Dragondrums (dragon riders of pern)

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Completely unexpected! Mirrim swears that she hadn’t been in the Hatching Ground at all when the candidates were familiarizing themselves with the Eggs,” Master Robinton told his craftsmen. Then he smiled. “Fortunately, with F’lessan Impressing a bronze, Lessa and F’lar are in great spirits.” Now he shrugged, his grin broadening. “It was simply a case of the dragon finding her own partnership where she wanted it!”

  “As Ruth did with Jaxom!”

  “Precisely.”

  “And that is the Harper message?” asked Sebell, glancing about the Bowl where knots of people surrounded weyrlings and dragonets.

  “There doesn’t seem to be any other explanation. So let us drink and be merry. It’s a good day for Pern! And I’m terribly dry,” said the Masterharper as the Weyr Harper solemnly proffered a cup of wine. “Oh thanks, Oharan. Must be the heat of the Hatching Ground or the excitement. I’m parched. Ahhhh.” The Harper’s sigh was of relief and pleasure. “A good Benden vintage…ah, an old one, the wine has a mellowness, a smoothness…” He glanced about him as his audience waited expectantly. Oharan’s hand casually covered the seal of the wineskin. The Harper took another judicious sip. “Yes, indeed. I have it now. The pressing of ten Turns back, and furthermore…” he held up a finger, “…it’s from the north-western slopes of upper Benden.”

  Oharan slowly uncovered the seal, and the others saw that the Harper had been absolutely correct. “I don’t know how you do it, Master Robinton,” said Oharan, having hoped to confound his master.

  “He’s had a lot of practice,” said Menolly at her driest, and they all laughed as Master Robinton, started to protest.

  They had time for a quiet glass before the admiring guests had exhausted all the possible things one could say to a newly impressed pair. Then the Weyrlingmaster took his charges off to the lake where the newly hatched would be fed, bathed and oiled, and the guests began to drift toward the tables, seating themselves for the feasting that would follow.

  Master Robinton led his craftsmen in a rousing ballad of praise to dragons and their riders before he joined the Weyrleaders and their visiting Lord Holders. Oharan, Sebell, Menolly and Piemur did the courtesy round to the tables where the parents of new dragonriders were seated, singing requests. Menolly’s fire lizards sang several songs with her before she excused them, explaining that they were far more interested in the new dragons than singing for mere people. Then she got involved with a group from the crafthall at Bitra, and the other three harpers left her explaining how to teach fire lizards to sing as they continued the rounds.

  The tradition was that a harper’s song deserved a cup of wine. Chatting as they drank, Sebell and Oharan took turns directing conversation where they wished it: Mirrim’s unexpected Impression.

  There was, to be sure, considerable surprise that Mirrim had done so, but most of those queried found it to be no large affair. After all, they said, Mirrim was weyrbred, a fosterling of Brekke’s, had Impressed three of the first fire lizards to be found at Southern, so her unexpected rise to dragonrider was at least consistent. Now Jaxom, who had to remain Lord of Ruatha, was a different case entirely. Piemur noticed that everyone was a good deal interested in the health of the little white dragon and, while they wished him the best, were just as pleased that he’d never make a full-sized beast. Evidently that made it easier for people to accept the fact that Ruth was being raised in a Hold instead of a Weyr.

  Holdlessness was a topic to which conversations returned time and again that evening. Many lads, growing up in land crafts, would not find holdings of their own when they were old enough. There simply weren’t any old places left. Could not more of the mountainous regions of the far north be made habitable? Or the remote slopes of High Reaches or Crom? Piemur noted that Nabol, which actually had tenable land uncultivated, was never cited. What about the marshlands of lower Benden? Surely with such a competent Weyr, more holds could be protected. Occasionally Piemur, standing or sitting at the edges of groups, would overhear fascinating snatches and try to make sense out of them. Mostly he discarded them as gossip, but one stuck in his tired mind. Lord Oterel had been the speaker. He didn’t know the other man, though his lighter clothes suggested he came from the southern part of Pern. “Meron gets more than his share; we go without. Girls impress fighting dragons, and our lad stands on the Ground. Ridiculous!”

