Robinton nodded, though both he and Nip understood the reluctance of any of the Lord Holders to act – singly or together.
What would it take to force them out of their comfortable – and, they hoped, impregnable – Holds to act? He shuddered. Fax had already committed many offences against the peace of Pern. He shook his head, unable to contemplate the kind of impetus needed. F'lon? No, Fax would enjoy taking him on but Pern needed the Weyrleader's strength and belief as much as Gennell had needed Robinton's in the position of MasterHarper.
"I'll keep my eyes peeled and my ears open," Nip told Robinton, draining the last of his wine and setting the glass down. "i'll borrow your spare room... since you're all alone tonight?"
Robinton chose to ignore the cocky grin and knowing eyes of his roving harper but he wasn't at all surprised that Nip knew that he and Silvina often spent nights together.
"Are you officially running, Nip?" he called out, sitting himself down. He would write Juvana a letter. The MasterHarper was at her disposal if his presence would help.
"Aye, I'll see the letter into Juvana's hands," said Nip, one hand on the door jamb, leaning back into the room. "She'll like to hear from you."
Not much escaped Nip at all.
Not much seemed to be escaping Fax's greed either, Robinton thought. And though he heard that Tarathel had sent protests to Fax over the minor holdings – Ogren and Lewis – that had come so for-tuitously under Fax's control, that was the end of the matter.
Except that it wasn't. Before Turn's End, Melongel succumbed to one of the fevers so prevalent in the winters at Tillek Hold.
Robinton immediately sent for F'lon and the two went to Tillek Hold to comfort Juvana. It was hard for Robinton since Kasia's spirit was still vivid in his mind in this place but he tried not to remember, concentrating his mind, and heart, on Juvana, and her grieving children.
"Did you hear that Melongel's... fall... might not have been accidental?" Groghe murmured to Robinton as they followed those carrying Melongel's body to the Northern Maid.
"I did. Do you concur?"
"It's all a bit too convenient, isn't it? A previously sound, sure-footed animal going into convulsions and rolling on its rider?" Groghe snorted. "Runner-beasts don't eat lur-weed and holders clean it out of their fields whenever it sprouts. So someone would have had to put it in the animal's manger on purpose."
Robinton nodded agreement and then had to take his place with Minnarden on the prow of the ship to harp Melongel to his last resting place. When the last harp note was whipped by the breeze, as Melongel's body slid into the sea, he must have only thought he heard another harp's last dissonant strum.
He bowed his head and others respected his solitude.
During the next Turn, Robinton kept wondering what would happen next. Fax made no further obvious moves to extend his holdings. Not that Nip, or Robinton, trusted him. Oterel, confirmed at the Conclave following his father's funeral, enlarged the guard posts along his borders. That had been Nip's advice, filtered through Robinton. The MasterHarper also recommended that Oterel make as many tours of his border with the High Reaches as he could to reinforce the determination of his folk. Since most of the border holders, like Chochol, had succoured refugees from Fax's initial expansion, they were only too eager to comply.
In the spring of that Turn Silvina informed him that she was pregnant with his child.
"I will espouse you," he began.
"Oh no, you won't, because I do not care to be the spouse of the MasterHarper of Pern."
"What?" Robinton tried to pull her into his arms, but she stepped back, her expression severe.
"I am ... very fond of you, Rob. We suit each other ... in an informal arrangement. But I will not espouse you." She shook her head for emphasis. Then, taking pity on him, she approached, putting a gentle hand on his arm. "Kasia ... is the name you call at night ... and she is still your spouse. I will not compete with a ... dead woman." Then she shook herself and smiled kindly at him.
"You will be a good father, Rob, and the child will lack for nothing between us."
He argued off and on, especially when he caught her being sick in the mornings, but she was adamant. She supported her argument with instances from Betrice's life with Gennell.
"You love the Harper Hall more than you could possibly love ... another woman. It might have been different if Kasia had lived, but I think not," Silvina said in her down-to-earth manner. "My mother loved harpers, all harpers. I think I have inherited this fatal tendency. I do care for you, Rob ..."
"As you've often shown." He grinned affectionately at her, finally beginning to see what she meant by her insistence on independence.
"As you know, but I'd rather not be tied. I don't really think I'm cut out for sexual loyalty." She gave him a very wicked grin. "There are so many of you to love!"
That he knew of no others with whom she had formed any sort of relationship was immaterial.
So he made sure everyone in the Hall and Hold knew that he acknowledged the unborn child and that Silvina had his affection and support. And, as often as he could manage in his myriad duties, he spent time with her.
When he told F'lon, the Weyrleader was delighted, and asked how many lullabies he had composed. Kasia was not mentioned and, for once tactful, F'lon asked if there would be an espousal, too?
"No." Robinton made a rueful face. "I asked and she refused." F'lon regarded him for a long, thoughtful moment. "I give her full marks for her wisdom. You'll make a loving father but a terrible spouse. Think of all the... ah...friendships you'd have to forgo!"
Robinton managed a creditable laugh. There was no sense in denying the fact to F'lon that Robinton was enthusiastically welcomed by many holder girls for the pleasure he gave above and beyond the music he played.
Robinton tried to stay in the Hall as much as he could towards the end of Silvina's pregnancy. The winter was a stormy one and so there were few calls on him to mediate. He taught more classes than he had for many months and was pleased with the way the boys would work for him. The elaborate music of his father had to be put aside since there were no coloraturas available, though he managed to get Halanna to come and sing at Turn's End, reworking a ballad so he could sing with her. Once again he tried to entice her back to the Hall, even offering her a Mastery, but she turned him down.
"What? Live in this cold all the time? I think not, Rob, though it's kind of you to offer me the post and the honours."
"The Harper Hall will get the reputation that girls, and women, are not wanted here," he said, continuing his argument.
She only smiled. "If my daughter is at all musically inclined, I'll send her to you, I promise."
"Even if she isn't?" Robinton asked, pleading.
"You!" and Halanna left him with that ambiguous remark.
In the middle of a blizzard Silvina was delivered of a fine big boy in due course, and Robinton was besotted with the infant at first sight of him. If Silvina seemed unusually subdued, he at first put it down to the rigours of the final month of pregnancy and the delivery. Then he began to realize that this infant was unusually quiet, sleeping and eating fitfully, and only occasionally wailing in a thin, petulant way.
All right, Silvina, what's wrong with him?" Robinton asked, as the baby briefly waved his fat arms and then sank into unwinking silence.
She gave a long, sad sigh. "The cord was around his neck when he was born. Ginia said he didn't get enough air to breathe normally."
Robinton stared at her, disbelief foremost even as he admitted to himself the hideous fact that this child of his was obviously not normal.