Dragonsinger (8 page)

‘Well, move back so I can see what you’ve written.’ Morshal’s testy voice recalled her to the present.

He peered at her inscriptions, pursed his lips, humphed and sat back. He gestured peremptorily for her to smooth the sand surface and rapidly gave her another set of chords. They included some difficult modulations and time values, but after the first two, she recognized the ‘Riddle Song’ and was very glad Petiron had made her learn the haunting tune.

‘That’s enough of that,’ Master Morshal said, drawing his overtunic about him with quick, angry motions. ‘Now, have you an instrument?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Then get it and that third score from the top shelf. Over there. Be quick about it.’

Menolly hissed to herself as she stepped on her throbbing feet. Sitting had not relieved the swelling, and her feet felt thick at the ankles and stiff.

‘Hurry up, girl. Don’t waste my time.’

Beauty gave a soft hiss, too, from her perch on the top shelf, unlidding her eyes, and from the rustling sounds in the same general area, Menolly knew the other fire lizards had roused. With her back to Master Morshal, she gestured to Beauty to close her eyes and be quiet. She cringed at the thought of Master Morshal’s probable reaction to fire lizards.

‘I said to hurry, girl.’

She shuffled to the place where she had laid the gitar and hurried back with instrument and music. The Master took the hides, his lips twitching with annoyance as he turned the thick leaves. This was new copying, Menolly saw, for the hide was almost white and the notes clear and easily read. The hide edges were neatly trimmed, too, the lines going from margin to margin, to be sure, but no notes lost in decayed edges.

‘There! Play me that!’ The music was slid across the sandtable with – Menolly thought, somewhat shocked – complete disregard for the value of the work.

By some freak of chance, Master Morshal had chosen the ‘Ballad of Moreta’s Ride.’ She’d never manage the verse chords as written, and he’d fault her if she couldn’t.

‘Sir, my …’ she began, holding out her left hand.

‘I want no excuses. Either you can play it as written or I assume that you are unable to perform a traditional work to a creditable standard.’

Menolly ran her fingers across the strings to see if the tuning had held.

‘Come, come. If you can read written scores, you can play them.’

That was assuming a lot, Menolly thought to herself. But she struck the opening chords and, mindful
that
he was undoubtedly waiting for her to falter, she played the so well-known Ballad according to the score before her, rather than by rote. There were variations in the chords: two of which were easily managed, but she flubbed the fourth and fifth because her scarred hand would not stretch.

‘I see, I see,’ he said, waving her to stop, but he looked oddly pleased. ‘You cannot play accurately at tempo. Very well, that is all. You are dismissed.’

‘I beg your pardon, Master Morshal …’ Menolly began, again extending her hand as explanation.

‘You what?’ He glared at her, his eyes wide with incredulity that she seemed to be defying him. ‘Out! I just dismissed you! What is the world coming to when
girls
presume to be harpers and pretend to compose music! Out! Great shells and stars!’ His voice changed from scold to panic. ‘What’s that? What are they? Who let them in here?’

Already making her way down the steps, Menolly lost her anger with him at the fright in his voice. His anger had roused her friends, and since she was apparently in danger, they had rushed to protect her, by squeaking and diving at him. She laughed as she heard the slamming of a heavy door, and as instantly regretted the scene. Master Morshal would be against her, and that would not make her life easy in the Harper Hall. ‘Nothing to fear from harpers?’ Was that what T’gellan had said last night? Maybe not
fear
, but certainly she was going to have to be cautious with them. Perhaps she ought not to have been so knowledgeable about music; that had irritated him. But wasn’t that knowledge what he was testing? Once again, she wondered if there really was a place for her here?
Presume to be a harper?
No, she hadn’t, and it was up to Master Robinton, wasn’t it? Were Master Morshal and Master Domick part of the conventional
procedures
Master Robinton had mentioned? Even if she needn’t have much to do with them, she sensed their antagonism and dislike.

She sighed and turned on the landing for the second flight and stopped. Piemur was in the hall, motionless, his eyes enormous as he followed the excited flitting of the fire lizards. Lazy and Uncle had subsided to the banister.

‘I’m not seeing things?’ he asked her, watching Lazy and Uncle with apprehensive gaze. From the hand held rigid at his side, the forefinger indicated the two fire lizards.

‘No, you’re not. The brown one is Lazy, and the blue is Uncle.’

