Moreta drained her goblet, then went in search of more wine or a partner. She very much wanted to dance again but paused by the nearest wine keg first. The barman quickly filled her cup and she thanked him. At the first sip, she realized her mistake. This wine had an acid aftertaste: Tillek, not the rich full mouth of the Benden. She nearly spat it out.
This dance was a short wild hop, as much fun to watch for the people losing balance as to dance. When the harpers finished with a swirl, they added the chords that announced an intermission. It was the time for harper songs. Moreta half expected Tirone to stride in, for he should be leading singer of a Ruathan Gather, but the young Masterharper of Ruatha Hold and an older journeyman moved to the fore in his stead.
When Moreta looked toward the head table, she saw Alessan flanked by a pair of pretty girls, one of them a redhead. Lady Oma was certainly wasting no time at this Gather. Disinclined to return to the head table, Moreta found an unoccupied stool.
She enjoyed the first song, a rousing ballad, and joined in the chorus with as much verve as those around her. Fine voices near helped her find the harmony for she didn’t have a high enough voice to stay with the soprano line. Halfway through the second chorus, Moreta was conscious of Orlith’s mind.
You do like the singing, too, don’t you? she sent to the queen.
Singing is a pleasant occupation. It lightens the mind and all minds are together.
Moreta’s voice faltered into a laugh, which she quickly suppressed for it wouldn’t do, even if she were the Weyrwoman, to laugh through a serious song.
The harpers led the Gather in four traditional songs, each one sung with increasing zest as the dancers recovered their breaths. The young Ruathan harper, an excellent tenor, sang an unfamiliar song that he announced he’d found while going through old Records. The melody was haunting and the interval between the notes unexpected. A very old song, Moreta decided, but a good choice for the tenor’s voice. Orlith liked it, too.
Our tastes generally coincide, Moreta said.
Not always.
What do you mean by that?
The harpers sing, Orlith replied, evading, and Moreta knew that she’d get no direct answer.
Then the harpers asked for favorites from the audience. Moreta would have liked to request one of the plains songs from her own Keroon, but it was a mournful tune unsuited to the mood of the evening. Talpan had often hummed it. Coincidence again!
After the serenading, Alessan went up on the platform, thanking the harpers and offering compliments for their music and their presence. He enjoined them to make as free of Ruatha’s wine as necessary to keep them playing until the last dancer surrendered the square. Everyone applauded loudly, cheering and thumping the tables and kegs to signify their appreciation of a Lord Holder who would not stint on his first Gather. The cheering went on long past what was a courteous spate and followed Alessan back to his table.
The harpers began the next session with a circle dance that permitted Alessan to accompany both of the girls. B’lerion was on his feet with Oklina again. Lady Oma seemed not to notice, so concentrated was her attention on Alessan’s partners.
Her throat dry from singing and cheering, Moreta was determined to find more of Alessan’s Benden white. As she made her way to the head table, she was stopped by holders asking after Leri and Holth and expressing sincere regret that the Weyrwoman had not attended.
Pass the greetings on, Orlith. They’ll like to know they were missed.
After a pause, Orlith replied that Holth was just as glad that she didn’t have to sit through a long night on a cold cliff.
You’re not feeling the chill, are you? Moreta asked anxiously.
The fire-heights hold the sun heat, and Nabeth and Tamianth keep me warm. You should eat. You’re always telling me to eat. Now I you.
The smugness in Orlith’s tone Moreta found amusing. And merited, for the rough Tillek wine was making her a trifle lightheaded. She was aware of a belly rumbling, and she’d best get to the food before the circle dance ended. She detoured to acquire a full platter of spiced roast wherry, tubers, and other tempting morsels. As she was making her way to the head table and more of the Benden wine, the circle dance ended. Alessan had no sooner bowed to his two partners when Lady Oma was introducing him to yet another girl. Then Moreta caught sight of Lord Tolocamp bearing down on her and she moved off quickly at a tangent, as if she hadn’t seen him. His expression was grim and she was not going to endure one of his lectures at a Gather. She wended her way through the crowds, briefly considered stopping at the harpers’ table for they would have the best wine, but she decided she was no safer from Tolocamp in the harpers’ company. Besides, they’d probably had enough of him, since the Harper Hall was situated so close to Fort Hold. So, instead, she ducked behind the harpers’ platform, standing a moment to accustom her eyes to the welcome darkness.
