Dragonsinger (22 page)

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 humour. ‘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 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, favouring 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 stern 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 little 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 on to sheets.’ Moving carefully so as not to disturb his little queen, he got supplies from the shelves and put them on the centre 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 disminished 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.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Gather! Gather! It’s a gather day

No work for us, and Thread’s away
.

Stalls are building, square’s swept clear
,

Gather all from far and near
.

Bring your marks and bring your wares

Bring your family for there’s

Food and drink and fun and song
.

The Hold flag flies: so gather along!

‘WHAT’S WRONG WITH
the Hold?’ Menolly asked Piemur the next morning as she, the boy and Camo were feeding the fire lizards. Piemur kept craning his neck past the roofs of the Harper Hall to see the fire heights of Fort Hold.

‘Nothing’s wrong. I want to see if the gather flag’s up.’

‘Gather flag?’ Menolly recalled that Sebell had mentioned a gather.

‘Sure! It’s spring, and sunny. It’s a restday, Thread’s not due, so there ought to be a gather!’ Piemur regarded her a long moment, then his face screwed up into an incredulous expression. ‘You mean, you don’t have gathers?’

‘Half-Circle
is
isolated,’ Menolly replied defensively. ‘And with Thread falling …’

‘Yeah, I forgot that. No wonder you’re such a smashing musician,’ he said, shaking his head as if this were no real compensation. ‘Nothing to do but practise! Still,’ he added somewhat skeptical, ‘you
must
have had gathers
before
Thread started?’

‘Of course we did. Traders came through the marshes three and four times a Turn.’ Piemur was unimpressed. Menolly realized that she herself had only the vaguest memories of such events. Threadfall had started when she was barely eight Turns old.

‘We have gathers as often as it’s sunny on a restday,’ Piemur said, chattering away, ‘and there isn’t any Thread due. Of course, our being a Hold with several small craft-halls, as well as the main Harper Craft Hall, does make for great gathers. You don’t happen,’ and he cocked his head slyly, ‘to have any marks on you?’

‘Marks?’

Piemur was thoroughly disgusted with her obtuseness. ‘Marks! Marks! What you get in exchange for what you’re selling at a gather?’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out four small white pieces of highly-polished wood, on which the numerals 32 had been incised on one side and on the other, the mark of the Smithcraft. ‘Only thirty-seconds, but with four I got an eighth, and Smithcraft at that.’

Menolly had never actually seen marks before. All trading transactions had been carried out by her father, the Sea Holder. She was astonished that so young a boy as Piemur had possession of marks and said so.

‘Oh, I sang, you know, even before I got apprenticed. I’d always get a mark of some amount or other. My foster mother kept them for me until I came here.’ Piemur wrinkled his nose in disgust. ‘But you don’t get paid for singing at gathers if you’re a harper, and you have to do your turn anyway. I haven’t
anything
to give the marksmen here. I keep
trying
, but Master Jerint won’t put his seal on my pipes, so I have to figure out other ways of turning the odd … Hey, look,
Menolly
,’ and he grabbed her arm, ‘there goes the flag! There’ll be a gather!’ He went flying across the court as fast as he could to the apprentice dormitory.

On the top of the Fort Hold fire heights, Menolly now saw the bright yellow pennant, and flapping below it on the mast, the red and black barred streamer that apparently signalled a gather. She heard Piemur’s cries echoing in the apprentice dormitory and the sounds of sleepers stirring in complaint.

As if Piemur’s sighting for the pennant had been a signal, the drudges, herded by Abuna and Silvina, entered the kitchen. The flag and pennant on the Hold mast were duly noted and the meal preparations were conducted in a cheerful humour.

Menolly dispersed her fair to their sunning and bathing and, finding Silvina in the kitchen with Abuna, offered to take breakfast to the Harper and his bronze, whom he’d named Zair.

‘I told you, Abuna, that with Menolly to help, two more fire lizards would be no problem,’ Silvina said, pushing the kitchen woman on to some other task as she smiled warmly at Menolly. ‘Not that the Harper will be here much with his, nor Sebell either,’ she called to Abuna who went off grumbling to herself. ‘Long as she’s lived in the Harper Hall, you’d think she’d be used to change-about.’

