went between?"
"That they did, weyrwoman. We was all eating our dinners, when he collapsed. All weak on one side, talking nonsense, and he got hurried off by the healers. Yenarrath was wailing half the night, even after the healers said he'd likely live, so they bedded J'rap down beside him just to get some quiet. Infirmary was right next to the barracks, so we all saw it happen. J'rap was smiling and nodding away one second, and right the next Yenarrath was gone, taking J'rap with him. 'Where's my J'rap?', he said, right before they went, and every one of us heard it. Old J'rap must've got stricken a second time, I reckon."
Rahnis wasn't sure that she completely agreed with O'kash's assessment. There was a world of difference between Where's my J'rap and Where's MY J'rap. Quaiya was right; not everyone was the same person after a brain injury, and not everything could be re-learned. Training and riding a runner was a very, very different matter from Impressing and riding a dragon. She shivered, worried that she might finally have figured out the why behind Maenida and Kiath's continuing need for support. Maenida seemed to be the same person she'd always been, at least according to Sh'vek, but perhaps there was something in her that Kiath needed that she no longer had easy access to. A wave of despair washed over her, but she ruthlessly pushed it to the back of her mind. No. Kiath still lived, and as long as she did, there was every hope for Maenida's full recovery.
"Huh," said the other rider. "Them were the days, when we could hope to live long enough for age to get us."
"Not caught sight of your own reflection yet this decade, F'lyn?" O'kash asked.
"With this face?" He sucked in his cheeks and waggled his ears at the youngsters, the muscles in his face twisting hideously around the scar tissue of old threadscore, setting the children giggling loudly. "Ha!"
It was a horrible, ridiculous sight. Rahnis couldn't help herself from joining in with the laughter, and immediately noticed the tension in her body easing. "Faranth, F'lyn, I needed that laugh. First I've had in the last month. I swear, half the Weyr must think me the most miserable woman on all of Pern, the way I've been feeling – and acting."
One of the younger children looked up. "My da says you're just proddy. My da says he cou-"
"Shush, Garsha," Quaiya said. "Get on with your work."
The child couldn't have had more than seven or eight turns, but age and innocent intent didn't make the words any less cutting. They were saying that of her, were they? She bit her lip and inhaled deeply through her nose. There were several choice remarks running through her head that she'd love to say to the girl's father, whoever he was, but that could wait. "Well, hopefully he and the rest of the Weyr will see the better side of me long before it comes to that."
O'kash gave a hearty laugh. "You goldriders have it easy. Four times a turn, my Shonath rises, even now."
"First time I've heard you complain about it," one of the Lower Caverns women said.
"Ah, but I don't get to sit on my arse on a nice warm pile of sand for three months afterwards, do I?"
"I shouldn't think you'd be sitting at all, the way you normally go on!"
The adults and two of the older children shared a knowing laugh. Quaiya tapped her needles against her empty hand thoughtfully. "Any children of your own yet, weyrwoman?"
The question took Rahnis completely by surprise. "What?"
"Children. I'm sure you know how it all works."
"Not yet," she said, shaking her head. "And I've been a rider almost ten turns now, so I'm not really expecting them, either. Too much betweening, especially now. Why do you ask?"
Quaiya smiled, and stayed silent.
Rahnis finished her klah, and thoughfully took another bite of her roll. She was fairly certain she'd conceived M'ton's children in the past, but had never carried them long. It had been hard to come to terms with at first, even knowing that most female riders stayed childless, but like all things one became accustomed to it after a while. If Quaiya was suggesting what she suspected...well, it wasn't completely impossible, and it might even explain her exhaustion and over-emotional mental state. She'd not been quite this way the other times, when she'd been more sure of herself, but...
"Weyrwoman Rahnis?"
"Mmmph?" She looked up to see one of the Weyr's cooks approaching, the same woman who'd carried out the kitchen inventory over night, and swallowed her mouthful hastily. "What is it, Dannia?"
"I wondered if I might have a word, before the Headwoman and weyrwoman Delene return."
"Of course you...wait, return? Egritte isn't here?"
"No, weyrwoman. I'm told they both went to Tillek, right after breakfast. Would've come to find you sooner, but I do have a whole Weyr to cook for."
"Oh, Faranth!" A cold, sinking feeling swept through her belly, and she leapt up from her seat. "Egritte promised me she'd let me look over the details before they were finalised. If she rushed them... You did give her the inventory, right?"
"Aye. Had a whole slate listing the extras we needed as well, and where we could trade some staples back to the Hold."