As it was, she nearly fell over the pack saddles stacked behind the dais. She upended one to make an informal seat and was quite delighted with her solitude and escaping Tolocamp. Come the end of Pass, that man was going to be a high-flying irritant, and she didn’t think that Sh’gall was going to be able to handle him as well as he handled Fall.
This is good, you are eating! Orlith said.
Moreta neatly folded a slice of the roast wherry and took a huge bite. The meat was as tender and succulent as its roasting odor had advertised.
It’s beautiful! she told her queen.
She ate eagerly, licking her fingers, not wishing to miss a drop of the juices. Someone stumbled around the corner of the platform and Moreta, balancing her plate and cursing the interruption, slipped into the deeper shadow. Could Tolocamp have followed her? Or was this someone answering natural needs?
Alessan, Orlith told her, which surprised Moreta for Orlith wasn’t all that good on remembering people names.
“Moreta?” Alessan sounded uncertain. “Ah, you are here,” he added as she stepped forward. “I thought I saw you slip away to elude Tolocamp. I come laden with food and drink. Am I intruding on your privacy?”
“You’re not if you happened to bring any more of that Benden wine. Mind you, the Tillek you’re serving is not bad—”
“—But it doesn’t at all compare with the Benden, and I hope you haven’t mentioned the difference to anyone.”
“What? And miss out on my share? And you brought more wherry! My compliments to your cook: The roast is superior and I’m starving. Here, sit on a pack saddle.” She pushed one toward him and, after emptying her cup of the inferior wine, held it out to him. “More Benden, please?”
“I’ve a full skin here.” Alessan poured carefully.
“But surely you must share it with your partners?”
“Don’t you dare—” Alessan reached for her goblet in a mock attempt to retrieve the wine from her.
“That wasn’t fair of me. You were doing your duty as Lord Holder, and very nicely, if I may say so.”
“Well, I’ve done my duty as Lord Holder and will now resume the responsibilities of being your escort. I will now enjoy the Gather.”
“Hosts rarely do.”
“My mother, the good and worthy—”
“—and duty conscious—”
“Has paraded every eligible girl in the west, with all of whom I have dutifully danced. They’re not much on talking. By the way, speaking of talking, is that bronze rider who’s been monopolizing Oklina a kind and honorable man?”
“B’lerion is kind, and very good company. Is Oklina aware of dragonriders’ propensities?”
“As every proper hold girl is.” Alessan’s tone was dry, acknowledging dragonrider whims and foibles.
“B’lerion is kind and I have known him many Turns,” Moreta went on by way of reassurance. Oklina’s adoration of her brother was not misplaced if he troubled himself to speak to a Weyrwoman about a bronze rider who was paying marked attention to his sister.
They ate in companionable silence, for Alessan was as hung
ry as Moreta. Suddenly the harpers struck up another tune, one of the sprightlier dances, more of a patterned run, requiring the lighter partner to be lifted, twirled, and caught. She recognized the challenge gleaming in Alessan’s eyes; only the young and fit usually attempted the toss dance’s acrobatics. She laughed low in her throat. She was no timid adolescent, uncertain of herself, and no decorous hold woman, vitality and body drained by constant childbearing; she was the fighting-fit rider of a queen dragon and she could outdance any man—holder, crafter, rider. In addition, Orlith was encouraging her.
Deserting the remains of her food and her wine, she caught Alessan by the hand and pulled him after her toward the dancing square where already one pair had come to grief and lay sprawled, the subject of good-natured teasing.
Weyrwoman and Lord Holder were the only pair to survive the rigors of that dance without incident. Cheers and clapping rewarded their agility. Gasping for breath and trying not to weave with the dizziness generated by the final spins, Moreta reeled to the sidelines. A goblet was put in her hand and she knew before sipping that it would be the Benden. She toasted Alessan as he stood beside her, chest heaving, face suffused with blood, but thoroughly delighted by their performance.
