Dragonsinger (dragon riders of pern) Read online

  “Can’t you sit opposite me?” asked Menolly, hopefully. It would be nice to have someone to talk to during the meal.

  “I’m not allowed anymore.” “Not allowed?”

  Alternating between sour disgust and pleased recollection, Piemur gave a shrug. “Pona complained to Dunca, and she got on to Silvina…”

  “What did you do?”

  “Oh, nothing much,” Piemur’s shrug was eloquent enough for Menolly to guess that he’d probably been downright wicked. “Pona’s a sorry wherry hen, you know, rank-happy and pleased to pull it. So I can’t sit near the girls anymore.”

  She might regret the prohibition, but it enhanced her estimation of Piemur. As she reluctantly made her way toward the girls, it occurred to her that all she had to do to avoid sitting with them was to be late to meals. Then she’d have to sit where she could. That remedy pleased her so much that she walked more resolutely to her place and endured the hostility of the girls with fortitude. She matched their coldness with stony indifference and ate heartily of the soup, cheese and bread and the sweet pasty that finished the simple supper. She listened politely to the evening announcements of rehearsal times and the fact that Threadfall was expected midday tomorrow. All were to hold themselves close to the Hall, to perform their allotted tasks before, during and after Fall. Menolly heard, with private amusement, the nervous whispering of the girls at the advent of Threadfall and permitted herself to smile in disdain at their terror. They couldn’t really be that afraid of a menace they’d known all their lives?

  She made no move to leave the table when they did, but she was sure that she caught Audiva’s wink as the girl followed the others out. When she judged them well away, she rose. Maybe she’d be able to get back into the cot again without confronting Dunca.

  “Ah, Menolly, a moment if you please.” The cheery voice of the Masterharper sang out as she reached the entrance. Robinton was standing by the stairs, talking to Sebell, and he gestured for Menolly to join them. “Come and check our eggs for us. I know Lessa said it would be a few more days but…and the Harper shrugged his anxiety. “This way…” As she accompanied the two men to the upper level, he went on. “Sebell says that you’re a mine of information.” He grinned down at her. “Didn’t ever think you’d have to talk fish in a Harper Hall, did you?”

  “No, sir, I didn’t. But then, I don’t think I really knew what does go on in a Harper Hall.”

  “Well said, Menolly, well said,” and the Harper laughed as well as Sebell. “The other crafts can jibe that we want to know too much about what is not strictly our business, but I’ve always felt knowledge of matters minor or major makes for better understandings. The mind that will not admit it has something more to learn tomorrow is in danger of stagnating.”

  “Yes, sir.” Menolly caught Sebell’s eye, anxiously hoping that the Harper had not heard the minor—or was it major—matter about her missing her scheduled lesson with Domick. An almost imperceptible shake of the brown man’s head reassured her.

  “Give me your opinion of our eggs, Menolly, for I must be out and about a great deal, but I don’t wish to risk the Hatching without me in attendance. Right, Sebell?”

  “Nor do I wish two fire lizards instead of the one I’m entitled to have.”

  The two men exchanged knowing glances as Menolly obediently checked the eggs in their warm pots. She turned each one slightly so that the colder side faced the heat of the glowing embers on the hearth. Robinton added a few more blackstones and then eyed her expectantly.

  “Well, sir, the eggs are hardening, but they are not hard enough to hatch today or tomorrow.”

  “So, will you check again tomorrow morning for me, Menolly? I must be away, although Sebell will always know where I can be reached.”

  Menolly assured the Masterharper that she would keep a watchful eye on the eggs and inform Sebell if there were any alarming changes. The Harper walked her back through his study to the door.

  “Now, Menolly, you’ve played for Domick, been thoroughly catechized by Morshal and sung for Shonagar. Jerint says your pipes are quite allowable, and the drum is well-constructed and should dry out sound. The fire lizards will sing sweetly with others than yourself, so you’ve accomplished a very great deal in your first days here. Hasn’t she, Sebell?”

  Sebell agreed, smiling at her in a quiet, kind way. She wondered if either man knew how Dunca and the girls felt about her presence in the Harper Hall.

