Dragongirl (12 page)

NINE

Weyrwoman, mind the Weyr:
For all things prepare
And set the best fare
Lest all should despair
.

Telgar Weyr, early morning, AL 508.2.10

Silence settled upon the group only for a short while. Fiona managed to nod off for a bit and was surprised to be woken by the sound of Talenth. This time her coughing fit lasted a long while, disturbing many of the youngsters who slept scattered around her.

“It’s all right,” Fiona said. “Try to get back to sleep.”

She herself in contradiction of her advice rose and went to check on Talenth’s head. There was a small pile of green ooze in front of it.

“It’s only a little,” she said to herself, remembering the bucket and mop she’d used for blue Serth.

“Come back to sleep,” Seban said, grabbing her shoulders in his hands and gently guiding her back. “Your rest is important to her.”

Fiona had barely gotten settled when the sound of feet coming up the path of the queens’ ledge disturbed her. The noise redoubled with the sound of startled children.

“She has the Weyrwoman’s permission!” Fiona heard Taria declare stoutly in Xhinna’s defense.

“Yes, she does,” Fiona said, opening one eye to peer at the scene in front of her. Several women, their lips tight with disapproval, were shepherding children out of the weyr. “Talenth enjoys the company.”

“It’s not normal!” one of the older women complained, dragging two children in tow behind her.

“Really, they shouldn’t be disturbing you,” another woman declared. “And with your poor dragon …”

“Talenth likes them,” Fiona retorted. She gestured vaguely to the women. “She likes company; you could join us if you’d like.”

Several of the women looked positively affronted by the suggestion and hurried out of the weyr even faster, but some paused, looking wistfully at Talenth.

“I’m sorry, Weyrwoman,” Taria apologized as she gathered the rest of the children, preparing to depart. She cast an accusing look toward Xhinna. “I should have known.”

“Taria, settle these children back down,” Fiona ordered firmly. “If their mothers or fathers want to take them away, they will. Otherwise, they are welcome to stay.” Taria opened her mouth once more, but Fiona cut her off peremptorily, jabbing her thumb toward the floor. “Here. In this weyr. With their Weyrwoman.”

Taria’s mouth gaped in surprise as Fiona’s words registered with her.

“And you wouldn’t want to disobey the Weyrwoman, would you?” Seban asked in a tone that mixed reasonableness with warning.

“Come on, Taria,” Xhinna called softly, grabbing her friend’s hand, “I told you that you can’t gainsay this Weyrwoman, didn’t I?”

“Well …” Taria began, clearly worried over the frowning looks of the remaining women.

“May I join you?” Shaneese called softly as she climbed up to Talenth’s weyr. She smiled at Fiona. “I’d heard you were accepting sleepovers.”

Several of the disapproving women gaped at Shaneese in surprise and anger, but she dismissed them curtly. “If you don’t want to be here, with your Weyrwoman, then leave.”

She eyed them carefully as she added, “But if you don’t want to be with your Weyrwoman now, when she stands by you, you might ask yourself whether you want to remain in this Weyr?” She smiled grimly at them. “There are plenty of small holds lying fallow—you’ll not lack for a roof or food.”

“Where’s the best place to sleep?” Vikka asked, two children waiting eagerly behind her. She nodded to Shaneese, then to Fiona, saying, “My lady, I only just found out about your kind offer.” She released the children, gently shooing them toward Taria and the others. “There are many of us here who have slept with dragons but none with a queen.”

“You are welcome,” Fiona said, gesturing toward a spot nearby. To the women who still remained standing, undecided, Fiona said, “F’jian’s Ladirth is also suffering and could use company tonight, if you’d consider it.”

“That Bekka will keep everyone up all night!” a voice exclaimed out of the dark.

Seban’s chuckle broke the tension that rose with those words. “It’s true that Bekka rarely sleeps, but she’s learned silence from an early age—her mother is a midwife and Bekka was warned that any baby she woke was hers to get back to bed.”

Some of the reluctant women chuckled.

“However, some here should be sleeping, I think,” Fiona said with a glance toward Taria’s charges. “I know some may prefer soft beds to hard rock, and their own quarters to a stranger’s.”

She closed her eyes, wishing the disgruntled would either relent or leave. After a while, the sounds of movement died away. Fiona felt the warmth of some more bodies near her and the sounds of older sleepers and drifted off, content to see the morning.

