Valden forest holder Tillek Hold
Valrol holder Tillek Hold
Vendross guard captain Telgar Hold
Vesna Gostol's daughter Northern MaM
Warder (no name) steward Ruatha Hold
Washell Apprentice Master Harper Hall
Winalia Lady Holder Fort Hold
Wonegal MasterVintner Benden Hold
Yorag healer Benden Hold
CHAPTER ONE
'One thing sure,' Betrice said wryly as she wrapped the squalling, wriggling baby tightly into the fine cotton sheet his mother had woven for just this moment, 'he's got your lungs, Petiron. Here! I've got to make Merelan more comfortable now.' The howling baby, his face brick red with his exertions, tiny fists clenched, was deposited into his alarmed father's arms. Jiggling the babe as he had seen other fathers do, Petiron carried him to the window to get a good look at his first-born. He didn't see the looks passing between the midwife and her assistant, nor did he see the younger woman leave quietly to summon a healer. Merelan's bleeding was not tapering off. The midwife suspected that something had been torn: the baby had been breech, and was large- headed as well. She packed ice in towels around Merelan's slim hips. It had been a long labour. Merelan lay limp in the bed, exhausted, her face white and lined. She seemed bloodless, and that worried Betrice more. There was such a risk in a transfusion: despite the similarity in colour, blood differed from person to person. Once, long ago, healers had known how to tell the difference and match the blood. Or so she'd heard. Betrice had suspected that Merelan would have trouble delivering, for she could feel the size of the child in the womb, and so she had asked the Healer Hall to stand by. There was a solution of special salts that in extreme cases could help a patient overcome the loss of blood.
Betrice glanced over to the window and managed a little grin at the father's inexperienced handling. Harper Petiron might be, able to play for hours at a Gather, but he'd a lot to learn about fathering. For that matter, he was lucky enough to have a son at all, considering Merelan had lost three in the early stages of pregnancy. Some women were born to bear many, but Merelan was not one of them.
Merelan's eyes flickered open and then widened with joy as she heard the lusty cries of her newborn.
'There, now, he's here and all the parts in the right place, so you may rest easy, Singer,' Betrice said, stroking Merelan's cheek.
'My son...' Merelan whispered, her usually magical voice raspy with exhaustion. Her head turned in the direction of the noise her baby was making, and her fingers twitched on the stained sheet. 'Soon, Singer. Let me clean you up...'
'I must hold him...' Merelan's voice was feeble, but her need was fierce.
'Now, you'll have plenty of time to hold him, Merelan,' Betrice said, a hint of sternness in her soothing tone. 'I promise you that.' And hope I'm not lying in my teeth, she added to herself.
Just then Sirtie and the healer arrived. Betrice breathed in relief when she saw Ginia and the bottle of clear liquid she carried which might mean the difference between life and death for the new mother.
'Petiron, take that yowling child of yours and show him off,' Ginia said in a peremptory tone, scowling at the nervously jiggling father. 'They've all been waiting in the Hall to see him in person, not that anyone doubts he's here with that set of lungs. Off with you!'
Petiron was only too willing to go. He'd been as much help as he could be, rubbing Merelan's back and sponging her sweaty forehead during the long labour, and he desperately needed a drink to soothe his nerves. He'd been so afraid for Merelan towards the end, especially right after the birth when she seemed to shrink into nothing in the bloodied bed. They wouldn't have told him to leave if it weren't all right, he was sure of that! He was also sure that he'd never put merelan in such danger again; he hadn't known just how difficult childbirth was.
'The lungs on him,' Ginia said with a mirthless smile as she bent to examine Merelan. 'She's torn all right. You can give her some fellis now, Betrice. Sirtie, strap her arm to that splint board. She needs fluid. How I wish we understood more about whole blood transferences. That's what she really needs, with all she seems to have lost. You know how to find a vein with the needle thorn, Sirrie, but if you' have trouble, let me know.'
Sirrie nodded and began her ministration, while Ginia did what she could to mend the torn flesh. The baby's protests were still audible despite the distance between this room and the main Hall. 'She's fighting the fellis, Ginia,' Betrice said anxiously. 'What's she saying?'
'She wants her baby.' Then Betrice mouthed words that Ginia could easily read: 'She thinks she's dying.'
'Not while I'm here, she isn't,' Ginia said vehemently. 'Get the babe back. It won't hurt her to have it suckling, and that would help contract the womb. Either way, it'll calm her, and I want her as calm as possible right now.'
Betrice went herself and brought back the now outraged infant, grinning broadly at his ferocity and grip on life.
'He'll put right back into her with his own, so he will,' she said, smiling as she laid the baby beside Merelan, whose right arm instinctively curled about her child. He found her breast with no help from anyone. And Merelan sighed with relief.
'I swear he's doing the trick,' Betrice said, amazed at the sudden flush of colour in the singer's cheeks.
'I've seen stranger things happen,' Ginia replied, glancing up.
'There. That's all I can do ... except caution Petiron that she's not to get pregnant again. I doubt she can, but he'll have to restrain himself.'
The three women grinned at each other, for the entire Hold knew how devoted the couple were to each other: enough so that thinly disguised love ballads about their adoration circulated Pern.
'With all the talent available on this continent, it isn't as if Petiron had to breed a choir,' Ginia said, rising.
Briskly the women changed the bedding for fresh, Merelan barely stirring as they did so, the baby clinging tightly to her. When Ginia and Betrice felt they could leave her safely in Sirrie's care, she was asleep, but looking far less pallid.
'Tell you one thing,' Betrice confided in the healer, 'she won't be all that pleased having just one baby.'
'Then we'll see that she fosters others. It's far better for a child to have siblings than not, especially the way Merelan's going to dote on that boy. Keep that in mind next year. That is, if she continues to pick up strength.'
Betrice gave a snort. 'She'd better. I've a reputation to keep.' 'Haven't we all!'
It was Petiron who objected to his spouse fostering the children of others. He found it hard enough to share her with their son, and he didn't believe other fathers and mothers when they informed him that young Robinton – for that was what they had named him, in memory of Merelan's father, Roblyn – was a good child and very undemanding.
'I always thought Petiron a generous man,' Betrice told her spouse, MasterHarper Gennell.
'Why have you changed your mind?' Gennell asked with mild surprise.
She paused, pursing her lips – she was not much of a tattler. 'I'd
say he was jealous of the time Merelan spends with Robie.' 'Really?'
'Not that it's much, for I think she's aware of his resentment and does her best to ease it all. But young Mardy's had another child for all I warned her not to, with her third not yet a full Turn old' -Betrice sighed with exasperation – 'and Merelan could help ... if
Petiron weren't so set against it.'
'Young Robinton's what?'
'A full Turn next Third Day and already walking, stout as you please. Tending one in a cradle during the day to give Mardy a hand wouldn't be troublesome. Robie's no trouble and as sweet as his mother.' Betrice beamed with an almost maternal pride.
'Leave it for now, Betrice,' Gennell said. 'There's all this excitement over Petiron's new Moreta Cantata at TurnOver, with Merelan as the major soloist.'
'I can't say I like her working so hard at it, though, Gen, and that's the truth, for she isn't fully recovered from such a difficult birth ...'
Gennell patted his spouse's capable hand. 'Petiron wrote the music for her, and there isn't another soprano with her range in all Pern. I can quite understand how he'd be jealous of anyone taking up too much of her
