"Did you now?" Master Lobira eyed his journeyman and pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Well, if you say so."
Robinton retreated as soon as he politely could. Master Lobira 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.
But he underestimated Master Lobira.
"You wrote these," Lobira said, stamping into his bed cubicle one evening with a sheaf 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 Lobira 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 straggled to his feet, a difficult enough manoeuvre due to the cramped space and Lobira's proximity to his bed. He felt at an extreme disadvantage lying sprawled on his back. Then he realized that towering above Lobira was not exactly a good tactic either, because it forced his agitated Master to look up.
"Master Lobira, 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!" Lobira 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 !" Lobira slammed the offending scores down on the table and then pinned them down with his fist, glaring around at Robinton who had seated himself so as to be diplomatically lower than his Master.
"Actually ..." Robinton quailed at having to tell the honest truth. "One or two were written when I was a little younger."
"A little younger?" Lobim'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." Lobira 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 just down the hall also came to see what was happening.
"Whatever did you tell Lobira?" 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.
Lobira'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 Lobira off again.
Lotricia planted her hands on her ample hips. "You're not making much sense, Lobira, 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 Lobira. Still in spasms of laughter, Lobira paused long enough to take a sip, which seemed to steady him. Wiping tears from his eyes, he 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 asked, 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 a journeyman, I'm not allowed ..."
"That's what's so funny, Lotricia. Don't you see?"
"No, I don't, Lobira, although I think his music is so singable."
"That's it! That's why it's so funny," Lobira 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," Lobira 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 humour, 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 through 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 Lobira altered dramatically to an equal footing – or at least Lobira 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 Lobira 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 Lobira assigned him. However, this respect generated an unexpected side effect: it made him realize all the more keenly the relationship which Petiron had been unable to give him. In order to abate his bitterness, Robinton began mentally to refer to him 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 Lobira's continued good favour, painful memories of striving for an acceptance which 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 Lobira set up the schedules for his journeymen.
That was when Robinton noticed that there were no pegs on a wide area at the south-western end of High Reaches. "Surely that's where Fax has his hold," he said.
"It is," Lobira said in a flat voice.
Mallan gave a droll grin.
"He has not requested a harper," Lobira added in an acerbic tone.
Robinton sat up straight in surprise. "But ... why not?"
"He doesn't like us muddling the minds of his holders with unnecessary information," Lobira 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?"
Lobira 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 t
here is a Charter, you mean," Mallan put in.
"The Charter also guarantees that a holder has autonomy within his holding," Lobira pointed out.
"But his holders have rights."
"Don't be so naive, 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 right, 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 Lobira 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."
Lobira 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," Lobira 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 must 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 TEN
The three turns that Robinton spent at High Reaches seemed to go by very quickly, punctuated by the rigours 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 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 Lobira put it, about his nephew Fax.
"Oh, Fax is clever," Lobira 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."
Lobira 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," Lobira said roughly. "And keep such notions to yourself."
"I have, but Faroguy's preference for Fax makes me wonder. He was born when Evelene had all those miscarriages: before Farevene was finally born." But Mallan had let the subject drop.
The disturbing conduct of Fax ended up being the only unpleasantness Robinton experienced during his Turns at the big Hold. He even enjoyed a woman for the first time, thanks to Mallan's conniving. Robinton had never thought much about his appearance, looking into a mirror only to be sure his hair was neat; he wore his dark brown hair long and braided, as many young men were currently doing. But he was putting flesh on his long bones, filling out, thanks to Lotricia's generosity with her "treats' and striding up and down the hills had added muscle to his lean shanks and chest.
As harper, he usually played for the dances rather than taking part in them. Then one day when Mallan noticed him chatting with three of the young holder girls between dances, he nudged Robinton.
"I'll take the next set for you. Time you picked out a partner." Another nudge to Robinton's ribs was accompanied by a wink. Then he stopped Robinton's protest by turning to the first girl. "Sitta, he's shy. Spent so much time playing for dancers, he doesn't know the steps."
"Don't know ... of course I know how to dance," Robinton protested, and he made haste to invite Sitta to partner him. It wasn't that he hadn't noticed her, with her delicately slanting eyes in a charming face, and tiny figure set off by the bright dark blue of her Gather dress. It was more that he didn't quite know how to strike the right note with those he fancied.
