“But you said Master Capiam had a cure?”
“A preventive. And not enough of this vaccine yet.” Leri spoke with an angry regret. “So the Weyrwomen decided that the High Reaches’ riders must be vaccinated”she stumbled over the unfamiliar term“since we must all look to S’ligar and Falga. As more of the serum is prepared, other Weyrs will be vaccinated. Right now Capiam has the drums burning to find more people who have recovered from this viral influence. First dragonriders”Leri ticked off each name on a finger“then Healers, then Lord Holders and other Craftsmasters, except for Tirone, which, I think no matter how Tolocamp objects, is sensible.”
“Tolocamp hasn’t been ill?”
“Tolocamp won’t leave his apartment.”
“You know a great deal about what’s happening for a woman who stays in her own weyr most of the time!”
Leri chuckled. “K’lon reports to me! Whenever, that is, Capiam hasn’t his exclusive services. Fortunately blues have good appetites and, although Capiam maintains that dragons, wherries, and watchwhers can’t contract the plague, dragons had best eat from stock isolated in their own weyrs. So K’lon brings Rogeth home to eat. Daily.”
“Dragons don’t eat daily.”
“Blue dragons who must flit between twice hourly do.” Leri gave Moreta a stem glance. “I had a note from Capiam, could barely read his script, lauding K’lon’s dedication”
“A’murry?”
“Recovering. Very close thing but Holth was in constant touch with Granth once I realized how vital dragon support could be. L’bol lost both his sons and he grieves constantly. M’tani’s impossible, but then he has fought Thread longer than most and sees this incident as a personal affront. If it weren’t for K’dren and S’ligar, I think we’d have had trouble with F’gal: He’s lost heart, too.”
“Leri, there’s something you’re not telling me.”
“Yes, dear girl.” Leri patted Moreta’s arm gently before she filled a glass from one of her flasks. “Take a sip of this,” she said peremptorily, handing it to her.
180 Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern
Obediently Moreta did, and she was about to ask what on earth Leri had concocted, when she felt Orlith’s presence in her mind, like a buffer.
“Your family’s hold …” Leri’s voice thickened and she avoided Moreta’s gaze, staring instead at the bright central design of the door curtain. “… was very hard hit.”
Leri’s voice habitually broke but that time it was pronounced, and Moreta peered at the older woman’s averted face. Tears were running unheeded down the round cheek nearest her.
“There’d been no drum message in two days. The harper at Ker-oon heights made the trip downriver …” Leri’s fingers tightened on Moreta’s arm. “There was no one alive.”
“No one?” Moreta was stunned. Her father’s hold had supported nearly three hundred people, and another ten families had cots nearby on the river bluffs.
“Drink that down!”
Numbly Moreta complied. “No one alive? Not even someone out with the bloodstock?”
Leri shook her head slowly. “Not even the bloodstock!” Her admission was almost a whisper. Moreta could barely grasp the staggering tragedy. Obscurely, it was the deaths of the bloodstock that she regretted the most. Twenty Turns ago she had acquiesced to her family’s wish that she respond to Search. She regretted their deaths, certainly, for she had been fond of her mother, and several of her brothers and sisters, and one paternal uncle; she had enormous respect for her father. The runnerbeastsall the bloodstock that had been so carefully bred for the eight generations her family had the runnerholdthat loss cut more deeply.
Orlith crooned gently, and her dragon’s compassion was subtly reinforced by a second pressure. Moreta felt the terrible weight of her grief being eased by an anodyne of love and affection, of total understanding for the complexities of her sorrow, of a commitment to share and ease the multiple pressures of bereavement.
Tears streamed down Moreta’s cheeks until she felt drained but curiously detached from her body and mind, floating in an unusual sensation of remoteness. Leri had put something very powerful in that wine of hers, she thought with an odd clarity. Then she noticed that Leri was watching her intently, her eyes incredibly sad and tired, every line of her many Turns etched in her round small face.