The Master Harper of Pern

by Anne McCaffrey

  "Gets to you, doesn't it?" the bronze rider murmured, wiping his eyes.

  "I didn't realize it was like ..." And Robinton spread his hand helplessly over the hot sands – which made him speed up his pace lest he scorch the soles of his feet even through good harper boot leather. "The most incredible moment in a man's life ... isn't it?"

  "Indeed." F'lon glanced fondly over his shoulder at Simanith, who was leaving the Hatching Ground by the upper exit. Most of the dragons were already on their way to their own weyrs, and Robinton was awed by the sight of their deft insertion in the dark hole at the top of the immense cavern. He was amazed how gracefully imminent collisions were avoided as the flying dragons filed out.

  F'lon draped a careless arm across Robinton's shoulders. "Now is the good time. In the euphoria of an Impression, all old insults and agitations are put aside. Even Raid came today."

  "Wasn't he supposed to?" Robinton asked, hoping that tonight he might at last get some answers to explain the estrangement between Raid and F'lon. They had once been very good friends. Robinton hadn't noticed at first that the two were never in the same room together. But F'lon could be caustic, and Raid had his own foibles.

  "Maidir and Hayara have talked of nothing else since the drum message came about the clutch."

  "And Maizella and that fish-faced spouse of hers." F'lon grimaced. "She's pretty enough to have done better than that."

  "Cording's got a large and prosperous hold on the Eastern Sea.

  He gives her sea jewels and goes goggle-eyed when she sings to him," Robinton remarked, keeping his tone non-judgmental. He liked Maizella much better now than he ever had as a child. He also rather liked Cording, who was solicitous of his love's parents and the brood of younger children, and courteous to his Lord Holder, but he did have a distinct resemblance to a fish: with that shock of sun-bleached hair, flat face, and rather blunted features. But a harper had to be careful of admitting to anything at all improper -even in confidence to a friend.

  "That's as may be, but he doesn't believe in Thread," F'lon said in a flatly disapproving tone.

  Since that would have caused F'lon to dislike anyone, male or female, Robinton declined to comment further on Cording's good points. And now he'd been given a lead-in to the problem he'd been dying to address.

  "Is that the basis of your argument with Lord Maidir and Raid?" Robinton asked. After all, one of his duties as harper was to act as mediator whenever necessary. Not that he felt himself an expert, but he could at least try to understand the dispute from both sides.

  "Of course." F'lon actually ground his teeth. "Neither of them will listen to S'loner or me. And it's not as if we were the only riders of that opinion. M'odon is adamant that we'll see Thread within the next three decades. And I've checked his figuring time and again. He might be out a Turn or two, but not by more than that." He glanced about irritably, as if hoping to find something he could at least kick. A stone lay across his path, and he kicked that across the Bowl so that both of them heard it connect with the cliff and shatter. F'lon grunted at his success. Then, in one of his abrupt changes, he pointed to a table not far from the entrance to the Lower Caverns. "Let's take that one before anyone else can settle."

  Robinton decided to wait for a more propitious opening to obtain further details. F'lon was not the most tactful of riders – nor, for that matter, was his father – but perhaps, in the aftermath of the Hatching, he could make some progress in healing the breach.

  Most of the invited guests were still on their feet, wineglasses or klah mugs in their hands, while the aromas of the upcoming feast wafted in tantalizing waves from the busy kitchen. In the distance, by the weyrling barracks, Robinton caught sight of the newly Impressed riders feeding their dragonets, who raised squeaky but imperious voices protesting the slowness of the service. Once sufficiently full, the dragonets would be bedded down, and then the new riders would join their parents for the festivities, elated with pride at their success. Robinton had noted that a Benden holder lad had Impressed a bronze – a talking point with Maidir. There was such an air of rejoicing, of gladness, of accomplishment, that Robinton had trouble restraining himself from grabbing up his gitar and making appropriate triumphant music. His turn would come soon enough, and meanwhile here was C'gan, his oddly boyish face smiling, making his way towards them carrying a tray of glasses, a skin of wine looped over his shoulder.

