Anne McCaffrey: Dragondrums

Piemur hadn’t had much to do with the Oldtimers before F’lar had ordered them exiled to the Southern Continent. For this he was fervently grateful as he’d heard enough about their arrogance and greed. But if he, Piemur, had been exiled, he wouldn’t have just stayed put. He couldn’t understand why the Oldtimers had quietly accepted their humiliating dismissal. Piemur calculated that some two hundred and forty-eight Oldtimers and their women had gone to the Southern Continent, including the two dissatisfied Weyrleaders, T’ron of Fort and T’kul of the High Reaches. Seventeen Oldtimers had returned north, accepting Benden as their leader or so Piemur had heard. Most of the exiled men and dragons had been well on in Turns, so they were no real loss to the dragon strength of Pern. Old age and sickness had claimed almost forty dragons in the first Turn, and almost as many had gone between this Turn. Somehow that struck Piemur as being rather careless of dragons, even Oldtimer ones.

He stopped abruptly, aware of a tantalizing aroma wafting from the kitchens. Bubbly berry pies? And just when he needed a real treat! His mouth began to water in anticipation. The pies must be just out of the bake oven or surely he would have discerned that fragrance before.

He heard Silvina’s voice rising above the working noises and grimaced. He could’ve gotten a few pies out of Abuna with no trouble. But Silvina wasn’t often taken in by his starts and schemes. Still…

He let his shoulders sag, dropped his head and began to shuffle down the last few steps into the kitchen level.

“Piemur? What are you doing here at this hour? Why do you have the Harper’s tray? You should be rehearsing…” Silvina took the tray from his hands and stared at him accusingly.

“You didn’t hear?” Piemur asked in a low, dejected voice.

“Hear? Hear what? How could anyone hear anything in this babble? I’ll…” She slipped the tray onto the nearest work surface and, putting her finger under his chin, forced his head up.

Piemur was rather pleased to be able to squeeze moisture from the corners of his eyes. He narrowed them quickly for Silvina wasn’t easily fooled. Though, he told himself hastily, he was very sorry he wouldn’t be singing Domick’s music. And he was sorrier that Tilgin was!

“Your voice? Your voice is changing?”

Piemur heard the regret and dismay in Silvina’s hushed tone. It occurred to him that women’s voices never did change, and that she couldn’t possibly imagine his feelings of total loss and crushing disappointment. More tears followed the first.

“There, lad. The world’s not lost. In a half-Turn or less your range’ll settle again.”

“Master Domick’s music was just right for me…” Piemur did not need to fake the ragged tones.

“To be sure, since he wrote it with you in mind, scamp. Well, wouldn’t you know? Though I can’t for the life of me believe you could contrive to change your voice to spite Domick—”

“Spite Master Domick?” Piemur widened his eyes with indignation. “I wouldn’t do such a thing, Silvina.”

“Only because you couldn’t, rascal. I know how you hate singing female parts.” Her voice was acerbic, but her hand under his chin was gentle. She took a clean corner of her apron and blotted the tears on his cheeks. “As luck would have it, I seem to be prepared with an easement for your tragedy.” She propelled him before her, motioning toward the trays of cooling pies. Piemur rapidly wondered if he ought to dissemble. “You can have two, one for each hand, and then away with you! Have you seen Master Shonagar yet? Watch those pies! They’re just out of the oven.”

“Hmmmm,” he replied, biting into the first pie despite her admonition. “It’s the only way to eat ’em,” he mumbled through a mouthful so hot that he had to suck in cool air to ease the burning of his gums. “But…I’m to get wherhide clothes.”

“You? In wherhide? Why would you need wherhide?” She frowned suspiciously at him now.

“I’m to study drum with Master Olodkey, and Menolly asked me could I ride runners, and Master Robinton said I was to ask you for wherhide.”

“All three of them in it? Hmmm. And you’d be apprenticed to Master Olodkey?” Silvina considered the matter and then eyed him shrewdly. He wondered should he tell Menolly that Silvina hadn’t been taken in by their stratagem of making him a drummer. “Well, I suppose you’ll be kept out of mischief. Though I, for one, doubt it’s possible. Come on then. I do have a wherhide jacket that might fit.” She cast him a calculating look as they moved toward the storage section of the kitchen level. “Let’s hope it’ll fit for a while because sure as eggs hatch, I shan’t be able to pass it on to anyone else the way you mangle your clothes.”

Piemur loved the storerooms, redolent with the smell of well-cured hides and the eye-smarting acridity of newly dyed fabrics. He liked the glowing colors of the cloth bales, the jumble of boots, belts, packs hanging from hooks about the walls, the boxes with their odd treasures. Silvina rapped his knuckles with her keys several times for opening lids to investigate.

The jacket fit, the stiff new leather bucking against his thighs as he pranced about, swinging his arms to make the shoulders settle. It was long in the body, but Silvina was pleased: he’d need the length. Fitting him with new boots showed her how ragged his trousers were, so she found him two new pairs, one in harper blue and the other in a deep gray leather. Two shirts with sleeves too long, but which no doubt would fit him perfectly by midwinter, a hat to keep his ears warm and his eyes shaded, and heavy riding gloves with down-lined fingers.

He left the stores, his arms piled high with new clothes, boots dangling from their laces over his shoulder and bumping him front and back, his ears ringing with Silvina’s promise of dire things happening to him if he snagged, tore, or scuffed his new finery before he’d had it on his back a sevenday.

He happily employed the rest of the morning by dressing in his new gear, examining himself from all angles in the one mirrored surface of the apprentice dormitory.

He heard the burst of shouts as the chorus was released and peered cautiously over the sill. Most of the boys and young men swarmed across the Court to the Hall. But Master Domick, music rolled in one fist, strode purposefully toward Master Shonagar’s hall. The last to exit was Tilgin, head bowed, shoulders slumped, weary from what must have been an exhausting rehearsal. Piemur grinned; he had warned Tilgin to study the part. One never knew when Master Domick might call on the understudy. There was always the chance of a bad throat or a hacking cough for a soloist. Not that Piemur had ever been sick for performance…until this one. Piemur gave a sour note. He really had wanted to sing Lessa in Domick’s ballad. He’d sort of counted on coming to the Benden Weyrwoman’s notice that way. It was always wise to be known to the two Benden Weyrleaders, and this would have been the perfect opportunity.

Ah well, there were more ways of skinning a herdbeast than shaving him with a table-knife.

He folded his new clothing carefully in his bedpress, giving the fur a smoothing twitch. Then quickly glanced out the window again. Now, while Master Domick was busy with Master Shonagar, would be the time for him to slip into the dining hall, Keep out of sight, and soon enough he’d be out of Domick’s mind. Not that Piemur was at fault. This time.

A shame, really. Lessa’s melody was the loveliest Domick had ever written. It had so suited his range. Once again a lump pushed up in his throat at the sadness of the lost opportunity. And probably a Turn before he could try to sing again. Nor was there a guarantee that he’d have anywhere near as good a singing voice as an adult as he’d had as a boy. None at all. He’d miss being able to astonish people with the pure tone he could produce, the marvelous flexibility, the perfect sense of pitch and timing, not to mention his particularly acute skill at note-reading.