"Aren't we all?"
"They knew, Jaxom, knew before the rest of Pern had any knowledge."
Instinctively they both turned eastward, toward the malevolent Red Star.
"So?" Menolly asked cryptically.
"So? So what?"
"So fire-lizards have memories."
"Ah, leave off, Menolly. You can't ask me to believe that fire-lizards could remember things Man can't?"
"Got another explanation?" Menolly asked belligerently.
"No, but that doesn't mean there isn't one," and Jaxom grinned at her. His smile turned to alarm. "Say, what if some of those fellows up there are from the Southern Hold?"
"I'm not worried. The fire-lizards are outside, for one thing. For another, they can only visualize what they've understood." Menolly chuckled, a habit of hers which Jaxom found a pleasant change from the giggling of Holder girls. "Can you imagine what nonsense someone like T'kul would make of Wansor's equations? Seen through lizard eyes?"
Jaxom's personal recollections of the High Reaches Oldtimer Weyrleader were sparse, but he'd heard enough from Lytol and N'ton to realize that man's mind was closed to anything new. Though nearly six Turns of fending on his own down in the Southern Continent might have broadened his outlook.
"Look, it isn't me alone who's worried," Menolly went on. "Mirrim is, too. And if anyone today understands fire-lizards, it's Mirrim."
"You don't do badly yourself-for a mere Harper."
"Well, thank you, my Lord Holder." She gave him a facetious salute. "Look, will you find out what the fire-lizards are telling Ruth?"
Don't they talk to Mirrim's green dragon?" Jaxom was reluctant to have more to do with fire-lizards at the moment than was absolutely necessary.
"Dragons don't remember things. You know that. But Ruth's different, I've noticed…"
"Very different…"
Menolly caught the sour note in his voice. "What's got your back up today? Or has Lord Groghe been to see Lytol?"
"Lord Groghe? What for?"
Menolly's eyes glinted with devilment and she beckoned him closer, as if anyone were near enough to hear what they'd been saying. "I think Lord Groghe fancies you for that beast-bosomed third daughter of his."
Jaxom groaned in horror.
"Don't worry, Jaxom. Robinton squashed the idea. He wouldn't do you a disservice there. Of course," Menolly glanced at him from the comers of her laughing eyes, "if you have anyone else in mind, now's the time to say so."
Jaxom was furious, not with Menolly but with her news, and it was hard to dissociate tidings and bearer. "The one thing I don't want just now is a wife."
"Oh? Got yourself taken care of?"
"Menolly!"
"Don't look so shocked. We Harpers understand the frailties of human flesh. And you're tall, and nice looking, Jaxom. Lytol's supposed to be giving you instruction in all the arts . .."
"Menolly!"
"Jaxom!" She mimicked his tone perfectly. "Doesn't Lytol ever let you off to have some fun on your own? Or do you just think about it? Honestly, Jaxom," her tone became acerbic and her expression registered impatience with him, "between Robinton, though I love the man, and Lytol, F'lar, Lessa and Fandarel, I think they've turned you into a pale echo of themselves. Where is Jaxom?"
Before he could sort out a suitable answer for her impertinence, she gave him a piercing look through slightly narrowed eyes. "They do say the dragon is the man. Maybe that's why Ruth is so different!"
On that cryptic remark she rose and made her way back to the others.
Jaxom had half a mind to call Ruth and leave if all he was going to get were insults and slights.
"Like a sulky boy!" N'ton's words came back to him. Sighing, he settled back to the grass. No, he would not depart hastily from an awkward scene for the second time that morning. He would not act in an immature fashion. He would not give Menolly the satisfaction of knowing that her provocative comments bothered him at all.
He stared down the river where his dear companion played, and wondered. Why is Ruth different? Is the dragon the man? To be sure, if Ruth were different, he shared it. His birth had been as bizarre as Ruth's Hatching-he from a dead mother's body, Ruth from an eggshell too hard for the half-sized beak to break. Ruth was a dragon, but not weyrbred. He was Lord Holder, but not confirmed so.
Well then, to prove one would be to prove the other and hail the difference!
Don't let anyone catch you giving Ruth firestone! N'ton had said.
Wellaway, that would be his first goal!
CHAPTER IV
Ruatha Hold, Fidello's Hold, and Various Points Between. 15.5.10-15.5.16
OVER THE NEXT few days, Jaxom realized that it was one thing to form the resolution to teach Ruth to chew firestone, and quite another to find the time to do so. It was impossible to contrive a free hour. Jaxom entertained the unworthy thought that perhaps N'ton had tipped his plan to Lytol so that the Warder had consciously found activities to fill his days. As quickly, Jaxom discarded the notion. N'ton was not a treacherous or sly man. On sober examination, Jaxom had to admit that his days had always been fulclass="underline" with Ruth's care first, then lessons. Hold duties and, in past Turns, meetings at other Holders which Lytol felt he must attend-as a silent observer-to extend his knowledge of Hold management Jaxom simply hadn't realized the extent of his involvement until now, when he desperately wanted time to himself which did not have to be explained or arranged in advance.
The other problem which he hadn't seriously considered was that no matter where he and Ruth went, a fire-lizard was sure to appear. Menolly was correct in calling them gossips and be had no wish for them to oversee his unauthorized instruction. He experimented by popping Ruth up to a mountain ledge in the High Reaches which had been a practice ground when he was teaching Ruth to fly between. The area was deserted, barren, without so much as mountain weed peeping up from under the late hard snow. He'd given Ruth directions while they were airborne and, at that particular moment, unaccompanied by fire-lizards. He'd counted no more than twenty-two breaths before Deelan's green and the Hold steward's blue arrived over Ruth's head. They squeaked in astonishment and then began to complain about the location.
Jaxom then tried two more equally unfrequented locations, one in the plains of Keroon and another on a deserted island oft the coast of Tillek. He was followed to both places.
At first he seethed over such surveillance and envisioned himself tackling Lytol on the matter. Common sense urged that Lytol would scarcely have asked either the steward or Deelan to set their creatures on Jaxom. Misplaced zeal! If he tried to tell Deelan straight out, she'd weep and wail, wring her hands and run straight to Lytol. But Brand, the steward, was a different matter. He had come from Telgar Hold two Turns back when the old steward had proved unable to control the lustiness of the fosterlings. Jaxom paused. Now then, Brand would understand the problems of a young man.
So, when Jaxom returned to Ruatha Hold, he found Brand in his office, giving out discipline to some drudges for the depredations of tunnel-snakes in the storage rooms. To Jaxom's astonishment, the drudges were instantly dismissed with the injunction that if they didn't present him with two dead tunnel snake carcasses apiece, they'd do without food for a few days.
Not that Brand had ever been lacking in courtesy to Jaxom, but such prompt attention surprised him, and he required a breath or two before he spoke. Brand waited with all the deference he would show to Lytol or a ranking visitor. With some embarrassment Jaxom remembered his outburst of a few mornings before and wondered. No, Brand wasn't the obsequious type. He had the steady eye, the steady hand, firm mouth and stance that Lytol had often told Jaxom to look for in the trustworthy man.