Chapter 7
Don’t leave me alone!
A cry in the night,
Of anguish heart-striking,
Of soul-killing fright.
The restlessness of the fire lizards about her woke Menolly from a deep sleep. She wished irritably that they didn’t insist on sleeping with her; it had been an exciting and trying day, and she’d had a hard enough time getting to sleep. Her hand ached so from the day’s playing that she’d had to slather the scar with numbweed to dull the pain. Beauty’s tail twitched violently against Menolly’s ear. She nudged the little queen, hoping to stir her out of whatever dream disturbed her. But Beauty was awake, not dreaming: her eyes, yellow and whirling with anxiety. All the fire lizards were awake and unusually alert in the dark of the night.
Seeing that Menolly’s eyes were open, Beauty crooned, a half-fearful, half-worried sound. Rocky and Diver minced up Menolly’s legs and crouched on her stomach, extending their heads toward her. Their eyes, too, were whirling with the speed and shade of fear. The rest, cuddling close against her, crooned for comfort.
Propping herself up on one elbow, Menolly peered toward the open windows. She could just distinguish the Fort Hold fire heights, black against the dark sky. It took her some time to locate the dark bulk of the watch dragon. He was motionless, so whatever distressed the fire lizards did not apparently concern him.
“Whatever is your problem, Beauty?”
The little queen’s croon increased its intensity. First Rocky, then Diver, added their notes. Aunties One and Two crept up and nuzzled to get under Menolly’s left arm. Lazy, Mimic and Uncle burrowed into the fur at her right side, their twined tails latching fiercely onto her wrist while Brownie piteously paced across her feet. They were afraid.
“What’s gotten into you?” Menolly couldn’t for the life of her imagine anything within the Harper Craft Hall that would menace them. Covet them, yes; injure them, no.
“Shush a minute and let me listen.” Beauty and Rocky gave little spurting sounds of fear, but they obeyed her. She listened as hard as she could, but the only sounds on the night air were the comfortable murmur of men’s voices and an occasional laugh from the Hall beneath her. It wasn’t as late as it had first seemed to her then, if the masters and older journeymen were still chatting.
Gently disengaging tails, Menolly slipped from her sleeping furs to the window. Several rectangles of light shone on the stones of the courtyard, two from the Great Hall and one above it, from Robinton’s quarters, beyond hers.
Beauty gave a worried cheep and flew to Menolly’s shoulder, wrapping her tail tightly around the girl’s neck and burrowing into her hair, the slender little body trembling. The others set up an anxious clamor from the furs, so Menolly hurriedly returned to them. They were panic-stricken. The Masterharper might not approve of Silvina’s moving her into this room if her fire lizards disturbed his studies at night. She tried to quiet them with a soft song, but now Beauty’s voice rose querulously above her lullaby. Menolly gathered all of the fire lizards against her. Their tails twined about her arms so firmly that she couldn’t use her hands to stroke them.
Now she felt a confused sense of imminent danger; clearly all the fire lizards were responding to a mutually experienced threat. Menolly fought against the panic their fear stirred in her.
“You’re being ridiculous. What can harm us in the Harper Hall?”
Beauty on one side, Rocky on the other, stroked her face urgently with their heads, cheeping in mounting distress. Through their touch and minds, she got the distinct impression that they were reacting to a fear beyond them, beyond the walls, at a distance.
“Then how could it hurt you?”
Suddenly their terror erupted in her with such intensity that she cried out.
“Don’t!” Her injunction was spontaneous. She tried to throw up her arms to protect herself from this unknown danger, but her hands were lizard-bound. Their fear was completely and utterly hers. And, incoherently, she repeated the cry, “Don’t! DONT!”
In her mind, out of nowhere, Menolly received an indelible impression of turbulence: savage, ruthless, destructive; a pressure inexorable and deadly; churning masses of slick, sickly gray surfaces that heaved and dipped. Heat as massive as a tidal wave. Fear! Terror! An inarticulate longing!
A scream, heard in her mind, a scream like a knife upon raw nerves!
“DON’T LEAVE ME ALONE!”
Menolly didn’t think she had cried out. She was, as far as she could think sanely, certain that she hadn’t heard the cry, but she knew that the words had been spoken at the extreme of someone’s anguish.
Simultaneously the door to her room burst open, and the watch dragon on the Hold fire heights let out a shriek so like the one in her mind that she wondered if the dragon had called before. But dragon’s don’t speak.
“Menolly! What’s wrong?” Master Robinton was striding across the floor to her. The fire lizards took wing, darting out one window and back in the next, maniacal with fear.
“The dragon!” Menolly pointed, diverting Robinton’s eyes to the window, to prove that she wasn’t alone in alarm. They both saw the watch dragon launching himself, riderless, into the sky, bulging his distress. Robinton and Menolly heard, on the night air, the faint echo of answering bugles, a moment of silence and then the eerie screech of an hysterical watchwher from the Fort Hold court.
“Is every winged thing in the Hold out of its mind?” asked Robinton. “What made you scream, Menolly? ‘Don’t what?”
“I don’t know,” Menolly cried, tears streaming down her face. She experienced a profound grief now and hugged herself against the chill of an awe-filled panic she couldn’t explain and yet had experienced so profoundly. “I just don’t know.”
Robinton ducked as Beauty, leading the others, swooped past him and out the window. The queen was screaming at the others to follow. Menolly saw them outlined briefly by the light of the Masterharper’s window and then the entire fair disappeared. Before Menolly, frightened for fear the fire lizards had gone completely from her, could tell Master Robinton, Domick came charging into the room.
“Robinton, what’s going on-“
“Quiet, Domick!” The Masterharper’s stern voice interrupted. “Whatever has frightened Menolly has also alarmed the watch dragon, and even the dead could bear that watchwher’s howling. Furthermore, the dragon went between, without his rider!”
“What?” Domick was startled, no longer angry.
“Menolly,” said Robinton, his hands warm and firm on her shoulder, his voice kindly calm, “take a deep breath. Now, take another. . .”
“I can’t. I can’t. Something terrible is happening,” and Menolly was appalled at the sobs that tore at her, the cold terror that made her tremble so violently in the grip of this unknown disaster. “It’s something terrible . . .”
Others were crowding into her room now, roused by her involuntary cries. Someone said loudly that there wasn’t anything stirring in the court or on any of the roads. Another remarked that it was ridiculous to be startled out of a sound sleep by an hysterical child, trying to attract attention.
“Hold your silly tongue, Morshal,” said Silvina, pushing through the crowd to Menolly’s bed. “Better still, get off to your beds. All of you. You’re no help here.”
“Yes, if you’d please leave,” said Robinton in a voice as close to anger as anyone had ever heard in him.
“It isn’t the eggs hatching, it is?” Sebell asked anxiously.
Menolly shook her head, struggling to control herself and to stop the spasmodic shudders of fear that were depriving her of voice and wit enough to explain what was so inexplicable.
Silvina was soothing her. “Her hands are ice cold, Robinton,” she said, and Menolly clung to the woman, as Robinton slipped to the other side of the double cot to support her shuddering body. “And these aren’t hysterical tremors . . .”
