The Masterharper of Pern

by Anne McCaffrey

  Robinton did well enough in the running, but he eschewed the physical duels. Harpers tended to be pacifists, with a few notable exceptions: Shonagar had been champion wrestler in his home hold and at the Harper Hall, besting the holder of the medium weight title at Fort Hold on three occasions. But harpers usually would not risk injuring their hands, and Robinton used that as a legitimate—and, to most, acceptable—excuse. That did not keep him from the censure of the acknowledged wrestling and dueling champion, a young man in his mid-twenties, named Fax.

  Even on his first encounter with the young holder—a question of who took the steps first at a landing where several halls met—Robinton felt uneasy in the man’s presence. Fax was aggressive, impatient, and condescending. A nephew of Lord Faroguy, he had recently taken Hold of one of the Valley properties, which he ran with a heavy hand, demanding perfection of all beholden to him. Some craftsmen had asked for transfers to other holdings.

  Robinton heard unsettling rumors about Fax’s methods, but it wasn’t for a harper to criticize—or to take precedence over a holder, so he had courteously allowed Fax to go first. All he got for his deference was a sneer, and he noted that Fax, who had been striding with urgency to get somewhere, now slowed his pace deliberately. What that proved escaped Robinton completely, but it did give some of the rumors more credibility than he had originally thought.

  One evening Fax went out of his way to get Robinton on the wrestling mats: not with himself but with one of his younger holders.

  “An even match, I’d say, pound for pound and inch for inch,” Fax said, his expression bland but his eyes challenging.

  “I fear I’d be no match at all,” Robinton said. “As a harper, I’ve only the usual training in body sports. Now, if your holder sings, then I’ll accept a contest.”

  Fax regarded him a long moment and then, with a sneer, swung toward Lobirn. “One phase of training that is so often ignored, Master Lobirn.”

  Lobirn was able to give back as well as take and he did so with a matching contempt. “Many a man has rued the day he tried to best a harper, young Fax, for song and story last longer than mere physical prowess,” he replied. “Or is your lad still complaining that my long-legged lad has bested him in the Hall runs every time they’ve competed?”

  Robinton was surprised that his Master was aware that Robinton had won so many of those races and frankly amazed that his wins had disgruntled Fax. At the time, the runner-up had taken his losing in good part.

  Fax awarded Master Lobirn a sustained and disturbing look, gave Robinton a final contemptuous glance, and left. Robinton breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Watch him! He really wanted an opportunity to humiliate you in front of the entire Hold,” Lobirn said. “I can’t have that. Ruins discipline in the class. But if you wanted to do some work-outs with Mallan on the defensive moves you were taught at the Hall, it wouldn’t be a bad idea. For you both. And the apprentices.”

  “I think I will, Master,” Robinton replied soberly. There was little doubt that Fax had a personal grudge against him. Or maybe it was against all harpers. In any event, Fax did not request a harper for his holding. That was his decision and his folk would be stinted by the lack, but only Lord Faroguy could require his holders to provide education. Since Fax’s holding appeared to be so much more profitable under his management, Lord Faroguy had little reason to question his methods. Somehow Fax managed to keep from his uncle the fact that his profits were obtained by whippings and threats of eviction.

  Mallan and Robinton went through the drills on mats, and if Robinton was able to floor Mallan occasionally, the other journeyman was just as deft. At least they each were capable of quick, reflexive action.

  With the pass shut by massive drifts, communication was now limited to the drums, and an eight-hour evening watch was one of Robinton’s less agreeable duties as a journeyman. Even a blazing fire in the hearth did not keep the drum tower warm enough for comfort. The pacing of every drum-watch-keeper since the Hold had been carved out of solid rock had worn a trough around the perimeter of the tower. One had to be careful not to stumble. One good thing, though, the tower could be reached from within the Hold itself. Some Southern Holds had outside stairways to their drum heights.

