The Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey [20]
Fax stared back at F’lar, his face a study of swiftly suppressed emotions, the glint of triumph dominant. F’lar, his face stiff with the forced expression of indifference, was casting swiftly about in his mind. In the name of the Egg, had he lost all sense of discretion?
Pretending utter unconcern, he stabbed some vegetables onto his knife and began to munch on them. As he did so, he noticed F’nor glancing slowly around the Hall, scrutinizing everyone. Abruptly F’lar realized what had happened. Somehow, in making that statement, he, a dragonman, had responded to a covert use of the power. F’lar, the bronze rider, was being put into a position where he would have to fight Fax. Why? For what end? To get Fax to renounce the Hold? Incredible! But there could be only one possible reason for such a turn of events. An exultation as sharp as pain swelled within F’lar. It was all he could do to maintain his pose of bored indifference, all he could do to turn his attention to thwarting Fax, should he press for a duel. A duel would serve no purpose. He, F’lar, had no time to waste on it.
A groan escaped Lady Gemma and broke the eyelocked stance of the two antagonists. Irritated, Fax looked down at her, fist clenched and half-raised to strike her for her temerity at interrupting her lord and master. The contraction that rippled across the swollen belly was as obvious as the woman’s pain. F’lar dared not look toward her, but he wondered if she had deliberately groaned aloud to break the tension.
Incredibly, Fax began to laugh. He threw back his head, showing big, stained teeth, and roared.
“Aye, renounce it, in favor of her issue, if it is male . . . and lives!” he crowed, laughing raucously.
“Heard and witnessed!” F’lar snapped, jumping to his feet and pointing to his riders. They were on their feet in an instant. “Heard and witnessed!” they averred in the traditional manner.
With that movement, everyone began to babble at once in nervous relief. The other women, each reacting in her way to the imminence of birth, called orders to the servants and advice to each other. They converged toward the Lady Gemma, hovering undecidedly out of Fax’s range like silly wherries disturbed from their roosts. It was obvious they were torn between their fear of their Lord and their desire to reach the laboring woman.
He gathered their intentions as well as their reluctance and, still stridently laughing, knocked back his chair. He stepped over it, strode down to the meat stand and stood hacking off pieces with his knife, stuffing them, juice dripping, into his mouth without ceasing to guffaw.
As F’lar bent toward the Lady Gemma to assist her out of her chair, she grabbed his arm urgently. Their eyes met, hers clouded with pain. She pulled him closer.
“He means to kill you, bronze rider. He loves to kill,” she whispered.
“Dragonmen are not easily killed, brave lady. I am grateful to you.”
“I do not want you killed,” she said softly, biting at her lip. “We have so few bronze riders.”
F’lar stared at her, startled. Did she, Fax’s lady, actually believe in the Old Laws? He beckoned to two of the Warder’s men to carry her up into the Hold. He caught Lady Tela by the arm as she fluttered past him in their wake.
“What do you need?”
“Oh, oh,” she exclaimed, her face twisted with panic; she was distractedly wringing her hands. “Water, hot, clean. Cloths. And a birthing-woman. Oh, yes, we must have a birthing-woman.”
F’lar looked about for one of the Hold women, his glance sliding over the first disreputable figure who had started to mop up the spilled food. He signaled instead for the Warder and peremptorily ordered him to send for the birthing-woman. The Warder kicked at the drudge on the floor.
“You . . . you! Whatever your name is, go get her from the crafthold. You must know who she is.”
With a nimbleness at odds with her appearance of extreme age and decrepitude, the drudge evaded the parting kick the Warder aimed in her direction. She