Campen met me in the Hall, distractedly waving his portion of our father's orders. "What am I to do about this? Rill? I can hardly ride out of the Hold proper and bring her back in broad daylight."
"Bring her in from the fire-heights. No one be looking there today."
"I don't like it. Rill. I just don't like it."
"When have our likes or dislikes ever mattered, Campen?"
Anxious to get out of range of his querulous confusion, I went off to inspect the Nurseries on the southern side of the level. Here, at least, was an island of serenity-well, as serene as twenty-nine babes and toddlers can be. The girls were going about their routine tasks under the watchful gaze of Aunt Lucil and her assistants. With all the babble there, they would not have heard the drums clearly enough to be worried yet. Since the Nursery had its own small kitchen, I would have to remember to have them close off their section if Fort Hold did surrender to the disease. And I must also remember to have additional supplies sent up just to be on the safe side.
I checked on the laundry and linen stores and suggested to the Wash Aunt that today, being sunny and not too chill, was an excellent day to do a major wash. She was a good person, but tended to procrastinate out of a mistaken notion that her drudges were woefully overworked. I knew Mother always had to give her a push to get started. I didn't like to think that I was usurping any of my mother's duties, even on a temporary basis, but we might be in need of every length of clean linen ever woven in the Hold.
The weavers, when I arrived in the Loft cots, were diligently applying themselves to their shutties. One great roll of the sturdy mixed yams, on which my mother prided herself, was just being clipped free of the woof. Aunt Sira greeted me with her usual cool, contained manner. Although she must have heard some of the drum messages over the clack of heddle and shuttle, she made no comment on the world outside.
I had a late breakfast in the little room on the first sublevel, which Mother called her "office," as grateful as she must often have been for this retreat. Still the drums rolled, acknowledging and then passing on the dire tidings. One didn't hear it only once, sad to say, but several times. I winced the fourth time Keroon's code came through, and hummed loudly to keep the latest message from adding to the misery already in my heart. Ruatha was close by. Why had we no messages from them, no reassurance from my mother and my sisters?
A knock on the door interrupted these anxieties, and I was almost glad to learn that Campen awaited me on the first story. Halfway up the stairs, I realized that he must have returned with
Anella and that, if he was on the first story, she was expecting to have guest quarters. I myself would have put her on the inner corridor of the fifth story. But the apartment at the end of the first story was more than appropriate for her. There was no way that I would accommodate her in my mother's suite, with its convenient access to Father's sleeping room. My father was, after all, in isolation, and my mother was alive in Ruatha.
Anella had obeyed Tolocamp's instruction to the letter. She had brought her two babies, but her mother, father, three younger brothers, and six of the frailer of her family dependents.
How they managed to climb the fire-heights I did not inquire, but two of them looked about to collapse. They could go to the upper stories and be attended by our own elderlies. Anella pouted a bit at being assigned rooms so far from Tolocamp, but neither Campen nor I paid any attention to her remarks or to those of her shrewish mother. I was just relieved that the entire hold had not descended on us. I suspected the older two brothers had more sense than to chance their arms on their pert sister's prospects. Although I felt Anella ought to be well able to care for her children, I did assign her two servants, one from the Nursery level and a general. I wished to have no complaints from my father about her reception or quarters. Any guest would have had as much courtesy from me. But I didn't have to like it.
Then I sped down to the kitchens to discuss the day with Felim. He needed only to be told he was doing splendidly. The kitchens are always the worst places for rumor and gossip. Fortunately, no one there understood the coded messages, although they must have recognized that the drum tower was unusually busy. Sometimes one knows the drums are relaying good news, happy tidings. The beat seems brighter, higher- pitched, as if the very skins are singing with pleasure at their work. So if I fancied that the drums were weeping today, who could blame me?
Toward evening, mistakes were made in the messages relayed as weary drummer arms faltered in the beat. I was forced to endure repetitions-despairing pleas from Keroon and Telgar for healers to replace those who had died of the disease they tried to cure. I put plugs in my ears so that I could sleep. Even so, my eardrums seemed to echo the pulse of the day's grievous news.
Chapter IV
One of the plugs fell out during my restless sleep, so I heard the drums all too clearly that morning when they beat out the news of my mother's death, and then the deaths of my sisters. I dressed and went to comfort Laffla, Nia, and Mara. Gabin crept in, his face reddened with the effort not to cry in public. He howled as he buried his head in my shoulder. And I cried, too. For my sisters and for myself who had not wished them a safe and happy journey.
My brothers, all but Campen, sought us out during the morning and so we had the luxury of private grief. I wonder if any of us hoped that Tolocamp would fall ill of the disease he had left our mother and sisters to die from.
When a messenger from Desdra found me, I welcomed him as an excuse to leave the sorrow-filled room. I could have gone down the back stairs to the stores to fill Desdra's request for supplies, but I led the man through the main corridor. Clearly I heard my father's vigorous voice calling out the window, and I saw Anella lurking just round the first bend in the corridor. Quick as a snake, she scuttled away, but the gloating smirk on her face provoked me past indifference to active dislike and disgust of her.
The healer apprentice was hard-pressed to keep up with me as I whipped down the spiral stairs to the lower levels. When I piled sack upon sack of the herbs and root medicines that Desdra had listed, he protested that he wouldn't be able to lug so much to the Healer Hall. I summoned a drudge, my voice almost a shriek, and the scared Sim rushed in answer, his eyes round with fear that he had somehow forgotten something important.
Controlling myself, I apologized to the healer for overburdening him. I would have merely ordered a second drudge to assist Sim and the healer, but as I entered the kitchen passage, I caught sight of Anella sweeping down the steps, beckoning imperiously to Felim. I knew that if I entered the main kitchen and saw that smug little lay-aback playing Lady Holder, I would rue the outcome. Instead, I left by the side door with healer and drudge. The chill afternoon air enveloped and cooled me, though I set a brisk pace for my companions.
The Harper Hall was in an uproar when I got there, alive with shouts and cries of joy. I couldn't imagine, what occasioned such joy, but it was contagious and I smiled without knowing why, just relieved to hear some happiness. Then the voices became separated and an unmistakable baritone rang clearly.
"Fog caught me between holds, friends," Master Tirone was saying in clarion tones. "And a lame runner. I caught a fresh mount from a pasture and was proceeding on when I heard the first drum message. I came on apace, I can tell you, and never stopped for sleep or food. I'll apologize for borrowing the runners later, when the drums are not so hot with important messages." The sly hint of laughter in his voice was rewarded by chuckles from the other harpers. "It was shorter to take the back route by then, so how was I to know Lord Tolocamp had set up guards to prevent any of us entering or leaving?" That was the first I'd heard of my father's precautions. Master Tirone's voice dropped to a more confidential tone. "Now, what's this about an internment camp for healer or harper trying to contact his Hall? How are we supposed to work with such a foolish restriction on movement?"