Nerilka's Story (4 page)

“I solemnly charge all of you, under pain of disgrace and exile, to observe the quarantine of this Hold, and to refrain from contact with any others until such time as Master Capiam, or his delegate Masterhealer, rescinds the quarantine restrictions. I require obedience to all restrictions made by me to ensure the safety and health of Fort, Pern’s first and largest Hold. Obey and we prosper. Deny and we fall.”

She turned the sheet toward us and pointed to the end. “His signature and ring mark are here to be verified.” Then she insulted us again. “He charges me to discover which of you ventured perilously close to the internment camp today.” Her bulging eyes swept the lot of us.

Just as I stepped forward, so did Peth, Jess, Nia, and Gabin.

“Do not anger me,” Anella cried. “Lord Tolocamp only told me about one of you.”

“We all must have had a look at one time or another,” said Jess, speaking out before I could gather my wits. “I’ve never seen an internment camp.”

“Do you not understand? There are sick people there!” Anella’s face turned pale with fright. “If you catch the plague, you will infect the rest of us before you die.”

“Just like our Lord Holder,” came a voice from somewhere in her audience.

“Who said that? Who spoke so vilely?”

There was no answer, only a shifting of boots on the flagstones. Even I could not identify the speaker—to congratulate him, or her. My private wager would fall on Theskin.

“I will know who spoke!” Anella ranted on a bit more, but she would never learn the answer, having shattered any chance she might have had of gaining the trust and confidence of those in the Hall that night. “Lord Tolocamp will hear of the snake at his bosom!”

She glared about the Hall one last time, then yanked at the heavily carved chair that my mother had filled so adequately. She was not strong enough to shift it, and a twitter greeted her attempt. Her mother signaled peremptorily to a drudge to assist her daughter. When Anella finally seated herself, her mother sat down beside her, the husband on her left. Those of us who ought to have taken our places on the dais declined to do so, and with a bit of angling, all were accommodated at the trestle tables.

“Where are Lord Tolocamp’s children?” she demanded when we were arranged. “Campen!” She pointed at him, for him she knew by sight. “Theskin, Doral, Gallen. Assume your places.” She paused briefly; I could see her eyes blinking and an irritated twitch to her mouth. “Nalka? Is she not the oldest living daughter?”

Uncle Munchaun nudged me. “You’d best go, Rill, even misnamed, for your father will know if you insult her so publicly.”

I knew he was right. As I rose, I saw Anella’s mother murmur something to her.

“And there is a harper in this Hold, is there not? We honor the harper.”

Casmodian rose, bowed, and managed a smile. “Why did you seat yourselves below?” she demanded as Campen and Theskin mounted the dais steps.

“With all due respect, Lady Anella,” Theskin said with a wry smile, “we thought your family would require the seating here.”

Though courteously spoken, Theskin’s words were nonetheless a gibe, and she was not too dense to know it, even if she had no adequate retort. No one mentioned that she had not named all of Tolocamp’s surviving mature children, so Peth, Jess, and Gabin made a merrier meal than we others did.

Bravely, Casmodian sat next to the father. I think they were the only two to converse that evening at the head table. I know I tasted nothing of even the little food I forced myself to eat. Unfortunately, now I had time to think of all I had
not
done for my mother, of my uncharitable absence from the last moments my sisters had had at Fort Hold. I seethed, too, with fury at the usurper and vowed that I would not lift a hand to assist her in her new role. How convenient that she couldn’t even remember my name properly. If I judged the temper of the Hall correctly, she would have no help from anyone, even in such a small matter as the correct nomenclature of Lord Tolocamp’s children.

I drank more wine that evening than is my custom—or perhaps it was because I also ate so little. It was enough to finish the meal and slip from the Hall to the kitchens, to be sure that this new Lady Holder had not countermanded my order about the broken meats. Then, by the back stairs, I sought my own room and the solace of sleep.

Chapter V

3.15.43

T
HE DRUMS WOKE
me at dawn, for in my giddiness I had forgotten to plug my ears. Then the message woke me up completely—Twelve Wings had flown Thread at Igen and all was well.

How could twelve Wings have flown out of Igen Weyr when half the dragonriders were ill of the plague and the Weyr had already suffered deaths? They could not have mounted more than nine Wings if their casualties had been accurately reported, and there would be no advantage to prevaricate at this terrible moment.

