Her annoyance fled at the sight of a scruffy lad, hunkered down in the brush and peering at the activity of the camp, one arm about the neck of a runt runnerbeast while a young gold fire-lizard had her tail firmly wrapped about his sunburned neck. He seemed disgusted that his queen had not warned him of Sharra’s approach, but he was willing enough to talk. His name was Piemur, he said, and all on his own he had already survived three Threadfalls in Southern.
Sharra was impressed with his resourcefulness, and it occurred to her that here might be someone Toric could use. He was young and alone and clever—and she liked him. Resisting an impulse to ruffle his sun-streaked tangle of hair, Sharra felt a pang of sorrow for whatever mother had lost this young rascal. A heart-grabber, he was. Now, if she could find someone with his charm, say ten Turns older…
His cocky resilience decided her. She did not have to take him back to the shore yet. She could have her browse around and get the stuff Brekke had asked for—and she would have a chance to see just how capable a Southern holder he could be. Toric would listen to her evaluation. Maybe if she had a capable apprentice to take along, Toric would let her do some real explorations.
As if he could read her mind, Piemur offered to help her with her herb-gathering. Pleased, she motioned for him to follow her deeper into the forest.
By the time they returned to the coast, Sharra had formed a high but qualified opinion of Piemur. He was the born rogue and scoundrel she had suspected, and she was certain that a discreet inquiry to the North would prove that he was a Craft apprentice, absent—for a dare, she rather thought, that had gone badly wrong—without permission from his Hall. He had probably been in a major Hall or near a major Hold, because he was knowledgeable about attitudes and issues that the average boy was unlikely to know about. His mind was as quick as his tongue, and he had a wry sense of humor and fun. His voice had almost settled to an adult baritone, so he was older than he looked.
Piemur was also possessed of a finely tuned memory and never forgot her traveling lessons on herbs or travel safety. He had an instinct for self-preservation that rivaled that of his fire-lizard. And, like Sharra, he had an exploring turn of mind. They would have been halfway to the snowy mountains if they had not had to be back to make the voyage home. He was exactly the stuff of which good Southerners were made.
His main worry then was that his runnerbeast—whom he called Stupid and who was anything but—could not be accommodated on one of the ships. He had sworn he would walk back to the hold if he had to, but he would not just let Stupid loose. Sharra had eased his apprehensions on that score, promising that a couple of strong sailors could easily lift the little runnerbeast into one of the sloops, but on the hike back to the coast, Piemur had become more and more laconic. Something was worrying him, and to Sharra, it confirmed her notion that he had not been entirely truthful with her.
“We don’t care what people left behind them, so long as they work hard here. It’s a great place to start all over, Piemur,” she said when they were within hailing distance of the camp. She waved to Ramala, who had just noticed them. “I think we can even manage to get a message North—discreetly—if there’s someone who should know you’re alive and kicking here.”
Instead of appearing relieved, Piemur looked away. “Yeah, I’ll have to do something about a message, Sharra. Thanks.” But he did not look at her, pretending to adjust a chin piece of the halter he had made for Stupid out of the varicolored grasses they had found in the swampland.
Sharra introduced him as the survivor of a shipwreck whom she had encountered in the wilderness. “Toric will love him as a prime example to the faint of heart in that latest group. If a kid can live rough, they can manage, too,” she told Ramala.
“He’ll need boots,” Ramala commented. “Too bad his feet aren’t as tough as the rest of his hide.”
Sharra laughed. Piemur’s skin had taken a deep tan to the ragged waistband of his tattered pants. He had mended the worst rents with patches Sharra had in one of her pockets, but he desperately wanted a waistcoat like hers, with “sockets and pockets and gussets and gores where a fellow could store anything he needed on the trail.”
Though he sported a few scrapes and scratches, he was less marked than some of those who had gathered numbweed bush. The stench of the cooked weed hovered like a miasma on the plain, but the tubs and buckets of the salve were already stored in the sloops. Fresh fish had been caught from the outer barrier reef, and roots and fruits had been gathered. There would be a good evening meal.
On the sail back, Sharra heard Piemur asking casual questions of the other youngsters. Somehow the questions always got around to the matter of the Oldtimers. Whatever he really wanted to know, Sharra thought, he did not seem to have found out by the time he could see the Weyr cliff itself.
Sharra instantly recognized a small skiff riding at anchor, with its Harper Hall colors on the stern. It was not the first time that Menolly herself had come from the Fort Hold Healer Hall to collect Master Oldive’s share of Sharra’s medicinal gatherings. Menolly might be seahold bred, but she had never before made the journey alone. Could Sebell have come with her? Toric was standing, elbows cocked, on the stone wharf; they would have to unload the ships before she got a chance to see Menolly and her unidentified shipmate.
Getting Stupid unloaded and up the steps proved easier than Sharra had thought. Ramala helped distract Toric—Piemur could be introduced later when Toric had had time to count the large number of full tubs and see how much had been gathered. But when Sharra had gotten the boy safely to the entrance to the cavern, he had nearly dropped the load he was carrying.
“A drum!” He caressed the edge of it.
“That’s an addition,” Sharra said. She was surprised not only by the drum, a section of one of the huge mandamo trees that were large enough to shelter a fair of fire-lizards, but by the mixed emotions that rippled across Piemur’s expressive face: familiarity, yearning, and calculation.
He looked up and out, northwest across the sea. Then, before she could tell him not to, he pounded the drum in a complicated sequence. After that, he picked up the feather ferns he had dropped and looked politely at her for directions.
The two of them had just reached her workroom when they heard the shout, echoing down the cavern aisle. “Piemur report!”
“Sebell?” The look of utter astonishment on the boy’s face lasted no more than a fraction of a moment. He dashed from the chamber, Sharra hard on his heels. Her castaway boy knew Master Robinton’s messenger? When she got to the main hall of the hold, she found Piemur being embraced by Menolly and Sebell. Only after Toric had shouted them all quiet, demanding explanations, did Sharra hear an accurate account of Piemur’s adventure.
Piemur had gone with Sebell to Nabol Hold, trying to locate the source of so many fire-lizard eggs. It was believed that the deceased Lord Meron had had illicit dealings with the Oldtimers. Piemur had managed—and Sebell gave his apprentice a scowl for the worry he had caused the Harper Hall—to get into the Hold and audaciously steal one of the eggs hardening on Lord Meron’s hearth. Forced to hide in a sack to escape discovery, he had awakened in Southern, panicked at the sound of voices, and again escaped discovery.
“There is no way under the sun that you will get me to admit to Mardra, Loranth’s rider,” Toric said, his expression forbidding as he faced Sebell, “that someone really had been in her bloody sack!” He scowled fiercely at Piemur, who looked alarmed.