Chapter 20
The next excitement was when Jessenia woke in the night hearing the sound of sobbing. Jessenia leaped out of bed and almost landed on Melvi in the dark.
"I don't know who it is, but it's in the necessary," whispered Melvi.
"Sounds like Leealla – and her bunk's empty," said Jessenia, feeling quickly the bunk next to hers and Carya's.
Leealla was locked in a stall in the necessary, sobbing heartbrokenly.
"Leealla, dear, we can't help unless you open up," said Jessenia, knocking on the door. "What is it? are you ill?"
"I'm dying!" cried Leealla, "all that happened to me has killed me! my insides are dropping out!"
"Diarrhoea?" asked Melvi.
"No – blood! I'm bleeding and bleeding!"
"You mean the monthlies? Open up do!" said Jessenia, "I know it's embarrassing, but you need hugs!"
The door was unlocked.
"What do you mean, the monthlies?" Leealla looked awful.
"When you bleed every month from…. Oh shells, bells and crackdust, no-one has warned you and we assumed you knew!" said Jessenia. "I'll get you some sanitary cloths to wear, Melvi, get her to the bathing room in nice hot water, and we'll explain it all."
Between Jessenia's matter-of-fact explanation, and Melvi's clinical one, Leealla calmed down considerably.
"And this happens every month?" she was horrified, "with all this gut-ache too?"
"Be glad you're more active than you were," said Jessenia, "my mother says it flows with less trouble if you are active."
"You don't have any trouble, then?" asked Leealla.
"Oh, I haven't started yet!" said Jessenia cheerfully, "but Ma explained it all long since, so I'd not get a shock when it happened. My aunts were quite late, too; Ma says it has to do with being small."
Nadeena joined them.
"Ah, I see you girls have sorted things out… sorry to sleep through most of that, Leealla, I should have woken, being right above you as I am!"
Jessenia gave a wicked little laugh.
"Catching up the sleep you missed LAST night in B'tin's weyr I wager!" she said.
"Minx," said Nadeena, without rancour. "Do you want a hot water bottle for your belly, Leealla, or an oatbag warmed?"
Leealla shook her head.
"No, I – I think I'll be all right now, thanks. Maybe to go to bed with when it's about to start next time… the tummy ache is a warning, isn't it?"
Nadeena nodded, as Leealla snuggled back down into bed in a clean nightgown and packed up comfortably.
"Often, yes; especially if you are regular. Some girls can count twenty seven days to the button; others are a bit less regular. Thera's range from a couple of sevendays to a month and a half, but she has no problems with them, so she takes them as they come. L'issa had problems for a while; but the same herbs that prevent pregnancy also make the flow come easier, so you can always use them."
"Oh, that's worth knowing!" said Jessenia, "I'll remember that for when I start."
Nadeena blinked; she had missed hearing Jessenia tell Leealla that she had yet to start.
"Oh dear, I forgot that you, Carya and Leealla are so much younger than the rest.. do you know if Carya has started?"
"Yes, she started before she got here," said Jessenia, "not a problem."
"Well, let me know if you need anything," said Nadeena.
"Leealla will need more sanitary diapers – that's one of mine, Ma sent me with plenty. If you don't mind asking Salima; I don't know her well, and it's a bit, well, personal," said Jessenia. Nadeena nodded.
"I'll get that in hand," she said, "lets get back to bed before we wake the others."
As Carya snored loudly at that juncture, Jessenia giggled!
As she settled down, Jessenia wondered if that was why she felt no pull from a Green dragonet – did female dragons want only real women? The changes to a boy's body were less profound, maybe that made a difference!
Well, time would cure that deficiency, if deficiency it was! She promptly fell asleep, reassured.
oOoOo
"What was all that to-ing and fro-ing in the night?" Silaya complained to Jessenia. "Was it YOUR fault?"
"One of the others wasn't very well," said Jessenia, "some of us looked after her; she's fine now. If you heard, a decent would-be Queenrider should have got up to help. People LOOK to their Weyrwomen for help and support. And if you'd slept through it, well, that's one thing – can't be helped – but ignoring it is something else."
Silaya flushed, angrily; and, to her credit, with a tiny, but definite squirm of guilt.
