The Renegades of Pern (21 page)

“Them!” The journeyman’s expression was disdainful. “There’s plenty of jobs for them what’s willing to work and please their Lord Holder.”

“Now, Petter,” a younger journeyman said, “you know that’s not always the case. You remember that ragtag of folk that came through from Bitra when Thread started. Lord Sifer had turfed ’em out, and they was hard-working people.”

Petter sniffed. “Lord Sifer may have had good reasons; it’s not for you and me to question. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. They’d no warranty to show like this young man.”

Had Jayge not had other considerations foremost in mind, he would have argued the journeyman on that point. Holders, major and minor, had taken advantage of Fall: he remembered all too vividly the humbling and belittling work that Childon had taken great pleasure in forcing him and his family to do. He knew of other cases where pride—and sheer exhaustion—had forced people to holdlessness rather than endure such drudgeries any longer.

“Is the Southern Continent so big it can handle more Fort and Keroon holders?” Jayge asked, directing his comments to the younger journeyman. “Seems to me the first thing you’d need are men and women who know how to work, not holders’ sons.”

“You thinking of resettling, trader?”

Jayge was put in mind of what Temma had said to him before he left Far Cry. “You know traders,” he countered with a disarming grin. “Always looking for new routes, new items that travel well and sell better. The beasts would be sailed across then? And their handlers chosen?” It might be best if Jayge could persuade Readis to shift south for a while. He could always give his own warranty to his uncle.

“I wouldn’t know about that,” Petter said stiffly. “Uvor was chatting w’ the Master about it. C’mon, you.” He tapped his foot on his junior’s boot. “We’ve got feet to trim and teeth to rasp.”

Jayge asked the Smithcrafter’s permission to use his forge to make new shoes for Kesso.

“D’you know how, an’ all?” the smith asked, skeptical.

“Traders learn a lot of this and that,” Jayge replied, selecting the iron bar, already fullered and swaged, and crunching off the length he needed. It was not the first time he had shod Kesso, and by no means the first time he had made shoes from scratch. Crenden had taught him what he had known, and then had him work under Maindy’s farrier for a season. He was aware of the smith’s scrutiny. But when he had heated, hammered, shaped, and clinched the first hind shoe, the smith turned back to his own work.

Jayge made two sets and paid for them and a small packet of nails. He had a long way to go to Benden Weyr. While he was eating his evening meal, Uvor and the Masterherdsman came up to his corner seat.

“I’ve told Master Briaret that you’re a sensible young man and know how to care for animals properly,” Uvor said with the air of someone happy to confer a favor on the worthy. “He’s got a well-trained young runner to be delivered to Benden Hold. I know you’re heading that way and that you’d take good care of her, fog, fire, or Fall.”

Briaret was a short man, balding, with a rider’s lean stature and the odd, bowed legs of someone who had ridden all his life. His keen eyes searched Jayge as intently as those of a Bitran giving odds. He smiled at Jayge, and the young man knew that he had passed the test.

“You’ve a warranty, I understand,” the Master said in a slightly raspy voice.

Jayge passed over Swacky’s useful recommendation and finished his meal while Briaret read. Finally the older man folded it neatly and gave it back. Then he held out his hand.

“Will you take charge of the mare? She’s nearly as well bred as that runner of yours.” He grinned. “As well he’s a gelding. My drovers are going as far as Bayhead, so there’s safe passage for you, and the journey’s been timed to get all to safe cave during Fall. We haven’t been as much troubled by raiders as the northwest, but there’s comfort in numbers. I’ve a mark for you now, plus travel food and grain, and you’re to get two marks at Benden Hold if the mare arrives in good condition.”

Jayge shook the man’s hand, well pleased. He would have some escort, he would make some marks, and he would still be making better time than Thella and her companions could.

Piemur was back at Southern and had finally cornered Toric into fulfilling his promise to let him explore freely in the South. He had arrived armed with a polite request from Master Robinton, a request that, since it bore F’lar’s signet, was more of an indirect order.

“I’ve got my journeyman’s knot, I spent hours with Wansor, Terry, and that oaf of a Fortian, Benelek, so I’m qualified to keep Records that will be accurate as long as the Dawn Sisters remain in place. So you’ll know, my Lord Holder—”

“Don’t call me that,” Toric snapped, his eyes flashing so angrily that Piemur wondered if he had overplayed his hand.

