N’ton waved his left hand over his head with a clenched fist—the dragonriders’ salute and signal to take flight—and smiled down at Piemur in farewell. As Lioth lifted into the air, he turned his head and looked down, rather than skyward, and Piemur felt surprised when he realized that N’ton’s dragon was looking at him. Staring back at the huge bronze’s eyes, Piemur waved in awe, wondering if he were seeing things. He could’ve sworn the big bronze dragon winked at him.
The courtyard was growing increasingly busy and Piemur realized that a regular break in the Harper Hall’s daily routine must have occurred as he stood watching N’ton and Lioth depart. That’s funny, Piemur thought; I didn’t even hear the change-chime.
Several groups of apprentices clattered across the courtyard, talking loudly to one another in friendly banter. Other students, clumped together in groups while they walked, crisscrossed the courtyard, bound for wherever their timetables decreed, and six young apprentices, lumbering under the weight of a large, gleaming kettledrum, made their way intently toward the other side of the compound, heading for the drumheights.
Piemur felt a little regret as he watched them, and then the sharp pang of remorse that his days as a singer were done crowded against his ribs. The camaraderie of singing, and being surrounded by music from daybreak to dusk, had made up some of the most memorable moments of his life. How he did miss that. Perhaps it was for the best that he was so rarely in the Harper Hall. How could he remain so close to the thing he loved most—music—when he was no longer able to sing? It felt a tad too much like torture. Piemur shook his shoulders and walked purposefully toward the main hall, suddenly aghast that he should be so self-absorbed when far more important things were happening all around him.
“I see some things never change,” the familiar voice called from behind Piemur. “You’re still nothing more than a walking stomach, Piemur of Crom! I’ll have to tell Cook to bring in another barrow-sized load of provisions lest we run out while you’re back in the hall.”
Piemur sat at a table in the food hall at Fort, a heaped plate of food in front of him. A few nearby diners fell silent to assess what the commotion was about and just as quickly resumed their conversations when their curiosity had been fed.
“Ah, here, Silvina, it’s only a little bite to eat,” Piemur said through a mouthful of wherry meat as he looked over his shoulder at Fort’s headwoman.
“That’s what I’m worried about, lad: If the whopping great mound of food I see on your plate is only a ‘bite,’ I’d hate to see what you call a meal these days!”
“But it tastes so good, Silvina. I never cease to wonder how Cook always makes such scrumptious food,” Piemur said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
Seemingly from out of nowhere, Silvina produced a small square of cloth and deftly draped it across Piemur’s lap as she sat down next to him on the long bench. He took the hint and raised the cloth in his hand, making a big show of daintily dabbing at the corners of his mouth to prove to Silvina that all her Turns of trying to knock manners into him had actually paid off.
“It’s good to see you, Piemur,” Silvina said with real warmth in her voice, briefly resting a hand on Piemur’s shoulder. “It’s been alarmingly quiet around here without you.”
“And it will be once again when I head off tomorrow, Silvina. The Master has plans for me,” he replied and then filled his mouth with a huge forkful of wherry stew and mashed tubers.
“I’m surprised you didn’t bring your fire-lizard with you,” Silvina said with a note of mild dismay in her voice. She watched with maternal satisfaction as Piemur chewed intently.
“She hasn’t half gone bossy, Silvina! I think she’s growing too fast for her own good—and mine and Stupid’s!” He put down his eating utensils and was on the verge of wiping the back of his hand across his mouth when he snatched up the cloth again and pointedly lifted it to pat at his mouth.
“She came north with me, but then I guess she flitted back to Lord Toric’s again after we arrived. She might have gone back to check on Stupid. They’ve been together all their lives, you see, ever since I rescued Stupid from beneath his dead mother’s carcass.”
“I see,” Silvina said, looking at the young journeyman harper with a sharp eye. “And you don’t half smell of them, Piemur. You decided to fill your stomach first before attending to the finer things in life, I see, treating us all to your own brand of personal perfume.” A light note of disapproval colored her voice as she looked fondly at the young man who’d once been the source of so much mischief at the Harper Hall and Fort Hold.
