Anne McCaffrey - Dragonsinger

“Could’ve used someone with your knowledge, girl.”

“You forget, sir, that my friends broke shell at about the same time Merga did. I wouldn’t have been much help to you then.”

“You can be now, though. How do I go about teaching Merga to fetch and carry for me? Heard about your pipes.”

“She’s just one. It took all nine of mine to bring me the pipes. They’re heavy,” Menolly considered the problem, seeing the disappointment on Lord Groghe’s features. “For just Merga alone, it would have to be something light, like a message, and you’d have to want it very badly. It was…well, my feet still hurt and it was such a long walk to the cot…”

His eyes, which were a disconcertingly light brown, fixed on hers. “Got to want it badly, huh? Humph. Don’t know as I want anything badly!” He gave a snort of laughter at her expression. “You want things badly when you’re young, girl. When you’re my age, you’ve learned how to plan.” He winked at her. “Take the point, though, since Merga’s a bundle of emotion, aren’t you, pet?” He stroked her head with a remarkably tender touch for a big, heavy-fingered man. “Emotion, that’s what they respond best to. Want’s sort of an emotion, isn’t it? If you want something bad enough…Humph.” He laughed again, this time with an oblique look at the Harper. “Emotion, then, Harper, not knowledge, is what these little beasties communicate. Emotion, like Brekke’s fear t’other night. Hatching’s emotional, too. And today…” he turned his light eyes back to Menolly.

“Today…that was all my fault, sir,” Menolly said, grabbing at a remark of Piemur’s for excuse. “My friend, Piemur, the little fellow,” and Menolly measured Piemur’s height from the ground with her free hand, “stumbled in the crowd. I was afraid he’d be trampled…”

“Was that what that was all about, Robinton?” asked Lord Groghe. “You never did explain,” but Lord Groghe seemed more interested in the lack of wine in his cup. Robinton politely topped the cup from the wineskin on the table.

“It never occurred to me, Lord Groghe,” said Menolly with genuine contrition, “that I’d be alarming you or the Masterharper or Sebell.”

“The young of every kind tend to be easily alarmed,” remarked the Harper, but Menolly could see the corners of his mouth twitching with amusement. “The problem will disappear with maturity.”

“And increases now with so many fire lizards about her,” added Lord Groghe with a grunt. “How much more d’you think they’ll grow, girl, if yours are the same age as Merga?” He was frowning at Beauty and glancing back to Merga.

“Mirrim’s three fire lizards at Benden Weyr were from the first clutch, weren’t they? They’re not more than a fingertip longer,” said Menolly, eagerly seizing on the new topic. “They’d be older by several sevendays, I think!’ She glanced at the Masterharper who nodded in confirmation. “When I first saw F’nor’s queen, Grall, I thought it was my Beauty.”

Beauty squeaked indignantly, her eyes whirling a little faster. “Only for a moment,” Menolly told her in apology and stroked Beauty’s head, “and only because I didn’t know the Weyrs had also discovered the fire lizards.”

“Any notion how old they must be to mate?” asked Lord Groghe, scowling in hopes of a favorable answer.

“Sir, I don’t know. T’gellan, Monarth’s rider, is going to keep a watch on the cave where my fire lizards hatched, to see if their queen will come back to clutch there again.”

“Cave? Thought fire lizards laid their eggs in sand on the beaches?”

Master Robinton indicated that she was to speak freely to the Lord Holder, so Menolly told him how she’d seen the fire lizard queen mating near the Dragon Stones, how she’d happened to be back that way, looking for spiderclaws (“Good eating, those,” Lord Groghe agreed and gestured for her to get on with the tale)…and helped the little fire lizard queen lift the eggs from the sea-threatened strand into the cave.

“You wrote that song, didn’t you?” Lord Groghe’s frown was surprised and approving. “The one about the fire lizard keeping the sea back with her wings! Liked that one! Write more like it! Easy to sing. Why didn’t you tell me a girl wrote it, Robinton?” His scowl was now accusatory.

“I didn’t know it was Menolly at the time we circulated the song.”

“Humph, Forgot about that. Go on, girl. Did it happen just as you wrote the song?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How come you were there in the cave when they hatched?”

“I was hunting spiderclaws and went further down coast than I should have. Threadfall was due. I was caught out, and the only shelter I could think of was the cave where I’d put the fire lizard eggs. I arrived…with my sack of spiderclaws…just as the eggs began break. That’s how I Impressed so many. I couldn’t very well let them fly out into Thread. And they were so hungry, just out of the shell…”

Lord Groghe grunted, sniffed and mumbled to the effect that he’d had enough trouble keeping one fed, his compliments for handling nine! As if mention of food had penetrated their sleep, Kimi and Zair roused, creeling.

“I mean no discourtesy, Lord Groghe,” said Master Robinton, rising as hastily as Sebell.

“Nonsense. Don’t go. They eat anything, anywhere.” Lord Groghe swung his heavy torso about. “You there, what’s your name…” and he waved impatiently at the wineman’s apprentice, who came running. “Bring a tray of those meatrolls from the stalls. A big tray. Heaped. Enough to feed two hungry fire lizards and a couple of harpers. Never known a harper who wasn’t hungry. Are you hungry, harper girl?”

“No, sir; thank you, sir.”

“Making a liar out of me, harper girl? Bring back some bubbly pies, too,” the Lord Holder roared after the departing apprentice. “Hope he heard me. So you’re the daughter to Yanus of Half-Circle Sea Hold.”

Menolly nodded acknowledgement of the relationship.

“Never been to Half-Circle. They brag about that cavern of theirs. Does it hold the fishing fleet?”

“Yes, sir, it does. The biggest can sail in without stepping the masts, except, of course, when the tides run exceptionally high. There’s a rock shelf for repairs and careening, a section for building, as well as a very dry inside cave for storing wood.”

“Hold above the docking cavern?” Lord Groghe seemed dubious about the wisdom of that.

“Oh, no, sir. Half-Circle Sea Hold really is a half circle.” She cocked her thumb and curved her forefinger. “This,” and she angled her right hand to show the direction of the curve, after squinting to see where the sun was, “my thumb is the docking cavern, and this,” and she pointed to the length of her forefinger, “is the Hold…the longer part of the half circle, and then this much,” and she touched the webbing, “is sandy beach. They can draw dinghies up on it or gut fish, sew nets and mend sail there in fair weather.”

“They?” asked Lord Groghe, his thick eyebrows rising in surprise.

“Yes, sir, they. I’m a harper now.”

“Well said, Menolly,” replied Lord Groghe, slapping his thigh with a crack that made Merga squeal in alarm. “Girl or not, Robinton, you’ve a good one here. I approve. I approve.”

“Thank you, Lord Groghe, I was confident you would,” said the Masterharper with a slight smile, which he shared with Sebell before he nodded reassuringly at Menolly.

Beauty chirped a question, which Lord Groghe’s Merga answered in a sort of “that’s that” tone.

“Cross-crafting works, Robinton. Think I’ll have to spot a few more of my sons about. Seaholds, too.”