"Jaxom's training is Lytol's responsibility and we've no complaints on that score. As far as Ruth is concerned, I'd say that he too falls under N'ton's jurisdiction. How long has this been going on, Jaxom?"
"Not that long, sir. I asked N'ton because… well…" Here Jaxom's conscience interfered with his glibness. Above all else, Lessa must not think he had any part in returning that blasted egg.
F'lar rescued him. "Because Ruth is a dragon, and dragons ought to fight Thread with firestone? Right?" He shrugged at Lessa. "What did you expect? He's Ruathan-blooded, like yourself. Just keep your hide and Ruth's intact."
"We haven't flown in a Threadfall yet," Jaxom admitted realizing as he spoke how much resentment showed in his voice.
F'lar gave him a friendly clout on the shoulder.
"He's a sound lad, Lessa, stop glowering. If he's singed himself once, he's less likely to risk doing so again. Was Ruth hurt?"
"Yes!" The anguish of that experience was plain in Jaxom's admission.
F'lar gave a laugh and waggled a finger at Lessa, who was still glaring at Jaxom. "There! That's the best deterrent in the world. Ruth wasn't badly hurt, was he? I can't say I've seen you that often recently…" F'lar turned toward the killing ground as if conjuring up the white dragon.
"No," Jaxom said quickly and F'lar grinned again at the relief in his reply. "It's well healed. You can barely see the scar. On his left thigh."
"I can't say that I like all this," Lessa said.
"We would have asked you, Weyrwoman," Jaxom began, not entirely truthful, "but there was so much trouble just then.…"
"Well. .." she began.
"Well," echoed F'lar, "it really isn't up to you, Lessa, but you do understand, Jaxom, how awkward it would be for you to be seriously hurt right now. We can't afford to have a major Hold in contention."
"I appreciate that, sir."
"Nor, I'm afraid, is it wise to press your confirmation as Lord Holder-"
"I don't want Lytol to have to step down, sir. Not ever."
"Your loyalty does you credit but I really can understand and appreciate your ambiguous position. It's never easy to be patient, my friend, but patience can be rewarding."
Again Jaxom was embarrassed by the look that Lessa and F'lar exchanged.
"And," the Weyrleader continued more briskly, as if he realized Jaxom's discomfiture, "you've already proved your resourcefulness today, though, believe me, had I known you to be so thorough, I'd have been more explicit in my instructions." F'lar's expression was severe but Jaxom found himself grinning in relief. "Twenty-five Turns timing it…" The Weyrleader was both appalled and impressed. Lessa gave a snort.
"It was your jumps, Lessa, that first gave me the notion," Jaxom said, and when he saw her startled expression, explained: "Remember, you came forward in twenty-five Turn jumps when you brought the Oldtimers forward. So I thought it likely that D'ram would go back that interval. It left him time enough before the Pass started so he wouldn't have to worry about Thread."
F'lar nodded approvingly, and Lessa appeared somewhat mollified.
Ramoth turned her head toward the entrance.
"Your meal is coming," Lessa said, smiling. "No more talk till you've eaten. Ruth's way ahead of you, just brought down his third wherry, Ramoth says."
"Don't worry about a bird or three or four," F'lar said, for Jaxom had winced at this report of Ruth's greed. "The Weyr can support the meal."
Menolly entered, breathing heavily from the climb and, to judge by the beads of perspiration on her brow, her haste. When Lessa exclaimed that she'd brought enough food to feed a fighting wing, Menolly replied that Manora said it was nearly dinnertime and they might as well all eat in the weyr.
If anyone had told Jaxom that morning that he'd enjoy a comfortable diner with the Benden Weyrleaders, he'd have told them to open their glow baskets. Despite the reassurances of Mnementh and Ramoth that were conveyed to him, he wouldn't sit still and eat until he'd checked on Ruth. So Lessa permitted him to walk to the ledge and see the white dragon grooming himself by the lake. When Jaxom resumed his place at the table, he found himself shaking, and he applied himself to the roast meats to restore his energy.
"Tell me again what those fire-lizards said about men," F'lar asked when they were relaxing around the table.
"You can't always get fire-lizards to explain," Menolly said, glancing first at Jaxom to see if he wished to answer. "They got so excited when Ruth asked them if they remembered men that their images made no sense. Actually," Menolly paused, drawing her brows together in concentration, "the images were so varied that you didn't see much."
"Why would their images be varied?" Lessa asked, interested in spite of her present antagonism to fire-lizards.
"Generally a group will come up with one specific image…"
Jaxom inhaled wearily: she couldn't be foolish enough to mention the egg pictures.
"They echoed Canth's fall from the Red Star. My friends will often come back with rather good images, I think each reinforcing the other, of places they've been."
"Men!" F'lar said thoughtfully. "They could mean men elsewhere in the South. It is a vast continent."
"F'lar!" Lessa's voice was sharp and warning. "You are not exploring the Southern Continent. And, might I suggest that if there were men there, somewhere, they would certainly have ventured far enough north to be seen at some stage or another by F'nor when he was south, or by Toric's groups. There would have been signs of them other than the unreliable recollections of some fire-lizards."
"You're quite likely correct, Lessa," F'lar said, looking so disappointed that Jaxom realized for the first time that being Benden's Weyrleader and First Dragonrider of Pern might not be as enviable a position as he'd previously assumed.
So often lately he'd come to realize that things were not as they seemed. There were hidden facets to everything. You'd think you had what you wanted in your grasp and, when you looked closely, it wasn't what it had seemed to be from a distance. Like teaching your dragon to chew firestone-and getting caught at it, in one sense, as he had. Now he had to train earnestly with N'ton's weyrlings, which was fine as far as it went but it didn't go far enough to please Jaxom-flying high in a Fort Weyr wing so his holders wouldn't even know he was there!
"The problem is, Jaxom, that we," F'lar indicated Lessa, himself and the entire Weyr, "have other plans for the South-before the Lord Holders start parceling it out to their younger sons." He brushed his hair back from his face. "We learned a lesson from the Oldtimers, a valuable one. And I know what happens to a Weyr in a long Interval." F'lar grinned broadly at Jaxom. "We've been mighty busy protecting land by seeding the grubs. By the next Pass of the Red Star, all the Northern Continent," and the Weyrleader's gesture was wide, "will be seeded. And safe at least from Thread burrowing. If the Holds thought dragonriders were superfluous before, they certainly will have more cause then."
"People always feel better seeing dragons flame Thread," Jaxom said hastily, from a sense of loyalty although, from the expression on F'lar's face, the Weyrleader didn't seem to be in need of any reassurance.
"True, but I'd prefer it if the Weyrs no longer needed the bounty of the Holds. If we had land enough of our own…"
"You want the South!"
"Not all of it."
"Just the best part of it," said Lessa firmly.
CHAPTER XI
Late Morning at Benden Weyr, Early Morning at Harpercraft Hall, Midday at Rdello's Hold, 15.7.5
JAXOM AND RUTH SPENT the night in an empty weyr, but Ruth felt sufficiently uneasy in a full-sized dragon bed that Jaxom bundled his furs and curled up against his mount. Jaxom was conscious of having to pull himself out of a soft, black enfolding pit from which he was loath to move.