Flashback: The Caminar Question (Aderes)

[Omnia Munda]

J'fel's forehead sank into the cradle of his palm. The Caminar man that was leaving the weyrleader's receiving chamber was wearing heavy boots, and until he could no longer hear those footfalls the bronzerider had to keep on reminding himself to breathe. He felt like those boots had kicked him hard in the stomach and then, for good measure, several times in the head.

But the headache didn't have sole claim to the space between J'fel's ears. The Caminar's voice was still ringing there: "You're welcome to walk among us, Weyrleader. You'll find no children in our care but our own."

Why did this have to come to the forefront now? He'd finally put his house in order and made ready the riders that would accompany him in ousting the traders. He'd identified a team of four pairs to accompany the caravan as a whole back down to the crossroads on the desert's edge, and several pairs more to shadow the wagons as they went back out onto their customary, migratory courses. Telgar Weyr can not forever host so many people, he'd say before introducing these men who'd make his will be done. But you are Telgar's people, and we are sworn to protect you. This we can do, and shall.

But he hadn't, when these words sounded so wise in his mind, accounted for the possibility that protecting these people could very well mean beating off his own holders with sticks and flame. The notion that attacks on the Caminar wouldn't be violent was easy to discard: these people were looking for someone to blame for their missing children. There was no way he could send out dragonriders to meet their frustration with the threat of violence - and to think the holders would stop at less was folly.

J'fel leaned sideways in his chair and hauled up one boot across his other knee. His hands worked slowly back through the tangle of his dark locks, fingertips rubbing slow circles along the way, fighting back the pain. They don't have the kids, though. Not unless they've left them with another caravan hidden somewhere outside the Weyr, or -

The young weyrleader raised his head from his hands, then leaned precipitously over in the chair so he could rest an elbow on the sandtable's glass plate. After a moment he lifted up the boot from his knee and stuck its heel on the edge of the seat cushion, knee almost to his chest. The chair had been made for S'lyn's predecessor; it dwarfed his successor. Nevertheless J'fel drummed his fingertips possessively against the chair's wooden arm and stared, morose, into the bowl visible past the double doors the trader's departure had left open. Through those doors, J'fel could see the ledge and stair leading down into the bowl, many of the weyr's cavern entrances, and a fine expanse of clear mountain sky. Or he could have seen these things, anyway, if he cared to look at anything but the distant gathering of carts and wagons that crowded the far end of his Weyr's bowl.

Behind him waited, through twin doors that framed the receiving chamber, the very different refuges of Aderes' weyr and his own. J'fel longed for such solace now, but could not convince his body to unfold. He was fixed to the spot, glaring at the Caminar caravans, their shadows growing as the afternoon sun started down the west side of the sky. The weyrleader's pretty face did ugly things, mouth twisting, brows crouching, blue eyes threatening to turn black.

It was a petty thought, irrelevant to the need for a decision to benefit both Weyr and its people, but J'fel couldn't help but think it with his whole heart and mind. They're going to ruin it all.

[Tabula Rasa]

It had not been a very great surprise that the new Weyrleader had the same plans for the traveling people as the old one. Men were territorial creatures, the young bucks especially, and here was a perfect opportunity for the boy to stomp and snort and scratch at the dirt. But gracefully. He had been learning from more than just S'lyn's former followers.

The murmur of voices in the council room kept Aderes working quietly in her own weyr. She couldn't hear specific words, though she could distinguish the intonations clearly enough. The Caminar spoke with that pattern and flow distinct to his people, his voice low and warm. The Weyrleader's own tones were considerably higher, save for when he purposefully deepened them in an attempt to underline a point he believed relevant or persuasive. That habit had been conspicuously absent this meeting.

Aderes trapped her bottom lip prettily between her teeth, the tally of tithes under her fingers all but forgotten. She'd known for days what J'fel had been about. She had heard him pacing and practicing the words he would use when he thought her still asleep. There was no proper way for a Weyrwoman to walk among the Caminar without her 'leader's approval, but she had been able to speak, for a quiet moment, to an older man who had come into the living cavern yesterday. To ask, with the greatest of respect and by J'fel's request, if one of his people would extend the courtesy of speaking to the Weyrleader himself and presenting their reasons for staying so long within Telgar's walls.

