The Masterharper of Pern

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Sloop ahoy!”

  “Shards, what do I do now? Steer starboard, right, starboard!” he yelled at the white shape bearing down on him. As hard as he could, he pushed the tiller over and nearly clouted himself in the head as the boom swung past.

  They were rescued by the schooner Wave Eater. Two sturdy fishermen lifted Kasia aboard to other willing hands. Robinton managed to climb the rope ladder, awkward with fatigue and stiff joints. With the little sloop tied on behind, Wave Eater swung round and headed back to Tillek Hold, her mission complete. A glowbasket was hung from the top of the mast to let other ships know that the lost had been found.

  The second mate, Lissala, who was also Captain Idarolan’s wife, tended to Kasia while Idarolan did similar services for Robinton, remarking on how a mere harper had managed so well.

  “Kasia told me what to do,” he protested in between spoonfuls of a hearty fish stew, bobbing with root vegetables that had never tasted so good, and bread that had been fresh the day before when the search parties had been organized to locate the missing and long overdue sloop.

  “Aye, Harper, but it was you doing it.”

  “She’ll be fine now,” Lissala said, returning and slipping into a seat opposite Robinton. “Wise of you to be sure she drank so much. No frostbite, but . . .” She looked sharply at his discolored fingers. Startled, because without his hands he was nothing, he held them both out to her and felt the pinch she gave the tips. “No, they’re all right, but another coupla hours out in that—” She nodded her head to indicate the cold night “—and it might’ve been different. But we’ve got you safe and snug aboard.” She reached around for a cup and poured klah, holding the pot up and looking inquiringly at Robinton, who shook his head.

  “Where were we when you found us?” Robinton asked.

  Idarolan chuckled, rubbing his chin. “Halfway up the coast from Fort. You’d’ve done better to go to port. You weren’t that far from a fishhold.”

  Robinton groaned, but then reminded himself that they’d had no idea at all where they had been blown to by the storm.

  “Kasia told me right, starboard,” he said, gesturing with the appropriate arm.

  “Not to worry. We have you now.” Then, as Robinton could not suppress an immense yawn—one part relief, one part being warm, and the other total fatigue—Idarolan added, “Come, man, I’ll bed you down.”

  “Where’s Kasia?” Robinton asked, looking up and down the passageway.

  “In there,” the captain said, indicating a door they were passing by. “You’re in here.” He opened another door across the way and slid the little glowbasket open. “Take the lower bunk. Ellic’s on this watch.”

  Robinton wondered how long “this watch” was before he’d have to leave the bunk, but he lost hold of the question and never heard the answer as soon as he laid himself down.

  CHAPTER XIV

  CLOSTAN WENT OVER both of them thoroughly. Kasia had recovered some of her normal color and strength by the time they docked at Tillek, where relieved folk helped them onto the wharf and up to the Hold. Lissala supported Kasia on one side and Robinton on the other, though Robinton wanted to carry Kasia and spare her the walk.

  “You can barely carry yourself yet, man,” Idarolan said.

  Robinton had to admit that he was shaky on his feet. He was only too glad to follow Clostan, who met them at the Hold door and swooped Kasia up in his arms to carry her down to the infirmary. By then the Lord and Lady Holder had learned of their safe return and hurried to the infirmary. Juvana hovered anxiously over her sister and Melongel frowned, having clearly been very worried.

  “You’ve both had quite an ordeal,” Clostan said with a deep sigh. Kasia coughed politely into her hand, and the healer scowled. “I’ll fix a soothing draught to ease that right smart. But neither of you is to do anything for the next three days. I’ll go over you again then.”

  Juvana insisted they stay in one of the lower-level guest apartments. Their own level was cold, being too far from the source of heat with which the Ancients had warmed the Hold, and they needed the warmth of hearth-heated rooms. Indeed, Robinton couldn’t seem to heat the cold out of his bones and was drawn to the fire like a forest insect. Following Clostan’s orders, they rested a full day in bed, Juvana keeping hot water bottles in a row under the furs, causing Robinton to complain that his feet were fine—it was the rest of him that wasn’t warm.

