Masterharper of Pern (9 page)

“No one’s allowed up at the Weyr,” Robinton said, eyes wide.

Ah.

“Why does that make you sad, Kilminth?” Robie asked.

The dragon lowered his head again, the eye closest to him tinged with darkness; sadness, Robinton thought.

The Weyr has been empty so long.

“Will anyone come back to it?” That’s what Robinton thought the dragon wanted to know.

When Thread falls again.

“So, there’s one brave lad here at Fort Hold, is there?” A tall rider, skinnier than Cortath’s, came up and tousled Robinton’s hair.

“I’m from the Harper Hall, bronze rider S’bran,” Robie replied.

“Oh, my fine friend here’s been chatting with you that you know my name?” S’bran hunkered down, on a level with Robie. His blue eyes were twinkling. “Hall or Hold, you’re a right one. Want to be a dragonrider when you grow up?”

“I’d like to, S’bran, but I’m to be a harper.”

“Are you now?”

Robinton nodded his head emphatically. “My mother says I’ll make the best harper ever. Can one be a harper and be a dragonrider, too?”

S’bran laughed and Kilminth’s eyes whirled slightly faster. Robinton’s jaw dropped. Was that how dragons laughed?

No, we laugh like this,
and the sound that came from Kilminth’s throat was just like S’bran’s.

Robinton was delighted and giggled. “I didn’t know dragons laugh.”

The infectiousness of his giggle made both rider and dragon laugh again, the rider’s a full third higher than the dragon’s. Robinton was charmed by the harmony.

“C’mon, S’bran,” another rider yelled. “We’ve three more stops to make today, you know.”

“All right, all right, I’m coming,” S’bran said. Unfolding from his crouch, he gave Robinton’s hair a second friendly rubbing. Then he leaped to the short forearm Kilminth raised and was lifted high enough to throw his leg over the next-to-last ridge on the dragon’s back. “Best stand back, laddie. This big fellow of mine will raise a lot of dust.”

Robinton scurried to one side, but swerved the instant he heard the sound of wings beating. Raising his forearm to protect his face from the sand and grit, he lifted his other arm in a farewell salute.

Another time, young harper,
he heard Kilminth say, and then they had all spiraled high enough to go
between.
Once again Robinton felt the same sort of odd emptiness that had followed Cortath’s departure. He sighed deeply. They hadn’t told him if he
could
be a harper and a dragonrider. So that probably meant he couldn’t be. Which would please his mother. She had set her heart on his being a harper, and that would take a lot of hard work and many years. He might even be too old the next time there were eggs on the Hatching Ground. There was only the one queen, and she didn’t clutch that often.

Scuffing his way through the neat drifts that the dragon wings had made of the dirt on the courtyard, he returned to the Hall but not to the game. He wanted to be by himself and recall every word Kilminth had said to him. And every word Cortath had said to him, as well. Those two incidents were so very, very special to him, and truly his alone.

“Did I see you out in the Fort yard when the dragons were there?” his mother asked when she joined him for supper. She’d been teaching during the Search.

“Yes. The bronze calls himself Kilminth,” he said, but that was as much as he intended to say. He filled his mouth with beans so he wouldn’t be able to answer another question.

“That’s nice,” she said, nodding in approval of his eating so well. Sometimes he didn’t have much of an appetite, but he did tonight. “Did you know they found two lads on Search? One from here and one from the Hold.”

“Who went from here?” The sudden notion that a harper could be Searched startled Robinton so much that he spoke with his mouth full and his father reprimanded him.

“A second-year apprentice, Rulyar, from Nerat,” his mother answered.

“He plays gitar and sings tenor,” Robie said, secretly delighted. Maybe he
could
be a dragonrider and a harper.

“Fancy Robinton knowing that,” Petiron remarked, surprised.

