Robinton had discovered that he could drink the whites all night long and generally rise up from his bed the next morning without a heavy head or sick stomach, but he had to be careful with the reds.
And he dreamed of tasting the sparkling wine that once had been produced at Benden. MasterVintner Wonegal was still trying to reproduce it, but the vine blight of two hundred turns before had wiped out that varietal, and cross-pollinating of the better white grapes had not yet produced an adequate replacement.
The feast was superb. There was roast herd-beast, flavourful with herbs and done to pink, though there were crusty top slices available for those who liked it well done. Wild wherry in quantity, and so tenderized as to slide down the throat with its accompanying stickle-berry gravy. There were also a variety of fish, grilled and baked, with enormous bowls of tubers and vine beans; breads, both flat and raised; and fresh greens which had been grown in tropical Nerat. Fruits, too, and nuts from Lemos. Though most of the candidates had been weyrbred, some had come from nearby Holds, and their families had probably brought offerings. Only two lads had been injured – slightly – when the dragonets lurched out of their shells and looked around, keening, for their mind mates.
And a bronze had hatched first.
"The best omen we could have," F'lon remarked.
"Why is that?" Robinton asked.
"Bronze is the best, of course," F'lon said with a slightly drunken grin on his face. "A bronze first means the clutch is strong, even if not as large as some would have made it. Jora's useless as a Weyrwoman." His tone turned disdainful. "Not only is she afraid of heights but she's nervous with Nemorth, and if S'loner hadn't been helping, she'd've let the queen eat before her mating flight." He snorted in contempt.
"That wouldn't have kept you from edging S'loner out, though," R'gul said, a disapproving frown on his round face.
"Tchaaa!" F'lon waved aside the rebuke. "So he sired me, but bronze riders are all equal in the air at mating time. The queen should have the best available – more to make up for her shortcomings than anything else." And he made another contemptuous noise and unslung the wine-skin from the chair back. "So, Harper Robinton, with what songs will you regale us tonight?" He waved towards the top table. "Everyone's eaten, and let's not have another brawl between our Weyrleader and our Lord Holder."
Robinton got to his feet, his height making him visible to the head table, and he waited until he could catch S'loner's attention.
The Weyrleader had bent his head to listen to something one of the weyr girls was saying: a girl Robinton had noticed himself because of her quiet dignity and gracefulness. S'loner shook his head, and then the girl pointed towards Robinton. Spotting the harper, S'loner raised his right hand to give him the signal to begin the entertainment.
C'gan had been watching too, and he stood, which told the players to gather on the dais.
"I've a few new ones for your ears," Robinton told F'lon, "and a fine march. Enter-the-new-riders sort of thing."
"Great!" F'lon waved a loose arm in command for the music to begin. He was fairly well gone in wine, so Robinton did not take offence.
Looking closely at the head table as he made his way to the players' raised dais, Robinton did not see any signs of an imminent dispute between Leader and Holder. But the two were looking away from each other and neither was talking. It was indeed time for diversion before the silence became unbearable. Jora was still talking to Lady Hayara, who was all but slumped down in her chair with boredom. Now, seeing the harper gathering his instrumental-ists, Hayara sat up straighter and waggled her fingers at him -doubtless from gratitude, unless Jora would talk through music too.
But then Lady Hayara would have a legitimate excuse to request her silence.
Robinton started off with Petiron's march; it had a few feet stamping and some clapping in rhythm, so he was subtly amused that his opinion was now verified. Then he called for the Duty Song, followed closely by the Question Song which he played whenever he could. But this time it was not as well received by either Weyrleader or Lord Holder, and he was almost sorry he had included it.
So he did a solo rendition of one of his newer songs, with C'gan on gitar, and two pipers and the hand drum. The song was appreciated enough to require him to repeat it immediately, and there were many voices lifted in the chorus with him. Riders were not as inhibited as most holders and, whether they had the voice for the song or not, they were lusty in their singing.
C'gan took turns with him and then called forth some of the solo voices. Maizella sang, as did R'yar, who had an excellent light baritone and hadn't forgotten any of his repertoire in his turns as a rider.
Robinton never knew when Lord Maidir and S'loner left the table, for night had fallen and, although there were plenty of glow-baskets on the poles around the Bowl, there were so many coming and going with wine or to answer nature's requirements, and so much for him to oversee as harper, that he noticed their absence only when Lady Hayara rose and left the table, escaping a Jora slumped drunkenly across it.
No one would ever know exactly what did happen that night, but suddenly a piercing scream from Nemorth roused everyone.
Especially when every other dragon voice augmented her heart-rending, piteous scream. It seemed to go on and on, as if none of the dragons need pause for breath. It cut through the night air, worse than any tormented watchwher's cry – a knife to the ears and to the heart. He thought his heart would stop at the anguish which reverberated in the Bowl.
He was by no means the first person to clap hands to his ears to muffle the awful screeching. It was the look of shock on drug-onrider faces that gave Robinton his clue to the tragedy which had just been announced in dragon voice. The entire Weyr was mourning the death of a dragon.
Robinton grabbed C'gan and turned the stricken rider to him.
C'gan's nerveless fingers slipped off the gitar neck as tears sprang from his eyes.
"What is it, C'gan? What's happened?"
Gulping to clear his throat, C'gan turned anguished eyes to the harper. "It's Chendith. He's dead."
"Chendith?" Robinton whirled round, trying to spot S'loner in the crowd of shocked people. He saw F'lon, miraculously sober, running first to T'rell, the Weyrlingmaster, because the keening had aroused the dragonets and T'rell needed help in rounding up the new riders to go and comfort their distressed beasts. Not a young man himself, T'rell looked haggard with grief and staggered as he moved about the tables.
"Dead? Why? How?" Robinton demanded. "He didn't look sick or anything during the Hatching." He lost sight of F'lon, then saw him again, hauling the Weyr's healer into the light.
Then Lady Hayara gave a shriek that pierced through the keen-ing.
"Maidir? Maidir! Where are you?"
It was the watchrider, circling down on his dragon, who told them that he had seen Chendith, with two aboard him, going between. He couldn't see too well in the darkness above the lighted Bowl, but he thought that Chendith's passenger had been Lord Maidir. He'd caught the shine of white hair and the green of the man's garments. Lord Maidir had been wearing green.
"But why? What could have happened to them? S'loner wouldn't take Chendith's life. Nor his own," C'gan said, sunken in despair. "What could have happened? He was in such high spirits over the Impression. And twenty dragons."
They had to try to rouse Jora from her drunken stupor, because Lady Hayara had not seen the two men leave the table.