  Piemur found it getting progressively harder to rise from one table and move to another. Not that he was drinking any wine; he had sense enough not to do that. He just seemed to be more tired than he ought to be; if he could just put his head down for a few moments.

  He was scarcely conscious of the cold of between, only annoyed because he was being forced to walk when he wanted to sit down. He did recall some sort of argument going on over his head. He could have sworn it was Silvina giving someone the very rough edge of her tongue. He was mercifully grateful that finally he was permitted to stretch out on a bed, feel furs pulled over his shoulders, and he could give in to the sleep he craved.

  The bell woke him, and his surroundings confused him. He looked about, trying to figure out where he was, since he certainly wasn’t in the drum apprentices’ quarters. Further he was on a rush bag on a floor—the floor in Sebell’s room, for the clothes Sebell had been wearing for the past two days were draped on a nearby chair, his flying boots sagging against each other by the bed. Piemur’s empty clothes had been neatly piled on his boots at the foot of the rush bag.

  The bell continued to ring, and Piemur, keenly aware of the emptiness of his belly, hastily dressed, paused long enough to splash his face and hands with water in case anyone, like Dirzan, wanted to fault him on cleanliness and proceeded down the corridor to the steps and the dining hall. He was just turning into the hall when Clell and the other three came in the main door. Clell flashed a look at the others and then strode up to Piemur, grabbing him by the arm roughly.

  “Where’ve you been for two days?”

  “Why? Did you have to polish the drums?”

  “You’re going to get it from Dirzan!” A pleased smirk crossed Clell’s face.

  “Why should he get it from Dirzan, Clell?” asked Menolly, quietly coming up behind the drum apprentices. “He’s been on Harper business.”

  “He’s always getting off on Harper business,” replied Clell with unexpected anger, “and always with you!”

  Piemur raised his fist at such insolence and leaned back to make the swing count in Clell’s sneering face. But Menolly was quicker; she swung the apprentice about and shoved him forcefully toward the main door.

  “Insolence to a journeyman means water rations for you, Clell!” she said and, without bothering to see that he’d continued out of the hall, she turned to the other three who gawked at her. “And, for you, too, if I should learn of any mischief against Piemur because of this. Have I made myself perfectly clear? Or do I need to mention the incident to Master Olodkey?”

  The cowed apprentices murmured the necessary assurances and, at her dismissal, lost themselves in the throng of other apprentices.

  “How much trouble have you been having in the drum-heights, Piemur?”

  “Nothing I can’t handle,” said Piemur, wondering when he could get back at Clell for that insult to Menolly. “Water rations for you, too, Piemur, if I see so much as a scratch on Clell’s face.”

  “But he…”

  Bonz, Timiny and Brolly came flying into the hall at that point and hailed Piemur with such evident relief that, after giving Piemur a long, forbidding glance, Menolly went off toward the journeyman’s tables. The boys demanded to know where he’d been and he was to tell them everything.

  He didn’t. He told them what he felt they should know as far as the Igen Hold Gather was concerned, an innocuous enough tale. And he could, and did, describe in great detail the Impression of Path to Mirrim. The bare bones of that unexpected event was already the talk of the Hall, and Piemur had heard the public version so often that he knew he wasn’t committing
any indiscretion. He was careful to play down, even to his good friends, the circumstances that had brought him to Benden Weyr at such auspicious occasion.

  “No dragonrider was going to take me, an apprentice harper, all the way back to the Hall when there was a Hatching, so I had to stay.”

  “C’mon, Piemur,” said Bonz, thoroughly disgusted with his indifference, “you can’t ever get me to believe that you didn’t enjoy every moment of it.”

  “Then I won’t. ’Cause I did. But I was just bloody lucky to be at the Igen Gather right then, Otherwise I’d’ve been back polishing the big drums yesterday!”

  “Say, Piemur, you getting on all right with Clell and those others?” asked Ranly.

  “Sure. Why?” Piemur kept his voice as casual as he could.

  “Oh, nothing, except they’re not mixers, and lately, they’ve been sort of asking about you in a funny sort of way.” Ranly was worried, and from the solemn expressions on the other faces, he had confided their concern.

