Memory of Morning (6 page)

"No, miss," the nurse who'd come in with me told me. "Admiral Glass had two examining rooms set up like this to make ladies feel more comfortable during procedures."

"Vinegar," I told the nurse - I hoped she was a nurse - who'd escorted me in. "I want vinegar, hot water, and strong lye soap."

The woman looked at me with her mouth hanging open.

"By all that's worshipped, we're fifty years on from Dr. Croft's treatise on sanitation and sterilization and people still aren't listening," a man's voice pronounced behind me. His words echoed my thoughts exactly, but with a sarcastic arrogance that left me wincing.

I turned to him. "Exactly." I gestured around the room. "Do you want to help me roll up this rug and scrub the floor?"

"No."

He looked me over, from an impressive height.

I looked him over, matching his unabashed curiosity with my own. He was not only very tall with perfect posture, he was slender and quite handsome. He wore a contractor's uniform, but so beautifully cut to his figure I was certain his personal tailor must have made it for him. His hair was black and wavy, a lock arranged to fall cunningly across his forehead.

"Dr. Danil Heron," he introduced himself.

"Sir, please," the outraged nurse complained. She looked at me and performed the proprieties. "May I introduce Dr. Heron to you, Miss Cliff?"

"I'm fine," he replied, as though I was asking after his health rather than his manners. "I am in a hurry, however. Be seated. Roll up your sleeve." He put his medical case on the little table. "My instruments are sterilized," he said as I glanced into the contents of the case. This came out as information rather than an attempt at reassurance.

This irritating man was not in the least bit socialized. I did not like being bled to begin with, to have it done by the brusque young doctor made it worse. I doubted arguing with him would do any good, so best to get this over with as quickly as possible. Unhappy as I was about the setting, I had operated in worse and brought patients through without infection. I sat, shrugged off the shawl I wore, and presented my right arm. I had worn a short-sleeved dress in preparation for the session. Most of the tiny scars from past bleedings had disappeared in the last two years. I was not looking forward to having a new one, although I suppose I should be proud of my contribution to the health of the nation. While it is not exactly a secret, the Cliffs' involvement with the Red Fever vaccine is not public knowledge, either. I wondered if Dr. Heron knew why he was drawing my blood.

"Your paternal bloodline is one of the four families known to never have contracted the plague," he said. "And while a few members of your maternal bloodline have had the disease, no one has died or been left mentally incompetent from Red Fever."

Which summed it all up nicely. The Owls didn't contribute to the production of the vaccine because, while they were lucky, they weren't as lucky as the Cliffs. It was judged that anyone with Cliff blood was fit to be bled.

No one yet knew why the Cliffs and a few other families had been blessed with immunity to the devastation of the Red Fever that had struck the world three generations ago. I knew Tennit planned to start researching the matter along with trying to find a cure as soon as he was free from his stint as a doctor with the Marines. I wondered if two years of field work would make pure research seem boring to him. It did me.

The nurse came in with the requested equipment. "Out," he said, when she would have hovered in the background to be helpful, or act as a chaperone. I didn't ask for her to stay, so she went, quite miffed by me and the doctor - the other doctor's - modernist behavior. I wondered if society had somehow backslid a bit during my time on board the
Moonrunner.

"New data indicates an increase of one percent in vaccine efficacy," Heron said.

Since the vaccine works about sixty-five percent of the time, I was delighted to hear of any increase in the defense against the disease.

"The percentage would be higher if there weren't still idiots and religious fanatics refusing the inoculation." When I didn't say anything, he asked, "Don't you agree, Dr. Cliff?"

I chose my words carefully, while his expression grew darker. "Of course I think people should want to take the vaccine. I literally give my life to help create it. But I also agree with free will and self-determination."

"Most people have no use for free will. Refusing the vaccine merely helps keep the plague going."

I glanced at a clock on the mantel. "If you want a debate, please stick me first and we can argue while I'm bleeding out."

He did, and we did, and that was my first encounter with the difficult Dr. Heron.

After he'd packed up and left I accepted some fruit juice from the nurse and, to my embarrassment, took a short nap. I might have preferred the procedure taking place in a clean room, but the sofa was certainly comfortable.

Once I was certain I wasn't going to faint from dizziness or my arm fall off from the ache, I left this section of the Home, but not the large medical facility. I remembered the location of the administration building from when I was billeted on the base before deployment. I'd be staying on the base now if my family hadn't whisked me away to the luxury of Mrs. Lilac's.

I spoke to two different yeomen, filled out a request, was interviewed by a naval staff doctor, and eventually sent over to the War Casualties Home, where I had worked before, and volunteered my services now. I didn't know how long we would be in Seyemouth, but there was no reason not to practice my needed profession while we were in town. Besides, the Casualties Home houses the copies of the complete journals turned in by every ship's surgeon, doctor, or medical assistant at the end of each voyage. I wanted access to study this treasure trove while awaiting my own certificate examination. I made my way to the library as soon as I was assigned a work schedule, rounds to begin the next day.