Abruptly the spasms eased, then ceased completely. Menolly went limp against Silvina, gasping for breath, forcing herself to breathe as deeply as Robinton again urged her to do.
“Whatever was wrong has stopped,” she said, spent.
Silvina and the Harper eased her against the bed rushes, Silvina drawing the fur up to her neck.
“Did the fire lizards take a fit?” the headwoman asked, glancing about the now-bright room. “They’re not here . . .”
“I saw them go between. I don’t know where. They were so afraid. It was incredible. There was nothing I could do.”
“Take your time and tell us,” said the Masterharper.
“I don’t know all of it. I woke because they were so restless. They usually sleep quietly. And they got more and more frightened. And there wasn’t anything . . . nothing ... I could see that . . .”
“Yes, yes, but something caused them to react.” Robinton had captured her hand and was stroking it reassuringly. “Tell us the sequence.”
“They were frightened out of their wits. And it got to me, too. Then,” and Menolly swallowed quickly against that flash of vivid impression, “then, in my mind, I was aware of something so dangerous, so terrible, something heaving, and gray and deadly . . . Masses of it . . . all gray and . . . and . . . terrible! Hot, too. Yes, the heat was part of the terror. Then a longing. I don’t know which was the worst . . .” She clutched at the comforting hands and could not keep back the sobs of fright that rose from her guts. “I wasn’t asleep either. It wasn’t just a bad dream!”
“Don’t talk anymore, Menolly. We can hope the terror has passed completely.”
“No, I have to tell you. That’s part of it. I’m supposed to tell. Then . . . I heard, only I didn’t hear . . . except that it was as clear as if someone had shouted it right in this room . . . right inside my head . . . I heard something scream, ‘Don’t leave me alone!’”
The muscles in her body relaxed all at once now that she had spoken of the weight of terror.
“’Don’t leave me alone’?” The Harper repeated the words half to himself, puzzling over the significance of the phrase.
“It’s all gone now. Being afraid, I mean . . . and . . .”
The fire lizards swooped back into the room, aiming for the bed, but some of them dipped and darted for the window ledges, away from Master Robinton and Silvina, twittering, but only with surprise, not fear. Beauty and the two bronzes landed on the foot of the double cot, chirping at Menolly with little calls that sounded so normally inquisitive that Menolly let out an exasperated exclamation.
“Don’t scold them, Menolly,” said the Masterharper. “See if you can determine where they’ve just been.”
Menolly beckoned to Beauty, who obediently crawled up to her arm and permitted Menolly to stroke her head and body.
“She’s certainly not bothered by anything now.”
“Yes, but where did she go?”
Menolly raised Beauty to her face, looking into the idly whirling eyes, laying the back of her hand against Beauty’s cheek. “Where’d you go, pet? Where have you just been?”
Beauty stroked Menolly’s hand, gave a smug chirrup, cocking her dainty head to one side. But an impression reached Menollys mind, of a Weyr Bowl, and many dragons and excited people.
“I think they’ve been back to Benden Weyr. It must be Benden! They don’t know Fort Weyr well enough to be that vivid. And whatever happened involved many dragons and lots of excited people.”
“Ask Beauty what frightened her.”
Menolly stroked the little queen’s head for a moment longer, to reassure her, because the question was sure to upset the little fire lizard. It did. Beauty launched herself from Menolly’s arm so violently that her talons scratched deep enough to draw blood.
“A dragon falling in the sky!” Menolly gasped out the picture. “Dragons don’t fall in the sky.”
“She scratched you, child . . .”
“Oh, that’s nothing, Master Robinton, but I don’t think we’ll get anything more out of her.”
Beauty was clinging to the fireplace, chittering irritably, her eyes wheeling angrily orange.
“If something has happened at Benden Weyr, Master Robinton,” remarked Silvina in a dry tone of voice, “they won’t be overlong in sending for you.” Silvina had to raise her voice to counteract the excited cries of the other fire lizards, who were reacting to Beauty’s scolding. “We’d best not upset the creatures any further now. And I’m getting you a dose, young lady, or you’ll never sleep tonight from the look of your eyes.”
“I didn’t mean to disturb everyone . . .”
Silvina gave her an exasperated snort, dismissing the need for an apology, although Menolly couldn’t help but see, as Silvina opened the door, that harpers were lingering in the corridor. Menolly heard Silvina berating them and telling them to get off to their beds, what did they think they knew about fire lizards?
“The strangest aspect to this incident, Menolly,” said the Masterharper, his forehead creased with thought lines, “is that the dragon reacted, too. I’ve never seen a dragon-short of a mating flight-go off without his rider. I shouldn’t wonder,” and Robinton smiled wryly, “if we don’t have T’ledon over here demanding an explanation from you for the disappearance of his dragon.”
The notion of a dragonrider compelled to ask her for advice was so absurd that Menolly managed a weak smile.
“How’s that hand? You’ve been playing a lot, I hear,” and the Harper turned her left hand over in his. “That scar’s too red. You have been doing too much. Make haste a little more slowly. Is it painful?”
“Not much. Master Oldive gave me some salve.”
“And your feet?”
“So long as I don’t have to stand too much or walk too’ far . . .”
“Too bad your fire lizards can’t combine to give you one little dragonpower.”
“Sir?”
“Yes?”
“I think I ought to tell you . . . my fire lizards can lift things. They brought me my pipes the other day . . . to spare me the walk . . .” she added hastily. “They took it from my room at the cot, all in a cluster, and then dropped it into my hands!”
“Now that is very interesting. I didn’t realize they had so much initiative. You know, Brekke, Mirrim and F’nor have got theirs to carry messages on a collar about their necks . . .” The Masterharper smiled with amusement, “. . . though they aren’t always good about arriving promptly.”
“I think you have to make certain they know how urgent the matter is.”
“Like having your pipes for Master Jerint?”
“I didn’t wish to be late, and I can’t walk fast.”
“We’ll let that stand as the reason then, Menolly,” said Robinton gently, and when Menolly glanced up at him startled, she saw the kind understanding in his eyes and flushed. He stroked her hand again. “What I don’t know, I sometimes guess, knowing the way people interact, Menolly. Don’t keep so much bottled inside, girl. And do tell me anything unusual that your fire lizards do. That’s far more important than why they did it. We don’t know much about these tiny cousins of the dragons, and I have a suspicion they’ll be very important creatures to us.”
“Is the little white dragon all right?”
“Reading my mind, too, Menolly? Little Ruth is all right,” but the Harper’s heavy, slightly hesitant tone gave the lie to his reassurance. “Don’t fret yourself about Jaxom and Ruth. Just about everyone else on Pern does.” He placed her hand back on the furs with a final pat.
Silvina returned, offering Menolly the mug she’d brought, and stood over her while she downed the dose, gagging a little at the bitterness.
“Yes, I know. I made it strong on purpose. You need to sleep. And Master Robinton, there’s a messenger from the Hold for you below. Urgent, he said, and he’s out of breath!”
“Sleep yourself out, Menolly,” the Harper said as he rapidly left the room.
“Trouble?” Menolly asked Silvina, hoping to be told something.