I rose and dressed, then descended to the kitchens to surprise the drudges brewing the first of the many urns of klah. Its aromatic smell was a restorative all by itself, and the first fragrant cup was the best one of any day, heartening me all the more in my grief and dismay. I was stirring the porridge when Felim appeared, his face first brightening, then falling into a suitably lugubrious expression as he advanced on me.

“I was obliged to send basketsful of untouched food to the camps, Lady Nerilka. Wasn’t the dinner well enough?”

“Few of us had the heart to eat, Felim. It is no insult to you.”

“
She
complained that I did not offer sufficient choice of sweets,” he told me, offended. “Has she any idea of the handicaps under which I labor? I cannot chop and change midday. There isn’t a single apprentice or journeyman able to provide a choice of sweets on an hour’s notice in such quantities as are needed in the Hall these days.”

I murmured phrases to soothe his damaged self-esteem, more out of habit than a desire to redeem Anella in his eyes. A disgruntled cook could cause real problems in a Hold the size of Fort. Let Anella learn by her mistakes, and discover just how much hard work it was to be Lady Holder.

It was then that I realized the truth of her announcement: She was Lady Holder, and due all the courtesies and honors that had been my mother’s. Well, there were certain private possessions of my mother’s that would not fall into her hands. I said a few pacifying words to Felim, to ensure a decently cooked meal this evening, and rushed to my mother’s office on the sublevel.

There I quickly removed all her private journals, her notes about this personality and that worker—we girls had long known her to jog her memory by these entries, and had done our best not to figure in them very often. They would be invaluable reading to Anella and hideously embarrassing to us, not only to have our childhood peccadilloes revealed, but also the problems of the second-story occupants. Mother had some gems and jewelry that were hers in her own right, not Hold adornments, which should by rights be divided among the surviving daughters. I doubted Anella’s probity in distributing them, so I chose to undertake that task as well.

If Anella thought these things had been removed, she might search for them, so I hurried along the back passages to the stores and hid the two sacks of journals and the small parcel of jewelry on the top of a dusty shelf. Anella was hands shorter than I.

I was on my way back when Sim intercepted me.

“Lady Nerilka,
she
is asking for a Lady Nalka.”

“Is she? Well, there isn’t one in the Hold, is there?”

Sim blinked, confused. “Doesn’t she mean you, lady?”

“She may indeed, but until she learns to call me by my proper name, I am in no way obliged to answer, am I, Sim?”

“Not if you say so, Lady Nerilka.”

“So return to her, Sim, and say you cannot find Lady Nalka in the Hold.”

“Is that what I do?”

“That is what you do.”

He lumbered off, muttering under his breath about not finding Lady Nalka—any Lady Nalka—in the Hold. That is what he was to say. No Lady Nalka in the Hold.

I crossed the yard to the Harper Hall. Anella might have many things on her mind more important than the pharmaceutical stores, but eventually someone would inform her that it was Lady Nerilka whom she required. And she surely would tell my father of my insolence. When he emerged from his isolation, I had no doubt that he would deliver a thorough and painful chastisement. I might as well merit every blow. Meanwhile, it was my right to dispense those medicinal supplies as required, and I was determined that the healers would have full benefit of them.

I was directed to the Hall kitchens by a cheerful young apprentice and made my way there, reflecting that I seemed to be spending a lot more time in kitchens these days.

“I’ll need the glass bottles sterilized, and that means fifteen minutes in water at the rolling boil and no cheating on the sands,” Desdra was saying to the journeyman. “Now, I’ll—Lady Nerilka!” There was about Desdra a buoyancy that had been absent the previous day.

“Master Capiam is better?”

“Himself again, I’m glad to say. Not everyone who gets the plague needs to die of it. Anyone ill in Fort Hold?”

“If you mean my sire, he keeps to his apartments but is well enough to issue orders.”

“So I heard.” Desdra’s wry smile informed me that she found the change tasteless.

“While I am still in charge of the pharmacy, what are your needs?”

Desdra had turned to watch the journeyman, her mind clearly on more urgent matters. She looked back at me with a smile, however. “Can you decoct, infuse, and blend?”

“I supply all our medicinal needs.”

“Then prepare a cough syrup, tussilago by preference. Here, let me give you the recipe that I have found efficacious.” She had a scrap of hide in her hand, a charcoal stick in the other; hastily, but legibly, she scrawled measurements and ingredients. “Don’t balk at adding numbweed—that is the only thing that depresses the terrible racking cough.” Then she consulted another list in her hand. She was distracted by my presence. “And has your mother—oh, I beg your pardon.” She touched my hand in apology, her eyes troubled to have caused me pain. “Have you a restorative soup? We shall need kettles of restorative soups.”