“G
ood morning Talenth.” Aryar’s small piping voice, kept hushed, was the first thing that woke Fiona that morning.

“Good morning Talenth,” Rhemy added in a whisper a moment later. “I hope you’re feeling better.”

Fiona opened an eye, only to see Seban wink at her and close his eyes again suggestively. Suppressing a smile, she followed suit.

One by one, the young weyr girls and boys filed past the queen dragon and wished her a good morning and good health.

“I’ve never heard the like before,” Seban murmured as Taria added her voice, in heartfelt tones, to the others.

“I know you’re pretending,” Xhinna said right beside Fiona. “You snore when you’re really sleeping.”

“I do not!” Fiona replied, eyes snapping open. Xhinna smiled at her, leaned forward, and gave her a quick kiss on the forehead.

“Of course not, Weyrwoman,” she agreed cheerfully. “Did you sleep well?”

Fiona stretched, careful not to hit Xhinna or Seban, and considered the question. “Well enough, thank you.”

“We’re heading back to the dorms to get them washed and dressed—there are far too many for your rooms,” Xhinna explained. “Shall we bring your breakfast here?” When Fiona made to protest, Xhinna told her, “You know they’d be ecstatic to serve you. You can’t imagine how they’d feel: ‘I served the Weyrwoman!’”

Fiona smiled but shook her head. “Perhaps another day.”

Xhinna accepted this with a phlegmatic shrug. “It’s probably just as well—they’d spill all over you.”

“Come on, Xhinna,” Taria called from the entrance. She nodded to Fiona and gave the Weyrwoman a tentative smile. “Thank you, Weyrwoman.”

“My pleasure.”

As they departed, Fiona took her Weyrwoman’s privilege and stole into her bathroom before Seban. She was out again in a moment, offering him its use before taking a more relaxed bath and getting dressed for the day.

When she was done, she went to clean up Talenth’s weyr and check her over thoroughly, insisting upon going over the great gold body with her hands, searching for the smallest signs of patchiness. She was delighted to find one and oiled it promptly, to Talenth’s great pleasure.

Really, though, she was saying good-bye. She wanted to savor every moment with her brilliant queen, to build a treasury of memories that would last all her days, to—

I will be all right
, Talenth assured her.
You’ll see. We have Turns yet
.

Fiona’s sob brought Seban rushing to her side, his face full of concern.

“Do you think dragons could have the Sight, like Tenniz?” Fiona asked in response to his questioning look. She realized belatedly that he had never met Tenniz. “Tannaz was his sister.”

“She was a great lady,” Seban said respectfully. “By the Sight, do you mean to see what will happen?”

Fiona nodded. Quickly she told him of the gifts that Tenniz had left for her, Terin, and Lorana.

“Lorana of Benden?” Seban repeated, surprised. “I wonder why he didn’t have it delivered to her there.”

Fiona shook her head. “She,” she said, nodding toward Talenth, “told me that she would be all right. That we will have Turns together.”

“Weyrwoman,” Seban began hesitantly, “dragons have very poor memories.”

“I know,” Fiona said, running a hand briskly over Talenth’s chest. Her lips quirked as she continued softly, “I think she was trying to cheer me up.”

“Like her mate, she puts her concerns for others first,” Seban agreed, patting the queen respectfully.

“Perhaps dragons are more like their riders than we think,” Fiona mused. “Didn’t you say that if a rider wants to know how injured he is, he asks about his dragon?”

Seban chuckled. “So your gold thinks that if you feel all right, she’ll be all right?”

“A view that’s not without its merits,” T’mar spoke up and they turned to see him standing at the entrance to Talenth’s lair. He nodded respectfully toward the queen, then came to Fiona. “I don’t know if you heard but F’jian’s Ladirth—”

“What?” Fiona broke in anxiously, turning toward the entrance, ready to sprint away.

T’mar raised a hand in reassurance. “No, he is in no greater danger,” he said. “I came to tell you that he slept well and was thrilled with all the company he had.”

“Did F’jian sleep at all?” Fiona asked, relieved enough to allow herself to feel amusement.

T’mar’s brows rose and he grinned mischievously. “I believe that he and Terin managed to find some distraction from their cares, with Bekka and at least a score of others devoted to the bronze’s every whim.” He snorted. “I wonder if we’ll have to worry about our dragons being too pampered.”

“Not as long as this illness lasts,” Seban said bleakly and the light mood vanished. T’mar gave the ex-dragonrider a sympathic look in apology.