His eyes followed the flight of the others a moment longer, trying to count. Then they popped out further as Beauty landed daintily on Menolly’s shoulder, in her usual position.

‘This is Beauty, the queen.’

‘Yes, she is, isn’t she?’ Piemur kept staring as Menolly descended to the floor level.

Beauty stretched her neck, her eyes whirling gently as she returned his look. Suddenly she blinked her eyes, and so did Piemur, which made Menolly giggle.

‘No wonder Camo was cracking his shell over her.’ Then Piemur shook himself, all over, like a fire lizard shedding seawater. ‘I was sent to bring you to Master Shonagar.’

‘Who’s he?’ asked Menolly, weary enough from the session with Master Morshal.

‘Old Marshface give you a hard time? Don’t worry about it. You’ll like Master Shonagar; he’s my Master, he’s the Voice Master. He’s the best.’ Piemur’s face lit up with real enthusiasm. ‘And
he
said that if you can sing half as well as your fire lizards do, you’re an assss … atest …?’

‘Asset?’ It amused Menolly to be so considered by anyone.

‘That’s the word. And he said that it didn’t really matter if you croaked like a watchwher, so long as you could get the fire lizards to sing. Do you think she likes me?’ he added, for he hadn’t stopped staring at Beauty. Nor had he moved.

‘Why not?’

‘She keeps staring at me so, and her eyes are whirling.’ He gestured absently with one hand.

‘You’re staring at her.’

Piemur blinked again and looked at Menolly, smiling shyly and giggling a bit self-consciously. ‘Yeah, I was, wasn’t I? Sorry about that, Beauty. I know it’s rude, but I’ve always wanted to see a fire lizard! Hey, Menolly, c’mon,’ and now Piemur moved off at a half-run, gesturing urgently for Menolly to follow him across the courtyard. ‘Master Shonagar’s waiting, and I know you’re new here, but you don’t ever keep a master waiting. And say, can you keep them from following us, ’cause they might sing, and Master Shonagar did say it was you he wanted to hear sing today, not them again.’

‘They’ll be quiet if I ask them to.’

‘Ranly, he sat across the table from you, he’s from Crom and he’s so smart, he says they only mimic.’

‘Oh no, they don’t.’

‘Glad to hear that, because I told him they’re just as smart as dragons, and he wouldn’t believe me.’ Piemur had been leading her towards the big hall where the chorus had been practising that morning. ‘Hurry up, Menolly. Masters hate to be kept waiting, and I’ve been gone awhiles tracking you down.’

‘I can’t walk fast,’ Menolly said, gritting her teeth at the pain of each step.

‘You sure are walking funny. What’s the matter with your feet?’

Menolly wondered that he hadn’t heard that tidbit of news. ‘I got caught away from the cave just at Threadfall. I had to run for safety.’

Piemur’s eyes threatened to bulge out of their sockets. ‘You ran?’ His voice squeaked. ‘Ahead of Thread?’

‘I ran my shoes off my feet and the skin as well.’

Menolly had no chance to speak further because Piemur had brought her to the hall door. Before she could adjust her eyes to the darkness within the huge room, she was told not to gawk but come forward at a proper pace, he detested dawdling.

‘With respect, sir, Menolly’s feet were injured outrunning Thread,’ said Piemur, just as if he’d always been in possession of this truth. ‘She’s not the dawdling kind.’

Now Menolly could see the barrel-shaped figure seated at the massive sandtable opposite the entrance.

‘Proceed at your own pace then, for surely a girl who outruns Thread has learned not to dawdle.’ The voice flowed out of the darkness, rich, round, with the r’s rolled and the vowel sounds pure and ringing.

The other fire lizards swooped in through the open door, and the Master’s eyes widened slightly. He regarded Menolly in mock surprise.

‘Piemur!’ The single word stopped the boy in his tracks, and the volume, which startled Menolly, caused Piemur to flick her a grin. ‘Did you not convey my message accurately? The creatures were
not
to come.’

‘They follow her everywhere, Master Shonagar, only she says they’ll be quiet if she tells them to.’

Master Shonagar turned his heavy head to regard Menolly with hooded eyes.

‘So tell them!’

Menolly detached Beauty from her shoulder and ordered them all to perch themselves quietly. And not to make a single sound until she said they could.