  “And I can leave the matter of the eggs in your good hands. That’s grand. That’s very good, indeed,” the Masterharper said, combing his fingers through his silvered hair.

  For a fleeting moment, his usually mobile face was still, and in that unguarded moment, Menolly saw signs of strain and worry. Then he smiled so cheerfully that she wondered if she’d imagined his weariness. Well, she could certainly spare him anxiety about the fire lizards. She’d check them several times during the day, even if it made her late to Master Shonagar.

  As she returned to the cot, pleased that there was some small way in which she could serve the Masterharper, she recalled what he’d said about fish in a Harper Hall. For the first time, Menolly realized that she’d never really thought about life in a Harper Hall—except as a place where music was played and created. Petiron had spoken hazily about apprentices and his time as a journeyman, but nothing in detail. She had imagined the Harper Hall as some magical place, where people sang all conversations, or earnestly copied Records. The reality was almost commonplace, up to and especially including Dunca and the spiteful Pona. Why she had considered all Harpers, and harper people, above such pettiness, endowed with more humanity than Morshal or Domick had shown her, she did not know. She smiled at her naivety. And yet, Harpers like Sebell and Robinton, even Domick, were above the ordinary. And Silvina and Piemur were basically good, and certainly had been kind to her. She was in far better circumstances than she’d ever enjoyed in Half-Circle, so she could put up with a little unpleasantness, surely.

  It was as well she had reached this conclusion because, no sooner was she inside the door, than Dunca pounced on her with a list of grievances. Menolly received a tirade about her fire lizards, how dangerous and unreliable the creatures were, how they must behave themselves or Dunca would not tolerate them, that Menolly had better realize how little rank mattered in Dunca’s cot and that, as the newcomer, she must behave with more deference to those who had been studying far longer at the Craft Hall. Menolly’s attitude was presumptuous, uncooperative, unfriendly and discourteous, and Dunca was not having a tunnel-snake in her cot where the girls were as friendly and as considerate of one another as fosterer could wish.

  After the first few sentences, Menolly realized that she could put forth no defense of herself or her friends acceptable to Dunca. All she could do was say “yes” and “no” at appropriate intervals, when Dunca was forced to stop for breath. And every time Menolly thought the woman must surely have exhausted the subject, she would surge onto another imagined slight until Menolly seriously considered calling Beauty to her. The appearance of the fire lizard would certainly curtail the flow of abuse, but would irrevocably destroy any possibility of getting into Dunca’s fair record.

  “Now, have I made myself plain?” Dunca asked unexpectedly.

  “You have,” and since Menolly’s calm acceptance momentarily robbed Dunca of speech, the girl flew up the steps, ignoring the stiffness of her feet and grinning at the explosive and furious reprimands Dunca made at her retreat.

  Chapter 6

  The tears I feel today

  I’ll wait to shed tomorrow.

  Though I’ll not sleep this night

  Nor find surcease from sorrow.

  My eyes must keep their sight:

  I dare not be tear-blinded.

  I must be free to talk

  Not choked with grief, clear-minded.

  But my grief will never go.

  Menolly’s “Song for Petiron”

  Beauty woke her at sunrise. T
he other fire lizards were awake, too, though one thing was sure, no one else in the cot was awake yet.

  Last night, when Menolly had reached the relative safety of her room, she had closed and barred the door, and then opened the shutters to admit her friends. She had recovered her composure by oiling their patchy skin with Master Oldive’s salve. This was the first opportunity she’d had since they’d left the cave by the Dragon Stones to tend and fondle each one. They, too, were communicative. She got many impressions from them, mostly that they’d been bathing daily in the lakes above Fort Hold, which weren’t much fun because there weren’t any waves to sport in. Menolly caught pictures from their minds of great dragons and of a Weyr differing in shape from Benden. Beauty’s pictures were the sharpest. Menolly had enjoyed her quiet evening with them; it had made up for Dunca’s irrational attitudes.

  Now, as she became aware of the early morning stillness, she knew she’d have time to do a few tasks for herself. She could get a bath and wash the fruit stains out of her tunic. It ought to dry quickly on the window ledge in the morning sun. There should be time before Threadfall, for she remembered that would occur today.