“Oh, Rulyar’s minded Rob a time or two during evening rehearsals,” Merelan said off-handedly. “Told me that he missed his small brothers,” she added, glancing at her son with the look that meant he wasn’t to mention that Rulyar had been teaching him gitar fingering for the last few months. Robie would miss Rulyar; he hoped that his mother could find someone else to teach him.

That night, he dreamed of dragons, sad and tired ones who were trying to tell him something, only he couldn’t hear them. It was as if his ears were clogged with the sands of the courtyard. And they wanted so very much for him to hear what they were saying—something especially for him to know! Then he saw Rulyar, clear as day, on a brown dragon, and Rulyar waved at him, urgently trying to say something, too, but the distance between them was too great for Robinton to hear.

He was somewhat amazed, a sevenday later, when he heard that Rulyar had Impressed a brown dragon who called himself Garanath. The Fort Hold boy had Impressed a green.

“That was to be expected,” he heard his father say, but he didn’t dare ask why that was expected.

CHAPTER V

R
OBINTON WAS NINE
when his father, looking for some musical score, came across those Merelan kept safely in her work-top drawer.

“Whose scribblings are these?” he demanded, pausing to read the top one. Without even noticing that his wife was speechless, he looked at two more before tossing the tight roll back in the drawer. She seemed stuck in the doorway, an open message in one hand, a very odd expression on her face.

“What are you looking for in my desk?” she asked, fighting to keep her voice reasonable. She was furious with him for discarding the—to her—priceless examples of her son’s musical genius, let alone going through her things.

“Any blank sheets. I’ve run out,” he said, irritably pawing through the variety of objects, rather disgusted by the clutter. “You really ought to clean this out once in a while, Mere.”

“I keep cleaned pieces there, in plain sight,” she said, enunciating each word with angry clarity and pointing with a stiff finger to the box on the top of her desk.

“Oh, yes.” Lifting several out, he began to examine each one. “Mind if I borrow these?”

“Only if you replace what you take.” She was having difficulty remaining calm and had mangled the message into a ball.

“Well, no need to get huffy,” he said, suddenly noticing her stiff posture and angry glare. “I’ll get more at lunch.” He started out of the room and then turned back. “Who did write those tunes? You?” He smiled in an effort to appease her anger. “Not bad.”

She was so angry at his condescending smile and tone that she blurted out the truth. “Your son wrote them.”

Petiron blinked in astonishment. “Robie wrote those?” He started back to her worktop, but she moved swiftly from the door to stand in front of it. “My son is already writing music? You’re helping him, of course,” he added, as if that explained much.

“He writes them with no help from anyone.”

“But he must have had some help,” Petiron said, trying to reach around her for access to the drawer. “The scores were well-written, even if the tunes are a trifle childish.” Then his jaw dropped. “How long has he been writing tunes?”

“If you were any sort of a father to him, paid any attention to what he does, ever asked him a single question about his classes,” Merelan said, letting rip all her long-bottled-up frustration, “you’d know he’s been writing
music
”—she stressed the word—“for several years. You’ve even heard the apprentices singing some of the melodies.”

“I have?” Petiron frowned, unable to understand either of his mate’s shortcomings: not telling him about his own son’s musicality and not informing him that
apprentices
were learning songs written by his own son. “I have!” he said, thinking back to the tunefulness he’d heard from Washell’s classes. Of course, the songs were suitable to the abilities of the age group but . . . He stared at Merelan, coming to grips with a sense of betrayal that he had never expected from her, his own spouse. “But why, Merelan? Why keep his abilities from me? His own father?”

“Oh, so now he’s your son, instead of mine,” Merelan snapped back. “Now that he shows some prowess, he’s all yours.”

“Yours, mine, what difference does it make? He’s what—seven Turns old?”

“He’s
nine
Turns old,” she snarled, and stalked out of the room, slamming the door hard behind her.

Petiron stood staring at the closed door, the echo of the definitive slam ringing in his ears, the hand that held the clean sheets held up in entreaty.

