The Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey [423]
Zair stroked his cheek with his soft head. Zair was the best humor-vane a man could have. The fire-lizard knew, with an instinct that outshone his own reliable sense of atmosphere, the emotional climate of those about Robinton.
He wished he could throw off this languor and use the journey time to good effect—catching up on Craft business, on those songs he had in mind to write, on any number of long-delayed projects that the press of immediate concerns had pushed further and further from completion. But Robinton had no ambition at all; he found himself content to lie on the deck of Master Idarolan’s swift ship and do nothing. The Dawn Sister, that’s what Idarolan called her. Pretty name. That reminded him. He must borrow the Fisherman’s far-viewer this evening. There was something odd about those Dawn Sisters. They were visible, higher up than they ought to be, in the sky at dusk as well as dawn. Not that he’d been allowed to be awake at dawn to check. But they were mostly in the sky at sunset. He didn’t think that stars should act that way. He must remember to write Wansor a note.
He felt Zair stir, heard him chirp a pleasant greeting before he heard the soft step behind him. Zair’s mind imagined Menolly.
“Don’t creep up on me,” he said with more testiness than he intended.
“I thought you were asleep!”
“I was. What else do I do all day?” He smiled at her to take the petulance from his words.
Surprisingly, she grinned and offered him a cup of fruit juice, lightly laced with wine. They knew better now than to offer him plain juice.
“You sound better.”
“Sound better? I’m as peevish as an old uncle! You must be heartily tired of my sulks by now!”
She dropped beside him, her hand on his forearm.
“I’m just so glad you’re able to sulk,” she said. Robinton was startled to see the glimmer of tears in her eyes.
“My dear girl,” he began, covering her hand with his.
She laid her head on the low couch, her face turned from him. Zair chirped in concern, his eyes beginning to whirl faster. Beauty erupted into the air above Menolly’s head, chittering in echoed distress. Robinton set down his cup and raised himself on one elbow, leaning solicitously over the girl.
“Menolly, I’m fine. I’ll be up and about any day now, Brekke says.” The Harper permitted himself to stroke her hair. “Don’t cry. Not now!”
“Silly of me, I know. Because you are getting well, and we’ll see to it that you never strain yourself again . . .” Menolly wiped her eyes impatiently with the back of her hand and sniffled.
It was an endearingly childlike action. Her face, now blotchy from crying, was suddenly so vulnerable that Robinton felt his heart give a startling thump. He smiled tenderly at her, stroked tendrils of her hair back from her face. Tilting her chin up, he kissed her cheek. He felt her hand tighten convulsively on his arm, felt her lean into his kiss with an appeal that set both fire-lizards humming.
Perhaps it was that response from their friends, or the fact that he was so startled that caused him to stiffen, but Menolly swiveled away from him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her head bent, her shoulders sagging.
“So, my dear Menolly, am I,” the Harper said as gently as he could. In that instant, he regretted his age, her youth, how much he loved her—the fact that he never could— and the weakness that caused him to admit so much. She turned back to him, her eyes intense with her emotion.
He held up his hand, saw the quick pain in her eyes, as the merest shake of his fingers forestalled all she wanted to say. He sighed, closing his eyes against the pain in her loving eyes. Abruptly he was exhausted by an exchange of understanding that had taken so few moments. As few as at Impression, he thought, and as lasting. He supposed he had always known the dangerous ambivalence of his feelings for the young SeaHold-bred girl whose rare talent he had developed. Ironic that he should be weak enough to admit it, to himself and to her, at such an awkward moment. Obtuse