Anne McCaffrey - Dragondrums

Suddenly a phrase stood out from the murmurous conversation about the winestand.

“There’ll be a few more happy holidays today, I hear!”

Piemur turned to scratch his shoulder fiercely and located the man who had spoken from his knowing smirk, a smith from his clothing. His companion, a miner by his shoulder badge, was nodding in comprehension.

“Nabol don’t take proper care of ‘em, he don’t. Three never shelled. My master was fair upset about that. Means to have three more today or his name’s not Kaljan.”

“Is that so?” The smith bobbed his head up and down to show regret. “We’d one that didn’t hatch, too, but no joy did we get above! Eggs we was promised and eggs we was given. Up to us to care for ’em proper enough to make ’em hatch. That one,” and his head jerked toward the Hold cliff to indicate Lord Meron, “enjoys putting a snake among the wherries!” He snorted derisively. “Happen it’s his only pleasure now.”

Both men guffawed with malicious delight.

“Happen we’ll not need to worry about him much longer, I hear tell.” The smith winked broadly at the miner.

“Couldn’t be soon enough for me. Well, see you at the dancing?”

“Going so soon?”

“Had my glass. Must get back.”

The disappointment in the miner’s face made Piemur think that the smith’s departure was precipitous. Going to tell his master about the eggs that were up at the Hold, was he? Piemur decided to tag along.

Eggs handed out in quantities, eggs that had been badly handled and wouldn’t hatch. Unless…and Piemur reflected over something that Menolly had said about fire lizard eggs. Green fire lizards laid eggs as well, having been fertilized by a mating flight with a blue or brown, sometimes even a bronze. But green fire lizards were stupid: they’d lay a clutch, ten at the most, Menolly said, and leave them with such a shallow covering of beach sand that they were easy prey to wild wherries or sand snakes. Very few green-laid clutches survived to Hatch. Which, as Menolly had succinctly stated, was just as well or Pern would be up to the eyeballs in little green fire lizards.

Piemur wondered if anyone in Nabol realized that a deception was being practiced on them, and green fire lizard eggs were what were dispersed so lavishly. Then he realized that he’d lost sight of the smith and, cursing his inattentiveness, began to retrace his steps, turning with assumed idleness to peer between the stalls. He spotted the smith, urgently speaking to a man with a smithmaster’s badge and, as the man reacted to his journeyman’s excited words, his master’s chain sparkled. Piemur managed to duck away as both men suddenly turned toward him. When they had passed him on their way to the Hold, Piemur followed, restlessly scanning faces in the hopes that he might see Sebell and tell him what he’d overheard. Sebell might wish to investigate.

As the two smiths turned from the Gather area toward the Hold, Piemur had to pause or be noticeable. The smiths strode purposefully up the ramp toward the main Hold gates. They were challenged by the guard and, after some moments of arguing, the guard summoned another from the gatehouse and sent him to the Hold with the smithmaster’s message.

While the messenger was gone, two men emerged from the Hold, well wrapped in their cloaks, though the air had lost its chill. Something about the way they walked, carefully; the way they carried their heads, proudly; the way they nodded and smiled at the guards, smugly; and most of all the way they pointedly avoided contact, struck Piemur as significant. He continued to watch them as they turned toward the Gather meadow. As they approached him he caught sight of their figures in profile and realized that each man carried something hidden in his cloak, held tight against his side. It couldn’t have been a large object. But, thought Piemur, putting expression, manner and profile together, an egg pot wouldn’t be large. He wanted to follow the men to see if his suspicion was correct, but he also didn’t want to leave the Hold until the message from the smithmaster had been answered.

A new party, holders by the look of them, now made themselves known to the guards and were admitted, to the angry chagrin of the smithmaster. Then three carts, heavily laden to judge by the straining of the burden beasts struggling up the ramp, forced the smithmaster to one side. The guard waved the carts toward the kitchen courtyard. The last cart jammed a wheel against the ramp parapet, the driver thudding his stick against the burden beast’s rump.

“Wheel be jammed,” yelled Piemur, not liking to see any animal beaten for what was not its fault.

He jumped forward to help guide the carter. The man now backed his stolid beast, swinging its head left. Piemur, setting his shoulder to the tailgate, gave a push in the proper direction. He also tried to peek under the covering to see what on earth was being delivered to the Hold on a Gather day when most business was done in the Gather meadow. Before he could get a good look, the cart had picked up speed as it reached more level ground.

He was past the guards, arguing with the smith and paying no more attention to the procession of carts. Ducking quickly to the side of the cart away from the carter, Piemur gained access to the Hold proper.

As the carts rumbled on into the kitchen court, Piemur rapidly wondered how he could turn this opportunity to advantage and remain in the Hold after the carters had unloaded and left. Certainly if he was actually in the Hold, he might find out more than he could possibly learn wandering about the Gather. If nothing else he could discover what the carter had delivered.

Then he spied a line of coveralls bleaching in the spring sun. He darted over and removed one, ignoring the slight dampness as he slipped it over his head. Kitchen drudges were never noted for cleanliness, and once the beast dirt and stains on his tunic were covered, the dust on his boots and trousers would be unremarkable.

“Hey, you!” Piemur tried to ignore the call, but it was repeated and could only be directed to him. He turned toward the speaker, affecting a stupid expression. “I mean you, with the empty arms!”

Obediently he trudged back to the carter, who slung a heavy sack across his back. At that point, the kitchen steward bustled out to supervise, and Piemur, bent double under the sack, passed him without a glance. The steward alternated between chivvying his drudges out to help unload, and the carter for his ill-timed arrival. The carter replied with equal heat that he had heavy carts and slow beasts and had had to give way and eat dust from those hurrying to this bloody Gather. Meron ought to be pleased he’d got here within the day allotted, much less at an earlier hour.

The steward hushed him and began shouting orders, ordering Piemur on to the back storerooms. Piemur got inside the kitchen, not knowing where the stores rooms were, so, making a business of wiping his face and easing his shoulders, he waited until someone brushed past him and turned down the proper corridor.

“Don’t know where Ah’m t’ put more as is plenty here a’ready,” muttered the drudge as Piemur followed him.

‘A-top them others?” suggested Piemur helpfully.

In the dim light of waning glows, the Nabolese peered at Piemur. “Never saw you afore.” “Nor you haven’t,” Piemur agreed amiably. “Sent from t’Hold to help in kitchen for t’Gather.”

“Oh!” And the sly gleam in the man’s eyes suggested to Piemur that he had just let himself in for the worst and dirtiest of the chores about a Hold on a Gather day when the Lord was feasting guests.

Haste appeared the vital factor in unloading the carts, so Piemur didn’t see many of the seals on the sacks, barrels and boxes he humped out of sight. But he saw enough to realize that the delivery came from a variety of sources: tanner, weaver, smithcraft for the heaviest boxes, wine from many of the yards, but none, he was pleased to note, from Benden. When the last bundle was stowed in the now-bulging stores rooms, Piemur’s sigh of relief was echoed by Besel, the sly drudge, who had managed to stay close to him during the unloading. Piemur had no sooner lowered himself to a sack to rest than the man snatched him to his feet.