“First things first, Silvina. First things first,” Piemur offered by way of excuse, and grinned at the headwoman as he lifted his utensils for her to see before plowing another forkful of food into his mouth.
“Well, I’m pleased to see that some things never change, and even though my young folk go away and grow up, they always come back to me—with their hearty appetites intact.” Silvina smiled affectionately at Piemur as she swung a leg over the bench and stood up.
“I’ll have one of the drudges make up a cot for you in the sleeping quarters, Piemur, and leave out a fresh tunic and trews for you, too. Just make sure you have a thorough wash, young man, before climbing into, or on top of, anything in my Hold.” But her tone was teasing as she gently patted Piemur’s shoulder again and turned to go.
Suddenly Silvina turned back toward him. “Have you seen Menolly yet?”
Piemur shook his head.
“She’s been marking exam papers for Master Domick all week. I bet she’d appreciate a little diversion from you,” Silvina suggested and Piemur nodded, eyes wide, to let her know that he’d follow her advice. Silvina smiled and started to walk away, only to stop again a few paces later.
“You’re still partial to a bubbleberry pie or two, aren’t you?”
His mouth still full, Piemur nodded vigorously.
“I’d best warn Cook to put on an extra dozen for the evening meal, then,” Silvina replied, and finally left to attend to other duties.
Piemur scraped his plate clean and quaffed down a large beaker of water, wiping his mouth thoroughly with the cloth Silvina had given him when he was done. Feeling replete, he took his used dish and cutlery to the serving hatch and placed them on the tray provided. A drudge winked at him, whistling a little tune, and swiftly lifted the dirty tableware from the tray and splashed it into a huge sink of steaming, sudsy water.
Grabbing up the flying gear he’d deposited on the seat next to where he’d been eating, Piemur made his way through the hall and down the familiar corridors that led to the bathing chambers and beyond to the sleeping quarters.
True to her word, Silvina had instructed someone to leave fresh clothing and even a thick, fluffy towel on one of the cots at the far end of the sleeping quarters, in an overflow area that was always reserved for visitors. Dropping his flying gear on a stool beside the cot, he loosened the clasps on his boots, slipped his feet out with a sigh, draped the towel over his shoulder, and made his way to the bathing room.
The baths at Fort were formed from a series of interconnecting pools that were continually fed and refreshed with hot water from a source buried deep beneath the cavelike series of rooms. Turns past, as a young apprentice, Piemur had loved to stand directly in front of the stream of fresh water; too often he had lingered past the point of being clean, long enough to make him late for his apprentice duties, which got him into trouble.
Now he doused himself with a bucket of water, then grabbed two handfuls of sweetsand and scrubbed himself all over. He took his time scrubbing his feet, knowing full well that his soles were a dirtier shade of brown. When he was satisfied that the heaviest of the dirt had been washed clean, he hopped from the ledge into the warm waters of the bathing pool, where he rubbed the sweetsand off his skin. At last with a mighty sigh he relaxed and simply floated in the
warm bath, ripples of water flaring away from him as he lay motionless in the pool and soaked the last of the dirt and the exhaustion from his skin.
Once he’d dried himself off and returned to the sleeping quarters to change into the fresh clothing Silvina had supplied, Piemur felt energized, and quickly made his way to the room Menolly occupied.
He knocked on her door in a series of rah-ta-ta-ta-ta-tahs that could only come from the hand of someone who understood rhythm and drumming.
“Come in,” Menolly’s voice called from within.
Piemur opened the door and peered into the room.
“Silvina said you might need a break from scoring exam slates. Want some company?” he asked tentatively.
“Do I ever!” Menolly replied with fervor, smiling warmly at Piemur. “Have a seat, Pie. It’s good to see you. What’ve you been up to?” She pushed away from her worktable, stretching her arms above her head to ease taut shoulder muscles.
“Oh, I haven’t been doing anything new—only mapping and snooping,” Piemur said with a frown. He pulled a stool close to Menolly’s desk and sat down, hooking his feet around the top stretcher as he had done a hundred times in the past. “I see you’ve graduated to marking Master Domick’s tests. What’s the new batch of apprentices like?” he asked, peering at a stack of slates piled up against the leg of the desk and another pile in front of Menolly, waiting to be graded.
