The Masterharper of Pern

by Anne McCaffrey

  He shifted about on his chair a lot, shooting glances at his mother, but she was busy either eating, quite normally, or chatting with Master Washell and his father, who bracketed her at the head table. Well, maybe she hadn’t been told.

  Because he spent so much of the dinner time looking about the dining hall, he did notice that Journeyman Shonagar was seated to one side. But there was nothing especially unusual about Shonagar’s presence: journeymen were constantly in and out of the Hall, on errands, on reassignments, or to ask advice of their masters.

  The sweet and klah had been served, and Robinton managed to get those down with no trouble.

  Then he heard a chair being shoved back, and Master Gennell was on his feet, tapping his glass for attention. The room was already still, breaths universally bated.

  “Ah, I see that I have your attention.” His grin swept from the masters’ tables, across the journeymen’s, and toward the apprentices. “So, Master Washell, send out for the extra chairs.”

  This task was customarily done by the first-term apprentices, who scurried out and rattled back in, each carrying a chair which they set in the spaces the journeymen made at their tables. Twelve! Now, who would be seated in them in the next few minutes? There were nineteen in the final term of their apprenticeship. All of them managed to look calm and indifferent as befit trained harpers.

  It was also the custom for those who walked to be escorted ritually from their lowly apprentice bench to a chair at the journeymen’s tables.

  Gennell took a list from his pocket and pretended to have trouble reading it.

  “Journeyman Kailey.” The former apprentice jumped to his feet, and a grinning journeyman instructor immediately strode across the room during the applause. Then everyone had the beat and began the traditional singsong chant: “Walk, Kailey, walk. It’s time to go ahead. Walk, Kailey, walk. Into your new life. Walk, Kailey, walk.”

  “You’ll be going to Wide Bay Hold in Keroon,” Gennell said, his voice rising easily above the chanting and the clapping.

  And so it went for the next ten as well, ending with the popular Evenek, who had two journeymen jostling each other good-naturedly to do the honors. Evenek’s lyrical tenor voice had often been matched with Merelan’s in duet, and now she clapped loudly at the announcement of his assignment to Telgar Hold, a prestigious posting.

  That left one chair—and eight more possible journeymen.

  Gennell waited until Evenek was seated and he had been congratulated by those around him.

  “To be a harper requires many talents, as you all know. Some of us are endowed—unfairly—” he put in, grinning charmingly around, “with more than a sufficient share.”

  Robinton looked over those remaining at the fourth-term tables. Really, Kailey and Evenek had been the top men: none of the others were “unfairly” talented.

  “However, when the fundamentals of our craft have been well and truly learned, I insist that we hold no one back from the rank they are entitled to by knowledge and ability, and in this case, rare talent.”

  The room was buzzing, everyone trying to decide who the lucky one was. The fourth-termers were just as puzzled.

  “Journeyman Shonagar, you claimed this right when you left the Harper Hall two Turns ago: exercise it.”

  Every head turned to watch Shonagar rise and, with the wicked half-grin for which he was well known, walk with measured step down the aisle to the third-term table.

  When Shonagar stopped by him, Robinton felt paralyzed. His mouth dropped and his eyes nearly bugged out.

  “Shut your mouth, pull your eyes in, and get up,” Shonagar muttered in an undertone. “That gets you even, the only way you could.” Even as he spoke to Robinton, Shonagar’s grin widened at the surprise and shock that had hushed the hall.

  Robinton was still trying to assimilate what he’d just heard—his name announced as journeyman—when Shonagar plunged a hand under his arm and, with a heave, got Robinton to his feet. “Walk! Walk, Robinton!” With that, Shonagar turned him and started propelling him to the journeymen’s table. “Walk, Robinton, walk!”

  “And none too soon,” Master Washell shouted, jumping to his feet and smacking his big hands together over his head, urging people to join him. Bosler stood, clapping in rhythm with the reluctant journeyman’s stride. Betrice was up, as were the other masters at the table, Ogolly and Severeid, and the kitchen workers crowded in at the serving doors, adding their noise to the general furor. The only two not on their feet were Robinton’s parents: his mother was weeping, and his father seemed to be too stunned and stony-faced to be able to move. Robinton knew then, as Shonagar had told him, that he had gotten back at his father the only decent way he could—by success.