I thought of Felim’s reaction to yet another bizarre request, but the small night hearth could be used, and all kinds of scraps go into the soup pot. The last place Anella would think to find me would be in the hot, small, inner kitchen.

“Cook, cool it into jelly. It’ll transport better that way.” She had one eye on the sands that were only grains away from her fifteen-minutes-at-the-rolling-boil.

I left her to her task, hoping it bode well. There was a suppressed excitement about Desdra that could not be due entirely to the Master Harper’s recovery. Was she brewing a cure?

Fortunately it took all day to concoct both the restorative soup and Desdra’s cough syrup. The tussilago really did numb the lining of the throat. I improved the taste with a harmless flavoring and filled two demijohns with the mixture, reserving a large flask for Hold use, should it be required. I made a note of the syrup in the Record.

When Sim and I brought the products of my day’s labors over to the Hall, the air of suppressed excitement that I had noted in Desdra was now rampant, but I could find out nothing from the journeyman who took syrup and soup from me. He thanked me profusely enough, but plainly had other tasks pending.

It was hard to wish to help, to be capable of offering capable help, and not find a market for it, I thought as I plodded back across the night-dark yard. There were lights on in my father’s quarters and in what had been my mother’s. But no one was at the window, spying on unidentifiable flaunters of stupid rules.

I looked over my shoulder at the despicable internment camp and saw the guards on their rounds between the glowbasket standards. Was that where my soup and syrup would go? If that was its destination, my day had been profitable. With my spirits lifted, I continued back to the Hold.

Chapter VI

3.16.43

C
AMPEN FOUND ME
the next morning preparing to make more soup. “So this is where you are! Anella is looking for you.”

“She’s been looking for a Lady Nalka, and there is no one by that name in the Hold.”

Campen snorted with disgust. “You know perfectly well she means you.”

“Then she should summon me by name. I’ll not go otherwise.”

“In the meantime, she’s making life very difficult for our sisters, and they miss our mother enough without having to put up with her carpings.”

I was instantly repentant. In my own misery and guilt, I had forgotten that Lilla and Nia needed my presence and support.

“She must have new gowns, suitable to her position. Your needlework is the best.”

“Kista was the best needlewoman among us,” I told him angrily. “And Merin sewed the straightest seam. But I’ll go.”

It was not a pleasant interview, and I knew that my behavior could be faulted on several counts. To add insult to injury, Anella was younger than I by several Turns, and keenly aware of that and of my greater height. But, knowing that I had deliberately disregarded her summonses, I took the tongue-lashing in silence, and took some consolation in the fact that she had to crane her neck at an awkward angle to berate me. She looked like a wherry hen, strutting about in a heavy dressing gown far too ornate to suit her thin body and falling off her bottle-necked shoulders so that she had to jerk it frequently back into place. She lacked dignity, experience, sense, and humor.

“So how do you account for your absence these past two days? Where have you been? For if you’ve been sneaking off to meet some holder—”

At that accusation I decided I had had enough of her rantings. “I have been preparing restorative soups and cough syrups, and checking our medicinal supplies in case they should be needed.” She flushed at my reminder of the present crisis. “The pharmacy has been my responsibility in this Hold.”

“Why wasn’t I told that was where you were? Your father—” She abruptly closed her lips.

“My father would not have known my especial duties. It was my mother’s place to order such domestic affairs.”

She gave me a searching glance, but I had kept my voice bland and chosen my words carefully.

“No one around here tells me anything I need to know,” she complained. “If your name is not Nalka, what is it?”

“Nerilka.”

“Close enough. Why did you not come at my bidding?” She grew angry again.

“I was not told.”

“But they knew you were the one I wanted to see!”

“The entire Hold is still distracted by grief and anxiety.”

She clamped her lips into a thin line, but what she wished to say was sparking out of her eyes, which were beginning once again to protrude with her attempts to control her agitations. She swished off to the window and stood looking out, twitching the gown back up her shoulders several times. Abruptly she whirled back.

“Your mother had everything so well organized in this Hold that I’m sure she had drapery stores and patterns. You may come with me to choose suitable lengths for my new wardrobe.”