“I get the impression,” the boy said in his most conciliatory Toric, “that that is a formality that the Benden Weyrleaders will bring before the Conclave at the next possible occasion. You’re as much a Lord Holder as Jaxom is, and you’re working at it.
But
—” He held up his hand. “It would be wise to know how much you’re going to Hold. You prove, one—” He ticked off each point on his fingers. “—how diligent you’ve been; two: how serious you are about all this; three: limit what their idiot sons—presuming some of them survive their initiation here—can possibly think to control; and four: make legal and binding your own claim by virtue of the fact that that’s how much you’ve
been
holding.”

Toric stared across the room to the map of what he already, by virtue of having accurately charted it, held. Much of the cartographic detail had been filled in by Sharra, Hamian, and Piemur, but that only whetted Toric’s appetite to establish how much more there was. He had no intention of sharing it with any northern holders’ sons—possibly not even his own, although he was proud of the twin sons Ramala had just delivered . . . again. Piemur was astonished, and secretly envious, of Toric’s large family. The man would need every one of them to hold for him, that was certain. And Toric had plans for Sharra’s offspring—whenever he did find someone he felt worthy of his beautiful sister. Piemur had about given up that daydream. He knew that Sharra liked him, enjoyed his company, and accepted him as a partner in their explorations, but whether she was careful to keep the friendship objective because she felt nothing stronger for him than platonic affection, or because she did not wish to bring Toric’s wrath down on him, Piemur was not sure.

Maybe if he successfully broadened Toric’s holding, he might also broaden Toric’s appreciation of him. Maybe not broad enough to encompass Sharra, but then Piemur’s motto always had been “You never know till you try.”

What Piemur kept very much to himself was that he would be doing the survey as much for Master Robinton as for Toric. Just where his loyalties would be tested remained to be seen. In no fashion would Piemur risk Master Robinton’s good relationships with the Benden Weyrleaders. He had a suspicion that perhaps F’lar and Lessa wanted a good bit of Southern to be dragonriders’ territory. He hoped that the continent would be big enough for all. How much did Toric possibly think he could manage to Hold? Should someone—maybe Saneter could get away with it—remind Toric of what had happened to Fax, the self-styled Lord of Seven Holds? In any event, as long as Piemur got to set one foot in front of the other until he ran out of land, he would let the disposition of it rest with others—such as the Masterharper and the Benden Weyrleaders.
They
deserved more of the South than Toric ever did. But then, Lessa had a habit of giving perfectly good Holds away.

Piemur stopped his speculations. “You’ll never know till I go look, Toric,” he said wistfully. “Just Stupid and me, with Farli to send back my findings. I plan to live off the land.” He knew that Toric hated to give out supplies that he could count on Piemur to break or lose.

The holder’s ill humor began to fade. “All right, all right, you may go. I want accurate maps, accurate readings, all along the coast. I want details about terrain, fruits, edibles, depth of rivers, navigable or otherwise . . .”

“You don’t want much from one pair of feet, do you?” Piemur asked sarcastically, but he was secretly elated. “I’ll do it, I’ll do it. Garm’s sailing to Island River tomorrow. Stupid and me’ll hitch a ride. Why waste my time walking what’s already well and truly mapped, huh?”

Garm sailed him to Island River, and Piemur spent the night with the holders there, an enthusiastic fisherman and his wife who turned out to be cousins of Toric’s. They had dug out the ruins Piemur had noticed, painstakingly slated the roof, and rebuilt the wide porches that allowed air to circulate during the hottest weather through the rather spacious, high-ceilinged rooms. They chattered about their plans, which Toric had approved, and they wearied Piemur with all the good qualities they ascribed to the marvelous cousin who had rescued them from a holdless existence, quite by chance, and now they had such a bright future and weren’t they the luckiest of folk?

Piemur felt himself the luckiest of folk the next morning, as he hauled Stupid from the fishing skiff in which the holder had ferried him across the Island River delta. In an hour he was slicing his way through bushes to reach a coastline where no man had ever set foot, happy as a fed weyrling despite the sweat running down his face, back, and legs and down to the thick cotton socks Sharra had knit for him.