The first thing I saw, before even glancing at the walls of shelves I hungered to explore, was the difficult Dr. Heron sitting at a table beneath a skylight. He looked engrossed. I didn't want him to notice me. The floor was of old, scoured wood. It was bound to creak, but if I tiptoed very slow--

"So, you are finally here," he said, without looking up. He gestured to a stack of volumes on the table beside him. "These will interest you."

I couldn't help but be curious. Besides, there was no escaping now. I sat down across the table from him and reached for the journals. He was right. They were exactly what I was looking for to begin my research.

He finally glanced up from his reading. "We are both waiting for the certificate exam. We have had similar experiences. You will benefit from my expertise."

I was mentally wrung out as well as physically exhausted by the time I made it back to Lilac House in the late afternoon. Also, very, very hungry. I wanted to pet my dog - or possibly eat my dog if no other source of protein was not immediately available - and settle in for a nice quiet evening with my family.

As it turned out, this evening was going to be even more full of family than last evening had been. But not quiet.

Tennit was home!

He was safe and sound and as ebullient as ever. He'd also brought home a very pretty, pregnant young wife from the war. She was a marine sergeant. Her accent was pure East Loudon.

Chapter Eight

My first thought when Tennit introduced me to his dear Rassi was,
This is going to be interesting.

Needless to say, teatime that afternoon was a bit tense. But at least the drink we were served was proper black tea, brought home by the happy couple.

"Rassi's a scrounger," Tennit said proudly as the tea was poured. "You can thank her for what you're about to drink."

"I think we should thank the All," mother said. Then she tempered her sharpness with a thin smile at her new daughter-in-law. "And then we shall thank Mrs. Cliff."

"How did you meet?" Bell wanted to know. She glanced briefly at Rassi's swollen abdomen. "And conduct a romance during a land campaign?"

"You can't march all the time," Rassi answered.

Tenn was holding Rassi's hand. He lifted it to his lips and kissed it. "She saved my life," he said. "Over and over and over. Sergeant Fisher - that's Rassi - was in charge of the medical unit I was assigned to."

"You were not the commander?" father asked.

"I had nothing to do with administration," Tenn said. "My job was to save lives. Rassi's job was to make sure I could do my job. She's very good at her job."

"An administrator," mother said.

"And a nurse," Tenn said. "The lass has many talents."

And is smart and shrewd, I thought, watching her watching us. Were we going to be accepting, or was her relationship with Tennit making trouble for him with his family? Did we believe in meritocracy or merely pay it lip service as so many people did?

"You're a Fisher?" I said. "Perhaps we are related. There are Fishers among our ancestors. Seven generations back a Fisher and a Baker married and managed to buy some land. Their children changed the family name to Cliff." It was the first step in the climb from yeoman into the gentry class. We had no records of how our yeomen ancestors had made their way up from the working class. Though I think we should be even prouder of that difficult effort.

There was considerable silence after I spoke. We sipped tea. I ate more sweet biscuits and candied fruit than was good for me - but I was so happy to have decent food again.

"My mother is a baker," Rassi said, bravely breaking the silence. "That is, she runs a bakery. My father was a stevedore on the Seye docks. He disappeared during the fire that took out most the Great Canal Quay when I was eight." She smiled. "We plan to name the baby after him if he's a boy."

Mother leaned forward, a concerned cleric. "I am so sorry for your loss, child."

"A grandchild," father said. He nodded. "I like that idea."

"But I still don't know the details of how you came to be a couple." Belladem put down her cup and eyed her twin in a determined way. She stood. "Come along, you two. A walk in the garden will be good for us all - especially my new niece or nephew."

I put the plate down after they were gone. I folded my hands in my lap and looked steadily at my tight-lipped mother. "Great grandmother," I said.

Great grandmother Owl was hardly the family's favorite relative. But, then, her opinion of us was harsh and unforgiving. She'd been convinced her grand daughter had married so far beneath her that she ought to be cut off from any more contact with the Owls. It didn't work out that way, but the old woman's pride and downright meanness had been a thorn in mother's side, and painful to all of us. Personally, I would have been much happier on our visits to Welis if Great grandmother hadn't been forced to occasionally receive us. I cannot recall her ever actually looking me in the eye. I recall the one Winter Solstice gift she grudgingly gave the four of us Cliffs - thick woolen socks. Because, after all, peasant children needed such things to keep them warm for their winter chores.

Mother put up a finger to stop me when I would have spoken again. "Don't you ever accuse me of being anything like that woman."