The three women grinned at each other, for the entire Hold knew how devoted the couple were to each other: enough so that thinly disguised love ballads about their adoration circulated Pern.
“With all the talent available on this continent, it isn’t as if Petiron had to breed a choir,” Ginia said, rising.
Briskly the women changed the bedding for fresh, Merelan barely stirring as they did so, the baby clinging tightly to her. When Ginia and Betrice felt they could leave her safely in Sirrie’s care, she was asleep, but looking far less pallid.
“Tell you one thing,” Betrice confided in the healer, “she won’t be all that pleased having just one baby.”
“Then we’ll see that she fosters others. It’s far better for a child to have siblings than not, especially the way Merelan’s going to dote on that boy. Keep that in mind next year. That is, if she continues to pick up strength.”
Betrice gave a snort. “She’d better. I’ve a reputation to keep.” “Haven’t we all!”
It was Petiron who objected to his spouse fostering the children of others. He found it hard enough to share her with their son, and he didn’t believe other fathers and mothers when they informed him that young Robinton – for that was what they had named him, in memory of Merelan’s father, Roblyn – was a good child and very undemanding.
“I always thought Petiron a generous man,” Betrice told her spouse, MasterHarper Gennell.
“Why have you changed your mind?” Gennell asked with mild surprise.
She paused, pursing her lips – she was not much of a tattler. “I’d
say he was jealous of the time Merelan spends with Robie.” “Really?”
“Not that it’s much, for I think she’s aware of his resentment and does her best to ease it all. But young Mardy’s had another child for all I warned her not to, with her third not yet a full Turn old’ -Betrice sighed with exasperation – “and Merelan could help … if
Petiron weren’t so set against it.”
“Young Robinton’s what?”
“A full Turn next Third Day and already walking, stout as you please. Tending one in a cradle during the day to give Mardy a hand wouldn’t be troublesome. Robie’s no trouble and as sweet as his mother.” Betrice beamed with an almost maternal pride.
“Leave it for now, Betrice,” Gennell said. “There’s all this excitement over Petiron’s new Moreta Cantata at TurnOver, with Merelan as the major soloist.”
“I can’t say I like her working so hard at it, though, Gen, and that’s the truth, for she isn’t fully recovered from such a difficult birth …”
Gennell patted his spouse’s capable hand. “Petiron wrote the music for her, and there isn’t another soprano with her range in all Pern. I can quite understand how he’d be jealous of anyone taking up too much of her time.”
“Unless it’s himself doing it, you mean.”
“There’s more than one way to accomplish the same purpose, you know.” He caught and held her eyes and smiled.
“At it again, are you?” Betrice said with no heat and some affection.
Gennell was not MasterHarper of Pern just for his expertise on every instrument in the Hall.
“No,” he replied cheerfully, “but I’ll get at it on this matter now that you’ve been good enough to point it out to me. Petiron’s a good sort, you know. And he really does love the boy.”
Betrice firmed her lips together. “Loves him, does he?”
“You doubt it?”
She regarded her spouse critically. “I do.” She curled her hand around his arm. “But then I have you as an example. You were as eager to tend the first of our five as the last, and they have certainly turned out well. Oh, Petiron looks in the cot now and then, or at the child when he’s toddling in the yard, but only if you remind him that he’s fathered a son.”
Gennell picked at his lower lip and began to nod. “Yes, I believe I see what you mean. But I don’t think loading Merelan with Mardy’s latest is going to remedy a fatherly absentmindedness -especially as Petiron’s so involved in the TurnOver rehearsals.”