“Dragonriders are healthier than most,” Tintoval mused. “The women are better-fed in the Weyr, too, so they also have a better chance of surviving childbirth. So it’s to a woman’s advantage to stay in the Weyr instead of leaving.”
“And we’ll never run out of work!” Terin exclaimed.
“So,” Tintoval wondered, “are there any spare children we could draft to help us?”
“Ellor would know,” Terin said. “But I can think of at least three by myself.”
“Three would be a start,” Tintoval allowed. “But we’ve fifty-seven sick and injured, I’d much prefer a dozen or more.”
“Too many and you’d never train them,” Fiona warned.
“Train some and have them train the rest,” Terin suggested, glancing at Fiona challengingly.
Fiona grinned and said to Tintoval, “And that’s why I made her headwoman!”
When they approached Cisca that evening at dinner with the suggestion, the Weyrwoman mused, “I wonder why we didn’t think of that before?”
“Perhaps you did,” Fiona said. “But you’ve had a lot of distractions since then, whereas I”—she gestured ruefully at herself—“have had almost three Turns now of dealing with injured dragons.”
As she spoke, she realized once again that she was nearly eye level with the Weyrwoman. Cisca had little more than nineteen Turns of age; Fiona was less than three Turns younger than her now. And, in dealing with the sick, at least, she had at least a full Turn’s greater experience. It was strange and difficult to remember: She was still the junior Weyrwoman, but the difference in age and experience had been nearly erased.
K’lior nodded thoughtfully. “And we haven’t had a healer for so long, there was no one to do the training.”
“We’ve all those helpers when we fight Fall,” Cisca remarked, sounding perplexed. She glanced tellingly at Fiona who, after all, with Tannaz had borne the primary responsibility for dealing with the sick and injured. “Why didn’t we think to use them to help afterward?”
Ellor, who had been checking on the table, heard the exchange and stepped in. “Because too many of them have regular duties during the day. We use them for first aid during the Fall, but afterward we need them elsewhere.”
“How many are clothesmakers?” Tintoval wondered. “Is that why they’re so good with sutures?”
“Some are tanners and good with awls,” Ellor replied. “And others are midwives—”
“I should have thought of them first!” Tintoval exclaimed. To Ellor she said, “Please be sure to send them to me.” When she saw the headwoman’s alarmed look, she added hastily, “I want to talk with them about midwifery.”
“Don’t they teach that at the Healer Hall?” Ellor wondered in surprise.
“They do,” Tintoval replied, “but there’s much more to doing than can be learned from teaching.” With a frown she added, “And it’s very much true that for birthing, most prefer a midwife to a healer, so it’s rare that the Healer Hall sees a pregnancy; they never did in the Turns I was there.”
Ellor nodded, relieved that the healer wasn’t planning on drafting the midwives.
“How many of them have children?” Terin asked. Ellor gave her a reproving look; it was obvious that she considered Terin’s involvement in the conversation to be impudent.
“That’s a good question,” Fiona said purposely.
Taking the hint, Ellor replied, “A few.”
“Perhaps those midwives would like to have their children watched during the day,” Terin said.
“The ones who are too old to just run errands and call for help if it’s needed could learn a lot with us,” Tintoval said in agreement.
Ellor nodded, a speculative look on her face. After a moment, she smiled, glancing evilly at Terin. “I know just the one to start with, too!” she exclaimed.
Terin gave her a worried look, which rapidly changed to one of alarm.
“Do you remember Bekka?” Ellor asked, her eyes dancing.
Terin groaned. “The one who never sleeps?”
“That’s her,” Ellor agreed with a broad smile. She turned to Tintoval. “She’s Merika’s eldest, three months shy of thirteen Turns.” She glanced at Terin, adding, “She’s older than you.”
“Not anymore,” Fiona corrected. Ellor’s expression dropped; she said nothing, but Fiona could feel the older woman’s anger.
“You say she never sleeps?” Tintoval asked, glancing at Ellor.
