"There!" he said, putting down his brush and standing back from the painting, satisfied in himself that he had done the best job possible: that is, the best job that would prove 'satisfactory' and allow him to leave this ghastly Hold.

"It's about time," Chalkin said, slipping down from the chair and stamping over to view the result.

Iantine watched his face, seeing that flash of pleasure before Chalkin's usual glum expression settled back over his features.

Chalkin peered more closely, seeming to count the brush strokes although there were none, for Iantine was too competent a technician to have left any.

Watch the paint. It's not yet dry," Iantine said quickly, raising his arm to ward off Chalkin's touch.

"Humph," Chalkin said, shrugging his shoulders to settle his heavy jerkin. He affected to be diffident, but the way he kept looking at his own face told Iantine that the man was finally pleased.

"Well? Is it satisfactory?" asked Iantine, unable to bear the suspense any longer.

"Not bad, not bad but..." and Chalkin once again put out a finger. "You will not smear the paint, Lord Chalkin," said Iantine, fearing just that and then another session to repair the damage.

"You're a rude fellow, painter."

"My t.i.tle is artist, Lord Chalkin, and do tell me if this portrait is satisfactory or not!"

Chalkin gave him a quick nervous glance, one facial muscle twitching. Even the Lord of Bitra Hold knew when he had pushed someone too hard.

"It's not bad. Is it satisfactory, Lord Chalkin?" Iantine put all the pent-up frustration and anxiety into that question.

Chalk in shifted one shoulder, screwed up his face with indecision and then hastily composed his features in the more dignified pose of the portrait before him.

"Yes, I believe it is satisfactory."

"Then," and now Iantine took Lord Chalkin by the elbow and steered him towards the door, let us to your office and complete the contract.

"Now, see here. If it is satisfactory, I have honored that contract and you may now settle with me for the miniatures," Iantine said, guiding the man down the cold corridor and to his office. He tapped his foot impatiently as Chalkin took the keys from his inside pocket and opened the door.

The fire within was so fierce that Iantine felt sweat blossom on his forehead. At Chalkin's abrupt gesture, he turned around while the man fiddled with wherever it was he had his strongbox. He heard, with infinite relief, the turn of the metal lock and then silence. A slamming of a lid.

"Here you are," said Chalkin coldly.

Iantine counted out the marks, sixteen of them, Farmermarks, but good enough since he would be using them in Benden which didn't mind Farmer-marks.

The contracts?" Chalkin glared but he unlocked the drawer and extracted them, almost flinging them across the desk at Iantine, who signed his name and turned them back to Chalkin.

"Use mine," Iantine said when Chalkin made a show of finding a good pen in the clutter on his desk.

Chalkin scrawled his name.

"Date it," Iantine added, wishing to have no complaint at later time.

"You want too much, painter."

"Artist, Lord Chalkin," Iantine said with a humorless smile and turned to leave. At the door he turned again. "And don't touch the painting for forty-eight hours. I will not come back if you smear it. It was satisfactory when we left the room, so keep it that way."

Iantine returned to collect his good brushes, but left what remained of the paints he had had to make. Last night, in a hopeful mood, he had packed everything else. Now, he took the stairs up two and three at a time, stored his brushes carefully, stuffed the signed and dated contracts into his pack shrugged into his coat, rolled up his sleeping-furs, looped both packs in one hand and was half-way down the stairs again when he met Chalkin ascending.

"You cannot leave now," Chalkin protested, grabbing his arm. "You have to wait until my wife has seen and approved my portrait."

"Oh, no, I don't," said Iantine, wrenching free of the restraining hand.

He was out of the main door before Chalkin could say another word, and ran down the roadway between the soiled snow banks. If he was benighted on the road in the middle of a snowstorm, he would still be safer than staying one more hour at Bitra Hold.

Luckily for him, he found shelter during that next storm in a woodsman's holding some klicks away from the main Hold.

Telgar Weyr, Fort Hold

"Guess what I found?" P'tero cried, ushering his guest into the kitchen cavern. Tisha, he's half frozen and starving of the hunger," the young green rider added, hauling the tall fur wrapped figure towards the nearest hearth and pushing him into a chair. He deposited the packs he was carrying on to the table.