“Not for you, or because of you, m’girl.” Silvina chuckled, pushing the sleeping fur under Menolly’s chin. “I understand that Groghe, Lord of Fort Hold, expenenced the same unnerving nightmare, as he calls it, that you did and has sent for Master Robinton to explain it to him. Now rest and don’t fuss yourself.”
“How could I? You must have doubled that dose of fellis juice,” said Menolly, relaxed and tactless in the grip of the drug. She couldn’t keep her eyes open and effortlessly drifted to sleep to the sound of another chuckle from Silvina. One last thought let her slip easily into unconsciousness: Lord Groghe’s fire lizard had reacted, so she wasn’t hysterical.
She awoke slightly at one point, not quite conscious of her surroundings but aware of a rumbling voice, a treble response, and hungry creelings. When she woke completely later, there was an empty bowl on the floor, and her friends were curled up about her in slumbering balls, wing-limp. The gnawing in her stomach suggested that she had slept well into the day, and the hunger was all her own. If the fire lizards had been that starved, they’d’ve been awake. Doubtless Camo and Piemur had done her the favor of feeding her friends. She grinned; Piemur and Camo must have been delighted at the chance.
The shutters were open and, with no sounds of music or voices, she guessed it must be afternoon and the Hall’s population dispersed to their various chores. The watch dragon was back on the fire heights.
She sat upright in bed as the memory of the previous night’s terror shattered her pleasant somnolence. At the same moment there was a tap on her door, and before she could answer, Silvina entered, carrying a small tray.
“My timing’s very good,” she said, pleased and smiling. “Do you feel rested?”
Menolly nodded in reply and thanked Silvina for the hot klah she was handed. “But, if I can be bold, you don’t look as if you slept at all.” Silvina’s eyes were dark-circled and red-shot.
“Well, you’re right and you’re not bold, but I’m on my way to my bed, I can assure you, as soon as I’ve straightened up for Robinton. Now . . .” and Silvina nudged Menolly’s hip so the girl made room for her to sit on the bed, “you ought to hear what disturbed your friends last night. No one else will think to tell you with the Harper away. Also, I’ve just checked the eggs, and I think you should take a look at them . . . Not, however, until you’ve finished your klah,” and Silvina put a restraining hand on Menolly’s shoulder. “I want your wits in place and not fellis-fuddled.”
“What happened?”
“The bare bones of the matter are that F’nor, brown Canth’s rider, took it into his head to go to the Red Star last night . . .”
Menolly’s gasp woke the fire lizards.
“Mind your thoughts, girl. I don’t want them turning hysterical again, thank you.” Silvina waited until the creatures had settled back into their naps.
“That’s what seems to have set the fire lizards off, at any rate. And not just yours. Robinton said that anyone who has a fire lizard had the same trouble you did, only with your having nine, it was intensified. What happened was that Canth and F’nor went between to the Red Star . . . Yes, small wonder you were terrified. What you told us about grayness and all that hideous heat and churning, that’s what’s on the Red Star. No one could land there!” She paused, gave a smug grunt. “That’ll shut up the Lord Holders for wanting to go there!”
“Canth and F’nor?” Menolly felt fear stab coldly up her throat, and she remembered the scream.
“They’re alive, but only just. And when you said, ‘Don’t leave me alone’? What you heard . . . and it had to be through your fire lizards . . . was Brekke calling out to F’nor and Canth.” Silvina broke her narrative for effect. “Somehow they got back. Well, partway back from the Red Star. It must have been the most incredible sight . . .” Silvina’s tired eyes narrowed, reconstructing that vision. “The reason the hold dragon took off was to help land Canth. It was like a path, Robinton tells us, of dragons in the air, catching Canth and F’nor, and braking their fall. They were both senseless, of course. Robinton says there isn’t a scrap of hide left on Canth; as if some mighty hand had sanded his skin away. F’nor is not much better, for all he wore wherhide.”
“Silvina, how could my fire lizards know what was happening at Benden Weyr?”
“Ramoth called the dragons . . . the Benden queen can do that, you know. Your fire lizards have been at Benden Weyr. Perhaps they heard her, too,” Silvina dismissed that part of the mystery impatiently.
“But, Silvina, my fire lizards were afraid long before Ramoth called the Fort dragon, even before I heard Brekke call.”
“Why, that’s right. Ah well, we’ll find the answer to that mystery in due time. We always do at the Harper Hall. If dragons can talk to dragons across distance, why can’t fire lizards?”
“Dragons think sense,” Menolly said, gently scratching her waking queen’s little head, “and these beauties don’t. At least not often.” “Babies don’t make sense, and your fire lizards aren’t all that long out of the shell. But think on it, Menolly. Camo doesn’t make much sense, but he does have feelings.”
“Was it he who fed my fire lizards this morning so I could sleep?”
“He and Piemur. Camo fussed and fussed before breakfast until I had to send him up here, with Piemur, to shut his moans.” Silvina’s chuckle was half amusement, half remembered irritation. “Nag, nag, nag about ‘pretties hungry,’ ‘feed pretties.’ Piemur said you didn’t wake. Did you?”
“No.” But the matter of fire lizard intelligence was more urgent in Menolly’s estimation. “I suppose being at Benden Weyr might explain their reaction.”
“Not entirely,” Silvina replied briskly. “Lord Groghe’s little friend responded, too. It wasn’t hatched at Benden and has never been there. There may well be more to these creatures than being silly pets after all. And making idiots of men who fancy themselves as good as dragonriders.”
“I’ve finished my klah. Shall we see the eggs now?”
“Yes, by all means. If his egg should hatch without the Harper, we’d never hear the end of it.”
“Is Sebell about?”
“Hovering!” Silvina’s grimace was so maliciously expressive that Menolly laughed. “How’re your feet today?”
“Only stiff.”
“Just remember that that salve doesn’t do you any good in the jar.”
“Yes, Silvana.”
“Don’t you ‘yes, Silvina’ me meekly, m’girl,” and there was unexpected warmth and affection in the woman’s tone. Menolly smiled shyly back as the headwoman left the room.
She dressed quickly in one of the new tunics and the blue wherhide trousers, plumped up the rushes in their bag and smoothed the sleeping fur over all.
Silvina had just finished tidying up the Harper’s room when Menolly entered, Beauty winging in gracefully behind her. She landed on Menolly’s shoulder and, as Menolly checked both eggs, peered with equally curious interest. She chirped a question at Menolly.
“Well?” drawled Silvina, “now that you experts have conferred . . .”
Menolly giggled. “I don’t think Beauty knows anymore than I do. She’s never seen eggs hatch, but they are a good deal harder. They’ve been kept so nicely warm. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect they’ll batch at any time now.”
Silvina drew in her breath sharply, startling Beauty. “That Harper! The problem will be keeping track of him.” She gave the rush bag a final poke and twitched the sleeping fur straight. “If Lord Groghe,” and Silvina jerked her head toward the Fort Hold palisade, “isn’t sending for him, F’lar is. Or Lord Lytol for that white dragonet.”
“If he wants to Impress his fire lizard, he’ll have to make a choice, won’t he?”