‘Well,’ remarked Master Shonagar, turning his head slightly to observe the obedience of the fire lizards. ‘That is a welcome sight, surrounded as I generally am by mass disobedience.’ He glared narrow-eyed at Piemur, who had had the temerity to giggle, and, at Master Shonagar’s stare, tried to assume a sober expression. ‘I’ve had enough of your bold face, Piemur, and your dilatory manner. Take them away!’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Piemur cheerfully, and twisting about on his heels, he marched himself smartly to the door, pausing to give Menolly an encouraging wave as he skipped down the steps.

‘Rascal,’ said the Master in a mock growl as he flicked his fingers at Menolly to take the stool opposite him. ‘I’m given to believe that Petiron ended his days as Harper at your Hold, Menolly.’

She nodded, tacitly reassured by his unexpected willingness to address her by name.

‘And he taught you to play instruments and to understand musical theory?’

Menolly nodded again.

‘In which Masters Domick and Morshal have examined you today.’ Some dryness in his tone alerted her, and she regarded him more warily as he tilted his heavy head sideways on his massive shoulders. ‘And did Petiron,’ and now the bass voice rolled with a hint of coming displeasure, so that Menolly wondered if her original assessment of this man was wrong and he was just as prejudiced as cynical Domick and soured Morshall. ‘Did he have the audacity to teach you how to use your voice?’

‘No, sir. At least, I don’t think he did. We … we just sang together.’

‘Ha!’ And the huge hand of Master Shonagar came down so forcefully on the sandtable that the drier portions jumped in their frames. ‘You just sang together. As you sang together with those fire lizards of yours?’

Her friends chirped enquiringly.

‘Silence!’ he cried, with another sand-displacing thump on the table.

Somewhat to Menolly’s surprise, because Master Shonagar had startled her again, the fire lizards flipped their wings to their backs and settled down.

‘Well?’

‘Did I just sing with them? Yes, I did.’

‘As you used to sing with Petiron?’

‘Well, I used to sing descant to Petiron’s melody, and the fire lizards usually do the descant now.’

‘That was not precisely what I meant. Now, I wish you just to sing for me.’

‘What, sir?’ she asked, reaching for the gitar slung across her back.

‘No, not with that,’ and he waved at her impatiently. ‘Sing, not concertize. The voice only is important now, not how you mask vocal inadequacies with pleasant strumming and clever harmony. I want to hear the voice … It is the voice we communicate with, the voice which utters the words we seek to impress on men’s minds, the voice which evokes emotional response; tears, laughter, sense. Your voice is the most important, most complex, most amazing instrument of all. And if you cannot use that voice properly, effectively, you might just as well go back to whatever insignificant Hold you came from.’

Menolly had been so fascinated by the richness and variety of the Master’s tones that she didn’t really pay heed to the content.

‘Well?’ he demanded.

She blinked at him, drawing in her breath, belatedly aware that he was waiting for her to sing.

‘No, not like that! Dolt! You breathe from here,’ and his fingers spread across his barrel-width midsection, pressing in so that the sound from his mouth reflected that pressure. ‘Through the nose, so …’ and he inhaled, his massive chest barely rising as it was filled, ‘down the windpipe,’ and he spoke on a single musical note, ‘to the belly,’ and the voice dropped an octave. ‘You breathe from your belly … if you breathe properly.’

She took the breath as suggested and then expelled it because she didn’t know what to sing with all that breath.

‘For the sake of the Hold that protects us,’ and he raised his eyes and hands aloft as if he could grasp patience from thin air, ‘the girl simply sits there. Sing, Menolly, sing!’

Menolly was quite willing to, but he had so much to say before she could start or think of what to sing.

She took another quick breath, felt uncomfortable seated, and without asking, stood and launched into the same song that the apprentices had been singing that morning. She had a brief notion of showing him that he wasn’t the only one who could fill the hall with resounding tones, but some fragment of advice from Petiron came to mind, and she concentrated on singing intensely, rather than loudly.

He just looked at her.

She held the last note, letting it die away as if the singer were moving off, and then she sank down on to the stool. She was trembling, and now that she’d stopped singing, her feet began to throb in a dull beat.

Master Shonagar only sat there, great folds of chin billowing down his chest. Without lifting his hand, he
tilted
his body backwards and stared at her from under his fleshy and black-haired brows.