  Manning the drum tower was no sinecure and required close attention. Snowfall sometimes muffled incoming messages, and outgoing ones could cause minor avalanches, heard as distant thunders in the night and made eerier by the darkness. On clear evenings, when both Belior and Timor were full, he could sometimes see the seven spires of the abandoned High Reaches Weyr. He wondered how it varied from the other two he had seen. Probably not by much, but maybe he’d see if he couldn’t get in that one, too, simply for comparison’s sake.

  All the new surroundings and experiences struck fresh chords within him. Rather boldly, he composed a song for the miners’ double quartet that was more suited to their vocal skills than many available ballads: a humorous tale of six verses and a chorus about a miner and his love, just their style. It was so well received that Master Lobirn wanted to know where Robinton had been hiding it.

  “Oh, well, it was among the stuff I brought up,” Robinton said, caught unawares.

  “Really?”

  “Well, sort of. I mean, the melody was written out. I sort of rearranged it for the miners and added the chorus so everyone could join in.”

  “Did you now?” Master Lobirn eyed his journeyman and pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Well, if you say so.”

  Robinton retreated as soon as he politely could. Master Lobirn had only glanced at the last packet to come in from the Harper Hall before handing it over to him. There were such good voices and players here, and a new song could liven evenings so much that Robinton hadn’t been able to resist the temptation to sneak in his new song. He’d be more circumspect and just adapt other music, already in the repertoire.

  He underestimated Master Lobirn.

  “You wrote these,” Lobirn said, stamping into his bed cubicle one evening, a sheath of neat music scores in one hand, his expression accusatory.

  As Robinton was in the process of writing down yet another tune, he could scarcely deny it when Lobirn snagged the hide out of his hand and began comparing them.

  “You’ve written almost all the new music the Hall has been sending out, haven’t you?”

  Robinton struggled to his feet, a difficult enough maneuver due to the cramped space and Lobirn’s proximity to his bed. He felt at an extreme disadvantage lying sprawled on his back. Then he realized that towering above Lobirn was not exactly a good tactic either, because it forced his agitated Master to have to look up.

  “Master Lobirn, I can explain . . .” He squeezed past the man and gestured for him to exit into the larger living room. Mallan was not to be seen.

  “By the First Egg, I am waiting to hear!” Lobirn said, his neck red and swollen, his eyes blazing. “All this time—it must be five, six Turns, I’ve been passing music around that was written by . . . you! It’s bad enough you’re a journeyman at fifteen, but a composer at—at ten!” Lobirn slammed the offending scores down on the table and then pinned them down with his fist, glaring around at Robinton, who had seated himself to be diplomatically lower than his Master.

  “Actually . . .” Robinton quailed at having to tell the truth. “One or two were written when I was a little younger.”

  “A little younger?” Lobirn’s eyes nearly popped. Planting both fists on the table, he leaned menacingly over Robinton. “Just when did you write the first? How old were you?”

  “I . . . I did some variations when I was three, my mother says.”

  Lobirn regarded him and then, in one of his characteristically abrupt changes, threw back his head and started to howl with laughter. He laughed so hard that he had to steady himself on the table edge, and then collapsed into the other chair, holding his sides. As the door was open, the laughter carried down the hall and brought Lotricia to see what had her husband in such a mood. Journeymen
quartered next door also came to see what was happening.

  “Whatever did you tell Lobirn?” Lotricia asked, eyebrows risen almost to her hairline. “I haven’t heard him laugh like that since Fax got caught in the wine barrel.” She was smiling. In fact, everyone, except the now concerned Robinton, was grinning.

  “I . . . didn’t tell him anything,” Robinton said truthfully. The reason for the laughter was still spread across the table and hurriedly he tried to gather the sheets up.

  Lobirn’s hands stopped him, and his laughing abated as he stammered out an explanation to his spouse. “This one . . . is the . . . one who’s written . . . all the new tunes.”

  “Oh, no, not all.”

  “No? Not all? You gave others a look-in?” And that set Lobirn off again.