Better, that the tale come from them. Better that the young J'fel not realize Pelegaoth's rider already knew.

The sound of receding bootfalls had Aderes nudging her hidework away and rising into a stand. She paced slowly to the mirror, checked her hair and gave a long and critical study to her choice of gown. Pale lavender, it made her skin porcelain and gave a violet cast to her light blue eyes. The cut was simple, if quite form-fitting. Modest, save for the bits of cloth missing from the long sleeves so that, while they covered her arms, they left her shoulders bare. It made wearing a knot impossible, but for this discussion, she left that mark of station resting patiently beside the stack of tithe documents.

The soft swish of her long skirts announced Aderes' arrival before her voice did, and a sweep of her gaze took in the young man curled up in a chair too large. A little boy lost, scowling and petulant that the road had twisted unexpectedly.

The late spring afternoons in Telgar were still cool, and she walked to the fire to fill a pair of mugs with the hot cocoa brewing over it. Such a youthful beverage was given maturity only by a generous drop of something amber and alcoholic poured from a glass decanter. The Weyrwoman carried the drinks over and set one down before her Weyrleader. Then she turned, cradling the second mug in her own hands, to half sit and half lean against the table he faced. "Whatever that was," she began, her voice a low and soothing mixture of interest and comfort, "it can't have gone well."

[Omnia Munda]

J'fel could hear the soft sound of fabric whispering around the light percussion of his weyrwoman's steps, and awaited her with an impatience that his absolute lack of motion could hardly give away.

Were he in less foul a mood he might leap to his feet, cover with his easy leaps the space between them, welcome her to the table or to his quarters to go over what he'd learned in this meeting. Did he feel less bitter, he might be willing to confess his uncertainties to her by breathing them into her flaxen locks. That she permitted - no, invited - such indulgences thrilled him still, though Pelegaoth grew more gravid by the day and there was no doubt in his mind anymore of the wonders that had transpired the day that Jordeth had chased her. His weyrwoman was a beauty, anyone could see that, and though she might not want to weyr with him - yet -

It was this kind of thinking that had the young man slightly smiling through his black gloom by the time that spiked cocoa was placed before him. It was exactly this kind of thinking that had his eyes all too ready to at last give up their stubborn regard of the distant caravan and focus instead on the much closer, much more real figure of Aderes as she took up her pose against his sandtable.

Like a dragon unfurling his neck from a nap, J'fel straightened slowly out of his curled slump, letting his boot back down onto the floor with a soft thud. His gaze found a lavender-clad hip and slid from there upward until he was looking into the Weyrwoman's face, and here the lad found another reason to smile. It was a somber smile, almost a sad one, but it was all for her.

"It didn't go at all," sighed J'fel after a moment, and hauled his gaze away from Aderes to the cup she'd put down for him. He leaned abruptly forward and grabbed it with a carelessly swift hand.

"It was a report, I guess, if I can say that those traders report to me - or anyone." The weyrleader lifted the cocoa to his mouth but paused before drinking, looking up from it through the steam at the woman who adorned his sandtable again. If I can just keep her on my side, he thought, tilting a careful sip of the enriched liquid into his mouth, I'll have a fighting chance between the Holders and S'lyn's men.

What Aderes had put into the drink was fortifying, if unexpected, and though his eyes widened slightly the young bronzerider broke an easy grin after swallowing and interrupted his own report with a low-spoken, burry, "Thank you."

He lifted the mug a little toward her, then put it back on the table and reached that lazy hand for her thigh as natural as anything, just to rest it there against her - perhaps for the security of contact. But J'fel's face grew solemn, almost mature, and when he spoke again the gentle severity of his voice made it seem much more as though his touch was designed not to comfort him, but his weyrwoman.

"The holdfolk have been attacking them, he said. On account of believing the traders have been stealing - or worse - their children."

