Dragonriders of Pern 4 - Dragonsinger

by Anne McCaffrey

  Silvina laughed. “I’d like to hear his tale when he gets back to his hall.”

  “Silvina, I’m—”

  “Not a word, Menolly! I will not have you apologizing for your fire lizards. Nor will Master Robinton. There will always be fools in the world like Dunca, fearful of anything new or strange.” They had entered the archway of the Harper Hall. “Through that door, across the stairhall, and you’ll find the workshop. Master Jerint is in charge. He’ll find you an instrument so you can play for Master Domick. He’ll meet you there.” With an encouraging pat and a smile, Silvina left her.

  Chapter 3

  Speak softly to my lizard fair

  Nor raise your hand to me.

  For they are quick to take offense

  And quicker to champion me.

  Menolly wished that Silvina had stayed long enough to introduce her to Master Jerint, but she guiltily realized how much of the headwoman’s valuable time she had already had, So, squaring her shoulders against her ridiculous surge of nervousness, Menolly entered the square stairhall and saw the door that must lead to the workshop, of Master Jerint.

  She could hear the sounds of workshop industry: hammering, the scrape of saw on wood, toots and thumps; but the instant she opened the door, she and Beauty got the full impact of various noises of tuning, sanding, sawing, pounding, the twanging of tough wherhide being stretched over drum frames and snapping back. Beauty let out a penetrating shriek of complaint and took off, straight for the bracing beams of the high-ceilinged workshop. Her raucous call and her flight suspended all activity in the room. The sudden silence, and then the whisperings of the younger workers, all staring at Menolly, attracted the attention of the older man who was bent almost double, gluing a crucial piece of inlay on the gitar in his lap. He looked up and around at the staring apprentices.

  “What? Well?”

  Beauty gave another cry, launching herself from the rafter beam back to Menolly’s shoulder now that the distressing sounds had ceased.

  “Who made that appealing noise? It was animal, not instrumental.”

  Menolly didn’t see anyone pointing at her, but suddenly Master Jerint was made aware of her presence by the door.

  “Yes? What are you doing here? And what’s that thing on your shoulder? You oughtn’t be carting pets about, whatever it is. It isn’t allowed. Well, lad, speak up!”

  Titters in various parts of the workroom indicated to the man that he was in some error.

  “Please, sir, if you’re Master Jerint, I’m Menolly…”

  “If you’re Menolly, then you’re no lad.”

  “No, sir.”

  “And I’ve been expecting you. At least, I think so!” He peered down at the inlay he’d been gluing as if accusing the inanimate object of his absentmindedness. “What is that thing on your shoulder? Did it make that noise?”

  “Yes, because she was startled, sir.”

  “Yes, the noise in here would startle anyone with hearing and wit.” Jerint sounded approving and now craned his head forward, withdrawing the instant Beauty gave one of her little chirps and frowning in surprise that she reacted to his curiosity. “So she is one of those mythical fire lizards?” He acted skeptical.

  “I named her Beauty, Master Jerint,” Menolly said, determined to win other friends for her fire lizards that day. She firmly unwound Beauty’s tail from her neck and coaxed her to her forearm. “She likes to have her headknob stroked…”

  “Does she?” Jerint caressed the glowing golden creature. Beauty closed the inner lid of her brilliant eyes and submitted completely to the Master’s touch. “She does!”

  “She’s really very friendly, it’s just all that noise and so many people.”

  “Well, I find her quite friendly,” Jerint replied, one long calloused and glue-covered finger stroking the little queen with growing confidence as Beauty began to hum with pleasure. “Very friendly indeed. Are dragons’ skins as soft as hers?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Charming creature. Quite charming. Much more practical than dragons.”

  “She sings, too,” said a stocky man sauntering from the back of the hall, wiping his hands on a towel as he came.

  As if this newcomer released a hidden spring, a murmurous wave of half giggle, half excited whisperings rippled through the apprentices. The man nodded at Menolly.

  “Sings?” asked Jerint, pausing in mid-caress so that Beauty butted her nose at his hand. He continued to stroke the now coyly curved neck. “She sings, Domick?”

  “Surely you heard this morning’s glorious descant, Jerint?”

  This stocky man was Master Domick for whom she must play? True, he wore an old tunic with a faded journeyman’s markings, but no journeyman would have addressed a master by his bare name nor would be so self-assured.

  “This morning’s descant?” Jerint blinked with surprise, and some of the bolder apprentices chortled at his confusion. “Yes, I remember thinking the pitch was a bit unusual for pipes, and besides that Saga is traditionally sung without accompaniment, but then Brudegan is always improvising…” He gave an irritable wave of his hand.

  Beauty reared up on Menolly’s arm, startled into fanning her wings for balance and digging her talons painfully through Menolly’s thin sleeve.

