“A nice blend of comfrey, sweetener, and a touch of numbweed to deaden the throat tissues. It ought to inhibit the cough.” She deposited the steaming mug on his table and was swiftly across the room by the door.
“You’re a brave and compassionate woman, Desdra,” he said, ignoring her sarcastic snort.
“I am also cautious. If at all possible, I would prefer to avoid the agonies which I have observed you enduring.”
“Am I such a difficult patient?” Capiam asked plaintively, seeking more consolation than he could find in a mug of an odd-tasting syrup.
“What cannot be cured must be endured,” Desdra replied.
“By which unkind words I assume that the Records have not given up either an account or a remedy.”
“Master Tirone joined the search with all his apprentices, journeymen, and masters. They proceed backward by the decade for two hundred Turns and forward from the previous Pass.”
Capiam’s groan quickly degenerated into a spasm that again left him gasping for breath. Each of the two hundred bones in his body conspired to ache at once. He heard Desdra rummaging among his bottles and vials.
“I saw an aromatic salve in here. Rubbed on your chest it might relieve you, since you spilled most of that potion.”
“I’ll rub it on myself, woman!”
“Indeed you will. Here it is! Phew! That’ll clear your sinuses.”
“They don’t need it.” Capiam could smell the aromatic from his
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bed. Odd how the olfactory senses became acute in this disease. Exhausted by the last cough spasm, he lay still. “Are you experiencing the severe lassitude as well as the dry
cough?” “Lassitude?” Capiam dared not laugh but the word was totally
inadequate to describe the total inertia that gripped his usually vigorous body. “Extreme lassitude! Total inertia! Complete incapacity! I can’t even drink from a mug without spilling half of it. I have never
been so tired in my life”
“Oh, then, you’re proceeding well on the course of the disease.” “How consoling!” He had just enough energy for sarcasm. “If”and her emphasis teased him“your notes are correct, you
should be improving by tomorrow. That is, if we can keep you in
your bed and prevent secondary infections.” “How comforting.”
“It should be.”
His head was beginning to buzz again from the willow salic. He was about to commend Desdra on the efficacy of her cough mixture when a totally unprovoked tickle bent him double to cough.
“I’ll leave you to get on with it then,” Desdra said cheerily.
He waved urgently for her to leave the room, then put both hands on his throat as if he could find some grip to ease the pain.
He hoped that Desdra was being careful. He didn’t want her to catch the illness. Why hadn’t those wretched seamen left that animal to drown? Look to what depths curiosity brought a man!
Butte Meeting, 3.14.43
Deep in the plains of Keroon and far from any hold, a granite butte had been forced to the surface during some primeval earthquake. The landmark had often been used as an objective in weyriing training flights. Just then it was the site of an unprecedented meeting
of the Weyrieaders.
The great bronze dragons arrived almost simultaneously at the site, coming out of between full lengths clear of each other’s wing tip, utilizing their uncanny perceptions of proximity. They settled to the ground in an immense circle at the southern face of the butte. The bronze riders dismounted, closing to a slightly smaller circle, each
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rider keeping a wary distance from those on either side until K’dren of Benden, who had an active sense of humor under any conditions, chuckled.
“None of us would be here if we were sickening,” he said, nodding to S’peren who had come in Sh’gall’s place.
“Too many of us have,” L’bol of Igen replied. His eyes were red with weeping.
M’tani of Telgar scowled and clenched his fists.
“We have shared each loss,” S’ligar of the High Reaches said with grave courtesy, inclining his head first to L’bol, M’tani, and F’gal of Ista. The other two bronze riders murmured their condolences. “We have gathered here to take emergency measures which discretion keeps from the drum and which our queens are unable to relay,” S’ligar went on. As the oldest of the Weyrieaders, he took command of the meeting. He was also the biggest, topping the other bronze riders by a full head, and the breadth of him through chest and shoulders would have made two of most ordinary men. He was oddly gentle, never taking advantage of his size. “As our Weyrwomen have pointed out, we cannot admit the losses and numbers of the ill that the Weyrs have sustained. There is too much anxiety in the Holds as it is. They are suffering far more than we are.”