"Since when is your wife public?"
They made their way through the crowd and on to the quiet corner where Robinton and the others were waiting.
"My harpers, too, report resentment from those Holders, Jaxom," Sebell said when Jaxom had finished summarizing the proceedings. "I told Master Robinton and Lytol as much earlier today. And I've every apprentice with any wit whatever keeping his or her ears open here today."
"It's almost a relief to have the dissenters identified," Master Robinton said.
"Is it?" Jaxom asked skeptically. The retelling had depressed him. They had so much to hope for in the future-if only they could get over the pitfalls and trivial machinations of the present.
Sensing his mood, Sharra leaned against her tall husband, and he allowed himself to be comforted. After all, they had voted Ranrel in despite the opposition. The dissenters were few in number, and all of them old.
10
Master Idarolan became legless before anyone else on Lord Ranrel's celebratory day. He rarely imbibed, but having stood to lose the most if Ranrel was not elected, he had been under great stress and evidently had started drinking at his Hall over breakfast and continued all through the long morning until the result of the convocation was announced. Since the Masterfisher was also extremely popular, his uncharacteristic inebriety was kindly ignored. When he lurched over to the courtyard corner where Jaxom, Sharra, Robinton, Sebell, Menolly, and Tagetarl were seated, his gaiety was a welcome change from their gloomy conversation.
"There was no way," Idarolan announced in drunken joviality, "that we fisherfolk would have been happy to keep our Hall here with Blesserel Holding. He'd mortgage us mast, spar, hull, and anchor when we wasn't looking!" His exuberance was so infectious that Jaxom was not the only one to grin at his antics. "I'd've moved me, Hall, Master, journeyman, and apprentice, down to that fine harbor the old maps call Monaco. Yessur, that's what I'd've done had anyone but Ranrel become Holder."
"But Ranrel is Lord Holder, so you don't need to worry now," Robinton assured the Masterfisher. The Harper gestured for Sebell and Jaxom to find the man a stool before his legs buckled. Menolly and Sharra offered him choice portions to eat in the hope of counteracting the wine.
"I won't waste time eating what'll doubtless return on me all too soon," Idarolan said, waving aside the plates. Then he belched and apologized. "Don't mind me, ladies. I'm a relieved man, and I think that's what I'd better do, if you'll pardon the expression. Lord Jaxom..." He leaned at a dangerous angle toward the young Holder, his eyes unfocused. "Before I continue my drinking, would you be good enough to indicate the proper direction?"
Jaxom signaled to Sebell to help, and with both lending Idarolan support, they steered him toward the nearest head, just past the busy kitchens.
"I was fearful worried, I was, my of friends, that that Blesserel would take the honors. We'd be done for then, we would, we decent hardworking fisherfolk," Idarolan rambled on. "I couldn't've borne the waiting sober, could I? So I'd had to take a heartener, or three or four," he added, grinning with a fine appreciation of his present state. "But you know me, lads, I never drink on board. Never. Nor do any of my Masters-them as are on the Crafthall rolls, that is."
Jaxom got him into a stall, Sebell deftly adjusting his clothing. Then they both politely looked away. Idarolan began to sing some sort of a sea song, but though his speech was clear for a man well gone in wine, he couldn't do more than mouth the lyrics in a hoarse bass voice. He took his relief for such a long time that, despite themselves, the two old friends locked eyes in amazement at the older man's bladder capacity. Jaxom's grin became a chuckle, and then Sebell started to laugh. Oblivious to them, Idarolan continued his wild garble.
Then abruptly, the Masterfisher completed his business and sagged between them.
"Oops! Hang on to him," Jaxom said urgently, just managing to throw Idarolan's limp arm across his shoulders as the man started to slide to the paving.
"He is gone, Jaxom, gone," Sebell said, grinning broadly and shaking his head. "It might be kinder to just leave him here to sleep it off."
"Master Robinton would never forgive us. Slip into the kitchen, Sebell, and grab a pot of klah. We'll sober him up. Why should he celebrate only half a day? The best part's still to come." Closing the lid, he eased Idarolan onto the stool, one hand on the Masterfisher's chest to keep the flaccid body from falling.
"Be right back." Sebell slipped out of the stall, carefully closing the door behind him. Jaxom heard his boot scraping on the stone floor, and then the second door opened and closed.
Jaxom rearranged Idarolan into what he felt would be a more comfortable, or at least more manageable, posture, but the man was as slippery as a fish on a deck.
Jaxom adjusted boneless arms and hands on the man's lap, all the while holding his torso upright on the stool. The knees were together and the toes pointing in. Even in the soft court leather boots, Idarolan had big feet, Jaxom noticed for the first time.
Just then the outside door slammed inward, and the brush of footsteps on the flagging indicated the arrival of several men; men shod in leather shoes, not workboots, Jaxom decided, pleased with his power of observation. Wishing to spare Idarolan embarrassment, he quickly leaned forward to slip the bolt of the stall door shut.
"Well, he's not the only heir. He's not even the direct heir," one man was saying.
"We know that," a second man said in a gravelly voice. "His dam was only a third cousin, once removed, of the Blood. But the second cousin's alive, known to be of the Blood, and it's her son we'd support in his place. The lad'd be dead easy to manipulate. Fancies himself as a true Blood."
"Which he is," a lighter voice said.
"Don't forget her son has sons who're in the direct line, even if his mother disqualified him to the succession," the gravel voice said.
Jaxom couldn't figure out who they meant, for there had been no question of Ranrel's lineage. He had his father's light eyes and the rugged features of his maternal grandfather. But the tone of their discussion about this facile rearrangement of sons and true Bloods was distinctly unsettling.
"That doesn't disqualify him," the first man said in disgust.
"He's weyrbred, not holdbred, and a dragonrider, so he can't hold."
"His sons are too young to be considered, even with a warder. No, this local lad will suit the purpose. He only needs encouragement."
"So all we have to do is arrange a convenient accident to bring the Hold into contention again?"
"That's all," the gravel voice said.
"Yes, but how?" the light voice asked.
"He flies Thread, doesn't he? And he goes up to the Dawn Sisters, doesn't he? That's dangerous. We just wait for the right moment and..." He had no need to finish his grisly premise.
Incredulous, Jaxom shook his head. He was aware of a paralytic chill oozing from his guts to his gorge as he realized that the men had to be referring to himself, Lessa, and F'lessan. The "local lad" could only be Pell, for his mother, Barla, was of the direct Ruathan Bloodline.
"I'm not going off good solid earth, I'm not," the second man exclaimed. They were moving away, their business completed.
"You won't have to," the first man said with an icy chuckle. "We've..." And the closing of the door cut off the rest of his sentence.
Jaxom realized that he had been holding his breath and expelled it. He was shaking. Lack of oxygen, he told himself, drawing in deep breaths. Idarolan groaned and began to slide out of a grip Jaxom had inadvertently relaxed.
"C'mon, Sebell. Hurry up!" If only Sebell arrived just at that moment, he would see who had left the head. "C'mon, Sebell!"