[Tabula Rasa]

The woman in lavender affected a tiny smile, the quiet crinkling of her eyes, for that thanks. She didn't voice a 'you're welcome', because such words would imply his appreciation was required for her to continue to offer such small comforts. Instead, she lifted her own mug to her lips. It was the sweetness of cocoa, rather than the bite of its hidden liquor, that Aderes had once found a challenge to swallow. But J'fel had been Weyrleader for more than a month, and she had become accustomed to the taste.

The hand that found her leg was covered with a warm, pale palm. Added comfort (or encouragement) for such boldness. His to claim. His to have. And if such liberties had their price, he needn't know he paid it.

With her other hand she lifted her drink towards her mouth a second time, but it halted as the Weyrleader finished speaking. Aderes let her lips part in appealing surprise, her eyes widening as they blinked slowly. "Stealing... children?" she asked, and her tone suggested she could hardly believe she'd heard correctly. "And, what do you think of such accusations?"

[Omnia Munda]

The weyrleading lad couldn't help a small, sad smile. He wasn't entirely surprised to discover that Aderes found the very idea of the holders' accusation alien, impossible, unbelievable. She, he knew, was from a more sheltered childhood than he; even the turns between them hadn't, then, exposed her to ideas like these.

He loathed that he'd have to explain what he thought might really be happening to this beautiful, good woman.

"I think," sighed J'fel, reluctant and regretful, "it's possible. But only in the extreme."

He lifted his other hand and, sliding forward in his chair to come closer to the table and therefore closer to the woman draped against it, covered her hand covering his with his other, layers of fingers and of emotions urged upon one another through them.

"They obviously don't have them here. We'd have noticed. Someone would have noticed. So either there's a cache of them alive out there somewhere, or - "

Faranth. I hope this doesn't give her the wrong idea.

"- dead," sighed J'fel, his reluctance giving way to weariness. He couldn't bear looking at her anymore; she was too desirable, too perfect. So he leaned his head to the side and took in the view past her, past his table and through the great wide doorway, past the stair and past the bowl, of the wagons that lurked in the distant end of the Weyr.

"Whether it actually has to do with them?" Now he looked back up at Aderes, the question in his eyes before he'd finished speaking it, an invitation for her advice. "I don't know."

[Tabula Rasa]

The Weyrwoman listened with rapt attention as J'fel worked his way through the awkward explanation. That he had thought it through enough to provide theories was promising. But that he looked to her, question in his eyes, as if offering his thoughts for sifting and arranging... that called up another smile, soft and true, to Aderes' face.

"What a quandary," she murmured, her one hand setting down her mug so that she could reach down to gently cup her Weyrleader's cheek. "Whatever the truth is, the holders have already made up their minds. Sending them back out on the roads would see them attacked and brutalized. A punishment fitting for child thieves, but not for innocent wayfarers." She sighed, shaking her head, as if the weight of the problem had finally settled on her own (bare) shoulders. Aderes stared into the distance as she thought, or seemed to think, further on the troubling question. Her fingertips slid themselves through J'fel's mussed hair of their own accord.

"They come in such numbers. Would the guilty really seek safety from us, knowing we'd be as willing to turn on them as the Lord Holders if it were true? Would they not have hidden away, if it were really their doing?"

[Omnia Munda]

Sometimes, J'fel could feel his youth and inexperience burning in his heart. What a quandary, said Aderes, and that torch blew into flame within him, humiliated and proud all at once. He looked down from her to where three of their hands rested upon her lavender-gowned leg, and slowly the young man withdrew his two from the stack.

He waited to slouch back into his chair until his weyrwoman's fingers had finished their little slide through his wayward locks, but beneath her hand J'fel's head moved: no, it shook in the negative to her words, that's too simple. But this was a thought that for a moment longer the young weyrleader kept to himself.

Leaning back in the chair then, he looked up at Aderes once more; now his face was a complicated mess of conflicted emotions. Foremost of them was malcontent. He listened while his weyrwoman pressed him to discard all chance of Caminar guilt - and knew she was trying to make this easy on him. If they could vindicate the Caminar, there'd be peace in the holdlands; they could send them out onto the roads and the Weyr would be contented, too.

