Dragonsinger (7 page)

‘Hey,’ said the small boy next to her, without moving his head in her direction, ‘you shouldn’t be here.
You
should be over there. With them!’ He jerked his finger at the long table nearest the hearth.

Craning her head to peer past the screening bodies, Menolly saw the sedate row of girls, backs to the hearth. There was an empty seat at one end.

‘No!’ The boy grabbed at her hand. ‘Not now!’

Obeying some signal Menolly couldn’t see, everyone was seated at that precise moment.

‘Pretty Beauty? Where’s pretty Beauty?’ asked a worried voice at her elbow. ‘Beauty not hungry?’ It was Camo, in each hand a heavy platter piled with roast meat slices.

‘Take it quick,’ said the boy beside her, giving her a dig in the ribs.

Menolly did so.

‘Well, get yours and pass it,’ the boy went on.

‘Don’t just sit there like a dummy,’ added the black-haired lad opposite her, frowning fiercely and shifting his buttocks on the hard wood of the bench.

‘Hey, grab; don’t gab,’ ordered another lad, further up the table with considerable irritation at the delay.

Menolly mumbled something, and rather than waste time fumbling for her belt knife, she tweaked the topmost slice from the platter to her plate. The boy across from her deftly snagged four slices on his knife point and transferred them, dripping juices, to his plate. The boy beside her struggled with the heavy platter, taking four slices, too, as he passed it on.

‘Should you take so much?’ she asked, her surprise at such greed overcoming reticence.

‘You don’t starve in the Harper Hall,’ he said, grinning broadly. He sliced the first piece into halves, folded one half over neatly with his blade and then shoved it into his mouth, catching the juices with his finger, which he managed to lick despite the mouthful he was busy chewing.

His assurance was borne out by the deep bowl of tubers and roots, and the basket of sliced breads, which Camo deposited beside her. From these Menolly helped herself more liberally, passing the dishes along as quickly as she could.

‘You’re Menolly, aren’t you?’ asked the boy beside her, his mouth still full.

She nodded.

‘Was it really your fire lizards singing this morning?’

‘Yes.’

Whatever lingering embarrassment for that incident Menolly retained was dispersed in the giggle from her table companion and the sly grins of those near enough to overhear the conversation.

‘You should’ve seen Bruddie’s face!’

‘Bruddie?’

‘Journeyman Brudegan to us apprentices, of course. He’s choir leader this season. First he thought it was me pulling a stunt, ’cause I sing high treble. So he stood right beside me. I didn’t know what was up, a’course. Then he went on to Feldon and Bonz, and that’s when I could hear what was happening.’ The boy had so engaging a grin that Menolly found herself smiling back. ‘Shells, but Bruddie jumped about. He couldn’t trace the sound. Then one of the basses pointed out the window!’ The boy chortled, suppressing the sound when it rose above the general level of table noise. ‘How’d you train ’em to do that, huh? I didn’t know you could get fire lizards to sing. Dragon’ll hum, but only when it’s Hatching time. Can
anyone
teach a fire lizard to sing? And do you really have eleven all your own?’

‘I’ve only got nine—’

‘Only nine, she says,’ and the boy rolled his eyes, encouraging his tablemates to second his envious
response
. ‘I’m Piemur,’ he added as an afterthought of courtesy.

‘She shouldn’t be here,’ complained the lad immediately opposite Menolly. He spoke directly to Piemur, as if by ignoring Menolly he could be rude. He was bigger and older looking than Piemur. ‘She belongs over there with them.’ And he jerked his head backwards, towards the girls at the hearth table.

‘Well, she’s here now, and fine where she is, Ranly,’ said Piemur with unexpected aggressiveness. ‘She couldn’t very well change once we were seated, could she? And besides, I heard that she’s to be an apprentice, same as us.
Not
one of them.’

‘Aren’t they apprentices?’ asked Menolly, inclining her head in the girls’ general direction.

‘Them?’ Piemur’s astonished query was as scornful as the look on Ranly’s face. ‘No!’ The drawl in his negative put the girls in an inferior category. ‘They’re in the special class with the journeymen, but they’re not apprentices. No road!’

‘They’re a right nuisance,’ said Ranly with rich contempt.

‘Yeah, they are,’ said Piemur with a reflective sigh, ‘but if they weren’t here, I’d have to sing treble in the plays, and that’d be dire! Hey, Bonz, pass the meat back.’ Suddenly he let out a startled yip. ‘Feldon! I asked first. You’ve no right …’ A boy had taken the last slice as he handed down the platter.