Rahnis let out her breath in a long sigh. "Oh, well done. That must be-" The look on Dannia's face stopped her mid-sentence. Alaireth?
Yes?
There's trouble here. We may need to head to Tillek. Linnebith took the headwoman there; are they there still?
They are. They're with the Lord of that Hold.
Rahnis focused her attention back on Dannia again. "Sorry, Dannia. There's more, isn't there?"
The cook folded her arms across her broad chest. "Do you know what she said to me? What she did?"
That didn't sound good. "Go on."
"Oh, I told her what we needed, and what we didn't, and gave her the slates just as you asked. And she wiped the both of them clean! Hours, it took to get that work done, and she just... she said they couldn't possibly be right, that I must've got the numbers wrong. 'No, headwoman,' I told her, and that we'd checked everything twice. That was when she told me I was a lying, wasteful, incompetent idiot, and that I didn't deserve a place in a Weyr like hers. And she shut the door in my face."
"Oh, Dannia."
"Well? What are you going to do about it, weyrwoman? You got me to stick my neck out, but it ain't you who'll be sent back to live off stringy stewed wherry in a freezing cothold before next Threadfall, is it?"
"It won't come to that, I promise," Rahnis said. "How much of the inventory could you reconstruct? How quickly? And how low are the Weyr's stocks?"
"I can tell you right now we're shortest on fruits and meat. Been bulking the meals up with grains more'n I'd like, but even that'll be a problem soon. We'll eat well for another sevenday. After that, unless Egritte gets half as much again out of Tillek as we normally would, the riders'll have to start bringing back wherries daily, and raiding their nests for eggs to boot. The rest, the Weyr will have to buy, beg or steal."
"Get me a list. And as much as you can remember of your list of tradeables as you can. Egritte's still at Tillek with weyrwoman Delene, but I don't want to wait for her to get back."
Dannia nodded and bustled off, while Rahnis tried to figure out what best to do. She could go straight on to Tillek, interrupt Egritte's meeting with Lord Maxeny and the Hold's steward... and likely have a screaming argument with the woman right there and then. Or, wait until they returned, and find out then how bad the tithe would be. All without another one of the all-too-public confrontations that Sh'vek had warned her about. Rahnis glared up at the cavern ceiling and squeezed shut her eyes. The need to know exactly what Egritte had done – and why – was like an itch she couldn't scratch.
"Need help, girl?"
She opened her eyes to find Quaiya beside her, and gave her a bitter smile. "Got a key to Egritte's office?"
The old woman shook her head. "I was never a headwoman. That was her grandmother's job. A good headwoman, Reenee was, though I can't say I ever really liked her much. Never liked her daughter, either – she was lined up for the job too, but died birthing twins."
"Twins? Don't tell me there's two like Egritte out there?"
"Faranth forfend! Then we'd be in trouble. And we are in trouble, aren't we?"
Rahnis sighed. "It's looking that way. Shame the management talents didn't run in the family."
Quaiya beckoned one of the Weyr's children to join them. "Sanior, go fetch Pellick to the headwoman's office, would you? Tell Shai I need him for a little job." The young boy darted away into one of the passages leading out off the main cavern. "Come along then, weyrwoman," Quaiya continued, taking Rahnis' arm. "He won't be long, and Pellick's likely to wander off if we're not there to meet him. At my pace, we'd better be off now."
"Does Pellick have a key, then?"
Quaiya laughed. "You'll see."
It wasn't long before the lad returned, a short, broad-chested, balding man following awkwardly in his wake. Pellick looked to be in his early forties, and his face wore a frown of concentration as he stomped his way down the passage. Beneath a wherhide vest, he wore a shirt with only one of its sleeves rolled up, baring a heavily muscled arm. Was that Quaiya's answer to a locked door? Pellick's other sleeve, cuff-laces undone, dangled wetly well below the level of his hand. "I don't think the Weyr can afford a new door, Quaiya," Rahnis said.
"Indeed it can't. Guess again, weyrwoman." Quaiya stepped forward, and spoke Pellick's name softly. As he looked up from his feet, one of the most genuine smiles Rahnis had ever seen grew on the man's face. "Let me fix that sleeve for you, Pellick dear," Quaiya said. "I think it's come undone. No, the other one!"
The man giggled childishly at his wet sleeve, flapping it up and down. "Like it! Like her too. Like my shells best of all. More like them? Round and round and round and round and round and..." Pellick started spinning on the spot, his wet sleeve sending droplets of water spattering in all directions.