Silvina gaped at Menolly for a long moment and then burst out laughing.
“Might be the best thing that’s happened since the queens were killed,” Silvina said, mopping laugh tears from her eyes. “The man’s had no more than a few hours sleep a day. . . .” Silvina gestured toward the study room, flicking her fingers at the scattered piles of records, the scrawls on the sandtable’s surface, the half-empty wine sack with its pouring neck collapsed ludicrously to one side. “He won’t miss the Impression of his fire lizard! But isn’t there some sign to tell if the Hatching is imminent? The dragonmen can tell. And what the Harper’s doing is really urgent.”
“When Beauty and the others hatched, the old queen and her flight hummed, sort of deep in the throat . . .” Menolly said cautiously, after a moment’s thought.
Silvina nodded encouragingly.
“This isn’t Beauty’s clutch, so I don’t know if she’ll react, though the dragons at Benden Weyr hummed for Ramoth’s clutch. So it seems logical that the fire lizards would react the same way.”
Silvina agreed. “There’d be a slight interval in which we could track the Harper down? Supposing we can’t get him to stay put here for the next day or two?”
Menolly hesitated, reluctant to agree to a conclusion achieved by guesswork.
“And they eat anything when they hatch?” asked Silvina who appeared content with the supposition.
“Just about.” Menolly remembered the sack of spiderclaws, not the easiest of edibles, that had gone down the throats of her newly hatched friends. “Red meat is best.”
“That will please Camo,” Silvina said cryptically. “Now I think you’d best stay here. Well, what’s wrong with that? Robinton would give up more than the privacy of his quarters to have a fire lizard. He’s even threatened to forego his wine. . .” Silvina had a snort for that unlikely sacrifice. “Well, what is wrong with you?”
“Silvina . . . it’s afternoon, isn’t it?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“I’m pledged to go . . . I must go . . . to Master Shonagar. He was very insistent . . .”
“Oh, he was, was be? And will he explain to Master Robinton that your voice is more important than the Harper’s fire lizard? Oh, don’t get yourself in a pucker. Sebell can sit in for you. And you tell your fire lizards to stand by . . .” Silvina walked to the open window and peered down into the courtyard. “Piemur! Piemur, ask Sebell to step up to the Harpers room, will you? Menolly? Yes, she’s awake and here. No, she can’t attend Master Shonagar until Sebell arrives. Yes? Well, go through the choir hall to the journeymen’s quarters and give Master Shonagar my message. Menolly answers to Master Robinton first, me second and then any of the other masters who require her attention.”
Menolly fretted about Master Shonagar’s certain wrath while Silvina made her wait until Piemur had found and returned, at a ran, with Sebell.
“They’re hatching?” Sebell slithered to a stop in the doorway, breathing hard, his face flushed and anxious.
“Not quite yet,” Menolly said, ready to speed to Master Shonagar but unwilling to brush impolitely past the journeyman blocking the entrance.
“How will I know?”
“Menolly says the fire lizards hum,” replied Silvina. “Shonagar insists on her presence now.”
“He would! Where’s the Harper?”
“At Ruatha Hold by now, I think,” Silvina said. “He went off to Benden Weyr when the dragonrider came for him. He said he’d stop off to see Mastersmith Fandarel at Telgar . . .”
Sebell’s eyes went from Silvina to Menolly in surprise, as if Silvina were being indiscreet.
“More than any other, saving yourself, Menolly will need to know how many tunes a harper, much less the Harper, plays,” she said. “I’ll send more klah and . . .” now she chuckled, “have Camo lay about with that hatchet of his on the meat.”
Menolly told the fire lizards to stay by Sebell, and then she scurried down the steps and across the courtyard to the chorus hall.
Despite Silvina’s reassurance, Menolly was apprehensive as she made her tardy arrival before Master Shonagar. But he said nothing. That made her dereliction harder. He kept looking at her until she nervously began to shift her weight from foot to foot.
“I do not know what it is about you, young Menolly, that you can disrupt an entire Craft Hall, for you are not presumptuous. In fact, you are immodestly modest. You do not brag nor flaunt your rank nor put yourself forward. You listen, which I assure you is a pleasure and relief, and you learn from what you are told, which is veritably unheard of. I begin to entertain hope that I have finally discovered, in a mere slip of a girl, the dedication required of a true musician, an artist! Yes, I might even coax a real voice out of your throat.” His fist came down with an almighty wallop on the sandtable, the opposite end flapping onto its supports. She jumped. “But even I cannot do much if you are not here!”
“Silvina said . . .”
“Silvina is a wonderful woman. Without her the Hall would be in chaos and our comfort ignored,” Master Shonagar said, still in a loud tone. “She is also a good musician . . . ah, you didn’t know that? You should make the occasion to listen to her singing, my dear girl . . . But,” again the voice boomed, Master Shonagar’s belly bouncing, although the rest of him seemed stationary, “I thought I had made it plain that you are to be here without fail every single day!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Come fog, fire or Fall! Have I made myself plain enough?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Then . . .” and his voice dropped to normal proportions, “let us begin with breathing . . .”
Menolly fought the desire to giggle. She mastered it by breathing deeply and then settled quickly to the discipline of the lesson.
When Master Shonagar had dismissed her with a further injunction to be on time not the next day, which was a rest day and he needed his rest, but the day following, the work parties were back from their chores. To her surprise, she was greeted by many of the boys as she raced past them to get back to the fire lizard eggs. She answered, smiling, unsure of names and faces but inwardly warmed by their recognition. As she took the steps to the higher level two at a time, she wondered if the boys all knew about the previous night’s disturbance. Probably. News spreads faster in this Craft Hall than Thread could burrow.
The sounds of soft gitar strumming reached her ears as she got to the upper hall. She slowed down, out of breath anyhow, and arrived at the Harper’s quarters still breathing heavily, much as Sebell had done. He glanced up, grinned understandingly, and held up a hand to reassure her. Then his hand gestured to the sandtable. All her fire lizards were there, crouched, watching him.
“I’ve had an audience. What I can’t tell is if my music has pleased them.”
“It has,” Menolly told him, smiling. She extended her arm for Beauty, who immediately glided to her. “See, their eyes tell you . . . the green is dominant, which is sleeping pleasure. Red means hunger, blue and green are sort of general shades, white means danger, and yellow is fright. The speed of the eye whirling tells you how intensely they feel about something.”
“What about him then?” And Sebell pointed to Lazy whose eyes were first-lidded.
“He’s called Lazybones for good reason.”
“I wasn’t playing a lullaby.”
“Except when he’s hungry, he’s that way. Here,” and Menolly scooped Lazy up from the sandtable and deposited him on Sebell’s arm. Startled, the man froze. “Stroke his eye ridges and the back joints of the wings. There! See? He’s crooning with delight.”
Sebell had obeyed her instructions, and now Lazy collapsed about the journeyman’s forearm, locked his claws loosely about the wrist and stretched his head across the back of Sebell’s hand. Sebell caressed him, a shy and delighted smile on his face.
“I hadn’t thought they’d be so soft to the touch.”