The other boys shushed Piemur vigorously, darting apprehensive glances towards the right corner.

‘But it’s not fair.
I
asked,’ Piemur said, lowering his voice slightly but not his insistence. ‘And Menolly only had one slice. She should get more than
that
!’

Menolly wasn’t certain if Piemur was more outraged on her behalf or his own, but someone nudged her right arm. It was Camo.

‘Camo feed pretty Beauty?’

‘Not now, Camo. They’re not hungry now,’ Menolly assured him because his thick features registered such anxiety.

‘They’re not hungry, but she is, Camo,’ Piemur said, shoving the meat platter at Camo. ‘More meat, Camo. More meat, please, Camo?’

‘More meat please,’ Camo repeated, jerking his head to his chest; and before Menolly could say anything, he had shuffled off to the corner of the dining hall where sliding shelves brought food directly up from the kitchen.

The boys were sniggering with the success of Piemur’s stratagem, but they wiped their faces clear of amusement when Camo shuffled back with a well-laden platter.

‘Thank you very much, Camo,’ Menolly said, taking another thick slice. She couldn’t fault the boys for their greed. The meat was tasty and tender, quite different from the tough or salted stuff she was used to at Half-Circle Sea Hold.

Another slab was dumped on to her plate.

‘You don’t eat enough,’ Piemur said, scowling at her. ‘Too bad she’ll have to sit with the others,’ he told his tablemates as he passed the platter. ‘Camo likes her. And her fire lizards.’

‘Did he really feed them with you?’ asked Ranly. He sounded doubtful and envious.

‘They don’t frighten him,’ Menolly said, amazed at how fast news of everything spread in this place.

‘They wouldn’t frighten me,’ Piemur and Ranly assured her on the same breath.

‘Say, you were at Impression at Benden Weyr, weren’t you?’ asked Piemur, nudging Ranly to be silent. ‘Did you
see
Lord Jaxom Impress the white dragon? How big is he really? Is he going to live?’

‘I was at the Impression …’

‘Well, don’t go off in a trance,’ said Ranly. ‘Tell us! All we get is second-hand information. That is, if the masters and journeymen
think
we apprentices ought to know.’ He sounded sour and disgusted.

‘Oh, shell it, Ranly,’ Piemur suggested. ‘So what happened, Menolly?’

‘I was in the tiers, and Lord Jaxom was sitting below me with an older man and another boy …’

‘That’d be Lord Warder Lytol, who’s raised him, and the boy was probably Felessan. He’s the son of the Weyrleader and Lessa.’

‘I know that, Piemur. Go on, Menolly.’

‘Well, all the other dragon eggs had hatched, and there was just the little one left. Jaxom suddenly got up and ran along the edge of the tier, shouting for help. Then he jumped on to the Hatching Ground and started kicking the egg and slashing at the thick membrane inside. The next thing, the little white dragon had fallen out and …’

‘Impression!’ Piemur finished for her, bringing his hands together. ‘Just like I told you, Ranly, you simply have to be in the right place at the right time. Luck, that’s all it is. Luck!’ Piemur seemed to be pressing an old argument with his friend. ‘Some people got a lot of luck; some don’t.’ He turned back to Menolly. ‘I heard you were daughter of the Sea Holder at Half-Circle.’

‘I’m in the Harper Hall now, aren’t I?’

Piemur stretched out his hands as if that should end the discussion.

Menolly turned back to her dinner. Just as she finished mopping the last of the juices on her plate with bread, the shimmering sound of a gong brought instant silence to the hall. A single bench scraped across the stone floor as a journeyman rose from the
top
oval table at the far end of the hall.

‘Afternoon assignments are: by the sections; apprentice hall, 10; yard, 9; Hold, 8; and no sweeping behind the doors this time or you’ll do an extra half-day. Section 7, barns; 6, 5 and 4, fields; 3 is assigned to the Hold and 2 and 1 to the cothalls. Those who reported sick this morning are to attend Master Oldive. Players are not to be late this evening, and the call is for the twentieth hour.’

The man sat down to the accompaniment of exaggerated sighs of relief, groans of complaint and mumbles.

Piemur was not pleased. ‘The yard again!’ Then he turned to Menolly. ‘Anyone mention a section number to you?’

‘No,’ Menolly replied, although Silvina had mentioned the term. ‘Not yet,’ she added as she caught Ranly’s black stare.