“Well, I never . . .” And he sank back against the worktop, struggling to cope with her attitude and this incredible revelation about his—no,
their
—son. He let a full breath escape, trying to assimilate the revelation, as well as his spouse’s bewildering accusations. Then he shook himself and returned to his study, anxious to transcribe it from the sandtable. But as he sat down, he found himself unable to pick up where he had left off, not after Merelan’s stunning disclosure.

If a nine-Turn-old boy had composed those tunes, youthful and simple as they seemed in his cursory glance at them, then his—their—son already had sufficient musicality to warrant serious training. Their son was
nine?
How
had
the Turns gone by so quickly? Of course, inundated by music as the child had been, he would undoubtedly have absorbed certain facets of basic education. His little tunes might only be variations on themes he had heard, rather than original. But what had upset Mere so much? Why had she taken such offense at his mistaking the boy’s age? Well, he would certainly look more closely at that roll of music. Even if they proved only to be variations, that was creditable enough to require some special tutoring to hone a perhaps genuine gift up to a good professional standard. Why, his son could be a journeyman!

The thought unexpectedly pleased Petiron, and he realized that he had never given much thought to Robinton’s future. One didn’t, did one, until a child approached his teens and an apprenticeship. Although Petiron thought himself well able to be impartial toward his own flesh and blood when it came to giving the boy proper musical education, he might run into some criticism. It might be better if he apprenticed Robinton to one of the better traveling masters—at a good hold, where the boy would learn to appreciate his own Hall the better by comparison. Yes, that was a good solution, and it would leave both himself and Merelan more time for their important work. Merelan had been oddly distracted lately. She needed to concentrate on the more important aspects of her general teaching.

Where had she put those tunes? They’d been to the left in the drawer. He began to rummage about. She was usually very precise where music was concerned, but the contents of the drawer were in considerable disarray. There was no sign of the roll. She must have taken it with her when she had been so incensed with him for not knowing Rob’s age. But however did a man relate to his son until the boy was old enough to understand his father’s precepts and philosophies? Able to appreciate his father’s achievements? Able to accept his father’s training? No, Petiron decided at that instant, he would keep Robinton under his direction, to be sure that he received the requisite training. Nor would Petiron make a favorite of his son in the Hall simply because of their relationship. The boy would have to measure up to the same standards as every other apprentice . . .

“Robinton!” he called as he strode purposefully to the boy’s small room in their quarters. The door was ajar and the room rather neat, considering that a child lived in it. The bed was made, the few toys were neatly stacked on the shelf; and then he noticed the pipes beside the toys, and the small harp case. Someone else was teaching his son how to play the harp!

Now Petiron began to feel a righteous anger. Merelan was behaving in a most peculiar fashion. First by her silence over Robinton’s ability and then by letting someone else train
his
son . . .

He strode out of the room and out of his quarters; he was starting down the stairs when Master Gennell came out of his rooms at the top of the steps.

“Ah, Petiron, I need a moment of your time . . .”

Petiron stopped, glancing down the steps, wondering where Merelan had gone in such a huff and where his son might be. The MasterHarper had the right to a moment of his time whenever he so chose. This was not a good moment, however, for any interview, no matter how pressing. For once common sense, rather than professional courtesy, prompted the Mastercomposer. He had to find both his spouse and his son. Now! Before more damage could be done in the matter of Robinton’s training.

“Now, Petiron,” Master Gennell said, frowning when he saw the hesitation, the conflict of duties.

“With respect, Master . . .” Petiron began, barely keeping his tone civil.

“
Now
, MasterComposer,” Gennell said firmly.

“My son . . .” Petiron tried the only viable excuse available.

“It is about your son I wish to speak with you,” Gennell said, and his frown so surprised Petiron that he found himself altering his direction toward the MasterHarper’s rooms.

“About Robinton?”

Gennell nodded and ushered the Mastercomposer into his workroom, shutting the door firmly behind him.