  “Didn’t mean you, you pretty thing,” Jerint said by way of apology and caressed Beauty’s headknob until she’d subsided to her former position. “But all that sound from this little creature?”

  “How many were actually singing, Menolly?” asked Master Domick. “Only five,” she replied reservedly, thinking of Dunca’s reaction to the figure nine.

  “Only five of them?”

  The droll tone made her glance apprehensively at the stocky Master, wondering if he were taunting her, since the half-smile on his face gave her no real hint.

  “Five!” Master Jerint rocked back on his heels with amazement. “You…have five fire lizards?”

  “Actually, sir, to be truthful…”

  “It is wiser to be truthful, Menolly,” agreed Master Domick, and he was teasing her, not too kindly either.

  “I Impressed nine fire lizards,” said Menolly in a rush, “because, you see, Thread was falling outside the cave, and the only way I could keep the hatchlings from leaving and getting killed by Thread was to feed them and that…”

  “Impressed them, of course,” Domick finished for her, when she faltered because Master Jerint was wide-eyed with astonishment and incredulity. “You will really have to add another verse to your song, Menolly, or possibly two.”

  “The Masterharper has edited that song as he feels necessary, Master Domick,” she said with what she hoped was quiet dignity.

  A slow smile spread across the man’s face. “It is wiser to be truthful, Menolly. Didn’t you train all your fire lizards to sing?”

  “I didn’t actually train them, sir. I played my pipes, and they’d sing along…”

  “Speaking of pipes, Jerint, this girl has to have an instrument until she can make one herself. Or didn’t Petiron have enough wood to teach you, girl?”

  “He explained how…” Menolly replied. Did Master Domick think Yanus Sea Holder would have wasted precious timber for a girl to make a harper’s instrument?

  “We’ll see in due time how well you absorbed that explanation. In the meantime, Menolly needs a gitar to play for me and to practice on…” He drawled the last two words, his stern glance sweeping around the room at all the watchers.

  Everyone was suddenly exceedingly occupied in their interrupted tasks, and the resultant energetic blows, twangs and whistles made Beauty spread her wings and screech in protest. “I can hardly fault her,” said Domick as Menolly soothed the fire lizard.

  “What an extraordinary range of sounds she can make,” remarked Master Jerint.

  “A gitar for Menolly? So we can judge the range of sounds she can make?” Domick reminded the man in a bored tone.

  “Yes, yes, there’s any number of instruments to ch
oose from,” said Jerint, walking with jerky steps toward the courtyard side of the L-shaped room.

  And indeed there were, Menolly realized as they approached the corner clutter of drums, pipes, harps of several sizes and designs, and gitars. The instruments depended from hooks set in the stone and cords attached to the ceiling beams, or sat dustily on shelves, the layers of dust increasing as the instruments went beyond easy range.

  “A gitar, you said?” Jerint squinted at the assortment and reached for a gitar, its wood bright with new varnish.

  “Not that one.” The words were out before Menolly realized how brash she must sound.

  “Not this one?” Jerint, arm still upraised, looked at her. “Why not?” He sounded huffy, but his eyes narrowed slightly as he regarded her; there was nothing of the slightly absent-minded craftsman about Master Jerint now.

  “Its too green to have any tone!”

  “How would you know by looking?”

  So, thought Menolly, this is a sort of test for me.

  “I wouldn’t choose any instrument on looks, Master Jerint, I’d choose by the sound, but I can see from here that the wood of that gitar is badly joined on the case. The neck is not straight for all it’s been veneered prettily.”

  The answer evidently pleased him, for he stepped aside and gestured to her to make her own selection. She picked the strings of one gitar resting against the shelves and absently shook her head, looking further. She saw a case, its wherhide worn but well-oiled. Glancing back at the two men for permission, she opened it and lifted out the gitar; her hands caressed the thin smooth wood, her fingers curling appreciatively about the neck. She placed it before her, running her fingers down the strings, across the opening. Almost reverently she struck a chord, smiling at the mellow sound. Beauty warbled in harmony to the chord she struck and then chirruped happily. Menolly carefully replaced the gitar.

  “Why do you put it back? Wouldn’t you choose it?” asked Jerint sharply.

  “Gladly, sir, but that gitar must belong to a master. It’s too good to practice on.”

  Domick let out a burst of laughter and clapped Jerint on the shoulder.

  “No one could have told her that one’s yours, Jerint. Go on, girl, find one just bad enough to practice on but good enough for you to use.”