“You have to watch for patchy skin and oil it well. I did a thorough job on these the other evening, but you can see where I’ll have to do them again. Just stay there . . .” And Menolly quickly went down the hall to her room for the salve, Beauty complaining at the jouncing on her shoulder.
As they spread salve on the fire lizards, Sebell grew more confident of his handling of the creatures. He wore a half-smile, as if surprised to find himself at such a task.
“Do all fire lizards sing?” he asked, oiling Brownie.
“I don’t really know. I suppose mine learned simply because I used to sing to them in the cave.” Menolly smiled to herself, remembering the fire lizards perched attentively on the ledges about the cave, their little heads turning from side to side to catch the sounds of music.
“Any audience being better than none?” asked Sebell. “Did anyone think to tell you that Lord Groghe’s little queen has recently started to sing along with the Hold Harper?”
“Oh no!”
“If Groghe could carry a tune,” Sebell went on, enjoying her dismay, “it’d be understandable. Don’t worry about it, Menolly. I heard also that Groghe’s delighted.” Then Sebell’s expression altered subtly.
“I’ll bet Lord Groghe wasn’t so happy about last night; was be?” she hesitated, then blurted out. “Do you think Canth and F’nor will live?”
“They have much to live for, Menolly. Brekke needs them to stay alive. She’s lost her queen already. She’ll make them live. We’ll know more when the Harper returns.”
Camo entered the room, carrying a heavily laden tray. His thick-featured face changed from ludicrous anxiety to beams of joy as he saw first the fire lizards and then Menolly.
“Pretty ones hungry? Camo, has food?” And Menolly saw two huge pans of meat in pieces among the other dishes on the tray.
“Thank you for feeding the pretties this morning, Camo.”
“Camo very quiet. Very quiet.” The man bobbed at Menolly in such a fashion that the pitcher of klah splashed.
Sebell deftly relieved him of the tray and set it on the sandtable center board.
“You’re a good man, Camo,” the journeyman said, “but go to the kitchen now. You must help Abuna. She needs you.”
“Pretty ones hungry?” The disappointment was writ large on Camo’s face.
“No, not now, Camo,” Menolly said gently, smiling up at him. “See, they’re asleep.”
Camo turned himself in a circle toward the sandtable and then the window ledges where several of the fire lizards were sprawled on the sun-warmed stone, glistening with their recent oiling.
“We’ll feed them again tonight, Camo.”
“Tonight? Good. Don’t forget? Promise? Promise? Camo feed pretties?”
“I promise, Camo,” Menolly said with extra fervor. The wistful, piteous way in which the poor man asked her to promise suggested that too many promises made to Camo, were conveniently forgotten.
“Now,” Sebell said as the man shuffled from the room, “Silvina said you’d no time for more than klah when you woke. If I remember Shonagar’s lessons, you’ll be starved.”
To Menolly’s delight, there was redfruit on the tray as well as meatrolls, klah, cheese, bread and a sweet conserve. Sebell ate lightly, more to keep her company than because he was hungry, though he said he’d been studying. To prove that, he rattled off the names and descriptions of the fish she had given him the other morning.
“Did I remember them all correctly?” he asked, peering at her as she stared at him in amazement.
“Yes, you did!”
“Think I can pose as a seaman now?”
“If you only have to name fish!”
“If only. . .” he paused dramatically, making a grimace for that restriction. “I had a chat with a bronze dragonrider I know at Fort Weyr. He’s agreed to take us, on the quiet, to any body of water that you feel is adequate to teach me how to sail.”
“Teach you how to sail!” Menolly was appalled. “In one easy lesson, like those fish names?”
“No, but I don’t think I’ll actually have to sail. I should know the fundamentals and leave . . .” he grinned at her, “. . . the doing to the experts in the craft.”
She breathed a sigh of relief for she liked Sebell, and she’d been distressed to think that he might be foolhardy enough to attempt sailing on the ocean by himself. Yanus had often said that no one ever really learned all there was to know about the sea, the winds and the tides. Just when one got confident, a squall could make up and smash a ship to splinters.
“I do feel, that to be convincing, I’d better know how to gut fish as well. That seems a more integral part of the craft than actual sailing. So that will take priority in your instruction. N’ton said be could acquire some fresh fish for me with no problems.”
Again Menolly suppressed her curiosity as to why a journeyman harper needed to be conversant with the seacraft.
“Tomorrow’s a rest day,” Sebell continued. ‘There may even be a gather if the weather holds, which to my landsman’s eye, seems likely. So, if the fire lizards break shell, and if we can disappear circumspectly, perhaps some day after that . . .”
“I can’t miss my lessons with Master Shonagar . . .”
“Has he got you dithering so soon?”
“He is so emphatic . . .”
“Yes, he usually is. But he really knows how to build a voice, if that’s any consolation to you. I could always play an instrument . . .” and Sebell grinned in reminiscence, “. . . but I never thought I’d make a singer. I was terrified I’d be sent away from the Hall . . .”
“You were?”
“Oh, indeed I was. I’d wanted to be a harper since I learned my first Ballads. I’m landsman bred, so harpering is very respectable. My foster father gave me all the assistance I needed, and our Hold Harper was a good technician, not very creative,” and Sebell waggled a hand, “but capable of teaching the fundamentals throughly. I thought myself a right proper musician . . . until I got here.” Sebell uttered a self-deprecating noise at his boyish pretensions. “Then I learned just how much more there is to harpering than playing an instrument.”
Menolly grinned with complete understanding. “Just like there’s more to being a seaman than knowing how to gut a fish and trim sail?”
“Yes. Exactly. Which reminds me, Domick did excuse you from this morning’s session, but he hasn’t excused you from the work . . . So, we might as well put waiting time to use. Incidentally, my compliments on your manner with Domick yesterday. You struck exactly the right note with him.”
“I never play flat.”
Sebell gave her a wide-eyed stare. “I didn’t mean, playing.” He stared at her a moment more. “You mean, you really like that sort of music? You weren’t dissembling?”
“That music was brilliant. I’ve never heard anything like it.” Menolly was a bit disconcerted by Sebell’s attitude.
“Oh, I guess it would seem so to you. I only hope you have the same opinion several Turns from now after you’ve had to endure more of Domick’s eternal search for pure musical forms.” He gave a mock shudder. “Here . . .” and he spread out sheets of new music. “Let’s see how you like this. Domick wants you to play first gitar, but you’re to learn the second as well.”
The occasional music for two gitars was extremely complex, switching from one time value to another, with chording difficult enough for uninjured hands. She and Sebell had to work out alternative fingering for the passages that her left hand could not manage. The repetitive theme had to dominate, but it swung from one gitar part to the other. They had gone through two of the three sections before Sebell called a break, laughing at his surrender as he stretched and kneaded tired fingers and shoulders.
“We won’t get this music note-perfect in one sitting, Menolly,” he protested when she wanted to finish the third movement.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize . . .”
“Will you stop apologizing for the wrong things?”
“I’m sor- Well, I didn’t mean to . . .” She had to rephrase what she wanted to say as Sebell laughed at her attempt to obey his injunction. “This sort of music is a challenge. It really is. For instance here . . .” and she turned to a quick time passage that had been extremely difficult to finger.
