Quickening his step now, he urged Manora faster. Dignity could be forgotten in the darkness and he was desperately hungry.

Mnementh gave a welcoming rumble on the queen’s weyr ledge, and Jaxom, greatly daring, glanced up at the near eye which closed one lid at him slightly in startling imitation of a human wink.

Do dragons have a sense of humor? he wondered. The watch-wher certainly didn’t and he was the same breed.

The relationship is very distant.

“I beg your pardon?” Jaxom said, startled, glancing up at Manora.

“For what, young Lord?”

“Didn’t you say something?”

“No.”

Jaxom glanced back at the bulky shadow of the dragon, but Mnementh’s head was turned. Then he could smell roasted meats and walked faster.

As they rounded the bend, Jaxom saw the golden body of the recumbent queen and was suddenly guilt-struck and fearful. But she was fast asleep, smiling with an innocent serenity remarkably like his foster mother’s newest babe. He looked away lest his gaze rouse her, and saw the faces of all those adults at the table. It was almost too much for him. F’lar, Lessa, Lytol and Felessan he’d expected, but there was the Mastersmith and the Masterharper, too.

Only drill helped him respond courteously to the greetings of the celebrities. He wasn’t aware when Manora and Lessa came to his assistance.

“Not a word until the child has had something to eat, Lytol,” the Weyrwoman said firmly, her hands pressing him gently to the empty seat beside Felessan. The boy paused between spoonfuls to look up with a complex series of facial contortions supposed to convey a message that escaped Jaxom. “Jaxom missed lunch at the Hold and is several hours hungrier in consequence. He is well, Manora?”

“He took no more harm than Felessan.”

“He looked a little glassy-eyed as you crossed the weyr.” Lessa bent to peer at Jaxom who politely looked at her, chewing with sudden self-consciousness. “How do you feel?”

Jaxom emptied his mouth hurriedly, trying to swallow a half-chewed lump of vegetable. Felessan tendered a cup of water and Lessa deftly swatted him between the shoulder blades as he started to choke.

“I feel fine,” he managed to say. “I feel fine, thank you.” He waited, unable to resist looking at his plate and was relieved when the Weyrleader laughingly reminded Lessa that she was the one who said the boy should eat before anything else.

The Mastersmith tapped his stained, branchlike finger on the faded Record skin which draped the table, except where the boys were sitting. Fandarel had one arm wrapped possessively around something in his lap, but Jaxom couldn’t see what it was.

“If I judge this accurately, there should be several levels of rooms in this section, both beyond the one the boys found and above.”