Then she moved on and he followed her quickly, unable to think of any counterargument. The moment she passed the arch from the kitchen, her posture changed, her stride altered, and she was no longer the proud daughter of the Hold but a gawky woman, head down, shuffling, awkwardly overburdened and resentful.

Once out in the great roadway, Capiam looked, trying not to appear furtive, to his left, to the main forecourt and stairs. Tirone and the dozens of harpers and healers regularly in attendance at Fort Hold were moving down the ramp.

"He'll be watching them! Not us," Nerilka said. She chuckled. "Try to walk less proudly, Master Capiam. You are, for the moment, merely a drudge, burdened and reluctantly heading for the perimeter, terrified of coming down sick to die like everyone in the camp."

"Everyone in the camp is not dying."

"Of course not, but Lord Tolocamp thinks so. He has so informed us constantly. Ah, a belated attempt on his part to prevent the exodus! Don't pause!" she added, again in that authoritative voice.

Capiam would have halted in consternation but for her warning. He saw four guards hurrying after Tirone's group.

"You can walk as slowly as you want, that's in character, but don't stop," she advised.

She watched, too, and if her eyes sparkled and she grinned at the discomfiture of her father's guards, there was no one but Capiam to observe her unfilial delight. At that distance, Capiam couldn't tell whether the guards were halfhearted in their efforts or not. There was a brief melee from which Tirone and his companions continued unhurriedly down the roadway to the Harper Hall. Nerilka and Capiam continued toward the perimeter.

The internment camp had been established to the left of the massive Fort Hold cliff, in a small valley out of the direct view of the Hold. The guards lines had been set above it, in full view of Lord Tolocamp's windows. A rough timbered shack had been erected as a guard shelter from which temporary fencing had been built in both directions. Guards constantly patrolled the fence.

Nerilka's three drudges deposited their burdens at the guardhouse where others were leaving baskets of food. Then the men had begun to retrace their steps to the Hold, empty yokes balanced on their shoulders.

"If you go past the perimeter. Master Capiam, you will not be permitted back," Nerilka reminded him.

"If there is more than one way into the Hold, is there only one past the perimeter?" Capiam asked flippantly. "I'll see you later,

Lady Nerilka."

As they approached the shack, guards were being assigned to carry certain of the baskets and bales into the prohibited area where a group of men and women waited patiently for the exchange to be made.

"Here now, Master Capiam." The guardleader came striding up, his expression alarmed. "You can't go in there without staying-"

"I don't want this medicine heaved about, Theng. Make sure they understand it's fragile."

"I can do that much for you," Theng replied, and he strode diffidently to add the demijohn to one side of the bales. "This is to be handled carefully and preferably by a healer. Master Capiam says it's medicine."

The internees moved forward to collect the supplies, and Theng backed up. Nerilka was right behind him and as he turned to come back to the guardhouse, she slipped past him and joined those picking up the baskets as if she were one of them.

Capiam waited for an outcry, for surely the other guards had noticed her. Nerilka was already trudging down the slope toward the tents of the internment camp when Theng took him by the arm to escort him back.

"Nah, then, Master Capiam, you know I can't allow you close contact with any of your craftsmen," Theng said as Capiam cast one more glance after Nerilka's retreating figure.

"I know, Leader Theng. The medicine was my concern. So little of its ingredients remain."

Theng made a conciliatory noise between his teeth and then his attention was taken by the spacing of his guards. Slowly Capiam turned in the direction of the halls.

As he walked, he realized that he could not walk out of his Hall as Nerilka could leave her Hold. Withdrawing his healers from the Hold was quite within his right as Masterhealer, but he must remain in his Hall, available to those who need him throughout Pern. However, he felt the better for his brief flirtation with the idea. And the camp had gained not only supplies but a valuable assistant. He must ask for volunteers to take the remainder of Nerilka's purloined supplies to Ruatha with all possible haste.

"The ichor can be extracted from one queen and applied to the joints of another," Moreta told Leri. "And you shouldn't be coming all this way for a message someone else could have brought."

They were standing at the entrance to the Hatching Ground and talking in quiet tones, although it was doubtful that the sleeping Orlith would have paid them any attention had they bellowed. She was still exhausted from the laying of twenty-five eggs. Orlith had curled herself about the leathery eggs, the queen egg within the circle of her forearms, her head laid at an awkward angle. Her belly skin was beginning to shrink and her color was good, so Moreta had no more anxieties about her queen and time to worry about Falga's Tamianth.

"No one there is capable of doing that," Leri said with a fine scorn, "or so Holth was informed by Kilanath. Holth says she sounds very worried."

"She has reason to be if Tamianth is not producing any ichor on that damaged wing." Moreta paced up and down. "Is Falga conscious?"

"Delirious."

"Not the plague?"

"No, wound fever. Under control."

"Shards! Falga knows how to draw ichor. It would have to be Kilanath and Diona . . ." Moreta looked back at the slumbering Orlith.

"She'll be out a long while," Leri murmured, stepping inside the Hatching Ground and gripping Moreta's hands tightly in hers. "It doesn't take long to draw ichor and spread it-"

"That's abusing Orlith's trust in me!"

"She trusts me as well. Every moment you delay . . ."

"I know! I know!" Moreta thought wretchedly of Falga and Tamianth, of all that Weyr had done the last few days.

"If Orlith should rouse, Holth will know and, considering the emergency, Orlith will understand. The clutching's over!" Leri pressed urgently on Moreta's hands.

Unusual circumstances, of which there were far too many recently in Moreta's opinion, warranted unusual actions.

"Holth's willing. I asked her first, as soon as she told me about Tamianth."

Obviously Leri felt that no one at Fort realized that Moreta had been absent two days before to treat the injured High Reaches' queen. Moreta cast a distraught look toward her sleeping queen, returned Leri's clasp with an answering pressure, and walked hurriedly from the sheltering arch of the Hatching Ground, quickly leaving Leri behind.

"Don't stride so! I can't," Leri whispered after her. Moreta adjusted her pace. Anyone really observant would have noticed the difference in height between the woman who had entered the Ground and the one who left, but it was the gray hour before dawn and no one was about. Thread would Fall later that day at Nerat and the dragonriders rested whenever possible with so difficult a schedule.

Moreta delayed long enough on her way to Holth to change into her own riding gear. Leri's had left a broad exposed band across her back and she couldn't risk kidney chill. Holth greeted her at the entrance to her weyr and Moreta stepped aside for the queen to reach the edge. Then she mounted, conscious once again of the difference between dragons. She wished fervently that she did not feel that she was somehow betraying Orlith.

"Take us to the High Reaches, please, Holth," she asked in a subdued voice.

The watchrider sleeps and the blue will not note our departure, Holth said impassively and, despite her dark reflections, Moreta smiled. So Leri and Holth had considered that detail.