  Mostly Kasia slept, not even musing when she coughed. Rob dozed fitfully, waking briefly every time she coughed. He woke once to find himself beating out the cadence of “Got in, get out . . .” And another time from a nightmare where he couldn’t hear her or see her in the mist that blanketed him. He knew she was calling and he kept trying to answer, but his jaws were frozen stuck.

  Captain Gostol came in, apologetic that he had left a search almost too long.

  “Kasia’s knowledgeable about the sea and little ships. And you two finally having a chance to be alone for the first time. That storm only reached us late the other night—which is when we began to get concerned with you being overdue back in the harbor.” He kept turning his sea cap in his hands, working round and round on the brim.

  “I did what Kasia told me,” Robinton murmured, refusing to take much credit. “You should have seen her handling the sloop in that storm, though. You’d’ve been proud of her. As I am.” He patted her leg under the furs and she smiled wanly up at him.

  “You got us home,” she said, just the hint of a sparkle back in her eyes.

  Then she coughed, a funny dry hack that Clostan’s potion didn’t seem to ease.

  If the medic was concerned about the way the cough hung on, he made no mention of it to Robinton. And soon they were well enough to go back to their own quarters. Juvana had put braziers in both rooms, to take the chill off. The black rock burned hotly, but with a smell and an acrid smoke that sometimes irritated Kasia’s cough. He suggested returning to the warmer lower level, but she said she wanted to be in the place they had fixed for themselves, with all their own things. And anyway, she added, they would both be spending much of their time in the warmer schoolrooms, when they resumed their duties the following sevenday.

  Clostan became very busy, as the unnaturally cold weather brought him many coughs and colds, running noses and fevers. He continued to check up on Kasia, but she kept insisting that she felt fine.

  “Except for the cough,” Robinton added, chiding her for not mentioning it.

  “It’s only now and then, Rob,” she said. Her listlessness still worried him. She seemed so tired by evening that she would fall asleep in his arms. He didn’t mind. She felt so good against him, and he felt so protective of his lovely green-eyed spouse.

  The cold was further complicated by three blizzards, following one after the other. No one moved about the Hold or attempted to take the ships out for fish. Lord Melongel was a good provider and, while the weather remained so bitter, opened his stores to those who were short on food. It was essential to keep everyone healthy in this awful weather.

  A feverish cough developed and spread from the schoolroom to the old aunties and uncles. Clostan asked for assistance in his nursing duties, and both Robinton and Kasia volunteered, since many of the patients were their students.

  Then, one night, Robinton was awakened by Kasia’s thrashing. Moaning and mumbling, throwing her arms and legs about, she was burning up with fever. Robinton charged down to the infirmary, where the assistant healer on night duty gave him the powdered herb that would reduce the fever, and the salve to rub on her throat, chest, and back. Robinton detoured to the kitchen and got himself klah and a pitcher of the flavored water that was being used for invalids.

  Kasia had managed to throw off the furs and was lying uncovered in the cold room. He quickly covered her and then applied the salve, its pungent smell seeping into his nose and lungs. Then he roused her to take a few sips of the herb drink. He dozed now and then, in between forcing her to drink. By morning she was delirio
us, and he was becoming more and more worried. The herb had seemed effective with everyone else he nursed, but her coughing fits were getting harder and longer.

  He almost cried out with relief when Clostan, red-eyed and weary, came in. Kasia chose that moment to indulge in one of her coughing spasms, and Clostan came swiftly to the bedside.

  “That doesn’t sound good,” he said, feeling her forehead and cheeks. “You’ve the salve on? Use more and repeat it every three hours. Here, let’s give her my special remedy.”

  He mixed the draught himself and made her drink it.

  “She obeys you more than she does me,” Robinton remarked peevishly.

  “You’re her spouse,” Clostan said with a weary grin. “Mind you, most of your patients have recovered, so I’m sure she will.”

  There was, however, a note in Clostan’s voice that caught Robinton’s ear.

  “You are?”

  “Of course I am. She’s young and . . . well, she’s far less vulnerable than those down the hall.” His face fell into sad lines.

