“Silvina, how could my fire lizards know what was happening at Benden Weyr?”
“Ramoth called the dragons…the Benden queen can do that, you know. Your fire lizards have been at Weyr. Perhaps they heard her, too,” Silvina dismissed that part of the mystery impatiently.
“But Silvina, my fire lizards were afraid long before Ramoth called the Fort dragon, even before I heard Brekke call!”
“Why, that’s right. Ah well, we’ll find the answer to that mystery in due time. We always do at the Harper Hall. If dragons can talk to dragons across distance, why can’t fire lizards?”
“Dragons think sense,” Menolly said, gently scratching her waking queen’s little head, “and these beauties don’t. At least not often.”
“Babies don’t make sense, and your fire lizards aren’t all that long out of the shell. But think on it, Menolly. Camo doesn’t make much sense, but he does have feelings.”
“Was it he who fed my fire lizards this morning so I could sleep?”
“He and Piemur. Camo fussed and fussed before breakfast until I had to send him up here, with Piemur, to shut his moans.” Silvina’s chuckle was half amusement, half remembered irritation. “Nag, nag, nag about ‘pretties hungry,’ ‘feed pretties.’ Piemur said you didn’t wake. Did you?”
“No.” But the matter of fire lizard intelligence was more urgent in Menolly’s estimation. “I suppose being at might explain their reaction.”
“Not entirely,” Silvina replied briskly. “Lord Groghe’s little friend responded too. It wasn’t hatched at Benden and has never been there. There may well be more to these creatures than being silly pets after all. And making idiots of men who fancy themselves as good as dragonriders.”
“I’ve finished my klah. Shall we see the eggs now?”
“Yes, by all means. If his egg should hatch without the Harper, we’d never hear the end of it.”
“Is Sebell about?”
“Hovering!” Silvina’s grimace was so maliciously expressive that Menolly laughed. “How’re your feet today?”
“Only stiff.”
“Just remember that that salve doesn’t do you any good in the jar.”
“Yes, Silvina.”
“Don’t you ‘yes, Silvina’ me meekly, m’girl,” and there was unexpected warmth and affection in the woman’s tone. Menolly smiled shyly back as the headwoman left the room. She dressed quickly in one of the new tunics and the blue wherhide trousers, plumped up the rushes in their bag and smoothed the sleeping fur over all.
Silvina had just finished tidying up the Harper’s room when Menolly entered, Beauty winging in gracefully behind her. She landed on Menolly’s shoulder and, as Menolly checked both eggs, peered with equally curious interest. She chirped a question at Menolly.
“Well?” drawled Silvina, “now that you experts have conferred…”
Menolly giggled. “I don’t think Beauty knows anymore than I do. She’s never seen eggs hatch, but they are a good deal harder. They’ve been kept so nicely warm. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect they’ll hatch at any time now.”
Silvina drew in her breath sharply, startling Beauty. “That Harper! The problem will be keeping track of him.” She gave the rush bag a final poke and twitched the sleeping fur straight. “If Lord Groghe,” and Silvina jerked her head toward the Fort Hold palisade, “isn’t sending for him, F’lar is. Or Lord Lytol for that white dragonet.”
“If he wants to Impress his fire lizard, he’ll have to make a choice, won’t he?”
Silvina gaped at Menolly for a long moment and then burst out laughing.
“Might be the best thing that’s happened since the queens were killed,” Silvina said, mopping laugh tears from her eyes. ‘The man’s had no more than a few hours sleep a day…” Silvina gestured toward the study room, flicking her fingers at the scattered piles of records, the scrawls on the sandtable’s surface, the half-empty wine sack with its pouring neck collapsed ludicrously to one side. “He won’t miss the Impression of his fire lizard! But isn’t there some sign to tell if the Hatching is imminent? The dragonmen can tell. And what the Harper’s doing is really urgent.”
“When Beauty and the others hatched, the old queen and her flight hummed, sort of deep in the throat…” Menolly said cautiously, after a moment’s thought.
Silvina nodded encouragingly.
“This isn’t Beauty’s clutch, so I don’t know if she’ll react, though the dragons at Benden Weyr hummed for Ramoth’s clutch. So it seems logical that the fire lizards would react the same way.”
Silvina agreed. “There’d be a slight interval in which we could track the Harper down? Supposing we can’t get him to stay put here for the next day or two?”
Menolly hesitated, reluctant to agree to a conclusion achieved by guesswork.
“And they eat anything when they hatch?” asked Silvina who appeared content with the supposition.
“Just about.” Menolly remembered the sack of claws, not the easiest of edibles, that had gone down the throats of her newly hatched friends. “Red meat is best!”
“That will please Camo,” Silvina said cryptically. “Now I think you’d best stay here. Well, what’s wrong with that? Robinton would give up more than the privacy of his quarters to have a fire lizard. He’s even threatened to forego his wine…” Silvina had a snort for that unlikely sacrifice. “Well, what is wrong with you?”
“Silvina…it’s afternoon, isn’t it?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“I’m pledged to go…I must go…to Master Shonagar. He was very insistent…”
“Oh, he was, was he? And will he explain to Master Robinton that your voice is more important than the Harper’s fire lizard? Oh, don’t get yourself in a pucker. Sebell can sit in for you. And you tell your fire lizards to stand by…” Silvina walked to the open window and peered down into the courtyard "Piemur! Piemur, ask Sebell to step up to the Harper’s room, will you? Menolly? Yes, she’s awake and here. No, she can’t attend Master Shonagar until Sebell arrives. Yes? Well, go through the choir hall to the journeymen’s quarters and give Master Shonagar my message. Menolly answers to Master Robinton first, me second and then any of the other masters who require her attention.”
Menolly fretted about Master Shonagar’s certain wrath while Silvina made her wait until Piemur had found and returned, at a run, with Sebell.
“They’re hatching?” Sebell slithered to a stop in the doorway, breathing hard, his face flushed and anxious.
“Not quite yet,” Menolly said, ready to speed to Master Shonagar but unwilling to brush impolitely past the journeyman blocking the entrance.
“How will I know?”
“Menolly says the fire lizards hum,” replied Silvina. “Shonagar insists on her presence now.”
“He would! Where’s the Harper?”
“At Ruatha Hold now, I think,” Silvina said. “He went off to Benden Weyr when the dragonrider came for him. He said he’d stop off to see Mastersmith Fandarel at Telgar…”
Sebell’s eyes went from Silvina to Menolly in surprise, as if Silvina were being indiscreet.
“More than any other, saving yourself, Menolly will need to know how many tunes a harper, much less the Harper, plays,” she said. “I’ll send more klah and…” now she chuckled, “have Camo lay about with that hatchet of his on the meat.”