Quaiya looked apologetically over her shoulder at Rahnis. "He's a simple soul. Came to the Weyr as a candidate from the smithcraft, but he came down with the most dreadful fever the day before the eggs hatched. His crafthall wouldn't have him back afterwards, poor boy. But he loves his laundrywork, and he didn't lose everything he learned as an apprentice. Here, boy. Got a lock for you."
"Lock?"
Pellick slowed in his circling, allowing Quaiya to take hold of his damp sleeve and neatly roll it back. She guided him over to Egritte's door, then pulled out one of her hairpins and placed it in his hand. Rahnis moved closer to watch. Pellick's eyes were tightly closed, while his fingers twitched delicately at the lock. Scant moments later, he stepped back from the door, grinning broadly again.
Quaiya tested the handle, and opened the door. "Oh, well done, Pellick. Please give me my pin back now."
"Easy!" Pellick said as he handed it over. "More shells?"
"No, but I've got some feathers for you in my room."
"Shells!"
Quaiya shook her head. "I'm sorry, Pellick."
He pouted, then looked across hopefully at Rahnis. "Shells? She shells?"
"Sea shells?" Rahnis spread her hands in front of her. "Not here, but I can get some for you, I promise. Tomorrow." She glanced sidelong at Quaiya, hoping that the man understood the concept.
"Good," Quaiya said. "There you go Pellick, feathers today and shells tomorrow. Let's go and look at them, shall we?" She led him away by the arm, leaving Rahnis to see what answers she could find in the headwoman's office.
Rahnis closed the door behind her, unshuttered the glowbaskets in their alcoves and scanned the room. Ignoring the cushioned and carpeted majority, she focused her attention on the small corner that Egritte devoted to her work. Today, the ornate worktable was covered by an embroidered white-work cloth, displaying stylised dragons in flight, and nothing more. The larger of the two wall-ledges held the woman's tilting mirror, hair combs and a brush. A wineskin marked with a Tillek stamp rested on the other, beside a neat triangle of six glazed cups. A large slate was nailed to the wall beside the second shelf, with the daily roster for the Weyrfolk work groups neatly chalked onto it. Someone – most likely Egritte herself – had taken the time to sketch an elaborate twisted border around the edge. On the other side of the roster, three sets of keys hung on their hooks next to a thin silk scarf, above a large iron-bound linen chest.
Rahnis lifted the cloth from the headwoman's desk, and opened the drawers one after the other. The first held a single wax tablet and stylus, a shallow square reed basket holding chalks arranged in length-order, a stoppered bottle of ink and a set of wherry-quill pens. The second was empty except for another scarf and one of Egritte's carved bone hair-pins. The last one held a set of samples from the weaver-hall, and several sketches of gowns impressed onto wax. Rahnis turned around, and pulled aside one of the wall-hangings. Behind it were more shelves, these ones bearing a tidy stack of slates, a full row of fragile, hide-bound record books, and a box of more recent hide scrolls bound in ribbons of the Weyr's dark blue and black. A lockbox that she knew held a small supply of marks sat beneath the shelves. There was no tell-tale layer of dust that she could read for signs of disturbance, nothing to suggest how the headwoman might have spent her last minutes or even hours in the room. Egritte had erased the kitchen inventory, but what about those from the Healer and the Weyrsmith and everyone else, or the hide she herself had given the headwoman? Where were they?
Don't think like yourself, Alaireth prompted. You know what she was doing.
Meant to be doing. Rahnis sighed, and paced back to the desk. How do you think like someone who doesn't think at all, anyway?
Alaireth's mind spun a dragon's-eye visual of the room, bringing the large wherhide ottoman in the opposite corner into sharp focus. There. See the seat? You told me she sits around all the time. That's where she does the sitting.
Rahnis squinted her own eyes. There was a clear indentation on its surface, just where someone might most comfortably sit with their feet up while leaning against the wall. Beneath the padded seat, two hooked catches swung loosely – whatever Egritte kept in there, she obviously needed access to it regularly, otherwise she'd surely have secured those catches properly. Rahnis crossed the room and lifted the heavy lid. None of the missing inventories were inside, just another set of old hides. She carried them over to the desk, and checked the tags. Reenee, Reenee, Reenee read the author-marks, while the dates denoted an assortment of Turns over a span of three decades. All of them were tithe records.
Dry-mouthed, Rahnis sank back onto the headwoman's chair. How much did Egritte rely on her grandmother's records? If Reenee had been as good a headwoman as Quaiya claimed, Egritte could probably manage most of a headwoman's tasks using Reenee's records for guidance. She'd avoid a lot of mistakes and cover up for her own weaknesses that way, but no matter how accurate the records were, or how competent the person who wrote them, they could only go so far. Rahnis was pretty certain now that Egritte hadn't paid a jot of attention to the inventories that she and the weyrfolk had provided. She had no need to, did she? Not when she had her grandmother's tithe records right at hand.