  “Walk, Robinton, walk!”

  Unashamed of the tears streaming down his face and swallowing the lump in his throat, Robinton walked the tables, bearing himself as proudly as he could, despite the tendency of his knees to wobble. Still steering him, Shonagar pushed him past the head table.

  Through her tears his mother shot him an exultant look and a weak smile before she had to wipe her cheeks again. Neither of them looked at Petiron.

  Installed in the final chair, Robinton was still shaking so badly that he could barely accept the congratulations of the other new journeymen. He noticed that they all had rank knots on their shoulders and then he felt Shonagar slip one up his arm and to his shoulder.

  “Journeyman Robinton will go to Master Lobirn at High Reaches, where it’s hoped this sensible fellow will keep Master Lobirn out of more trouble,” Gennell announced, and then called for glasses and wine for the new journeymen. Sometime in that interval Petiron slipped from the room, but Merelan did not. And that was as it should be, Robinton thought.

  CHAPTER IX

  AND SO ROBINTON headed off to his first official assignment with five full packs, even though he had stored some childish mementos in the Hall’s vast cellars. His mother insisted that he drum a request to F’lon.

  “It won’t hurt your reputation at all for you to arrive on dragonback,” she said firmly.

  “It’s showing off, Mother,” he insisted.

  “Others have requested conveyance,” she went on, helping him pack up everything in his little room.

  Whenever he returned to the Hall, he would bunk in the journeymen’s quarters. He hadn’t so much as laid eyes on his father since the night before, but that didn’t surprise him. He was now separated from his father, both as parent and teacher. His relief was intense, his concern for his mother immense. She seemed so frail, and her hands trembled a bit as she wrapped his pipes and put them in one of the packs. Well, this parting was hard on them both.

  “You’d need three pack animals to carry all this junk,” she said, sniffing. But she gave him a big smile when he bent to see if she was crying. “Oh, I shall miss you, my dear son.” She put both hands on his arms and looked up at him with misted eyes. “I shall miss you most frightfully, but I am also so very glad that you’ve been promoted out of your father’s way.”

  “What—I mean, did he say . . . anything?”

  “No.” She gave a little laugh, turning back to stuff the last few things away. “He hasn’t even spoken to me. And that’s a sign of his total rejection of your making journeyman.” She shrugged. “He’ll get over it, though I don’t think he’ll ever forgive Gennell for doing it while he was out of the Hall.”

  “Shards! I hadn’t thought of that!” Robinton cringed at the thought of Master Gennell plagued by his father’s dislike.

  “Now, now, Robie, Gennell’s well able for your father’s foibles. As I am. He’ll simmer a while, and then go on and write it out in more music for me to sing.”

  Robinton clutched his mother’s arm and made her look up at him. “You will be careful, won’t you, Mother? And not give too much to his music?”

  She patted his cheek lovingly. “I’ll be good, and rest. How can I not? With Ginia, Betrice, and Lorra all at me—and your father. I did
n’t mean to scare him, but I think I have. He’ll be much more careful of me. He does love me, you know, most possessively. That’s what all this has been about.”

  Robinton nodded and then embraced his mother, feeling her thin bones and trying not to use his young strength to bruise her. But he wanted to hold her as tight as possible, for he was fearful he might never see her again.

  “Oh, Robie,” she said teasingly. “I’m much better. Don’t fret. You know things will be easier . . . now . . .” she added apologetically. “I shall write or drum if I don’t hear from you, young man. You hear me?”

  “Indeed I do, Mastersinger. They’ve quite a good network of runners at High Reaches.”

  “They’d have to,” she said with a patronizing sniff. “Living back of beyond like that.”

  The unmistakable trumpeting of a dragon reverberated through the courtyard.

  “I believe your transport has arrived,” she said, smiling, though her chin seemed to quiver.

  He hurried to load up his packs, but was interrupted by the appearance of Masters Gennell, Washell, and Ogolly. They immediately pushed him out of the way and shared the packs among them, allowing him only the new harp case.

