Two heads will be better than one
Giremi, Thirion
Records Room, High Reaches Weyr
Not expecting to find anything of value this morning Thirry goes to the Records Room to do her 'duty' searching of the records and finds Giremi, journeyman harper from Telgar at the same task. What follows is an encouraging turn in the long road toward resolving the Crom problem.
Late morning sees the Records Room occupied by a few people, including the visiting Harper from Telgar. He's just exchanging a few words with Reaches' harper when Ywain steps out and Giremi returns to perusing the loose stack of old-looking hides he has before him. In the background a scribe slides a bound volume onto a shelf and one of the headwoman's assistants looks up briefly as the door opens and closes, apparently hard at work at some sort of ledger.
Thirry steps briskly into the Records Room intent on her morning’s work, having been interrupted by having to deliver messages to the Harper Hall via her gold Trill. Taking note of the other occupants of the room she tries to be unobtrusive, not wanting to disturb them in their endeavours, though she does notice an unusually tall young man who she has not encountered before, giving his complete attention to the hides in front of him.
Giremi looks up from the hides briefly as the door swings open again and his eyes settle on Thirion. He gives her a small smile and gestures her over. "Would you mind helping me with these Apprentice? We're looking for more Crom references of course, based on the notes I brought from Telgar. If you could take this part of the stack ..." he slides a sheaf of the hides in her direction.
Recognition dawns as Giremi addresses Thirry, as she respectfully comes alongside him. “Good morning Journeyman, of course I’ll help, that’s what I’m here for after all,” and she flashes him a bright smile. “Good to be working /with/ someone for a change instead of alone,” and she sets to diligently, and seriously, from time to time sneaking a look at the Giremi out of the corner of her eye.
Giremi's brows lift a little. "Journeyman Ywain has not been in attendance while you searched then?" He turns over a leaf on his stack of hides, pushing his spectacles up his nose a little. "Hm. Well. I believe in staying close and working together especially on a matter of such importance to two of Pern's Weyrs."
Thirry turns over the hide she’s finished with and looks over at Giremi. “I guess Ywain’s time is limited for our particular assignment. He has the children’s ballads to teach as well as other Harper duties at the weyr. So, two heads will be better than one today so let’s hope we find something after all my fruitless searching!” Thirry rolls her eyes then crosses them humorously.
"How far back have you gotten while you've been here?" Giremi turns another page and pauses for a moment, finger resting lightly on its surface. "These are Interval Records, from the 8th Interval. They're not in terribly good shape." He sniffs lightly. "I can't say much for the archivist who put these together. Or why they haven't been recopied properly onto paper and bound."
“Oh, should I have been going backwards from the present?” Thirry puts her fingers to her lips in consternation, “I started from as far back as the hides were legible and worked forward hoping to find some ‘original’ references to flight coverage over Crom.” Thirry looks embarrassed at her time wasting mistake shifting from foot to foot and flushes slightly under the Journeyman’s gaze. “What a lot of time I could have wasted then…” she trails off.
"That's not a bad strategy either, but it helps to be working together with someone, start at either end, meet in the middle," remarks Giremi, looking down at the line in the hide he's reading. "Hmm. Well here's something about Crom's tithe anyway ... have you got the tenth page there?"
Thirry rifles through the hides carefully and comes up with the 10th page, “Yes, here it is,” she says triumphantly, and pulls it out of the pile, giving it a cursory glance as she hands it over to Giremi, the words ‘Crom’ and “tithe catching her eye. “Does this one continue on from what you’ve found there?”
"Yes actually it does, see these were all stacked in box together, out of order. I've been trying to re-sort them ... hmmm ..." Giremi takes the page from Thirion and lays his and the one she's just handed him side by side. "Well isn't that interesting. Here ... have a look." He moves aside and gestures downward at the pair of hides. "Read it and tell me what you think."
Thirry holds her breath as she carefully reads the continuation from what was on Giremi’s page and the one she’s just given him. “mmm, it makes mention of a ‘new tithe’ here,” she leans forward to get a closer look at the hide which is slightly smudged, “is that word right there ‘re-assigned’, or ‘re-aligned’ do you think?” she looks up sideways at the tall journeyman, a querying look on her face. Excitement now colours her voice as she continues, “because if says what I think it does, then all sorts of implications come to mind!” she finishes, standing straight, a smile breaking out.
Giremi nods a few times. "Looks like this is recording the fact that Crom has /started/ tithing to the Reaches ... during the 8th Interval." The journeyman pushes some of the other hides out of the way and sits down to take a closer look. "Yes, we need to find more about this ... now I know /where/ to look in Telgar's records too."
