"Singing with a well-trained treble voice, which my son -" Merelan paused briefly "– has, will prove how much more he already knows about singing than you do. Shall we begin at "Now is the time" ...?"
Merelan lowered her left eyelid just slightly at Robinton as she raised her arms to beat out the measure, and he was ready. He knew she meant that he should sing out now, something he had not done before since he knew better than to dominate in group singing.
Maizella almost missed her entrance, she was gawking so hard at him. Robinton enjoyed this moment of ascendancy and, from the susurrus of whispering from the rest of the class, so did the others.
Maizella naturally tried to drown him out, and his mother cancelled the beat and called her to order.
"In duet singing, the voices must balance for the best effect. We know you can sing the crawlers out of their webs, Maizella, but there are none in this room." Merelan regarded those who were tittering with a stern eye. "From "Now is the time" – and sing with the treble, not against him."
This time Maizella modulated the volume, and even she could sense the effective difference – though she did not, from the scowl on her face, appreciate it.
"That was much better, Maizella, much better. Let's see if we can blend in the third voice." And when the soprano line began, it was Merelan who sang it and showed, by her example, exactly what she had meant by balancing voices.
The rest of the children in the class clapped as the song ended.
"You didn't tell me you could sing like that," Falloner accused Robinton as they trotted out to the courtyard where they had a half-hour's respite from lessons.
"You didn't ask," Robinton said, grinning.
"You been waiting to show Maizella up?"
"Not waiting," Robinton said, bouncing the large goal ball. There was a hoop set on a pole, and the aim was to see how often one could get the ball through the hoop each go. Rob was pretty good at goal ball but, just as he was aiming, he saw the dragons flying in a distant formation and missed the hoop entirely.
Falloner intercepted the ball from Hayon's hopeful hand and lobbed it neatly through the hoop, catching it deftly and returning to the white line to toss again.
Robinton ignored all that, keeping his eyes on the rapidly disappearing V of dragons.
"Better get used to seeing "em in the sky, or you'll never get a turn at goal ball," Falloner said on their way back to the classroom after their recess.
"I suppose, you're used to it," Robinton said, "but to see them like that, the way the music says – well, that was special to me."
Falloner gave his friend an odd look. "Yes, I guess it would be. Just like you singing as good as any harper I've ever heard is a surprise for me. Say, let's scare the watchwher!" He grinned from ear to ear.
Robinton stared at him. "But you're weyrbred."
"So what? They're not dragons, and it's good fun to see how loud you can make it so' Falloner never finished that sentence, because Robinton head-butted him to the dirt and then flopped down on his chest, holding a fist in readiness.
"I don't let watchwhers get teased, not at Fort, or the Hall, or here!" he said in a loud and forceful voice. "Say you won't?" And he cocked his arm further, ready to strike.
"But it's not hurting them ..."
"If they scream, they hurt. Promise?"
"Sure, whatever you say, Rob."
"You mean it?"
"On my hope of riding a dragon!" Falloner said fervently. "Now let me up. I've a stone digging in my ribs."
Robinton gave his friend a hand up and then brushed him off.
"Just don't let me catch you breaking your word."
"I gave it to you!" Falloner said in a surly tone. "Don't know what's got into you."
"I just don't like to hear them scream." Robinton gave a convulsive shake. "Goes right through my ears and down to my heel-bones. Like chalk on a slate."
"It does?" Now Falloner gave himself a shake at the thought of that sound. "Doesn't me, but ..." He held up his hands defensively as Robinton made a fist again. I'll keep my word." He shook his head, though. Robinton's unexpected behaviour was beyond his comprehension.
There were, of course, other teachers at the Hold to cope with the basic reading, writing and figuring which all children were obliged to learn before their twelfth year. After that, they would take up apprenticeships to whatever Hall their inclination suited them, or go on in their family Hold's work. With a large Hold like Benden, there were enough pupils to be divided by age and ability. But all had their hour of daily musical training with the MasterSinger.
Without ever calling attention to the assignment, Merelan had her son teaching some of the younger children their scales and how to read music, since he was actually well ahead of whatever Falloner and Hayon had learned from the Hold's previous harper.
Robinton never minded such duties. He liked seeing the little ones learn more quickly because he knew exactly how to get them to do it – the way he had with Lexey. In the privacy of their own quarters, his mother tutored him at his own pace and encouraged him to use one of the instruments when he was composing. For he still wrote music. He couldn't not write. Tunes, especially when he saw dragons in the sky, just pushed against his temples until he had to put them down. And, accustomed as he had become to not mentioning this activity, no one – not even Falloner – knew that the songs merelan was teaching them had been composed by Robinton.
"This isn't like the Harper Hall, Robie," she explained carefully the day before she introduced the first of his melodies, "where everyone knows you. I don't want to put you at a disadvantage. Do you understand what I mean?"
Robinton thought a moment. "Yeah, Maizella would go all tissy about having to sing something I wrote." And he made his grin as understanding as he could. "Can we tell her someday, though, Mother?" he added wistfully.
She ruffled his hair. "I can promise you that, my love. When it seems auspicious."
"That means "favourable", doesn't it?"
She chuckled. "It does ..."
"Harpers use that word a lot."
"Harpering is not just knowing the words and melody to a lot of songs ...
"And not just knowing when to sing them, either." He finished the saying for her.
She tilted his face up to her and regarded him with a very pensive expression on her face. "I think, my darling son, that you are going to make a splendid harper."
"I plan to," he said, grinning impishly at her.
She gave him a quick hug and then asked to see the lessons she had set him in contrapuntal theory.
A few evenings later, Merelan asked Maizella to sing a new song after dinner. At first the conversations didn't abate, but gradually a respectful silence rewarded the noticeable improvement in both tone and volume. Maizella sat down flushed with achievement and didn't notice that the applause was more from relief than approval.
Then Merelan had her and Robinton sing the duet they had practised in class.
By now, Merelan had identified other good voices in the Hold, and gradually the evenings featured four-part harmonies and the addition of several more instruments, as well as more new songs and a far larger chorus.
Then, about six seven-days after their arrival at Benden, Falloner told Robinton that the Weyrleaders were coming to the Hold with some of the wingleaders and their women.
"They come often?" Robinton asked, awed. Would his mother ask him to sing for the dragonriders? There would surely be music after dinner.
Falloner shrugged. "Often enough. S'loner and Lord Maidir get along really well because Benden believes in the dragonriders and Carola, who's Weyrwoman, is the daughter of Hayara's oldest sister. So they're kin."