  “You just haven’t been the same since your voice changed, Piemur,” said Timiny, blushing with embarrassment.

  Piemur snorted, then grinned because Timiny looked so uncomfortable. “Of course, I’m not, Tim. How could I be? My voice is changing, and the rest of me, too.”

  “I didn’t mean that…” and Timiny faltered in a muddle of confusion, looking at Bonz and Brolly for help to express what puzzled them all.

  Just then the journeyman rose to give out the day’s assignments, and the apprentices were forced to be quiet. Piemur held his breath, hoping that Menolly had not made Clell’s discipline a public one and felt relieved when it was obvious that she hadn’t. He was going to have enough trouble with Clell as it was. Not that he worried about the apprentice going hungry. He’d seen the other three secreting bread, fruit and a thick wherry slice to smuggle out to him.

  As the sections dispersed for their work parties, Piemur went to the drumheights, wondering exactly what awaited him. He was not surprised to find that the drums had been left for him to polish, or that Dirzan grumbled about his absence because how could he learn enough to be a proper drummer. And it was only to be expected that there was no word of praise from Dirzan when he came out measure perfect on all the sequences Dirzan asked him. What Piemur wasn’t prepared for was the state of his belongings when Dirzan dismissed him. He got the first whiff when he opened the door to the apprentices’ room. Despite the fact that both windows were propped wide open, the small room smelled like the necessary. He opened the press for clean clothes and realized where the worst of the offending stench lay. He turned, half-hoping this was all, but as he ran his hand over his sleeping furs they were disgustingly damp.

  “Who’s been…” Dirzan came striding into the room, finger and thumb pinching his nose against the odor.

  Piemur said nothing, he merely let the soiled clothing unroll and held the furs up so that the light fell on the long, damp stain. Dirzan’s eyes narrowed, and his grimace deepened. Piemur wondered what annoyed Dirzan more: that Piemur’s unexpectedly long absence had made the joke more noisome than necessary, or that here was proof positive that Piemur was being harassed by his roommates.

  “You may be excused from other duties to attend to this,” said Dirzan. “Be sure to bring back a sweet candle to clear the odor. How they could sleep with that…”

  Dirzan waited until Piemur had cleared the noxious things from the room, and then he slammed the door with such force that the journeyman on watch came to see what was the matter.

  With everyone scattered for work sections, Piemur managed to get to the washing room without being stopped. He was so furious he wouldn’t have trusted himself to answer properly if anyone had asked him the most civil of questions. He slapped the furs, hair side out into the warm tub, sprinkling half the jar of sweetsand on the slowly sinking bedding. He shook the half-hardened stuff out of his clothing into the drain, and then, with washing paddle, shoved and prodded the garments to loosen the encrustations. If there were stains on his new clothes, he’d face a month’s water rations but he’d pay them all back, so he would.

  “What are you doing in here at this time of day, Piemur?” asked Silvina, attracted by the splashing and pounding.

  “Me?” The force of his tone brought Silvina right into the room. “My roommates play dirty jokes!”

  Silvina gave him a long searching look as her nose told her what kind of dirty jokes. “Any reason for them to?”

  In a split second Piemur decided. Silvina was one of the few people in the Hall he could trust. She instinctively knew when he was shamming, so she’d know now that he was being put on. And he had an unbearable need and urge to release some of the troubles he had suppressed. This last trick of the apprentices, damaging his good new clothes, hurt more than he had realized in the numbness following his discovery. He’d been so proud of the fine garments, and to have them crudely soiled before he’d worn some of them enough to acquire honest dirt hit him harder than the slanders at his supposed indiscretions.

  “I get to Gathers and Impressions,” Piemur drew a whistling breath through his teeth, “and I’ve made the mistake of learning drum measures too fast and too well.”

  Silvina continued to stare at him, her eyes slightly narrowed and her head tilted to one side. Abruptly she moved beside him and took the washpaddle from his hand, slipping it deftly under the soaking furs.

