Dragonriders of Pern 4 - Dragonsinger

by Anne McCaffrey

  She took the breath as suggested and then expelled it because she didn’t know what to sing with all that breath.

  “For the sake of the Hold that protects us,” and he raised his eyes and hands aloft as if he could grasp patience from thin air, “the girl simply sits there. Sing, Menolly, sing!”

  Menolly was quite willing to, but he had so much to say before she could start or think of what to sing.

  She took another quick breath, felt uncomfortable seated, and without asking, stood and launched into the same song that the apprentices had been singing that morning. She had a brief notion of showing him that he wasn’t the only one who could fill the hall with resounding tones, but some fragment of advice from Petiron came to mind, and she concentrated on singing intensely, rather than loudly.

  He just looked at her. She held the last note, letting it die away as if the singer were moving off, and then she sank down onto the stool. She was trembling, and now that she’d stopped singing, her feet began to throb in a dull beat.

  Master Shonagar only sat there, great folds of chin billowing down his chest. Without lifting his hand, he tilted his body backward and stared at her from under his fleshy and black-haired brows.

  “And you say that Petiron never taught you to use your voice?”

  “Not the way you did,” and Menolly pressed her hands demonstratively against her flat belly, “He told me always to sing with my gut and heart. I can sing louder,” she added, wondering if that’s why Shonagar was frowning.

  He waggled his fingers. “Any idiot can bellow. Camo can bellow. But he can’t sing.”

  “Petiron used to say, ‘If you sing loud, they only hear noise, not sound or song.’ ”

  “Ha! He told you that? My words! My words exactly. So he did listen to me, after all.” The last was delivered in an undertone to himself. “Petiron was wise enough to know his limitations.”

  Silently Menolly bridled at the aspersion. From the window ledge, Beauty hissed, and Rocky and Diver echoed her sentiment. Master Shonagar raised his head and regarded them in mild perplexity,

  “So?” and he fixed his deep eyes on her. “What the mistress feels the pretty creatures echo? And you loved Petiron and will hear no ill-word against him?” He leaned forward slightly, wagging a forefinger at her. “Know this, Menolly who runs, we all have limitations, and wise is he who recognizes them. I meant,” and he settled back into his chair, “no disrespect for the departed Petiron. For me that was praise.” He tilted his head again. “For you, the best thing possible; for Petiron had sense enough not to meddle but to wait until I could attend to your vocal education. Temper and refine what is natural—and produce…” now Master Shonagar’s left eyebrow was jerking up and down, the one arching while the other remained unmoved, so that Menolly was fascinated by his control, “…produce a well-placed, proper singing voice.” The Master exhaled hugely.

  Then Menolly took in the sense of what he’d been saying, no longer distracted by his facial contortions.

  “You mean, I can sing?”

  “Any idiot on Pern can sing,” the Master said disparagingly. “No more talk. I’m weary.” He began brushing her away from him. “Take those other sweet-throated freaks along with you, too. I’ve had enough of their baleful looks and assorted noises.”

  “I’ll see that they stay…”

  “Stay away? No.” Shonagar’s eyebrows rose sharply. “Bring them. They learn from example, one assumes. So you will set them a good example.” A distant look clouded his face, and then a slow smile tugged up the corners of his mouth. “Go, Menolly. Go now. All this has wearied me beyond belief.”

  With that, he leaned his elbow on the sandtable so heavily that the opposite end left the floor. He cushioned his head against his fist and, while Menolly watched bemused, began to snore. Although she didn’t think any human could fall asleep so quickly, she obeyed the implicit dismissal and, beckoning to her fire lizards, quietly departed.

  Chapter 4

  Harper, your song has a sorrowful sound

  Though the tune was written as gay.

  Your voice is sad and your hands are slow,

  And your eye meeting mine turns away

  Menolly would have liked to find someplace to curl up and sleep herself, but Beauty began to creel softly. Silvina had said something about saving scraps, so Menolly crossed the courtyard to the kitchen door. She couldn’t see either Silvina or Camo with all the coming and going. Then she saw the half-wit staggering in from the storage rooms, his arms clasping a great round yellow cheese. He saw her, grinned and deposited the cheese on the only clear space at one of the worktables.

  “Camo feed pretty ones? Camo feed?”

  “Camo, get on with that cheese, there’s a good fellow,” said the woman Menolly remembered as Abuna.

  “Camo must feed.” And the man had grabbed up a bowl, unceremoniously dumping its contents onto the table, and marched back to the storeroom.

  “Camo! Come back and take care of this cheese!”

  Menolly was sorry she’d come to the kitchen, but Abuna saw her.

  “So you’re the problem with him. Oh, all right. He’ll be no use ’till he’s helped you feed those creatures! But keep them out of my kitchen!”