  Quietly she unbarred the door, listening in the corridor, and heard only the faintest echo of a snore. Probably Dunca. Adjuring her fire lizards to silence, she walked noiselessly down the steps to the bathing room at the back of the first level. She’d always heard of the thermal pools in the big Holds and Weyrs, but this was her first experience with them. The fire lizards came clustering in behind her, and she hushed their excited twitterings at the sight of the waist-high trough of steaming water. Menolly dipped her fingers in the warm water, checked to see if there were sandsoap and then, throwing her clothes on the floor, slipped into the bath.

  The water was delightfully warm and soft to her skin, a change from the harsh sea or the mineral-heavy water in Half-Circle Sea Hold. Menolly submerged completely and came up, shaking her hair. She’d wash all over. One of the others pushed Auntie Two into the bath, and she let out a high-pitched squeal of protest and fright, then paddled happily about in the warm water. The next thing Menolly knew, all the fire lizards were splashing about, their talons unexpectedly catching her bare skin or tangling in her hair. She hushed them often and sternly, because she wasn’t sure how far noise carried from the bathing room: all she’d need, after last night, was for Dunca to come charging in, roused from her night’s rest by her least-wanted guests.

  Menolly sandsoaped all of the fire lizards thoroughly, rinsed them well, got herself, her hair and finally her clothes well washed, then got back to her room without anyone the wiser for her early morning activity. She was oiling a rough patch on Mimic’s back when she heard the first stirrings outside: the cheery greetings of the herdsmen going to attend their beasts who would be bound today with Threadfall due. She wondered how Fall would affect the business of the Harper Hall: probably the apprentices and journeymen were required to assist the holders in flame-thrower details. Thank goodness no one had asked her what she’d done after Fall in Half-Circle. She heard the slamming of a door below and decided that Dunca was up. Menolly slipped into her only other clothes, the patched tunic and trousers of her cave days. They were at least clean and neat.

  They were not, however, it was pointed out to Menolly at the breakfast table, suitable attire for a young lady living in Dunca’s cot. When Menolly explained that she had only the one other change, which was now drying, Dunca let out a shriek of outrage and demanded to know where the clothes were drying. Menolly was emphatically told that she had committed yet another unwitting sin by hanging her washing—like the commonest field worker—on the window ledge. She was ordered to bring down the offending garments, still damp, and shown by the fuming Dunca where such laundry was to be hung, in the inner recesses of the cot. Where, Menolly was sure, they would take days to dry and smell musty besides with no air to freshen them.

  Very much aware of her disgrace and destitute condition, Menolly finished her breakfast as quickly as possible. But when she rose from the table, Dunca demanded to know where she thought she was going.

  “I must feed my fire lizards, Dunca, and I was told to report to Master Domick this morning…”

  “No message was received by me to such effect.” Dunca drew herself up in officious disbelief.

  “Master Domick told me yesterday.”

  “He made no mention of such instructions to me.” Dunca’s manner implied that Menolly was making up the order.

  “Probably because yesterday’s message went astray.”

  And, while Dunca stammered and stuttered, Menolly slipped out of the room and out of the cot, trotting across the road, the fire lizards gracefully swirling above her head until they were sure she was headed toward the Harper Hall. Then they disappeared.

  They were perched on the window ledges when she reached the kitchen corner, their eyes whirling redly in anticipation of breakfast. There seemed to be more than the usual amount of confusion in the kitchen, but Camo, once he caught sight of her, immediately put down the side of herdbeast he’d been lugging and left the carcass, its legs obscenely dropping across the passage, while he disappeared back into the storeroom. He emerged with yet a bigger bowl, scraps spilling down its sides as he jogged to meet her. Suddenly he gave a startled cry; and Menolly, peering in the window, saw that Abuna, wooden spoon upraised, was chasing after him. He slithered by, but her dress got caught on the extruding legs of the carcass.

