A Gift of Dragons

by Anne McCaffrey

  Beastholders, up early to feed stock, gave her cheery waves and smiles, and their courtesies somewhat restored her good humor. She did not care to arrive petulant as well as scratched, not on her first visit here.

  Almost as if the manager had a special sensitivity to incoming runners, the double door was thrown open as she came to a rough, gasping halt, hand raised to catch the bell cord.

  “Thought I heard someone coming.” The man, a welcoming grin on his face, put out both hands to steady her. He was one of the oldest men she had ever seen: his skin was a network of wrinkles and grooves, but his eyes were bright—for this hour—and he looked to be a merry man. “New one, too, at that, for all you look familiar to me. A pretty face is a great sight on a fine morning.”

  Sucking in breath enough to give her name, Tenna paced into the large entry room. She unbuckled her message pouch as she eased the tension in her leg muscles.

  “Tenna passing Two-Oh-Eight with eastern messages. Fort’s the destination for all.”

  “Welcome to Three Hundred, Tenna,” he said, taking the pouch from her and immediately chalking up her arrival on the heavy old board to the left of the station door. “All for here, huh?” He passed her a cup before he opened the pouch, to check the recipients.

  With cup in hand, she went out again, still flicking her legs to ease the muscles. First she rinsed her mouth, spitting out that first mouthful onto the cobbles. Then she would sip to swallow. Nor was this just water but some sort of fresh-tasting drink that refreshed dry tissues.

  “You’re a mite the worse for the run,” the man said, standing in the door and pointing to the bloody smears on her bare skin. “What’d you run into?”

  “Sticklebush,” she said through gritted teeth. “Runnerbeast ran me off ’round the hill curve . . . galloping along a runner trace like he must know he shouldn’t.” She was astonished at the anger in her voice when she’d meant to sound matter-of-fact.

  “That’d be Haligon, more’n likely,” the station keeper said, nodding with a disapproving scowl. “Saw him peltin’ down to the beasthold an hour or so ago. I’ve warned him myself about using the traces but he says it cuts half an hour off a trip and he’s conducting an ex-per-i-ment.”

  “He might have killed me,” she said, her anger thoroughly fanned.

  “You’d better tell him. Maybe a pretty runner’ll get it through his thick skull because the odd crack or two hasn’t.”

  His reaction made Tenna feel that her anger was righteous. It’s one thing to be angry on your own, another to have confirmation of your right to be angry. She felt redeemed. Though she couldn’t see why being pretty would be an advantage if you were giving someone what-for. She could hit just as hard as the ugliest runner she’d ever met.

  “You’ll need a long soak with sticklebush slivers in you. You did have something to put on ’em right then, didn’t you?” When she nodded, now annoyed because he implied that she might not have that much sense, he added, “I’ll can send m’mate to look at those cuts. Wrong time of the Turn to fall into sticklebush, ya know.” And she nodded her head vigorously. “All in all, you made a good time from Two-Oh-Eight,” he added, approvingly. “Like that in a young runner. Shows you’re not just a pretty face. Now, go up the stairs there, take your first right, go along the corridor, fourth door on the left. No one else’s up. Towels on the shelves. Leave your clothes: they’ll be washed and dry by evening. You’ll want a good feed after a night run and then a good long sleep. We’ve all for you, runner.”

  She thanked him, turned to the stairs, and then tried to lift the wooden blocks her legs had become up the steps. Her toes dragged as she made her feet move, and she was grateful for the carpeting that saved the wooden stairs from her spikes. But then this place was for runners, shoes, spikes, and all.

  “Fourth door,” she murmured to herself, and pushed against a portal that opened into the most spacious bathing room she’d ever seen. And pungent with something pleasantly astringent. Nothing as grand as this even at Keroon Hold. Five tubs ranged along the back wall with curtains to separate them if one needed privacy. There were two massage tables, sturdy, padded, with shelves of oils and salves underneath. They would account for the nice smells. The room was hot and she began to sweat again, a sweat that made her nicks and scratches itch. There were changing cubicles, too, to the right of the door . . . and behind her she found oversized towels in stacks higher than her head, and she wasn’t short. There were cubbies holding runner pants and shirts for all weathers and the thick anklets that cushioned and warmed weary feet. She took a towel, her fingers feeling the thick, soft nap. It was as big as a blanket.