Menolly wanted to ask Silvina about the girls and their gossiping, but Silvina was avoiding her eye. Just then they both heard Menolly’s name being called in a frantic voice. Sebell came crashing down the kitchen steps, holding up his trousers with one bare arm, wincing at the clutch of his fire lizard queen on the other. Kimi was creeling wildly with hunger.

‘Menolly! There you are! I’ve been searching everywhere. What’s the matter with her? Ouch!’ Sebell was wide-eyed with anxiety.

‘She’s only hungry.’

‘
Only
hungry?’

‘Here, come with me,’ and Menolly took Sebell by the arm, picked up the tray she had prepared for the Masterharper and pulled the journeyman out of the kitchen, to spare him Abuna’s black scowl, and into the relative peace of the dining hall. ‘Now, feed her!’

‘I can’t. My pants!’ Sebell nodded to his trousers, which, beltless, threatened to slip off his hips.

Stifling a giggle, Menolly unbuckled her own worn belt and secured Sebell’s pants for him. He grabbed a handful of meat and held it out for Kimi. The ungrateful wretch hissed and lunged at the meat, digging her claws into his forearm.

Well, Menolly couldn’t give him her tunic, too. She spotted a scrap of towelling by the service hatch. Deftly she disengaged the queen’s legs from Sebell’s forearm and wrapped the cloth about his scratched and bleeding arm, then managed to redeposit Kimi before the queen was aware of being shifted.

‘Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!’ sighed Sebell, sinking to the nearest bench. ‘And you had nine of these creatures to feed every day?’ He gave her a look of renewed respect. ‘I don’t know how you did it! I really don’t!’

Menolly pointed to his klah as she took up a handful of meat. Kimi didn’t care whose hand held the meat, so Sebell gratefully gulped some klah.

‘Menolly!’ Another voice roared from the top of the stairs.

‘Sir?’ Menolly dashed to the foot of the steps.

‘He’s making the most outlandish noises,’ the Harper yelled. ‘Is he hurt or just hungry? His eyes are flaming red.’

‘Here you are,’ said Silvina, appearing from the kitchen with a second tray of food for human and fire
lizard
. ‘I thought we’d be hearing from him once Sebell appeared.’

Menolly could not keep from laughing with Silvina. She took the steps two at a time without spilling so much as a drop of the klah or tumbling a glob of meat from the piled bowl.

The Harper had taken time to dress, and he’d thought to wrap his arm against the needle-sharp claws of his little bronze, but he looked not a whit less harried or distressed than Sebell.

‘You’re sure it’s only hunger?’ asked Master Robinton. But his fire lizard’s creeling abated with the first mouthful of meat.

Robinton gestured Menolly towards his quarters, but the fire lizard, believing that food was being withdrawn, let out an indignant shriek and swatted at Menolly’s hand.

‘Here, here; eat, you greedy thing,’ said the Harper with great affection in his voice. ‘Just don’t wake everyone. It’s restday.’

‘Too late,’ remarked Domick, in an acid tone of voice, his sleeping rug pulled around him as he stood in the doorway of his room. ‘Between you howling like an injured dragon, Sebell sounding like a flight of ’em, and these pesky beasts with tones that could bend metal, no-one’s going to enjoy a restday.’

‘The gather flag is flying,’ the Harper said in a conciliatory way. He continued to feed Zair as he and Menolly proceeded to his room.

‘A gather? That’s all I need.’ Domick slammed his door.

‘I trust there won’t be a repetition of this,’ said Master Morshal as the Harper and Menolly came abreast of his room. He wore a loose robe, but he obviously had been drawn from his bed by the creelings and shouts. His sour gaze was directed fully
on
Menolly, as if she were the sole cause of the commotion.

‘Probably,’ the Harper replied cheerfully, ‘until I figure out this precious creature’s habits. He only hatched yesterday, Morshal. Do give him a few days’ grace.’

Morshal spluttered something, glared balefully and accusingly at Menolly, and then shut his door, pointedly without slamming it. Menolly all too clearly heard other doors closing along the corridor, and she was very grateful to be in the Harper’s company.