“Enough, Menolly. I’m bone tired, and why you aren’t . . .”
“But you’re a journeyman harper . . .”
“I know but this joureyman harper cannot spend all his time playing . . .”
“What do you do? Besides cross-craft.”
“Whatever the Harper needs me to do. Primarily I journey . . . looking among the youngsters in hold and craft to see if there’re any likely ones for the Craft Hall. I bring new music to distant harpers . . . your music most recently-“
“My music?”
“First to flush you out because we didn’t know you were a girl. Second, because they were exactly the songs we need.”
“That’s what Master Robinton said.”
“Don’t sound so surprised . . . and meek. Admittedly it’s nice to have one modest apprentice in this company of rampant extroverts . . . what’s the matter?”
“Why isn’t music like Master Domick’s-“
“Your music can be played easily and well by any halfstringed harper or fumble-fingered idiot. Not that I’m maligning your songs. It’s just that they’re an entirely different kettle of fish-to use a seamanly metaphor-to Domick’s. Don’t you judge your songs against his standard! More people have already listened to your melodies and liked them, than will ever hear Domick’s, much less like them.”
Menolly swallowed. The very notion that her music was more acceptable than Domick’s was incredible, and yet she could appreciate the distinction that Sebell was making. Domick was a musician’s composer.
“Of course, we need music like Master Domick’s, too. It serves a different purpose, for the Hall, and the Craft. He knows more about the art of composing-which you have to learn-“
“Oh, I know I do.” Then, because the problem had been weighing heavily on her conscience, she spilled the words out in a rush. “What do I do, Sebell, about the fire lizard song? Master Robinton rewrote it, and it’s much, much better. But he’s told everyone that I wrote it.”
“So? That’s the way the Harper wishes it to be, Menolly. He has his reasons.” Sebell reached out to grip her knee and give her a little shake. “And he didn’t change the song much. Just sort of . . .” Sebell gestured with both hands, compressing the space between them, “. . . tightened it up. He kept the melody as you’d written it, and that’s what everyone is humming. What you have to do now is learn how to polish your music without losing its freshness. That’s why it’s so important for you to study with Domick. He has the discipline: you have the originality.”
Menolly could not reply to that assessment. There was a lump in her throat as she remembered the beatings she’d taken for doing exactly what she was now encouraged to do.
“Don’t hunch up like that,” Sebell said, almost sharply. “What’s the matter? You’ve gone white as a sheet. Shells!” This last word came out as an expletive and caused Menolly to look in surprise at the journeyman. “Just when I didn’t want to be interrupted . . .”
She followed the line of his gaze and saw the bronze dragon circling down to land beyond the courtyard.
‘That’s N’ton. I’ve got to speak to him, Menolly, about our teaching trip. I’ll be right back.” He was out of the room at a trot, and she could hear him taking the steps in a clatter.
She looked at the music they’d been playing, and Sebell’s words echoed through her mind. “He has the discipline; you have the originality.” “Everyone’s been humming it.” People liking her twiddles? That still didn’t seem possible, although Sebell had no more reason to lie to her than the Masterharper when he’d said that her music was valuable to him. To the Harper Craft. Incredible! She struck a chord on the gitar, a triumphant, incredible chord, and then modulated it, thinking how undisciplined that musical reaction had been.
They were still twiddles, her songs, unlike the beautiful, intricate musical designs that Domick composed. But if she studied hard with him, maybe she could improve her twiddles into what she could honestly call music.
Firmly she turned her thoughts toward the gitar duet and ran through the tricky passages, slowly at first and then finally at time. One of the chords modulated into tones that were so close to the agonized cry of the previous night that she repeated the phrase.
“Don’t leave me alone” and then found another chord that fit, “The cry in the night/Of anguish heart-striking/ Of soul-killing fright.” That’s what Sebell had said: that Brekke would not want to live if Canth and F’nor died. “Live for my living/Or else I must die/Don’t leave me alone./A world heard that cry.”
By the time Menolly had arranged the chords in the plaint to her satisfaction, Beauty, Rocky and Diver were softly crooning along with her. So she worked on the verse.
“Well, you approve?” she asked her fair. “Perhaps I ought to jot it down on something . . .”
“No need,” said a quiet voice behind her, and she whirled on the stool to see Sebell seated at the sandtable, scribing quickly. “I think I’ve got most of it.” He looked up, saw the startled expression on her face and gave her a brief smile. “Close your mouth and come check my notation.”
“But . . . but . . .”
“What did I tell you, Menolly, about apologizing for the wrong things?”
“I was just tuning . . .”
“Oh, the song needs polishing, but that refrain is poignant enough to set a Hold to tears.” He beckoned again to her, a crisp gesture that brought her to his side. “You might want to change the sequence, give the peril first, the solution next . . . though I don’t know. With that melody . . . do you always use minors?” He slid a glass across the sand so the scribbling couldn’t be erased. “Well see what the Harper thinks. Now what’s wrong?”
“Leave it? You can’t be serious.”
“I can be and usually am, young Menolly,” he said, rising from the stool to reach for his gitar. “Now, let’s see if I put it down correctly.”
Menolly sat, immersed in acute embarrassment to hear Sebell playing a tune of her making. But she had to listen. When her fire lizards began to croon softly along with Sebell’s deft playing, she was about ready to concede privately that it wasn’t a bad tune after all.
“That’s very well done, Sebell! Didn’t know you had it in you,” said the Masterharper, applauding vigorously from the doorway. “I’d rather dreaded transferring that incident to music . . .”
“This song, Master Robinton, is Menolly’s.” Sebell had risen at the Harper’s entrance, and now he bowed deferentially to Menolly. “Come, girl, it why the Harpers searched a continent for you.”
“Menolly, my dear child, no blushes for that song.” Robinton seized her hands and clasped them warmly. ‘Think of the chore you just saved me. I came in halfway through the verse, Sebell, if you would please . . .” and the Harper gestured to Sebell to begin again. With one long arm, Robinton snaked a stool out from under the flat-bottomed sandtable, and still holding Menolly by the hand, he composed himself to listen as Sebell’s clever fingers plucked the haunting phrases from the augmenting chords. “Now, Menolly, think only of the music as Sebell plays, not that it is your music. Learn to think objectively, not subjectively. Listen as a harper.”
He held her hand so tightly in his that she could not pull away without giving offense. The clasp of his fingers was more than reassuring: it was therapeutic. Her embarrassment ebbed as the music and Sebell’s warm baritone voice flowed into the room. When the fire lizards hummed loud, Robinton squeezed her hand and smiled down at her.
“Yes, a little work on the phrases. One or two words could be altered, I think, to heighten the effect, but the whole can stand. Can you scribe. . . . Ah, Sebell, well done. Well done,” said the Masterharper as Sebell tapped the protecting glass. “I’ll want it transferred to some of those neat paper sheets Bendarek supplies us with, so Menolly can go over it at her leisure. Not too much leisure,” and the Masterharper held up a warning hand, “because that fire lizard echo swept round Pern, and we must explain it. A good song, Menolly, a very good song. Don’t doubt yourself so fiercely. Your instinct for melodic line is very good, very good indeed. Perhaps I should send more of my apprentices to a sea hold for a time if this is the sort of talent the waves provoke. And see, your fair is still humming the line . . .”