  In the cubicle nearest the tubs, she shucked off her garments, automatically folding them into a neat pile. Then, looping the towel over the hook set by the side of the tub for that purpose, she eased herself into the warm water. The tub was taller than she was and she let herself down to touch a floor, a full hand of water above her head when she did. Amazing!

  This was sheer luxury. She wondered how often she could draw a run to Fort Hold. The water made her scratches sting, but that was nothing to the comfort it was giving her tired muscles. Swishing around in the large square tub, her hand connected with a ledge, sort of curved, a few inches below the surface. With a grin she realized that she could rest her head on it and be able to float safely. Which was exactly what she did, arms out to her sides, legs dangling. She hadn’t known bathing could be so . . . so splendid. She let every muscle in her body go limp. And lay suspended in the water.

  “Tenna?” a woman’s voice called gently, as if not to startle the lone bather. “I’m Penda, Torlo’s mate. He sent me up. I’ve some herbs for the bath that’ll help those scratches. Wrong time of the Turn to fall into sticklebush.”

  “I know,” Tenna agreed dourly. “Be glad of any help.” Tenna didn’t really want to open her eyes or move but she politely swished herself across the water to the edge of the tub.

  “Lemme see them cuts so’s I can see didja get any punctures like. That’d be no good with the sap rising,” Penda said. She walked quickly to the tub with an odd sideways gait, so whatever had injured her hip had happened a long time ago and she had learned to cope with it. She grinned at Tenna. “Pretty runner girl, you are. You give Haligon what-for next time you see him.”

  “How’ll I know him?” Tenna asked acerbically, though she dearly wished a confrontation with the rider. “And why is ‘pretty’ a help?”

  “Haligon likes pretty girls.” Penda gave an exaggerated wink. “We’ll see you stay about long enough to give him what-for. You might do some good.”

  Tenna laughed and, at Penda’s gesture, held out her hands and turned her left arm where Penda could see it.

  “Hmmm. Mostly surface but there’s punctures on the heels of both hands.” She ran oddly soft fingers across Tenna’s hands, catching on three slivers so that Tenna shivered with the unpleasant sensation. “Soaking’ll do the most good. Loosen them up in your skin. Prolly clean ’em all out. Stickle’s a clever bush, harming you so, but this’ll help,” she said, and took a collection of bottles from the deep pocket in her apron and selected one. “Got to leave nothing to chance, ya know,” she added as she deftly splashed about twenty drops into the tub water. “Don’t worry about emptying the tub, either. It’ll run clear and’ll be fresh water by the time someone else climbs in. I’ll take out the slivers when you’ve soaked. You want a rub then? Or would you rather sleep first?”

  “A bit of a rub would be marvelous, thanks. And before I sleep.”

  “I’ll be back with some food.”

  Tenna thought of the bathing room in her parents’ station and grinned. Nothing to compare to this, though she’d always thought her station was lucky to have a tub so long you could lie out flat in it: even the tallest runners could. But you had to keep the fire going under the tank all the time to be sure there was enough for when a bath was needed. Not like this—the water already hot and you only needing to step
into the tub. The herbs scented the steamy water, making it feel softer against her skin. She lay back again.

  She was nearly asleep when Penda returned with a tray containing klah, fresh-baked bread, a little pot of, appropriately enough, stickleberry preserve, and a bowl of porridge.

  “Messages’ve already been handed over to them they was sent to, so you can sleep good, knowing the run’s well ended.”

  Tenna consumed her meal, down to the last scrap. Penda was making quite a mixture with the massage oils, and the runner inhaled the scent of them. Then Tenna climbed on the table, letting her body go limp while Penda used a tweezer on the slivers still caught in her flesh. Penda counted as she deposited the wicked hairs. Nine, all told. She applied more medication and the last of the itching and discomfort vanished. Tenna sighed. Then Penda soothed tired muscles and tendons. Her touch was sure but gentle. She did announce that there were more punctures on the backs of Tenna’s arms and legs and proceeded to go at them with the tweezers to remove the slivers. That done, her motions became more soothing and Tenna relaxed again.

