He took so many things for granted that it was a lesson to him to be denied easy access to, say, the well-tanned hides for musical compositions which he was accustomed to coveting with quick, large notations. Now he learned to write economically, using small marks which allowed him to fit more than one work on a single hide.
Eating was another thing he had never given much thought to.
Food arrived in the Hall with no indication to those who dined of its acquisition or preparation. Now he learned to hunt and fish with the other men of the caravan, even as the women gathered firewood and nuts and, as they continued to the warmer areas, early greens, fruits and berries.
Petiron could stride along with the other traders all day long now, and Merelan too put on weight and became weather-tanned and fit. She walked part of each day with Dalma and the other young mothers, at a pace slow enough for the youngest toddler to keep up. Her cough disappeared and she was once again vivid with the beauty which had stopped Petiron's heart five turns earlier.
And he began to realize just how restrictive he had been in the Harper Hall; so immersed had he become in composition and practice that he had forgotten that other things existed: a normal life.
The caravan camped for three days by one of the Runner Stations and, as usual, the Station Master sent out his runners in all directions to alert those who lived far off the southern road.
"Some of these people are very shy," the Station Master told his guests. "You might even find them ... well, a bit ... odd."
"You mean, from living off in the hills?" Merelan asked.
The man scratched his head. "They got odd notions, you might say."
Merelan knew there was something that he was not saying, and she couldn't understand his sudden reticence.
"Ah, d'you have something that isn't harper blue?" he blurted.
"I do," Merelan said, "but I don't think Petiron does. Oh! You mean, he might aggravate someone?" She smiled to show that she understood perfectly.
"Ah, yes, that's about the size of it."
"i'll see what I can do about keeping him occupied," she said, smiling sympathetically.
Everything went very well for the first two days. The morning of the third, Merelan was entertaining all the children with game songs and teaching them the gestures that went with them, when a very tattered girl, eyes wide with delight, moved closer and closer with surreptitious stealth. When she was near enough, Merelan smiled at her.
"Do you want to join us?" she asked in a carefully soft voice.
The girl shook her head, her eyes wide now with a mixture of longing and fear.
"Oh, please, everyone else is here," Merelan said, doing her best to reassure the timid child. "Rob, open the circle and let her in, will you, dear?"
The child took another step and then suddenly squealed when she saw a man charging from the traders' wagon, right at Merelan's circle.
"You there ... you stop that, you harlot! You evil creature, luring children away from their parents ..."
Merelan didn't realize at first that he meant her. The child raced into the shelter of the heavy plantation just beyond the clearing, but that didn't seem to cool the man's fury, for he charged right up to Merelan with his arm raised to strike her.
Robinton ran to clutch his mother's skirts, frightened by the wild threats and crazed behaviour. Meren, the StationMaster, two of the male runners and three other traders charged to her rescue: Meren just in time to push the attacker off balance and away from Merelan. The children were by then all weeping and running away.
"Easy, Rochers, she's a mother, singing baby songs," Meren said, holding the man away.
"She's singing, ent she? Singing comes first, don't it? Singing to lure kids away! She's evil. Just like all harperfolk. Teachin' things no one needs to know to live proper."
"Rochers, leave be," the Station Master said, exercising considerable force to pull the man away, shooting embarrassed and apologetic glances at merelan.
"Come, Rochers, we need to finish dealing," said one of the traders. "Come on, we'd nearly shook hands ..."
"Harper harlot!" Rochers shouted, trying to free a fist to wave at
Merelan, who was clinging to Robinton as much as he was clinging to her.
"She's not a harper, Rochers. She's a mother, amusing the kids," the Station Master said, loudly enough to try to drown out what the man was saying.
"She had "em dancing!" Spittle was beginning to form in the
corners of his mouth as the men pulled him back to the wagons.
"Get into Dalma's wagon, Merelan," Meren said quickly. "We'll clear him out."
Merelan complied, picking Robie up in her arms and trying to calm his frightened sobs. She slipped behind a tree and through the wooded verge until she could duck into Dalma's wagon, one of the last in the Station clearing. She was shaking when she got inside it, and she nearly shrieked with fear when someone pushed open the little door. But it was only Dalma, her face white with anxiety. She embraced Merelan and tried to soothe Robinton all at the same time.
"Crazy, woods crazy," she murmured reassuringly. "Who'd've thought he'd even notice you over there, playing so nicely."
"What did he mean?" Merelan asked, trying to control her sobs.
She'd never been so frightened in all her life. Especially since she had joined the Harper Hall, which was held with respect everywhere she'd gone as a MasterSinger. "What could he mean? He called me a harper harlot. And how can singing be bad? Evil?"
"Now, now." Dalma held Merelan tightly against her, stroking her hair and patting her shoulder, or patting Robie, though he had recovered within the safety of the wagon and in Dalma's comforting presence. "We run into some real odd folk now and then. Some of "em have never met a harper, and some don't hold with singing or dancing or drinking. Sev says it's because they can't make wine or beer, so it has to be evil. They don't want their children to know more than they did or you'd better believe it' – and Dalma gave a sour little laugh – "they couldn't keep them from leaving those awful jungles.
"But it was the way he said "harper" ..." Merelan swallowed at the tone of hatred in which the word had been uttered.
"Now, now, it's all over with. Sev and the others'll see those woodsie ones leave."
"And that dear little girl ..."
"Merelan, forget her. Please."
Although she nodded in compliance, Merelan wondered if she would ever forget the wistful hunger in that child's face: a hunger for music, or maybe just for other children playing. But she stayed in the wagon until Sev came to say that the woodsie ones had left and to apologize for exposing her to such a distressing incident.
There were no further upsets, although she did learn that not every hold where traders stopped had the benefit of harper education.
It was true that there were really not enough harpers to do more than stop in once or twice a year, but Merelan was still shocked at the realization that there was a significant number of cots and small holdings where no one could read or count above twenty.
She didn't dare discuss that observation with Petiron, but she knew she would discuss it with Gennell when she got back.
Though it was all too likely he was well aware of the lack.
Usually the trade caravan made a special occasion for those they visited, and Petiron was no longer merely resigned to performing in the evenings: he enjoyed it. So many good voices, so many instrumentalists – not as expert as those he was accustomed to playing with, but good enough and, more importantly, willing enough to add to the evening's entertainment. He also acquired variants of ballads and airs that were traditional with the small holders but unknown to him. He jotted those down. Some of them were quite sophisticated, and he wondered which was originaclass="underline" the Harper Hall's versions or those which had been passed down through generations in the holds.