Anne McCaffrey - Dragonsinger

“A journeyman…”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. I was in the courtyard, and he asked me why wasn’t I in class. Then he told me to come here.”

Talmor rubbed the side of his jaw. “Too late now, I suppose, but I’ll inquire.” He turned to the other girls.

“Let’s play it in…” The girls were staring pointedly at the doorway, and he looked about. “Yes, Sebell?”

Menolly turned, too, to see the man to whom the other coveted fire lizard egg had gone. Sebell was a slender man, a hand or so taller than herself: a brown man, tanned skin, light brown hair and eyes, dressed in brown with a faded Harper apprentice badge half-hidden in the shoulder fold of his tunic.

“I’ve been looking for Menolly,” he said, gazing steadily at her.

“I thought someone ought to be. She was misdirected here.” Talmor sounded irritated, and he gestured sharply for Menolly to go to Sebell.

Menolly slipped from the stool, but she was uncertain what to do about the gitar and glanced questioningly at Sebell.

“You won’t need it now,” he said so she quietly put it away on the shelf.

She felt the girls staring at her, knew that Talmor was watching and would not continue the lesson until she had gone, so it was with intense relief that she heard the door close behind her and the quiet brown man.

“Where was I supposed to be?” she asked, but he motioned her down the steps.

“You got no message?” His eyes searched her face although his expression gave no hint of his thoughts.

“No.”

“You did breakfast at Dunca’s?”

“Yes…” Menolly couldn’t suppress her distaste for that painful meal. Then she caught her breath and stared at Sebell, comprehension awakening. “Oh, she wouldn’t have…”

Sebell was nodding, his brown eyes registering an understanding of the matter. “And you wouldn’t have known yet to come to me for instructions…”

“You…” Hadn’t Piemur said something about Sebell walking the tables, to become a journeyman? “…sir?” she added. A slow smile spread across the man’s round face.

“I suppose I do rate a ‘sir’ from a mere apprentice, but the Harper is not as strict about such observances as other masters. The tradition here is that the oldest journeyman under the same master is responsible for the newest apprentice. So you are my responsibility. At least while I’m in the Hall and I’m enjoying a respite from my journeyings. I didn’t have the chance to meet you and this morning…you didn’t arrive as planned at Master Domick’s…”

“Oh, no.” Menolly swallowed the hard knot of dismay. “Not Master Domick!” Even Piemur was careful not to annoy him. “Was Master Domick very…upset?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes. But don’t worry, Menolly, I shall use the incident to your advantage. It doesn’t do to antagonize Domick unnecessarily.”

“Not when he doesn’t like me anyhow.” Menolly closed her eyes against a vision of Master Domick’s cynical face contorted with anger.

“How do you construe that?” Menolly shrugged. “I had to play for him yesterday. I know he doesn’t like me.”

“Master Domick doesn’t like anyone,” replied Sebell with a wry laugh, “including himself. So you’re no exception. But, as far as studying with him is concerned…”

“I'm to study with him?”

“Don’t panic. As a teacher, he’s top rank. I know. In some ways I think Master Domick is superior, instrumentally, to the Harper. He doesn’t have Master Robinton’s flare and vitality, nor his keen perception in matters outside the Craft.” Although Sebell was speaking in his customary impersonal way, Menolly sensed his complete loyalty and devotion to the Masterharper. “You,” and there was a slight emphasis on the pronoun, “will learn a great deal from Domick. Just don’t let his manner fuss you. He’s agreed to teach you, and that’s quite a concession.”

“But I didn’t come this morning…”

The magnitude of that truancy appalled Menolly.

Sebell gave her a quick reassuring grin. “I said that I can turn that to your advantage. Domick doesn't like people to ignore his instructions. It is not your worry. Now, come on. Enough of the morning has been lost.”

He had directed her up the steps into the Hall, and to her surprise opened the door into the Great Hall. It was twice the size of the dining hall, three times the size of the Great Hall at Half-Circle. Across the far end was fitted a raised and curtained platform that jutted into the floor space. Tables and benches were piled haphazardly against the inner walls and under windows. Immediately to her right were a collection of more comfortable chairs arranged in an informal grouping about a small round table. To this area Sebell motioned her and seated himself opposite her.

“I’ve some questions to put to you, and I can’t explain why I need to have this information. It is Harper business, and if you’re told that, you’ll be wise to ask no further. I need your help…”

“My help?”

“Strange as that might seem, yes,” and his brown eyes laughed at her. “I need to know how to sail a boat, how to gut a fish, how to act like a seaman…”

He was ticking off the points on his fingers, and she stared at his hands.

“With those, no one would ever believe you had sailed…”

He examined his hands impersonally. “Why?”

“Seamen’s hands get gnarled quickly from popping the joints, rough from salt water and fish oil, much browner than yours from weathering…”

“Would anyone but a seaman know that?”

“Well, I know it.”

“Fair enough. Can you teach me to act, from a distance,” and his grin teased her, “like a seaman? Is it hard to learn to sail a boat? Or bait a hook? Or gut a fish?”

Her left palm itched, and so did her curiosity. Harper business? Why would a journeyman harper need to know such things?

“Sailing, baiting, gutting…those are a question of practicing…”

“Could you teach me?”

“With a boat and a place to sail, yes…with hook and bait, and a few fish.” Then she laughed.

“What’s funny?”

“Just that…I thought when I came here, that I’d never need to gut a fish again.”

Sebell regarded her sardonically for a long moment, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “Yes, I can appreciate that, Menolly. I was landbred and thought I’d done with walking about. Just don’t be surprised at anything you’re asked to do here. The Harper requires us to play many tunes for our Craft…not always on gitar or pipe. Now,” and he went on more briskly, “I’ll arrange for the boat, the water and the fish. But when?” At this requisite, he whistled softly through the slight gap between his two front teeth. “Time will be the problem, for you have lessons, and there are the two eggs…” He looked her squarely in the eye then, and grinned. “Speaking of which, have you any idea what color mine might be?”

She smiled back. “I don’t think you can really be as sure with fire lizard eggs as you can with the dragon's, but I kept the two largest ones for Master Robinton. One ought to be a queen, and the other should turn out to be a bronze at least.”

“A bronze fire lizard?”

The rapt expression on Sebell's face alarmed her. What if both eggs produced browns? Or greens? As if he sensed her apprehension, Sebell smiled.

“I don’t really care so long as I have one. The Harper says they can be trained to carry messages. And sing!” He was a great teaser, this Sebell, thought Menolly, for all his quiet manner and solemn expressions, but she felt completely at ease with him. “The Harper says they can get as attached to their friends as dragons do to their riders.”