“About Robinton.” He waved Petiron to a seat before he sat, opposite, clasping his hands in a way that indicated a matter of grave importance was about to be discussed. “As MasterHarper I have certain duties and responsibilities toward those in my Hall.” Petiron nodded and Gennell went on. “I have assigned Merelan to Benden Hold for the next year.”

“But you can’t—” Petiron half rose from the chair in surprised indignation.

“I can and I have,” Gennell said in such a flat tone that Petiron sank back again. “Oh, I know you are already composing new arias only she has the voice to sing, but I think you’ve been overworking her—” And Gennell held up one finger. “—and have been totally ignoring your son.”

“My son . . . I need to discuss my son with you, Gennell. He has written—”

Gennell held up a second finger. “You are apparently the only one in the entire Hall who is unaware of Robinton’s genius.”

“Genius? A few simple tunes . . .

“Petiron!” Gennell’s voice echoed the impatience in his scowl. “The boy reads music—even music you have written—and plays it on pipe or gitar without hesitation or error. He has made instruments that are good enough to have a Harper stamp.”

“That drum he made was not up to standard,” Petiron began.

“At that, his first drum was nearly good enough. The others he has made in the past few months have already been sold. So have the multiple pipes and his first flute—”

“The pipes are in his room . . .”

“He is already considered an apprentice by the rest of the Hall’s masters, Mastercomposer Petiron,” Gennell said. “We are careful to take him only at his own pace—and his progress has him ahead of most second-year apprentices.”

Petiron’s mouth dropped. “But he’s
my
son . . .”

“A fact that you only seem to have recognized very recently,” Gennell said in much the tone he would take with an erring journeyman. Then his expression softened. “You are the best composer we have had in the Hall in over two hundred Turns, Petiron, and you are honored as such. It is your single-mindedness that can produce such extravagant and complex music, but it has also given you less than perfect vision about other, equally important matters: such as your son and your spouse. Therefore, since I had a request from Benden Hold for a master in the vocal traditions, I have assigned Merelan to the post. At her request. As the Benden Lord Holder has children Robinton’s age, he will accompany his mother.”

Petiron rose indignantly. “I’m his father—have I no say in this?”

“Until a boy child is twelve, it is traditional for him to be in his mother’s care unless fostered to a family.”

“This has all been conducted with precipitous and unnecessary haste,” Petiron began, clenching and unclenching his fists, trying to control the rage that was boiling up inside him. Not only were his paternal rights being denied, but why was his spouse, usually so understanding, suddenly rejecting him?

“On the contrary, Master Petiron,” Gennell replied, shaking his head slowly and sadly, “the decision was neither an easy nor an abrupt one.”

“But . . . she was there!” Petiron waved a shaking hand toward his own quarters on the level above. “She cannot have gone far . . .”

“A Benden dragon arrived this morning with a further entreaty from Lord Maidir for her to accept the posting, especially as his contracted harper, Evarel, has been advised to rest by the Healer. She took the message up to your quarters to discuss it with you. I admit to being surprised that she returned and accepted it. She told me that she felt it was in both her interests and Robinton’s that she do so.”

“Because I didn’t know my son’s age?” Petiron heard his voice rise to tenor range in surprise.

Gennell blinked in such an honest reaction that Petiron had to accept that
that
subject had not come up. Still, Merelan’s acceptance of any posting away from him, away from the Hall, was so uncharacteristic of her that he could think of no reason at all beyond that rather trite one.

“About that I do not know, Petiron, but she and the boy will already have reached Benden Hold. She asked Betrice to pack up what she and Robinton will need. Doubtless you will hear from her shortly with a private letter.”

Petiron stared at his MasterHarper, having great difficulty absorbing what he had just heard.

“If it is a mother’s right to have her child until he is twelve, then I shall not interfere with her maternal instincts,” he said so harshly that Gennell flinched. “At twelve I shall have him.” With that, both promise and threat, he turned on his heel and stalked out of the MasterHarper’s workroom.