“You’ve written almost all the new music the Hall has been sending out, haven’t you?”
Robinton straggled to his feet, a difficult enough manoeuvre due to the cramped space and Lobira’s proximity to his bed. He felt at an extreme disadvantage lying sprawled on his back. Then he realized that towering above Lobira was not exactly a good tactic either, because it forced his agitated Master to look up.
“Master Lobira, I can explain …” He squeezed past the man and gestured for him to exit into the larger living room. Mallan was not to be seen.
“By the First Egg, I am waiting to hear!” Lobira said, his neck red and swollen, his eyes blazing. “All this time – it must be five, six turns – I’ve been passing music around that was written by …
you! It’s bad enough you’re a journeyman at fifteen, but a composer at – at ten !” Lobira slammed the offending scores down on the table and then pinned them down with his fist, glaring around at Robinton who had seated himself so as to be diplomatically lower than his Master.
“Actually …” Robinton quailed at having to tell the honest truth.
“One or two were written when I was a little younger.”
“A little younger?” Lobim’s eyes nearly popped. Planting both fists on the table, he leaned menacingly over Robinton. “Just when did you write the first? How old were you?”
“I … I did some variations when I was three, my mother says.” Lobira regarded him and then, in one of his characteristically abrupt changes, threw back his head and started to howl with laughter. He laughed so hard that he had to steady himself on the table edge, and then collapsed into the other chair, holding his sides. As the door was open, the laughter carried down the hall and brought Lotricia to see what had her husband in such a mood.
Journeymen quartered just down the hall also came to see what was happening.
“Whatever did you tell Lobira?” Lotricia asked, eyebrows risen almost to her hairline. “I haven’t heard him laugh like that since Fax got caught in the wine barrel.” She was smiling. In fact everyone, except the now concerned Robinton, was grinning.
“I … didn’t tell him anything,” Robinton said truthfully. The reason for the laughter was still spread across the table, and hurriedly he tried to gather the sheets up.
Lobira’s hands stopped him, and his laughing abated as he stammered out an explanation to his spouse. “This one … is the …
one who’s written … all the new tunes.”
“Oh, no, not all.”
“No? Not all? You gave others a look-in?” And that set Lobira off again.
Lotricia planted her hands on her ample hips. “You’re not making much sense, Lobira, and you usually do,” she said with a hint of pique. “And if it’s made you laugh so much, I want to hear the whole story. Do calm down. Rob, is there any klah in the pitcher?”
Robinton hurriedly poured lukewarm klah into a clean cup, which Lotricia took from him and passed to Lobira. Still in spasms of laughter, Lobira paused long enough to take a sip, which seemed to steady him. Wiping tears from his eyes, he beckoned for the onlookers to come closer. He tapped the music.
“Robinton, our newest and youngest journeyman, is the composer of most of the songs – which, by the First Egg, we both have been teaching you …
“Did you write them, dear?” Lotricia asked, her blue eyes wide with pleasure. “I told you he was a clever lad, and modest too,” she
added to her husband. “Whyever isn’t your name on the music?” “As a journeyman, I’m not allowed …”
“That’s what’s so funny, Lotricia. Don’t you see?”
“No, I don’t, Lobira, although I think his music is so singable.”
“That’s it! That’s why it’s so funny,” Lobira said, patting her hands for being so clever.
She regarded him blankly.
“His father’s music isn’t copied and sent to every Hold and Hall,” Lobira said. “But Robinton’s tunes have been since he was three! Get it now?” He was agitated further by his spouse’s failure