  Lotricia planted her hands on her ample hips. “You’re not making much sense, Lobirn, and you usually do,” she said with a hint of pique. “And if it’s made you laugh so much, I want to hear the whole story. Do calm down. Rob, is there any klah in the pitcher?”

  Robinton hurriedly poured lukewarm klah into a clean cup, which Lotricia took from him and passed to Lobirn. Still in spasms of laughter, Lobirn paused long enough to take a sip. This seemed to steady him. Wiping tears from his eyes, Lobirn beckoned for the onlookers to come closer. He tapped the music.

  “Robinton, our newest and youngest journeyman, is the composer of most of the songs—which, by the First Egg, we both have been teaching you . . .”

  “Did you write them, dear?” Lotricia said, her blue eyes wide with pleasure. “I told you he was a clever lad, and modest, too,” she added to her husband. “Whyever isn’t your name on the music?”

  “As an apprentice, I’m not allowed . . .”

  “That’s what’s so funny, Lotricia. Don’t you see?”

  “No, I don’t, Lobirn, although I think his music is so singable.”

  “That’s it! That’s why it’s so funny,” Lobirn said, patting her hands for being so clever.

  She regarded him blankly.

  “His father’s music isn’t copied and sent to every Hold and Hall,” Lobirn said. “But Robinton’s tunes have been since he was three! Get it now?” He was agitated further by his spouse’s failure to see the humor and his neck reddened again, his face puffing out. “The joke’s on Petiron! That conceited, condescending, consummate composer hasn’t half the talent of his own son!” He rose then, chuckling and chortling: he managed to slap Robinton on the back and, taking charge of the music he had brought with him, he started out the door. Then he saw he had taken the unfinished sheet and, chuckling, he handed it back to Robinton. “Let me see it when you’ve finished, will you, Rob lad?”

  He was still laughing when he closed the door on his own quarters.

  “What was all that about?” one of the journeymen woodsmiths asked Robinton, still mystified.

  “A Hall joke,” Robinton said, smiling inanely and trying to close the door.

  “Oh?”

  After that incident, his relationship with Master Lobirn altered dramatically to an equal footing—or at least Lobirn treated his journeyman with the respect he would give a peer. Robinton was delighted, astounded, and quite humbled by the compliment. His masters at the Hall had been benign taskmasters, encouraging and supportive, but they had treated him as a student. Now Lobirn treated him as an equal, despite the difference in age and experience. It was heady stuff for Robinton and he schooled himself never to abuse this status, working even harder at all the tasks Lobirn assigned him. However, this respect generated an unexpected side effect: it made him realize all the more keenly the relationship that Petiron had been unable to give him. In order to abate his bitterness, Robinton began mentally to refer to his father as Petiron, rather than “father.” Maybe one day he could forgive the slights and the terrible hurt Petiron had inflicted on him—but not yet. Meanwhile, in his growing pleasure in Lobirn’s continued good favor, painful memories of striving for an acceptance that had never come began to fade.

  There was one last blast of winter in High Reaches, and then the spring melt occurred, turning the hills and tracks into rivers of mud. Trees budded out, and in the valley, farmers began seeding their fields. And Master Lobirn set up the schedules for his journeymen.

  That was when Robinton noticed that there were no pegs on a wide area at the southwestern end of High Reaches.

  “Surely that’s where Fax has his hold,” he said.

  “It is,” Lobirn said in a flat voice.

  Mallan gave a droll grin.

  “He has not requested a harper,” Lobirn added in an acerbic tone.

  Robinton sat straight up in surprise. “But . . . why not?”

  “He doesn’t like us muddling the minds of his holders with unnecessary information,” Lobirn explained.

  “Unnec . . . But everyone has the right to read and reckon.”

  “Fax does not wish his holders to be educated, Rob,” Mallan said, crossing his hands behind his head and tipping his chair back. “Simple as that. What they don’t know won’t hurt them—because they also won’t learn their rights.”

