Nerilka's Story by Anne McCaffrey Read Free Book Online Page A

Well, there isn’t one in the Hold, is there?”
    Sim blinked, confused. “Doesn’t she mean you, lady?”
    “She may indeed, but until she learns to call me by my proper name, I am in no way obliged to answer, am I, Sim?”
    “Not if you say so, Lady Nerilka.”
    “So return to her, Sim, and say you cannot find Lady Nalka in the Hold.”
    “Is that what I do?”
    “That is what you do.”
    He lumbered off, muttering under his breath about not finding Lady Nalka—any Lady Nalka—in the Hold. That is what he was to say. No Lady Nalka in the Hold.
    I crossed the yard to the Harper Hall. Anella might have many things on her mind more important than the pharmaceutical stores, but eventually someone would inform her that it was Lady Nerilka whom she required. And she surely would tell my father of my insolence. When he emerged from his isolation, I had no doubt that he would deliver a thorough and painful chastisement. I might as well merit every blow. Meanwhile, it was my right to dispense those medicinal supplies as required, and I was determined that the healers would have full benefit of them.
    I was directed to the Hall kitchens by a cheerful young apprentice and made my way there, reflecting that I seemed to be spending a lot more time in kitchens these days.
    “I’ll need the glass bottles sterilized, and that means fifteen minutes in water at the rolling boil and no cheating on the sands,” Desdra was saying to the journeyman. “Now, I’ll—Lady Nerilka!” There was about Desdra a buoyancy that had been absent the previous day.
    “Master Capiam is better?”
    “Himself again, I’m glad to say. Not everyone who gets the plague needs to die of it. Anyone ill in Fort Hold?”
    “If you mean my sire, he keeps to his apartments but is well enough to issue orders.”
    “So I heard.” Desdra’s wry smile informed me that she found the change tasteless.
    “While I am still in charge of the pharmacy, what are your needs?”
    Desdra had turned to watch the journeyman, her mind clearly on more urgent matters. She looked back at me with a smile, however. “Can you decoct, infuse, and blend?”
    “I supply all our medicinal needs.”
    “Then prepare a cough syrup, tussilago by preference. Here, let me give you the recipe that I have found efficacious.” She had a scrap of hide in her hand, a charcoal stick in the other; hastily, but legibly, she scrawled measurements and ingredients. “Don’t balk at adding numbweed—that is the only thing that depresses the terrible racking cough.” Then she consulted another list in her hand. She was distracted by my presence. “And has your mother—oh, I beg your pardon.” She touched my hand in apology, her eyes troubled to have caused me pain. “Have you a restorative soup? We shall need kettles of restorative soups.”
    I thought of Felim’s reaction to yet another bizarre request, but the small night hearth could be used, and all kinds of scraps go into the soup pot. The last place Anella would think to find me would be in the hot, small, inner kitchen.
    “Cook, cool it into jelly. It’ll transport better that way.” She had one eye on the sands that were only grains away from her fifteen-minutes-at-the-rolling-boil.
    I left her to her task, hoping it bode well. There was a suppressed excitement about Desdra that could not be due entirely to the Master Harper’s recovery. Was she brewing a cure?
    Fortunately it took all day to concoct both the restorative soup and Desdra’s cough syrup. The tussilago really did numb the lining of the throat. I improved the taste with a harmless flavoring and filled two demijohns with the mixture, reserving a large flask for Hold use, should it be required. I made a note of the syrup in the Record.
    When Sim and I brought the products of my day’s labors over to the Hall, the air of suppressed excitement that I had noted in Desdra was now rampant, but I could find out nothing from the journeyman who took syrup and soup