‘Well, yes. You’ve seen it before?’
‘Oh, no. We had very little occasional music in Half-Circle. This is lovely.’
‘You played that cold?’
Only then did Menolly realize what she’d done: made the other girls look inadequate. She was aware of their cold, chill silence, their hostile stares. But not to play one’s best seemed a dishonesty that she had never practised and could not. Belatedly she recognized that she could have hedged: with her scarred hand she could have faltered, missed some of the chording. Yet it had been such a relief, after their limping renditions, to play the music as it was meant to be played.
‘I was the last to go,’ she said in a lame effort to retrieve matters, ‘I’d more time to study it, and see …’ She’d started to say, ‘see where they went wrong.’
‘Yes, well, so you did,’ Talmor said, so hastily that Menolly wondered if he’d also realized what a break she’d made. Then he added in a rush of impatience and irritation, ‘Who told you to join this class? I’d rather thought …’ A snigger interrupted his query, and he turned to glare at the girls. ‘Well?’ he asked Menolly.
‘A journeyman …’
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know. I was in the courtyard, and he asked me why wasn’t I in class. Then he told me to come here.’
Talmor rubbed the side of his jaw. ‘Too late now, I suppose, but I’ll enquire.’ He turned to the other girls. ‘Let’s play it in …’ The girls were staring pointedly at the doorway, and he looked about. ‘Yes, Sebell?’
Menolly turned, too, to see the man to whom the other coveted fire lizard egg had gone. Sebell was a slender man, a hand or so taller than herself: a brown man, tanned skin, light brown hair and eyes, dressed in brown with a faded Harper apprentice badge half-hidden in the shoulder fold of his tunic.
‘I’ve been looking for Menolly,’ he said, gazing steadily at her.
‘I thought someone ought to be. She was misdirected here.’ Talmor sounded irritated, and he gestured sharply for Menolly to go to Sebell.
Menolly slipped from the stool, but she was uncertain what to do about the gitar and glanced questioningly at Sebell.
‘You won’t need it now,’ he said so she quickly put it away on the shelf.
She felt the girls staring at her, knew that Talmor was watching and would not continue the lesson until she had gone, so it was with intense relief that she heard the door close behind her and the quiet brown man.
‘Where was I supposed to be?’ she asked, but he motioned her down the steps.
‘You got no message?’ His eyes searched her face carefully although his expression gave no hint of his thoughts.
‘No.’
‘You did breakfast at Dunca’s?’
‘Yes …’ Menolly couldn’t suppress her distaste for that painful meal. Then she caught her breath and stared at Sebell, comprehension awakening. ‘Oh, she wouldn’t have …’
Sebell was nodding, his brown eyes registering an understanding of the matter. ‘And you wouldn’t have known yet to come to me for instructions …’
‘You …’ Hadn’t Piemur said something about Sebell walking the tables, to become a journeyman? ‘… sir?’ she added.
A slow smile spread across the man’s round face.
‘I suppose I do rate a “sir” from a mere apprentice, but the Harper is not as strict about such observances as other masters. The tradition here is that the oldest journeyman under the same master is responsible for the newest apprentice. So you are my responsibility. At least while I’m in the Hall and I’m enjoying a respite from my journeyings. I didn’t have the chance to meet you yesterday, and this morning … you didn’t arrive as planned at Master Domick’s …’
‘Oh, no.’ Menolly swallowed the hard knot of dismay. ‘Not Master Domick!’ Even Piemur was careful not to annoy him. ‘Was Master Domick very … upset?’
‘In a manner of speaking, yes. But don’t worry, Menolly, I shall use the incident to your advantage. It doesn’t do to antagonize Domick unnecessarily.’
‘Not when he doesn’t like me anyhow.’ Menolly closed her eyes against a vision of Master Domick’s cynical face contorted with anger.
‘How do you construe that?’
Menolly shrugged. ‘I had to play for him yesterday, I know he doesn’t like me.’
‘Master Domick doesn’t like anyone,’ replied Sebell with a wry laugh, ‘including himself. So you’re no exception. But, as far as studying with him is concerned …’
‘I’m to study with him?’
