Minim concentrated on coaxing Beauty to accept a piece of meat whfle Tgellan teased her, rather unfairly Menolly thought; but Mirrim returned his jibes with a few tart remarks of her own in a way that Menolly would never have dared address an older man, much less a dragonrider.
She was very tired, but it was pleasant to sit in the big kitchen cavern, listening to Tgellan, watching Mirrim coax Beauty, though it was Lazybones who finally ate from her hand. There were other small groups, chatting late over their evening meal, the women pairing with dragonriders. Menolly noticed wineskins being passed. She was surprised, at first, because the Sea Hold served wine only on very special occasions. Tgellan sent one of the weyfboys to get him cups and a skin and insisted that Menolly, as well as Minim,
have a cup. “Good Benden wine is not to be refused,” he told
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her, filling her cup. “There, now, isn’t that the best you’ve ever tasted?”
Menolly forebore to mention that, barring wine laced with fellis juice, it was the first Living was certainly conducted on different rules in the Weyr.
When the Weyr*s Harper began to play softly, more for his own pleasure than to entertain anyone in the cavern, Menolly did not restrain her fingers from tapping the rhythm. It was a song she liked, though she felt his chords were dull, which was why she began to hum her harmony when it did not discord with his. She wasn’t even aware of what she was doing until Mirrim looked up with a smile on her face.
“TTiat was just lovely, Menolly. Oharan? Come over here; Menolly has a new harmony for that one.”
“No, no, I couldn’t”
“Why not?” demanded Tgellan, and poured a bit more wine in her glass. “A little music would give us all heart There’re faces around here as long as a wet Turn.”
Timidly at first, because of the older injunction against singing in front of people, Menolly joined her voice to Harper Oharan’s baritone.
“Yes, I like it, Menolly. You’ve got a sure sense of pitch,” said Oharan so approvingly that she started to worry again.
If Yanus knew she was singing at the Weyr… But Yanus wasn’t here and he would never know.
“Say, can you harmonize to this one?” And Oharan broke into one of the older ballads, one in which she had always sung a counter-rune against Petiron’s melody.
Suddenly there were other voices humming along, softly but surely. Mirrim looked around, stared suspiciously at Tgellan, and then pointed at Beauty.
“She’s humming in tune. Menolly, however did you teach her to do that? And the others … some of them are singing, tool” Mirrim was wide-eyed with amazement
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Oharan kept on playing, nodding at Mirrim to be quiet so they could all hear the fire lizards while Tgellan craned his head and cocked his ears, first at Beauty, then at Rocky and Diver and Brownie who were near him.
“I don’t believe it,” said Tgellan.
“Don’t scare them! Just let them do it,” said Oharan in a low voice as he modulated his chords into another verse.
They finished the song with the fire lizards humming obediently along with Menolly. Mirrim demanded then to know how on earth Menolly had gotten her lizards to sing with her.
“I used to play and sing for them in the cave, you know, to keep us company. Just little twiddles.”
“Just little twiddlesl I’ve had my three much longer, and I never even knew they liked music.”
“Just shows that you don’t know all there is to know, doesn’t it, young Mirrim?” teased Tgellan.
“Now that isn’t fair,” Menolly interceded and then hiccuped. To her embarrassment she hiccuped again.
“How much wine have you been giving her, Tgellan?” demanded Mirrim, frowning at the bronze rider.
“Certainly not enough to put her in her cups.”
Menolly hiccuped again.
“Get her some waterl”
“Hold your breath,” Oharan suggested.
Tgellan brought water and, with quick sips, Menolly managed to stop her hiccuping. She kept insisting that she didn’t feel the wine, but she was very tired. If someone would watch the eggs … it was so late … With solicitous help, Tgellan and Oharan supported her to her sleeping chamber, Mirrim fussing at them that they were two great big numbwits who hadn’t a lick of sense between them.