Anne McCaffrey - Dragonsinger

Though she had eaten, she was still conscious of hunger pangs. The fire lizards were waiting to be fed! She doubted that Dunca would supply her need, but her responsibility to her friends gave her the courage to ask.

“May I be excused, please? The fire lizards must be fed. I have to go to Silvina…”

“Why would you bother Silvina with such a detail?” demanded Dunca, her eyes popping slightly with indignation. “Don’t you realize that she is the headwoman of the entire Harper Craft Hall? The demands on her time are enormous! And if you don’t keep those creatures of yours under proper control…”

“You startled them this morning!”

“I’m not having that sort of carry-on every morning, frightening my girls with them flying at such dangerous speeds.”

Menolly refrained from pointing out that it had been Dunca’s screaming that had alarmed the fire lizards. “If you can’t control them…Where are they now?” She looked wildly about her, her eyes bulging with alarm.

“Waiting to be fed.”

“Don’t get pert with me, girl. You may be the daughter of a Sea Holder, but while you are in the Harper Craft Hall and in my charge, you are to behave yourself. We’ll have no ranking here.”

Half-torn between laughter and disgust, Menolly rose. “If I may go, please, before the fire lizards come in search of me…”

That sufficed. Dunca couldn’t get her out of the cot fast enough. Someone sniggered, but when Menolly glanced up she wasn’t sure if it had been Audiva or not. It was a small encouragement that someone had recognized Dunca's hypocrisy.

As she stepped out into the crisp morning air, Menolly realized how stuffy the cot had been and glanced over her shoulder. Sure enough, all the shutters, except her own, were closed tight. As she crossed the wide court she received morning grins and greetings from the farm-holders making their way to the fields, from apprentices dashing to their masters. She looked about her for her fire lizards and saw one wheeling down behind the outer wing of the Craft Hall. As she walked under the arch, she saw the others clinging to the kitchen and dining hall ledges. Camo was in the doorway, a great bowl in the crook of his left arm, a hunk of something dangling from his right hand as he tried to entice the fire lizards to him.

She was halfway across the courtyard before she realized that it was much easier to walk on her feet today. However, that was one of the few good things that happened. Camo was chastised by Abuna for trying to coax the fire lizards to eat when he should have been delivering the cereal to the dining hall (for the fire lizards would not eat from his hands until Menolly arrived). Then the fire lizards were frightened away when the apprentices and journeymen came tearing out of the dining hall, filling the courtyard with yells and shrieks and wild antics as they made their way to their morning classes. Menolly looked vainly for Piemur and then, as abruptly, the courtyard was clear. Except for some older journeymen. One of them paused by her, officiously demanding to know why she was hanging about the yard. When she said that she hadn’t been told where to go, he informed her that she obviously should be with the other girls and to get herself there immediately. As he gestured in the general direction of the archroom, Menolly assumed that was where the girls met.

She reached the archway room to find the girls already practicing on their gitars with a journeyman, who told her she was late, to get her instrument and see if she could catch up with the others. She mumbled an apology, found her precious gitar, and took a stool near the others. But the chords were basic and even with her injured hand she had no trouble with the drill. Not so the others. Pona seemed unable to bridge strings with forefinger: the joint kept snapping up; and although the journeyman, Talmor, patiently showed her an alternative chording, she couldn’t get to it fast enough to keep the rhythm of the exercise. Talmor had great patience, Menolly thought, and idly ran silent fingers down the neck of her gitar, doing his alternative placement. Yes, it was a bit awkward if you were after speed, but not as impossible as Pona was making it out to be.

“Since you are so good at it, Menolly, suppose you demonstrate the exercise. In the time…” and Talmor directed the beat. She caught it with her eyes, keeping her head still, for Petiron abhorred a musician who had to use unnecessary body motion to keep a rhythm going. She went through the chords on the scale as directed and then saw Audiva regarding her with fierce intent. Pona and the others glowered.

“Now use the regular fingering,” Talmor said, coming over to stand by Menolly, his eyes intent on her hands. Menolly executed the run. He gave a sharp nod of his head, eyed her inscrutably, and then returned to Pona, asking her to try it again, though he outlined a slower time. Pona mastered the run the third time, smiling with relief at her success.

Talmor gave them another set of scales and then brought out a large copy of a piece of occasional music. Menolly was delighted because the score was completely new to her. Petiron had been, as he phrased it, a teaching Harper, not an entertainer, and though she had learned the one or two occasional pieces of music he had in his possession, he had never acquired more. The Sea Holder, Menolly knew, had preferred to sing, not listen; and most occasional music was instrumental. In the bigger Holds, Petiron had told her, the Lord Holders liked music during the dinner hour and at night when they entertained guests in conversation rather than song.

This was not a difficult piece, Menolly realized, scanning it and silently fingering the one or two transitional chords that might be troublesome.

“All right, Audiva, let’s see what you can make of it today,” Talmor said, smiling at the girl with encouragement.

Audiva gulped, exhibiting a nervousness that puzzled Menolly. As Audiva began to pick out the chords, nodding her head and tapping one foot at a much slower rhythm than the musical notation required, perplexity grew. Well, she thought, charitably, maybe Audiva was a new student. If she was, she was far more competent than Briala, who apparently had trouble just reading the music.

Talmor dismissed Briala to the table to copy the score for later practice. Pona was no improvement on the other two. The sly-faced, fair-haired girl played with great banging against the gitar belly, at time, but with many inaccuracies. When it was finally her own turn, Menolly’s stomach was roiled by frustrated listening.

“Menolly,” said Talmor at the end of a sigh that expressed his own frustration and boredom.

It was such a relief to play the music as it should be that Menolly found herself increasing the time and emphasizing the chords with a variation of her own in the strum.

Talmor just looked at her. Then he blinked and exhaled heavily, pursing his lips together. “Well, yes. You’ve seen it before?”

“Oh, no. We had very little occasional music in Half-Circle. This is lovely!”

“You played that cold?”

Only then did Menolly realize what she’d done: made the other girls look inadequate. She was aware of their cold, chill silence, their hostile stares. But not to play one’s best seemed a dishonesty that she had never practiced and could not. Belatedly she recognized that she could have hedged: with her scarred hand she could have faltered, missed some of the chording. Yet it had been such a relief, after their limping renditions, to play the music as it was meant to be played.

“I was the last to go,” she said in a lame effort to retrieve matters, “I’d more time to study it, and see…” She’d started to say, “see where they went wrong.”

“Yes, well, so you did,” Talmor said, so hastily that Menolly wondered if he’d also realized what a break she’d made. Then he added in a rush of impatience and irritation, “Who told you to join this class? I’d rather thought…” A snigger interrupted his query, and he turned to glare at the girls. ‘Well?” he asked Menolly.