F’lon? No, Fax would enjoy taking him on but Pern needed the Weyrleader’s strength and belief as much as Gennell had needed Robinton’s in the position of MasterHarper.
“I’ll keep my eyes peeled and my ears open,” Nip told Robinton, draining the last of his wine and setting the glass down. “i’ll borrow your spare room… since you’re all alone tonight?”
Robinton chose to ignore the cocky grin and knowing eyes of his roving harper but he wasn’t at all surprised that Nip knew that he and Silvina often spent nights together.
“Are you officially running, Nip?” he called out, sitting himself
down. He would write Juvana a letter. The MasterHarper was at her disposal if his presence would help.
“Aye, I’ll see the letter into Juvana’s hands,” said Nip, one hand on the door jamb, leaning back into the room. “She’ll like to hear from you.”
Not much escaped Nip at all.
Not much seemed to be escaping Fax’s greed either, Robinton thought. And though he heard that Tarathel had sent protests to Fax over the minor holdings – Ogren and Lewis – that had come so fortuitously under Fax’s control, that was the end of the matter.
Except that it wasn’t. Before Turn’s End, Melongel succumbed to one of the fevers so prevalent in the winters at Tillek Hold.
Robinton immediately sent for F’lon and the two went to Tillek Hold to comfort Juvana. It was hard for Robinton since Kasia’s spirit was still vivid in his mind in this place but he tried not to remember, concentrating his mind, and heart, on Juvana, and her grieving children.
“Did you hear that Melongel’s… fall… might not have been accidental?” Groghe murmured to Robinton as they followed those
carrying Melongel’s body to the Northern Maid.
“I did. Do you concur?”
“It’s all a bit too convenient, isn’t it? A previously sound, sure-footed animal going into convulsions and rolling on its rider?” Groghe snorted. “Runner-beasts don’t eat lur-weed and holders clean it out of their fields whenever it sprouts. So someone would have had to put it in the animal’s manger on purpose.”
Robinton nodded agreement and then had to take his place with Minnarden on the prow of the ship to harp Melongel to his last resting place. When the last harp note was whipped by the breeze, as Melongel’s body slid into the sea, he must have only thought he heard another harp’s last dissonant strum.
He bowed his head and others respected his solitude.
During the next Turn, Robinton kept wondering what would happen next. Fax made no further obvious moves to extend his holdings. Not that Nip, or Robinton, trusted him. Oterel, confirmed at the Conclave following his father’s funeral, enlarged the guard posts along his borders. That had been Nip’s advice, filtered through Robinton. The MasterHarper also recommended that Oterel make as many tours of his border with the High Reaches as he could to reinforce the determination of his folk. Since most of the border holders, like Chochol, had succoured refugees from Fax’s initial expansion, they were only too eager to comply.
In the spring of that Turn Silvina informed him that she was pregnant with his child.
“I will espouse you,” he began.
“Oh no, you won’t, because I do not care to be the spouse of the MasterHarper of Pern.”
“What?” Robinton tried to pull her into his arms, but she stepped back, her expression severe.
“I am … very fond of you, Rob. We suit each other … in an informal arrangement. But I will not espouse you.” She shook her head for emphasis. Then, taking pity on him, she approached, putting a gentle hand on his arm. “Kasia … is the name you call at night … and she is still your spouse. I will not compete with a …
dead woman.” Then she shook herself and smiled kindly at him.
“You will be a good father, Rob, and the child will lack for nothing between us.”
He argued off and on, especially when he caught her being sick in the mornings, but she was adamant. She supported her argument with instances from Betrice’s life with Gennell.
“You love the Harper Hall more than you could possibly love …