  “There y’are. Just go along to the third door down on your left, Tenna,” Penda said softly when she had finished.

  Tenna roused enough from the delightful, massage-induced stupor and wrapped the big towel tightly around her chest. Like most runner females, she didn’t have much of a bust, but that was an advantage.

  “Don’t forget these,” Penda said, shoving the laces of her running shoes at her. “Clothes’ll be clean and dry when you wake.”

  “Thanks, Penda,” Tenna said sincerely, astonished that she’d been drowsy enough to forget her precious shoes.

  She padded down the hall in the thick anklets that Penda had slipped on her feet and pushed in the third door. Light from the corridor showed her where the bed was, straight across the narrow space, against the wall. Closing the door, she made her way to it in the dark. Dropping the towel, she leaned down to feel for the edge of the quilt she’d seen folded on the foot of the bed. She pulled it over her as she stretched out. Sighed once and fell asleep.

  Good-natured laughter and movement down the hall roused her. Someone had half opened the glowbasket, so she saw her own clothes, clean, dry, and neatly folded on the stool where she’d dropped her running shoes. She realized she hadn’t even taken off the anklets before she got into bed. She wriggled her toes in them. No tenderness there. Her hands were stiff but cool, so Penda’d gotten out all the slivers. The skin of her left arm and leg was stiff, though, and she threw back the quilt and tried to see the injuries. She couldn’t, but there was a little too much heat in the skin on the back of her left arm for her liking, and her right leg. Five sort-of-sore spots she couldn’t really check at all other than identifying them as “sore.” And, when she checked her legs, two bad red bumps on her thigh, one in the left calf and two on the fleshy part of her right leg by the shinbone. She had suffered more hurt than she’d realized. And stickle slivers could work their way through your flesh and into your blood. If one got to your heart, you could die from it. She groaned and rose. Shook out her legs, testing the feel of her muscles, and, thanks to Penda’s massage, they didn’t ache. She dressed and then carefully folded the quilt, placing it just as she’d found it on the bed.

  Making her way back to the stairs, she passed the bathing room and heard the hum of masculine voices, then a laugh that was clearly from a female runner. As she came down the stairs, she was aware of the smell of roasting meats. Her stomach rumbled. One long narrow window lit the hall that led to the main room, and she gauged that she had slept most of the day. Perhaps she ought to have had a healer check out the scratches, but Penda knew what to do as well as any Hall-trained healer . . . probably better, since she was a station manager’s mate.

  “Now, here’s a one who’s prompt for her supper,” Torlo said, calling the attention of the runners sitting around the room to Tenna’s appearance. He introduced her. “Had a brush with Haligon early this morning,” he added, and Tenna did not fail to note that this brash personage was known to them all from the nods and grimaces on their faces.

  “I tol’ Lord Groghe myself,” one of the older runners said, nodding his head and looking solemn, “that there’d be an accident . . . then what’d he say to that? I asked him. Someone hurt because a wild lad won’t respect what’s our rights and propitty.” Then he nodded directly at Tenna. “You aren’t the only one he’s knocked aside. Dinncha hear him coming?”

  “Met him on the hill curve, she said,” Torlo answered before Tenna could open her own mouth.

  “Bad place, bad place. Runner can’t see around it,” a second man said, and nodded his sympathy to her. “See you’ve scratches? Penda put her good junk on ya?” Tenna nodded. “You’ll be right then. I’ve seen your kin on the traces, haven’t I? Betchur one of Fedri and Cesila’s, aincha?” He smiled knowingly at the others. “You’re prettier than she was and she was some pretty woman.”

  Tenna decided to ignore the compliment and admitted to her parentage. “Have you been through Station Ninety-Seven?”

  “A time or two, a time or two,” he said, grinning amiably. His runner’s belt was covered with stitches.

