"Why shouldn't they?" N'ton seemed perplexed.
Sebell grinned broadly at his friend. "By the Shell, it worked with you, too! Do you have time to take me to Benden Weyr? Lord Groghe's right. He might be the first though I doubt it, knowing Lord Corman's ways, but he won't be the last."
"What worked with me, Sebell?"
Sebell's grin deepened and his brown eyes danced. "Now I'm well trained not to give away craft secrets, my friend."
N'ton made a noise of disgusted impatience and stopped in the middle of the dusty pavement. "Explain or you don't go."
"It should be so obvious, N'ton. Do think on it. While you take me to Benden. If you haven't figured out what I mean, I'll tell you there. I'll have to inform F'lar what's been done anyhow."
"Lord Groghe, too, eh?" F'lar regarded the two younger men thoughtfully.
He'd just returned from fighting Thread over Keroon and a surprising after-Fall interview with Lord Corman, punctuated with much honking of the Lord's large and perpetually runny nose.
"Threadfall over Keroon today?" Sebell asked and when F'lar grimaced sourly, the young Craftmaster grinned at N'ton. "Lord Groghe wasn't first!"
Giving vent to the irritation he felt, F'lar slapped his riding gauntlets down on the table.
"I apologize for barging in when you must wish to rest, Weyrleader," Sebell said, "but if Lord Groghe has thought of those empty lands to the south, others have, too. He suggested that you'd better be warned."
"Warned, huh?" F'lar brushed the forelock out of his eyes and grimly poured a cup of wine for himself. Recalling courtesy, he poured wine for N'ton and Sebell.
"Sir, the matter's not yet out of hand."
"Hordes of holdless men wanting to swarm south, and it's not out of hand?"
"They have to ask Benden's permission first!"
F'lar was in the act of swallowing wine and nearly choked in surprise.
"Ask Benden's permission? How does that come about?"
"Master Robinton's doing," N'ton said, grinning from ear to ear.
"Excuse me, I don't seem to be following you," F'lar said, sitting down. He dabbed the splattered wine from his lips. "What has Master Robinton, who is, I trust, safely at sea, to do with Groghe, Corman and who knows who else wanting Southern lands for their many sons?"
"Sir, you know that I've been sent about Pern-north and south-by the Masterharper? Lately I've had two important tasks to accomplish above and beyond my normal duties. First I was to take the temper of every small Hold as regarded duty to Hold and Weyr. Secondly I was to reinforce the belief that it is to Benden Weyr everyone on Pern must look!"
F'lar blinked, shook his head as if to clear his mind and then leaned forward to Sebell.
"Go on. This is very interesting."
"Benden Weyr only could appreciate the changes that had occurred to Hold and Craft during the Long Interval, because only Benden had changed with the Turns. You, as Benden Weyrleader, saved Pern from Thread when no one else felt Thread would ever fall again. You also protected your Time from the excesses of those Oldtimers, who could not accept the gradual changes of Hold and Craft. You upheld the rights of Hold and Craft against your own kind and exiled those who would not look to you for leadership.
"Hmm. I hadn't ever heard it put quite like that," F'lar said.
To N'ton's amusement, Benden's Weyrleader squirmed, partly embarrassed but mostly gratified by the summation.
"And so the South became closed off!"
"Not precisely closed off," F'lar said. "Toric's people always came and went." He grimaced at the present repercussions of that liberty.
"They came north, true, but traders or anyone else only went south with the permission of Benden Weyr."
"I don't remember saying that at Telgar Hold the day I fought T'ron!" F'lar struggled to recall clearly what had happened that day other than a wedding, a fight and a Threadfall.
"You didn't actually say so in so many words," Sebell replied, "but you asked for and received the support of three other Weyrleaders, and every Lord Holder and Craftmaster .. ."
"And Master Robinton construed that to mean Benden gives all orders regarding Southern?"
"More or less." Sebell made that admission cautiously.
"But not in so many words, eh, Sebell?" F'lar asked, appreciating afresh the devious mind of the Harper.
"Yes, sir. It seemed the course to take, sir, considering your own wish to secure some part of the Southern Continent for the dragonfolk during the next Interval."
"I'd no idea that Master Robinton had taken a chance remark of mine so much to heart."
"Master Robinton has always had the best interests of the Weyrs clearly in mind."
Grimly F'lar thought of the painful estrangement when the Harper had intervened on the day the egg had been stolen. But again, though it hadn't seemed so at the moment, the Harper had acted in the best interests of Pern. If Lessa had carried out her intention of setting the Northern dragons against the poor old beasts at Southern .. .
"We owe the Masterharper much."
"Without the Weyrs…" Sebell spread his hands wide to indicate that there was no other option.
"Not all the Holds would agree to that," F'lar said. "There is still that notion that the Weyrs do not destroy the Red Star because the end of Thread would mean the end of their dominance in Pern. Or has Master Robinton cleverly changed that notion, too?"
"Master Robinton didn't have to," Sebell said with a grin. "Not after F'nor and Canth tried to go to the Red Star. The notion is Dragonmen must fly/When Threads are in the sky."
"Isn't it current knowledge now," F'lar tried to keep the contempt from his tone, "that the Southerners rarely stirred themselves to fly Thread in the South?"
"That is, as you believe, now known. But, sir, I think you fail to appreciate that it is one thing to think about being holdless in the Fall, and quite another matter to endure it."
"You have?" F'lar asked.
"I have." Sebell's expression was solemn. "I would prefer above all else to be within a Hold." He shrugged his shoulders. "I know that it's a question of changing the habits of my early years, but I definitely prefer to be sheltered during Fall. And to me that will always imply protection by dragons!"
"So, in the final analysis, I've got the problem of Southern right back in my lap?"
"What's the problem with Southern now?" Lessa asked, entering the weyr just then. "I thought it was understood that we have first rights in Southern!"
"That," F'lar chuckled, "does not appear to be in contention. Not at all. Thanks to good Master Robinton."
"Then what is the problem?" She nodded at Sebell and N'ton by way of greeting, then looked sternly at her weyrmate for his answer.
"Only which part of the Southern Continent we'll open to the holdless younger sons of the North before they become a problem in themselves. Corman spoke to me after Fall."
"I saw you two talking. Frankly, I've been wondering when the subject would come up now that we've had to interfere with the Oldtimers again." Lessa loosened her riding belt, and sighed. "I wish I knew more. Has Jaxom done nothing with his time down at the cove?"
Sebell extracted a bulky packet from his tunic. "He has, among others. Perhaps this will ease your mind, Lessa." With an air of quiet triumph, Sebell unfolded the carefully joined leaves of a large chart, portions of which remained white. A clearly defined coastline was occasionally expanded inland with colored and shaded areas. In the margins were dates and the names of those who had surveyed the various sections. The thumb of land pointing at Nerat Tip was completely filled in and familiar to the Weyrleader as Southern Weyr and Hold. On either side of that landmark was an incredible sweep of continent, bounded on the west by the delineation of a great sandy waste on two sides of a huge bay. On the east, ever further from the thumb of Southern, a longer coastline stretched, dipping sharply south, punctuated at its most easterly point by the drawing of a high, symmetrical mountain and a small, starred cove.