Menolly drew out of her confusion long enough to realize that the fire lizards’ hum had nothing to do with her song: their attention was not on the humans but . . .
“The eggs! They’re hatching!”
“Hatching!” “Hatching!” Both master and journeyman crowded each other to get through the door to the hearth and the fire-warming pots. “Menolly! Come here!”
“I’m getting the meat!”
“They’re hatching!” the Harper shouted. “They’re hatching. Grab that pot, Sebell, it’s wobbling!”
As Menolly dashed into the room, the two men were kneeling at the hearth, watching anxiously as the earthen pots rocked slightly.
“They can’t hatch IN the pots,” she said with a certain amount of asperity in her voice. She took the pot from the protecting encirclement of Sebell’s curved fingers and carefully upended it on the hearth, her fingers cushioning the egg until the sand spilled away from it. She turned to Robinton, but he had already followed her example. Both eggs lay in the light of the fire, rocking slightly, the striations of hatching marking the shells.
The fire lizards lined up on the mantel and the hearth, humming deep in their throats. The pulsing sound seemed to punctuate the now violent movements of the eggs as the hatchlings fluttered against the shells for exit.
“Master Robinton?” called Silvina from the outer room. “Master Robinton?”
“Silvina! They’re hatching!” The Harper’s jubilant bellow startled Menolly and set the fire lizards to squawking and flapping their wings in surprise.
Other harpers, curious about the noise, began to crowd in behind Silvina, who stood at the door to the Harper’s sleeping quarters. If there were too many people in the room, Menolly thought.
“No! Stay out! Keep them out!” she cried before she realized she’d said anything.
“Yes. Stay back now,” Silvina was saying. “You can’t all see. You’ve got the meat, Menolly? Ah, so you have. Is it enough?”
“It should be.”
‘What do we do now?” asked the Harper, his voice rough with suppressed excitement as be crouched above the egg.
“When the fire lizard emerges, feed it,” Menolly said, somewhat surprised, for the Harper must have been a guest at numerous dragon hatchings. “Just stuff its mouth with food.”
“When will they hatch?” asked Sebell, washing his fingers in his palms with excited frustration.
The fire lizards’ hum was getting more intense: their eyes whirling with participation in the event. Suddenly a second little golden queen erupted into the room, her eyes spinning. She let out a squeal which Beauty answered, lifting her wings higher, but in greeting, not challenge.
“Silvina!” Menolly pointed to the queen.
“Master Robinton, look!” said the headwoman and, as they all watched, the newly arrived queen took her place on the mantel beside Beauty, her throat vibrating as fast as the others.
“That’s Merga, Lord Groghe’s queen,” said the Harper, and then he glanced over his shoulder at the door. “I hope it isn’t an awkward time for him. This sort of summons could be inconvenient . . .”
Above the fire lizards’ vibrant sounds, they all heard the Harper’s name bellowed.
“Someone go and escort Lord Groghe,” ordered the Harper, his eyes never leaving the hearth and the two eggs.
“Robinton!” It would seem that his order was unnecessary for the bellower was rapidly approaching. “Robin.... What? They are? D’you know what? That Merga of mine’s in another taking. Forced me to come here! Here now, what’s all this? Where is Robinton?”
Menolly tore her eyes from the two eggs, though she was certain she saw a widening crack in the one on the left, to see the entrance of the Fort Lord Holder. As his voice indicated, he was a big man, almost as tall as the Harper but much broader in the torso, with thick thighs and bulging calves. He walked lightly for all his mass although he was breathing heavily from having come to the Hall at a fair pace.
“There you are! What’s this all about?”
“The eggs are about to hatch, Lord Groghe.”
“Eggs?” The brows of the Holder’s florid face were contracted into a puzzled scowl. “Oh, your eggs. They’re hatching? And Merga’s reacting?”
“I trust not at any inconvenience to you, Lord Groghe.”
“Well, not so’s I wouldn’t come when she insisted. How’d the creature know?”
“Ask Menolly.”
“Menolly?” And suddenly Menolly found herself the object of his intense, frowning scrutiny. “You’re Menolly?” The brows went up in surprise. “Little bit of a thing, aren’t you? Not at all what I expected. Don’t blush. I don’t bite. My fire lizard might. Wouldn’t worry you, though, would it? These are all yours? Why, my queen’s beside yours, friendly as can be. They’re not dangerous at all.”
“Menolly!” The Harper’s exclamation brought her attention back to the hearth.
His egg had given a convulsive rock, all but spinning itself off the hearthstone. Gasping, he’d put out both hands to prevent its falling. The shell cracked wide open, and a little bronze fire lizard rolled into his hands, creeling with hunger, its body glistening.
“Feed it! Feed it!” Menolly cried.
Robinton, unable to take his eyes off the fire lizard, fumbled for the piled meat and shoved food into the fire lizard’s open mouth. The little bronze, shaking its wings out for balance, snatched ferociously at the meat, gobbling so fast that Menolly held her breath for fear the creature would choke in its greed.
“Not too much. Make it wait! Talk to it. Soothe it,” Menolly urged. just then the other egg split.
“It’s a queen!” shouted Sebell, rocking back on his heels in the excess of his surprise. Only Lord Groghe’s quick hand on his back kept him from falling over.
“Feed her!” the Lord Holder barked.
“But I’m not to have the queen!” For one split second, Sebell started to turn and offer the queen to the Harper.
“Too late!” Menolly shouted, diving forward to intercept the gesture. She jammed meat on Sebell’s seeking hand and then pushed it back to the frantically creeling queen. “You’re supposed to have a fire lizard. It doesn’t matter which!”
The Harper was oblivious to the interchange. He was intent on his bronze, stroking it, feeding it, crooning to it. The little queen had gobbled Sebell’s initial offering, her tail wrapping so firmly about his wrist that he could not have disentangled himself had he managed to sustain his moment of sacrifice.
Menolly turned to assist the Harper, but Lord Groghe was kneeling beside him, encouraging him. When the two hatchlings were bulging with food, Menolly removed the meat bowls.
‘They’ll burst with another mouthful,” she told the reproachful Harpers. “Now, hold them against you. Stroke them. They should fall asleep. There now.” As the men complied with her urgings, the new fire lizards, sated for the present, wearily closed their eyes, their little heads dropping to the protecting forearms. She’d forgotten what a scant handful a newly hatched fire lizard was. Her friends had grown so much since hatching. Lord Groghe’s Merga was as tall in the shoulder as Beauty, but not so deeply chested. The two were now exchanging compliments, stroking heads and touching curved wings.
“Its incredible,” the Harper said, his words no more than an articulated whisper, his eyes brilliant with joy. “It is absolutely the most incredible experience I have ever had.”
“Know what you mean Lord Groghe replied in an embarrassed mumble, ducking his head, but Menolly could see that the burly Holder’s face was flushed. “Can’t forget it myself.”