“She takes short naps, like a fire-lizard,” Ellor explained with a grin. “I was actually thinking of drafting her for late nights here in the Kitchen.”
“If she’s any talent with healing and she doesn’t sleep,” Tintoval said thoughtfully, “she might make a good recruit to the Healer Hall.”
“The Healer Hall?” Ellor repeated, shaking her head uncertainly. “I don’t know if they could manage with someone like her.”
Tintoval smiled. “They managed with me!”
Bekka proved everything that Terin remembered. Although she had twelve Turns, she was small for her size so she looked younger. It took Tintoval and Fiona only a few moments to discover that the youngster was every bit as smart—and irrepressible—as her mother, Merika, had warned.
“She’s a handful, make no mistake,” Merika had said with a look that crossed affection with exasperation. “But she’s got a big heart and she’ll listen.”
“But she won’t follow orders unless she’s convinced,” Tintoval guessed.
“Ah,” Merika had said, her eyebrows going up, “you’ve met the type!”
“I am the type!” Tintoval admitted. At Merika’s look of surprise, she elaborated. “I used to keep the entire level up with my antics until Kindan arrived—and then it was just him.”
Merika cast a knowing look toward Fiona as she replied, smiling, “He’s been known to have that effect; I’ve heard he’s even been able to charm young girls into behaving, on occasion.”
“He certainly had it with me!” Tintoval agreed with a laugh. She continued, pressing Merika, “So, will you let Bekka train with me?”
“Train?” Merika had repeated in surprise.
“As a journeyman healer, I can take an apprentice,” Tintoval told her.
“Don’t you want to meet her first?”
“From what I’ve heard, I meet her every morning in the mirror,” Tintoval told her.
Fiona, who’d had only a brief experience with the new healer before she’d gone back in time to Igen Weyr with the weyrlings and convalescents, found this exchange alarming. Tintoval must have noticed her look. “It’s a good thing in a healer,” she explained. “We have to be alert in a moment and awake for long periods of time.”
“That’d be Bekka,” Terin murmured in agreement.
Merika had summoned her most irrepressible child and, with some lingering reluctance, had entrusted her into Tintoval’s care.
Fiona’s concern over the age and responsibility of the child evaporated with their first visit that morning. Not only was Bekka’s cheerful energy infectious, she was also genuinely concerned for the well-being of both injured rider and dragon, to the point of running up and down the stairs to the infirmary on several different errands and still finding time to give words of comfort to both dragon and rider.
“Some of the injuries are worse,” Tintoval had cautioned her as they made their way to their second patient.
“They won’t get better if we don’t help, will they?” Bekka had asked.
“No, they won’t,” Tintoval admitted.
“It’s like when babies are born,” Bekka mused. Terin made a disagreeing noise and the young girl rounded on her. “If there’s no one to help, the baby’s still going to be born. Mother’s there to see to it that the baby and mother live.” Fiona could feel the sense of pride and vocation in the girl’s tone. “If we aren’t there to help, then maybe the dragons and riders would recover or maybe they wouldn’t. It’s our job to see to it that they live.”
Bekka’s exuberance faded when they visited the first of the seriously sick dragons.
“Serth is only hanging on,” Tintoval cautioned them before entering the weyr.
“It’s been over a fortnight,” Fiona murmured, remembering her last visit to S’ban and Serth: her first time escorting Tintoval on her rounds. She remembered that S’ban had been surprised at her ready willingness to clean up the nasty green ooze that blue Serth had coughed up—that all the sick dragons coughed up. “Will he make it?”
“I don’t think so,” Tintoval admitted. Behind them, they heard Bekka sob, but before anyone could react, the girl had already run past them, into the dragonrider’s quarters.
“Bekka!” S’ban exclaimed as he caught sight of her. “What are you doing here?”
Fiona, Tintoval, and Terin rushed to intervene—only to halt in surprise. Bekka was wrapped around S’ban, her sobs muffled against the fabric of his tunic.
S’ban looked up at the sound of their approach, demanding, “What is she doing with you?”
