another woman. It might have been different if Kasia had lived, but I think not,” Silvina said in her down-to-earth manner. “My mother loved harpers, all harpers. I think I have inherited this fatal tendency. I do care for you, Rob …”
“As you’ve often shown.” He grinned affectionately at her, finally beginning to see what she meant by her insistence on independence.
“As you know, but I’d rather not be tied. I don’t really think I’m cut out for sexual loyalty.” She gave him a very wicked grin. “There are so many of you to love!”
That he knew of no others with whom she had formed any sort of relationship was immaterial.
So he made sure everyone in the Hall and Hold knew that he
acknowledged the unborn child and that Silvina had his affection and support. And, as often as he could manage in his myriad duties, he spent time with her.
When he told F’lon, the Weyrleader was delighted, and asked how many lullabies he had composed. Kasia was not mentioned and, for once tactful, F’lon asked if there would be an espousal, too?
“No.” Robinton made a rueful face. “I asked and she refused.” F’lon regarded him for a long, thoughtful moment. “I give her full marks for her wisdom. You’ll make a loving father but a terrible spouse. Think of all the… ah…friendships you’d have to forgo!”
Robinton managed a creditable laugh. There was no sense in denying the fact to F’lon that Robinton was enthusiastically welcomed by many holder girls for the pleasure he gave above and beyond the music he played.
Robinton tried to stay in the Hall as much as he could towards the end of Silvina’s pregnancy. The winter was a stormy one and so there were few calls on him to mediate. He taught more classes than he had for many months and was pleased with the way the boys would work for him. The elaborate music of his father had to be put aside since there were no coloraturas available, though he managed to get Halanna to come and sing at Turn’s End, reworking a ballad so he could sing with her. Once again he tried to entice her back to the Hall, even offering her a Mastery, but she turned him down.
“What? Live in this cold all the time? I think not, Rob, though it’s kind of you to offer me the post and the honours.”
“The Harper Hall will get the reputation that girls, and women, are not wanted here,” he said, continuing his argument.
She only smiled. “If my daughter is at all musically inclined, I’ll send her to you, I promise.”
“Even if she isn’t?” Robinton asked, pleading.
“You!” and Halanna left him with that ambiguous remark.
In the middle of a blizzard Silvina was delivered of a fine big boy in due course, and Robinton was besotted with the infant at first
sight of him. If Silvina seemed unusually subdued, he at first put it down to the rigours of the final month of pregnancy and the delivery. Then he began to realize that this infant was unusually quiet, sleeping and eating fitfully, and only occasionally wailing in a thin, petulant way.
All right, Silvina, what’s wrong with him?” Robinton asked, as the baby briefly waved his fat arms and then sank into unwinking silence.
She gave a long, sad sigh. “The cord was around his neck when he was born. Ginia said he didn’t get enough air to breathe normally.”
Robinton stared at her, disbelief foremost even as he admitted to himself the hideous fact that this child of his was obviously not normal.
“And?” he asked quietly, slowly sinking to the nearest chair, seeing once again his pleasant dreams turning to ashes.
“He will be … slow,” she said. “I’ve seen the same sort of thing before. There’ve been two cot babes the same way. But they are sweet. And docile.”
“Sweet? And docile?”
Robinton tried hard to absorb what that would mean in terms of his child. He buried his head in his hands and tried not to think of what could have been. How ironical! That his first – and only -child would be sweet and docile instead of the curious, interested, clever, tall, fine straight child he had yearned for!