"I wasn't properly awake," she said, defensively, "just sort of vaguely aware, half dreaming."
"Oh then I guess I'm sorry I flared at you," said Jessenia, perspicacious enough to pick up on the defensive tone and offer an olive branch. "My apologies; it IS hard to drag yourself out of that heavy lassitude on the edge of sleep. And you worked really hard yesterday too, you must have been tired!"
Silaya flushed, a little embarrassed.
She had put more effort into her chores solely because several Bronze Riders had strolled over to chat to V'sheren and she wanted to make a better showing.
"My hands are sore from the shovel," she complained.
"Show me – ouch, nasty blisters!" said Jessenia, taking the girl's hands firmly to inspect them. "You could have got that over with earlier and gentler; but never mind, I have a salve my Ma made," and she fetched a small stone jar, and before Silaya could protest had smeared the pungent brown salve onto Silaya's hands.
Silaya gave a startled exclamation.
"It's got a little numbweed in it to stop the soreness for while it's healing," Jessenia said, "it whiffs a bit – it's said to help headaches too if your nose is blocked – but it really works. Helps bones knit quicker too. It's called tygabalm."
"Er… thanks," said Silaya, a little grudgingly. The stuff did stink! But the numbweed in it was soothing, yet not strong enough to take away feeling.
"Wear cotton gloves today; and if it rubs, show V'sheren your hands and ask to be excused," said Jessenia. "He'll know that's not for slacking! You wherry, to slack all this time, and then suddenly go at it like a bull at a gate!"
Her tone was cheery, not malicious.
"You're happy this morning," said Silaya, half suspicious.
"Yes, I figured out why I'm not likely to Impress this time; reckon I need to have started my monthlies to be a woman for a dragonet," said Jessenia happily.
"You haven't started? Lucky you! I started before I was Turned thirteen and it was a sharding great shock, for I knew nothing about it!" Silaya blurted out.
"Well, you'll sympathise with why there was so much rumpus in the night then – Leealla started without anyone having ever explained it to her," Jessenia gave Silaya a doubtful look, then continued, instinct telling her that sometimes confidences had to be shared. "She was raped by some men who wanted sex with a child, turns ago, and she was afraid it had damaged her."
Silaya's eyes opened wide in shock.
"There are such men?" she demanded incredulously.
"I know you don't like me, but on Faranth's egg, I'd never – could never – make up anything like that," said Jessenia, seriously. "I don't lie, though you don't always believe that. She's not the only one, you know; and she plans to help other girls cope with it as her life's work. So now you know."
Silaya had a lot to think about.
The unpleasantnesses of life had never intruded on her sheltered, shallow existence; she was taught to think that those less fortunate lived ugly brutish lives and were to be ignored.
"Were they Holdless, these men?" she asked, wanting to be reassured that only Holdless brutes acted so.
"Shards, no!" said Jessenia, "Most of them were wealthy men and Ranking who paid to have children kidnapped – Lord Laudey's own cousin was one, and Lord Laudey chained him out in Fall and serve him right!" she added.
Silaya looked as though she was going to faint.
"RANKING?" she gulped. "I – I can't believe it!"
"The Ranking have more leisure to be perverts in," said Jessenia with more truth than grammar. "There are Holdless who are just brutal animals; you're right about that. The two times I came close to being raped were by the Ranking though; brats who thought other people were worthless and to be used as they saw fit. Men with attitudes like you've shown, Silaya, which is why I despise most of what you've said up to today, when we're actually talking. The first time I escaped from where I was locked in; the second time V'sheren rescued me. Yes, it was that creep whom G'narish sent to the mines. And if you upset Leealla over it, I'll thump you; I think I'm sorry I told you now," she added.
"Don't be; I – I won't say anything," said Silaya tightly. "I – it's difficult to understand. Sex is for fun when you're grown up!"
"But they have THEIR fun and don't care who they hurt, and I guess those who have sex with children are even more cowardly because they're even scared of grown up women," said Jessenia. "Not like – like S'rel, who L'issa says just needs a bit of training because he goes at it like a caprine billy in spring; but people who just don't care!"
Silaya flushed. She had not wholly enjoyed her own experience with the enthusiastic S'rel; and whilst she was not particularly imaginative she could just about conjure up visions of how much that would have frightened her before she was sexually experienced, even though S'rel meant no harm.