“Merika said she could help,” Tintoval said, her brows furrowed in confusion. “Bekka was upset about Serth.”
“Well, she would be,” S’ban said slowly, wrapping his arms tightly around the child. “She’s my daughter.”
Fiona and Terin exchanged horrified looks.
S’ban frowned at them until recognition dawned. “Weyrwoman? You’re back?” He gave her an appraising look. “You’re bigger, older.”
“I am,” Fiona said, drawing herself up and mustering a smile for the stricken blue rider. “I spent three Turns back in time at Igen Weyr.”
“Then perhaps there is hope,” S’ban whispered to himself.
Bekka pulled away from him long enough to say, “They said that Serth is going to die.”
Tintoval gave S’ban a tear-streaked, apologetic look. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
Bekka turned from her father and stared at the three women, demanding over her shoulder, “Tell them it isn’t true, Da. Tell them that Serth’s going to be all right.”
“Oh, darling,” S’ban said, wrapping his arms around her from behind and burying his head against hers, “I wish I could.”
“What about Kindan?” Bekka demanded, glaring at Fiona and then Tintoval. “And that weyrwoman, Lorana?”
“They’re trying,” Tintoval said. “They’re trying as hard as they can.”
“Kindan won’t give up, I promise you,” Fiona declared. She glanced at S’ban. “He saved us in the Plague, he won’t give up.”
“A fortnight ago, I told you that he’d have to be quick,” S’ban reminded her, his tone bleak.
Fiona glanced toward Tintoval. “Has there been any news since we left?”
The Weyr Healer shook her head.
“You have to do something,” Bekka said, glaring at Tintoval. “You can’t just wait for those Benden riders.”
“My father was a Benden rider,” Tintoval told her with an eyebrow arched warningly.
“T’val,” S’ban said to Bekka. “Remember, I told you about him?”
Bekka nodded mutely, then glanced sympathetically at Tintoval. “Did you feel bad when he died?”
“Yes,” Tintoval said sadly.
“That’s why she decided to become a healer,” S’ban told his daughter.
Bekka absorbed this silently.
“Bekka, why don’t you and I see what we can do to make Serth more comfortable?” Fiona asked, walking over to clasp the girl by the shoulder.
At S’ban’s encouraging nod, Bekka broke her embrace, slipped out from under Fiona’s hand, and, with a steadying breath, squared her shoulders, forced her lips into a smile, then strutted over to Serth’s weyr, calling out cheerfully, “Good morning, Serth! It’s me, Bekka!”
Fiona followed, found the mop and bucket, and started to clean up all the green ooze that the sick blue dragon had coughed up during the night.
“I’ll do that,” Bekka said several minutes later, reaching for the mop.
“No,” Fiona said, “you go ahead and talk with Serth.” When Bekka looked ready to argue, she added, “I think he likes that.”
Bekka gave her a tentative smile and returned to the blue, stretching on her tiptoes to reach his nearest eye ridge and scratch it.
Fiona and Bekka both turned at the sounds of approaching steps. Tintoval and S’ban entered Serth’s lair. Fiona flashed a grateful look through the doorway at Terin, who had stayed behind in S’ban’s quarters to tidy them up.
“So, Serth, how are you today?” Tintoval asked, slapping his jaw affectionately as she moved around in front of him. She pointed toward the nostrils, nodding to Fiona. “If you crouch down you can see how congested he is.”
Fiona placed her mop against the wall and followed Tintoval’s examination, gesturing for Bekka to join them.
“His nose is all full of that green stuff!” Bekka exclaimed, working hard to keep herself from crying and glancing worriedly at her father.
“I don’t think he’s got much time left, Bekka,” S’ban told her quietly, reaching up to scratch Serth’s eye ridges. He looked appealingly at Tintoval.
The healer shook her head. “I haven’t heard anything more from Benden,” she said. She saw Bekka ready to speak and added, “I don’t think it will do them any good to ask; I’m sure they’re working as hard and as fast as they can.”