  “Yes, Abuna. I’m sorry to bother you—”

  “And so you should be in the middle of getting ready the supper but…”

  “Camo fed pretty ones? Camo feed pretty ones?” He was back trailing gobbets of meat from an overfull bowl.

  “Not in my kitchen, Camo. Outside with you. Outside now. And send him back in when they’ve et, will you, girl? One thing he can do is get the cheese ready!”

  Menolly assured Abuna, and smiling at Camo, drew him out of the kitchen and up the steps. Beauty and the others immediately converged on them. The two Aunties and Uncle again perched on convenient portions of Camo. The man’s face was ecstatic, and he stood rigid, as if the slightest motion on his part would discourage his unusual guests, as the other fire lizards swooped to snatch food or clung to him long enough to eat directly from the bowl. Beauty, Rocky and Diver fed by preference from Menolly’s hands, but the bowl was soon empty.

  “Camo get more? Camo get more?”

  Menolly caught him, forcing him to look at her. “No, Camo. They’ve had enough. No more, Camo. Now you must work on the cheese.”

  “Pretty ones leave?” Camo’s face became a mask of tragedy as he watched one after the other of the fire lizards circle lazily up to the gable points of the hall. “Pretty ones leave?”

  “They’re going to sleep in the sun now, Camo. They’re not hungry anymore. You go back to the cheese now.” She gave him a gentle shove toward the kitchen. He went, bowl in both hands, staring back over his shoulder at the fire lizards so intently that this time he did bang right into the doorframe, corrected his direction without ever taking his eyes from the fire lizards, and disappeared into the kitchen.

  “Could I help feed them? Maybe? Once?” asked a wistful voice at her elbow. Startled, she whirled to see Piemur, fringe of hair damp about his face and a line of rearranged dirt on each side of his neck up to his ears.

  Other lads and some of the journeymen were beginning to drift across the courtyard to the Hall. “Rascal,” Master Shonagar had called Piemur, and Menolly agreed, for a gleam lurked in Piemur’s eyes for all his plaintive voice. “Got a bet on with Ranly?

  “Bet on?” Piemur gave her a searching look. Then he chuckled. “A small guy like me, Menolly, has got to stay a jump ahead of the big ones, like Ranly, or they put on me in the dorm at night.”

  “So what did you put up with Ranly?”

  “That you’d let me feed the fire lizards because they like me already. They do, don’t they?”

  “You really are a rascal, aren’t you?” Piemur’s grin became a calculated grimace, and he shrugged admission of the charge.

  “I’ve already got Camo falling aver himself to feed…”

  “…‘Pretty Beauty,’ ” and Piemur mim
icked the older man’s thick voice perfectly, “ ‘Feed pretty Beauty…’ Oh, don’t worry Menolly, Camo and me are friends. He won’t object to me helping, too.”

  As if that had settled the matter, Piemur grabbed Menolly’s hand to pull her up the steps. “‘Hey, you don’t want to be late for the table again,” he said, leading her toward the dining hall. “Menolly!”

  The two halted at the sound of the Harper’s voice and turned to see him descending the stairs from the upper level.

  “How’s the day gone for you, Menolly? You’ve seen Domick, Morshal and Shonagar, have you? I must make you known to Sebell, too, very soon. Before the eggs hatch!” The Masterharper grinned, much as Piemur had just done, in anticipation of the event. “And this scamp has attached himself to you, has he? Well, maybe you can keep him out of trouble for awhile. Ah, Brudegan, a word with you before supper.”

  “Quick…” Piemur had her by the arm and was hurrying her into the dining hall so that betwixt the Harper and Piemur, it looked to Menolly as if neither wished her to meet Journeyman Brudegan, whose practice her fire lizards had interrupted. “Sebell’s a real clever fellow,” Piemur added in such a casual fashion that Menolly berated herself for imagining things. “He’s to get the other egg.” Piemur whistled in his teeth. “You think you got troubles? Sebell’s only just walked the tables—”

  “Walked the tables?” Menolly was startled.

  “That’s what we say when you’ve been promoted a grade. It happens at supper. If you’re an apprentice, a journeyman stands by your seat and then walks you to your new place.” He was pointing from the long tables to the oval ones at the far end of the dining hall. “And a master escorts a journeyman from them to the round table. But it’ll be a long time before any of that happens to me,” he said, sighing. “If it ever does.”

  “Don’t all apprentices become journeymen?”

  “No,” replied the boy with a grimace. “Some get sent home as useless. Some get dull jobs around here, helping journeymen or masters, or sent to a smaller crafthall elsewhere.”

  Maybe that was what the Masterharper had in mind for her, helping a journeyman or a master in some hold or crafthall. That made good sense, at least, but Menolly sighed, A sigh echoed by Piemur.

  “How long have you been here?” Menolly asked. He looked a poorly grown nine or ten Turns, the age at which boys were customarily apprenticed, but he sounded as if he’d been in the Hall a long time.

