Dragonriders of Pern 4 - Dragonsinger

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Back so soon, young rascal. Well, let’s have a look at what you’ve brought. Hmm…stamped as you said…” Pergamol examined more than the stamp on the tambourine, Menolly noticed, and the Smithcrafter’s eyes slid to hers as he pinged the stretched hide of the tambourine with his finger, and raised his eyebrows at the sweet-sounding tinkle of the tiny cymbals under the rim. “So how much were you looking to receive for it?”

  “Four marks!” said Piemur with the attitude that he was being eminently reasonable.

  “Four marks?” Pergamol feigned astonishment, and the interchange of bargaining began in earnest.

  Menolly was delighted, and more than a little impressed by Piemur’s shrewdness when the final figure of three and a half marks was handclasped. Piemur had pointed out that for a journeyman-made tambourine, four marks was not unreasonable: Pergamol did not have to say who made it, and he saved a thirty-second on turn-over. Pergamol replied that he had the carriage of the tambourine. Piemur discounted that since Pergamol might very well sell the item here at the gather, since he could price it under the Harpercraft stall. Pergamol replied that he had to make more than a few splinters profit for his journey, his effort and the rent of the stall from the Lord Holder. Piemur suggested that he consider the fine polish on the wood, listen again to the sweet jingle of the best quality metal, thinly hammered, just the sort of instrument for a lady to use…and a hide tanned evenly, no rough patches or stains. Menolly realized that, for all the extreme seriousness with which the two dickered, it was a game played according to certain rules, which Piemur must have learned at his foster mother’s knee. The bargaining for the pipe went more smartly since Pergamol had noticed a pair of small holders waiting discreetly beyond the stall. But the bargaining was done and hand-sealed, Piemur shaking his head at Pergamol’s stinginess and sighing mightily as he pocketed the marks. Looking so dejected that Menolly was concerned, the boy motioned for her to follow him to the spot where the others waited. Halfway there, Piemur let out a sigh of relief and his face broke into the broadest of his happy grins, his step took on a jauntier bounce and his shoulders straightened.

  “Told you I could get a fair deal out of Pergamol!”

  “You did?” Menolly was confused.

  “Sure did. Three and a half for the tambourine? And three for the pipe? That’s top mark!” The boys crowded round him, and Piemur recounted his success with many winks and chuckles. For his efforts, he got a quarter of a mark from each of the boys, telling Menolly that that was an improvement, for them, on the full half-mark the Harpercraft charged for selling.

  “C’mon, Menolly, let’s gad about,” Piemur said, grabbing her by the arm and tugging her back into the stream of slowly moving people. “I can smell the pies from here,” he said when he had eluded the others. All we have to do is follow our noses…”

  “Pies?” Master Robinton had mentioned bubbling pies.

  “I don’t mind treating you, since today is your first gather…here…” he added hastily, looking to see if he’d offended her, “but I’m not buying for those bottomless pits.”

  “We just finished dinner—”

  “Bargaining’s hungry work.” He licked his lips in anticipation. And I feel like something sweet, bubbling hot with berry juice. Just you wait. We’ll duck through here.”

  He maneuvered her through the crowd, going across the moving traffic in an oblique line until they reached a wide break in the square. There they could see down to the river and the meadow where the traders’ beasts were grazing, hobbled. People were moving up all the roads, arriving from the outlying plain and mountain holds. Their dress tunics and shirts made bright accents to the fresh green of the spring fields. The sun shone brilliantly over all. It was a glorious day, thought Menolly, a marvelous day for a gather. Piemur grabbed her hand, pulling her faster.

  “They can’t have sold all the pies,” she said, laughing.

  “No, but they’ll get cold, and I like ’em hot, bubbling!”

  And so the confections were, carried from an oven in the baker’s hold on a thick, long-handled tray: the berry juices spilling darkly over the sides of the delicately browned crusts that glistened with crystallized sweet.

  “Ho, you’re out early, are you, Piemur? Let me see your marks first.” Piemur, with a show of great reluctance, dragged out a thirty-second bit and showed it to the skeptic.

  “That’ll buy you six pies.”

  “Six? Is that all?” Piemur’s face reflected utter despair. “This is all me and my dorm mates could raise.” His voice went up in a piteous note.

  “Don’t give me that old wheeze, Piemur,” said the baker with a derisive snort. “You know you eat ’em all yourself. You wouldn’t treat your mates to as much as a sniff.”

  “Master Palim…”

  “Master me nothing, Piemur. You know my rank same as I know yours. It’s six pies for the thirty-second or stop wasting my time.” The journeyman, for that was the badge on his tunic, was slipping six pies off the tray as he spoke. “Who’s your long friend here? That dorm mate you’re always talking about?”

  “She’s Menolly…”

  “Menolly?” the baker looked up in surprise. “The girl who wrote the song about the fire lizards?” A seventh pie was set beside the others.

