Menolly wondered if Silvina had done anything about settling the rumours. Really, it just wasn’t important, Menolly told herself sternly. Particularly when Lord Groghe seemed to approve of her and had actually suggested that she help him train his queen, Merga.
Menolly laughed to herself. Just wait till those sissies heard about that! She, apprentice trainer of fire lizards, the only successful one on Pern. The teacher just one step ahead of the student. She giggled now, covering her mouth with her hands because she knew she was acting the wherry. But she’d been silly not to see before that she had several tunes to play in this Harper Hall: the tunes she made, her fire lizards – yes, and how to gut fish and trim sail whenever some harper needed to know. And why did Sebell need to know? She sighed gustily.
Too bad about those girls, though. She wished Audiva didn’t have to stay with them; she was above the general sort at the cot, and it would have been nice to have a girl friend. Not that she didn’t have a good friend in Piemur. When Piemur grew up and lost his brilliant voice, would he have to leave the Craft Hall? No, because they must surely be training him to play one of those ‘other’ tunes. She didn’t quite see him stepping into Master Shonagar’s slippers …
She rose from the window ledge, reminded of the task that Master Robinton had set her as his apprentice. She tuned her gitar and began to rehearse the Brekke song, softly lest the Harper was busy in his rooms. Did he honestly think that song, a twiddle to while the time away until Sebell returned, was good enough to be perfected?
Of their own volition, her fingers were plucking out the melody. She found herself caught up once more in the poignancy of Brekke’s anguished command! Don’t leave me alone! She played the song through, agreeing with the Harper that the fourth phrase needed polishing … ah, yes, if she dropped to the fifth, it would intensify the phrase and complement the chord.
The tocsin rang for mealtime finally, and shouts and laughter broke her concentration. She was almost angry with the disruption. But with a renewed awareness of her surroundings, she realized how her hand ached. Her back and neck muscles were stiff from crouching over the gitar. She’d no idea she’d been practising that long, but the song was set in her mind and her fingers now. She would have it finished in next to no time once she had more ink and those paper sheets.
She changed into the clothes she wanted to wear to the gather: not as rich as the girls would be wearing, but new. The close-woven trousers and the contrasting coloured tunic with the sleeveless hide jumper displaying the apprentice badge meant more to her than fine cloth and filmy scarves. As she pulled on her slippers, she noticed that the constant scuffing on the stone floors was wearing soles and toes out. At least here, she needn’t fear to approach Silvina, and perhaps her feet were healed enough for proper boots, which would last longer.
CHAPTER NINE
The fickle wind’s my foe,
With tide his keen ally.
They’re jealous of my sea’s love
And rouse her with their lie.
Oh sweet sea, oh dear sea,
Heed not their stormy wile
But bear me safely to my hold
And from their watery trial.
Eastern Sea Hold Song
THERE WAS AN excitement in the air of the dining hall, the boys chattering more loudly than ever, a conversational buzz that dropped off only slightly when they were seated and the heavy platters of steaming meat slices were brought around. She sat with Ranly, Piemur and Timiny, who all urged her to eat hearty for they’d be lucky to get stale bread for supper.
‘Silvina counts on our stuffing ourselves on our own marks at the gather,’ Piemur told Menolly as he crammed meat into his mouth. He groaned as she heaped tubers on his plate. ‘I hate ’em.’
‘You’re lucky to have ’em. They were treats where I come from.’
‘Then you have mine.’ He was generosity itself, but she made him eat his own.
No-one spent time over the meal, and the diners were dismissed as soon as Brudegan had called out the list of names.
‘Well, I’m not on a turn today,’ said Piemur with the air of a last minute reprieve.
‘Turn?’
‘Yeah, being Harper Hall and all, this Hold expects continuous music, but no-one does more than one set, either singing or dance music. No great problem. You know, Menolly, you’d better tell your fire lizards to stay away,’ Piemur said as they all made their way across the courtyard to the archway. The other boys nodded in agreement. ‘No telling what ragtag is going to appear at a gather.’ He sounded darkly foreboding.