"Klah, for the love of little dragons, please."

Two women came running, one with klah and the other with a hastily filled bowl of soup. Tisha came striding across the cavern, demanding to know what the problem was, who had P'tero rescued and from where.

"No-one should be out in weather like this," she said as she reached the table and grabbed the victim's wrist to get a pulse.

"All but froze, he is." Tisha pulled aside the furs wrapped about his neck and - then let him take the cup. He cradled the klah in reddened - fingers, blowing before he took his first cautious sip. He was also shivering uncontrollably.

"I spotted an SOS on the snow - lucky for him that the sun made shadows or I'd never have seen it," P'tero was saying, thoroughly pleased with himself.

"Found him below Bitra Hold..."

"Poor man," Tisha interjected.

"Oh, you're so right there," P'tero said with ironic fervor, "and he'll never return. Not that he's told me all..." and P'tero flopped to a chair when someone brought him a cup of klah.

"Got out of Chalkin's clutches intact..." and P'tero grinned impishly, "and then survived three nights in a Bitran woodsman's hold --- with only a half cup of old oats to sustain him."

Through his explanation, Tisha ordered hot water-bottles, warmed blankets and, taking a good look at the man's fingers, numb weed and frostbite salve.

"Don't think they're more than cold," she said, removing one of his hands from its fevered grip on the hot cup and spreading the fingers out, lightly pinching the tips. "No, cold enough but not harmed."

"Thank you, thank you," the man said, returning his fingers to the warm cup. "I got so cold stamping out that emergency code."

"And out of doors in such weather with no gloves," Tisha chided him.

"When I left Domaize Hall for Bitra Hold, it was only autumn," he said in a grating voice.

"Autumn?" Tisha echoed, widening her fine eyes in surprise.

"How long were you at Bitra Hold then?"

"Seven d.a.m.ned weeks," the man replied, spitting out the words in a disgusted tone of voice. "I had thought a week at the most." Tisha laughed, her belly heaving under her broad ap.r.o.n. "What under the stars took you to Bitra in the first place?"

"Painter, are you?" she added.

"How'd you know?" The man regarded her with surprise.

"Still have paint under your nails." Iantine inspected them and his cold-reddened face flushed a deeper red.

"I didn't even stop to wash," he said.

"As well you didn't, considering the price Chalkin charges for such luxuries as soap," she said, chuckling again.

The women returned with the things Tisha had ordered.

While they ministered to the warming of him, he clung with one hand or the other to the klah. And then to the soup cup.

His furs, which had kept him from freezing to death, were taken to dry at one fire; his boots were removed and his toes checked for frostbite but he had been lucky there, too, so they were coated with salve for good measure and then wrapped in warm toweling while warmed blankets were snugged about his body. Salve was applied to his hands and face and then he was allowed to finish the hot food.

"Now, your name, and whom shall we contact to say that you've been found?" Tisha asked when all this had been done.

"I'm Iantine," and then he added in wry pride, "portraitist from Hall Domaize. I was contracted to do miniatures of Chalkin's children.

"Your first mistake," said Tisha, chuckling.

Iantine flushed. "You're so right, but I needed the fee."

"Did you come away with any of it?" P'tero asked, his eyes gleaming with mischief.

"Oh, that I did," the artist replied so fiercely that everyone grinned. Then he sighed. "But I did have to part with an eighth at the woodsman's hold. He had little enough to share, but was willing to do so."

"At a profit, I'm sure."

Iantine considered that for a moment. "I was lucky to find any place to wait out the storm. And he did share." He shrugged briefly, and a dejected look crossed his features as he sighed. "Anyway, it was he who suggested I make a sign in the snow to attract any dragon rider I'm just lucky one saw me." He nodded thanks to P'tero.

"No problem," the blue dragon rider said airily. "Glad I came." He leaned towards Tisha across the table. "He'd've been frozen solid in another day!"

"Were you long waiting?"

"Two days after the storm ended, but I spent the nights with ol' Fendler. If you're hungry enough, even tunnel snake tastes good," Iantine added.

