And so farewell. Whatever else he faces, H'ric does not face Thread! Thank you, all of you, for following this little side-excursion into the worlds of AM, and for your encouragement to me as a writer.
10.2.200
"Weywoman Jiverny. This is very pleasant, to see you again."
Jiverny nodded to the Lord Holder of Tillek.
"And you, my lord. How is Yorus?"
Lord Boros laughed freely. "Oh, that man! The sly little digs he gets in on us. Were you upset he had to leave you?"
"We were, of course, because as you say, he could fit a rhyme to any situation. Our present Harper is now a dragon rider, he Impressed a brown."
"Is that usual?" Lord Borus asked as he took a glass of wine. Jiverny refused a glass, but asked for fruitjuice instead.
"There are records of harpers impressing," Jiverny told the Lord Holder. "A harper by his very nature must be empathic to the feelings of others, and that's what a dragon looks for on Search."
"So he won't make Master?"
"Nor will Yorus, my lord," Jiverny replied bluntly, and Lord Borus slid a glance around the room and located the Masterharper who was holding forth to an audience.
"I take your meaning, my lady. They do say there's no significant new songs coming out of Harper Hall in that one's tenure. But we're not here to discuss him, but to look ahead, set tithes, discuss alliances. Why are you here?"
Jiverny nodded an acknowledgement of his interest.
"The Weyrleader and I have a right to be here, in a meeting of equals, my lord, and we do have some information to impart to all the Lord Holders and Craftmasters."
"I've been grateful to those riders who patrol around me," Lord Borus said. "They located and rescued the crew of a fishing boat, managed to drag the boat to safety as well, which saved the men's livelihood."
"And we're grateful for your tithe," Jiverny replied, not mentioning that Tillek had been one of the most vociferous in cutting the amount needed to be sent. Lord Borus looked uncomfortable, and Jiverny moved away from him to join H'ric who was talking the Masterminer.
"Master Genit has been telling me they've located a new coal seam," H'ric told her. "I've promised M'dor and his wing will go and help with the heavy lifting as they set the adit."
"Your predecessors never offered any help anywhere," Masterminer Genit said bluntly.
"And I cannot make promises for anyone in the future," H'ric said at once. "A Weyrleader is autonomous, and none of his decisions are binding on his following Weyrleaders."
"Makes sense. No, I don't want any wine! I want a clear head for these negotiations. Fort is too keen to get everyone sozzled before we begin."
They moved into the conference room, deep in the smoothly cut rooms of Fort Hold, with candles and lamps to provide light. It was already uncomfortably warm, and H'ric discreetly opened his collar to cool himself as he moved to his place.
"Are we all here?" Lord Riasalt asked as his secretary took the names of those present and waited to begin making notes.
"As many as care to be here," Lord Cantin of Telgar said irritably. "This is a dreadful part of the Turn to be calling conclave."
"You had no problem getting here," Lord Riasalt said spitefully. "The Weyrleader did you a favour by bringing you himself."
"As did many of his dragon riders to bring others, Lord Holders and Craftmasters alike," Lord Cantin replied at once. "Don't be saying it like that, Fort, as if I am more favoured than others by the Weyrleader. By the very nature of the way the Weyrs and Holds are set up, the Weyrleader looks first to Benden before the rest of Pern."
"Very well. The Lord Holder of Bitra has a question to put."
"I want to know what you have done with my daughter, Benden! I assumed she would be returned to me in due course - I've a marriage arranged for her."
H'ric stared at the man in amazement. Lord Runanan stood up.
"As far as I am aware, Bitra, the lady is safe and well, and studying household management somewhere congenial to her needs and desires. I saw her and spoke to her at the Impression at Benden Weyr last Turn, and she gave me no indication she needed to return to Bitra."
"She is under age!"
"She is 18," Jiverny replied. "That's an age at which she makes her own decisions, my lord, and she's settled very happily with the family that took her in."
Lord Viral glared at both of them, glanced at Lord Runanan and sat down again.
"I'll speak to you in private," he muttered, and H'ric sent a thought to Galanath to warn the Weyr to be on guard against anyone trying to snatch the lady Irilia.
"Next, Ruatha, you want to complain about intrusion on your higher meadows?"
H'ric, over the next few hours, wondered how these men could be so interested in such tiny matters, the movement of a boundary stone, the interruption to the flow of a river, even the colour of cloth the Weavers were allowed to make.
"You have a concern to share with us?" Lord Riasalt said at last, turning to H'ric almost as an afterthought. H'ric stood up and glanced around the men, some of whom appeared on the verge of dozing off in the heated room.