‘You have all the luck.’

The gong broke through the rumble of reaction, and the bench under Menolly began to move out from under her. Everyone was rising, so Menolly had to rise, too. But she stood in place as the others swarmed by, milling to pass through the main entrance, laughing, shoving, complaining. Two boys started gathering plates and mugs, and Menolly, at a loss, reached for a plate to have it snatched out of her hand by an indignant lad.

‘Hey, you’re not in my section,’ he said in an accusing tone, tinged with surprise, and went about his task.

Menolly jumped at a light touch on her shoulder, stared and then apologized to the man who had come up beside her.

‘You are Menolly?’ he asked, a hint of displeasure in his tone. He had such a high-bridged nose that he
seemed
to have difficulty focusing beyond it. His face was lined with dissatisfaction, and a sallow complexion set off by greying locks tinged with yellow did nothing to alter the general impression he gave of supercilious discontent.

‘Yes, sir, I’m Menolly.’

‘I am Master Morshal, Craftmaster in Musical Theory and Composition. Come girl, one can’t hear oneself think in this uproar,’ and he took her by the arm and began to lead her from the Hall, the throng of boys parting before him, as if they felt his presence and wished to avoid any encounter. ‘The Masterharper wants my opinion on your knowledge of musical theory.’

Menolly was given to understand by the tone of his voice that the Masterharper relied on Master Morshal’s opinion in this and other far more important matters. And she also gathered the distinct impression that Morshal didn’t expect her to know very much.

Menolly was sorry she had eaten so heartily because the food was beginning to weigh uneasily in her stomach. Morshal was obviously already predisposed against her.

‘Pssst! Menolly!’ A hoarse whisper attracted her attention to one side. Piemur ducked out from behind a taller boy, jerked his thumb upwards in an easily interpreted gesture of encouragement. He rolled his eyes at the oblivious Morshal, grinned impudently and then popped out of sight in his group.

But the gesture heartened her. Funny-looking kid, Piemur was, with his tangle of tight black curls, missing half a front tooth and by far the smallest of the apprentice lot. How kind of him to reassure her.

When Menolly realized that Master Morshal must be taking her to the archroom, she sent a mental
command
to the fire lizards to stay quiet or go find a sunny roof until she called them again. There wasn’t so much as a rustle or a chirp when she and Morshal entered. With a resigned attitude, he seated himself on the only backed chair at the sandtable. As he didn’t indicate that she could seat herself, she remained standing.

‘Now, recite for me the notes in a C major chord,’ he said.

She did so. He regarded her steadily for a moment, and blinked.

‘What notes would comprise a major fifth in C?’

When she had answered that, he began to fire questions at her, irritable if she paused, however briefly, to reply, but Petiron had drilled her too often the same way. Morshal’s bored expression was disconcerting but, as his queries became more and more complex, she suddenly realized that he was taking examples from various traditional Sagas and Ballads. Once he mentioned the signature and which chord, it was simple enough for her to visualize the record hide and recite from memory.

Suddenly he grunted and then murmured in his throat. Abruptly he asked her if she’d been taught the drum. When she admitted some knowledge, he asked tedious questions about basic beats in each time factor. How would she vary the beat? Now, as to finger positions on a tenor pipe, what closures did one make for a chord in F? He took her through scales again. She could have demonstrated more quickly, but he gave her no chance to suggest it.

‘Stand still, girl,’ he said testily as she shifted her throbbing feet. ‘Shoulders back, feet together, girl, head up.’ He heard a soft twitter, but as he’d been glaring at Menolly, it was obvious she hadn’t opened her lips. He glanced about, to seek the source, as
Menolly
silently reassured Beauty and urged silence. ‘Don’t slouch. What was my question?’

She told him, and he continued the barrage. The more she answered, the more he asked. Her feet were aching so that she had to ask permission to sit, if only briefly. But, to her amazement, before she could, Morshal abruptly stabbed a finger at the stool next to him. She hesitated, not quite believing the gesture.

‘Sit! sit! sit!’ he said in an excess of irritation at her delay. ‘Now, let’s see if you know anything about writing down what you’ve been repeating so glibly.’

So she’d been answering correctly, and he was annoyed because she knew so much. Her flagging spirits lifted, and as Master Morshal dictated musical notations, her fingers drove the pointer quickly over the sands. In her mind, a different, kinder voice dictated; and the exercise became a game, rather than an examination by a prejudiced judge.