Nerilka's Story

Chapter III

When I heard the drums, I jumped out of my bed and ran into the corridor where I could distinguish their pulse. The message was terrifying. Before its echoes had died, another came in from the south: Ratoshigan demanding assistance from the Healer Hall. It was very early indeed for the drums to be speaking. I left my door open as I hastily donned a work tunic and trousers and belted on the heavy ring of Hold keys. I put on boots, too, for the soft house shoes were no protection against the cold stone floors of the lower level, or the roads without.

The drums banged on with more casualties reported at Telgar, Ista, Igen, and South Boll, and more requests for reassurance from distant Holds and Healer Halls. There were volunteers, which were heartening, and offers of assistance from Benden, Lemos, Bitra, Tiliek, and High Reaches, places so far untouched by the catastrophe. I found that encouraging, and worthy of the spirit of Pern.

I was halfway across the Field when the first of the coded reports came in from Telgar Weyr: there were dead riders and, because of their deaths, dragon suicides. Passing field workers on their way to the beastholds, I carefully controlled my agitation, nodding and smiling but hastening so that no one would be brash enough to stop me. Or perhaps they did not wish to learn more bad news on top of yesterday's. Hard on the echoes of Telgar's grim news, Ista began citing its report.

Why I had thought that dragonriders would be immune from this disease, I do not know, except that they seemed so Invulnerable astride their great beasts, seemingly untouched by the ravages of Thread, though I knew well enough that dragons and riders were often badly scored, and impervious to other minor ailments and anxieties that were visited on lesser folk. Then I recalled that dragonriders often flitted from one Gather to another, and there had been two Gathers on the same day, Ista as well as Ruatha, to lure them from their mountain homes. Two-and plague well advanced in both! Yet Ista was halfway east. How could the disease spring up so quickly in two so distant places?

I hurried on and entered the Harper Hall Court. Everyone here was already up, half of them holding runnerbeasts, saddled and burdened for long trips, their tack in healer colors. Above us the drums continued their grim beatings. From Healer Hall to Hold and Weyr, the messages were sent by Master Fortine. Where then was Master Capiam?

Desdra swung down the shallow steps of the Hall, saddlebags draped on each shoulder and weighing down her hands. Behind her, two more apprentices as laden as she hurried by. The woman looked as if she had not slept, and her face, usually so bland and composed, was etched with strain and impatience, and heavy with anxiety. I edged around the court, hoping to converge on her path as she began to distribute the saddlebags to the mounted men and women.

"No, no change," I heard her say to a journeyman. "The disease must run its course with Capiam as with anyone else. Use these remedies as symptoms warrant. That is the only advice I have now. Listen to the drums. We'll use the emergency codes. Do not send open messages at any time."

She stepped back as the healers urged their runners out of the court, and I had a chance to approach her.

"Joumeywoman Desdra."

She swung toward me, not identifying me even as one of the Fort Horde.

"I am Nerilka. If the Hall's supplies are drained by the demand, please come to me-" I emphasized that point by touching hand to chest"-for we've enough to physic half the planet."

"Now, there is no need for concern, Lady Nerilka," she began, mustering a reassuring expression.

"Nonsense." I spoke more sharply than I intended, and then she did look at me and see me. "I know every drum code but the Masterharper's, and can guess at that. He's apparently on the mountain road home." I had her full attention now. "When you need more supplies, ask for me at the Hold. Or if you need another nurse…"

Someone called urgently to her, and with a quick nod of apology to me, she walked off. Then the eastern drums began a fresh dispatch of bad news from Keroon. I walked back with the knowledge that hundreds were dying in that tragic Hold, and that four smaller mountain holds did not answer their drum roll.

I was halfway across the Field when I heard the unmistakable sound of a dragon trumpeting. A chill hand clutched at my innards. What could a dragon be doing at Fort Hold -now? I ran back to the Hall. The massive Hold door was wide open, and Campen stood on the top step, his arms half raised in astonished disbelief. A small group of anxious Crafthall Masters and two of the nearer minor holders were grouped below him on the steps; all now turned away from Campen and toward the blue dragon that dominated the courtyard. I remember thinking that the dragon was a trifle off-color. Then all else was forgotten as, incredulous, I watched my father striding up the steps, shoving holder and Craftmaster aside.