“We were just going to break our fast,” Fiona said to get past the awkward moment. She gestured. “If you’d care to join us?”

T’mar shook his head. “No, thank you, Weyrwoman,” he said, “I’ve duties to attend.”

“Oh, come on, T’mar!” Fiona snapped at him. “Seban’s man enough to let your gaffe pass—join us and tell us how the training is going.”

Seban gave the bronze rider an encouraging nod and the two headed out toward the Kitchen Cavern together. “How has Ladirth’s illness affected the wings?”

Fiona followed a moment later, distracted from their conversation by her worries.

She forced herself to be cheerful throughout breakfast and teased Xhinna, Terin, and Taria for their hollow-eyed cheeks and evident fatigue, but she knew she was just putting up a front, a trick she’d learned Turns before when she was still a toddler at her father’s Hold.

“A Holder is the hope of all,” Lord Bemin, her father, had told her solemnly once when Fiona had been having a tantrum. “When you laugh, they are happy.” He lowered his chin as he asked her, “And when you misbehave, how do you think they feel?”

She’d understood, even then, what he meant, though it was Turns before she truly grasped the concept of leading by example. It was a strange thing: Even if she was feeling sad herself, just displaying cheer to others would inevitably cause her to cheer up, as well.

She wondered if she would still be able to do that if she lost Talenth. Little Aryar’s question echoed in her mind: “How can the Weyrwoman live with only half a heart?”

She glanced around, spotted Xhinna, rose, and went over to her, grabbing her around the shoulders in a great hug.

“What?” Xhinna asked, turning to face her, surprised by the embrace and the emotions behind it.

“I just wanted to say that I love you,” Fiona told her, ignoring Taria’s concerned look from her nearby seat. Xhinna gave her a wide-eyed look and Fiona’s lips quirked upward as she quoted: “‘Her heart is big enough, even just half, and with our love, it’ll grow back.’”

“Oh,” Xhinna said in a quiet voice. “I didn’t think you’d heard.”

Taria had risen just in time to hear Fiona’s words and gave her friend a look of admiration. Fiona shared a smile with her.

“Weyrwoman!” Shaneese bustled over quickly, suppressing a yawn with irritation. “I’d been hoping to find you.”

“Yes?” Fiona asked, steeling herself for another daunting problem.

Shaneese noticed and smiled. “I wanted to introduce you to one of our treasures.”

“Treasures?” Xhinna repeated blankly, turning to Taria with raised eyebrows. Taria met her look with a shrug and then turned back to deal with some rising conflict among the children.

“At Fort Weyr, we treasured our people,” Fiona said, careful to keep any tone of criticism from her voice.

Shaneese smiled and turned, gesturing for Fiona to follow her as she made her way to a far corner of the Dining Cavern.

“I’m not surprised,” she called over her shoulder, halting near an old man who was hunched over a strange table. “So do we.”

Fiona managed to glance over the old man’s shoulder and frowned. Something was odd about the table: There was something on it and it was spinning. She shifted her gaze and noticed that one of the man’s legs was rising up and down rhythmically as though pumping something.

Shaneese waved a hand toward the old man, her expression respectful. “This is Mekiar, our pottery master.”

Alerted by the sound of his name, the white-haired old man glanced behind him. “Oh, you’re here!”

He rose fluidly from his perch and gestured for Fiona to take his place, his leg still pumping up and down. Now that he was up, she could see that he was pumping a spindle that spun the table. “Sit, sit, Weyrwoman!”

With a quick glance toward Shaneese, who nodded in encouragement, and a tolerant sigh, Fiona sat at the proffered seat. From behind, Shaneese slipped an apron over her neck and pushed up her sleeves.

“Put your leg where mine is and raise your hands,” Mekiar ordered. “Keep the wheel turning.”

Fiona realized that the table was a thin wheel of stone and on it was perched a gray mass. Awkwardly at first, Fiona mimicked the pumping motion she’d seen Mekiar use, adjusted her timing, and grew more absorbed and relaxed as she mastered it.

“Good,” Mekiar said, leaning over her from behind. His hands reached for hers and raised them to the clump on the table. “Cup your hands like so.”

She fumbled to match his grasp, perplexed. Mekiar grunted in satisfaction and quickly moved one hand from hers, dipped it in a small bowl that she hadn’t noticed before and pulled out a wet hand. Deftly he sprinkled the water on the lump and grasped her hands again, pressing them into the wet coolness.