“Oh, we know,” T’ton assured him. “And Mardra doesn’t mind.” Seeing F’lar’s blank expression, he added, “As senior Weyrwoman, Mardra, of course, leads the queens’ wing.”

F’lar’s face grew blanker. “Queens’ wing?”

“Certainly,” and T’ton and D’ram exchanged questioning glances at F’lar’s surprise. “You don’t keep your queens from fighting, do you?”

“Our queens? T’ton, we at Benden have had only one queen dragon—at a time—for so many generations that there are those who denounce the legends of queens in battle as black heresy!”

T’ton looked rueful. “I had not truly realized till this instant how small your numbers were.” But his enthusiasms overtook him. “Just the same, queens are very useful with flamethrowers. They get clumps other riders might miss. They fly in low, under the main wings. That’s one reason D’ram’s so interested in the agenothree spray. Doesn’t singe the hair off the Holders’ heads, so to speak, and is far better over tilled fields.”

“Do you mean to say that you allow your queens to fly—against Threads?” F’lar ignored the fact that F’nor was grinning, and T’ton, too.

“Allow?” D’ram bellowed. “You can’t stop them. Don’t you know your Ballads?”

“’Moreta’s Ride?”

“Exactly.’

F’nor laughed aloud at the expression on F’lar’s face as he irritably pulled the hanging forelock from his eyes. Then, sheepishly, he began to grin.

“Thanks. That gives me an idea.”

He saw his fellow Weyrleaders to their dragons, waved cheerfully to Robinton and Fandarel, more lighthearted than he would have thought he’d be the morning before the second battle. Then he asked Mnementh where Lessa might be.

Bathing, the bronze dragon replied.

F’lar glanced at the empty queen’s weyr.

Oh, Ramoth is on the Peak, as usual. Mnementh sounded aggrieved.

F’lar heard the sound of splashing in the bathing room suddenly cease, so he called down for hot klah. He was going to enjoy this.

“Oh, did the meeting go well?” Lessa asked sweetly as she emerged from the bathing room, drying-cloth wrapped tightly around her slender figure.

“Extremely. You realize, of course, Lessa, that you’ll be needed at Telgar?”

She looked at him intently for a moment before she smiled again.

“I am the only Weyrwoman who can speak to any dragon,” she replied archly.

“True,” F’lar admitted blithely. “And no longer the only queen’s rider in Benden. . . .”

“I hate you!” Lessa snapped, unable to evade F’lar as he pinned her cloth-swathed body to his.

“Even when I tell you that Fandarel has a flamethrower for you so you can join the queens’ wing?”

She stopped squirming in his arms and stared at him, disconcerted that he had outguessed her.

“And that Kylara will be installed as Weyrwoman in the south . . . in this time? As Weyrleader, I need my peace and quiet between battles. . . .”

The cloth fell from her body to the floor as she responded to his kiss as ardently as if dragon-roused.

From the Weyr and from the Bowl,