The Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey [255]
“Lord Jaxom,” gasped a breathless drudge from the doorway, “Lord Lytol said for you to change to your best. The Hatching’s to start. Oh, sir, do you think Talina has a chance?”
“More than a chance,” Jaxom said, rude with excitement “She’s Ruathan-bred after all. Now get out”
His fingers were clumsy with the fastenings of his trousers and the tunic which had been new for the Telgar wedding. He hadn’t spilled on the fine fabric, but you could still see the greasy fingerprints on the right shoulder where an excited guest had pulled him away from his vantage point on the Telgar Hold steps during the fight.
He shrugged into the cloak, found the second glove under the bed and raced down into the Great Court where the blue dragon waited.
Sight of the blue, however, inevitably reminded Jaxom that Groghe’s eldest son had been given one of the fire-lizard eggs. Lytol had deliberately refused the pair to which Ruatha Hold was entitled. That, too, was a rankling injustice. Jaxom should have had a fire-lizard egg, even if Lytol couldn’t bear to Impress one. Jaxom was Lord of Ruatha and an egg had been his due. Lytol had no right to refuse him that perquisite.
“Be a good day for Ruatha if your Talina Impresses, won’t it?” D’wer, the blue’s rider, greeted him.
“Yes,” Jaxom replied, and he sounded sullen even to himself.
“Cheer up, lad,” D’wer said. “Things could be worse.”
“How?”
D’wer chuckled and, while it offended Jaxom, he couldn’t very well call a dragonman to task.
“Good morning, Trebith,” Jaxom said to the blue, who turned his head, the large eye whirling with color.
They both heard Lytol’s voice, dull-toned but clear as he gave instructions for the day’s work to the stewards.
“For every field that gets scored, we plant two more as long as we can get seed in the ground. There’s plenty of fallow land in the northeast. Move the Holders.”
“But, Lord Lytol . . .”
“Don’t give me the old wail about temporary dwellings. There’ll be temporary eating if we aren’t farsighted, and that’s harder to endure than a draught or two.”
Lytol gave Jaxom a cursory inspection and an absent good morning. The tic started in the Lord Holder’s face the moment he climbed up Trebith’s shoulder to take his seat against the neck ridges. He motioned curtly to his ward to get in front of him and then nodded to D’wer.
The blue dragonman gave a slight smile of response, as if he expected no more notice from Lytol, and suddenly they were aloft. Aloft, with Ruatha’s fire height dwindling below. And between with Jaxom holding his breath against the frightening cold. Then above Benden’s Star Stones, so close to other dragons also winging into the Weyr that Jaxom feared collision at any moment.
“How-how do they know where they are?” he asked D’wer.
The rider grinned at him. “They know. Dragons never collide.” And a shadow of memory crossed D’wer’s usually cheerful face.
Jaxom groaned. How stupid of him to make any reference to the queens’ battle.
“Lad, everything reminds us of that,” the blue rider said.
“Even the dragons are off color. But,” he continued more briskly, “the Impression will help.”
Jaxom hoped so but, pessimistically, he was sure something would go wrong today, too. Then he clutched wildly at D’wer’s riding tunic for it seemed as if they were flying straight into the rock face of the Weyr Bowl. Or worse, despite D’wer’s reassurance, right into the green dragon also veering in that direction.
But suddenly they were inside the wide mouth of the upper entrance, a dark core that led into the immense Hatching Ground. The whir of wings, a concentration of the musty scent of dragons, and then they were poised above the slightly steaming sands, in the great circle theatre with