Gurdy creeled and Kestket roused. Sitting up he rubbed his face, the salt of his tears making it gritty to the touch. The brown creeled hungrily again, and automatically Kestket withdrew the last of travel jerky to feed his firelizard.
He spent the whole night grieving for his friend, at Donquni's grave, and now as the sun cleared the dense foliage of the southern Boll, he felt truly lost. Not just bereft of his friend and mentor, but of any assurance he had left. What would become if him now? Who could he turn to, for advice, or even a kind word? He wondered, breaking the jerky into bite sized chunks for Gurdy to gnaw on. He couldn't return to Telgar, and by now every Crafthall on the planet would know of his dereliction of duty to his Hold. And he very much doubted any one of them wouldn't gleefully turn him over to his brother. He leaned back and stared up at the pink tinted clouds. Other than his wood carving he didn't have any particular skills to his name. Feeling particularly small and alone he stared blankly into his brown's whirling eyes, until he realized Gurdy was waiting for him to eat the last bite of travel jerky.
Tears he thought he had all cried out flowed anew, and to please the only creature in all of Pern that cared for him, he choked down the meager mouthful. Gurdy chirped, and Kestket gently stroked the brown firelizard.
"Yes. Let's both get some water."
There was a well with a hand pump not too far from the cot the old woodworker was buried behind. And it was there the ladyholder found him, his face still dripping as his firelizard sipped water from Kestket's cupped hand.
"Do you have a Hold of your own, son?" She asked him kindly, for she had seen him fall over the grave the night before, weeping like a forlorn child upon finding it. She was an older woman, who had sat with Donquni in his final days, listening to his rambling thoughts. She suspected this stranger was one of the old man's happier memories, but refrained from asking, least she guess wrong.
"No mistress, I do not." Kestket admitted, ask Gurdy climbed up his arm to perch on his shoulder.
"Well, the cot is paid for through the vernal equinox, and I'd much rather someone inhabit it rather than it sit empty all that time, if it meets your liking. " She waved him to follow and unbolted the door.
"As you can see, its not much, Donquni used the front as his workshop, and the back as his living quarters. Privy is small, you'll need to flush the system once a sevenday with three buckets of well water." She pointed out the areas with the air of one who gas given the same tour many times before. Doubtlessly all the small cots in her holding had a similar design.
"Serran, was it?" Kestket nodded, still overwhelmed by the sudden act of charity. "Do you know if Donquni had any family?"
"He never spoke of any to me."
"But you are a woodcarver." She had noted the small bundle of different colored woods he had arrived with.
"Yes mistress."
"Good, you can have his tools then. We held onto them for his kin, but, since you are the only one calling on him by name, I suppose you have as much a right to them as anyone." The ladycotholder seemed saddened by this, the shook her head as if to dispel a thought.
"If you wish to stay past the equinox, let me of my mate know, and we will negotiate a price. Do you plan on taking commissions?"
Kestket hesitated, slightly taken aback by the question, but his bag of marks was badly depleted by his travels, and he doubted the ladyholder would accept trade for payment.
"Yes, as long as folk aren't expecting Hall trained work." He explained. The ladyholder smiled and waved it off.
"We are so far from the main Hold, most don't have the Marks for Hall commissions. Take your time and build up your stock. As your reputation grows, so will your customers." She glanced around as if mentally checking off a list. "Your cot is Threadproof, although if you'd prefer company, you can join us in the main cot for Fall." The ladyholder studied him for a moment, then pat his shoulder.
"Donquni was a kind man. I'll bring you supper tonight, Serran." And then she was gone, leaving him with the dusty workshop and his memories.
"Stone's not the problem, my Lord, but mortar is." The foreman explained as he took Redell around the worksite. Glanees was now far too gravid to join him on these checks of progress, expecting any day to give birth. Redell made the rounds instead.
Rather than a central Hold, Redell adopted the Istan tradition of many small freestanding structures with wide doors and tall ceilings to catch the evening breeze. The WherLord was back on Ring Island, the first island chosen to colonization. His bronze snoozed peacefully in the black sanded floors of a lava tube to the north end of the island.
"Please explain." The foreman was one of Redell's success stories. A journyman mason who had lost family and trade title to his addiction to wine, he jumped at Redell's offer of a second chance, and flourished in the adverse conditions of building in virgin forest with scant Threadshelter.
"There's not enough clay in the soil here. All the islands on the eastern arm have the same problem, being volcanic."
"I see." Redell nodded. "What about the mud and wattle construction, like we used in Retribution?"
"I cannot recommend it, for two reasons. First, long term maintenance will be difficult, given the rainy season. Secondly tradition forbids it's use for the exteriors of Threadshelter." He added, apologetically.
Again Redell nodded, understanding. While he occasionally ignired traditions he felt were obstacles to progress, he appreciated the wisdom of the traditions in regards to Thread.
"There is too much plant matter in it." He surmised and the foreman nodded in turn.
"Where would you recommend we source the proper clay?" The WherLord asked. His foreman rubbed his chin.
"The Wher Wing said the western arm islands are limestone, there's a good chance the clay we need is there, especially if the island has vegetation." A green firelizard alighted on his shoulder, and watched curiously the men toiling behind them quarrying the hard basalt.
"But that requires a boat and a survey team looking specifically for clay." Again, the foreman sounded apologetic.
"A boat, or a wing of Wherriders." Redell agreed, a plan already forming. "If it exists, you will have that clay in two days.
Reema would like to speak to you. Graseth informed Jurille, then sat on he hunches and warbled a greeting as the dragonpair appeared in the grey sky above the Weyr.
"Tell her I will have a cup of klah waiting when she lands."
Not too much sweetening, if you please. Another dragon voice murmured softly, causing Jurille to chuckle, as she stepped into the kitchens.
The tradition of the stirrup cup was as old as mounted conveyance, but in the Weyrs, the actual cup had acquired a lid, to keep the dust stirred up by dragonwings out of the offered beverage. And on as cold and wet a day as the summer solstice was, the hot beverage was a welcome addition indeed. Jurille smiled up at Reema, taking shelter under the gold's extended wing, as the other queenrider unclipped from her riding straps, and slid down the slippery side of her wet dragon.
"Successful hunt?" Reema had spent several of the morning hours at the SmithHall, choosing the gems and pommel design for the finely crafted belt knife the Weyr planned to give the new Lord of Telgar as a nameday gift.
"Far more than I had hoped!" Reema pulled an oilskin wrapped object out of her flying jacket. She handed it to Jurille, exchanging it for the stirrup cup, and when Jurille pulled iff the outer wrapping, she realized she was holding the portrait thst had been found at the bottom of J'kil's clothes press.
"You found them?" Jurille's heart skipped a beat. After months of no leads, no progress on the investigation, Reema nodded solemnly.
"They are Journeymen Sanjin and Kiljin of Black Sands."
"Black Sands? No wonder we didn't know them, that's Ista." Jurille wasn't even sure she knew the coordinates to the mining Hold. Graseth helpfully provided her with the aerial view of the Hold, carved out of the very side of the mountain.
"Brinda did offer to be of help." Reema reminded her, handing her now emtpy cup off to a weyrling and peeling out of her soaked flying jacket.
"That would certainly help us, we have Threadfall the next two days."