Song which he played whenever he could. But this time it was not as well received by either Weyrleader or Lord Holder, and he was almost sorry he had included it.
So he did a solo rendition of one of his newer songs, with C'gan on gitar, and two pipers and the hand drum. The song was appreciated enough to require him to repeat it immediately, and there were many voices lifted in the chorus with him. Riders were not as inhibited as most holders and, whether they had the voice for the song or not, they were lusty in their singing.
C'gan took turns with him and then called forth some of the solo voices. Maizella sang, as did R'yar, who had an excellent light baritone and hadn't forgotten any of his repertoire in his turns as a rider.
Robinton never knew when Lord Maidir and S'loner left the table, for night had fallen and, although there were plenty of glow-baskets on the poles around the Bowl, there were so many coming and going with wine or to answer nature's requirements, and so much for him to oversee as harper, that he noticed their absence only when Lady Hayara rose and left the table, escaping a Jora slumped drunkenly across it.
No one would ever know exactly what did happen that night, but suddenly a piercing scream from Nemorth roused everyone.
Especially when every other dragon voice augmented her heart-rending, piteous scream. It seemed to go on and on, as if none of the dragons need pause for breath. It cut through the night air, worse than any tormented watchwher's cry – a knife to the ears and to the heart. He thought his heart would stop at the anguish which reverberated in the Bowl.
He was by no means the first person to clap hands to his ears to muffle the awful screeching. It was the look of shock on drug-onrider faces that gave Robinton his clue to the tragedy which had just been announced in dragon voice. The entire Weyr was mourning the death of a dragon.
Robinton grabbed C'gan and turned the stricken rider to him.
C'gan's nerveless fingers slipped off the gitar neck as tears sprang from his eyes.
'What is it, C'gan? What's happened?'
Gulping to clear his throat, C'gan turned anguished eyes to the harper. 'It's Chendith. He's dead.'
'Chendith?' Robinton whirled round, trying to spot S'loner in the crowd of shocked people. He saw F'lon, miraculously sober, running first to T'rell, the Weyrlingmaster, because the keening had aroused the dragonets and T'rell needed help in rounding up the new riders to go and comfort their distressed beasts. Not a young man himself, T'rell looked haggard with grief and staggered as he moved about the tables.
'Dead? Why? How?' Robinton demanded. 'He didn't look sick or anything during the Hatching.' He lost sight of F'lon, then saw him again, hauling the Weyr's healer into the light.
Then Lady Hayara gave a shriek that pierced through the keen-ing.
'Maidir? Maidir! Where are you?'
It was the watchrider, circling down on his dragon, who told them that he had seen Chendith, with two aboard him, going between. He couldn't see too well in the darkness above the lighted Bowl, but he thought that Chendith's passenger had been Lord Maidir. He'd caught the shine of white hair and the green of the man's garments. Lord Maidir had been wearing green.
'But why? What could have happened to them? S'loner wouldn't take Chendith's life. Nor his own,' C'gan said, sunken in despair. 'What could have happened? He was in such high spirits over the Impression. And twenty dragons.'
They had to try to rouse Jora from her drunken stupor, because Lady Hayara had not seen the two men leave the table.
'They have been estranged so long,' Hayara said through her tears, 'and it was only after that song of yours, Rob, that they started speaking to each other. I thought it was such a good sign, but I couldn't hear what they were saying because--' She cut off what negative comment she had been about to make, though her disgust with the Weyrwoman was plain.
F'lon, R'gul and S'lel were trying to sober up Jora with strong klah, but she was boneless and kept sliding down the chair and having to be propped up to get any of the restorative liquid down her throat.
Healer Tinamon, assisting, put forward a tentative theory.
'S'loner may have looked strong and healthy, but he was having chest pains far too frequently,' he said. 'I'd given him the usual remedy, although I wanted him to call in a MasterHealer or at least visit the Healer Hall. He said he would after Impression.'
That did not explain why Maidir had accompanied S'loner on what was his last flight, although Lady Hayara said that her spouse was very tired and might have requested either a place to rest here at the Weyr or the courtesy of a return to Benden Hold.
'Oh, please will someone take me back to the Hold immediately?' Lady Hayara asked piteously. 'Maidir may be there and have some explanation for us.'
R'gul promptly volunteered, and Manora, the quiet weyr girl who had spoken to C'gan earlier, had the good sense to bring Lady Hayara's riding jacket. Together they escorted her into the darkness of the Bowl where Nemorth, still keening, waited.
C'rob, M'ridin and C'vrel, the oldest of the wingleaders, were holding a conference, which F'lon joined as if he had the right.
Plainly the other riders did not think so.
'The next mating flight will decide that, F'lon, so let's not jump to any premature assumptions. And with Jora the way she is, that's likely to take a few Turns,' M'ridin said in a low but angry voice.
'I suggest we clear the Weyr of all visitors,' C'rob said. 'This Impression is over.'
'And marred by a death, which is not good, not good at all,' C'vrel added, shaking his head.
'Keeping the dragons busy is the best thing for them,' M'ridin went on. 'Only be bloody sure to remind riders to give the clearest coordinates they ever had in their minds.'
'Wouldn't it be better to let people stay ...' C'vrel suggested.
'No, the Weyr must mourn its own,' C'rob said. I'll ask only the older riders to convey passengers.' He ignored F'lon and went to choose those whom he considered responsible enough.
S'lel and another stalwart weyr man were now carrying Jora up the steps to her quarters, having failed to rouse her. On the ledge, Nemorth was still keening loudly for her mate, swaying her head and neck back and forth, her eyes whirling with the muddy purples shot with orangey yellows of extreme distress. It was then that Robinton realized the sides of the Weyr were punctuated by many pairs of whirling, distressed dragon eyes, like coloured glow-baskets of unusual size. He remembered that long after other details of the terrible evening faded: the whirling eyes and the sad, bone-shaking keening from several hundred dragon throats echoing back and forth across the Bowl, all night long.
A drum message brought the information that Lady Hayara had not found Maidir at Benden Hold. The fatal accident had taken all three in that brief instant between. Robinton asked C'gan to convey himself and Raid, who was probably now the Lord Holder of Benden, back to the Hold. His stepmother would need his support and what comfort could be given her. Robinton was packing up his music and instrument when F'lon came up to him.
'You'll want to go back,' the young bronze rider said in a weary voice.
'I've asked C'gan ...'
'Why him?' F'lon was angry.
'You've just lost your father, man,' Robinton said, gripping the rider tightly on the arm. 'I could scarcely impose on you ...'
F'lon brushed hair back from his forehead in an irritable gesture and swung this way and that. 'It's not as if we were close -weyrbred not taking that much store in relationships – and shards!
But he's messed things up dying like this!'
Whether or not that outburst was F'lon's way of expressing his grief, Robinton was never sure, but the dragonrider was certainly furious. Robinton knew that the young bronze rider had been proud of being the Weyrleader's son. He'd always affected an attitude of disdain for the relationship, but at least he had had one with his father. Robinton envied him that.
'The others are too nervous as it is,' F'lon went on savagely, looking every way but at the harper. He kicked at the dirt of the Bowl and kept shaking his head. 'I told him he was chancing it with those chest pains. Listen to his son? Oh, no, he knew it all.'
In the glowbaskets, Robinton now noticed the wet streaks on F'lon's cheeks and he wished he could find
