Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (392 page)

F’lar rapidly brushed crawlers from Lady Gemma who was helpless in the throes of a very strong contraction.

“It’s all we had on such short notice,” the Warder squealed, juices streaking down his cheeks. Fax threw the goblet at him and the wine went streaming down the man’s chest. The steaming dish of roots followed and the man yelped as the hot liquid splashed over him. “My lord, my lord, had I but known!”

“Obviously, Ruatha
cannot
support the visit of its Lord. You must renounce it,” F’lar heard himself saying.

His shock at such words issuing from his mouth was as great as that of everyone else in the Hall. Silence fell, broken by the splat of falling crawlers and the drip of root liquid from the Warder’s shoulders to the rushes. The grating of Fax’s boot-heel was clearly audible as he swung slowly around to face the bronze rider.

* * * *

As F’lar conquered his own amazement and rapidly tried to predict what to do next to mend matters, he saw F’nor rise slowly to his feet, hand on dagger hilt.

“I did not hear you correctly?” Fax asked, his face blank of all expression, his eyes snapping.

Unable to comprehend how he could have uttered such an arrant challenge, F’lar managed to assume a languid pose.

“You did mention,” he drawled, “that if any of your Holds could not support itself and the visit of its rightful overlord, you would renounce it.”

Fax stared back at F’lar, his face a study of swiftly suppressed emotions, the glint of triumph dominant. F’lar, his face stiff with the forced expression of indifference, was casting swiftly about in his mind. In the name of the Egg, had he lost all sense of discretion?

Pretending utter unconcern, he stabbed some vegetables onto his knife and began to munch on them. As he did so, he noticed F’nor glancing slowly around the Hall, scrutinizing everyone. Abruptly F’lar realized what had happened. Somehow, in making that statement, he, a dragonman, had responded to a covert use of the power. F’lar, the bronze rider, was being put into a position where he would have to fight Fax. Why? For what end? To get Fax to renounce the Hold? Incredible! But, there could be only one possible reason for such a turn of events. An exultation as sharp as pain swelled within F’lar. It was all he could do to maintain his pose of bored indifference, all he could do to turn his attention to thwarting Fax, should he press for a duel. A duel would serve no purpose. He, F’lar, had no time to waste on it.

A groan escaped Lady Gemma and broke the eye-locked stance of the two antagonists. Irritated, Fax looked down at her, fist clenched and half-raised to strike her for her temerity in interrupting her lord and master. The contraction that contorted the swollen belly was as obvious as the woman’s pain. F’lar dared not look towards her but he wondered if she had deliberately groaned aloud to break the tension.

Incredibly, Fax began to laugh. He threw back his head, showing big, stained teeth, and roared.

“Aye, renounce it, in favor of her issue, if it is male…and lives!” he crowed, laughing raucously.

“Heard and witnessed!” F’lar snapped, jumping to his feet and pointing to his riders. They were on their feet in the instant. “Heard and witnessed!” they averred in the traditional manner.

With that movement, everyone began to babble at once in nervous relief. The other women, each reacting in her way to the imminence of birth, called orders to the servants and advice to each other. They converged towards Lady Gemma, hovering undecidedly out of Fax’s range, like silly wherries disturbed from their roosts. It was obvious they were torn between their fear of their lord and their desire to reach the laboring woman.

He gathered their intentions as well as their reluctance and, still stridently laughing, knocked back his chair. He stepped over it, strode down to the meatstand and stood hacking off pieces with his knife, stuffing them, juice dripping, into his mouth without ceasing his guffawing.

As F’lar bent towards Lady Gemma to assist her out of her chair, she grabbed his arm urgently. Their eyes met, hers clouded with pain. She pulled him closer.

“He means to kill you, Bronze Rider. He loves to kill,” she whispered.

“Dragonmen are not easily killed, but I am grateful to you,”

“I do not want you killed,” she said, softly, biting at her lip. “We have so few bronze riders.”

F’lar stared at her, startled. Did she, Fax’s lady, actually believe in the Old Laws?

F’lar beckoned to two of the Warder’s men to carry her up into the Hold. He caught Lady Tela by the arm as she fluttered past him.

“What do you need?”

