Another clutch, another headache for H'ric in his contest with the Lord Holders!

15.11 - 17.11.198

H'ric stood with Jiverny, his arm around her waist, as they watched Haveneth circling fussily around her eggs. Several loads of fine Ista sand had been delivered, and the eggs lay glistening and hardening on the hot sands.

"Twenty and a gold, lady mine," H'ric said ruefully. "How the Lord Holders will not love us!"

"The gold is taken care of without any external searching," Jiverny replied. "I've a dozen good steady girls ready to take their chances on Impression."

"Should we do that? Look only to our own kind this Turn? There's a good choice of boys."

Jiverny nodded. "Send to the Lord Holders, by all means, but if they refuse a Search, don't press them."

H'ric sighed and shook his head.

"Twenty only," he murmured. "Yet the records show that as the Pass approaches, the queens rise often, and lay huge clutches."

"Do we know their definition of huge? Twenty to thirty is Haveneth's average figure, but in her first two matings she only laid ten, and no golds amongst them."

"I know. As to size - no I don't know. If the Weyrleaders had been kind enough to send their records to Benden for safekeeping, I would know a lot more!"

Jiverny laughed softly.

"If that had happened we would all be a lot wiser! And more able to counter the Lord Holders and the Craftmasters as well, I suspect. Two hundred Turns of being able to shout down and outvote a single Weyrleader at Conclave have not helped their manners, nor their ability to hide their heads in the sand."

"Yes, I'm aware of that. I'm minded to call a small conference of all the Wingleaders, to discuss the way forward in this Turn. I don't doubt the tithes from Benden, Bitra and Lemos will come in, and one from Telgar as well, but if the other Lord Holders can delay their own tithe - "

"There are precedents for those," Jiverny said as they turned to leave the Hatching Grounds, aware of the heat through their shoes. "We have records of what should be given by each. And with a hundred extra young dragons to feed from these last three Turns, we must hunt the wild foods as much as we can."

"Yes, I've asked L'rens to scout north, and sent D'vern out to High Reaches. There's the western ocean as well, beyond High Reaches, there must be fishing vessels out on those waters, perhaps willing to sell us food."

"What will you use for money?"

H'ric smiled at her as they emerged into the bowl of the Weyr, shivering in the chilly contrast to the Hatching Grounds.

"There is money in the Weyr, money that comes with the tithed goods."

Jiverny nodded as they stopped to watch a flight of Weyrlings exercising above the Weyr. As H'ric had said, a hundred dragons had been hatched, if they included the present clutch. That would make up for the loss of any of the older riders, and there were undoubtedly dragons and their riders who were aging now, less able to ride the thermals and take part in the exercises with firestone.

"We'll call that conference, then, and look to the youngsters, once you've sent to the Lord Holders?"

"Yes, that would be best. I'll go and write the messages now. The messengers can take a weyrling with them to teach them and orient them to the Holds."

H'Ric looked around the long table in the dining hall. The drudges had served the klah and sweet biscuits, and everyone had been served. Jiverny sat to his right in her high backed chair, and the bronze riders had ranged themselves along each side.

M'ris, L'rens, D'vern, W'rim, C'rin and M'dor now constituted the senior and most experienced Wingleaders, and on the other side of the table were the younger bronze riders, all of whom looked to one of the seniors for training.

"Gentlemen," H'ric started. "Thank you for attending. The Weyrwoman and I thought it timely, with another clutch on the sands, but none of the other queens rising this Turn, to take stock of where we are, and what we hope for."

"A stay of execution in the coming of Thread," W'rim growled. "The Red Star doesn't seem any larger, for all it still seems to be coming near the Star Stones. Is there an explanation for that?"

"No," H'ric said frankly. "We've all consulted the Records we have here, and questioned the oldest members of Holds and cots we can find, in case they remember something their grandparents told them. No one seems to have any memories, or want to remember anything their forbears told them."

"We sent Yorus down to Harper Hall, ostensibly to gather new music and make a new instrument for himself, but also to find out what he could," Jiverny said. "There were records found at Fort, two generations ago, but no whisper of what they contain is known to us. No farmers or herders will go near the abandoned Weyrs, claiming they're haunted, but there's no telling what they actually fear."

"I went over to High Reaches, briefly, to stake a claim on that Weyr, and there were signs of old fires," D'vern said. "How old, I don't know. The fisherfolk of the western coast are entirely uninterested in dragons, saying they don't farm the land, but that they'll always be able to fish, Thread or no Thread. In fact, they said old stories were that Thread brings the fish nearer the surface."

"That would make sense," L'rens said with a nod. "Free fish food. If Thread falls in the winter in the northern valleys, there's no problem with that, because Thread can't survive in very cold weather. Summer would be different, the valleys would be cleaned out."

H'ric repressed a shudder, and Jiverny made a note on her pad.

"But Thread doesn't breed," M'dor pointed out.

"Of course it does!" L'rens snapped. "It decimates everywhere it touches!"

"Yes, but it can't breed. It can't do, because if it did, Pern would be a lifeless husk by now, coming up to the Eighth Pass since men came to Pern, and who knows how many unprotected Passes before that? Thread comes, it proliferates in burrows, spreading outwards, but then - presumably - it dies - of overconsumption - or something - and life restarts."

"Yes. How far and how fast a burrow would spread is another matter, and one the Lord Holders would do well to address," Jiverny replied. "But if Thread comes in regular patterns, and we know it must do so, as the rain and snow comes over the land as the world turns, then some places will not be infested in some Turns, and others will be heavily infested."

"You're placing a Wing in each empty Weyr," L'rens said. "And I'm taking responsibility for the land north of us and around Benden? Are the junior bronze riders to attach themselves to each senior?"

"Yes, that's what I wanted to work on," H'ric replied. "I want to watch all of you working, and look at the Weyrlings coming into the wings. We've three hundred or so dragons and riders now, and perhaps a Turn before Thread, if it comes on time. It may be we've not counted right, that there may be a few more Turns."

"And are we going to be fed?" M'ris asked. "I've patrolled the area around Fort Weyr, been as far as Ruatha - where I was at least welcomed with a meal and a good few beasts for Fineth. But Fort Hold itself remains inimical. Are we Searching for this clutch?"

"I've written to the Lord Holders, asking their permit - "

"Since when did a dragon rider need permission to Search?" C'rin asked heatedly. "Igen is poorly supplied with arable or pasture, but I've become friendly with the Lord Holder's son, and he says his father is always reluctant to lose workers."

"That's the story all over Pern," M'ris put in. "I've spoken to holders and cot holders, and all of them live in fear the riders will swoop and take all their best youngsters. In vain, I tried to explain to them that twenty youngsters spread over the whole of Pern would make scarcely a dent in their workers, given the fecundity of their women, but they won't listen."

"There's far too much emphasis on having children often and with too small a gap between them," Jiverny said. "I saw it as I was growing up at Ista, and I suspect from what the riders tell me, that it's getting worse. Those who have land want to hold onto it, and those who work for them are encouraged into having more and more children to work that land."

"This northern continent is huge," L'rens conceded. "But a full half of it is unworkable land, unless you herd beasts to and from summer pastures, or rely on hunting in the wild to make a living."

"Men came north to shield," H'ric agreed. "Shield what, or from what, or to what, we have no idea, but I can tell you if the population goes on increasing like this, there won't be a spare spadeful of land anywhere in Pern."