“Could I help feed them? Maybe? Once?” asked a wistful voice at her elbow. Startled, she whirled to see Piemur, fringe of hair damp about his face and a line of rearranged dirt on each side of his neck up to his ears.
Other lads and some of the journeymen were beginning to drift across the courtyard to the Hall. “Rascal,” Master Shonagar had called Piemur, and Menolly agreed, for a gleam lurked in Piemur’s eyes for all his plaintive voice. “Got a bet on with Ranly?
“Bet on?” Piemur gave her a searching look. Then he chuckled. “A small guy like me, Menolly, has got to stay a jump ahead of the big ones, like Ranly, or they put on me in the dorm at night.”
“So what did you put up with Ranly?”
“That you’d let me feed the fire lizards because they like me already. They do, don’t they?”
“You really are a rascal, aren’t you?” Piemur’s grin became a calculated grimace, and he shrugged admission of the charge.
“I’ve already got Camo falling aver himself to feed…”
“…‘Pretty Beauty,’ ” and Piemur mimicked the older man’s thick voice perfectly, “ ‘Feed pretty Beauty…’ Oh, don’t worry Menolly, Camo and me are friends. He won’t object to me helping, too.”
As if that had settled the matter, Piemur grabbed Menolly’s hand to pull her up the steps. “‘Hey, you don’t want to be late for the table again,” he said, leading her toward the dining hall. “Menolly!”
The two halted at the sound of the Harper’s voice and turned to see him descending the stairs from the upper level.
“How’s the day gone for you, Menolly? You’ve seen Domick, Morshal and Shonagar, have you? I must make you known to Sebell, too, very soon. Before the eggs hatch!” The Masterharper grinned, much as Piemur had just done, in anticipation of the event. “And this scamp has attached himself to you, has he? Well, maybe you can keep him out of trouble for awhile. Ah, Brudegan, a word with you before supper.”
“Quick…” Piemur had her by the arm and was hurrying her into the dining hall so that betwixt the Harper and Piemur, it looked to Menolly as if neither wished her to meet Journeyman Brudegan, whose practice her fire lizards had interrupted. “Sebell’s a real clever fellow,” Piemur added in such a casual fashion that Menolly berated herself for imagining things. “He’s to get the other egg.” Piemur whistled in his teeth. “You think you got troubles? Sebell’s only just walked the tables—”
“Walked the tables?” Menolly was startled.
“That’s what we say when you’ve been promoted a grade. It happens at supper. If you’re an apprentice, a journeyman stands by your seat and then walks you to your new place.” He was pointing from the long tables to the oval ones at the far end of the dining hall. “And a master escorts a journeyman from them to the round table. But it’ll be a long time before any of that happens to me,” he said, sighing. “If it ever does.”
“Don’t all apprentices become journeymen?”
“No,” replied the boy with a grimace. “Some get sent home as useless. Some get dull jobs around here, helping journeymen or masters, or sent to a smaller crafthall elsewhere.”
Maybe that was what the Masterharper had in mind for her, helping a journeyman or a master in some hold or crafthall. That made good sense, at least, but Menolly sighed, A sigh echoed by Piemur.
“How long have you been here?” Menolly asked. He looked a poorly grown nine or ten Turns, the age at which boys were customarily apprenticed, but he sounded as if he’d been in the Hall a long time.
“Two Turns I’ve been apprenticed,” he answered with a grin. “1 got taken in early on account of my voice.” He said that without the least bit of conceit. “Now, look, you go on over there where the girls sit. And don’t worry. You rank ’em.”
Without explaining that, he darted in between the first and second tables. Menolly tried not to hobble as she moved to the benches he had indicated, keeping her shoulders back, her head up, and walking slowly so as to disguise her pain-footed gait. She was aware of, and tried to ignore, the overt and covert glances of the boys already in position at the tables. She’d better let Piemur help her feed the fire lizards: keeping on his good side might be as important as staying in the Harper’s good graces.
The seats evidently reserved for the girls were marked by flaps of cushion on the hard wood. She took the end position, away from the fiercest heat of the hearth fire and stood politely waiting.
The girls entered the dining hall together. Together in more than one sense, for all regarded her steadily as they crossed to the table. Their unity was also maintained in their blank expressions. Menolly swallowed against the dryness in her throat, glanced around her, anywhere but at the fast approaching girls. She caught Piemur’s eyes, saw him grin impishly, and she had to smile back.
“You’re Menolly?” asked a quiet voice. The girls were ranged beyond their spokesman, again in a line that betokened unity.
“She couldn’t be anyone else, could she?” asked the dark girl just behind her.
“My name is Pona, my grandfather is Lord Holder of Boll.” She held out her right hand, palm up, and Menolly, who had never had an opportunity to make the gesture of formal greeting, covered it with hers.
“I am Menolly,” and, remembering Piemur’s comment about rank, she added, “my father is Yanus, Sea Holder of Half-Circle Sea Hold.”
There was a startled murmur of surprise from the others. “She ranks us,” said someone, rebellious and astonished.
“There’s rank in the Harper Hall?” asked Menolly, disturbed and wondering what other elements of courtesy she might unwittingly have neglected. Hadn’t Petiron always told her that the Harper Craft, in particular, laid stress on skill and musical achievement rather than natal rank? But Piemur had said, “You rank ’em.”
“Half-Circle is not the oldest seahold. Tillek is,” said the dark-complexioned girl, rather crossly. “Menolly is daughter, not niece,” said the girl who had mentioned outranking. She now extended her hand, less grudgingly, Menolly thought. “My father is Weaver Craftmaster Timareen of Telgar Hold. My name is Audiva.”
The dark-complexioned girl was about to name herself, her hand extended, when a sudden shuffling of feet alerted them all, and they took their places at the bench as everyone in the hall stood straight and looked forward. Menolly was then facing a tall boy whose slightly protuberant eyes were bulging with interest on the little scene he had just witnessed. Looking over his left shoulder and through a gap, she saw Piemur, rolling his eyes as far to his right as possible. Menolly tried peering in the same direction and decided it must be the Harper’s table that Piemur watched. Then everyone was jumping over the benches to get seated, and she hastened to do the same.
Heavy pitchers of a thick, meaty, hot soup were passed, and trays of the yellow cheese, which Camo must eventually have taken care of, as well as baskets of crusty bread. Evidently meals were reversed here in the Harper Craft Hall, with the heaviest meal in the middle of the day. Menolly ate hungrily and quickly until she realized that the girls were all taking half-spoonsful and breaking their bread and cheese into dainty bitesized portions. Pona and Audiva watched her surreptitiously, and one of the other girls tittered. So, thought Menolly grimly, her table manners differed from theirs? Well, to change would mean admitting that hers were faulty. She did slow down, but she continued to eat heartily, making no bones about asking for more while the girls were still but halfway through their first serving.
“I understand that you were privileged to attend the latest Hatching at Benden Weyr,” Pona said to Menolly with all the air of one conferring a favor by such conversation.