Anne McCaffrey - Dragonsinger

“All of this,” and Sebell’s hand took in the towering face of the Hold cliff behind them, the Harper Hall across the paved square now lined with stalls, “is as new to you as to them. Enough to cause alarm and apprehension. They’re young and so are you, for all you’ve managed to accomplish. It’s again a question of discipline,” he said, but his smile was reassuring.

“I had no discipline this afternoon,” she said, repenting of her attack on Pona. She might well have jeopardized everything, crying insult from Pona.

“What d’you mean? You had a fantastic right cried Piemur, demonstrating with a grunt. “And you’d every right to cry insult on Pona, after all she's done to you…” Piemur hastily covered his mouth, his eyes widening as he realized he was being indiscreet.

“You cried insult on Pona?” asked Sebell, frowning in surprise. “I thought that Silvina and I told you to leave the matter.”

“She called me a thief. She tried to get Benis to take my two-marker from me.”

“The two-marker that Master Robinton himself given Menolly to buy that belt,” said Piemur, staunchly confirming the affair.

“If Pona has added insult to the injury she’s already tried to do you,” said Sebell slowly, “then, of course, you had to take action, Menolly.” He smiled slightly, his eyes still considering her face.

“In fact, it’s good to know that you will take action on your own behalf. But, the fire lizards’ part…”

“I didn’t call them, Sebell. But, when Benis tripped Piemur and then kicked him, I was scared. He just lay there…”

“Sure, smartest thing to do in a kicking fight,” Piemur replied, unperturbed.

“I cannot, however, condone ‘apprentices fighting with each other or with holders…especially holders of any rank…

“Benis is the biggest bully in the Hold, Sebell, and you know we’ve all had trouble with him.”

“Enough, youngster,” said Sebell more sharply Menolly had yet heard him speak, As quiet and self-effacing as the journeyman usually was, when he spoke in that authoritative tone of voice, it would take a stalwart person to disobey him. “That was not, however, what I meant by discipline, Menolly. I meant the ability to stick with a project, like that song you wrote yesterday… Was it really only yesterday?” he added. He smiled tenderly down at Kimi who was now asleep in a ball, snuggled between his body and elbow.

“You wrote a new song?” Piemur brightened. “You didn’t tell me. When’ll we get to hear it?”

“When will you to hear it?” Menolly heard her voice cracking on the last few words.

“‘What’s the matter, Menolly?” Sebell took her arm and gave her a little shake but she could only stare at them.

“It’s just that…it’s so different…” she stammered, unable to express the upheaval in her mind, the reversal of all that she had been expected to do. “D’you know…d’you know what used to happen to me when I wrote a song?” She tried to stop the words that were threatening to burst from her, but she couldn’t, not with Piemur’s face contorted with distress for her. And Sebell quietly encouraging her to speak with the sympathy so plain on his face. “I used to get beaten by my father for tuning, for twiddles as he called them. When I cut my hand…she held it up, looking at the red scar and then turning it to them, “…gutting packtails, they let it heal all wrong so I wouldn’t be able to play. They wouldn’t even allow me to sing in the Hall, for fear Harper Elgion would figure out that it was me who’d taught the children after Petiron died. They were ashamed of me! They were afraid I’d disgrace them. That’s why I ran away. I’d rather have died of Threadscore than live in Half-Circle another night…”

Tears of bitter and keenly felt injustice streamed down Menolly’s cheeks. She was aware of Piemur urgently begging her not to cry, that it was all right, she was safe now, and he loved every one of her songs, even the ones he hadn’t heard. And he’d tell her father a thing or if he ever met him. She was conscious that Sebell had put his right arm about her shoulders and was stroking her with awkward consolation. But it was Beauty’s anxious chirping in her ear that reminded her that she’d better get her emotions under control. Master Robinton and Lord Groghe wouldn’t be pleased by a second alarm incited by her lack of self-discipline. Particularly if it dragged them away from good Benden wine.

She dashed the tears from her eyes, and gulping down one last sob, looked defiantly into the startled faces of Sebell and Piemur.

“And I wanted you to teach me how to gut fish!” Sebell let out a long sigh. “I wondered why you were so hesitant. I’ll find someone else, now I understand why you hate it.”

“Oh, I want to teach you, Sebell. I want to do everything I can, if it’s gutting fish or teaching you to sail. I may be only a girl, but I’m going to be the best harper in the entire Hall…”

“Easy, Menolly,” said Sebell, laughing at her excess. I believe you.”

“I do, too!” said Piemur in a low, intense tone of reassurance. “I never knew you’d had that kind of hold life. Didn’t anyone ever listen to your songs?”

“Petiron did, but after he died…”

“I can see now why it’s been so hard for you, Menolly, to appreciate how important your songs are. After what you’ve been through,” and Sebell gently squeezed her left hand, “it would be hard to believe in yourself. Promise me, Menolly, to believe from now on? Your songs are very important to the Harper, to the Hall and to me. Master Domick’s music is brilliant, but yours appeals to everyone, holder and crafter, landsman and seaman. Your songs deal with subjects, like the fire lizard and Brekke’s call to F'nor and Canth, that will help change the sort of set attitudes that nearly killed you in your home hold.

“There’s something wrong in not appreciating one’s own special abilities, my girl. Find your own limitations, yes, but don’t limit yourself with false modesty.”

“That’s what I’ve always liked about Menolly: she’s got her head on right,” said Piemur with all the sententiousness of an ancient uncle.

Menolly looked at her friend and then began to laugh, as much at Piemur as at herself. Her outburst had at long last lifted a weight of intolerable depression. She straightened her shoulders and smiled at her friends, flinging out her arms to signal her release.

They all heard the happy warbling of the fire lizards. Beauty crooned with pleasure, rubbing her head against Menolly’s cheek, and Kimi gave a drowsy chirp that made the trio of harpers laugh.

“You are feeling better now, aren’t you, Menolly?” said Piemur. “So we’d better follow orders, because it doesn’t do to keep a Lord Holder waiting, much less Master Robinton. You’ve got your belt and I’m washed up, so we’d better get to the wineman’s stall.”

Menolly hesitated just a moment.

“Well?” asked Sebell, raising his eyebrows to encourage her to answer.

“What if he finds out I’m the one who hit Benis?”

“Not from Benis he won’t,” replied Piemur with a snort. “Besides, he’s got fifteen sons. And only one fire lizard. He wants to talk to you about her. Not even the Masterharper knows as much about fire lizards as you do. Come on!”

To Menolly’s intense relief, all Lord Groghe did want to talk about was the fire lizards—his in particular and in general. The four of them, Robinton, Sebell, Lord Groghe and herself, sat at a table apart from the others, on one side of the square, each of them with a fire lizard. Menolly was torn between amusement and awe that she, the newest of apprentices, should be in such exalted company. Lord Groghe, for all his clipped speech and an amazing range of descriptive grimaces, was very easy to talk to, once she got over her initial nervousness about the fracas with Benis. She heard, in detail, about the Hatching of Merga, smiled when Lord Groghe guffawed reminiscently over his early anxieties about her.