  “They probably expected you back right after the Igen Gather!” She chuckled as she plunged the fur back under the water, grinning broadly at him. “So they had to sleep in the stink they caused for two nights!” Her laughter was infectious, and Piemur found his spirits lifting as he grinned back at her. “That Clell. He’s the one who planned it. Watch him, Piemur. He’s got a mean streak.” Then she sighed. “Still, you won’t be there long, and it won’t do you any harm to learn the drum measures. Could be very useful one day.” She gave him another long appraising look. “I’ll say this for you, Piemur, you know when to keep your tongue in your head! Here, put that through the wringer now and let’s see if we’ve got the worst out!”

  Silvina helped him finish the washing, asking him all about the Hatching and Mirrim’s unexpected Impression of a green dragon. And how did he find the climate in Igen? It was as much a relief for him to talk to Silvina without restraint as to have her expert help in cleaning his clothes.

  Then, because she said nothing would be dry before evening, she got him another sleeping fur, and a spare shirt and pants, commenting that they were well-enough worn not to cause envy.

  “You’ll mention, of course, that I tore strips out of you for ruining good cloth and staining fur,” she said with a parting wink.

  He was halfway out of the Hall when he remembered the need for a sweet candle and went back for it, bearing her loud grumbles to the rest of the kitchen with fortitude.

  Afterward, Piemur thought that if Dirzan had ignored the mischief the way Piemur intended to, the whole incident might have been forgotten. But Dirzan reprimanded the others in front of the journeymen and put them on water rations for three days. The sweet candle cleared the quarters of the stench, but nothing would ever sweeten the apprentices toward Piemur after that. It was almost as if, Piemur thought, Dirzan was determined to ruin any chance Piemur had of making friends with Clell or the others.

  Though he did his best to stay out of their vicinities, he was constantly having benches shoved into his shins in the study room, his feet trod on everywhere, his ribs painfully stuck by drumsticks or elbows. His furs were sewn together three nights running, and his clothes were so frequently dipped in the roof gutters that he finally asked Brolly to make him a locking mechanism for his press that he alone could open. Apprentices were not supposed to have any private containers, but Dirzan made no mention of the addition to Piemur’s box.

  In a way, Piemur found a certain satisfaction in being able to ignore the nuisances, rising above all the pettiness perpetrated on him with massive and complete disdain. He spent
as much time as he could studying the drum records, tapping his fingers on his fur even as he was falling asleep to memorize the times and rhythms of the most complicated measures. He knew the others knew exactly what he was doing, and there was nothing they could do to thwart him.

  Unfortunately, the coolness he developed to fend off their little tricks began insidiously to come between him and his old friends. Bonz and Brolly complained loudly that he was different, while Timiny watched him with mournful eyes, as if he somehow considered himself responsible for Piemur’s alterations.

  Piemur tried to laugh it off, saying he was drum happy.

  “They’re putting on you up in the drumheights, Piemur,” said Bonz glowering loyally. “I just know they are. And if Clell—”

  “Clell isn’t!” Piemur said in a tone so fierce that Bonz rocked back on his heels.

  “That’s exactly what I mean, Piemur!” said Brolly, who wasn’t easily intimidated by a boy he’d known for five Turns and still topped by a full head. “You’re different and don’t give me that old wheeze about your voice changing and you with it. Your voice is settling. You haven’t cracked in days!”

  Piemur blinked, mildly surprised at the phenomenon of which he’d been unaware.

  “It’s too bad. Anyhow, Tilgin’s got the part down…finally, and it wouldn’t sound the same with you as baritone,” Brolly went on.

  “Baritone?” Piemur’s voice broke in surprise and, when he saw the disappointment on his friends’ faces, he started to laugh. “Well, maybe, and then, maybe not.”

  “Now you sound like Piemur,” said Bonz, shouting with emphasis.

  Isolated as he’d been in the drumheights, Piemur had easily managed to forget the fast approaching feast at Lord Groghe’s and the performance of Domick’s new music. Two sevendays had passed since the Benden Hatching, and he’d been too engrossed with his own problems to give much attention to extraneous matters. His friends now underlined the nearness of the Feast, and he was sure that he couldn’t escape attending it and wondered how he could. He’d prefer to be out of Fort Hold altogether on the night of the performance because, sure as eggs cracked, he’d have to go to it.