A Gift of Dragons (20 page)

“Couldn’t have done it better myself,” C’tic said. “Hey, Brith, this is going to be a snap today,” he said encouragingly to his dragon.

To one side of the infirmary, one of the other riders exclaimed in dismay, “Shards. We’ve got another fainter. Someone get me a cold compress while I brush all the sand off her; she certainly hit the dirt with a bang!”

Neru peered around those gathered to assist the fainter and he chuckled. “It’s the girl in blue, Ni,” he said with a little smirk. “The one who fancied your egg.”

“There’s usually one who’s not good with wounds,” C’tic said. “Has someone brought the restorative? That one will make a fine rider!” His tone was sarcastic.

“You’d think she’d be used to injured animals, being the Masterfarmer’s daughter,” Nian murmured to her brother.

“Now, she can’t help the way she is,” Neru said with considerably more charity than his sister expressed, “even if she
was
promised the gold.”

“I’d pity the gold,” Nian replied.

Brith carefully turned his head back to eye Nian and Neru. The blue of his faceted eyes was shot through with orange.

“We’re not hurting you, are we?” Ru asked apologetically.

No
. The twins gasped as the dragon’s mind seemed to fill theirs.
The fresh numbweed is so soothing
.

“Did I really truly hear him speaking to me?” Ru asked C’tic, who grinned at them. The question Nian sensed in her brother was that, to him, being bespoken by a dragon meant that he had a right to be a candidate.

“Dragons speak to anyone they want to,” C’tic said, reaching to remove another old dressing. Ru scooted off immediately to provide a new one.

“Will it be like that in the Impression?” Nian asked. “We will hear a dragon’s voice in our heads?”

“Yes, that’s how it happens,” and C’tic had the same soft expression on his face as H’ran had had.

“And you can always hear them?” Nian asked. “I can usually hear my twin brother—especially if he’s in trouble.”

“Ah, I thought you two looked alike.”

“Oh, we’re not completely alike,” Nian said. “Neru’s much smarter and stronger. He’ll make a splendid dragonrider.”

“You both will,” C’tic surprised her by saying.

“How do you know that?”

“My dragon told me so,” C’tic said, and his smile was kind, not teasing.

Two more dressings were needed and then C’tic thanked them for their assistance.

“Can we help again?” Nian asked.

That will depend on what happens at the Hatching,
Brith replied himself.
But I would be glad of such light fingers. Maybe you should train to be a dragon healer.

Nian blinked, startled by his remark.

“Well, you could, you know,” Ru said, regarding his sister with some pride. “You’re always tending the injured at the Hold.”

“Come along, now, candidates,” H’ran said. “It is nearly dinnertime.”

“Oh, good,” Ru said, rubbing his hands together. “I’m hungry.”

“Wash your hands well,” C’tic said, pointing to a sink to one side of the infirmary. “Remember, you’ve been handling numbweed. If you don’t scrub your hands thoroughly now, some of the numbweed may rub off on your lips when you start eating. Believe me, I know, it’s no fun trying to eat your food when your lips are completely numb. Added to that, you’ll slobber all over yourself and not even realize it. Not a pretty sight!” While their laughter subsided, the candidates used the scrubbing brushes at the sink and lathered their hands with sweetsand until their skin was rubbed red. As they washed, aromatic odors wafted in their direction and promised a fine meal. By the time they reached the Lower Cavern, weyrfolk were setting generous platters and bowls on the table for them to serve themselves.

“Hey, this is great food,” Neru said after he took his first heaping forkful.

“It’s meat, you mean,” Nian said, teasing her brother.

“Makes a great change from all that fish,” Neru replied, selecting yet another slice from the platter in the center of the table.

“Just don’t make a pig of yourself here,” she added in a low tone so no one else would hear her. “We’ve never gone hungry, you know, and we must uphold the honor of Lado Hold.”

“Humph,” Neru grunted and gestured around the table where the other candidates were equally as diligent in reducing the contents of the various serving dishes. “Tell that to the others.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Nian said with great dignity.

After some of the young weyrfolk cleared the table, the Weyrleader at the head table got to his feet.

“As I’m sure you’ve noticed, we have candidates as our guests. The Hatching may even come tonight,” he added, and the candidates gasped as one. He grinned at them. “We are ever at our dragons’ pleasure. But all is ready for their arrival. Thank you all for coming at such short notice. If you have any questions, please ask the dragonrider nearest you or our good H’ran. Remember, they were once candidates just like you. And just as nervous!”

“He’s nice. Just like our Holder,” Nian murmured to her brother.

“But Hatching in the middle of the night?” Ru said. “That’s awkward.”

She sniffed and then saw a man in harper blue, carrying a gitar, place a stool on the platform and settle himself. He strummed a chord, and people from the audience began shouting for the songs they wanted to hear.

“Oh, I could get used to this,” Nian said, settling back. The evenings when Harper Ruart entertained the Hold and everyone was allowed to listen were special to her. Briefly she wondered if the harper played every evening for the Weyr. He struck up some melody she’d never heard before, and suddenly the air was full of fire lizards. They either went to sit on the shoulders of the people they were beholden to, or found themselves a perch somewhere in the kitchen cavern. They picked up the tune and sang a descant, and the singing was magical. Even Nian was bold enough to join in the choruses, while Ru, once he had listened to the melody all the way through, sang a tenor harmony to it. He had such a nice voice. To Nian’s mind, he was as good as any harper student, but he would be best, she added firmly in her heart and mind, as a dragonrider.

Then, when the last note had ended, the harper descended and weyrfolk began to rise and circulate among the tables.