  “More deaths?” Robinton asked, and Clostan nodded.

  “The very old have no stamina. And we’ve got their quarters as warm as an oven.”

  He left then, but Juvana arrived shortly afterward and together they moved Kasia down to a guest room, where a fire roared on the hearth.

  Together Juvana and Robinton nursed Kasia. Clostan came in several times that day, and yet her fever persisted. To Robinton, it seemed that she was hotter every time he felt her forehead. He knew this wasn’t the course the illness usually took and remembered what Clostan had said about the elderlies’ lack of stamina. Did Kasia have enough, having so recently recovered from the ordeal of the storm? He didn’t even dare ask Juvana her opinion. Her presence verified his fears.

  He never left the bedside, except for necessary trips. Juvana ordered a pallet for herself to sleep on. Melongel looked in; so did Minnarden, offering to spell Robinton so he could get some sleep.

  Robinton refused. He had promised to care for Kasia and he would. She had to get well. She had to.

  But she did not. Just before dawn on the fifth day of her burning fever and hacking cough, when Melongel and Clostan had joined the vigil, she opened her eyes, smiled at Robinton leaning over her, and, with a sigh, closed them. And was still.

  “No, no. No! No! Kasia! You can’t leave me alone!”

  He was shaking her, trying to rouse her, when he felt Juvana’s hands pulling him away. He clutched Kasia to him, stroking her hair, her cheeks, trying to coax life back into her body.

  It took Melongel and Clostan to pull him away from her, while Juvana arranged her on the bed. And Clostan forced a potion down his throat.

  “We did all we could, Rob, all we could. It’s just sometimes not enough.” And Robinton heard the pain of the healer as plain as he felt his own.

  Captain Gostol sailed the Northern Maid with just Vesna and two others to man her—his crew was also decimated by the fever.

  It was Merelan who sang the final farewell, for Robinton couldn’t speak. He did play the harp he had so lovingly made his spouse. And when Merelan held the last note until it died away—as his hope had—he flung the harp to join the body of his beloved as it slipped into the sea. The harp gave one last dissonant chord as the wind of its descent strummed the strings. Then all was silent. Even the wind died down in respect for his loss.

  He moved his things back into his bachelor room. Ifor and Mumolon did all they could to bear him company, see that he ate, make him lie down in his bed—for he could seem to do nothing at all. “Got in, get out . . .” The refrain haunted him, but he had not the energy to make notations. He felt he could never sing, or compose, again. He tried to rouse himself from this immolation in grief, his terrible loss, but all he seemed to do was sink deeper.

  He was sprawled in front of the fire, Ifor and Mumolon having gone elsewhere, either because they had duties or because they could no longer stand to be with him and his grief. The door swung open and F’lon stood there, staring at him.

  Robinton looked up incuriously, noted that the dragonrider was there, and then stared back in the fire.

  “I only just heard,” F’lon said, striding into the room and slamming the door behind him. He picked up what was left of the bottle of wine and poured it into a glass, tossing it back. “I’d’ve come earlier if I’d known.”

  Robinton nodded. F’lon peered more closely into his face.

  “Say, you really are in a terrible state, aren’t you?”

  Robinton didn’t dignify the question with an answer, waving a hand to send F’lon on his way. He appreciated the dragonrider coming, but F’lon only reminded him of the last time he had seen him: on his Espousal Day.

  “That bad, huh?” F’lon looked around him for more wine. “Drunk it all up?”

  “Drinking doesn’t help.”

  “No. It doesn’t.”

  Something in F’lon’s tone mused Robinton briefly. “What do you mean?”

  “Isn’t there any more wine up here? Do I have to go back downstairs to get some?”

  F’lon was angry, which annoyed Robinton, so he pointed to the cupboard. “There should be one more there,” he said.

  “You’ve been counting?”

  Robinton shrugged and sighed. He watched indifferently as F’lon found the bottle, made a disgusted noise as he read the label, but pulled the bung and poured a glass for himself. Then he splashed more into Robinton’s cup.

