Although Menolly had not had far to walk on the sands, the heat had quickly penetrated the soles of her slippers. Her discomfort was acute by the time she stepped onto the cooler earth of the Bowl. She edged to one side of the entrance and sank down, her fire lizards grouping themselves about her while she waited for the pain to subside.
As everyone was on the kitchen cavern side of the Bowl, no one noticed her, for which she was grateful since she felt useless and foolish. It would be a long walk across the Bowl to the kitchens. Well, she’d just take it in small sections.
She heard the faint cries of the herdbeasts at the farthest end of the Bowl valley and saw Ramoth hover—
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ing for a kill. The weyrwomen had said that Ramoth hadn’t eaten for the past ten days, which was partly the cause of her irascible temper.
By the lakeside, hatchlings were being fed and bathed, and their riders shown how to oil the fragile skin. Their white tunics stood out among the gleaming green, blue, brown and bronze hides. The little queen was slightly removed from the others, with two of the bronze dragons in attendance. She couldn’t see where the white dragon was.
On the weyr ledges dotting the Bowl’s face, some dragons were curled in what remained of the afternoon sun. Above and to the left of her, Menolly saw great bronze Mnementh on the ledge of the queen’s weyr. He was seated on his haunches, watching his mate choose her meal. Menolly saw him move slightly, glancing over his left shoulder. Then Menolly caught a glimpse of a man’s head as he descended the stairs from the queen’s weyr.
Felena’s voice, raised above the conversational babble, brought Menolly’s gaze back to the kitchen cavern where tables were being erected for the evening’s feasting. The dragonriders were doing it, for the bright colors of their best tunics were conspicuous, moving about while the soberer colors of Holder and Craft seemed to stay in stationary clumps at a polite distance from the workers.
The man had reached the Bowl floor now from the queen’s weyr, and Menolly idly watched him start across. Auntie One and Two came sweeping down to her, chittering about something that had excited them and ducking their heads at her for reassurance. They needed to be oiled, and she felt guilty for not taking better care of them.
“Do you have two greens?” asked an amused voice, and the tall man was standing in front of her, his eyes friendly and interested.
*Tes, they’re mine,” she said and held up Two for
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him to inspect, responding to the kindness and good humor in his long face. “They like their eye ridges scratched, gently, like this,” she added, showing him.
He dropped to one knee in the sand and obligingly caressed Two, who crooned and closed her eyelids in appreciation. Auntie One whistled at Menolly for attention, digging a jealous1 claw into her hand.
“Stop that, you naughty creature.”
Beauty roused, and Rocky and Diver reacted as well, aH three scolding Auntie One so fiercely that she took flight.
“Don’t tell me the queen and the two browns are yours as well?” the man asked, startled.
“I’m afraid so.”
‘Then you must be Menolly,” he said, rising to his feet and making such an elaborate bow that she blushed. “Lessa has just told me that I may have two eggs of that clutch you discovered. I’m rather partial to browns, you know, though I wouldn’t actually object to a bronze. Of course the greens, like this lady here,” and he smiled such a winning smile to the watching Two that she crooned responsively, “are such delicate darlings. That doesn’t mean that I would object to a blue, however.”
“Don’t you want the queen?”
“Ah, now that would be greedy of me, wouldn’t it?” He rubbed his face thoughtfully and gave her a wry half-smile. “All things considered, though, I’d be heartily embarrassed if Sebellmy Journeyman is to have possession of the other eggsecured a queen instead. But …” and he threw his long figured hand upwards to signify his submission to chance. “Are you waiting here for some purpose? Or is the confusion on the other side of the Bowl too much for all your friends?”