Carefully Master Robinton rose from his knees, his eyes on the sleeping fire lizard, his free hand poised in case an incautious movement unsettled the little bronze.
“It explains so very much that I could never have understood about dragonriders. Yes, it opens a whole new area of understanding.” He sat down on the edge of his bed. “Now I can sense, dimly, what Lytol, what Brekke must have suffered. And I know why young Jaxorn must have Ruth.” He smiled at Lord Groghe’s grunt at that statement. “Yes, I have stood so long peering through a small opening into another Hold of understanding. Now I can see without obstruction.” His chin had dropped to his chest as he spoke in soft reflective tones, more to himself than those close enough to catch the whispered words. He shook himself slightly and looked up, his smile again radiant. “What a gift you have made me, Menolly. What a magnificent gift!”
Beauty came to perch on Menolly’s shoulder, her humming now diminished to a soft murmur of sound. Lord Groghe’s queen, Merge, flew to his shoulder, wrapping her tail about his thick neck, just as Beauty did.
“I don’t know how it happened, Master Robinton,” Sebell said, rising from the hearth with exaggerated care. His manner was both defensive and apologetic. “The pots were in the wrong order. I don’t understand. You should have had the queen.”
“My dear Sebell, I couldn’t care in the slightest. This bronze fellow is everything I could ever want. And frankly, I believe that it might be more advantageous for you to have the queen, going out and above the land as you’ll have to do. Yes, I think chance has worked more for than against us. And I am quite content, oh, indeed I am, with my bronze man here. What a lovely, lovely creature!” He had eased himself back against the bolster, the fire lizard snuggled in the crook of his arm, his other hand protectingly cradling the open side. “Such a lovely big fellow!” His head fell back, his eyes heavy, all but asleep himself.
“Now that’s a real miracle,” said Silvina in a very soft voice. “Asleep without wine or fellis juice? Out! Out!” She shook her hands at those crowding the door, but her gesture to Lord Groghe to precede her from the room was a touch more courteous. The Lord Holder nodded agreement and made a great show of tiptoeing quietly across the room. His exit cleared the doorway of onlookers.
Silvina picked up the half-filled bowls by the fire and put one near the Harper’s hand. Menolly beckoned to the rest of her fair and they flitted out the window.
“Got them well-trained, haven’t you?” Lord Groghe said once Silvina had closed the door to the Harper’s chamber. “Want to have a long chat with you about ‘em. Robinton says they’ll fetch and carry for you. D’you believe, as he does, that what one fire lizard knows, th’others do, too?”
Too disconcerted to reply, Menolly glanced frantically at Silvina and saw her nod encouragingly. “It would seem logical, Lord Groghe. Ah . . . it would certainly account for . . . for what happened the other night. In fact, there’s no other way to account for that, is there? Unless you can speak to dragons.”
“Unless you can speak to dragons?” Lord Groghe laughed ponderously, poking Menolly’s shoulder with his finger in good humor. “Speak to dragons? Hahaha.”
Menolly felt herself grinning because his laughter was a bit contagious, and she didn’t know what else to do. She hadn’t meant to be funny. Then Silvina shushed them imperiously, pointing urgently at the Harper’s closed door.
“Sorry, Silvina,” Lord Groghe said, contritely. “Most amazing thing! Woke me up out of a sound sleep, scared out of my wits. Never happened to me before, I can tell you.” He nodded his head emphatically, and Merga chirped. “Wasn’t your fault, pet,” he said, stroking her tiny head with a thick forefinger. “Only doing the same as the others. That’s what I want you to teach me, girl.”The forefinger now pointed at Menolly. “You will, won’t you? Robinton says you have yours trained a treat.”
“It would be my privilege, sir.”
“Well spoken.” Lord Groghe turned his heavy torso in Silvina’s direction, favoring the headwoman with a fierce stare. “Well-spoken child. Not what I expected. Can’t trust other people’s opinions. Never did. Never will. I’ll arrange something with Robinton later. Not too much later. But later. Good day to you all.” With that the Lord Holder of Fort strode from the room, nodding and smiling to the harpers still gathered in the corridor.
Menolly saw Sebell and Silvina exchanging worried glances, and she moved across the room to stand before them.
“What did Lord Groghe mean, Silvina? I’m not what he expected?”
“I was afraid you’d catch that,” Silvina said, her eyes narrow with a contained anger. She patted Menolly’s shoulder absently. “There’s been loose talk, which has done them no good and you no harm. I’ve a few knees to set knocking, so I have.”
Menolly was thoroughly and unexpectedly consumed with anger. Beauty chittered, her eyes beginning to whirl redly.
“Those cot girls stay up at the Hold during Threadfall, don’t they?”
Silvina gave Menolly a long, quelling look. “I said I’ll handle the matter, Menolly. You,” and Silvina pointed at her, “will occupy yourself with harper business.” She was clearly as furious as Menolly, and flicked imaginary dust from her skirt with unnecessary force. “You’re to stay here, both of you, and be sure nothing disturbs the Harper. Nothing, you understand!” She pinned apprentice and journeyman with a stem glare. “He’s asleep, and he’s to stay asleep as long as that little creature lets him. That way he might get caught up on himself for a change before he’s worn to death.” She picked up the tray. “I’ll send your suppers up with Camo. And their suppers as well.”
She closed the door firmly behind her. Menolly looked at the closed door for a long moment, still feeling the anger in her guts. She’d not really done the girls any kind of harm, so why would they try to prejudice the Lord Holder against her? Or perhaps it was all Dunca’s connivance? Menolly knew that the little cotholder hated her for the humiliation caused by the fire lizards. Now that Menolly was at the Hall, why should Dunca persist? She glanced back to Sebell, who was regarding her even as he cradled his sleeping queen.
“Leave it, Menolly,” he said in a quiet but emphatic tone. He gestured her to the sandtable. “Harper business is better business for you now. Master Robinton said you were to copy the song onto sheets.” Moving carefully so as not to disturb his little queen, he got supplies from the shelves and put them on the center board. “So, copy!”
“I don’t understand what they thought they’d accomplish, prejudicing Lord Groghe against me. What would he do?”
Sebell said nothing as he hooked a stool under him, and sat down. He pointed at the music.
“It’s only right for me to know. The insult is mine to settle.”
“Sit down, Menolly. And copy. That’s far more important to the Harper and the Hall than any petty machinations of envious girls.”
“They could do me a mischief, couldn’t they? If they’d got Lord Groghe to believe what they said. I never hurt those girls.”
“True enough but that is not harper business. The song is. Copy it! And one more word from you on any other subject and I’ll-“
“If you’re not quiet, you’ll wake your fire lizard,” Menolly said, but she sat down at the table and started copying. She could recognize obstinacy when she saw it, and it would do her no good to set Sebell against her. “What are you going to name her?” she asked.
“Name her?” Sebell was startled, and Menolly was dismayed to realize how much of his joy in his queen had been diminished by her silly concern over gossip. “Why, I can have the privilege of naming her, can’t I? She’s mine. I think . . .” and his eyes glowed with affection for the hatchling, “I think I’ll call her Kimi.”
“That’s a lovely name,” replied Menolly and then bent to her copying with a good heart.