‘Don’t panic. As a teacher, he’s top rank. I know. In some ways I think Master Domick is superior, instrumentally, to the Harper. He doesn’t have Master Robinton’s flare and vitality, nor his keen perception in matters outside the Craft.’ Although Sebell was speaking in his customary impersonal way, Menolly sensed his complete loyalty and devotion to the Masterharper. ‘You,’ and there was a slight emphasis on the pronoun, ‘will learn a great deal from Domick. Just don’t let his manner fuss you. He’s agreed to teach you, and that’s quite a concession.’
‘But I didn’t come this morning …’ The magnitude of that truancy appalled Menolly.
Sebell gave her a quick reassuring grin. ‘I said that I can turn that to your advantage. Domick doesn’t like people to ignore his instructions. It is not your worry. Now, come on. Enough of the morning has been lost.’
He had directed her up the steps into the Hall, and to her surprise opened the door into the Great Hall. It was twice the size of the dining hall, three times the size of the Great Hall at Half-Circle. Across the far end was fitted a raised and curtained platform that jutted into the floor space. Tables and benches were piled haphazardly against the inner walls and under windows. Immediately to her right were a collection of more comfortable chairs arranged in an informal grouping about a small round table. To this area Sebell motioned her and seated himself opposite her.
‘I’ve some questions to put to you, and I can’t explain why I need to have this information. It is Harper business, and if you’re told that, you’ll be wise to ask no further. I need your help …’
‘My help?’
‘Strange as that might seem, yes,’ and his brown eyes laughed at her. ‘I need to know how to sail a boat, how to gut a fish, how to act like a seaman …’
He was ticking off the points on his fingers, and she stared at his hands.
‘With those, no-one would ever believe you had sailed …’
He examined his hands impersonally. ‘Why?’
‘Seaman’s hands get gnarled quickly from popping the joints, rough from salt water and fish oil, much browner than yours from weathering …’
‘Would anyone but a seaman know that?’
‘Well, I know it.’
‘Fair enough. Can you teach me to act, from a distance,’ and his grin teased her, ‘like a seaman? Is it hard to learn to sail a boat? Or bait a hook? Or gut a fish?’
Her left palm itched, and so did her curiosity. Harper business? Why would a journeyman harper need to know such things?
‘Sailing, baiting, gutting … those are a question of practising …’
‘Could you teach me?’
‘With a boat and a place to sail, yes … with hook and bait, and a few fish.’ Then she laughed.
‘What’s funny?’
‘Just that … I thought when I came here, that I’d never need to gut a fish again.’
Sebell regarded her sardonically for a long moment, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. ‘Yes, I can appreciate that, Menolly. I was landbred and thought I’d done with walking about. Just don’t be surprised at anything you’re asked to do here. The Harper requires us to play many tunes for our Craft … not always on gitar or pipe. Now,’ and he went on more briskly, ‘I’ll arrange for the boat, the water and the fish. But when?’ At this requisite, he whistled softly through the slight gap between his two front teeth. ‘Time will be the problem, for you have lessons, and there are the two e
ggs …’ He looked her squarely in the eye then, and grinned. ‘Speaking of which, have you any idea what colour mine might be?’
She smiled back. ‘I don’t think you can really be as sure with fire lizard eggs as you can with the dragon’s, but I kept the two largest ones for Master Robinton. One ought to be a queen, and the other should turn out to be a bronze at least.’
‘A bronze fire lizard?’
The rapt expression on Sebell’s face alarmed her. What if both eggs produced browns? Or greens? As if he sensed her apprehension, Sebell smiled.
‘I don’t really care so long as I have one. The Harper says they can be trained to carry messages. And sing!’ He was a great teaser, this Sebell, thought Menolly, for all his quiet manner and solemn expressions, but she felt completely at ease with him. ‘The Harper says they can get as attached to their friends as dragons do to their riders.’
She nodded. ‘Would you like to meet mine?’
‘I would, but not now,’ he replied, shaking his head ruefully. ‘I must pick your brains about the seaman’s craft. So, tell me how goes a day at a Sea Hold?’