“Aunt Sira is in charge of Weaving.”

“I don’t need the Weaving Aunt. I need your sewing skills. You have those as well, do you not?” When I nodded, she went on. “Now where are the keys?” I pointed to the small chest on top of the press. With a cry of exasperation she leaped toward it, wrenching the drawer out in her haste to secure the keys to her new dignities. She had to hold the massive ring in both hands. “But which one? And which unlocks the jewelry safe? And the spice closet?”

“The stories are color-coded. The housekeeping keys are the smaller ones, room keys the larger. Hall keys larger still, and gold. All kitchen stores are green.”

So I was forced to spend the rest of the morning taking my stepmother from story to story and as far down the sublevels as she insisted we go. I answered every question willingly and fully, but volunteered no information without seeming to withhold any. Afterward, I don’t know if I was more disgusted with myself or with her general ignorance of Hold management. Had her mother not required her to do anything, and she the only daughter in the hold? I only hoped that my father would rue the day he let his infatuation overwhelm common sense. And the inconsistency of his complaint against my one suitor, Garben, who came from, no more or less, the same sort of family as Anella’s. I also knew suddenly, and with complete certainty, that I would not be in Fort Hold to see his awakening to reality.

Anella required my presence to cut and start seaming several gowns for herself. She had some sense in her, for she said that Lilla and Nia could have tunics from the remnants of the three lengths. That ensured their cooperation and diligence on her clothes. I excused myself as soon as the work was well started, on the pretext that I must discharge my duties as pharmacist.

And so, in the Harper Hall, I learned for the first time of the blood serum injections that had been administered just the day before, and I heard, in a somewhat garbled fashion, of Master Capiam’s recollection of this ancient method of giving a small dose of a disease to prevent a more disastrous illness. Healers had been given the first injections, as they would most need protection against the plague. Master Fortine had succumbed to it, received the treatment, and was suffering only minor discomfort. Soon, very soon, there would be enough of this liquid miracle to prevent any more healthy people from suffering the rigors of the plague. Pern was saved!

I took leave to doubt that enthusiastic report, but certainly the whole atmosphere of the Hall was charged with hope and relief. I immediately returned to the Hold, reprieved from the despair of more deaths among my loved ones. I rushed up to the sewing room to tell my sisters the good news. Anella was there, of course, supervising their stitches. She questioned me closely, making me repeat my news several times before she rushed off. Maybe she actually cared more for my father’s health than for his Hold.

How it came to be, I do not know, but by evening, three healers arrived at the Hold and were shown immediately up to my father’s quarters. I assume they inoculated him first. I’m certain that Anella was second, and then her babes. To my complete surprise, the immediate family was also injected, my younger sisters enduring the prick of the needlethorn without a whimper.

“There’s enough left for fifteen more, Lady Nerilka. Whom would you suggest?” the healer journeyman asked me. “Desdra said you’d know.” He had spoken quietly to me as I received the injection.

I told him to do all the Nursery adults, our three harpers, Felim and his chief assistant, Uncle Munchaun, and Sira, for she alone knew all the brocade patterns that were our especial Hold pride. And the chief bailiff, Barndy, and his son. With my father still immured in his rooms, Barndy was a key person and his son only slightly less so. Munchaun would take their part if that became necessary, and he was the only one who could shout Tolocamp down without reprisal.

3.17.43

I
WAS REQUIRED
to spend most of the morning sewing in Anella’s presence while she stood over my sisters and me, criticizing our stitches, making us pick out and do over—as often as not missing our poorer work—until I could stand it no more. Lilla, Nia, and Mara were more inclined to diligence, since they could anticipate, I hoped, to have new tunics for their labors.

Anella also had the poor taste to recount to us Tolocamp’s injunctions to his bailiff and my brothers that there was to be no disposition of Fort Hold’s stores to the indigent. All must be reserved for the needs of Fort Hold’s dependents. This was a critical time, and Fort must stand firm, as an example to the rest of the continent. For instance, Anella relished reporting, Tolocamp was certain that the Healer and Harper would be applying to the Hold for substantial aid of food and medicine. He had received a formal request for an interview with Master Capiam and Master Tirone the next morning.

That, for me, was the final straw. I had now come to the end of patience, courtesy, and filial loyalty. I could no longer endure that woman’s presence or remain a dependent of a man whose cowardice and parsimony made a disgrace of my Bloodline. I would no longer remain in a dishonored Hold.

