Anne McCaffrey: Dragonsong

He was timeless now, Menolly told herself, her wet cheeks stinging with cold, and she’d never forget him.

The shadow of the two arms of Half-Circle’s cliffs fell across her face. The barge was entering the home harbor. She lifted her head. High above, she saw the diminutive outline of a dragon in the sky. How lovely! And how had Benden Weyr known? No, the dragonrider was only doing a routine sweep. With Thread falling at unexpected times, dragons were often flying above Half-Circle, isolated as it was by the bogs at the top of Nerat Bay. No matter, the dragon was awing above Half-Circle Hold at this appropriate moment and that was, to Menolly, the final tribute to Petiron the Harper.

The men lifted the heavy oars out of the water, and the barge glided slowly to its mooring at the far end of the Dock. Fort and Tillek might boast of being the oldest Sea-Holds, but only Half-Circle had a cavern big enough to dock the entire fishing fleet and keep it safe from Threadfall and weather.

Dock Cavern had moorings for thirty boats; storage space for all the nets, traps and lines; airing racks for sail; and a shallow ledge where hulls could be scraped free of seagrowths and repaired. At the very end of the immense Cavern was a shelf of rock where the Hold’s builders worked when there was sufficient timber for a new hull. Beyond was the small inner cave where priceless wood was stored, dried on high racks or warped into frames.

The burial barge lightly touched its pier.

“Menolly?” The first oarsman held out a hand to her.

Startled by the unexpected courtesy to a girl her age, she was about to jump down when she saw in his eyes the respect due her at this moment. And his hand, closing on hers, gave silent approval for her singing of the Harper’s elegy. The other men stood, too, waiting for her to disembark first. She straightened her shoulders, although her throat felt tight enough for more tears, and she stepped proudly down to the solid stone.

As she turned to walk back to the landside of the Cavern, she saw that the other boats were discharging their passengers quickly and quietly. Her father’s boat, the biggest of the Half-Circle fleet, had already tacked back into the harbor. Yanus’s voice carried across the water, above the incidental sounds of creaking boats and muted voices.

“Quickly now, men. We’ve a good breeze rising and the fish’ll be biting after three days of storm.”

The oarsmen, hurried past her, to board their assigned fishing boats. It seemed unfair to Menolly that Petiron, after a long life’s dedication to Half-Circle Hold, was dismissed so quickly from everyone’s mind. And yet…life did go on. There were fish to be caught against winter’s hungry months. Fair days during the cold months of the Turn were not to be squandered.

She quickened her pace. She’d far to go around the rim of the Dock Cavern and she was cold. Menolly also wanted to get into the Hold before her mother noticed that she didn’t have the drum. Waste wasn’t tolerated by Mavi any more than idleness by Yanus.

While this was an occasion, it had been a sad one and the women and children and also the men too old to sea-fish observed a decorous pace out of the Cavern, making smaller groups as they headed towards their own Holds in the southern arc of Half-Circle’s sheltering palisade.

Menolly saw Mavi organizing the children into work groups. With no Harper to lead them in the Teaching Songs and ballads, the children would be kept occupied in clearing the storm debris from the white-sanded beaches.

There might be sun in the sky, and the dragonrider still circling on his brown, but the wind was frigid and Menolly began to shiver violently. She wanted to feel the warmth of the fire on the great Hold’s kitchen hearth and a cup of hot klah inside her.

She heard her sister Sella’s voice carrying to her on the breeze, “She’s got nothing to do now, Mavi, why do I have to….”

Menolly ducked behind a group of adults, avoiding her mother’s searching glance. Trust Sella to remember that Menolly no longer had the excuse of nursing the ailing Harper. Ahead of her, one of the old aunts tripped, her querulous voice raised in a cry for help. Menolly sprinted to her side, supporting her and receiving loud protestations of gratitude.

“Only for Petiron would I have dragged these old bones out on the cold sea this morning. Bless the man, rest the man,” the old woman went on, clinging with unexpected strength to Menolly. “You’re a good child, Menolly, so you are. It is Menolly, isn’t it?” The old one peered up at her. “Now you just give me a hand up to Old Uncle and I’ll tell him the whole of it, since he hasn’t legs to leave his bed.”

So Sella had to supervise the children and Menolly got to the fire: at least long enough to stop shivering. Then old auntie would have it that the Uncle would be grateful for some klah, too, so when Mavi entered her kitchen, her eyes searching for her youngest daughter, she found Menolly dutifully occupied serving the oldster.

“Very well then, Menolly, while you’re up there, see that you set the old man comfortably. Then you can start on the glows.”

Menolly had her warming cup with the Old Uncle and left him comfortable, mournfully exchanging tales of other burials with the aunt. Checking the glows had been her task ever since she had grown taller than Sella. It had meant climbing up and down the different levels to the inner and outer layers of the huge Sea Hold, but Menolly had established the quickest way to finish the job so that she’d have some free time to herself before Mavi started looking for her. She had been accustomed to spending those earned minutes practicing with the Harper. So Menolly was not surprised to find herself, eventually, outside Petiron’s door.

She was surprised, however, to hear voices in his room. She was about to charge angrily through the half-open door and demand an accounting when she heard her mother’s voice clearly.

“The room won’t need much fixing for the new Harper, so it won’t.”

Menolly stepped back into the shadow of the corridor. The new Harper?

“What I want to know, Mavi, is who is to keep the children up in their learning until he comes?” That voice was Soreel’s, the wife of the First Holder and therefore spokeswoman for the other Hold women to Mavi as Sea Holder’s lady. “She did well enough this morning. You have to give her that, Mavi.”

“Yanus will send the message ship.”

“Not today, nor tomorrow he won’t. I don’t fault Sea Holder, Mavi, but it stands to reason that the boats must fish and the sloop’s crew can’t be spared. That means four, five days before the messenger gets to Igen Hold. From Igen Hold, if a dragonrider obliges by carrying the message—but we all know what the Old-timers at Igen Weyr are like so let’s say, Harper drums to the Masterharper Hall at Fort is another two—three days. A man has to be selected by Masterharper Robinton and sent overland and by ship. And with Thread falling any time it pleases, no one travels fast or far in a day. It’ll be spring before we see another Harper. Are the children to be left without teaching for months?”

Soreel had punctuated her comments with brushing sounds, and there were other clatters in the room, the swishing of bed rushes being gathered up. Now Menolly could hear the murmur of two other voices supporting Soreel’s arguments.

“Petiron has taught well…”

“He taught her well, too,” Soreel interrupted Mavi.

“Harpering is a man’s occupation…”

“Fair enough if Sea Holder’ll spare a man for it.” Soreel’s voice was almost belligerent because everyone knew the answer to that. “Truth be told, I think the girl knew the Sagas better than the old man this past Turn. You know his mind was ranging back in time, Mavi.”