  “I’m honored—I mean, you don’t need to—” Robinton tried to protest, but he was overruled. Shrugging, he allowed them the duty.

  Master Gennell winked at him as they walked out into the hall, and Robinton realized that this display of solid goodwill was as much for his mother’s benefit as to make up for his father’s absence. Their kindness touched him once again, and he had to swallow back tears.

  “You made it, huh?” F’lon shouted as he slid down to Simanith’s raised forearm and started piling luggage on the harness. “Congratulations, Journeyman Robinton! You’ve got greetings from all your old friends at Benden, Weyr and Hold.” To the other new journeymen waiting in the courtyard for their conveyancing, he said: “Your dragons will be along shortly—and congratulations.”

  Loading took only moments and then Robinton had to make his farewells. His mother pulled his head down for one last kiss and embrace. He shook hands with the Masters and promised them that he’d do his best.

  “Give my special regards to Master Lobirn,” his mother called as he climbed up to Simanith’s back. “He may remember me.”

  “Now who can forget you, Merelan?” Master Gennell said, putting a comforting arm around her shoulders.

  That was how Robinton remembered his mother in the trying initial days under Master Lobirn’s supervision. Fortunately, F’lon deposited him and his effects in the courtyard of the high and windy Hold and departed, seen by relatively few. And especially not Master Lobirn.

  For that person was unimpressed with having so young a journeyman.

  “Don’t know what Gennell’s thinking about, walking you up at fifteen! Indeed, I don’t, so don’t go expecting any cosseting from me, young man.” Lobirn eyed Robinton and scowled at the lean length of him.

  It didn’t help, Robinton thought, that he towered above the diminutive Masterharper. The man came not quite to Robinton’s shoulder; he was heavy in the chest—he sang bass—and narrowed through the hip to short, skinny legs. His features were pulled together in the middle of his wide face as if they should have inhabited a much narrower one. He had a shock of heavy, wavy hair with bands of silver, making him look striped. All put together, he was an almost ludicrous figure. But no one snickered at Master Lobirn. He had too much presence, Robinton quickly decided, to ever be the butt of ridicule. His muddy brown eyes were shrewd, and there was no way that Robinton was going to underestimate him.

  “I never expected to walk so soon,” Robinton murmured, trying to be self-effacing.

  Lobirn gave him a quick look, as if he thought Robinton was dissembling. “I shall expect much from you then, young man. Where were you raised? Who are your parents?”

  Robinton was quite happy to answer since he hoped that would mollify his new Master. But if his mother met with Lobirn’s approval, his father did not. Robinton was shocked—less at the blunt remarks about his father’s sort of composing, which Lobirn felt was far too sophisticated to be of any use to anyone, than at hearing such criticism voiced, especially in front of the man’s son. Not that it didn’t mirror his own very private assessment of Petiron’s ornate compositions, but to have mentioned such doubts would have seemed disloyal and a betrayal: as if his own songs merited more attention than his father’s more ambitious works. It came as another shock that it was his music that Lobirn used extensively—though Lobirn did not know that Robinton had been the composer.

  Robinton knew better than to make something of that approval, but it did much to help him endure Lobirn’s crotchety behavior, his temper, his inconsistencies, and his general dislike of having to break in a “snot-nosed, wet-eared” novice.

  Still, when the old Master saw how patient Robinton was with some of the more backward students, he began to mellow a trifle. He delivered a word or two of appreciation. Lobirn himself was too short-tempered, and quick with a slap for the inattentive, so Robinton was given not only the slow but the very young, who had to be taught the basic Teaching Ballads. He didn’t mind: in fact, it was a pleasure to sing those songs of his that Master Gennell had incorporated in the early Teaching Songs. It was quiet contentment to him that his songs were used and he could sing them without fear of Petiron’s wrath.

  He was also assigned the duty of spending several days of each sevenday going to the distant holds, often the only outsider they would see. These trips would end once the heavy weather settled in the high hills. So he copied out extra music for the holders to keep and study until his next trip. He had to write a report for each of his journeys; to his surprise, Lobirn went over these reports carefully.