Amused to find herself explaining such a thing in the Harper Hall, Menolly gave the brown journeyman a drily factual account of the routine that was all she’d known for so many Turns. He was an attentive listener, occasionally repeating cogent points, or asking her to elaborate others. She was giving him a list of the various types of fish that inhabited the oceans of Pern when the tocsin rang again and her explanation was drowned by shouts as apprentices erupted into the courtyard on their way to the dining hall.
‘We’ll wait until the stampede has settled, Menolly,’ Sebell said, raising his voice above the commotion outside, ‘just give me that rundown on deep water fishes again.’
When Sebell escorted her to her place, the girls treated her with a stony silence, emphasized by pursed lips, averted eyes and then sniggers to each other. Buoyed by Sebell’s reassurances, Menolly ignored them. She concentrated on eating the roast wherry and the crusty brown tubers, bigger than she’d ever seen and so fluffy inside their crust that she ate more of them than bread.
Since the girls were so pointedly snubbing her, Menolly looked about the room. She couldn’t spot Piemur, and she wanted him to come help her feed the fire lizards in the evening. She’d better strengthen what friendships she could within the Harper Hall.
The gong again called their attention to announcements; and to her surprise, Menolly heard her own name called to report to Master Oldive. Immediately the girls fell to whispering among themselves, as if such a summons was untoward, though she couldn’t imagine why, unless they were doing it to frighten her. She continued to ignore them. And then the gong released the diners.
The girls remained where they were, pointedly not looking in her direction, and she was forced to struggle from the bench.
‘And where in the name of the first shell were you this morning?’ asked Master Domick, his face set with anger, his eyes slitted, his voice low but projected so that the girls all cowered away from him.
‘I was told to go to—’
‘So Talmor informed me,’ and he brushed aside her explanation, ‘but I had left word with Dunca for you to report to me.’
‘Dunca told me nothing, Master Domick,’ Menolly flicked a glance beyond him to the girls and saw in their smug expression the knowledge that they, too, had known there’d been a message for her, which Dunca had deliberately neglected to pass on.
‘She said she did,’ said Master Domick.
Menolly stared back at him, bereft of any response and heartily wishing for Sebell to produce his assistance.
‘I realize,’ Domick went on sarcastically, ‘that you’ve been living holdless and without authority for some time but while you are an apprentice here, you will obey the masters.’
In the face of his wrath, Menolly bowed her head. The next moment, Beauty came diving into the room, with two bronze and two brown shapes right behind her.
‘Beauty! Rocky! Diver! Stop it!’
Menolly jumped in front of Domick, arms outstretched, protecting him from the onslaught of winged retaliation.
‘What do you mean, disobeying me? Attacking Master Domick? He’s a Harper! Behave yourselves.’
Menolly had to shout because the girls, seeing the fire lizards swooping down, screamed and tried variously to get under the table or off the benches, overturning them; anywhere away from the fire lizards.
Domick had sense enough to stand still, incredulous as he was at the attack. Despite the girls’ shrieks, Menolly had the lungs to be heard when she wished to.
Twittering, Beauty circled once and then came to Menolly’s shoulder, glaring balefully at Domick from behind her mistress. The others lined up on the mantel, wings still spread, hissing, their jewelled eyes whirling, looking ready and quite willing to pounce again. As Menolly stroked Beauty to calmness, she struggled with an apology to Domick.
‘Back to work, you! The rest of you, along to your sections,’ Domick said, raising his own voice to energize the stragglers in the dining hall who had observed the strange attack, and the boys who were clearing the tables. ‘I’d forgot about your loyal defenders,’ he told Menolly in a tight but controlled voice.
‘Master Domick, will you ever forgive …’
‘Master Domick,’ said another voice near the floor, and Audiva crawled from under the table. Domick extended a hand to help the girl to her feet. She glanced towards the entrance, then gave Menolly a brief nod. ‘Master Domick, Dunca told Menolly nothing about your message, but we all knew about it. Fair’s fair.’ With one more glance at Menolly, she hurried across the dining hall to catch up with the other girls in the courtyard.
‘How did you contrive to alienate Dunca?’ asked Domick, his expression sullen but less fierce.