  Torlo had come up beside her and now took her left arm to peer at the side she couldn’t really see well.

  “Punctures,” he said in a flat tone.

  The other runners came to be sure his verdict was correct. They all nodded sagely and resumed their seats.

  “Sometimes I wonder if all those berries’re worth the risk of them slivers in spring,” the veteran runner said.

  “Worse time of the Turn to fall into them,” she was told again.

  “Misler, you run over to Healer Hall,” Torlo said to one of them.

  “Oh, I don’t think that’s necessary,” Tenna said, because you had to pay healers and she then wouldn’t have enough for good leathers.

  “Being as how it was the Lord Holder’s runnerbeast knocked you in, he’ll pay for it,” Torlo said, sensing her reluctance and winking at her.

  “One of these days he’ll have to pay out blood money iffen he doesn’t bring that Haligon up short and make him quit our traces. Did those shod hooves leave many holes?” another man asked her.

  “No,” she had to admit. “Surface sprang right back up.”

  “Hmmm, that’s what it’s supposed to do.”

  “But we don’t need Haligon galloping up and down like traces was put there for his benefit.”

  Misler departed on his errand and then, after each runner spoke his or her name and home station, a glass of wine was poured for her. She started to demur but Torlo eyed her sternly.

  “You’re not on the run list this day, girl.”

  “I need to finish my first Cross,” she said wistfully as she took the glass and found an empty seat.

  “You will, lass, you will,” the first man—Grolly—said so assuredly as he held his glass up that she was heartened. The others all seconded his words.

  A few scratches and maybe the three-four punctures were not going to keep her from reaching the western seashore. She sipped her wine.

  The runners who’d been bathing descended now and were served their wine by the time Misler came trotting back, a man in healer colors following behind, with a hop and a skip to keep up with his long-legged escort.

  Beveny introduced himself and asked for Penda to join him—a nicety that pleased Tenna and gave her a very good opinion of the journeyman. The consultation was conducted right there in the main hall since the injuries were to visible portions of her body. And the other runners were genuinely interested in knowing the worst of her condition and offered suggestions, most of them knowledgeable as to which herbs should be used and how efficacious they had been on such and such an occasion. Beveny kept a grin on his face as if he was well used to runner chaffering. As he probably was.

  “I think this one, and the two on your leg, may still have slivers in them,” Beveny said at length. “Nothing a poultice won’t dra
w out overnight, I’m sure.”

  There were approving nods and wise smiles from the audience. Poultices were then discussed again and at length and the appropriate one decided on. During this part of the consultation, Tenna was installed in a comfortable padded chair, a long stool affair attached to the front of it so her legs could stretch out. She’d never been fussed over so much in her life, but it was a runner thing: she’d seen her mother and father take the same personal care of anyone arriving at their station with an injury. But to be the center of so much attention—and at Fort Station—was embarrassing in the extreme for Tenna and she kept trying to discount the urgency of such minor wounds. She did offer her packet of her mother’s poultice, and three of the runners remarked favorably on Cesila’s famous poultice, but hers was clearly for bruises, not infections, so the healer told her to keep it for emergencies.

  “Which I hope you won’t have, of course,” he said, smiling at her as he mixed—with the hot water Penda fetched—an aromatic concoction that everyone now in the room had to approve.

  Keenly aware that she must be properly modest and forbearing, as well as brave, Tenna braced herself for the treatment. Hot poultices, however therapeutic, could be somewhat uncomfortable. Then the mixture was ready. With deft fingers, Healer Beveny deposited neat blobs, no larger than his thumbnail, on the sore spots. He must have judged the heat just right, because none was too hot. He made sure to position the patches right over each blob before securing them with bandage strips that Penda had produced. Tenna felt each of the ten hot spots, but the sensation was not all that unpleasant.

  “I’ll check tomorrow, Tenna, but I don’t think we have to worry about any of them,” Beveny said with such conviction that Tenna was relieved.

  “Nor do you, here at Fort Station with the Healer Hall a stretch away,” said Torlo, and courteously saw Beveny to the door and watched a polite few moments until the healer was halfway to his Hall.