  “That’s . . . that’s . . .” Robinton struggled to find the appropriate word. “Can’t Lord Faroguy insist?”

  Lobirn grunted. “He has suggested that reading and figuring are considered assets . . .”

  “Suggested?” Robinton shot out of his chair in protest.

  “Now, lad, calm down. It isn’t that we don’t have more than enough students . . .”

  “But he’s denying them their rights under the Charter!”

  “He denies there is a Charter, you mean,” Mallan put in.

  “The Charter also guarantees that a holder has autonomy within his holding,” Lobirn pointed out.

  “But his holders have rights.”

  “Don’t be so naïve, Rob. That’s exactly what he’s denying them access to,” Mallan said, dropping his chair to all four legs for emphasis. “And don’t go putting your head in that snake’s pit. You’d never match him in a fight, and you come on strong to him on that point and he’s every right to challenge you. And be sorry that he just happened to break your neck!”

  Robinton turned to Lobirn for support, but the Masterharper shook his head.

  “I’ve warned Faroguy often about allowing Fax to have so much control. I’ve also warned both young Farevene and Bargen, Faroguy’s eldest sons, to be on their guard. I’ll say this for Farevene: he’s a good wrestler and keeps himself fit. Bargen relies on the fact that the Council is unlikely to approve a nephew as long as there are acceptable sons. Both of them are, in my estimation. But I don’t think they realize just how ambitious—and greedy—Fax is.”

  Lobirn gave another curt nod of his head.

  “At that, we harpers have the respect our Hall deserves here in High Reaches, though I’ve heard”—his expression turned gloomy—“there’re getting to be more and more places where harpers are barely tolerated.”

  Mallan and Robinton both stared at him.

  “One of the northern traders mentioned something . . .” Mallan began.

  “Let’s not borrow trouble until it comes our way,” Lobirn said firmly, and he went back to scheduling Robinton’s assignments.

  That discussion weighed heavily on Robinton’s mind. He had been taught his Charter, and had even seen the original, carefully preserved between glass panes, its ink and precise lettering a marvel even after all the Turns since it had been written. The Charter was taught first as a Teaching Ballad to the youngest children, and then with more detail as the students grew old enough to memorize its provisions and to understand the meaning of each clause. A holder was not doing his duty by his people to deny them this information.

  On the other hand, there was no provision made to punish holders who did not disseminate the information contained in the Charter. This was one of the shortcomings of the document. When Robinton had queried that in class, Master Washell had responded with a snort and then the notion that it m
ust never have occurred to the writers of the Charter that anyone would be denied such basic human rights.

  Robinton hoped that those who had learned their figures and letters under the previous holder would pass them on—however illicitly—to their children. Knowledge had a way of permeating any barriers set to exclude it. He could only hope that held true in Fax’s hold.

  CHAPTER X

  THE THREE TURNS that Robinton spent at High Reaches seemed to go by very quickly, punctuated by the rigors of the seasons. But he learned a great deal more than harpering, and considerably more about how a Hold, controlling a population of many thousands of lives, was managed. At the head table in the evenings, Lord Faroguy seemed mild, gracious, and inoffensive. But, in his office, directing his sons and stewards in Hold management, he was incisive and efficient. There wasn’t much the man didn’t know about what went on in his Hold—except for the “blind spot,” as Lobirn put it, about Nephew Fax.

  “Oh, Fax is clever,” Lobirn had told Robinton. “He did his time with Faroguy, same as the sons are doing, but you’d almost think Fax was a pure Blood relative.”

  “Maybe he is,” Mallan put in, raising a critical eyebrow. “They do resemble each other.”

  Lobirn dismissed that notion. “Faroguy has always adored Evelene. It’s only a family resemblance.”

  Mallan lifted one shoulder. “Fax’s mother died at birth, so we’ll never know, will we? There’s always the possibility that, with Evelene pregnant so often, he might well have taken his ease elsewhere.”

  “Strike that,” Lobirn said roughly. “And keep such notions to yourself.”