When R’gul consented—and she would wear him down till he did—to allow her to take up her “traditional” responsibility as Keeper of the Records, she would find that Ballad. One day it was going to have to be R’gul’s much delayed “right time.”

Right time! she fumed. Right time! I have too much of the wrong time on my hands. When will this particular right time of theirs occur? When the moons turn green? What are they waiting for? And what might the superior F’lar be waiting for? The passing of the Red Star he alone believes in? She paused, for even the most casual reference to that phenomenon evoked a cold, mocking sense of menace within her.

She shook her head to dispel it. Her movement was injudicious. It caught R’gul’s attention. He looked up from the Records he was laboriously reading. As he drew her slate across the stone Council table, the clatter roused S’lel. He jerked his head up, uncertain of his surroundings.

“Humph? Eh? Yes?” he mumbled, blinking to focus sleep-blurred eyes.

It was too much. Lessa quickly made contact with S’lel’s Tuenth, himself just rousing from a nap. Tuenth was quite agreeable.

“Tuenth is restless, must go,” S’lel promptly muttered. He hastened up the passageway, his relief at leaving no less than Lessa’s at seeing him go. She was startled to hear him greet someone in the corridor and hoped the new arrival would provide an excuse to rid herself of R’gul.

It was Manora who entered. Lessa greeted the headwoman of the Lower Caverns with thinly disguised relief. R’gul, always nervous in Manora’s presence, immediately departed.

Manora, a stately woman of middle years, exuded an aura of quiet strength and purpose, having come to a difficult compromise with life which she maintained with serene dignity. Her patience tacitly chided Lessa for her fretfulness and petty grievances. Of all the women she had met in the Weyr, (when she was permitted by the dragonmen to meet any) Lessa admired and respected Manora most. Some instinct in Lessa made her bitterly aware that she would never be on easy or intimate terms with any of the women in the Weyr. Her carefully formal relationship with Manora, however, was both satisfying and satisfactory.

Manora had brought the tally slates of the Supply Caves. It was her responsibility as headwoman to keep the Weyrwoman informed of the domestic management of the Weyr. (One duty R’gul insisted she perform.)

“Bitra, Benden, and Lemos have sent in their tithes, but that won’t be enough to see us through the deep cold this Turn.”

“We had only those three last Turn and seemed to eat well enough.”

Manor smiled amiably, but it was obvious she did not consider the Weyr generously supplied.