  F'lon waved for C'gan to hurry. Robinton had had a chance on his arrival to quiz C'gan on how many musicians he would have

  to supply music, and what special songs might be requested. He had brought some new songs, as well: three of his own and four from the Harper Hall. He had learned that he didn't need to tell anyone who had composed them. If the songs were good, they were sung again and again, and those that failed to catch on he could simply forget. There were few of his in the latter category. A march from Petiron's pen was included in those from the Hall, and Robinton deemed it a new departure for the MasterComposer: rhythmic and solemn, but stirring.

  Eventually those at the head table took their places, a signal for the weyrfolk to serve their guests, green riders helping to cater to the extra numbers. Bronze and brown riders were not required to serve guests, so R'gul, S'lel, L'tol and R'yar – the lad who had been Searched from his first apprentice turn at the Harper Hall -joined Robinton's table.

  Robinton was close enough to the head table to get his first good look at the young new Weyrwoman. She was not at all as attractive or sensual as Caroh had been. But that was not relevant – no matter what her looks or personality were like, S'loner's bronze had to fly her queen to keep him in the Weyrleader's position. From the scowl on S'loner's face, he wasn't too pleased with his new Weyrwoman. He was, in fact, leaning away from her, idly robbing his left shoulder and arm, and not directing much conversation in Jora's direction. She was pretty enough, in a sort of overblown way, but was already getting more plump than was healthy for a rider, not to mention for a young woman. She was flushed with the success of her queen, Nemorth, and making what appeared to be giddy confessions to Lady Hayara, who merely listened with a polite smile plastered on her face. Lord Maidir exchanged a few comments with S'loner, but for the most part concentrated on the excellent food served and the fine Benden wines.

  Robinton considered that wine one of the fringe benefits of being a Benden-based harper: they had the best vineyards on the continent, and the main Vintners' Hall was in the next valley over from the Hold itself. The whites were crisp and light, sometimes with a citrus tang, sometimes an almost floral taste. He had been used to the foxy sauternes of Tillek, the other large wine-producing Hold, and the variety produced by Benden fascinated him. The reds, especially the clarets and the burgundies, were full and wonderful to hold in the nose and savour through the mouth.

  Robinton had discovered that he could drink the whites all night long and generally rise up from his bed the next morning without a heavy head or sick stomach, but he had to be careful with the reds.

  And he dreamed of tasting the sparkling wine that once had been produced at Benden. MasterVintner Wonegal was still trying to reproduce it, but the vine blight of two hundred turns before had wiped out that varietal, and cross-pollinating of the better white grapes had not yet produced an adequate replacement.

  The feast was superb. There was roast herd-beast, flavourful with herbs and done to pink, though there were crusty top slices available for those who liked it well done. Wild wherry in quantity, and so tenderized as to slide down the throat with its accompanying stickle-berry gravy. There were also a variety of fish, grilled and baked, with enormous bowls of tubers and vine beans; breads, both flat and raised; and fresh greens which had been grown in tropical Nerat. Fruits, too, and nuts from Lemos. Though most of the candidates had been weyrbred, some had come from nearby Holds, and their families had probably brought offerings. Only two lads had been injured – slightly – when the dragonets lurched out of their shells and looked around, keening, for their min
d mates.

  And a bronze had hatched first.

  "The best omen we could have," F'lon remarked.

  "Why is that?" Robinton asked.

  "Bronze is the best, of course," F'lon said with a slightly drunken grin on his face. "A bronze first means the clutch is strong, even if not as large as some would have made it. Jora's useless as a Weyrwoman." His tone turned disdainful. "Not only is she afraid of heights but she's nervous with Nemorth, and if S'loner hadn't been helping, she'd've let the queen eat before her mating flight." He snorted in contempt.

  "That wouldn't have kept you from edging S'loner out, though," R'gul said, a disapproving frown on his round face.

  "Tchaaa!" F'lon waved aside the rebuke. "So he sired me, but bronze riders are all equal in the air at mating time. The queen should have the best available – more to make up for her shortcomings than anything else." And he made another contemptuous noise and unslung the wine-skin from the chair back. "So, Harper Robinton, with what songs will you regale us tonight?" He waved towards the top table. "Everyone's eaten, and let's not have another brawl between our Weyrleader and our Lord Holder."