  She tried several others, more conscious than ever that she had to choose well. One sounded sweet to her, but the tuning knobs were so worn that the strings would not keep their pitch through a song. She was beginning to wonder if there was a playable instrument in the lot when she spotted one depending from a hook almost lost in the shadows of the wall. One string was broken, but when she chorded around the missing note, the tone was silky and sweet. She ran her hands around the sound box and was pleased with the feel of the thin wood. The careful hand of its creator had put an intricate pattern of lighter shades of wood around the opening. The tuning knobs were of newer wood than the rest of the gitar but, except for the missing string, it was the best of all but Master Jerint’s.

  “I’d like to use this one, if I may?” She held it toward Jerint.

  The Master nodded slowly, approvingly, ignoring Domick, who gave him a clout on the shoulder. “I’ll get you a new E string…” And Jerint turned to a set of drawers at one end of the shelves, rummaged a moment and brought out a carefully coiled length of gut.

  As the string was already looped, she slipped it over the hook, lined it over the bridge and up the neck into the hole of the tuning knob. She was very conscious of intent scrutiny and tried to keep her hands from trembling. She tuned the new string first to the next one, then to the others and struck a true chord; the mellowness of the sound reassured her that she had chosen well.

  “Now that you have demonstrated that you can choose well, string and tune, let’s see if you can play the gitar of your choice,” said Domick, and taking her by the elbow, steered her from the workroom.

  She had only time to nod her thanks to Master Jerint as the door slammed behind her. Still gripping her arm and unperturbed by Beauty’s hissing, Domick propelled her up the stairs and into a rectangular room built over the entrance archway. It must serve a dual purpose as an office and an additional schoolroom, to judge by the sandtable, the record bins, the wall writing board and the shelves of stored instruments. There were stools pulled back against the walls, but there were also three leathered couches, the first that Menolly had ever seen, with time-darkened armrests and backs, some patched where the original hide had been replaced. Two wide windows, with folding metal shutters, overlooked the broad road to the Hold on one side, the courtyard on the other.

  “Play for me,” Domick said, gesturing for her to take a stool as he collapsed into the couch facing the hearth.

  His tone was expressionless, his manner so noncommittal that Menolly felt he didn’t expect her to be able to play at all. What little confidence she had gained when she had apparently chosen unexpectedly well ebbed from her. Unnecessarily she struck a tuning chord, fiddled with the knob on the new string, trying to decide what to play to prove her competence. For she was determined to surprise this Master Domick who teased and taunted and didn’t like her having nine fire lizards.

  “Don’t sing,” Domick added. “And I want no distraction from her.” He pointed to Beauty still on Menolly’s shoulder. “Just that.” He jabbed his finger at the gitar and then folded his hands across his lap, waiting.

  His tone stung Menolly’s pride awake. With no further thought, she struck the opening chords of the “Ballad of Moreta’s Ride” and had the satisfaction of seeing his eyebrows lift in surprise. The chording was tricky enough when voices carried the melody, but to pluck the tune as well as the accompaniment increased the difficulty. She did strike several sour chords because her left hand could not quite make the extensions or respond to the rapid shifts of harmony required, but she kept the rhythm keen and the fingers of her right hand flicked out the melody loud and true through the strumming.

  She half-expected him to stop her after the first verse and chorus, but, as he made no sign, she continued, varying the harmony and substituting an alternative fingering where her left hand had faltered. She had launched into the third repetition when he leaned forward and caught her right wrist.

  “Enough gitar,” he said, his expression inscrutable, Then he snapped his fingers at her left hand, which she extended in slow obedience. It ached. He turned it palm up, tracing the thick scar so lightly that the tickling sensation made her spine twitch in reaction though she forced herself to keep still. He grunted, noticing where her exertion had split the edge of the wound. “Oldive seen that hand yet?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And recommended some of his sticky smelly salves, no doubt. If they work, you’ll be able to stretch for the fingerings you missed in the first verse.”

  “I hope so.”

  “So do I. You’re not supposed to take liberties with the Teaching Ballads and Sagas—”

  “So Petiron taught me,” she replied with an equally expressionless voice, “but the minor seventh in the second measure is an alternative chording in the Record at Half-Circle Sea Hold.”

  “An old variation.”

  Menolly said nothing, but she knew from his very sourness that she had played very well indeed, despite her hand, and that Domick didn’t want to be complimentary.

  “Now, what other instruments did Petiron teach you to play?”

  “Drum, of course.”

  “Yes, of course. There’s a small tambour behind you.”

  She demonstrated the basic drum rolls, and at his request did a more complex drum dance beat, popular with and peculiar to seaholders. Though his expression remained bland, she saw his fingers twitch in time with the beat and was inwardly pleased by that reaction. Next, she played a simple lullaby on the lap harp, well suited to the light sweet tone of the instrument. He told her he would assume that she could play the great harp but the octave reaches would place too great a strain on her left hand. He hande
d her an alto pipe, took a tenor one and had her play harmony to his melody line. That was fun, and she could have continued indefinitely because it was so stimulating to play duet.