  Besides Robinton and Lobirn’s three apprentices, there was another journeyman harper—Mallan, who was High Reaches born, and who handled other teaching routes and also some of the classes in the big Hold. The two journeymen shared a small inner apartment on the Holder’s floor, with two bed cubicles and a decent-sized day room, and shared the bathing facilities down the hall with the three apprentices who were quartered in one big inner room. Master Lobirn had an outside apartment with his wife, Lotricia, a faded woman with an enchanting smile and a kindly manner reminiscent of Betrice’s. She had been an apprentice healer when she met Lobirn, but when they had become espoused, she had ended her studies and accompanied him to his posting at High Reaches, where she devoted herself to rearing the four children of their union. The one daughter had married a High Reach holder and occasionally visited her parents with her children. The sons had been apprenticed to other trades, although they returned now and again for a High Reaches Gather.

  “None of them could carry a tune in a sack,” Robinton once heard Lobirn say in total disgust. “Took after their mother’s side. But they’ve done well. They’ve done well.”

  Lotricia was always bringing “her boys”—as she called the apprentices and journeymen—extra food. “You’re all growing, and you’re all nothing but bones,” was her happy complaint, and her offerings were always welcome.

  With such constant travel and the busy schedule in the Hold when he wasn’t traveling, Robinton had little time to compose. He took to writing the tunes that filled his head while on the road, stopping frequently to note, in tiny cramped script, the measures that he had piped or whistled or sung into being as he trudged up and down steep tracks. He barely missed injuring himself on several occasions when composing so distracted him that he strayed off the narrow runner traces that were sometimes all he had to follow to his destination. The advantage of composing as he walked was that he could sing and play as loudly as he wished—often getting an answering echo from the hills around him.

  With the first big snowstorm, his traveling came to a halt. In fact, he was trapped for three days in Murfy Hold, which was cramped at best, and worse when the fifteen members of the hold were confined day and night.

  Murfytwe
n, the twentieth man to hold there, broke trail for Robinton when the storm had died. He had an urgent need to collect supplies that he hoped were awaiting him at High Reaches, a trip he had delayed far too long.

  “Easier to haul it all back on snow, though,” Murfytwen said cheerfully as he lashed the supplies to the sled that had been loaned him for the trip. “See ya when I see ya, Harper. Thanks for them new tunes. We’ll learn ’em good. An’ Twenone will know his times tables by the time you’re back again. Promise!”

  With his gloved thumb up in a final gesture, Murfytwen started trudging back the way he had come.

  High Reaches, set on its bluffs, like the broadside of a fishing ship, had weathered many storms, and its thick walls kept all but the most shrieking winds from being heard. But living in this Hold was quite different from living in the Hall or even in Benden Hold. As every Hold should be, it was self-contained, with journeymen in all skills and a Masterminer, Furlo, as well as his gangers, who mainly worked for copper, which was always in demand. Master Furlo had a double quartet among his miners who sang most evenings, at the drop of a hat, as Mallan put it, grinning. Furlo was good on the gitar, having had to accompany his chorus since he was familiar with their repertoire, but Robinton offered to take over and Furlo was only too happy to accede. High Reaches Hold had enough instrumentalists, thanks to Master Lobirn’s efforts, to mount a considerable orchestra. The worst of the winter evenings would go by quite happily, with Lord Holder Faroguy and his Lady, Evelene, joining in from the head table. Three of their twelve children either played or sang creditably.

  The evenings were not restricted to musical ones, but also to wrestling and other such physical exercises. Robinton joined in the Hall and Step runs with enthusiasm. His long legs and the lung capacity singing had developed in him gave him an advantage.

  He hadn’t ever heard of Hall running—at Fort, even in the worst winters, one could get outside for exercise. But here, where the holders were confined by weather and terrain, the long halls were put to use as sprinting alleys, or for long-distance running. The stairs were also utilized to see who could get to the top and back fastest—preferably without breaking a leg. Sprained ankles were common, as were strained shoulders from grabbing banisters in the effort to prevent more serious falls.