But J'fel was not sure it could be that easy.

Wouldn't they have hidden, asked Aderes; and "If they had," said J'fel, grimly, "We'd know they had something to hide from."

He drew a long breath and let out a slow sigh. One of the hands he'd withdrawn from her lifted in a careless gesture, small reflection of his agitated state. "No, I don't think the traders we have here took any children. But I can't make any of their number responsible for any other - and I can't assume they'd give any of their number up, either. Having innocent - "

J'fel paused a moment, his gaze slipping away from his weyrwoman as his focus drew inward, hunting for the word.

"Having innocent Caminar here doesn't mean Caminar elsewhere are innocent - or that these ones know nothing."

Another great sigh raised and lowered the weyrleader's youthful chest. "We need to know them well enough to be sure before we can say or do much. And while we're doing that we have to start hunting every other possibility that exists. Holdless, highwaymen, anything. I don't know. Aderes," and here he found her face again with his eyes, his great endless blue eyes.

"I don't know."

[Tabula Rasa]

The woman in lavender listened to her Weyrleader speak, a small frown of thoughtful worry settled on her pale face and troubling her light eyes. This mixture of youth and concern, commitment and indecision, was intoxicating. Aderes worked to keep that pleasure from her expression and to offer her young lord only the concern she felt. He needn't understand just whom that concern was for.

"You're right," she agreed with a soft sigh. "We have no way of knowing the truth, and we cannot act on what we do not know. The," she paused as he did, although the name found its way more easily to her own tongue, "Caminar cannot be cast out, nor can they be welcomed in. For now, let them stay where they are, in their own caravans, but safe within the bowl.

"We mustn't be hasty or overt. We will watch them, learn of them, but discreetly. They number enough, now, that to anger them could cause a significant disruption and drive us to turn them out. We will find men we trust to be subtle and let them walk among the traders. Others, we'll send to walk the roads, watch, listen. No riders. Dragons and discretion..." the Weyrwoman only shook her head with a soft chuckle. That she found herself, suddenly, irritated by her own words was briefly perplexing until she realized that Pelegaoth had been listening in for some time. Aderes' smile only deepened a little.

"If we learn anything that either condemns or exonerates them, we'll send word to the Lord Holders. Quietly. This is a tinderbox. It would take only a single spark to cause a fire we couldn't control."

[Omnia Munda]

What words were more welcome in the ears of any human being than You're right? And how welcome they were indeed in the ears of J'fel, a being as human as any, maybe more than most. Though his smile was weary and made little use of the loveliness his lips had to offer, his pleasure in his weyrwoman's agreement was far more transparent than hers in him.

That pleasure made him patient, too, and soothed as such, J'fel reposed himself anew in his chair, an elbow on its arm and his chin in his hand, blue eyes cast up at his weyrwoman while she spoke.

Though he grew to smile less as she did, J'fel's expression also deepened, a warm appreciation quite serious, almost looming in the depths of that endless gaze.

"Yes," he agreed in her silent moment, his voice deepened and rich with bemusement. Dragons and discretion: a joke he could appreciate. One of the weyrleader's arch brows twitched crooked with near-wicked delight. Before the bronze could even correct him he was sending off a smug and knowing note to Jordeth: I know you can be discreet, man.

Jordeth's response was shared not with his rider, but with his queen, little more than a leaf twitched by a summer breeze in a distant hold. Little does he know.

"I think we'd be best served to let the Lords know - quietly - that there's an investigation underway, too," said J'fel, lifting his head only enough that he could speak, not quite separating his scruffed chin from the palm of his hand. "I'll send letters under seal." And just like that, Aderes' plan was his own, with the smallest of additions, frosting for the cake.

He was already thinking of a few people he might send. Boys he'd grown up with, a girl or two working in the caverns, a harper whose absence would seem to be called for by the Hall. Folk who wouldn't be missed.

"Yes," he said again, deeper now, and opened up his other hand to offer its palm up to Aderes for her fingertips or whatever other purpose she might see fit for it. "I'll make a list this evening."