“Oh, oh,” she exclaimed, her face twisted with panic; she was distractedly wringing her hands, “Water, hot. Clean cloths. And a birthing-woman. Oh, yes, we must have a birthing-woman.”

F’lar looked about for one of the Hold women, his glance sliding over the first disreputable figure who had started to mop up the spilled food. He signaled instead for the Warder and peremptorily ordered him to send for the woman. The Warder kicked at the drudge on the floor.

“You…you! Whatever your name is, go get her from the craft-hold. You must know who she is.”

The drudge evaded the parting kick the Warder aimed in her direction with a nimbleness at odds with her appearance of extreme age and decrepitude. She scurried across the Hall and out the kitchen door.

Fax sliced and speared meat, occasionally bursting out with a louder bark of laughter as his inner thoughts amused him. F’lar sauntered down to the carcass and, without waiting for invitation from his host, began to carve neat slices also, beckoning his men over. Fax’s soldiers however, waited until their lord had eaten his fill.

Lord of the Hold, your charge is sure

In thick walls, metal doors and no verdure.

Lessa sped from the Hall to summon the birthing-woman, seething with frustration. So close! So close! How could she come so close and yet fail? Fax should have challenged the dragonman. And the dragonman was strong and young, his face that of a fighter, stem and controlled. He should not have temporized. Was all honor dead in Pern, smothered by green grass?

And why, oh why, had Lady Gemma chosen that precious moment to go into labor? If her groan hadn’t distracted Fax, the fight would have begun and not even Fax, for all his vaunted prowess as a vicious fighter, would have prevailed against a dragonman who had her—Lessa’s—support! The Hold must be secured to its rightful Blood again. Fax must not leave Ruatha, alive, again!

Above her, on the High Tower, the great bronze dragon gave forth a weird croon, his many-faceted eyes sparkling in the gathering darkness.

Unconsciously she silenced him as she would have done the watch-wher. Ah, that watch-wher. He had not come out of his den at her passing. She knew the dragons had been at him. She could hear him gibbering in panic.

The slant of the road toward the crafthold lent impetus to her flying feet and she had to brace herself to a sliding stop at the birthing-woman’s stone threshold. She banged on the closed door and heard the frightened exclamation within.

“A birth. A birth at the Hold,” Lessa cried.

“A birth?” came the muffled cry and the latches were thrown up on the door. “At the Hold?”

“Fax’s lady and, as you love life, hurry! For if it is male, it will be Ruatha’s own lord.”

That ought to fetch her, thought Lessa, and in that instant, the door was flung open by the man of the house. Lessa could see the birthing-woman gathering up her things in haste, piling them into her shawl. Lessa hurried the woman out, up the steep road to the Hold, under the Tower gate, grabbing the woman as she tried to run at the sight of a dragon peering down at her. Lessa drew her into the Court and pushed her, resisting, into the Hall.

The woman clutched at the inner door, balking at the sight of the gathering there. Lord Fax, his feet up on the trestle table, was paring his fingernails with his knife blade, still chuckling. The dragonmen in their wher-hide tunics, were eating quietly at one table while the soldiers were having their turn at the meat.

The bronze rider noticed their entrance and pointed urgently towards the inner Hold. The birthing-woman seemed frozen to the spot. Lessa tugged futilely at her arm, urging her to cross the Hall. To her surprise, the bronze rider strode to them.

“Go quickly, woman, Lady Gemma is before her time,” he said, frowning with concern, gesturing imperatively towards the Hold entrance. He caught her by the shoulder and led her, all unwilling, Lessa tugging away at her other arm.

When they reached the stairs, he relinquished his grip, nodding to Lessa to escort her the rest of the way. Just as they reached the massive inner door, Lessa noticed how sharply the dragonman was looking at them—at her hand, on the birthing-woman’s arm. Warily, she glanced at her hand and saw it, as if it belonged to a stranger: the long fingers, shapely despite dirt and broken nails; her small hand, delicately boned, gracefully placed despite the urgency of the grip. She blurred it and hurried on.

Honor those the dragons heed,

In thought and favor, word and deed.

Worlds are lost or worlds are saved

By those dangers dragon-braved.