"There is a quarantine! There is death stalking the land. Did you not hear the message? Are you all deaf that you gather in such numbers? Out! Out! To your homes! Do not quit them for any reasons! Out! Out!"

He shoved the nearest holder down the steps, toward the runnerbeasts, which the drudges were only just leading to the stablehold. Two Craftmasters stumbled into each other in order to avoid his flailing arms.

In moments, the courtyard was clear of its visitors, the dust of the precipitous departures already settling on the road.

The blue dragon trumpeted again, adding his own impetus to the scrambling retreat of holder and Master. Then he leapt skyward, going between before he had cleared the Harper Hall tower.

Father turned on us all, for my brothers had come to investigate the unexpected arrival of a dragon.

"Have you run mad to assemble folk? Did none of you pay heed to Capiam's warning? They're dying like flies at Ruatha!"

"Then why are you here, sir?" my rather stupid brother Campen had the gall to ask.

"What did you say?" Father drew himself up like a dragon about to flame, and even Campen drew back from the contained fury in his stance. How Campen escaped a clout I did not then understand.

"But-but-but Capiam said quarantine…"

Father tilted his handsome head up, and extended his arms, palms up and outward, to fend off a proximity none of us was at all likely to make.

"I am in quarantine from any of you as of this moment. I shall immure myself in my quarters, and none of you," he said, shaking his heavy forefinger at us, "shall come near me until-" he paused dramatically "-that period is over and I know myself to be clean."

"Is the disease infectious? How contagious is it?" I heard myself asking, because it was important for us to establish that. "Either way I shall not jeopardize my family." His expression was so noble I nearly laughed.

Nor did any of my siblings dare ask further about our mother and sisters.

"All messages are to be slipped under my door. Food will be left in the hall. That is all"

With that, he motioned us aside and stomped into the Hold. We could follow his progress across the Hall and to the stairs by the angry pounding of his boots on the flagstones. Then a sort of muffled sob broke the spell.

"What of Mother?" Mostar asked, his eyes wide with anxiety.

"What of Mother indeed!" I said. "Well, let's not stand here, making a spectacle of ourselves." I cocked my head toward the roadway where small groups of cotholders had gathered, attracted first by the dragon's arrival and then our tableau on the Hold steps.

Of one accord we retired into the Hall. I was not the only one to glance up at the now closed door to the first level.

"It isn't fair," Campen began, sitting down heavily in the nearest chair. I knew that he meant Father's early return.

"She'd know how to cure us," Gallon said, fear in his eyes.

"So do I, for she trained me," I said curtly, for I think I knew then that Mother would not return. And it was also important for the family not to panic or give any show of apprehension. "We're a hardy lot. Gallon. You know that. You've never been sick in your life."

"I had the spotted fever."

"We all had that," Mostar said derisively, but the rest of them began to relax.

"He oughtn't to have broken quarantine, though," Theskin said very thoughtfully. "It doesn't set a good example. Alessan ought to have kept him at Ruatha."

I wondered about that, too, although Father can be so overbearing that even Lords older than himself have given way to his wishes. I didn't like to think that Alessan was ineffective, even if he had courteously deferred to Father's wishes. Quarantine was quarantine!

That night I fell easily into an exhausted sleep but, too restless to sleep well, I awoke very early again. It was so early, in fact, that none of the day staff was about his duties, and I picked up the note tucked under my father's door. I nearly tore it up when I'd read the message. Oh, the stock of febrifuges he wanted, and the wine and food staples were understandable, but he instructed Campen to bring Anella, and "her family" as he put it, into the safety of the Hold. So he would leave my mother and sisters in danger at Ruatha yet ask his oldest son and heir to bring his mistress to safety? And the two children he had sired on her.

Oh, it was no scandal really. Mother had always ignored the matter. She'd had practice over the Turns, and indeed once I had overheard her say to one of the aunts that relief now and then from his attentions was welcome. But I didn't like Anella. She simpered, she clung, and if Father couldn't pretend interest in her, she was quite as happy on Mostar's arm. Indeed, I think she hoped to be wed to my brother. I longed to tell her that Mostar had other ideas. Still, I wondered if her last son was my father's issue or Mostar's.