  Robinton got to his feet, his height making him visible to the head table, and he waited until he could catch S'loner's attention.

  The Weyrleader had bent his head to listen to something one of the weyr girls was saying: a girl Robinton had noticed himself because of her quiet dignity and gracefulness. S'loner shook his head, and then the girl pointed towards Robinton. Spotting the harper, S'loner raised his right hand to give him the signal to begin the entertainment.

  C'gan had been watching too, and he stood, which told the players to gather on the dais.

  "I've a few new ones for your ears," Robinton told F'lon, "and a fine march. Enter-the-new-riders sort of thing."

  "Great!" F'lon waved a loose arm in command for the music to begin. He was fairly well gone in wine, so Robinton did not take offence.

  Looking closely at the head table as he made his way to the players' raised dais, Robinton did not see any signs of an imminent dispute between Leader and Holder. But the two were looking away from each other and neither was talking. It was indeed time for diversion before the silence became unbearable. Jora was still talking to Lady Hayara, who was all but slumped down in her chair with boredom. Now, seeing the harper gathering his instrumental-ists, Hayara sat up straighter and waggled her fingers at him -doubtless from gratitude, unless Jora would talk through music too.

  But then Lady Hayara would have a legitimate excuse to request her silence.

  Robinton started off with Petiron's march; it had a few feet stamping and some clapping in rhythm, so he was subtly amused that his opinion was now verified. Then he called for the Duty Song, followed closely by the Question Song which he played whenever he could. But this time it was not as well received by either Weyrleader or Lord Holder, and he was almost sorry he had included it.

  So he did a solo rendition of one of his newer songs, with C'gan on gitar, and two pipers and the hand drum. The song was appreciated enough to require him to repeat it immediately, and there were many voices lifted in the chorus with him. Riders were not as inhibited as most holders and, whether they had the voice for the song or not, they were lusty in their singing.

  C'gan took turns with him and then called forth some of the solo voices. Maizella sang, as did R'yar, who had an excellent light baritone and hadn't forgotten any of his repertoire in his turns as a rider.

  Robinton never knew when Lord Maidir and S'loner left the table, for night had fallen and, although there were plenty of glow-baskets on the poles around the Bowl, there were so many coming and going with wine or to answer nature's requirements, and so much for him to oversee as harper, that he noticed their absence only when Lady Hayara rose and left the table, escaping a Jora slumped drunkenly across it.

  No one would ever know exactly what did happen that night, but suddenly a piercing scream from Nemorth roused everyone.

  Especially when every other dragon voice augmented her heart-rending, piteous scream. It seemed to go on and on, as if none of the dragons need pause for breath. It cut through the night air, worse than any tormented watchwher's cry – a knife to the ears and to the heart. He thought his heart would stop at the anguish which reverberated in the Bowl.

  He was by no means the first person to clap hands to his ears to muffle the awful screeching. It was the look of shock on drug-onrider faces that gave Robinton his clue to the tragedy which had just been announced in dragon voice. The entire Weyr was mourning the death of a dragon.

  Robinton grabbed C'gan and turned the stricken rider to him.

  C'gan's nerveless fingers slipped off the gitar neck as tears sprang from his eyes.

  "What is it, C'gan? What's happened?"

  Gulping to clear his throat, C'gan turned anguished eyes to the harper. "It's Chendith. He's dead."

  "Chendith?" Robinton whirled round, trying to spot S'loner in the crowd of shocked people. He saw F'lon, miraculously sober, running first to T'rell, the Weyrlingmaster, because the keening had aroused the dragonets and T'rell needed help in rounding up the new riders to go and comfort their distressed beasts. Not a young man himself, T'rell looked haggard with grief and staggered as he moved about the tables.

  "Dead? Why? How?" Robinton demanded. "He didn't look sick or anything during the Hatching." He lost sight of F'lon, then saw him again, hauling the Weyr's healer into the light.

  Then Lady Hayara gave a shriek that pierced through the keen-ing.