Dragonman, avoid excess;

Greed will bring the Weyr distress;

To the ancient Laws adhere,

Prospers thus the Dragonweyr.

An unintelligible ululation raised the waiting men to their feet, startled from private meditations and the diversion of Bonethrows. Only Fax remained unmoved at the alarm, save that the slight sneer, which had settled on his face hours past, deepened to smug satisfaction.

“Dead-ed-ed,” the tidings reverberated down the rocky corridors of the Hold. The weeping lady seemed to erupt out of the passage from the Inner Hold, flying down the steps to sink into an hysterical heap at Fax’s feet. “She’s dead. Lady Gemma is dead. There was too much blood. It was too soon. She was too old to bear more children.”

F’lar couldn’t decide whether the woman was apologizing for, or exulting in, the woman’s death. She certainly couldn’t be criticizing her Lord for placing Lady Gemma in such peril. F’lar, however, was sincerely sorry at Gemma’s passing. She had been a brave, fine woman.

And now, what would be Fax’s next move? F’lar caught F’nor’s identically quizzical glance and shrugged expressively.

“The child lives!” a curiously distorted voice announced, penetrating the rising noise in the Great Hall. The words electrified the atmosphere. Every head slewed round sharply towards the portal to the Inner Hold where the drudge, a totally unexpected messenger, stood poised on the top step.

“It is male!” This announcement rang triumphantly in the still Hall.

Fax jerked himself to his feet, kicking aside the wailer at his feet, scowling ominously at the drudge. “What did you say, woman?”

“The child lives. It is male,” the creature repeated, descending the stairs.

Incredulity and rage suffused Fax’s face. His body seemed to coil up.

“Ruatha has a new lord!” Staring intently at the overlord, she advanced, her mien purposeful, almost menacing.

The tentative cheers of the Warder’s men were drowned by the roaring of the dragons.

Fax erupted into action. He leaped across the intervening space, bellowing. Before Lessa could dodge, his fist crashed down across her face. She fell heavily to the stone floor, where she lay motionless, a bundle of dirty rags.

“Hold, Fax!” F’lar’s voice broke the silence as the Lord of the High Reaches flexed his leg to kick her.

Fax whirled, his hand automatically closing on his knife hilt.

“It was heard and witnessed, Fax,” F’lar cautioned him, one hand outstretched in warning, “by dragonmen. Stand by your sworn and witnessed oath!”

“Witnessed? By dragonmen?” cried Fax with a derisive laugh. “Dragonwomen, you mean,” he sneered, his eyes blazing with contempt, as he made one sweeping gesture of scorn.

He was momentarily taken aback by the speed with which the bronze rider’s knife appeared in his hand.

“Dragonwomen?” F’lar queried, his lips curling back over his teeth, his voice dangerously soft. Glowlight flickered off his circling knife as he advanced on Fax.

“Women! Parasites on Pern. The Weyr power is over. Over!” Fax roared, leaping forward to land in a combat crouch.

The two antagonists were dimly aware of the scurry behind them, of tables pulled roughly aside to give the duelists space. F’lar could spare no glance at the crumpled form of the drudge. Yet he was sure, through and beyond instinct sure, that she was the source of power. He had felt it as she entered the room. The dragons’ roaring confirmed it. If that fall had killed her…He advanced on Fax, leaping high to avoid the slashing blade as Fax unwound from the crouch with a powerful lunge.

F’lar evaded the attack easily, noticing his opponent’s reach, deciding he had a slight advantage there. But not much. Fax had had much more actual hand-to-hand killing experience than had he whose duels had always ended at first blood on the practice floor. F’lar made due note to avoid closing with the burly lord. The man was heavy-chested, dangerous from sheer mass. F’lar must use agility as his weapon, not brute strength.

Fax feinted, testing F’lar for weakness, or indiscretion. The two crouched, facing each other across six feet of space, knife hands weaving, their free hands, spread-fingered, ready to grab.

Again Fax pressed the attack. F’lar allowed him to close, just near enough to dodge away with a back-handed swipe. Fabric ripped under the tip of his knife. He heard Fax snarl. The overlord was faster on his feet than his bulk suggested and F’lar had to dodge a second time, feeling Fax’s knife score his wher-hide jerkin.