‘Who’d hurt a fire lizard?’ Menolly asked, surprised.
‘Not hurt ’em. Just want ’em.’
Menolly looked up and saw her friends sunning on the window ledges. As if her notice was sufficient, Beauty and Rocky came streaking down to her, chirping enquiringly.
‘Couldn’t I just take Beauty? No-one sees her when she hides in my hair.’
Piemur shook his head slowly from side to side. The other boys mimicked him with earnest expressions of concern.
‘We,’ and he meant Harpers, ‘know about you and having nine. There’s some dimwits coming today who wouldn’t understand. And you’re wearing an apprentice badge: apprentices don’t own nothing or count for anything. They’re the lowest of the low and have to obey any journeyman, or master, or even a senior apprentice in any other craft. Shells, you know how Beauty acts when someone tries to rank you? You can’t have Beauty taking a swipe at an honourable journeyman or craftmaster, now can you? Or someone from the Hold?’ He jerked his thumb towards the cliffside as he dropped his voice to keep the mere possibility of such discourtesy from exalted ears.
‘That would get Master Robinton in trouble?’ Considering the gossip work already done at the Hold, Menolly would as soon remain anonymous to them.
‘It could!’ Ranly and Timiny nodded in solemn accord.
‘How do you manage to stay out of trouble, Piemur?’ Menolly asked.
‘ ’Cause I watch my step at a gather. One thing to cut up in the Hall when it’s all Harpers, but …’
‘Hey, Piemur.’ They all turned and saw Brolly and another apprentice whom Menolly did not know running towards them. Brolly had a brightly painted tambourine and the other a handsomely polished tenor pipe.
‘Thought we might have missed you, Piemur,’ the boy gasped. ‘Here’s my pipe, and Master Jerint stamped it and Brolly’s tambourine. Will you take ’em to the marksman now?’
‘Sure. And it’s my father’s friend, Pergamol, like I told you it would be.’
Piemur took charge of the instruments, and with a quirk of a smile at Menolly, led the way towards the loosely arranged stalls on the perimeter of the gather’s square.
For the first time Menolly realized how many people lived in this Hold area. She would have liked to watch a bit on the sidelines, to get used to such a throng of people, but grabbing her hand, Piemur led her right into their midst.
She nearly piled into Piemur when he came to a sudden complete stop in the space between two booths. He glanced warningly over his shoulder, and Menolly noticed that he had the instruments behind his back as he composed his face into an expression of wistful ingenuousness. A tanner journeyman was bargaining with the well-dressed marksman in the stall, his Smithcraft badge gleaming with a gold thread in the design.
‘See, it is Pergamol,’ Piemur said out of the side of his mouth. ‘Now you lot go on, across there to the knife stand until I’m finished. Men don’t like a lot of hangers about when they’re agreeing the mark. No, Menolly, you can stay!’ Piemur snatched her back by the jerkin as she obediently started to follow the others.
Although Menolly could see Pergamol’s lips moving, she heard nothing of his speech and only an occasional murmur from the bargaining journeyman. The Smithcraft marksman continually stroked the finely tanned wherhide as he dickered, almost as if he hoped to find some flaw in the hide so he could argue a further reduction. The hide was a lovely b
lue, like a summer sky when the air is clear and the sun setting.
‘Probably dyed to order,’ Piemur whispered to her. ‘Selling it direct neither has to pay turnover fee. With us, once Jerint has stamped the instrument, the marksman doesn’t have to say it was apprentice-made. So we get a better price not selling at the Harper booth, where they have to say who made it.’
Now Menolly could appreciate Piemur’s strategy.
The bargain was handsealed, and marks slipped across the counter. The blue hide was carefully folded and put away in a travel bag. Piemur waited until the journeyman had chatted, as courtesy required, and then he skipped to the front of the stall before anyone else could intervene.
‘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 turnover. 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 an 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 bubbly 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 manoeuvred 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 marvellous 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’re 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 in Palim’s hand. ‘I trust your pies will live up to sta
ndard.’
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 the 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!’
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