"I do. I have here some illustrations of the way the Red Star has been appearing in the night sky in the last five Turns."
"Too close for my comfort," someone muttered and someone else nodded as the notes H'ric had had drawn up were passed around and studied.
"Is this just at Benden Weyr, or all over Pern?" Lord Cantin asked. "I know you have observers at Telgar Weyr."
"I have observers at every Weyr, my lord, to chart the progress of our old enemy. As you can see, it's not fulfilling the words of the teaching ballad - The Finger points, at an eye blood-red. Alert the Weyrs to sear the Thread. Weyrs in the past have relied on that, and seen the Red Star fill the Eyestone. This is not happening, and by our calculations, in five Turns the Red Star will be so far out of alignment it will fall out of orbit."
"So there is no more Thread!" Lord Riasalt said at once. "That's what the Lord Holders have always suspected, but you have consistently denied it!"
"For the moment, the Red Star is not a menace to Pern," H'ric agreed. "You'll see from the notes, all of you, the last time a Long Interval happened was at the end of the Fourth Pass, but Thread returned four more times, up to our present Interval."
"You think it will come again in two hundred Turns?" Lord Cantin asked shrewdly. "That's a fairly long stretch of time."
"Does that mean you no longer require any tithe?" Lord Viral asked. "In two hundred Turns your Weyrfolk can turn to farming and animal husbandry, can they not? Or tie themselves in to any number of Crafts that could do with beasts of burden."
H'ric stared at him in disbelief. Jiverny was clenching and unclenching her hands, and Lord Jamas cleared his throat.
"That's no way to speak about the Dragons of Pern, my lord," he said. "We owe them and their predecessors many times over - "
"Oh, in the past! Yes, in the past we had to be grateful! But there's no more Thread now, and there may not be in the future."
"It's always returned before," Jiverny said. "When men first landed, they had the misfortune to land at the end of an Interval, from all the records we've been able to discern. They wouldn't have seen the devastation of Thread-scored land - in two hundred Turns most of the land would have recovered and regenerated. Men endured Four Passes, before the first Long Interval."
"I've heard this piece of doggerel before," Lord Miccel of Ruatha put in, tapping D'wan rhyme. "It's trader stuff, isn't it? But given that most of our history is songs, this shouldn't be discounted. The Red Star is going wide, and we might well have two hundred Turns of settled life before it comes back to haunt us."
"That's a long stretch," Lord Jamas said. "How will the dragons cope, Weyrleader? You've barely 300 at Benden as it is - and I for one have had sleepless nights worrying about how you'd protect everyone. But you've two hundred Turns - how long does a dragon live?"
"As long as its rider," H'ric replied at once. "In general, eighty Turns would be usual."
A mutter of surprise went around, and Lord Jamas shook his head.
"That's a longer life than most men, Weyrleader. So - four generations ahead of those of us seated in this room - you think Thread will return?"
"Yes I do."
"And how many new dragons will be hatched in those two hundred Turns?"
"I can't answer that, my lord. I'd expect numbers to remain at the 300 mark, because a smaller population risks too much instability. Benden can support double that number - "
He broke off because several Lord Holders were scowling and scribbling numbers and notes.
"I will ask that tithing levels remain viable," H'ric continued. "Lord Viral may say we can farm, but there's very little free land, in truth. Nothing will grow on the slopes of Benden Weyr, I can assure you of that, and there're wild forests to the north of us, it's not farmland."
"You'll still want tithe of my herds, then?" Lord Cincil of Keroon asked sourly.
"We will be most grateful, my lord."
"Been thinking about it, and I plan to breed more specifically for meat," the Lord Holder continued gloomily. "It'll all go to naught if your dragons raid indiscriminately in my lands."
"We only hunt on invitation, you know that," Jiverny put in. "You've been kind enough in past Turns to invite us to hunt your scrub lands, my lord, where your horsemen can't round up the beasts that wander away from your herds."
"Yes - well - of course - that still stands - you won't find me remiss in my tithe."
"Thank you," Jiverny replied. "I hope that goes for all the Lord Holders, all of you, my lords, and Craftmasters, that you will continue to support the Weyr? This may be a pause in the fight against Thread, but it cannot be the end."
"What about ending it forever?" Lord Viral asked aggressively. "Send your dragons up there - maybe that's where the others went, eh? To destroy the Red Star itself! And maybe they succeeded and that's why Thread won't come again!"
H'ric looked around the table as the other lords began shouting and debating that, and his gaze found Serellim the Masterharper.
"You aren't joining in, Masterharper," H'ric called. "Is that because you already knew this was a Long Interval and did not choose to share the knowledge?"
Serellim sat upright.