“A few bright ones know their stuff backward, and then there’s the rest, who’ll be good musicians but never truly outstanding,” she said as she peered at Piemur. “Your face has grown,” she added, a smile slowly spreading across her face.
“Don’t be wherry-brained, Menolly,” Piemur said, chuckling. “My face is the same as it’s ever been.”
“No, I mean your face looks longer. And have you gotten taller, Piemur?” Menolly asked. She stood up from her chair, gesturing for her friend to do likewise. They stood facing each other, and Menolly suddenly gasped.
“You’re taller than me!” she exclaimed, with a look of mock horror.
“Had to happen sometime, Loll,” Piemur replied, grinning from ear to ear as he sat back down.
Menolly’s appearance had changed, too, Piemur reckoned. She was no longer the shy, gangly, all-arms-and-legs girl he’d befriended when she’d first arrived at the Harper Hall. Her curly dark-brown hair and sea-green eyes were still the same, but there was something different about her, something he couldn’t identify. And then it dawned on him: Menolly looked completely at ease. She had once been the new girl who was treated as an outcast: maybe because she came from a seafaring hold, maybe because she had an unusually large number of fire-lizards answering to her. Now as Piemur looked at his friend he saw that she was truly content, comfortable with her life. She’s found the place where she belongs, he mused.
A gifted musician, Menolly had flourished under the tutelage of Robinton and the other music masters, Master Domick and Master Shonagar, but at the core of her skill was a talent for composing. There had been a time, Piemur thought, when it seemed that Menolly had written all the new music circulating around Hall and Hold. She had a fine singing voice, too, and she was also the first person Piemur knew who had Impressed a fire-lizard. In fact, Menolly had arrived at the Harper Hall with a group of nine young fire-lizards all answering to her, and somehow over the last few Turns she’d inadvertently Impressed a tenth. It was through Menolly that Piemur had learned so much about the little winged creatures. He’d helped Menolly feed her brood until they were old enough to hunt for themselves.
Glancing around, he saw that nearly all her brood seemed to be absent. As was often the case with mature fire-lizards, they answered their instincts first, often disappearing for days at a time; no doubt they were currently nesting on the roofs of the Hall with the other fire-lizards, or had flown farther afield, hunting for food. Her queen, however, named Beauty, was Menolly’s constant companion. At the moment, Beauty lay on Menolly’s bed, dozing in a sun puddle next to the last addition to Menolly’s fair of fire-lizards, bronze Poll.
“How’s your voice, Piemur?” Menolly asked, cutting to the chase as she peered tentatively at him from under her lashes.
“Ah, here, let’s not talk about my voice, Menolly. It’s gone, and I may never develop a mature voice worth bothering about, either,” he said, trying to sound matter-of-fact, though saying out loud what might be the truth stung sharply.
“Have you tried singing?”
He wished he could explain to Menolly how much it hurt to be reminded about his voice, but he didn’t want to burden her with his problems. He didn’t think she’d understand, anyway. How could she? Her voice was still perfect.
“A few times—Farli keeps nagging me—but my voice always breaks into a warble or a croak, Loll.”
Menolly nodded as she absently stroked Beauty. In response, the little queen started to hum, and then Beauty and Poll trilled in unison, as if they were tuning instruments.
“Poll’s got a bit of catching up to do in order to follow the other fire-lizards musically. We’ve been working on impromptu vocalizations,” Menolly explained. “It’s great fun. Why don’t you join in, Pie? You’ll know what to do.” She tapped the index finger of one hand on the desktop in four-four time, then hummed a series of notes. Beauty followed suit, and after a few beats the young male sang with his queen, his voice adding a deeper timbre to the sound.
