A Gift of Dragons - Anne McCaffrey [41]
Two more had also erupted from the puncture wounds, and he carefully covered all three pads with glass slides, which he tied together.
“Soak at least an hour, Tenna,” he told her. “You’re to take it very handy today, too. Don’t want that sliver to work any farther down in your flesh.”
She shuddered at the thought of an evil-looking hair loose in her body.
“Don’t worry. It’ll be out by evening,” Beveny said, grinning reassuringly. “And you’ll be dancing with us.”
“Oh, I’ll have to run on as soon as I’m able,” she said earnestly.
Beveny’s grin broadened. “What? And do me out of my dance with you?” Then his expression turned professional. “I can’t release you as fit to run yet, you know. I’d want to see those puncture marks healing. Especially in the shin, where just the dirt and dust of a run could be embedded and cause a repeat infection. The wounds may seem,” and he emphasized the word, “insignificant but I’ve tended a lot of runners and I know the hazards of the trace.”
“Oh,” Tenna said meekly.
“Right. Oh!” And he grinned again, pressing her shoulder with a kindly squeeze. “You will make your first Cross. Now rest. You runners are a breed apart, you know.”
With that reminder, he left her to make her way to the bathing room.
Rosa, Spacia, Grolly—in fact, all the runners at the Fort Station—were in and out, groaning over the special messages that needed to be delivered to the Fort crafthalls, the Lord Holder, the Harper Hall, coming from the “backside of beyond” as Rosa termed it.
“Don’t mind us,” Rosa said when Tenna began to feel as if she ought to be doing her share. “It’s always like this just before a Gather and we always complain, but the Gather makes up for it. Which reminds me, you don’t have anything to wear.”
“Oh, no, don’t worry about me. . . .”
“Nonsense,” Spacia said. “We will if we want to and we do.” She gave Tenna’s long frame an intent look and then shook her head. “Well, nothing we have would fit.” Both girls were shorter than Tenna by a full head and, while neither carried much flesh, they were stockier than the eastern girl.
Then both turned to each other in the same instant and snapped their fingers. “Silvina!” they exclaimed in chorus.
“C’mon,” Spacia said, and reached for Tenna’s hand. “You can walk, can’t you?”
“Oh, yes, but . . .”
“On your feet then, runner,” Rosa said, and took Tenna’s other arm, assisting her to an upright position. “Silvina’s headwoman at the Harper Hall and she always has good things. . . .”
“But . . . I . . .” and then Tenna gave up protesting. It was obvious from the determined expressions on the two runners’ faces that they would brook no argument.
“You’re taking her to Silvina?” Penda asked, sidling out of the kitchen. “Good. I’ve nothing here to fit her and she’s got to look her best when she meets that wretch Haligon.”
“Why?” Tenna suspiciously wanted to know. Why would she need to look her best just to give Haligon what-for?
“Why, to maintain the reputation of Fort Station, of course,” Rosa said with an impish grin. “We’ve our pride, you know, and you may be a visitor but you’re here, now,” and she pointed emphatically to the ground, “and must be presentable.”
“Not that you aren’t,” Spacia hastily added, being slightly more tactful than Rosa, “except we want you more so than ever.”
“After all, it is your first Fort Gather . . .”
“And you nearly finishing your first Cross, too.”
Their chatter was impossible to resist and there was no way Tenna could appear at a Gather in runner gear, which was all she had of her own to wear.
At this evening hour, they found Silvina checking day-records in her office at the Harper Hall and she was more than delighted that she had been approached. She led them down to the storage rooms underneath the Harper Hall.
“We keep quite a few performance dresses in case a soloist wants to wear harper colors. You wouldn’t mind wearing blue, would you?” Silvina said as she paused by the second