"How would I know that, Weyrleader? My harpers are not trained to stare at stars!"
"You found some writings at Fort Weyr, but you never passed on the knowledge," H'ric continued. "Did someone leave behind a letter for a loved one, perhaps? I'm sure they would have been forbidden to do any such thing, but human nature being what it is - did you find information?"
Lord Runanan turned to look at the Masterharper.
"Did you have information, Serellim?"
"Oh, we had already guessed it was a Long Interval," the Masterharper said in an offhand tone, waving a dismissive hand. "There was never any need to worry about it."
"You've had Turns to let everyone else know," Lord Riasalt said indignantly. "I take that very poorly, Serellim, that you didn't at least let me know your suspicions!"
"And I," Master Perera put in. "I've been training men to deal with injuries no one has ever seen, and now you tell me I have a glut of healers to place in holds!"
"You'll not place any with me," Fort said angrily. "All these ideas you have - they aren't recorded from the past, so they are not to be permitted."
The Masterhealer gave an angry snort, and then turned back to speak to H'ric. "In one way, I'm pleased to know Thread is deferred, but like the others, I wonder what you'll find to do in two hundred Turns?"
"Dragonmen will always live on Pern," H'ric replied, gathering up his notes. "We were bred to fight Thread, and that is what we will do. This - Long Interval - is merely one more chapter in the ongoing fight, Masterhealer, and when the Red Star once again pulses in the East, and at that time fills the Starstones to the exclusion of all else, you'll find us ready. And now, if you'll excuse us - we have other concerns."
He turned and stalked out, and Jiverny followed, half seeing Lord Viral crumple up the notes and fling them to one side.
The two riders emerged at Benden in the darkness of night. A light showed at the Starstones where the watchman kept himself warm, and lights glowed from some of the weyrs. Galanath landed neatly on the gold dragon's ledge, and Haveneth followed him down and flipped her wings together.
"Well, lady mine, that didn't go so well," H'ric said as he followed Jiverny into her weyr, stripping off his flying gear.
"I don't know - I thought Keroon was conciliatory about the hunting, and Tillek is mellowing - hopefully because of Yorus."
"Do you want klah?" H'ric asked, and she nodded.
"I'll go and fetch it - oh - Mima - you shouldn't have bothered - thank you."
Mima brought in the tray of klah and some biscuits.
"I doubt if those maggoty beasts would have fed you," she said firmly. "And you've flown there and back in a day, setting out from here at some ridiculous hour to fetch them Lord Holders."
"Criss-crossing the continent isn't advisable too often," Jiverny admitted. "Setting off and returning almost at the same time, with Fort so far behind us."
"Hah! And helping them out as well!" Mima said with another snort.
"Yes, but this is the last conclave we'll be offering them that favour," H'ric said on a sigh. "In fact, I doubt if they'll bother to let us know of any future meetings, Mima."
"And why should you be bothered about that, eh? Enough to do to hold this place together, the both of you, and there'll be problems ahead without trying to please them that don't understand dragons."
She kissed his cheek, and Jiverny gave her a hug and they heard her clumping down the stairs, her admonition to get to bed floating back to them. H'ric exchanged a laughing look with Jiverny and helped her undress, and took the brush to brush her hair out, an exercise she very rarely allowed.
"She's right, of course," H'ric said as they climbed into bed. "Enough to do in our lifetimes without any further worries."
"But you will never fight Thread," she said softly. "In all your life, H'ric, you will not do that sole thing you have trained for, learned of, and practiced against. There is no Thread for our lifetimes."
He sipped at his drink, staring into the future.
"I know. Part of me rejoices, because Pern will not be devastated, but part of me - weeps and mourns - because I am a dragonrider and Thread is my enemy."
- it will come again and others will fight it
"Galanath says to leave it to others in our future."
"He's right, of course."
- this is our time to live and we will live in this time and not worry about fighting
"Our time to live. Yes, and we'll live it in the knowledge that we need to pass on an intact Weyr, and strong dragons, clever riders, to those in the future."
"And the Lord Holders and Craftmasters?"
H'ric shrugged as he put the two mugs to one side and leaned back, Jiverny laying her cheek on his shoulder.
"They'll carve Pern up between themselves, lady mine, and spread out over it like a rash, but I hope - I do hope - they'll allow progress in the way the ancients must have meant it to happen. Surely they never meant us to go backwards through pride or ignorance?"
"I'm sure they didn't. That also, Weyrleader, is of the future."
H'ric leaned and kissed her.
"And this is of the present, Weyrwoman, that we are fated to lead Benden Weyr into peace and hopefully into prosperity!"