  “You’re not the only one grieving, but at least you’re entire,” he said after taking half the glass.

  “Oh?”

  “L’tol—or should I now call him Lytol—lost Larth. Just about the time Kasia . . .” And even brash F’lon could not continue. He downed the rest of that glass and poured another, right to the brim.

  “L’tol? Lost Larth?” That much penetrated.

  “Yes, and he shouldn’t have.” F’lon slammed the glass down on the table so hard that it broke at the stem. He cursed as the glass cut into the web of finger and thumb. He sucked it.

  “How?” Robinton asked. Dragons seldom died in an Interval.

  “C’vrel decided we should straighten up and get some firestone practice in during the Spring Games,” F’lon said in a sarcastic tone. “We’d fly wing against wing. S’lel’s Tuenth came out of between flaming and caught Larth all along his side. There were enough of us in the air to cushion Larth back to earth, screaming his head off.” F’lon gave himself a sudden shake as if the memory of that agony was etched in his mind. “L’tol fell off and the weyrfolk grabbed him, but Larth was too badly burned. He went between right there on the ground.”

  Robinton saw the tears coursing down the dragonrider’s cheeks. He reached out to lay his hand on F’lon’s arm, unable to bear his friend’s pain.

  F’lon brushed the tears aside. “You aren’t the only one bearing a terrible loss right now.”

  “No, I’m not. But I don’t seem to be able to bear it either.”

  “No, you don’t. If you want, you can go, too.”

  “Go, too?” Robinton looked up at F’lon. “What do you mean?”

  “Couldn’t be simpler,” the dragonrider said drolly. “We go out to Simanith, he takes you in his arms, we go between and Simanith opens his arms”—which F’lon demonstrated with an upward flourish—“and only the two of us go on to Benden. Simple.”

  “Yes, simple,” Robinton said, thinking almost wistfully of the cold black nothingness of between where one felt nothing, heard nothing, was shortly nothing.

  Tears filled his eyes and his heart seemed to burst. He’d been cold so long now. It would be simple . . . but . . . it wasn’t simple.

  “No, it isn’t simple,” F’lon, said gently, and Robinton realized he had spoken aloud. “There’s something in us humans that clings to life even when the most beloved one we have leaves us. Lytol couldn’t go when we gave him the option. He was badly burned and too full of fellis and numbweed to be able to
decide. And when he could, he decided to go back to High Reaches with his family.”

  Robinton gave a start. “That’s not a wise place for anyone to be right now, I think. Much less a . . . former dragonrider.”

  F’lon shrugged. “His choice. He needs his family right now. I saw your mother is still here.”

  “Yes, she’s been wonderful. Everyone has.”

  “So, let’s get on with life, shall we?” The kindness in that soft gentle suggestion reached and thawed the cold “nothingness” Robinton had been enduring.

  “Thank you, F’lon,” he said and rose. “I think I’d better eat something, and you look as if you could stand a good meal, too.”

  Indeed, F’lon looked haggard as well as weary, but at Robinton’s suggestion, his smile flickered. Stretching an arm across the harper’s shoulder, he wheeled him to face the door and then accompanied him out of the room and down to the warm kitchen to ask for a meal.

  It was ironic that the grip of terrible weather broke shortly afterward and milder weather not only improved those who had been stricken by the feverish cough but also allowed everyone’s normal duties to be resumed.

  Living in Tillek Hold was hard on Robinton, for it was filled with memories: one moment he would think he saw Kasia, just turning that corridor; the next, he would hear the echo of her voice in the room. He was still numb with his grief and tried very hard to overcome it with work and just living.

  He briefly roused when Minnarden and Melongel told him that they had proof now of Lord Faroguy’s death.

  “We asked for confirmation of Faroguy’s well-being,” Melongel said. “Gave the inaccuracy of the last message as our excuse.”

  “The one that came back was nearly as badly drummed as the first, and all the towers asked for several repeats to be sure they had heard it correctly before passing it along,” Minnarden said. Then he shook his head. “Lobirn never sent so badly formed a message. And Mallan was always good at drumming.”