Interval tithe records.
Alaireth?
I come!
Rahnis left Egritte's office at a run. Crossing the main hall, she paused only long enough to grab her coat and yell for Dannia, or for someone to find her and send her to the bowl right away. Half way back to her own weyr she skidded on a patch of ice, barely keeping her feet and wrenching a muscle in her torso in the process. Perhaps she didn't need to hurry quite that fast.
Indeed you don't! Alaireth said as she backwinged to a graceful sliding halt a dragonlength distant. She was carrying a bundle of straps in her jaws, Rahnis saw.
"Did you..."
Passenger straps, too. The queen opened her mouth, and dropped them at her rider's feet. I also told Ormaith that we were going to Tillek.
"Oh, well done!" Rahnis pulled out the two longer lengths of leather out from the bundle, and slung them over Alaireth's lowered neck. Once they were buckled snugly, and the buckles themselves baffled with felt, she added the cross-pieces and the passenger-clips. Did you tell Ormaith why? she asked the dragon as she finished.
I told him the headwoman had forgotten something.
Rahnis found herself torn between a smile and a frown. It would be funny if the Weyr wasn't relying on this tithe being right. "Oh, yes."
The woman you called for comes.
Poor Dannia was breathing heavily as she staggered to a halt beside Alaireth. "Here," she said, handing over a carry-sack. "This is what you wanted."
Rahnis slung the bag over a shoulder, and shook her head. "I need you as well. Would you rather mount first or second?"
Dannia eyed Alaireth warily as the queen lowered her neck to rest it flat on the ground. "Prefer not to mount at all...but I wouldn't miss the chance to see Egritte put in her place. Whatever is easiest, weyrwoman."
"I'll go first then." She hauled herself into place between Alaireth's ridges, and pointed out the lowest toe-hold. "Best you start with your right foot, Dannia, and the handhold bound in red cloth. Then get your left foot as high as you can, push up again, and I ought to be able to pull you up the rest of the way." As hard as she tried not to, Rahnis found herself growing frustrated at the awkwardness of Dannia's climb. She was eager to be off, and could feel her temper rising fast in anticipation of what awaited her in Tillek. But that wouldn't do. She forced a smile onto her face as she buckled the woman in place. "We'll go between as soon as we're level with the rim. Hopefully we won't be gone from the Weyr too..."
Linnebith returns.
"...long." Rahnis covered her face with her hands, and cried out in frustration. They were too late!
"What is it, weyrwoman? Oh. They're back."
Rahnis unbuckled the straps furiously, helped Dannia back to the ground, and asked her to wait by Alaireth. By then, Delene and Egritte were already almost to the Lower Caverns, and she had to chase after them.
"Egritte! Wait!"
The two women stopped in their tracks, Delene smiling beatifically. "We did it, Rahnis. Everything's all organised."
"You promised you'd check with me first."
"Why ever should we do that? I know I've no head for figures, but G'dil does, and I got him to double-check the numbers, if that's what you're worried about. We've got more than enough coming from Tillek. Or do you think we forgot about you?" She looked Rahnis up and down disapprovingly. "Well, we didn't. Egritte has bargained for some extra luxuries for the whole Weyr to enjoy, as well as some gowns and the most delightful beads for you. You'll look fit to be seen outside the Weyr by Turnover."
Rahnis unclenched her jaw, and forced herself to ignore Delene. "Egritte. You used Reenee's records. Did you adapt them at all?"
Egritte glanced past her, back towards Alaireth and Dannia. "If you're talking about that woman's..."
"I'm talking about applying Interval tithes to a fardling Pass!" Rahnis yelled.
Egritte pulled back slightly, affronted. "How dare you! What kind of numbskull do you take me for? Of course we adjusted for the extra population of a Pass. I do know how to multiply two numbers together."
And that was the answer Rahnis had feared. It could have been worse – the woman might have cribbed her grandmother's figures exactly – but not by much She gave the headwoman a withering look. "You idiot. We have more than twice as many dragons, and their riders. The Lower Caverns population is half as large again as it was in Reenee's day."
"Roughly," Egritte said. "I was much more precise than that."
"You can be as precise as you like, but it doesn't change a thing! We won't have enough food to last the winter."
"Perhaps if the riders weren't filching food all the time!"
"What?"
"Dragonman, avoid excess
greed will bring the Weyr distress!