“By the Shell, with the right partner, you can really show your quality,” Falga cried, as she walked up to them. “You’re in rare form tonight, Moreta. Alessan, best Gather I’ve been to in Turns. You’ve outshone your sire who is, as of this moment, no longer lamented. He set a good spread but nothing to compare to this. S’ligar will be sorry he didn’t come with me.”
The other dragonriders with Falga lifted their cups to Alessan.
“See you at Crom,” Falga said to Moreta in parting as the harpers began a gentle old melody.
“Can you move at all?” Alessan asked Moreta, bending to speak quietly in her ear.
“Of course!” Moreta cast a glance in the direction of Alessan’s gaze and saw Lady Oma escorting a girl across the floor.
“I’ve had my shins kicked enough this evening!” Alessan clasped Moreta firmly, his right hand flat against her shoulder blade, the fingers of his left hand twining in hers as he guided her out in the center of the square.
As she surrendered to the swaying step and glide of the stately dance, Moreta had a brief glimpse of the smileless face of Lady Oma. She could feel Alessan’s heart pounding, as hers still was, from the exertions of the previous dance but gradually the thudding eased, her face cooled, and her muscles stopped trembling. She realized that she had not danced to this melody since leaving Keroon—since the last Gather she had attended with Talpan, so many Turns ago.
“You’re thinking of another man,” Alessan whispered, his lips close to her ear.
“A boy I knew. In Keroon.”
“And you remember him fondly?”
“We were to be apprenticed to the same Masterhealer.” Could she detect a note of jealousy in Alessan’s voice? “He continued in the craft. I was taken to Ista and Impressed Orlith.”
“And now you heal dragons.” For a moment, Alessan loosened his grip but only, it seemed, to take a fresh and firmer hold of her. “Dance, Moreta of Keroon. The moons are up. We can dance all night.”
“The harpers may have other plans.”
“Not as long as my supply of Benden white lasts . . .” So Alessan remained by her side, making sure her goblet was full and insisting that she eat some of the small hot spiced rolls that were being served to the dwindling revellers. Nor did he relinquish her to other partners.
The wine got to the harpers before the new day. Even Alessan’s incredible store of energy was flagging by the time Orlith landed again in the dancing square.
“It has been a memorable gather, Lord Alessan,” Moreta said formally.
“Your presence has made it so, Weyrwoman Moreta,” he replied, assisting her to Orlith’s forearm. “Shells! Don’t slip, woman. Can you reach your own weyr without falling asleep?” His voice carried an edge of anxiety despite his flippant words.
“I can always reach my own weyr.”
“Can she, Orlith?”
“Lord Alessan!” The audacity of the man consulting her dragon in her presence.
Orlith turned her head, her eyes sleepily golden. He means well.
“You mean well, Orlith says!” Moreta knew that fatigue was making her sound silly, so she made herself laugh. She didn’t wish to end the marvelous evening on a sour note.
“Yes, my lady of the golden dragon, I mean well. Safe back!”
Alessan gave her a final wave and then moved slowly through the disarray of fallen benches and messy tables, toward the deserted roadway where most of the stalls had been dismantled and packed away.
“Let’s get back to Fort Weyr,” Moreta said softly, reluctantly. Her eyes were heavy, her body limp with a pleasant if thorough fatigue. It took an effort to think of the pattern of Fort Weyr’s Star Stones. Then Orlith sprang off the dancing square, the standards whipping about with the force of her backwing stroke. They were aloft and Ruatha receding, the darkness punctuated by the last few surviving glows.
CHAPTER IV
South Boll and Fort Weyr, Present Pass, 3.11.43
“WELL?”
CAPIAM RAISED his head from the pillow he had made of his arms on the small wooden table in the dispensary. Fatigue and the tremendous strain disoriented him and at first he couldn’t identify the figure standing imperiously in front of him.
