“Aye, you were.”

“Any others? It’s early on a Gather evening.” When he had been silent long enough, she twisted again, and he grunted. “Any others?”

“Aye, he’d marked others. Finish you off and go back for another.”

“A fair Gather for you. What’d he promise?” Thella thought the big man simple to trust the herder and go back to the Gather. The herder could as easily turn his helper in to the guard.

“Half what we took. He said it’d be enough to buy into a hold.”

“Buy into a hold?” In her surprise, Thella forgot to deepen her voice.

“Yes, there’re holds where you can buy a place for a season. If you satisfy, you get taken on regular. I’m good with a flamer. I just don’t like it with Thread falling and me with no place to shelter.” The phrases came out in grunts, but he made no attempt to struggle against her hold. She was beginning to wonder how long she could continue to exert the pressure necessary to cow the man. He was big. He could easily be the one she had noticed in the morning, but she had not seen the herder in anyone’s company during the afternoon so the scheme must have been arranged earlier. Well, at least he was not whining about wrongful treatment and holder abuse.

“And how much loyalty could a holder expect of you—and your knife?” She felt his body twitch beneath her knee.

“Lady, give me a hold during this Pass, or shove your blade in.” His muscles seemed to relax, as if he was tired of striving against the odds of life. He was at her mercy, and she was tempted to see if she had the strength to kill him, as she had had the wit to subdue him.

“But it’s so easy to kill to live,” she said, her voice coaxingly smooth.

“Aye, easy enough to kill, but not easy to live holdless. Not easy at all.” He sounded very weary indeed.

“Your name?” she asked. “And previous Hold?” It was customary to circulate the names of brutal murderers, shunned from Holds, to all Lord Holders to protect them from taking on such offenders.

She could feel his muscles tense and wondered if he would lie to her. If she felt he was not telling the truth, she just might push home that knife. But she needed a strong holder more than she needed the gratification of a kill.

“I can, of course, tie you up and go back and get Laudey’s guards,” she said when he did not answer immediately. She wanted to make him sweat a little longer. Such power gave her a sense of ineffable superiority.

“Dushik, I was called. I was beholden to Tillek.” She recognized the name from a list sent around several Turns back and smiled, somewhat disappointed. Well, she must keep even the bargains she made herself. And he would be more useful to her alive.

“Ah, so you’re the one,” she said as if she remembered more than the name. “Mind that I can still turn you in, Dushik,” she said, releasing him. “And during a Pass, you can be chained out in Fall as execution, for it is my word against yours.”

“Aye, lady, I understand. But I acknowledge you with heart and mind as Lady Holder and will give loyal service.”

He actually sounded as if he meant it, so she released her hold on his arm and jumped backward, replacing her belt knife with her dagger in a fluid motion but ready to throw both at him if he made a suspicious move.

He waited a long moment, slowly working his arm down and around. He got first to his knees and then to his feet, his movements indicating deep weariness.

“Throw me his pouch, Dushik,” she said, holding out her left hand. He gave her a long measuring look before he complied and then stood waiting for her next order.

As she thrust the bulging sack into her shirt she realized that the scuffle had loosened her headcovering and her braided hair had fallen forward.

“Now, see what else he had that’s useful,” she ordered, gesturing curtly with her dagger.

By the time Belior had risen, Dushik had exchanged the corpse’s clothing for his own and, on Thella’s orders, had heaved the body into the river. She made him discard the bloodstained cloak.

“There seemed to be plenty of other holdless wights at the Gather,” she said disdainfully. “Would you say that any of them could be trusted to do a good day’s work for their keep?”

“For you, lady,” he said deferentially, going down on his knee to her, “I would see that they will.” Thella was well pleased.

“THERE HAS TO have been someone going through the sack,” Mardra, Weyrwoman of Southern Weyr, insisted. She stared accusingly at Toric, Southern’s holder.

“Couldn’t the fastening have loosened during the journey, Weyrwoman?” Saneter asked, though the elderly harper’s desire to placate the Weyrwoman was stretched as thin as the holder’s temper.

“Then why, I ask you, why–” She set her goblet down so hard on the table beside her that the stem broke and the remaining wine dripped onto the floor. “Now, look what you’ve made me do!” She beckoned to a fat drudge pretending to tidy the surface of the sideboard. “Quickly! Mop it up before it attracts a horde of fly-bys.”

If Saneter hoped that the mishap would distract Mardra, he was quickly disappointed. She never lost an opportunity to aggravate Toric.

When Saneter had been posted to the Southern Hold, Master Robinton had briefed him fully on the situation.

“You’ve been chosen for more reasons than merely trying to ease your joint-ail, Master Saneter,” the Masterharper had said. “I can rely on your discretion and soothing manner, as well as your common sense, to keep me informed of any untoward occurrences.” The Masterharper had paused significantly, his clear eyes meeting Saneter’s. “The Southern Weyr was actually initiated some ten Turns before Threadfall, though that is not general knowledge, and volunteer holders went to assist them. When this Pass started, the Southern Weyr and Hold were temporarily abandoned. Then, as you know, with T’bor as Weyrleader and the ill-fated Kylara as his Weyrwoman, it became an excellent situation where injured dragons and riders could recuperate. You know the more recent history, I’m sure, with the discontent of some of the Oldtimers, and the exile of the incorrigible dissidents to Southern where they could do little harm.

“Toric, who was holding rather an extensive area, elected to stay on. He’s rather well situated, mind you, though there were restrictions put on both the Oldtimer dragonriders who were exiled and any commerce between north and south.” The Masterharper cleared his throat and gave Saneter yet another enigmatic look.

Saneter had been so relieved that he could continue to function as a harper, even in the south, that he would have been willing to do much more than exercise his diplomatic talents.

“Toric puts up with Mardra, T’ton, T’kul—who is, in my opinion, the worst of the lot,” Robinton went on. “He’d have no such autonomy in the north, but I will want to hear what sort of friction develops…if you understand me, Saneter?”

“I do, Master Robinton. I believe I do.”

Saneter often chided himself for his innocence. But a man learned as he lived. Once, when Saneter was just settling in to Southern Hold, Toric’s lovely young sister, Sharra, had mentioned that Mardra fancied her brother, but that Toric wanted nothing to do with the Weyrwoman. Mardra’s attitude toward Toric reflected a deep and vicious antipathy, a desire to humiliate and demean.

“I ask you why, Toric, my queen fire-lizard, who is far more reliable than a watchwher, distinctly informs me that someone was there and crept away.” Having made her point she glared at the Holder, who said nothing, though Saneter could see his fingers alternately clenching into fists and releasing into grasping motions. “Look at me when I’m speaking to you, Toric,” she added, leaning forward on her couch, her bleary eyes and features missing nothing of his attitude. When Toric moved his head fractionally, Saneter could see her deciding on a further insult.