Traditionally the Lords Holder and the Weyrleaders and the invited heads of the various Professions - met in Conclave the day before Turn’s End - the Winter Solstice - to discuss what matters should be brought to those who would assemble for the festivities. Should a referendum figure on the agenda, its details would have been previously circulated. It would also be read out that evening in every main Hold and Hall. If voting was required, votes were cast the morning of the First Day of Turn’s End, the results counted and returned to the second traditional sitting of the Conclave on the day after Turn’s End, when the New Year started.
The tradition was even more important in this 258th year after Landing with the Pass so imminent. Although Vergerin had been in charge but twenty days before the Conclave, it was obvious that he was taking a firm, but just Hold on Bitra.
He was also working his assistants hard but fairly. None of them had any complaint to register when adroitly queried by their fathers or mothers. Vergerin’s first official act had been to send riders to every single known holding and announce Chalkin’s removal and that as many as could attend Turn’s End at Bitra Hold would be made welcome. Vergerin paid for additional supplies out of his own funds.
(No-one had found Chalkin’s treasury; nor had he taken it with him into exile. Nadona had denied any knowledge of its whereabouts and moaned that he had left her without a mark to her name.) Altering a previously made decision, the Teachers’ College planned now to supply a Turn’s End concert to Bitra. They would bring the copies of the Charter which Vergerin had requested, to be given to each small holder. That would deplete to a few dozen the printed copies left in the College Library, but Clisser felt it to be in a very good cause.
The Turn’s End music featured Sheledon’s ambitious ‘Landing Suite’ - which made mention of the Charter - the audience would have a better understanding of what the music, and indeed, the printed Charter, was all about. Bitran holders would no longer be kept in abysmal ignorance of their Charter-given rights.
Consequently when the Conclave sat, the first order of business was to confirm Vergerin as Lord Holder of Bitra. He was not abjured to train his young relatives, Chalkin’s sons - to succession although he was in conscience bound to see them well taken care of, educated and prepared to make their own living as adults. He was relieved of his promise to forego having legitimate heirs and promptly installed at Bitra a nine-year-old son and a five-year-old daughter. No-one ever knew who their mother had been. Vergerin made it plain that he was interested in acquiring a spouse suitable to hold as his Lady.
Clisser was called on to report on the matter of an indestructible and unambiguous method of confirming a Pass, and said that Kalvi and he had agreed on the mechanism and it would be installed on the eastern face of every Weyr. Kalvi looked suitably smug and nodded wisely, so Paulin allowed himself to be reassured. He wanted no more problems like Chalkin to arise again! Ever! And now was the moment to prevent them.
The matter of a new hold being established and named CROM came up, and there was considerable discussion.
“Look, they are entitled to use their Charter-granted acres, and that amounts to a fair whack of land,” Bastom said, unexpectedly coming down on the side of the applicants. “Let ’em call it a hold.”
“Yes, but they want autonomy and besides, they’re too far from any other Hold up there in the hills,” Azury put in.
“It’ll have to prove it’s self-sufficient,” Tashvi said, looking reluctant to admit that much. Which was understandable since Telgar was also a mining Hold.
“They have to follow the rules, same as everyone else,” Paulin said in a neutral manner. “And supply basic needs to Contract workers.”
“They’re in good shape to do so,” Azury remarked dryly, “what with the profit they can expect from supplying high grade ore at the start of a Pass.”
“Consider them on probation,” was Bridgely’s suggestion, and that was the motion which was carried.
There were a few more minor details to be discussed but these were carried as well. This year there was no referendum to be presented to the population.
“However, I want every one of you to give a fitly report of the trials and Chalkin’s impeachment to the assembled,” Paulin reminded the Lord Holders. “We want the truth circulated and believed: not a mess of rumors.”
“Like the cannibalism!” Bridgely had been highly indignant over that one. “Sadistic Chalkin was, but let’s squash that one now!”
“How under the sun did such a rumor ever get started?” Paulin asked, appalled. S’nan looked in a state of shock, staring incredulous at the Benden Lord Holder.
“The ‘cold storage’, I suspect,” Bridgely said, disgusted.
“We didn’t coin the term,” said Azury with a shrug.
“Well, we don’t want it circulated,” M’shall said angrily. “Bad enough having to live with the facts without having to debunk the fantasies.”
“We do want the swift justice meeted out to the rapists and the murderers to be well publicized, though,” Richud put in.
“That, yes! Speculation, no,” Paulin said. He rose, and tapped the gavel on its block. “I declare this session of the Conclave dismissed. Enjoy Turn’s End and we’ll meet in three days’ time.”
He intended to enjoy every moment of it for the year he’d put in.
He noticed a similar determination on other faces, especially young Gallian’s. Apart from the Chalkin affair, Jamson had no need to fault his son’s management of High Reaches. Though maybe that bit about cannibalism could be whispered in Jamson’s presence. That would certainly alter his opinion about impeachment. Somehow Thea was still ‘ailing’ and had persuaded her spouse to stay on in Ista for Turn’s End. That gave more opportunity for the Chalkin affair to die a natural death.
Turn’s End was a holiday for everyone except for those involved in the ambitious ‘Landing Suite’ debut at all the Weyrs and the major Holds. Clisser was run ragged with rehearsals and last-minute assignments, and understudies for those with winter colds. Then he had the extra burden of preparing for the precise calculations needed to set up the fail-safe mechanism to predict a Pass. Torn between the musical rehearsals and observing the installation of a permanent Thread-Fall warning device, he opted for the latter. Of course, his role was supervisory, as the more precise location had to be conducted by teams of astronomers, engineers and Weyrleaders on the eastern rim of all six establishments. He, Jemmy and Kalvi were to set the mechanism at Benden, the first Weyr to see the phenomenon, then skedaddle on dragon back to each of the other five Weyrs to be sure all went smoothly.
It was imperative that the first installation, at Benden, had to be spot on in case there might be a distortion at any other.
Though Clisser doubted it, not with Kalvi fussing and fussing over the components. Clisser had been over and over the requisite steps to pinpoint the rise of the Red Star. Once that ‘circular eye’ was set on the Rim, they could install the pointer, the finger. But the ‘eye’ had to be spot on! The teams had been in place for the past week, with pre-dawn checks on the Red Planet’s position at dawn. All that was necessary now was a clear morning, and that seemed to be possible across the continent which had enjoyed some bright clear, if wintry, skies. Fine weather was critically important at Benden, for the other Weyrs could take adjusted measurements from that reading if necessary.
Kalvi was still fiddling with the design of what he was calling the Eye Rock, which would bracket the Red Planet at dawn on Winter Solstice. His main problem was adjusting the pointer… the position at a distance from the Eye itself at which the viewer would stand to see the planet. The pointer had to accommodate different physical heights. Old diagrams of Stonehenge and other prehistoric rings had surfaced.