“Well, Masterhealer? You said you would return immediately to bring me your conclusions. That was several hours ago. Now I find you sleeping.”
The testy voice and overbearing manner belonged to Lord Ratoshigan. Behind him, just outside the door, was the tall figure of the Weyrleader who had conveyed Capiam and Lord Ratoshigan from Ista’s Gather to Southern Boll.
“I sat down only for a moment, Lord Ratoshigan”—Capiam lifted his hand in a gesture of dismay—“to organize my notes.”
“Well?” The third prompting was a bark of unequivocal displeasure. “What is your diagnosis of these . . .” Ratoshigan did not say “malingerers” but the implication would have been plain enough even if the anxious infirmarian had not repeatedly told Capiam that Lord Ratoshigan regarded any man as a malingerer who took his bread and protection but did not deliver a fair day’s work in return.
“They are very ill, Lord Ratoshigan.”
“They seemed well enough when I left for Ista! They’re not wasted or scored.” Ratoshigan rocked from heel to toe, a thin man with a long, thin, bony face, pinched nostrils above a thin, pinch-lipped mouth and hard small eyes in dry sockets. Capiam thought the Lord Holder looked considerably more unwell than the men dying in the infirmary beds.
“Two have died of whatever it is that afflicts them,” Capiam said slowly, reluctant to utter the terrifying conclusion that he had reached before exhaustion had overcome him.
“Dead? Two? And you don’t know what ailed them?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Capiam noticed that Sh’gall had stepped back from the doorway at the mention of death. The Weyrleader was not a man who tolerated injury or illness, having managed to avoid both.
“No, I don’t know precisely what ails them: The symptoms—a fever, headache, lack of appetite, the dry hacking cough—are unusually severe and do not respond to any of the commonly effective treatments.”
“But you must know. You are the Masterhealer!”
“Rank does not confer total knowledge of my Craft.” Capiam had been keeping his voice low, out of deference to the exhausted healers sleeping in. the next room, but Ratoshigan exercised no such courtesy and his voice had been rising with his sense of indignation. Capiam rose and walked around the table, Ratoshigan giving way before him, backing out into the close night. “There is much we have forgotten through disuse.” Capiam sighed, filled with a weary despair. He ought not to have allowed himself to sleep. There was so much to be done. “These deaths are but the beginning, Lord Ratoshigan. An epidemic is loose on Pern.”
“Is that why you and Talpan had that animal killed?” Sh’gall spoke for the first time, angry surprise in his voice.
“Epidemic?” Ratoshigan waved Sh’gall to silence. “Epidemic! What are you saying, man? Just a few sick—”
“Not a few, Lord Ratoshigan.” Capiam pulled his shoulders back and leaned against the cool stucco wall behind him. “Two days ago I was urgently called to Igen Sea Hold. Forty were dead, including three of the sailors who had rescued that animal from the sea. Far better that they had left it on its tree trunk!”
“Forty dead?” Ratoshigan was incredulous, and Sh’gall stepped farther back from the infirmary.
“More are falling ill at the Sea Hold and in the nearby mountain hold whose men had come down to see the incredible seagoing feline!”
“Then why was it brought to Ista Gather?” The Lord Holder was outraged now.
“To be seen,” Capiam said bitterly. “Before the illnesses started, it was taken from the Sea Hold to Keroon for the Herdmaster to identify. I was doing what I could to assist the Sea Hold healers when a drum message summoned me to Keroon. Herdmaster Sufur had people and animals sickening rapidly and curiously. The illness followed the same course as that at Igen Sea Hold. Another drum message, and I was conveyed by brown dragon to Telgar. The sickness is there, too, brought back from Keroon by two holders who were buying runnerstock. All the beasts were dead, and so were the holders and twenty others. I cannot estimate how many hundreds of people have been infected by the merest contact with those so contagious. Those of us who live to tell the Harper will thank Talpan’s quick wits”—Capiam looked severely at Sh’gall—“that he linked the journey of the feline to the spread of the disease.”
“But that animal was the picture of health!” Sh’gall protested.
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