On the grounds that I had a confectionary recipe that I wished to prepare for the evening meal, I excused myself. I went down to the kitchens, and on to the dispensary. There I distilled fellis in the largest kettle and brewed an equally large batch of the tussilago syrup. While these were simmering, I rifled the overstuffed shelves, taking a generous portion of every herb, root, stalk, leaf, blossom, and tuber that might possibly be of use to the Healer Hall. These I packaged, tying them securely and leaving them in a shadowy corner of the inner storeroom against the unlikely chance that Anella might inspect the facility. I decanted the fellis and tussilago into padded demijohns and added to these surreptitious stores a pack containing clothing necessities for myself. Then I made the sticky sweet for the evening meal, enough to surfeit Anella and her parents.

That evening I sought out Uncle Munchaun and gave him my mother’s jewels to distribute to my sisters.

“Like that, eh?” He hefted the hide-wrapped packet of jewelry. “Did you not keep some by you?”

“A few pieces. I doubt jewelry will be required where I intend to go from here.”

“Send me word when you can, Rill. I shall miss you.”

“And I you, Uncle. You’ll keep watch over my sisters?”

“Have I not always done so?”

“Better than most.” I could not say more or weaken my resolution, so I fled down the steps from the second story.

3.18.43

T
HE NEXT DAY
, I had dutifully started yet another kettle of restorative soup in the small kitchen when I saw the Masterharper and the Masterhealer making their way across the Great Court for their interview with Tolocamp. I caught Sim’s attention and told him to take two others and wait for me outside the dispensary. I had a task to be done.

I changed from my dress into garb suitable for what I hoped to be allowed to do, and stuffed a few last personal things in my belt pouch. I caught a glimpse of myself in the little mirror on my wall. It took me a moment: my hair had been my one vanity. I picked up the scissors and ruthlessly, before my resolution faltered, I cut off my long braids and stuffed them into the darkest corner of the press. No one would think to search my room for some time to come. My shorn hair suited my new role in life.

With a leather thong, I tied back what was left of my thick black hair. Then I left the room that had been my refuge since my eighteenth summer and made my way down the spiral stairs to my father’s first-story apartment.

There was a convenient alcove on the inner wall just beyond the main door to his quarters. I had no sooner taken up my position when the drums announced the happy tidings that Orlith had laid a fine clutch of twenty-five eggs, including a queen egg. I’ll bet there was considerable jubilation at Fort Weyr on that score. And it was certainly heartening news, though suddenly I could hear my father’s mournful tones. Was he displeased with twenty-five and a queen? In ordinary times he would have called for wine to celebrate.

There was no one in the Hall, and at this hour in the morning most would be about their duties in or outside the Hold. I stepped close to the door and, by putting my ear to the wood, was able to hear most of what was said. Both Capiam and Tirone had good strong voices, and as they became more annoyed, their voices rose. It was my father who mumbled.

“Twenty-five with a queen egg is a superb clutch this late in a Pass,” Capiam was saying.

“Moreta . . . mumble . . . Kadith . . . Sh’gall so ill.”

“That is not
our
business,” I heard Master Tirone remark. “Not that the illness of the rider has any effect on the performance of the dragon. Anyway, Sh’gall is flying Fall at Nerat, so he’s evidently fully recovered.”

I had known that both Fort Weyrleaders had been ill and had recovered, for Jallora had been hastily dispatched from the Healer Hall when the Weyr healer had died. Why Sh’gall was flying at Nerat was beyond my source of information.

“I wish they would inform us of the status of each Weyr,” my father said. “I worry so.”

“The
Weyrs
”—Tirone spoke with emphasis —”have been discharging their traditional duties to their Holds!”

“Did
I
bring the illness to the Weyrs?” my father demanded, more loudly and quite petulantly, I thought. “Or the Holds? If the dragonriders were not too quick to fly here and there—”

“And Lords Holder not so eager to fill every nook and cranny of their—” Capiam was angry, too.

“This is
not
the time for recriminations!” Tirone interrupted them quickly. “You know as well as, if not better than, most people, Tolocamp, that seamen introduced that abomination onto the continent!” The Masterharper’s voice dripped with disapproval. I hoped my father was fully aware of it. “Let us resume the discussion interrupted by such good news. I have men seriously ill in that camp of yours. There is not enough vaccine to mitigate the disease, but they could at least have the benefit of decent quarters and practical nursing.”