The girl relaxed a little, although she still eyed their clothing with some suspicion. “I can show you the way to Pilgrim House. I don’t know how much room there is left for you, though. Pilgrims have been coming for days and days. You’re come awfully late.”
“Is it a special celebration?” Daniel asked.
The girl frowned at him. “The Bride is here again,” she said, as if that ought to be obvious.
“Our friend has been sick,” Teyla said, putting her hand protectively on Daniel’s arm as if she didn’t trust him not to wander off.
“Oh,” the girl said, nodding in sudden tactful understanding. She spoke to Daniel in the carefully loud tones of someone addressing a senile centenarian. “Come with me.”
“She’s expecting us,” John said. “We’re friends of… the Bride.”
Ronon’s shoulders tensed, but he didn’t argue.
“I’m sure that’s a great honor,” the girl said, although she looked as if she didn’t really believe him.
“Let’s just do this,” Ronon said.
“This way,” the girl beckoned. The team followed, and the other girls followed as well, now apparently more interested in the odd strangers than they were shy. The path was little more than a beaten track, although here and there unshaped stones had been set to mark its boundaries, probably to prevent travelers from straying into the marsh. “There’s a road, you know,” the girl said as if following his thought, looking them up and down with the superiority of a teenager who couldn’t imagine being silly enough to go wading in the marsh.
“I’m afraid that we strayed from the road,” Teyla said.
“It’s hard to miss if you watch where you’re going.”
“You’re being rude, Vannie,” one of the other girls said. “They’re strangers, like. Anyone could fall in the marsh. My little brother falls in up to his armpits all the time. He does it just to vex my mam, I expect.”
“Your little brother is five years old,” Vannie said.
“Vannie.”
“We are grateful for your help in finding our way. We have only been here once before, and are not used to following the path,” Teyla said.
“Then how do you know the Bride?”
“That’s kind of complicated,” John said. “And I’m not sure you’d believe me if I explained.”
“Some people said she went away to the stars,” Vannie said, in a highly skeptical tone.
“My mam says she did,” one of the younger girls said.
“And how would your mam know?”
“Because the Bride said, before she went away. And her handmaiden that came with her this time, she said, too.”
“Some people say all kinds of things,” Vannie said, shaking her head.
“Anyway, the important thing is that the Bride came back,” a third girl said, in the tones of a peacemaker.
“Of course she came back,” Vannie said.
“Of course?” Daniel couldn’t help asking.
“She’s our Bride,” Vannie said, as if that were something anyone ought to know.
Pilgrim House was a long, low building that looked more than anything like a barn. Smoke rose from a chimney at one end of the stone building, and the broad doors they faced could have admitted a team of oxen. Behind the building, a tent appeared to have been pitched, maybe to house those who wouldn’t fit inside.
The long building might have once been a barn, but inside, it was clearly a cross between an inn and an infirmary. People had spread blankets at one end of a long, low room, making little camps around the hearth. Bundles of their possessions lay on the blankets, and several of them were passing around bowls of some kind of stew that was simmering over the fire.
At the other end of the room, the ill and infirm lay on low beds, most with family members sitting nearby to tend them. A girl who couldn’t have been more than ten moaned, and her mother stroked her hair to quiet her. Next to her, an old man with swollen joints shifted as if to ease pain, his expression one of resignation rather than alarm. A woman just as old sat by his bedside with a drop spindle, playing out lengths of undyed wool into a lengthening thread and then winding the thread round the spindle with swift, practiced hands.
A bustling woman with a shawl around her shoulders came up to them and looked them over critically. “You’re certainly from far away.”
“We are here to see the Bride,” Teyla said.
The woman snorted. “So is everyone here, young lady. You’ll wait your turn like the rest. I don’t see any of you dropping dead on the spot.”
“That’s Mala,” Vannie said. “She’ll tell you what to do.” She and the other girls hovered around the entrance of Pilgrim House as if hoping that something exciting involving the odd strangers would happen now.
“I see you’ve shown them the way,” Mala said. “Not over well, if they’ve been bathing in the marsh.”
“That was before we found them!” Vannie protested indignantly. “We wouldn’t let pilgrims fall in the marsh.”
“Not on purpose,” one of the other girls said.
“I should hope you were old enough to have that much sense. Now, what’s become of those reeds you were cutting?”
There was a general shuffling of feet among the girls, and Mala nodded sharply. “Go and get them, then,” she said, and waved the girls off. “Now, as to you, let’s find you a place where you can rest while you wait your turn.” The last was said in an extremely firm tone.
“I think the Bride will want to talk to us,” John said. “We’re from Atlantis, and she’s expecting us.”
The woman’s expression changed. “More Lanteans. I should have known from the leather you wear. It’s true, the Bride told her handmaiden that she would speak with you when you arrived.”
“More Lanteans?” Rodney said quickly. “Is there a Lantean with them?”
“The Bride’s new handmaiden,” Mala said. “She’s outside with the Bride and the other holy ones. I’ll go and get her.”
She wove her way around pilgrims and bundles of possessions, and ducked outside through a side door. A moment later, Jennifer Keller came in through the same door. She smiled when she saw them, her eyes on Rodney’s face, and Rodney lit up at the sight of her. They hurried toward each other, and then checked awkwardly at the last minute, as if not sure whether to hug or not.
Jennifer seemed to settle on an awkward sort of hand-patting gesture. Rodney cleared his throat and turned it into an even more awkward handshake. John and Teyla looked at each other in obvious sympathetic embarrassment.
“Hi, Rodney,” Jennifer said.
“Hi, Jennifer. Dr. Keller. Jennifer.”
“It’s good to see you in one piece, Dr. Keller,” John said.
“You mean uneaten?” Jennifer said dryly. “I’m fine. Alabaster and her men are outside in the tent they’ve set up. Every time she comes in here, people swarm around her, and it was getting to be a bit much.”
“Can you fill us in before we go out there?” John said.
Jennifer looked around at the limited privacy available, and then drew them over into the least crowded patch of space she could find. One of the local women offered her a cup of tea, which she took with a nod of thanks.
“We’re here testing the retrovirus,” Jennifer said, cradling the cup of tea between her hands. “This is our second round of tests on this world. There are three other research sites, and we’re making repeat visits to each one. Some of the locals have been keeping an eye on the people who took the retrovirus, checking for any sign of side effects.”
“Any problems so far?”
“Nothing unexpected. The same temporary illness when the virus is first administered. Most of the reactions have been mild, but we’ve had a few cases of seizures. Not the kind of side effect that would be acceptable in a drug being tested on Earth.”