Nerilka's Story

Chapter V

The 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,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 then-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.