“Coming, poppet. Old bones don’t move as fast. Been setting your gowns to air. There do be such sweetness from that blooming tree. Aye, the wonder of it, a fellis tree grown to such a size.” Rannelly carried on a continuous monologue once summoned, as if the sound of her name turned on her mind. Kylara was certain that it did, for her old nurse voiced, like a dull echo, only what she heard and saw.

“Those tailors are no better than they should be, and sloppy about finishing details,” Rannelly muttered on, when Kylara sharply interrupted her maundering with the problem. She exhaled on the note of a bass drone as she knelt and flipped up the offending skirt. “Aye and just see these stitches. Taken in haste they were, with too much thread on the needle…”

“That man promised me the gown in three days and was seaming it when I arrived. But I need it.”

Rannelly’s hands stopped; she stared up at her charge. “You weren’t ever away from the Weyr without saying a word…”

“I go where I please,” Kylara said, stamping her foot. “I’m no babe to be checking my movements with you. I’m the Weyrwoman here at Southern. I ride the queen. No one can do anything to me. Don’t forget that.”

“There’s none as forgets my poppet’s…”

“Not that this is a proper Weyr, at all…”

“…And that’s an insult to my nursling, it is, to be in…”

“Not that they care, but they’ll see they can’t treat a Telgar of the Blood with such lack of courtesy…”

“…And who’s been discourteous to my little…”

“Fix that hem, Rannelly, and don’t be all week about it. I must look my best when I go home,” Kylara said, turning her upper torso this way and that, studying the fall of her thick, wavy blonde hair. “Only good thing about this horrible, horrible place. The sun does keep my hair bright.”

“Like a fall of sunbeams, my sweetling, and me brushing it to bring out the shine. Morning and night I brushes it. Never miss. Except when you’re away. He was looking for you earlier…”

“Never mind him. Fix that hem.”

“Oh, aye, that I can do for you. Slip it off. There now. Ooooh, my precious, my poppet. Whoever treated you so! Did he make such marks on…”