I chided myself for such snide thoughts. At least the child had a strong family resemblance. With my belt knife, I separated the slip of hide into its two messages and slid Campen's portion under his door. I bore the discreet half down to the kitchen where sleepy drudges were folding up their pallets before starting their chores. My presence provoked tentative smiles and some apprehension, so I smiled reassurances and told the brightest of the lot what to put on Lord Tolocamp morning tray.

Campen met me in the Hall, distractedly waving his portion of our father's orders. "What am I to do about this? Rill? I can hardly ride out of the Hold proper and bring her back in broad daylight."

"Bring her in from the fire-heights. No one be looking there today."

"I don't like it. Rill. I just don't like it."

"When have our likes or dislikes ever mattered, Campen?"

Anxious to get out of range of his querulous confusion, I went off to inspect the Nurseries on the southern side of the level. Here, at least, was an island of serenity-well, as serene as twenty-nine babes and toddlers can be. The girls were going about their routine tasks under the watchful gaze of Aunt Lucil and her assistants. With all the babble there, they would not have heard the drums clearly enough to be worried yet. Since the Nursery had its own small kitchen, I would have to remember to have them close off their section if Fort Hold did surrender to the disease. And I must also remember to have additional supplies sent up just to be on the safe side.

I checked on the laundry and linen stores and suggested to the Wash Aunt that today, being sunny and not too chill, was an excellent day to do a major wash. She was a good person, but tended to procrastinate out of a mistaken notion that her drudges were woefully overworked. I knew Mother always had to give her a push to get started. I didn't like to think that I was usurping any of my mother's duties, even on a temporary basis, but we might be in need of every length of clean linen ever woven in the Hold.

The weavers, when I arrived in the Loft cots, were diligently applying themselves to their shutties. One great roll of the sturdy mixed yams, on which my mother prided herself, was just being clipped free of the woof. Aunt Sira greeted me with her usual cool, contained manner. Although she must have heard some of the drum messages over the clack of heddle and shuttle, she made no comment on the world outside.

I had a late breakfast in the little room on the first sublevel, which Mother called her "office," as grateful as she must often have been for this retreat. Still the drums rolled, acknowledging and then passing on the dire tidings. One didn't hear it only once, sad to say, but several times. I winced the fourth time Keroon's code came through, and hummed loudly to keep the latest message from adding to the misery already in my heart. Ruatha was close by. Why had we no messages from them, no reassurance from my mother and my sisters?

A knock on the door interrupted these anxieties, and I was almost glad to learn that Campen awaited me on the first story. Halfway up the stairs, I realized that he must have returned with

Anella and that, if he was on the first story, she was expecting to have guest quarters. I myself would have put her on the inner corridor of the fifth story. But the apartment at the end of the first story was more than appropriate for her. There was no way that I would accommodate her in my mother's suite, with its convenient access to Father's sleeping room. My father was, after all, in isolation, and my mother was alive in Ruatha.

Anella had obeyed Tolocamp's instruction to the letter. She had brought her two babies, but her mother, father, three younger brothers, and six of the frailer of her family dependents.

How they managed to climb the fire-heights I did not inquire, but two of them looked about to collapse. They could go to the upper stories and be attended by our own elderlies. Anella pouted a bit at being assigned rooms so far from Tolocamp, but neither Campen nor I paid any attention to her remarks or to those of her shrewish mother. I was just relieved that the entire hold had not descended on us. I suspected the older two brothers had more sense than to chance their arms on their pert sister's prospects. Although I felt Anella ought to be well able to care for her children, I did assign her two servants, one from the Nursery level and a general. I wished to have no complaints from my father about her reception or quarters. Any guest would have had as much courtesy from me. But I didn't have to like it.

Then I sped down to the kitchens to discuss the day with Felim. He needed only to be told he was doing splendidly. The kitchens are always the worst places for rumor and gossip. Fortunately, no one there understood the coded messages, although they must have recognized that the drum tower was unusually busy. Sometimes one knows the drums are relaying good news, happy tidings. The beat seems brighter, higher- pitched, as if the very skins are singing with pleasure at their work. So if I fancied that the drums were weeping today, who could blame me?

Toward evening, mistakes were made in the messages relayed as weary drummer arms faltered in the beat. I was forced to endure repetitions-despairing pleas from Keroon and Telgar for healers to replace those who had died of the disease they tried to cure. I put plugs in my ears so that I could sleep. Even so, my eardrums seemed to echo the pulse of the day's grievous news.