“You do?” Thirry’s voice goes up an octave in hope and surprise that Giremi knows where to find the missing piece of the diplomatic puzzle. “If it proves to have been an arrangement way back during the 8th interval, then surely Lord Crom can’t just arbitrarily change things back again … can he?” she now sounds uncertain and the bright edge of hope fades from her voice a little.
Giremi clears his throat and lifts his shoulders. "We need to know more details of what happened but it would seem to indicate, that no, he can't. Master Rodric will want to know of this right away ... and there'll be checking to do in the Hall's archives now as well. If it was a formal change, there /should/ be a Record of it there ..." The Journeyman trails off and taps the hide again, keeping those two pages carefully aside. "Here, would you mind sorting the rest of this stack into order? I'm going to cross-reference this same time period with the Weyr's ledgers."
“Of course I don’t minding sorting the rest of the hides, but does that mean you’ll be returning to Telgar now?” Thirry says as she starts carefully gathering the remaining hides together in their proper order. “Do you think it would be appropriate for me to go with you? I’d really like to see this whole debacle through to its resolution since we found /this/ together?” she looks hopefully up at the Telgar journeyman. Then she offers, “I could send my gold Trill back to the Hall with a brief message if you like? She knows Emmi well.” As if on cue, Trill chriples a happy note as she flies in through the window, landing on Thirry’s right shoulder and croons into her ear.
"No, not right away, I'm going to finish looking through some things here and make sure Ywain has everything he needs and ... perhaps we can present what we found to the Weyrleaders. I also need to write a report to the Masterharper." The Journeyman shakes his head. "Oh no, that won't be necessary. My brown is around here somewhere ..." he gives the girl another one of those small smiles. "I don't know what the Masterharper intends Thirion. I'll put in a good word though." So saying, Giremi quiets down, moving into the back of the room to pull the cross-reference documents he'd mentioned, lost for a time in the search for more details.
Absently stroking Trill’s browridges, Thirry sinks down into a chair, and not realizing that she’d been so tense in her search for relevant details, relaxes her shoulders and sighs deeply, a feeling of accomplishment flooding her. She looks over at the almost enigmatic Giremi studying the records and is at peace again among people she can understand and hopefully trust. At least she doesn’t feel threatened by him in any way. Trill’s hungry creeling evokes a like response in her stomach and she waves to Giremi and makes her way to the Living Cavern to see what snacks are on offer there.
Records Room, High Reaches Weyr
Not expecting to find anything of value this morning Thirry goes to the Records Room to do her 'duty' searching of the records and finds Giremi, journeyman harper from Telgar at the same task. What follows is an encouraging turn in the long road toward resolving the Crom problem.
Late morning sees the Records Room occupied by a few people, including the visiting Harper from Telgar. He's just exchanging a few words with Reaches' harper when Ywain steps out and Giremi returns to perusing the loose stack of old-looking hides he has before him. In the background a scribe slides a bound volume onto a shelf and one of the headwoman's assistants looks up briefly as the door opens and closes, apparently hard at work at some sort of ledger.
Thirry steps briskly into the Records Room intent on her morning’s work, having been interrupted by having to deliver messages to the Harper Hall via her gold Trill. Taking note of the other occupants of the room she tries to be unobtrusive, not wanting to disturb them in their endeavours, though she does notice an unusually tall young man who she has not encountered before, giving his complete attention to the hides in front of him.
Giremi looks up from the hides briefly as the door swings open again and his eyes settle on Thirion. He gives her a small smile and gestures her over. "Would you mind helping me with these Apprentice? We're looking for more Crom references of course, based on the notes I brought from Telgar. If you could take this part of the stack ..." he slides a sheaf of the hides in her direction.
Recognition dawns as Giremi addresses Thirry, as she respectfully comes alongside him. “Good morning Journeyman, of course I’ll help, that’s what I’m here for after all,” and she flashes him a bright smile. “Good to be working /with/ someone for a change instead of alone,” and she sets to diligently, and seriously, from time to time sneaking a look at the Giremi out of the corner of her eye.
Giremi's brows lift a little. "Journeyman Ywain has not been in attendance while you searched then?" He turns over a leaf on his stack of hides, pushing his spectacles up his nose a little. "Hm. Well. I believe in staying close and working together especially on a matter of such importance to two of Pern's Weyrs."
Thirry turns over the hide she’s finished with and looks over at Giremi. “I guess Ywain’s time is limited for our particular assignment. He has the children’s ballads to teach as well as other Harper duties at the weyr. So, two heads will be better than one today so let’s hope we find something after all my fruitless searching!” Thirry rolls her eyes then crosses them humorously.