I can’t do this! Piemur thought, trying not to let his sudden sense of panic become obvious to his friend. He clasped his hands between his knees as he sat on the stool and smiled briefly at Menolly, then he looked down into his lap, forcing himself to remain seated as he listened to the music. Menolly allowed the fire-lizards to harmonize freely with each other, adding her own voice to their trills or occasionally leading them away from the base refrain to explore new chord groupings. All the while, their music seemed to build in momentum, though the tempo remained true. Piemur slowly began to relax. It was hard to remain tense when he was being treated to such a lovely performance.
Beauty took the lead again and brought the chorus to a conclusion with an incredibly high note. The young bronze fire-lizard shook out his wings and promptly flew away as if dismissed.
“She always shows off when she’s had enough,” Menolly said, chuckling. Then she turned to Piemur. “Tell me what’ve you seen in the south,” she said, and Piemur was grateful that she had changed the subject. “Anything interesting?”
“Disturbing more than interesting. We’ve heard a rumor about some men from Nabol who think they can take some of Jaxom’s holding,” Piemur told her.
“Jaxom?” Menolly looked incredulous.
“I know,” Piemur replied. “You’ll hear all about it from Sebell and the Masterharper. For now, they’re planning a roster to keep Jaxom safe, just in case. The Master wants you, N’ton, J’hon, and Finder to make sure he’s otherwise occupied while we get to the bottom of this rumor.”
“Are you serious?”
“Never more so, Loll. But Jaxom’s land isn’t the only part to my news. When I was in Southern, I followed two Nabolese men who were scouting out a site for one of the Oldtimers, T’reb.”
“More men from Nabol?” Menolly interrupted. “Is that a coincidence, Pie?”
“I’m not sure, Loll, but I’d bet a Gather worth of marks they’re up to no good.” Piemur’s tone was grave.
“And what does the Masterharper think about it?”
“That’s just it, Menolly. He’s distracted about this business with Jaxom, so he didn’t think my hunch amounted to much.” Piemur shrugged. “And now he’s sending me to Nabol in the morning.” He sighed heavily.
“Hmm.” Menolly looked at him carefully. “And it’s not your favorite place, either, is it?”
Piemur’s head shot up, his eyes shimmering with distaste as he held up a hand, touching off his fingers
one at a time as he spoke fervently. “It’s cold! The people are half-wits! The food is dire, and the water smells like wherry poo!”
Menolly lifted a finely arched brow at Piemur, a little grin tugging at one corner of her mouth. Piemur could see the smile slowly creeping across her face, so he continued.
“The skies there are never anything other than gray, so it looks as if Thread is always about to fall. And the Hold is in a shambles!” He spluttered as he spat out the last word and Menolly tried hard not to laugh.
“And it’s rotten with damp!” he added.
Menolly’s brows lifted slightly higher, and Piemur guessed that she might be pondering how an entire region could be damp.
“And not just the Hold,” he exclaimed, knowing perfectly well that he was being melodramatic, but he was enjoying himself. “The whole region is awash with damp. Place reeks of the stuff!” A little smile tugged at one corner of his mouth.
Menolly’s smile slowly stretched and then burst wide open as she chuckled heartily.
“And did I mention that it smells?” Piemur concluded, beaming back at her.
* * *
—
The usual traffic of early-morning drum messages was, for some reason unknown to Piemur, quite clearly audible from where he lay on the guest sleeping cot. It must be something to do with the acoustics in this part of the cave complex, he reckoned, turning on his side and bending an elbow to prop his head on his hand. The messages arrived in the steady stream he had grown accustomed to when he still lived at the Harper Hall, rolling out their transmissions in a rhythm that seemed to reverberate through his bones in a deeply comforting thrum.
During the period right after his voice broke and before he began working for the Masterharper outside of the Harper Hall, Piemur had become a proficient drum messenger, so he had no difficulty deciphering the various requests that rolled in and out again as the messages were passed on to their intended destinations. Tillek Hold requesting a healer from Ruatha to assist their own who’d broken her leg; a herdbeast master requesting advice on how best to deliver a ruminant of what might be triplet calves; and a group of holders from Keroon offering to barter, to anyone and everyone, sackloads of tubers from their bumper crop, for literally anything else that was on offer. Piemur smiled: Trust that lot from Keroon to always want what they don’t have!
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