“What if Benden’s not the right place?” Bekka asked, her face scrunched in misery. “Why shouldn’t we be looking here, at Fort? Fort’s the oldest Weyr, after all.”
“It is,” Fiona agreed, “but Kindan and Lorana came here already and Cisca and K’lior helped them search the Records. The Records here clearly state that special rooms were built at Benden. That’s why they went back.”
“And why we aren’t looking here,” S’ban said, reaching a hand out to Bekka. She took it and he pulled her against his side as he turned back to scratch Serth’s eye ridge some more. “We have to trust that they’re doing everything they can.”
“But what if they don’t find a cure?” Bekka asked, drawing away from her father. “What if they don’t find it in time for Serth?”
S’ban drew a deep, steadying breath and then knelt slowly beside his daughter so that he was at eye level. “If they don’t find it soon, Serth will die.”
Bekka was quiet for a long moment, her chest heaving in silent sobs. Finally, after a false start, she whispered the worry that had overwhelmed her: “Will you go with him, like Tannaz?”
“No,” S’ban told her, grabbing her tight against him and burying his face in her chest. He pushed back, his eyes streaming even as he forced a smile, “I couldn’t leave my best girl!”
“You mean me?” Bekka whispered, glancing up at Serth in complete amazement that her father, who had been bonded with the blue dragon for tens of Turns before she was born, would ever for a moment consider her more important. “You’d stay for me?”
“That’s what we do,” S’ban assured her, “when we’re parents.”
Bekka stood up, pulling back from her father just enough that she could look him squarely in the eye, her hands still resting on his shoulders.
“Then you’d have to come with me to the Healer Hall, because I’m going to be a healer.” She glanced over her shoulder challengingly to Tintoval, who nodded in fierce agreement. “And if they don’t find the cure at Benden, I will!”
S’ban’s face worked for a moment as he battled his emotions. It was Serth, however, who finally said it, as he lifted his head from Tintoval’s inspection and curled his neck around so that he could look directly at Bekka and S’ban.
She is your child, he said, so forcefully that Fiona could hear him easily. She saw that Bekka, Tintoval, and Terin could all hear him, too. She will do what she says.
The blue paused for a moment, quickly turning his head aside to cough, then turning back again. You must stay for her.
Promise me.
“I promise,” S’ban said quietly, tears leaking down his cheeks.
Again Serth twitched away to avoid spraying them with flecks of green ooze as he coughed, and again he came back, his head level with Bekka’s, his gaze steady on his rider.
You will be proud of her, Serth said. She is special, this one.
After that, Serth turned his head back straight ahead and closed his eyes, his breathing labored but steady.
“I’ll stay with you tonight,” Bekka said, moving to wrap herself around her father as tightly as she could. S’ban nodded his head against hers and clutched her close.
Tintoval glanced at Fiona, seeming both embarrassed to be sharing the intimate father-daughter moment and at the same time accepting of the gift that was given them. She made to leave, but Bekka glanced up at her.
“I’ve got to go now, Father,” Bekka said, stepping out of her father’s arms.
“No,” Tintoval said instantly, shaking her head. “You can stay.”
“I’ve got to go,” Bekka repeated with a defiant look. “I’ll help the healer and learn. Maybe we’ll come up with something that’ll help Serth.”
“Yes,” S’ban agreed. He made a shooing gesture. “Go! Serth and I will be fine.”
“I’ll be back as soon as we’re done,” Bekka promised. She turned then and walked resolutely out of the weyr, pausing only once to turn and say, “I love you, Daddy!”
S’ban looked up from his communion with Serth and found a smile. “I love you, too, Bekka.”
They hadn’t gone three steps outside of S’ban’s quarters when Bekka grabbed Tintoval’s hand and jerked her to a halt. The healer looked down at her in surprise.
“How long?” Bekka demanded.
“How long for what?” Tintoval asked.
“How long for me to become a healer?”
“It can take as little as four Turns and as many as eight,” Tintoval replied. She guessed the girl’s next question, adding, “I went when I had thirteen Turns, and I’ve nineteen now.”
Todd McCaffrey Page 4