"It has only to hold!" Alessan's words were half threat, half entreaty.
"It will!" Moreta's calm assurance elicited a quick disbelieving glare from Alessan, who remained taut with suspense until the winners passed the post. "It did!"
"Are you sure?"
"Certainly. The poles are parallel to this vantage point. You've a winner! Did you breed it yourself?"
"Yes, yes, I did. And it did win!" He seemed to need her confirmation of his achievement.
"It certainly did. A very respectable two lengths the winner or I miss my mark. And I don't miss in racing. To your winner then!" She raised her goblet to his.
"My winner!" His voice was curiously fierce, and the light in his eyes became more defiant than triumphant.
"I'll come with you to the finish," she suggested, noticing that the sprinters were finally pulling up in the stubble.
"I can savor this moment just as fully in your company," he said unexpectedly. "And with no inhibitions," he added with a grin. "Dag's there. He's my herdsman, and this is as much his victory as it is mine. I won't detract from his moment. Then, too, it would be highly inappropriate for the Gathering Lord Holder to caper about like a fool over a mere sprint win."
Moreta found his admission of unlordly glee rather charming. "Surely this isn't your first winner?"
"Actually, it is." He was searching the enclosure and suddenly beckoned peremptorily at a servitor, signaling for more wine. "Breeding for special traits was the project Lord Leef assigned me eight Turns ago." Alessan went on in a more conversational tone though his voice still carried an edge. "A well-established Pernese tradition is breeding."
"Eight Turns ago?" Moreta gave Alessan a long look. "If you've been breeding since then, surely this can't be your first winner?"
"A race, yes. The quality Lord Leef wished me to perpetuate was stamina for long-distance carting, combined with more efficient use of fodder."
"More work out of fewer animals for less food?" Moreta didn't find that hard to believe of the old Lord, but she stared at Alessan with confused respect. "And out of that breeding, you got a sprint racer?"
"Not intentionally." Alessan gave her a rueful smile. "That winner is from a strain of rejects from the original project: tough, hardy, good doers even on poor feed, but small bodied and thin boned. They don't eat much, and everything they consume goes into short spurts of energy-fifty dragon-length sprint distances, to be truthful. Over the ninety-length mark, they're useless. Give 'em half an hour's rest and they can repeat that sort of winning performance. And they live long. It was Dag who saw the sprint potential in the scrubs."
"But, of course, you couldn't race the beasts during your father's lifetime." Moreta started to chuckle at Alessan's deception.
"Hardly." Alessan grinned.
"I imagine that your winnings today-an untried beast in its first race-will be substantial."
"I should hope so. Considering how long Dag and I have succored that wretched creature for just such an occasion as this."
"My sincerest congratulations, Lord Alessan!" Moreta raised her newly filled goblet. "For putting one over on Lord Leef and winning your first race at your first Gather. You're not only devious, you're a menace to racing men."
"Had I known you were such a race enthusiast, I'd've given you odds-"
"Spectator, not speculator. You'll race it next at Fort's Gather?"
"Considering its capability, I could race in the last sprint today and be sure of its winning, but that would not be courteous." The gleam in his eye suggested that if he weren't Lord Holder, he would not have felt any such restraint. "At that, most will assume it a lucky win. Only the one race in it, like as not." Alessan's voice imitated the pitch and inflection of the confirmed racer, querulous and skeptical. "So I shall get it to whatever Gathers we can reach. I like winning. It's a new experience."
His candor surprised her. "Are you sure your sire didn't know what you were about? Lord Leef always struck me as a man who had firm control of everything that occurred in his Hold-in the entire west."
Alessan gave her a long hard look, mulling her remark. "D'you know, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he had found out. We, Dag and I, took such extraordinary precautions. We thought we'd covered every possibility of discovery." Then Alessan shook his head, chuckling. "You wouldn't believe the lengths to which we went-but you could be right. The old Lord could have known."
"I expect he wouldn't have named you successor on your merits as a breeder alone. What else have you been up to?"
Alessan winked at her. "The Weyr commands my services, Lady, not my secrets."
"I've found one out. Shall I-" Moreta paused, suddenly aware that their laughing exchanges were being closely observed. Why shouldn't she laugh at a Gather? She gave R'limeak a stern glare, and the blue rider looked away.
Noting her change of expression, Alessan glanced about them and swore under his breath. "Not even on a half-built wall in full sight of a Gather!" he said acidly. He swore again as he saw Lord Tolocamp and the women moving purposefully toward the wall.
"Shards!" Moreta said. "I will not have the racing spoiled by chitchat and courtship. Look, we'll be able to see just as well from over there!" She pointed to a slight rise in the field below the roadway. Then she gathered her skirts and started to pick a careful path down the pile of stones waiting to be set into the wall. "And do collect that skin of white wine."
"Be careful, you'll break your neck!" Alessan urgently signaled the servitor to hand over the wineskin, then he was following her before anyone was aware of their intentions.
Rocks shifting under their feet, Moreta and Alessan reached the roadway without mishap, then hurried behind the stalls and down the open field to the rise. When Moreta felt burrs pulling at her full skirts, she bundled them higher.
"No propriety in you at all today." Alessan shook his head at her undignified lope, though he was placing his elegantly booted feet with a care for rough ground.
"This is a Gather. An informal occasion."
"You are not dressed informally." He caught her by the elbow as she tripped. "That gown was not designed for cross-country scrambles. Ah! Here we are"-he came to an abrupt halt, "an unimpeded view of the start and finish lines. Let me fill your goblet."
"Please." Moreta held it up.
"Why didn't I know that the Fort Weyrwoman liked racing enough to desert the forecourt and its pleasures?"
"I've been at all Ruatha's Gathers the past ten Turns-"
"Up there, though." He gestured back to the forecourt.
"Of course, as befits my rank. L'mal didn't like me to roam the picket lines."
"Which was where I generally was." Alessan grinned.
"Learning how to breed winners?"
"Of course not." Alessan feigned shocked innocence. "I was supposed to breed stamina, not speed. My Gather duties were to assist our race-course manager, Norman."
Moreta lifted her goblet again. "To the man who persevered and won the race!"
Alessan was quick-witted and grinned at her subtlety. Their eyes met in a candid gaze. Moreta felt a growing affinity for the new Lord Holder and not only because of their mutual interest in race runners. His mind was unpredictable, certainly not in the pattern of the usual Lord Holder, if she compared him to Tolocamp, Ratoshigan, or Diatis. He was good company, with a fine sense of humor; if he danced as well as he did everything else, she might just monopolize him this evening.