“Only what?”
“I don’t have any copying tools.”
“Is that all? Finish your klah quickly. I’ll show you Arnor’s den. Just as well I’m taking you,” Domick said, guiding her toward the door in the opposite corner of the court. “Robinton wants the song done on those sheets of pulped wood, and Arnor won’t hand them out to apprentices.”
Master Arnor, the Hall’s archivist, occupied the large room behind the Main Hall. It was brilliantly lit with glow baskets in each corner, in the center of the room, and smaller ones depending above the tilted worktables where apprentices and journeymen bent to tasks of copying faded record hides and newer songs. Master Arnor was a fusser: he wanted to know why Menolly was to have sheets; apprentices had to learn how to copy properly on old hide before they could be entrusted with the precious sheets; what was all the hurry about? And why hadn’t Master Robinton told him himself if it was all this important? And a girl? Yes, yes, he’d heard of Menolly. He’d seen her in the dining hall, same as he saw all the other nuisancy apprentices and holder girls and, oh, well, all right, here was tool and ink, but she wasn’t to waste it now, or he’d have to make more and that was a lengthy process and apprentices never paid close attention to the simmering and if the solution boiled, it would be ruined and fade too soon and oh, he didn’t know what the world was coming to!
A journeyman had been unobtrusively assembling the various items, and he handed them to Menolly, giving her an amused wink for his master’s querulousness. His smile also conveyed to Menolly the tip that the next time she should come directly to him rather than approach his cranky master.
Domick got her away from the old archivist after the barest of courtesies. As they walked back to the Hall entrance, he again directed her not to be all morning at the copying or he’d never get the new quartet sufficiently rehearsed before the Festival. As he opened the door to the Main Hall, she heard the Masterharper’s voice and sped up the stairs.
As she worked in her room, her concentration was penetrated now and then by voices raised in discussion in the Hall below. Absently she identified the various masters: Domick, Morshal, Jerint, the Masterharper and, to her surprise, Silvina, and others whose voices she couldn’t recognize as readily. As the conversations apparently had to do with posting journeymen to various positions about the country, she paid scant heed.
She was, in fact, just finishing the third and looser interpretation of the song when a brisk tapping at the door startled her so much she almost smeared the sheet. At her answer, Domick strode in.
“Haven’t you finished yet?”
She nodded to the sheets, spread out to dry. Scowling with exasperation, he strode across the room and picked up the nearest sheet. Before she could warn him about damp ink, she noticed that he took the sheet carefully by the edges.
“Hmmm. Yes. You copy neatly enough to please even old Arnor. Yes, now…” he was scanning the other sheets. “Traditional forms all duly observed… Not a bad tune, at all.” He gave her an approving nod. “Bit bare of chord, but the subject doesn’t need musical embellishment. Come, come, finish that sheet, too.” He pointed to the one before her. “Oh, you have! Fair enough.” He blew gently across the sheet to dry the last line of still glistening ink. “Yes, that’ll do. I’ll just be off with these. Take your gitar across to my quarters, Menolly, and study the music on the rack. You’re to play second gitar. Pay special attention to the dynamic qualities of the second variation.”
With that he left her. Her right hand ached from the cramped position of copying, and she massaged it, then shook her fingers vigorously from the wrist to relieve the strain.
“Now,” she heard the Masterharper’s voice from the room below, “the point is that all but one of the formalities has been observed. Admittedly, there’s not been much time spent in the Hall, but an apprenticeship served elsewhere under a competent journeyman has always been admissible. Does anyone wish to register any reservations about the competence of that journeyman?” There was a short pause. “So that’s settled. Ah, yes, thank you, Domick. Now, Master Arnor…” and Menolly lost the sound of his voice as he evidently moved away from the window.
She was uncomfortably aware that she was not only an inadvertent eavesdropper on Craft matters not her business, but disobedient to Master Domick’s orders. Not that she didn’t wish to follow them. She picked up her gitar. Playing with Talmor, Sebell and Domick was a pure delight. Had Master Domick meant to intimate that she’d be part of that quartet in a performance? Well, if yesterday was any sample of being a harper, yes, she probably would be performing in that quartet, new as she was to the Harper Hall. That was part of being a harper, after all.
When Menolly entered Domick’s quarters, Talmor and Sebell, Kimi disposed on his shoulder and not looking too pleased to be shifted from the crook of his arm, were already discussing the music. They greeted her cheerfully and asked if she’d enjoyed her first go in a gather at Fort Hold. They both laughed at her enthusiastic replies.
“Everyone’s the better for a good gather,” said Talmor.
“Except Morshal,” said Sebell, and, glancing sideways at Talmor as if they shared some secret, rubbed the side of his nose.
“Let us play, Journeyman Sebell.” Menolly thought that Talmor sounded reproving.
“By all means, Journeyman Talmor,” said Sebell, not the least bit perturbed.
“If you will join us, Apprentice Menolly.” The brown man gestured elaborately for Menolly to take the stool beside him.
As Menolly checked the tuning of her gitar, Talmor turned the sheets of music on the rack. “Where does he want us to start?”
“Master Domick told me to study the dynamics of the second variation,” said Menolly with helpful deference.
“That’s right, that’s where,” said Talmor, snapping his fingers before he flipped the correct sheets to the front. “At the beat then…sweet shells, he’s changing the time in every third measure…what does he expect of us?”
“Are the dynamics difficult?” asked Menolly, feeling apprehensive.
“Not difficult, just Domick all over,” said Talmor with the sigh of the long-suffering. But he tapped the appropriate beat on the wood of his gitar and gave a more emphatic fifth beat for them to start.
They’d had a chance to go through the second variation once before Domick entered the room. Nodding courteously to them, he took his place. “Let’s start at the beginning of the second variation, now that you’ve had a chance to play through it.” They worked steadily, going straight through the music once. The second time they paused frequently to perfect the more difficult passages and balance the parts. The dinner bell punctuated the brisk notes of the finale. Talmor and Sebell put down their instruments with small sighs of relief, but Menolly refingered the final three chords softly before she laid her instrument down.
“Does your hand hurt?” asked Domick with unexpected solicitude.
“No, I was just wondering if the string was true.”
“If you heard a sour sound, it was my stomach,” said Talmor.
“Too much gathering?” asked Sebell with little sympathy,
“No, not enough breakfast, thank you!” replied Talmor with the brusqueness of someone being teased. He rose and left the room, followed closely by the silently laughing Sebell.
“Master Shonagar has you this afternoon, Menolly?” asked Domick, motioning for Menolly to come with him.
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, then you’d have to continue that voice instruction anyway,” he said in a cryptic fashion. Menolly decided he must be wishing to have her practice with him more steadily, but Master Robinton had been specific: her mornings were scheduled to Master Domick; afternoons she was to go to Master Shonagar.