  "Maidir? Maidir! Where are you?"

  It was the watchrider, circling down on his dragon, who told them that he had seen Chendith, with two aboard him, going between. He couldn't see too well in the darkness above the lighted Bowl, but he thought that Chendith's passenger had been Lord Maidir. He'd caught the shine of white hair and the green of the man's garments. Lord Maidir had been wearing green.

  "But why? What could have happened to them? S'loner wouldn't take Chendith's life. Nor his own," C'gan said, sunken in despair. "What could have happened? He was in such high spirits over the Impression. And twenty dragons."

  They had to try to rouse Jora from her drunken stupor, because Lady Hayara had not seen the two men leave the table.

  "They have been estranged so long," Hayara said through her tears, "and it was only after that song of yours, Rob, that they started speaking to each other. I thought it was such a good sign, but I couldn't hear what they were saying because--" She cut off what negative comment she had been about to make, though her disgust with the Weyrwoman was plain.

  F'lon, R'gul and S'lel were trying to sober up Jora with strong klah, but she was boneless and kept sliding down the chair and having to be propped up to get any of the restorative liquid down her throat.

  Healer Tinamon, assisting, put forward a tentative theory.

  "S'loner may have looked strong and healthy, but he was having chest pains far too frequently," he said. "I'd given him the usual remedy, although I wanted him to call in a MasterHealer or at least visit the Healer Hall. He said he would after Impression."

  That did not explain why Maidir had accompanied S'loner on what was his last flight, although Lady Hayara said that her spouse was very tired and might have requested either a place to rest here at the Weyr or the courtesy of a return to Benden Hold.

  "Oh, please will someone take me back to the Hold immediately?" Lady Hayara asked piteously. "Maidir may be there and have some explanation for us."

  R'gul promptly volunteered, and Manora, the quiet weyr girl who had spoken to C'gan earlier, had the good sense to bring Lady Hayara's riding jacket. Together they escorted her into the darkness of the Bowl where Nemorth, still keening, waited.

  C'rob, M'ridin and C'vrel, the oldest of the wingleaders, were holding a conference, which F'lon joined as if he had the right.

  Plainly the other riders did not think so.

  "The next mating flight will decide that, F'lon, so let's not jump to any premature assum
ptions. And with Jora the way she is, that's likely to take a few Turns," M'ridin said in a low but angry voice.

  "I suggest we clear the Weyr of all visitors," C'rob said. "This Impression is over."

  "And marred by a death, which is not good, not good at all," C'vrel added, shaking his head.

  "Keeping the dragons busy is the best thing for them," M'ridin went on. "Only be bloody sure to remind riders to give the clearest coordinates they ever had in their minds."

  "Wouldn't it be better to let people stay ..." C'vrel suggested.

  "No, the Weyr must mourn its own," C'rob said. I'll ask only the older riders to convey passengers." He ignored F'lon and went to choose those whom he considered responsible enough.

  S'lel and another stalwart weyr man were now carrying Jora up the steps to her quarters, having failed to rouse her. On the ledge, Nemorth was still keening loudly for her mate, swaying her head and neck back and forth, her eyes whirling with the muddy purples shot with orangey yellows of extreme distress. It was then that Robinton realized the sides of the Weyr were punctuated by many pairs of whirling, distressed dragon eyes, like coloured glow-baskets of unusual size. He remembered that long after other details of the terrible evening faded: the whirling eyes and the sad, bone-shaking keening from several hundred dragon throats echoing back and forth across the Bowl, all night long.

  A drum message brought the information that Lady Hayara had not found Maidir at Benden Hold. The fatal accident had taken all three in that brief instant between. Robinton asked C'gan to convey himself and Raid, who was probably now the Lord Holder of Benden, back to the Hold. His stepmother would need his support and what comfort could be given her. Robinton was packing up his music and instrument when F'lon came up to him.

  "You'll want to go back," the young bronze rider said in a weary voice.

  "I've asked C'gan ..."

  "Why him?" F'lon was angry.

  "You've just lost your father, man," Robinton said, gripping the rider tightly on the arm. "I could scarcely impose on you ..."