  Menolly fumbled in her pocket for her two-mark piece, “Have a pie for welcome, Menolly, and any time you have a spare egg that needs a warm home…” He let the sentence peter out and gave her a broad wink, and a broader smile so she’d know he was joking.

  “Menolly!” Piemur grabbed her wrist, staring at the two-marker, his eyes round with surprise. “Where’d you get that?”

  “Master Robinton gave it to me this morning. He said I’m to buy a belt and some bubbly pies. So please, Journeyman, I’d like to pay for them.”

  “No way!” Piemur was flatly indignant, knocking her extended hand away. “I said it was my treat ’cause this is your first gather. And I know that’s the first mark piece you’ve ever had. Don’t you go wasting it on me.” He had half turned from the baker and was giving Menolly a one-eyed wink.

  “Piemur, I don’t know what I’d’ve done without you these past few days,” she said, trying to move him out of her way so she could give Palim the marker. “I insist.”

  “Not a chance, Menolly. I keep my word!’

  “Then put your money where your mouth is, Piemur,” said Palim, “you’re blocking my counter,” and he indicated the hulking figure of Camo bearing down on them.

  “Camo! Where’ve you been, Camo?” cried Piemur. “We looked all over for you before we started for the pies. Here’s yours, Camo.”

  “Pies?” And Camo came forward, huge hands outstretched, his thick lips moist. He wore a fresh tunic, his face was shining clean, and his straggling crop of hair had been brushed flat. He had evidently homed in on the sweet aroma of the pies as easily as Piemur.

  “Yes, bubbly pies, just like I promised you, Camo.” Piemur passed him two pies.

  “Well, now, you wasn’t having me on, was you, about feeding your mates. Although how come Menolly and Camo…”

  “Here’s your money,” said Piemur with some haughtiness, thrusting the thirty-second piece into Palim’s hand. “I trust your pies will live up to standard!” Menolly gaped, because there were now nine small bubbly pies on the counter front.

  “Three for you, Camo.” Piemur handed him a third. “Now don’t burn your mouth. Three for you, Menolly,” and the pastry was warm enough to sting Menolly’s scarred palm, “and three for me. Thank you, Palim. It’s good of you to be generous. I’ll make sure everyone knows your pies…” and despite the heat of the crust, Piemur bit deeply into the pastry, the dark purple juices dribbling down his chin, “…are just as good as ever,” and he said that last on a sigh of contentment. Then more briskly, “C’mon you two.” He waved to the baker who stared after them before he uttered a bark of laughter. “See you later, Palim!”

  “We got nine pies for the price of six!
” she said when they’d got far enough away from the stall.

  “Sure, and I’ll get nine again when I go back, because he’ll think I’m sharing with you and Camo again. That’s the best deal I’ve pulled on him yet.”

  “You mean…”

  “Pretty smart of you to flash that two-marker about. He wouldn’t have been able to change it this early in the afternoon. I’ll have to try that angle again, next gather. The large marker, I mean.”

  “Piemur!” Menolly was appalled at his duplicity.

  “Hmmmm?” His expression over the rim of the pie was unperturbed, “Good, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, but you’re outrageous. The way you bargain…”

  “What’s wrong with it? Everyone has fun. ’Specially this early in the season. Later on they get bored, and even being small and looking sorrowful doesn’t help me. Ah, Camo,” and Piemur looked disgusted. “Can’t you even eat clean?”

  “Pies good!” Camo had stuffed all three pies into his mouth. His tunic was now stained with berry juices, his face was flecked with pastry and berry skins, and his fist had smeared a purple streak across one cheek.

  “Menolly, will you look at him! He’ll disgrace the Hall. You can’t take your eyes off him a moment. C’mere!”

  Piemur dragged Camo to the back of the line of stalls until he found a water skin dangling from a thong on a stall frame. He made Camo cup his hands and wash his face. Menolly found a scrap of cloth, not too dirty, and they managed to remove the worst of the pie stains from Camo’s face and front.

  “Oh, blast the shell and sear the skin!” said Piemur in a round oath as he took up his third pie. “It’s cold. Camo, you’re more trouble than you’re worth sometimes.”

  “Camo trouble?” The man’s face fell into deep sorrowful lines. “Camo cold?”

  “No, the pie’s cold. Oh, never mind. I like you, Camo, my friend.” Piemur patted the man’s arm reassuringly, and the numbwit brightened.

  “Cold or not,” Menolly said after she took a bite from her third, and cooled, pastry, “they’re every bit as good as you said, Piemur.”

  “Say,” and Piemur eyed her through narrowed lids, “maybe you’d better bargain the next lot out of Palim.”

  “I couldn’t eat another…”

  “Oh, not now. Later.”

  “It’ll be my treat then.”