"Ah, the poor laddie," said Tisha and called out orders for a double portion of stew to be brought immediately, and bread and sweetening and some of the fruit that had been sent up from Ista.

By the time Iantine had finished the meal, he felt he had made up for the last four days. His feet and hands were tingling despite the numb weed and salve. When he stood to go and relieve himself, he wobbled badly and clutched at the chair for support.

"Have a care, lad, filling the stomach was only half your problem," Tisha said, moving to support him with far more alacrity than her bulk would suggest. She gestured for P'tero to lend a hand.

"I need to..." Iantine began.

"Ach, it's on the way to the sleeping cavern," Tisha told him and drew one of his arms over her shoulder. She was as tall as he.

P'tero took up the packs again and between them, they got him to the toilet room. And then into a bed in an empty cubicle. Tisha checked his feet again, applied another coat of numb weed and tiptoed out. Iantine only made sure that his packs - and the precious fee were in the room with him before he fell deeply asleep.

While he slept, messages went out - to Hall Domaize and to Benden Weyr and Hold, since Iantine nominally looked to Benden. Although Iantine had taken no lasting harm, M'shall recognized yet another instance of Chalkin taking unfair advantage. Irene had already sent in a substantial list of abuses and irregularities in Chalkin's dealings generally with folk who had no recourse against his dictates. He held no court in which difficulties could be aired, and had no impartial arbiters to make decisions.

The big traders, who could be counted on for impartial comment, bypa.s.sed Bitra and could cite many examples of unfair dealings since Chalkin had a.s.sumed the Holding fifteen years before. The few small traders who ventured in Bitra rarely returned.

Following that Oather and its decision to consider deposing Chalkin, M'shall had his sweep riders check in every minor bold to learn if Chalkin had duly informed his people of the imminence of Thread. None had, although Lord Chalkin had increased his t.i.the on every household. The manner in which he was conducting this extra t.i.the suggested that he was ama.s.sing supplies for his own good, not that of the Hold.

Those in more isolated situations would certainly have a hard time obtaining even basic food supplies. That const.i.tuted a flagrant abuse of his position as Lord Holder.

When Paulin read M'shall's report, he asked if Chalkin's holders would speak out against him. M'shall had to report that his initial survey of the minor holders indicated a severe lack of civic duty.

Chalkin had his folk so cowed, none would accuse him - especially this close to a Pa.s.s, for he had still had the power to turn objectors out of their holds.

"They may change their minds once Thread has started," K'vin remarked to Zulaya.

"Too late, I'd say, for any decent preparations to be made." K'vin shrugged. "He's really not our concern - for which I, for one, am thankful. At least we rescued Iantine."

Zulaya gave a wry chuckle. "That poor lad! Starting his professional career at Bitra, Not the best place."

"Maybe that's all he could aspire to," K'vin suggested.

"Not if he's from Hall Domaize," Zulaya said tartly. "Wonder how long it'll take his hands to recover?"

"Thinking of a new portrait?" K'vin asked, amused.

"Well, he's down an eighth of what he needs," she said.

K'vin gave her a wide-eyed look. "You wouldn't."

"Of course I wouldn't," she said with an edge to her voice. "He needs something in his pocket of his own. I admire a lad who'd endure Bitra for any reason. And Iantine's was an honorable one in wanting to pay the transfer fee."

"Wear that red Hatching dress when you sit for him," K'vin said. Then he rubbed his chin. "You know, I might have my portrait done, too." Zulaya gave him a long look.

"The boy may find it as hard to leave Telgar Weyr as it was Bitra. With a much fuller pouch and no maintenance subtracted And soap and hot water and decent food," Zulaya said.

"According to Tisha, he'll need feeding up. He's skin and bones."

When the singing woke Iantine, he was totally disoriented.

No-one had sung a note at Bitra Hold. And he was warm!

The air was redolent of good eating odors, too. He sat up.

Hands, feet and face were stiff, but the tingling was gone. And he was exceedingly hungry.

The curtain across the cubicle rustled and a boy's head popped through.

"You're awake, Artist Iantine?" the lad asked.