“Go quickly, woman. Lady Gemma is before her time.” He was frowning with concern. The drudge caught the other arm and pulled the old woman past the guards and to the stairway.
F’lar stood watching until they disappeared into the upper level.
Then he made his way to the riders’ table, where he spoke quietly to F’nor and the rider Robinton recognized as bronze Pianth’s rider, K’net.
Robinton would have given anything to sit, or to have a piece of the trimmed bread which lay in a bowl two strides from him on the guards’ table. He noticed that the other two guards were surreptitiously shifting their feet and easing their shoulders.
The waiting continued. Nothing could be heard from the upper level, but there were sounds of weeping and scufflings rising from the kitchen: no doubt the Warder rewarding the drudges for their efforts.
Then suddenly there was a screeching, and one of the women came running out of the upper hall and paused briefly at the top.
“She’s dead … dead … dead …” Her cry reverberated down the staircase and through the Hall, causing yet more crawlers to be loosened from their strands.
“Dead?” Fax whirled, watching the woman’s hysterical progress down the stairs.
“Oh, dead, dead, poor Gemma. Oh, Lord Fax, we did all we could, but the journey …” She ran to where Fax was sitting.
Casually, Fax slapped her and she fell sobbing in a heap at his feet.
Robinton saw F’lar reach for his dagger hilt. Women in the Weyr were rarely treated in such a harsh manner. It would definitely go against a dragonrider’s grain. Robinton tightened his hands into fists, willing the bronze rider to relax.
The men were muttering, not all of them as happy to hear such news about their Lady as their Lord, who was decidedly pleased.
“The child lives,” cried a voice from the top of the stairs, and there was the drudge who had gone for the birthing woman. “It is male.” Her voice was rough with anger and, perhaps, hatred.
Robinton was astonished to recognize the two emotions. Fax was on his feet, kicking aside the weeping woman, scowling viciously at the drudge. “What are you saying, woman’?.”
“The child lives. It is male,” she repeated in a firm voice, belying her apparent age.
Incredulity and rage suffused Fax’s face. The Warder’s men stifled their cheers.
“Ruatha has a new lord,” the astonishing drudge continued, making her way down the stairs.
The dragons roared.
The drudge’s eyes appeared to be focused on Fax as she made her way down the stairs. Robinton was altogether astonished at her sudden, assertive behaviour, as well as the robust quality of her voice. She even seemed oblivious to the roar of the dragons outside.
She didn’t see her danger, as Robinton certainly did, when Fax erupted into action, leaping across the intervening space, bellowing denials of her news. Before the drudge could realize his intent, his fist crashed across her face. She was swept off her feet and off the steps, and fell heavily to the stone floor where she lay motionless, a bundle of dirty rags.
“Hold, Fax!” F’lar cried as the Lord of the High Reaches lifted his foot to kick the unconscious body.
Robinton had started forward too, but caught himself before he inadvertently dropped out of disguise.
Fax whirled, his hand closing on his knife hilt.
“It was heard and witnessed, Fax,” F’lar cautioned him, one hand outstretched, “by dragonmen. Stand by your sworn and witnessed oath!”
In spite of himself, Robinton shook his head at such a challenge, made to Fax of all people.
“Witnessed`?. By dragonmen,?,” cried Fax. He gave a derisive laugh, his eyes blazing with contempt, one sweeping gesture of scorn dismissing them all -just as he had dismissed the Lord Holders and Masters in the Hall at Nabol “Dragonwomen, you me an. “
But he took a backward step as the dragonrider moved forward, knife in hand.
Dragonwomen?.” F’lar queried, his voice dangerously soft.
Glowlight flickered off his circling blade as he advanced on Fax.
That’s right, F’lar, Robinton thought, remembering another scene all too vividly. But this young man had his temper well in hand, unlike his father, and he had the same lean, powerful build the younger F’lon had possessed.