To the age-old laws adhere,
prosper, thus-"
"Prosper?" Rahnis shook her head in amazement. "Fighting dragons eat more when they have to fight Thread three times a sevenday. Weyrling dragons eat more than fighting dragons. And as for a breeding queen...!"
"Tillek doesn't supply us with livestock, weyrwoman."
"Did I say I was finished?"
Egritte fell silent, momentarily cowed. Rahnis didn't wait for her to find enough courage to argue back. "Leather suffers from char, wear and tear, but most of all it develops cracks from the chill of between. Straps need replacing twice a turn during a Pass. Dragons and straps, both need the oil that Tillek supplies us with, easily three times what you'll have requested. Weyrling riders go through clothes fast, and so do the youngsters in the Lower Caverns. The whole population is skewed. Wear and tear, how in Faranth's name can you overlook the fardling wear and tear? You may not care for worn clothes or hard labour, but our Weyr is running itself ragged, working itself to the bone right now, and a diet suitable for mincing Hold ladies simply won't do. It may taste nice, but there's a reason why Tarkan's running short on restoratives as well as everything else. Hungry, tired people make mistakes. They get sick. Their dragons make mistakes, and then we have Threadscores and deaths to worry about too. Is that your plan, Egritte? Get the Weyr into the perfect efficiency of Reenee's day by stripping us down to Interval numbers? Well? What the flaming, fardling..."
A man's voice barked out her name while she groped for a more suitable set of curse words. Sh'vek, she knew, even before she'd turned around.
"It seems I need to remind you that Delene is Acting Weyrwoman here, Rahnis," the Weyrleader said fiercely. "Not you."
"Acting Weyrwoman Delene, yes. Shame she hasn't grasped the importance of the first part of her title yet." Her temper up, Rahnis couldn't stop herself in time, and she knew she'd gone too far as soon as she'd finished saying it. Delene was meant to be a trusted colleague, maybe someday even a good friend, and she really hadn't been fair to her. There were tears in Delene's eyes, she saw, in the brief moment before the other woman whirled around and raced back to her dragon.
Egritte shook her head disapprovingly. "Well!"
"Oh, shut up," Rahnis snarled.
"Rahnis."
This time, there was no missing the warning in the Weyrleader's voice. Nor was the weyrbowl as empty as it had been a few minutes earlier – she'd just given Egritte a very public browbeating, exactly the thing he'd warned her against. Unconsciously, she jutted her chin forward challengingly as she met his piercing grey eyes. Shells, but he was furious! However he made her pay for this, he had to know that she wasn't the only one at fault, surely? Alaireth?
He says you'd better be right.
Rahnis nodded, acknowledging that the message had reached her. "Weyrleader," she said, and deliberately dropped her gaze and looked away. Now it was Egritte's turn to look uncomfortable. The headwoman was flushing, her mouth working soundlessly as she fiddled with a button on her cuff.
"It surely won't make all that much di..." Egritte's voice quickly trailed off in the face of the Weyrleader's anger. Her eyes darted back and forth fitfully, almost as if she, too, wished to run away.
"Weyrwoman Delene somehow convinced me that you were the best person for your job. For that reason only, you may keep it. For now. Now get out of my sight. As for you," and he turned his attention back to Rahnis, "you're late for our drills. We'll start with Tillek Hold, shall we? I assume you can make the necessary corrections to the upcoming tithe."
She took a deep breath, and pushed her doubts aside. "Yes. I'll need Dannia's help, but I can do it." Another thought occurred to her, some way of fixing what she'd wrought. "Do you want me to take responsibility for the mistakes, too?"
There was no kindness in the smile he gave her. "Naturally. Get yourselves ready. I do not have time to waste, today."
He stalked off towards his dragon, and Rahnis closed her eyes in relief. It could have been worse. A lot worse.
You took it on, Ormaith says, and you must deal with it. Alaireth told her. Any further problems for the Weyr rest with you.
She laughed dryly. Is that all?
Alaireth's tone was apologetic. No. First thing tomorrow morning, he wants you to deal with the Weyrlings' blocked latrines. But I do have some better news. The morning after, Narnoth asks if we can meet!
He does? Grinning foolishly, Rahnis whispered her weyrmate's name. She might be spending every restday from now until Turnover neck deep in filth, but it no longer mattered. All at once, her troubles seemed to have halved.
AN: Gosh, nothing specific to say for once. Um...have fun, keep reading, and please tell me what parts of the story you love/hate/snooze over in the review box! Wendums, I'll get that drabble up for you on AO3 later this week.