“For decent foodstuffs, my Lord,” he quavered.
Robinton felt a sudden ripple, like an odd push at his mind.
“The day one of my Holds cannot support itself or the visit of its rightful overlord, I shall renounce it.”
The Lady Gemma gasped, and Robinton wondered if she had felt the same remarkable ripple he did. As if confirming that, the dragons roared. And Robinton felt the surge of… something.
F’lar felt it too, the MasterHarper thought, for he sought his half-brother’s eyes and saw F’nor’s almost imperceptible nod … and those of the other wingriders.
“What’s wrong, Dragonman?” snapped Fax.
Robinton admired the way in which F’lar affected no concern, stretching his long legs and assuming an indolent posture in the heavy chair
“Wrong?” He had a voice like F’lon’s, a good baritone with flexible intonations. Robinton wondered if the man could sing.
“The dragons!” Fax said.
“Oh, nothing. They often roar… at the sunset, at a flock of passing wherries, at mealtimes.” F’lar smiled amiably at Fax. His
tablemate, however, was not so sanguine and gave a squeak.
“Mealtimes? Have they not been fed?” “Oh, yes, five days ago.”
“Oh. Five… days ago? And are they hungry… now?” Her voice trailed into a whisper of fear, and her eyes grew round.
“In a few days,” F’lar assured her. Robinton watched him scan the Hall with a good appearance of detached amusement. “You mount a guard?” he asked Fax casually.
“Double at Ruatha Hold,” Fax replied in a right, hard voice.
“Here?” F’lar all but laughed, gesturing around the sadly unkempt chamber. “Here!” Fax changed the subject with a roar. “Food!”
Five drudges staggered in under the weight of the roast herd-beast.
The aroma that reached Robinton’s nostrils had not improved in the short while since he had left the kitchen courtyard.
The odour of singed bone was most prevalent. And there was the Warder, sharpening his tools for carving.
Robinton was not the only one to see Lady Gemma catch her breath, her hands curling tightly around the armrests.
The drudges returned with wooden trays of bread; burned crusts had been scraped and cut from the loaves. As other trays were borne in by the drudges and passed before Lady Gemma, Robinton could see her expression turning to unmistakable nausea. Then he saw her convulsive clutch at the armrest and realized that the food was not the principal problem. He saw F’lar lean towards her to say something, but she stopped him with an imperceptible shake of her head, closing her eyes and trying to mask the shudder that ran down her body.
The poor woman looked to be going into labour, Robinton thought.
The Warder, with shaking hands, was now presenting Fax with a plate of the sliced meats … the more edible-looking portions.
“You call this food? You call this food?” Fax bellowed. More crawlers were shaken from their webs as the sound of his voice shattered fragile strands. “Slop. Slop.” And he threw the plate at the Warder.
“It’s all we had on such short notice,” the Warder squealed, bloody juices streaking down his cheeks. Fax threw his goblet at him, and the wine went streaming down the man’s chest. The steaming dish of roots followed; the Warder yelped in pain as the hot liquid splashed over him.
“My Lord, my Lord, had I but known!”
Robinton felt a repeat of the powerful ripple, and thought it was triumphant.
“Obviously, Ruatha cannot support the visit of its Lord.” F’lar’s voice rang out. “You must renounce it.”
Robinton stared at the dragonrider. Everyone else did, too. The MasterHarper also caught the sudden blinking of F’lar’s eyes, as if the bronze rider had astonished himself as well. But F’lar straightened his shoulders and regarded Fax in the silence that fell over the Hall, broken only by the splat of crawlers and the drip of the root liquid from the Warder’s shoulders to the rushes on the floor. The grating of Fax’s boot heel was clearly audible as he swung slowly around to face the bronze rider. From his vantage point, Robinton could see F’nor rise with hand on dagger hilt. It was all he could do not to gesture for F’nor to stay seated, to take his hand off the knife.