Menolly gulped and glanced at the fire lizards.
‘Oh, them! Yes! I can quite see her point.’ There was no flexibility in Master Domick’s attitude. ‘They do not, however, intimidate me.’
‘Master Domick—’
‘That’s enough, girl. Since you haven’t the native intelligence to be tactful, I shall have to—’
‘Master Domick—’ Sebell came hurrying up.
‘I know, I know,’ and the Master cut off the journeyman’s explanation. ‘You do seem to acquire some champions at any rate. Let’s hope the end result is worth the effort. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, promptly after breakfast, in my study, which is on the second level to the right, fourth door on the outside. You will take your pipes this afternoon to Master Jerint for the first hour. I’m told you made the pipes yourself in that cave of yours? Good! Then the second hour you’re to see Master Shonagar. Now, get yourself off to Master Oldive. His office is at the top of the steps on the inside, to your right. No, Sebell, you do not need to hover about her so protectingly. I’m not so lost to common sense as to punish her for being the victim of envy.’ He gestured imperatively at the journeyman to accompany him and then strode out of the hall. Sebell gave her a quick nod and followed.
‘Pssst!’ Attracted by the sound, Menolly looked down and saw Piemur crouched under the table.
‘Is it safe to come out?’
‘Aren’t you supposed to be in a chore section?’
‘Yeah, but never mind. I’ve got a few seconds leeway. Hey, those fribbles have it in for you, don’t they? Or maybe Dunca made them not tell you?’
‘How much did you overhear?’
‘All of it.’ Piemur grinned, getting to his feet. ‘I don’t miss much around here.’
‘Piemur!’
‘Menolly, can I help you feed the fire lizards tonight?’ he asked, eyeing Beauty warily.
‘I was going to ask you.’
‘Great!’ He beamed with pleasure. ‘And don’t worry about them,’ he added, jerking his head towards the door, meaning the girls. ‘You’re much nicer’n them.’
‘You just want to make friends with my fire lizards …’
; ‘Too right!’ His grin was impudence itself, but Menolly felt that he’d have been her friend without Beauty and the others. ‘Gotta scamper, or I’ll be put on. See you!’
She made her way to Master Oldive’s office. He had the hard-gum ball for her and showed her how to exercise her hand around it.
‘Not,’ he said, giving her the grimace of his smile, ‘that your hand will lack exercise of other sorts around here. How much does it ache?’
She mumbled something, so he gave her a stern look and laid a small pot in her hand.
‘There is only one excuse on this planet for the existence of that odorous plant known as numbweed, which is to ease pain. Use it when needed. The salve is mild enough to give you relief without loss of sensitivity.’
Beauty, who’d observed everything from her perch on Menolly’s shoulder, gave an admonitory chirp, as if agreeing with Master Oldive. The man chuckled, eyeing the little queen.
‘Things are lively with you lot about, aren’t they?’ he said, addressing the fire lizard directly. She chittered in response, turning her head this way and that as if looking him over. ‘How much larger will she grow?’ he asked Menolly. ‘I understand yours are not long out of the shell.’
Menolly coaxed Beauty from her shoulder to her forearm so that Master Oldive could examine her closely.
‘What’s this? What’s this?’ he asked, glancing from Beauty to Menolly. ‘Patchy skin?’
Menolly was horrified. She’d been so engrossed in her own problems that she hadn’t been taking proper care of her fire lizards. And here was Beauty, her back skin flaking. Probably the others were in trouble, too.
‘Oil. They need to be oiled …’
‘Don’t panic, child. The matter is easily taken care of,’ and with one long arm, he reached to the shelving above his head, and without seeming to look, brought down a large pot. ‘I make this for the ladies of the Hold, so if your creatures don’t mind smelling like females fair …’
Shaking her head, Menolly grinned with relief, remembering the stinking fish oil she’d used first for the fire lizards at the Dragon Stones cave. Master Oldive scooped up a fingertip of the ointment and gestured towards Beauty’s back. At Menolly’s encouraging nod, he gently smoothed the stuff on the patchy skin. Beauty arched her back appreciatively, crooning with relief, and then she stroked her head against his hand in gratitude.
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