“I just remember things,” she said with a little shrug when Robinton asked her if she knew all the words to an old Teaching Song, one he was revitalizing. Which she did – word perfect. “I can’t say why I know that particular ballad, but you’ll find it on the second shelf from the top on the right-hand side of the library.”
And sure enough, there it was, with Kasia grinning with delight at her accuracy: an occasion when the sadness disappeared. He became determined to lift the shadow completely. He was chagrined to discover that he was not the only young man in the Hold who had the same ambition, including his fellow harpers.
Robinton was only twenty, a fact he kept hidden since he didn’t look so young and could cite five turns of active harpering.
Neither Mumolon nor Ifor knew that he had been fifteen when he walked the tables to collect his journeyman’s knot. Minnarden knew, and probably Melongel, but his youth was not a factor in assigning him difficult tasks – especially after the wall incident. If Ifor and Mumolon suspected, it didn’t matter to them as he performed his duties too well to encourage criticism.
Kasia was several turns older – and looked younger: except for the harboured grief. However, that age difference and her continued mourning for her lost lover were the reasons why Robinton was hesitant in discovering if the sudden, keen attraction was mutual. Their ordinary tasks often brought them together. In that he was luckier than the others who sighed over her.
He contented himself with enjoying her company, her bright humour, her lovingness, and sparring with her in duels of memory and, often, song. She had had excellent training: she sang with a sweet light soprano and played fiddle and pipe. She was envious of his harp, which she played middling well, not having an instrument of her own. So he concocted the notion of making one for her in his spare time. Tillek’s port shipped quantities of timber, as well as storing it for the building of hulls. He made himself agreeable to the local MasterCarver, an accomplished carpenter named Marlifin who was only too happy, when requested, to find him well-seasoned and unusual woods. Tillek Hold had a well-equipped workshop, as most large establishments did, so Robinton had only to start his project. He did ask Marlifin to do the carving of the forepillar in patterns of the flowers which Kasia had said she loved. Robinton couldn’t carve fancywork without mining a lot of good wood, and this harp had to be special. It was going to take long enough as it was. After several faulty starts and not a few cuts on his hands, he did manage to carve the harmonic curve and the neck, which would hold the pegs to tune the strings of the harp … when he got that far.
He also took Minnarden’s advice to learn more about a fishing hold and found great favour with Melongel, and incidentally with Kasia, when he volunteered to go out on a fishing run with Captain Gostol, whom he had met at the Harper Hall. Kasia shipped out on the same voyage as galley cook and companion to Gostol’s daughter, Vesna, who was going for her second’s ticket. There were two other women in the crew of fourteen, for the Northern Maid was the length of a queen dragon. The female sailors surprised Robinton. Being harper-trained, he was accustomed to women having equal status as performers and composers, but it had never occurred to him that other Crafts also promoted women to positions of trust and responsibility. He was astonished to find them fishing, since that was a hard life: he discovered just how hard on that trip. Fortunately his immunity to seasickness was a great mark in his favour. He straggled to help lower and haul in the trawling nets, slipped on fish guts, laughed when he got up covered with gore and slime – and was teased for the stench of him until the job was done and he could change. If he wasn’t considered able to stand a watch, he was available to heat soup or klah in the galley for those who did.