“Her pulse is dropping,” Wind Blossom explained to Torene. “I do not know how much longer she has.”
“Nice of you to let us in,” Torene returned tartly.
“My request, Torene,” Sorka said. “I had to talk with my friend.”
Torene looked chagrined but did not apologize.
Tall men surrounded the Weyrwoman and she greeted each with a smile. “M’hall. L’can. Seamus. P’drig.”
The men gave way to the women, Sorka’s daughters. “Orla. Wee Sorka.”
The last was an elegant woman in her early thirties. Sean had insisted on naming their last-born Sorka because, as he’d said, “She looks just like you, love.”
“Wee” Sorka leaned over from the far side of the bed to give her namesake a strong hug. Sorka hugged her back.
“I’ll miss you most of all, I think, my wee one,” she told her youngest.
“I’ll miss you too, Ma,” the younger Sorka replied, tears streaming unchecked down her face.
Sorka turned from her to grasp M’hall’s hand. “My strong one.” M’hall gave her hand a gentle squeeze.
Sorka looked at Torene. “Take good care of him for me.”
Torene ducked her head, her cheeks wet with tears. “I will, Ma, you may depend upon it.”
Sorka let go of M’hall’s hand and sought out L’can’s. “My silent one,” she said. L’can squeezed her hand, rubbing the tears from his face with the other.
“We could bring you down to the Cavern, to Faranth, Ma,” P’drig said.
Sorka smiled, letting go of L’can’s hand and grabbing his. “No. She knows my heart in this. I will leave my body behind here, in your company and Wind Blossom’s keeping.”
There was a concerted gasp and heads swiveled toward Wind Blossom.
“Your father and I have given everything we can for you and Pern,” Sorka told them. “This poor body is but the least I can leave.”
“You don’t need to do this,” Wind Blossom said.
Sorka waved her objections aside. “I have heard about the pressing needs for cadavers-”
“And I have told you that I do not want yours, Sorka,” Wind Blossom interrupted, her face wrought with emotion.
“We must do what is best for Pern,” Sorka said. “It is my last request, Wind Blossom, that you perform an autopsy to investigate the early dementia you’ve recently noticed. Use my body for whatever medical purposes you see fit. I’d heard that you had wanted to practice for Tieran’s surgery-”
“Mother!” The word was torn from M’hall’s throat.
Wind Blossom shook her head. “I do not want to do this.”
“The boy deserves a new face,” Sorka said. “I have thought about this for a fortnight now. In my bedside table you will find my will, with specific references on these matters.”
Sorka looked around the room, catching the eyes of everyone in turn. “My loved ones, I will not deny you every protection I can think of. Soon I will no longer need my body. Let the people of Pern find a last use for it. Please, follow my will on this.” She turned her gaze to her eldest. “M’hall, in this I appoint you my executor.”
“Mother… Ma…” M’hall broke down.
Torene wrapped comforting arms around Sorka. She gave Wind Blossom a sour look, then looked at Sorka. “My lady, it shall be as you wish. I pledge my word as your daughter-in-law, and as Benden’s Weyrwoman. It shall be.”
“Thank you,” Sorka said softly. She gave a deep sigh and turned back to the others. “Now, let me look at you all. Tell me how you are.”
The conversation wandered on from son to daughter and back again. Sorka managed to get them to laugh once, and someone brought up refreshments. Gradually the talk wore down and Sorka ordered them to leave her, all but M’hall and Wind Blossom.
“I want you to stay with me, Wind Blossom,” Sorka said, feebly patting her bed. “You and M’hall, here.”
It was late. The two sat silently beside Sorka’s bed while the first queen rider of Pern sank slowly into sleep. M’hall went around the room covering all the glows save one. Every now and then Wind Blossom would check Sorka’s pulse by pressing gently on her wrist.
As dawn neared and its gray light began to fill the room, Sorka gave a faint gasp. Wind Blossom looked up just as Faranth’s despairing wail broke the silence, amplified by Duke’s higher but equally piteous wail, and was immediately silenced itself as the first Impressed fire-lizard of Pern and the first queen dragon of Pern went between. Their stilled voices were replaced by the keening of all the dragons at Fort Weyr.
M’hall rushed to Sorka’s side, but Wind Blossom already knew from the lack of a pulse that the first Weyrwoman had joined her husband. Wind Blossom stirred herself, ignoring the complaints of her joints, and knelt beside M’hall.
“Let me tend to her for a moment, and then you may come back,” she offered.
M’hall looked at her through tear-soaked eyes and nodded slowly.
She guided the bereft rider out of the room and into the arms of his wife and weyrmate.
“Just give me a few minutes,” she said to Torene.
Fort’s Headwoman had delivered clean bedsheets and toiletries earlier in the evening. Wind Blossom, ignoring the tears rolling down her face, made one final inspection of Sorka’s body, and then gently made the body presentable, as she had done for Emily Boll and her own mother before her.
Satisfied that she had done all she could to make things easier on Sorka’s children, Wind Blossom left the room and let them enter.
M’hall was the first to his mother’s side. L’can, P’drig, and Seamus stood at the end of her bed, while her daughters, Orla and Sorka, closed in on the side.
D’mal and Nara, Fort’s Weyrleader and Weyrwoman, arrived to pay their respects, but Wind Blossom asked them to wait for Sorka’s family to complete theirs.
“Please ask Torene to let us know when there is a good time,” Nara said. Wind Blossom nodded. A while later one of the weyrfolk came with a chair and a basket of fruit for Wind Blossom, courtesy of the Weyrwoman. Gratefully, Wind Blossom sat down before the door and ate daintily from the selection.
Sorka’s children drifted out in ones and twos over the next half hour.
When Torene came out, Wind Blossom relayed Nara’s request. Torene glanced back into the room at M’hall.
“I’ll give him a few more minutes,” she said. “I’m going down to the caverns for some lunch-” She glanced at the early morning light and remembered that Benden was six time zones ahead of Fort. “-er, breakfast.”
Wind Blossom waited outside until she heard M’hall’s voice from in the room. Thinking, in her wearied state, that he might be asking for her, she stepped through into the room-and stopped.
M’hall stood beside his mother’s bed, holding her dead hand in his. Tears streamed down his face and onto the bed.
“What will I do now, Ma?” M’hall repeated.
Wind Blossom could see the small boy inside the grown man struggle with the awful loss of his mother and last parent.
She knew that M’hall was groping with the awful realization that he no longer had some higher authority to turn to, no one to confide in, no one to seek praise from, or to ask, “Do you love me?” without fearing the answer.
M’hall turned at the sound of her footsteps and Wind Blossom cast her eyes to the ground, not wanting to meet his.
“What-” M’hall swallowed, and continued more strongly, “What did you do?” He did not need to say “when your mother died.”
Wind Blossom reflected on the question. Then she looked up and answered him honestly: “My mother never loved me. When she died it was my obligation to assume her dishonor, and she savored passing it on to me.”
Wind Blossom gestured to Sorka. “She showed me some of her love. I felt like the desert in a cloudburst,” she continued softly. Her voice hardened. “For my mother, I could never be good enough.”