Dragonsinger (21 page)

Firmly she turned her thoughts towards 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 scribing couldn’t be erased. ‘We’ll 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’s 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 offence. 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 he 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.

‘It’s 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 Jaxom 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, Merga, 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 about 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.