The turns were punctuated by the usual Solstice and Equinox celebrations, Gathers, the round of duties that was the MasterHarper’s lot. C’gan was a frequent visitor, always welcomed by Robinton. The Weyrsinger usually brought something for Camo – a toy or a confection from the Weyr’s kitchens. He even tried to get Camo to put his fingers right on a pipe and breathe properly through it.
“It’s such a relief to talk to you,” C’gan would say. “You’re the only one else who cares a tunnel snake’s droppings about the Weyr,” he often said during his frequent reminiscences about the “better” days when F’lon had been Weyrleader and the Weyr had still been popular and active. R’gul followed a policy of keeping the Weyr to itself, rarely permitting dragonriders to attend any but Benden’s or Nerat’s Gathers.
“He’s afraid …” C’gan paused to be sure that Robinton was aware of his total disgust, “to annoy the Lord Holders. Especially Nerat and Benden, who tithe as they should – and so does Bitra, when Lord Sifer happens to remember to send any. Raid is charmed by his attitude.” He rolled his eyes.
“How are the sons progressing?” Robinton wished he had more contact with F’lar and F’nor, and not only because they were F’lon’s lads. He could have wished for one of them as his. He had once wished that Camo wouldn’t survive his first Turn, as so often happened to babies. But the child prospered, as much because his mother was so devoted to him, carrying him about with her long after Camo should have been walking independently. It was hard sometimes, Robinton knew – he forced himself to the task – to ask others about the welfare of their children: like prodding a sore spot to be sure it was still tender. So, resolutely, he promised himself that he would go to the next Nerat Gather. He would hope to entice his father to leave Half Circle and meet him there. If C’gan were to drop a hint to the two lads, he could meet them too.
“Grand boys, and F’lar’s got his head screwed on better than F’lon ever did,” C’gan said proudly. “And they believe! They believe! I see that they do. Not that they’d dishonour their father’s memory by forgetting,” he added. Then he sighed. “We’ ve had more losses. I’ve never seen so many empty weyrs and that lazy—’ He closed his lips over whatever he might have called Weyrwoman Jora. “I cannot understand why S’loner thought she’d do. Do nothing, of course. Thread’s coming and even the Weyr is unprepared.” He shook his head sadly.
Robinton wondered too. Over three thousand strong the six Weyrs had been at the end of the last Pass. Now, unless he mis-counted, there were barely three hundred. And not all of them able to fly Thread. Even C’gan was fast approaching an age when he and his Tagath would be considered liabilities to a fighting wing.
The refrain of the Question Song briefly hovered in his mind.
“Gone, gone ahead…” How?
Robinton had more urgent worries than puzzling answers to an old song. His greatest pleasure was in watching Sebell’s development as an apprentice. In another Turn, he’d probably walk the tables.
With distressing regularity, he heard tales of Fax’s mistreatment of his folk, and how few now made their escape. He kept up pressure with the Lord Holders as often and as adroitly as he could. But one could pipe a tune only so long before no one heard it as more than noise.
Nip made reports. Robinton even received a brief note smuggled in from Bargen, repeating the promise to reclaim High Reaches as the legal Bloodline heir.
Then Nip appeared late one night, exhausted from having run most of the last day from Nabol.
“He’s doing … something …” he gasped as he hung on the door into Robinton’s quarters.
The harper got the man into the nearest chair and poured him some wine.
“Clever as sin, he is,” Nip said, after a long pull of the wine. “I didn’t notice they’d disappeared, and then I didn’t know where they could have gone. But half the barracks at Nabol are empty. He