"How far back have you gotten while you've been here?" Giremi turns another page and pauses for a moment, finger resting lightly on its surface. "These are Interval Records, from the 8th Interval. They're not in terribly good shape." He sniffs lightly. "I can't say much for the archivist who put these together. Or why they haven't been recopied properly onto paper and bound."
“Oh, should I have been going backwards from the present?” Thirry puts her fingers to her lips in consternation, “I started from as far back as the hides were legible and worked forward hoping to find some ‘original’ references to flight coverage over Crom.” Thirry looks embarrassed at her time wasting mistake shifting from foot to foot and flushes slightly under the Journeyman’s gaze. “What a lot of time I could have wasted then…” she trails off.
"That's not a bad strategy either, but it helps to be working together with someone, start at either end, meet in the middle," remarks Giremi, looking down at the line in the hide he's reading. "Hmm. Well here's something about Crom's tithe anyway ... have you got the tenth page there?"
Thirry rifles through the hides carefully and comes up with the 10th page, “Yes, here it is,” she says triumphantly, and pulls it out of the pile, giving it a cursory glance as she hands it over to Giremi, the words ‘Crom’ and “tithe catching her eye. “Does this one continue on from what you’ve found there?”
"Yes actually it does, see these were all stacked in box together, out of order. I've been trying to re-sort them ... hmmm ..." Giremi takes the page from Thirion and lays his and the one she's just handed him side by side. "Well isn't that interesting. Here ... have a look." He moves aside and gestures downward at the pair of hides. "Read it and tell me what you think."
Thirry holds her breath as she carefully reads the continuation from what was on Giremi’s page and the one she’s just given him. “mmm, it makes mention of a ‘new tithe’ here,” she leans forward to get a closer look at the hide which is slightly smudged, “is that word right there ‘re-assigned’, or ‘re-aligned’ do you think?” she looks up sideways at the tall journeyman, a querying look on her face. Excitement now colours her voice as she continues, “because if says what I think it does, then all sorts of implications come to mind!” she finishes, standing straight, a smile breaking out.
Giremi nods a few times. "Looks like this is recording the fact that Crom has /started/ tithing to the Reaches ... during the 8th Interval." The journeyman pushes some of the other hides out of the way and sits down to take a closer look. "Yes, we need to find more about this ... now I know /where/ to look in Telgar's records too."
“You do?” Thirry’s voice goes up an octave in hope and surprise that Giremi knows where to find the missing piece of the diplomatic puzzle. “If it proves to have been an arrangement way back during the 8th interval, then surely Lord Crom can’t just arbitrarily change things back again … can he?” she now sounds uncertain and the bright edge of hope fades from her voice a little.
Giremi clears his throat and lifts his shoulders. "We need to know more details of what happened but it would seem to indicate, that no, he can't. Master Rodric will want to know of this right away ... and there'll be checking to do in the Hall's archives now as well. If it was a formal change, there /should/ be a Record of it there ..." The Journeyman trails off and taps the hide again, keeping those two pages carefully aside. "Here, would you mind sorting the rest of this stack into order? I'm going to cross-reference this same time period with the Weyr's ledgers."
“Of course I don’t minding sorting the rest of the hides, but does that mean you’ll be returning to Telgar now?” Thirry says as she starts carefully gathering the remaining hides together in their proper order. “Do you think it would be appropriate for me to go with you? I’d really like to see this whole debacle through to its resolution since we found /this/ together?” she looks hopefully up at the Telgar journeyman. Then she offers, “I could send my gold Trill back to the Hall with a brief message if you like? She knows Emmi well.” As if on cue, Trill chriples a happy note as she flies in through the window, landing on Thirry’s right shoulder and croons into her ear.
"No, not right away, I'm going to finish looking through some things here and make sure Ywain has everything he needs and ... perhaps we can present what we found to the Weyrleaders. I also need to write a report to the Masterharper." The Journeyman shakes his head. "Oh no, that won't be necessary. My brown is around here somewhere ..." he gives the girl another one of those small smiles. "I don't know what the Masterharper intends Thirion. I'll put in a good word though." So saying, Giremi quiets down, moving into the back of the room to pull the cross-reference documents he'd mentioned, lost for a time in the search for more details.
Absently stroking Trill’s browridges, Thirry sinks down into a chair, and not realizing that she’d been so tense in her search for relevant details, relaxes her shoulders and sighs deeply, a feeling of accomplishment flooding her. She looks over at the almost enigmatic Giremi studying the records and is at peace again among people she can understand and hopefully trust. At least she doesn’t feel threatened by him in any way. Trill’s hungry creeling evokes a like response in her stomach and she waves to Giremi and makes her way to the Living Cavern to see what snacks are on offer there.