"I thought you'd never ask," Sitta said demurely, setting her tiny hand among his string-callused fingers.
"I've wanted to," Robinton replied sincerely.
"It's about time you did, Harper," she replied pertly, and then they were on the dance floor, saluting each other as the other couples did before the music began – adagio this time, so he did not have the chance to embrace her.
Sitta was a nice child and, after two dances with him, suggested that he partner one of her friends so as not to give anyone cause for talk. Quickly Robinton agreed; as a harper, he certainly shouldn't publicly indicate a marked preference – yet. And secondly, he really did want to dance. It was exhilarating. He also danced with Triana and Marcine. Triana was jolly and seemed more interested in being seen to dance than in who she was partnered with; Marcine was pleasant and attentive. Then it was time for him to take up his instrument again.
Triana went off in search of another partner, though she said he was one of the best she'd had here, while Sitta and Marcine hung about the players' platform and were quite happy to wait until he was free again.
During the next few days, he seemed to meet Sitta and Marcine accidentally, wherever he went. Then he was off on his rounds for the next four. When he returned late in the evening Sitta was somehow in the main Hall, so it was natural for her to make sure he had something warm to eat and drink. And something warm in his bed to welcome him home.
Robinton used the same sign to Mallan that the older journeyman did – tipping one of the chairs against the table to indicate that he was not to be disturbed in his room. So he and Sitta discovered each other, and he found this aspect of life very good indeed. Sitta made every effort to waylay him in the Hold until he thought her as clever as a dragon to be able to find him so easily. Marcine pouted for a week or so, but both she and Triana continued to seek him out as a dance partner. Never more than two dances at a time, however.
Sitta might fancy being a harper's spouse but, until he had a more permanent placing, he could not entertain the thought of any serious long-term partnership. But it was very pleasant to have a loving friend. It was very different from a loving mother!
The news he had from the Harper Hall was that Merelan was in fine voice and very good health. He heard from her whenever the runners brought in letters, and he always had one ready to send back to her.
F'lon and Simanith came with the word that Carola had taken ill and MasterHealer Ginia had been sent for. The entire Weyr was upset because Feyrith was a relatively young queen. Any dragon's death was a shock to the rest of the Weyr, but to lose the queen was disastrou
s.
"I've never cared that much for Carola as a person, I know, but she is a dragonrider ..." F'lon looked glum.
"Feyrith would just go?" Robinton exclaimed. "But the Weyr has to have a queen!"
"We do," F'lon reminded him. "From the last clutch, even if she is very young. Mind you, I could wish there'd been more choice for Nemorth than that Jora!" He exhaled in exasperation.
"Why?" Robinton asked, his mind more fixed on the enormity of the loss of a queen than what annoyed F'lon about Jora.
"Why? Because she's afraid of heights. Can you imagine that? Won't matter. Simanith fancies Nemorth, and I'd rather have a plump body than the rack of bones Carola's become."
"You don't think your father's bronze will give way to yours?" Robinton asked, startled. He knew how ambitious F'lon was, and how competitive bronze riders always were about mating flights, but wasn't F'lon ignoring the fact that his father was a good deal more experienced?
F'lon had the grace to look abashed. "Well, even S'loner can't last for ever, you know. And Simanith is a very good bronze!" "I'm sure of that," Robinton replied quickly.
Thank you, Harper.
Robinton beckoned for F'lon to lean closer. "Doesn't it upset him?"
"It won't until it happens. Dragons don't much worry about tomorrow, you know. It's why they need riders."
Three days before Turn's End, the Weyrwoman died, having valiantly fought to live. In the Harper Hall, Robinton was instantly aware of Simanith's grief at the loss of Feyrith, although he said nothing until the drums confirmed the deaths. It certainly was grim news for all the celebrations. Everyone mourned the loss of both dragon and rider. Robinton was especially devastated, as he was one of the few people in High Reaches Hold who had known both Weyrwoman and dragon in the prime of life. But he didn't have much time to mourn, for Lobira told him that Master Gennell wished him back in the Harper CraftHall for a new assignment.
"You've learned a lot here, Rob, and I'm sorry to see you go, but you've more talent – both as a teacher and a musician – than is needed here. And there are other places where you can do more," Master Lobira said when F'lon and Simanith arrived to convey
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