“It’s been an exciting day for all you candidates,” Kilpie said, coming over to their table. “And there will be more chores in the morning—just to keep you busy, of course, till the eggs are ready to hatch. So we will excuse you to your quarters.”

“What if they Hatch tonight?” Robina asked.

“In that case, you’ll know about it,” Kilpie assured her, giving her what Nian thought was a dismissive look. Nian almost felt sorry for the Masterfarmer’s daughter, but Robina did not look at all unsettled.

Actually, Nian was quite willing to have an early night. So much had happened today, and she was tired. She wanted a bath, too, and thought that if she hurried, she’d be able to be first to claim one of the few bathing cubicles in the girls’ necessary. She told Neru her wish and he grinned.

“Yeah, I heard there’s always hot water here,” he said. “I may just have a bath, too. Can’t Impress a dragon stinking of fish, you know.”

“We do not stink of fish,” she said, sniffing at him, although she could catch a tiny whiff of fish oil and sea. “It’s marvelous not to have to wait to heat up enough for a decent bath just this once.”

So they walked on ahead of the other candidates, grabbing washing things and the towels their mother had packed, to get to a bath before anyone else thought of it.

Nian was lounging in the tub of deliciously hot water by the time other girls thought of bathing. She smiled to herself that she’d been first. She washed her hair, too, in the special shampoo her mother made. “To keep it silky and sweet-smelling,” her mother had said. “I can’t abide the smell of fish on everything,” she invariably added with a long-suffering sigh.

Once, Nian had asked her mother why she had chosen her father, if she didn’t like the smell of fish.

“Well, I married him for several reasons. The first is because I love him and he asked me. The second is that he had inherited his father’s holding and I didn’t know that the place reeked of fish oil and that it’s hard to wash scales off a plank floor. But he’s a good man, your father, and we’ve never gone hungry even if it was only fish for supper.” Then her mother added plaintively, “I do fancy a taste of beef now and then, and he’s willing to spend good credits to see I have some.”

Someone rattling the bath door startled Nian out of her memories.

“You were the first in,” she heard Robina’s sour voice accusing her. “When
are
you going to finish?”

“When I’m clean enough,” Nian replied firmly.

“Oh, the twinling from the fish hold. I suppose it’s as well if we let you get really clean.”

Robina’s nasty comment irritated Nian no end. She was really tired of being teased. “I’ll hurry, since I know you’d like to get all the sand out of your hair,” she said in her sweetest tone of voice, recalling the sight of the unconscious Robina on the sandy floor of the infirmary.

“I’ll thank you not to refer to that,” Robina said angrily.

“Oh, dear me, I didn’t meant to upset you,” Nian said without a trace of apology.

“Just give others a turn at a bath!”

“Oh, stop nagging, Master’s daughter,” someone else called, and Nian could hear Robina stamping away from her door.

“Who said that?” she demanded.

“Another fisherman’s daughter,” and Nian smiled because she recognized the voice as Orla’s.

However, she was clean enough, her hair sufficiently rinsed, so she pulled the plug. As the water audibly swirled out of her tub, she dried herself slowly, then used the towel to wrap her hair up on her head. It would take time to dry, but it really wasn’t fair for her to monopolize a bathing cubicle. As she exited, she saw there were six or seven girls waiting. Robina was pacing down at the far end of the facility, so Nian gestured for the nearest girl to quickly claim the bathing cubicle.

“What the—I was next!” she heard Robina yell as she left the necessary.

“You were down at the other end of the room,” one of the girls replied ingenuously.

“I should have been next,” Nian heard Robina complain, and then Nian was too far away to hear what answer the farmer’s daughter got to that protest.

She was still toweling her hair when she heard her name called outside the curtain of her alcove.

“May I come in, Nian?” asked Orla.

“Yes, certainly,” she said and her friend slipped in. Orla’s curls were still damp from her bath and her face was shiny from washing. “That Robina’s something, isn’t she?”

“Did someone finally give her a chance to bathe?”

Orla rolled her brown eyes. “Finally. I think her remark about fish smells made her enormously unpopular. How did she get to be so arrogant? I’ve never met another Master’s daughter like her.”

“She’s very pretty,” Nian said wistfully.

“And she thinks that she’s going to Impress a queen dragon. Huh!” Orla commented.

“I doubt that,” Nian said bluntly. “You heard what R’dik said about not guaranteeing anything. And being squeamish enough to faint while dressing those wounds surely must act against her.”

“It was Robina who fainted? I couldn’t quite see from where I was in the infirmary. But I’ll say frankly enough that the wounds I saw were stomach-churning.”

“Brith’s, too.” Nian shuddered.

“But
you
didn’t faint, did you? Nor did I,” Orla said. “It’ll be interesting to see whom the queen does choose. Can I help you dry your hair, Nian? I’d give anything for straight hair.”

“If you had it, you wouldn’t want it. But yes, I’d appreciate the help immensely,” Nian replied and, finding the second towel in her sack, handed it to her friend. She was tired and her arms ached from rubbing her thick, heavy hair.

The next morning Nian heard a pleasant gong being struck enthusiastically and had a time trying to remember where she was. Lado Hold had a siren that went off each morning, or in stormy times, to assemble people to help in emergencies. She hoped that her chore that morning would involve helping Brith and C’tic. She wanted to ask if it was possible for a candidate to be preselected. She didn’t care which kind of dragon she Impressed, or even if she Impressed at all, just as long as Neru succeeded. She’d be grateful no matter what color dragon fancied her brother as his rider. But she saw him as a bronze rider, leading his own wing at Threadfall as he had always daydreamed.