  “Two Turns I’ve been apprenticed,” he answered with a grin. “1 got taken in early on account of my voice.” He said that without the least bit of conceit. “Now, look, you go on over there where the girls sit. And don’t worry. You rank ’em.”

  Without explaining that, he darted in between the first and second tables. Menolly tried not to hobble as she moved to the benches he had indicated, keeping her shoulders back, her head up, and walking slowly so as to disguise her pain-footed gait. She was aware of, and tried to ignore, the overt and covert glances of the boys already in position at the tables. She’d better let Piemur help her feed the fire lizards: keeping on his good side might be as important as staying in the Harper’s good graces.

  The seats evidently reserved for the girls were marked by flaps of cushion on the hard wood. She took the end position, away from the fiercest heat of the hearth fire and stood politely waiting.

  The girls entered the dining hall together. Together in more than one sense, for all regarded her steadily as they crossed to the table. Their unity was also maintained in their blank expressions. Menolly swallowed against the dryness in her throat, glanced around her, anywhere but at the fast approaching girls. She caught Piemur’s eyes, saw him grin impishly, and she had to smile back.

  “You’re Menolly?” asked a quiet voice. The girls were ranged beyond their spokesman, again in a line that betokened unity.

  “She couldn’t be anyone else, could she?” asked the dark girl just behind her.

  “My name is Pona, my grandfather is Lord Holder of Boll.” She held out her right hand, palm up, and Menolly, who had never had an opportunity to make the gesture of formal greeting, covered it with hers.

  “I am Menolly,” and, remembering Piemur’s comment about rank, she added, “my father is Yanus, Sea Holder of Half-Circle Sea Hold.”

  There was a startled murmur of surprise from the others. “She ranks us,” said someone, rebellious and astonished.

  “There’s rank in the Harper Hall?” asked Menolly, disturbed and wondering what other elements of courtesy she might unwittingly have neglected. Hadn’t Petiron always told her that the Harper Craft, in particular, laid stress on skill and musical achievement rather than natal rank? But Piemur had said, “You rank ’em.”

  “Half-Circle is not the oldest seahold. Tillek is,” said the dark-complexioned girl, rather crossly. “Menolly is daughter, not niece,” said the girl who had mentioned outranking. She now extended her hand, less grudgingly, Menolly thought. “My father is Weaver Craftmaster Timareen of Telgar Hold. My name is Audiva.”

  The dark-complexioned girl was about to name herself, her hand extended, when a sudden shuffling of feet alerted them all, and they took their places at the bench as everyone in the hall stood straight and looked forward. Menolly was then facing a tall boy whose slightly protuberant eyes were bulging with interest on the little scene he had just witnessed. Looking over his left shoulder and through a gap, she saw Piemur, rolling his eyes as far to his right as possible. Menolly tried peering in the same direction and decided it must be the Harper’s table that Piemur watched. Then everyone was jumping over the benches to get seated, and she hastened to do the same.

  Heavy pitchers of a thick, meaty, hot soup were passed, and trays of the yellow cheese, which Camo must eventually have taken care of, as well as baskets of crusty bread. Evidently meals were reversed here in the Harper Craft Hall, with the heaviest meal in the middle of the day. Menolly ate hungrily and quickly until she realized that the girls were all taking half-spoonsful and breaking their bread and cheese into dainty bitesized portions. Pona and Audiva watched her surreptitiously, and one of the other girls tittered. So, thought Menolly grimly, her table manners differed from theirs? Well, to change would mean admitting that hers were faulty. She did slow down, but she continued to eat heartily, making no bones about asking for more while the girls were still but halfway through their first serving.

  “I understand that you were privileged to attend the latest Hatching at Benden Weyr,” Pona said to Menolly with all the air of one conferring a favor by such conversation.

  “Yes, I was there.” Privileged? Yes, she supposed it would be considered a privilege.

  “I don’t suppose you can remember who made Impression?” Pona was vitally interested.

  “Some of them, yes. Talina of Ruatha Hold is the new queen’s weyrwoman…”

  “You’re certain?”

  Menolly glanced beyond her to Audiva and saw merriment in her eyes.

  “Yes, I’m certain.”

  “Too bad those three candidates from your grandfather’s Hold didn’t Impress, Pona. There’ll be other times,” said Audiva.

  “Who else do you remember?”

  “A lad from Master Nicat’s Craft Hall Impressed a brown…” For some reason that seemed to please Pona. “Master Nicat also received two of the fire lizards’ eggs.”

  Pona turned her head to stare haughtily at Menolly. “How ever did it come about that you…” and Menolly was made intensely aware of her unworthiness “…have nine fire lizards?”

  “She was in the right place at the right time, Pona,” said Audiva. “Luck doesn’t recognize rank and privilege. And it’s thanks to Menolly that there were fire lizard eggs for Master Robinton and Master Nicat.”