  Menolly ducked into the space between the windows, fervently hoping that Camo’s preoccupation with the feeding of fire lizards was not going to cause a major breach with Abuna. There might be nothing to fear from harpers, but the women in the Harper Hall were certainly possible enemies.

  “Menolly, am I too late…” Piemur came charging across the from the apprentice dormitory, his boots half-fastened, his tunic laces untied and his face and hair showing signs of halfhearted washing.

  Before he could assemble his clothing properly, Rocky, Lazy and Mimic attached themselves to him: Camo came out of the kitchen to be assaulted by his three; and the three humans were exhorted by shrill hungry creelings to be fed.

  Camo’s great bowl was finally emptied, and as if on cue, Abuna’s voice rose to command Camo back to his duties. Menolly hurriedly thanked the man and pushed him urgently down the kitchen steps, assuring him that he’d saved quite enough food for the pretties, that the pretties could not stuff in another mouthful.

  When the breakfast gong sounded, Menolly stayed in the kitchen corner until the courtyard was cleared of the hungry harpers. She had to see Master Domick, for which interview she would need her gitar. She went to the archroom to collect it and lingered there, since everyone was still eating. She tuned the gitar, delighting afresh in its rich sweet tone. She attempted some of the bridges from the music she’d played in the abortive lesson with the girls, stretching and stretching against the pull of the scar until her hand muscles went into a spasm of cramping. All of a sudden, she remembered her other chore; to check the fire lizard eggs. But, if the Masterharper were still asleep… No way of telling from here. She ran lightly down the steps, pleased that her feet were less stiff and tender this morning. She paused in the main hall, listening, and heard the distinctive sound of the Masterharper’s voice at the round table. So she hurried up the steps and down the corridor to his room.

  The fire lizard pots were warm on the side away from the fire, so they’d obviously just been turned. She uncovered each egg and checked the shells for hardness, for any sign of cracking or striation. They were fine. She gently covered them with sand and replaced the lids.

  As she emerged from the Masterharper’s rooms, she heard Master Domick’s voice on the steps. With him were Sebell, carrying a small harp, and Talmor, gitar slung across his back.

  “There she is,” Sebell said. “You checked the eggs, Menolly?”

  “I did, sir. They’re fine.”

  “Come this way, then, step lively now…if you can…” Domick s
aid, frowning as he belatedly recalled her disability.

  “My feet are nearly as good as new now, sir,” she told him.

  “Well, you’re not to run any races with Thread today, hear?”

  Menolly wasn’t certain, as she followed the three men into the study, if Domick were teasing her or not. He sounded so sour, it was difficult to tell, but Sebell caught her eye and winked. Domick’s study, well-lit by huge baskets of glows, was dominated by the biggest sandtable Menolly had ever seen, with all its spaces glass-covered, though she politely averted her eyes from the inscriptions. Domick might not like people peering at his music. The shelves were jammed with loose record hides, and thin, white-bleached sheets of some substance evenly cut along the edges. She tried to get a closer look at them, but Master Domick called her to attention by telling her to take the middle stool.

  Sebell and Talmor were already settling themselves before the music rack and tuning their instruments. So she took her place and cast a quick glance at the music before them. With a thrill of surprise, she saw that it was for four instruments, and no easy read.

  “You’re to play second gitar, Menolly,” Domick said, with the smile of one who is conferring a favor. He picked up a metal pipe with finger stops, one of the flutes that Petiron had told her were used by more accomplished pipers. She politely suppressed her curiosity, but she couldn’t control her delighted surprise when Domick ran a test scale. It sounded like a fire lizard’s voice.

  “You’ll need to look through the music,” he said, observing her interest.

  “I will?”

  Master Domick cleared his throat. “It is customary with music you’ve never seen before.” He tapped the music with his pipe. “That,” and his tone was very acid, “is no children’s exercise. Despite your display for Talmor yesterday, you will not find this easy to read.”

  Rebuked, she skimmed the music, trying an alternative chording in one measure to see which would be easier on her hand at that tempo. The complexity of the chording was so fascinating that she forgot she was keeping three harpers waiting. “I beg your pardon.” She turned the music back to the beginning and looked at Domick for him to give them the beat.