"HAVE you had sex with anyone?" she asked.
"Me? no! haven't wanted to! Besides, I was brought up strictly; enough people think that acrobat girls are no more than loving wenches without giving them excuse by acting loosely! I'm no prude, but I do have more respect for myself than to lie down with any man that wants it. You got to have self respect, haven't you?"
Silaya grunted something unintelligible; unaccountably she was blushing again.
She had shown little restraint or self respect in trying to influence the Bronze Riders; and the sudden thought flashed across her mind that she was almost trying to BUY her way to a Gold egg – they must have seen her like a loving wench, wanting something for her favours! G'erry's scornful comments about being able to get a tumble with girls like her any time, and T'ran's description of her as an expensive piece of totty meant that the Bronze Riders thought her more likely to be easy than the acrobat girl! And they despised her for it!
Silaya burst into frustrated tears!
Jessenia vaulted up beside her, where the older girl was sat on the upper bunk; and put an arm around her.
"What is it?" she asked.
"They all hate me!" Silaya wailed, "people have always loved me before and followed my lead!"
"Have they?" asked Jessenia, "REALLY, loved you, I mean? Or have they been fork-licks because you're rich and Ranking? The time you find out if you've got real friends is when you're down, you know! would the ones who followed you do so if your father – no, it's your uncle, isn't it – got deposed and you were nothing? Like Meron of Nabol's daughters?"
Silaya stared at her in horror.
"It couldn't happen!" she whispered. "Could it?"
"Not if he's a good man and a fair Holder," said Jessenia, "but supposing it did? Would your cronies be for you – or the new man's daughter?"
Silaya wept in earnest then; she suddenly knew the answer.
Jessenia cuddled her.
"I guess you've absorbed more than you knew, here, about real values and real people," she said, "and one thing you've learned – deep down – is that people are people. Us girls came from all walks of life; but we're all still much the same at bottom, we love dragons, we like to have a good time, we hate the feel of firestone on our hands, and the stench of it, even unburned, in our nostrils."
"You do? You never showed you minded!" said Silaya, surprised out of her sobs.
"What's the point in that? bagging it has to be done. It's necessary. I don't much like doing sideways somersaults on the thick rope either, they're difficult, risky, you feel disoriented when doing them and slightly nauseous; but they bring top mark, so it's worth doing. I like pretty clothes and bangles too; so I do the hard moves to earn more. We pull in more each turn than a top Journeyman and his family, you know; the only reason I don't have a wardrobe as big as you is because we have to travel with everything. When we have a celebration, you'll see I have a Fort brocade Gather gown; and I hold my share mostly in gems because they are portable as well as pretty. And I'm as prejudiced as you; I'm prejudiced against the Ranking as it's the Ranking who have caused us any problem we might have had. We've a lot more in common than you realise – and that's why we didn't like each other, we're each the dark reflection of the other."
Silaya was shocked.
"But…" she began.
"The difference is, that I got lucky in my upbringing," said Jessenia, "and I was taught to try to meet people halfway; and to accept duty cheerfully and vicissitudes with stoicism and to be wary, but friendly. That means hoping people will be nice, but ready to shrug and avoid getting hurt if they're not. So I've never had any trouble making friends. You do; you were taught to spurn what you see as beneath you, and despise rather than explore. You jump to conclusions. So do I, but I try to fight the impetuous and look again. I know my own faults!"
"These Riders make such a lot of you!" said Silaya, resentfully.
"Oh, well, I've a useful gift in sensing Thread. If I didn't, they'd not care if I lived or died if I didn't Impress," said Jessenia cheerfully, if not entirely accurately. She was unaware that her cheerful insouciance had won liking for her from the Weyrfolk, even without her talents! "You worry me, Silaya, 'cos you're so bad tempered and plainly unhappy."
"I haven't figured out how the rules work here yet," admitted Silaya, "it's so DIFFERENT!"
