Waine grinned toothlessly again. “ That’s a right good trade.”
He held out a hand and nearly crushed Iantine’s fingers with his enthusiasm. But he caught the paroxysm of almost uncontrollable shivering which Iantine could not hide.
“Hey, man, you’re cold.”
“I can’t seem to stop shivering, for all that I’m on top of the fire,” and Iantine had to surrender to the shaking.
“TISHA” Iantine was embarrassed by Waine’s bellow for assistance, but he didn’t resist when he was bundled back into his quarters and the medic summoned while Tisha ordered more furs, hot water-bottles, aromatics to be steeped in hot water to make breathing easier. He made no resistance to the medication that was immediately prescribed for him because, by then, his head had started to ache. So did his bones.
The last thing he remembered before he drifted off to an uneasy sleep was what Maranis, the medic, said to Tisha. “Let’s hope they all have it at Bitra for giving it to him!”
Much later Leopol told him that Tisha had stayed by his bedside three nights while he burned of the mountain fever he had caught, compounding his illness by exposure on the cold slopes. Maranis felt that the old woodsman might be a carrier for the disease: himself immune, but able to transmit the fever.
Iantine was amazed to find his mother there when he woke from the fever. Her eyes were red with crying and she burst into tears again when she realized he was no longer delirious.
Leopol also told him that Tisha had insisted she be sent for when his fever lasted so long.
To Iantine’s astonishment, his mother didn’t seem as pleased to receive the transfer fee as he was to give it.
“Your life isn’t worth the fee,” she told him finally when he was afraid she was displeased with the missing eighth mark he’d had to give the woodsman. “And he nearly killed you for that eighth.”
“He’s a good lad you have for a son,” Tisha said with an edge to her voice, “working that hard to earn money from Chalkin.”
“Oh yes,” his mother hastily agreed as she suddenly realized she ought to be more grateful. “Though why ever you sought to please that old skinflint is beyond me.”
“The fee was right,” Iantine said weakly.
“Don’t take on so, now, Ian,” Tisha said when his mother had to return to the sheep hold “She was far more worried about you than about the marks. Which shows her heart’s in the right place. Worry makes people act odd, you know.” She patted Iantine’s shoulder. “She wanted to take you home and nurse you there,” she went on reassuringly.
“But couldn’t risk your lungs in the cold of between. I don’t think she liked us taking care of you!” She grinned. “Mothers never trust others, you know.”
Iantine managed a grin back at Tisha. I guess that’s it.”
It was Leopol who restored Iantine’s peace of mind. “You gotta real nice mother, you know,” he said, sitting on the end of the bed. “Worried herself sick about leaving until P’tero promised to convey her again if you took any turn for the worst. She’d never ridden a dragon before.”
Iantine chuckled. “No, I don’t think she has. Must have frightened her.”
“Not as much,” and now Leopol cocked a slightly dirty finger at the artist, “as you being so sick she had to be sent for. But she was telling P’tero how happy your father would be to have those marks you earned. Real happy. And she near deafened P’tero, shouting about how she’d always known you’d be a success, and to get the whole fee out of Chalkin was quite an achievement.”
“She did?” Iantine perked up. His mother had been bragging about him?
“She did indeed,” Leopol said, giving an emphatic nod to his head.
Leopol seemed to know a great deal about a lot of matters in the Weyr. He also never seemed to mind being sent on errands as Iantine made a slow convalescence.
Master Domaize paid him a visit, too. And it was Leopol who told the convalescent why the Master had made such a visit.
“That Lord Chalkin sent a complaint to Master Domaize that you had skived out of the Hold without any courtesy and he was seriously considering lodging a demand for the return of some of the fee since you were so obviously very new at your art, and the fee had been for a seasoned painter, not a young upstart.” Leopol grinned at Iantine’s furious reaction.
“Oh, don’t worry. Your master wasn’t born yesterday. M’shall himself brought him to Bitra Hold, and they said that there was not a thing wrong with any of the work you’d done for that Lord Chalkin.” He cocked his head to one side, regarding Iantine with a calculating look.
“Seems like there’s lot of people wanting to sit their portraits with you. Didja know that?” Iantine shook his head, trying to absorb the injustice of Chalkin’s objection. He was speechless with fury. Leopol grinned again.
“Don’t worry, Iantine. Chalkin’s the one should worry, treating you like that. Your Master and the Benden Weyrleader gave out to that Lord Holder about it, too. You’re qualified, and entitled to all the courtesies of which you got none at Bitra Hold. Good thing you didn’t get sick until after Zulaya and K’vin had a chance to hear your side of the story. Not that anyone would believe Chalkin, no matter what he says.”
“Did you know that even wherries won t roost in Bitra Hold?” Convalescence from the lung infection took time and Iantine fretted at his weakness.
“I keep falling asleep,” he complained to Tisha one morning when she arrived with his potion. “How long do I have to keep taking this stuff?”
“Until Maranis hears clear lungs in you,” she said in her no-nonsense tone. Then she handed him the sketch paper and pencils that Waine had given him on his first night in the Weyr. “Get your hand back in. At least doing what you’re best at can be done sitting still.”
It was good to have paper and pencil again. It was good to look about the Lower Caverns and catch poses, especially when the poser didn’t realize he was being sketched. And his eye had not lost its keenness, and if his fingers cramped now and then from weakness, strength gradually returned. He became unaware of the passage of time, nor did he notice people coming up behind him to see what he was drawing just then.
Waine arrived with mortar, pestle, oil, eggs and cobalt to make a good blue. The man had picked up bits of technique and procedures on his own, but picking things up here and there was no substitute for the concentrated drill which Iantine had had: drills that he had once despised but now appreciated when he could see what resulted from the lack of them.
Winter had set in but on the first day of full sun, Tisha insisted on wrapping him up in a cocoon of furs to sit out in the Bowl for the good of fresh air”. As it was bath-time for the dragonets Iantine was immediately fascinated by their antics and began to appreciate just how much hard work went into their nurture. It was also the first chance he’d ever had of seeing dragonets He knew the grace and power of the adult dragons and their awesome appearance. Now he saw the weyrlings as mischievous - even naughty, as one ducked her rider into the lake - and endlessly inventive. None of this last Hatching were ready to fly yet, but some of the previous clutch were beginning to take on adult duties. He had first-hand observation of their not-so-graceful performances.
The next day he saw P’tero and blue Ormonth in the focus of some sort of large class. As he wandered over, he saw that not only the weyrlings from the last three Hatchings were attending but also all youngsters above the age of twelve.
Ormonth had one wing extended and was gazing at it in an abstract fashion, as if he’d never seen it before. The expression was too much for the artist in Iantine and he flipped open his pad and sketched the scene. P’tero noticed, but the class was being extremely attentive.