  “Sure thing!” He agreed with such amiability that Menolly decided that she’d taken the bait, hook and all. “First,” he went on, “let’s find the tanner’s stall.” He took her by the hand and Camo by the sleeve and hauled them down the row. “So you’re really Master Robinton’s apprentice? Wow! Wait’ll I tell the others! I told ’em you would be.”

  “I don’t understand you.”

  Piemur shot her a startled look. “He did say that you were his apprentice when he gave you that two-marker, didn’t he?”

  “He’d told me I was before today, but I didn’t think that was unusual, Aren’t all the apprentices in the Hall his apprentices? He’s the Masterharper…”

  “You sure don’t understand.” Piemur’s glance was one of undiluted pity for her denseness. “Every master has a few special apprentices…I’m Master Shonagar’s. That’s why I’m always running his errands. I don’t know how they did it in your Sea Hold, but here, you get taken in as a general apprentice. If you turn out to be specially good at something, like me at voice, and Brolly at making instruments, the Master of that craft takes you on as a special apprentice, and you report to him for extra training and duties. And if he’s pleased with you, he’ll give you the odd mark to spend at a gather. So…if Master Robinton gave you a two-marker, he’s pleased with you, and you’re his special apprentice. He doesn’t tap many.” Piemur shook his head slowly from side to side, with a soft emphatic whistle. “There’s been lots of heavy betting in the dorm as to who he’d pick since Sebell took his walk as journeyman…not that Sebell doesn’t still look to the Masterharper even if he is a rank up…but Ranly was so sure he’d be tapped.”

  “Is that why Ranly doesn’t like me?”

  Piemur dismissed that with a gesture. “Ranly never had a chance, and the only one who didn’t know that was Ranly! He thinks he’s so good. Everyone else knew that Master Robinton was hoping to find you…the one who’d written those songs! Look, there’s the tanner’s stall. And just spy that beautiful blue belt. It’s even got a fire lizard for a buckle tongue!” He’d pulled her up and lowered his voice for the last words. “And blue! You let me bargain, hear?”

  Before she could agree, Piemur approached the stall, acting casually, glancing over the tabards, soft shoes and boots displayed, apparently oblivious to the belt he’d just indicated to Menolly.

  “They’ve got some blue boot hide, Menolly,” he said to her.

  Knowing the shrewdness Piemur had already displayed, Menolly followed his cue, and, glancing at the tanner for permission, touched the thick wherry leather. She could see the belt over his shoulder, and the tongue had been fashioned like a slim fire lizard.

  “Now, don’t tell me you have money in your trous, short stuff,” the tanner journeyman said to Piemur and then peered uncertainly at Menolly’s cropped hair, trousers and apprentice badge.

  “Me? No, but she’s buying. Her slippers are a disgrace!” The tanner did look down, and Menolly wanted to hide her scuffed footwear.

  “This is Menolly,” Piemur went on, blithely unaware of the embarrassment he was causing her. “She’s got nine fire lizards, and she’s Master Robinton’s new apprentice.”

  Wondering what on earth was possessing Piemur, she glanced anywhere but at the curious journeyman. She caught a glimpse of bright filmy materials, and richly decorated tunics. She steadied her gaze and saw Pona, her arm through a tall lad’s. He was wearing the yellow of Fort Hold and the shoulder knot of the Lord Holder’s family: Behind Pona came Briala, Amania and Audiva, each of the girls escorted by a well-dressed youth, fosterlings of Lord Groghe’s to judge by the different hold colors and rank knots.

  “Here, Menolly, what do you think of this hide?” asked Piemur.

  “And be sure she has the marks for it,” said Pona, pausing. Her voice was too smooth to be insulting, and yet her manner gave her words an offensive ring. “For I’m certain she’s only wasting your time and will finger your wares dirty. Whereas I want to commission you to make me some soft shoes for the summer…”

  She held up a well-filled waist pouch.

  “She’s got two marks,” Piemur said, turning to challenge Pona, his eyes flashing with anger.

  “If she does, she stole it,” replied Pona, abandoning her indolent manner. “She’d nothing on her when she was still permitted to live in the cot.”

  “Stolen?” Menolly felt herself tensing with fury at the totally unexpected accusation.

  “Stolen, nothing!” Piemur replied hotly. “Master Robinton gave it to her this morning!”

  “I claim insult from you, Pona,” cried Menolly, her hand on her belt knife.

  “Benis, she’s threatening me!” Pona cried, clinging to her escort’s arm.

  “Now, see here, apprentice girl. You can’t insult a lady of the Holders. You just hand over that mark piece,” said Benis, gesturing peremptorily to Menolly.

  “Menolly, don’t take insult,” Audiva pushed her way past the others and grabbed her arm, restraining her. “It’s what she wants.”

  “Pona’s given me too many insults, Audiva.”

  “Menolly, you mustn’t—”

  “Get the mark, Benis,” Pona said in a hiss. “Make her pay for threatening me!”