"You mean, you're not the Golden Queen everyone revolves around any more," said Jessenia, bluntly. "People are still people. Only Dragonriders are tied to a sterner duty than most other people – which can make them look cranky to outsiders. They're also pretty self-sufficient. I guess that's largely what dragons choose on; but also, they've got the greatest bond of love you could ever imagine; they don't, essentially, NEED anyone else to make them happy. And it's that independence and self sufficiency that make Holderfolk mistrust them; and the Holdless too, those who travel by choice, because we aren't beHolden to anyone and don't need to cling shivering to any one stone base for a security blanket. You've put aside the security blanket to choose dragons over cowering passively; taking an active stand against Thread. That sets you aside for a start."
Silaya blushed violently.
It was more the thought of looking good and having power riding a Golden Queen that had motivated her than setting aside protection! But the girl had no intention of admitting THAT to Jessenia; she really feared the younger girl's derision, and in her heart of hearts knew it would be deserved.
V'sheren, who had come to see why two of his class had not emerged for pre-breakfast exercises, and half expecting to find Silaya trying to bully Jessenia, withdrew quietly.
If Jessenia could get through at all to Silaya it would be a far better use of her time than the scheduled exercises.
When Carya asked what had happened he told her only that Silaya was feeling a bit low, and Jessenia was with her. Carya gave an exasperated sigh.
"She'll help ANYONE, the idiot!" she remarked.
oOoOo
Meanwhile, Jessenia had persuaded Silaya to talk about her friends; and let her find out for herself how shallow they really were.
"Though…" Silaya hesitated, "I've a kid sister, she's eight turns younger than me, she follows me like a puppy. She thinks I'm wonderful – when she doesn't say she hates me! I haven't treated her very well, I've escaped from her sometimes. I guess she'd stand by me, no matter what."
"Well, won't it be nice for her if her sister can fly in to pick her up on Search one day?" said Jessenia. "Listen, Silaya, I think you should bunk off out of lessons this morning – I'll tell V'sheren you don't feel so good, which is true, 'cos you don't – and you WRITE to that sister of yours! I reckon there's enough kind Riders to carry a message to a candidate's kin, you know; J'ton would, or A'tar, just to name a couple!"
"Well, they might for you," said Silaya.
"Try smiling and asking nicely instead of either wriggling like a green firelizard on heat or scowling and demanding," said Jessenia tactlessly. "A smile and a greeting is usually returned, you know, and can lead to friendships – you don't HAVE to try to get into their furs on first acquaintance, and most aren't looking for that."
Silaya flushed again, a little angrily.
"You are the bluntest, rudest of creatures!" she said.
"You don't seem to understand anything less than blunt. I didn't mean to be rude, though; not that that's always been the case," Jessenia added honestly.
"Well, you are honest about it. All right. I'll write to Layanya if you'll square it with V'sheren."
"Not a problem – I say, I'm starving, I think we've missed early physical jerks, and it's breakfast time! Coming?"
"No – I can't face breakfast. You go."
"You haven't got morning sickness, have you?" asked Jessenia, anxiously.
"I use herbs! No, I can't have, I'm just queasy, because I've been crying and because life's a bit fork first right now. And I think I pulled a muscle in my belly when I was shovelling too," she made a face.
"That IS serious. I'll ask a healer to come and look at you; you mustn't risk pulling it again. Look, I'll lower you down and you settle in Carya's bunk; it'll be easier to get up and use the necessary. Is that why you weren't up?"
Silaya nodded.
"Well, of all the daft things not to admit to it!" said Jessenia. "Just relax!"
Silaya was amazed that so slight a wisp of a girl as Jessenia managed to hold her and lower her to the ground apparently effortlessly.
"That's amazing! OW!" she added as the weight on her legs twinged in the muscle.
"Turns of acrobatic training," shrugged Jessenia, leaping down. "I know how to lift as well as to tumble.. do you need help to get to the necessary?"
Silaya shook her head.
"I guess I might soak in hot water," she said.
"You do that; I'll send a healer to meet you there," nodded Jessenia in approval.
oOoOo
V'sheren was at first sceptical that Silaya was truly hurt; but Jessenia plainly believed it, and he gave her permission to run over to ask a healer to attend the older girl.
When Jessenia got back she refused to answer question claiming she was too hungry and needed to catch up on eating for being late.
She doubted she would ever like Silaya much; but it was at least a start towards the girl acting more reasonably!