“Days are numbered,” echoed the Harper and put his head down on the table suddenly. Lytol bent toward the man, curiously, almost paternally. He drew back, startled when the Harper began to snore gently.

“Hey, don’t go to sleep. We haven’t finished this bottle.” When Robinton made no response, Lytol shrugged and drained his own cup. Then he seemed to collapse slowly until his head was on the table, too, his snores filling the pause between Robinton’s.

Raid regarded the pair with sour disgust. Then he turned on his heel and walked back to his end of the head table.

“I don’t know but what there isn’t truth in the wine,” Larad of Telgar Hold commented as Raid reseated himself.

Lessa “leaned” quickly against Larad. He was nowhere near as insensitive as Raid. When he shook his head, she desisted and turned her attentions to Sifer. If she could get two of them to agree…

“Dragon and his rider both belong in the Weyr,” Raid said. “You don’t change what’s natural for man and beast.”

“Well now, take these fire-lizards,” Sifer began, nodding toward the two across the table from him, in the arms of the Lord and Lady of Lemos Hold. “They’re dragons of a sort, after all.”

Raid snorted. “We saw today what happens when you go against natural courses. The girl—whatever her name is—lost her queen. Well, even the fire-lizard warned her off Impressing a new one. The creatures know more than we think they do. Look at all the years people’ve tried to catch ’em…”

“Catch ’em now, in nestsful,” Sifer interrupted him. “Pretty things they are. Must say I look forward to mine hatching.”

Somehow their quarreling reminded Lessa of old R’gul and S’lel, her first “teachers” in the Weyr, contradicting themselves endlessly as they purportedly taught her “all she’d need to know to become a Weyrwoman.” It was F’lar who had done that.

“Boy has to stay here with that dragon.”

“The boy in question is a Lord Holder, Raid,” Larad of Telgar reminded him. “And the one thing we don’t need is a contested Hold. It might be different if Lytol had male issue, or if he’d fostered long enough to have a promising candidate. No, Jaxom must remain Lord at Ruatha Hold,” and the Telgar Lord scanned the Bowl in search of the boy. His eyes met Lessa’s and he smiled in absent courtesy.

“I don’t agree, I don’t agree,” Raid said, shaking his head emphatically. “It goes against all custom.”

“Some customs need changing badly,” said Larad, frowning.

“I wonder what the boy wants to do,” interjected Asgenar in his bland way, catching Larad’s eye.

The Telgar Lord threw back his head with a hearty laugh. “Don’t complicate matters, brother. We’ve just decided his fate, will-he, won’t-he.”