Jayge got on well with the drovers, even though Kesso won every informal race from their prize runners. He would have liked to have raced the mare, too, for she was beautifully conformed for speed, but he had promised to deliver her safely to Benden Hold, and an overreach or a cut, while bad enough on Kesso, was not to be risked on Fancy, as he had taken to calling the mare. He was almost sorry when they got to the Keroon River, where he would go north and the drovers would go east to Bayhead. However, he was able to move much more quickly without having to hold Kesso to the herd’s plodding progress. He made good time the first full day on his own and reached the fork where Little Benden River struck right toward Benden Hold, while the broader waters of Big Benden took a curve to the left past the cliffs. He chose the ferry over the sway bridge across the gorge at High Plateau Hold. To make the crossing, he had to put a twitch on Fancy to keep her quiet over the turbulent rough waters, and even Kesso was restless. Most people, according to the ferryman, preferred to swim animals across where Big Ben met the waters of Nerat Bay.

There were some grand trails up the banks of Little Benden River, and several times he galloped Kesso, the mare beside him stride for stride. She had the most enjoyable paces. Not that Kesso was not a very comfortable animal for long-distance riding, but Kesso had just happened; Fancy had been bred for it. Such a quality animal was certainly destined for one of Lord Raid’s own women, he thought. He had the impression that the Lady Holder was an older person, so perhaps the horse was a gift for a daughter or a favored fosterling. He hoped she would be a good rider, with light hands for the mare’s soft mouth.

On the second night the weather turned fierce, with high winds blowing right up the mare’s tail and dirty sheeting rain, and Jayge was forced to approach a farmhold for shelter. When he produced both the travel note from Master Briaret and his own warranty, the slightly suspicious holder agreed to share quarters and meals. When Jayge admitted that the mare was to be delivered to Benden Hold, the holder’s wife, a romantic type, went through the list of fosterlings at Benden Hold, trying to decide who the lucky recipient was. There seemed to be ever so many fosterlings at Benden, she said. She did hope there would be a Gather soon—it had been such a long tedious winter, and the children had had a tenacious fever, and she had had to drum for a healer to come down from the Hold, and the Lady Holder had sent her own special medication for rasping cough.

Jayge made his escape the next morning, limiting his time at her hearth to a cup of klah, even though she urged porridge on him, as garrulous as if she had not stopped talking all night. The trace by the river soon widened out to a wide roadway, well surfaced and maintained, and intersected a similarly good road heading north. His map indicated excellent roads all the way to Benden Weyr. All he had to do was deliver the mare at the Hold, and then he could complete his journey to the Weyr, and Aramina.

He paused at noon to eat, letting the two runnerbeasts graze. He brushed mud off the mare’s legs and tail, and gave Kesso a few swipes, too. He would rub Fancy down again before they actually got into the Hold, so that she would look her best as they entered. He was soon close enough to Benden Hold to see its splendid proportions, the multitude of windows in the sheltering cliff face, and the south end of the broad east-facing inner yard. It was an hour or so of good riding away, but already small cotholds were visible on either side of the river, making use of cliff and cave. Behind and to the northeast were the Benden Mountains, and almost directly north—Benden Weyr.

Suddenly a group of riders burst out of a ravine just beyond him, startling the two runnerbeasts. By the time Jayge had Kesso under control, he was surrounded by a party of young people, admiring Fancy and Kesso and demanding, in a high-spirited fashion, all sorts of answers from him.

“My name is Jayge Lilcamp, and I’m to deliver this mare to the Beastmaster at Benden Hold. Without injury,” he added in a louder tone as some of the boys began to crowd in around Fancy, who rolled her eyes and threw up her head in fright.

“Jassap, Pol, rein back. You’re riding stallions,” a girl said. Jayge threw her a grateful glance that turned into a long and incredulous stare.

She was not the prettiest of the three girls in that group. She had black hair, plaited in one long, thick braid down her back and covered with a blue scarf; her face was oval, strong-featured without being the least bit coarse. He could not tell what color her eyes were under rather level black eyebrows, but she had a nice straight, longish nose, a sweet shape to her mouth, a firm chin—and an odd sadness in her expression.