All the songs about dragonriders and dragons seemed inadequate to Menolly. She stole up to the little cubicle in the women’s dormitory that she shared with Sella. She wanted to be alone. She’d a little pipe among her things, a soft, whispery reedpipe, and she began to play it: a little whistle composed of her excitement and her response to the day’s lovely event.
“So there you arel” Sella flounced into the room, her lace reddened, her breath rough. She’d obviously run np the steep stairs. “Told Mavi you’d be here.” Sella grabbed the little pipe from Menoll/s fingers. “And timing, too.”
**Oh, Sella. Ifs an old tunel” Menolly said mendaciously and grabbed her pipe back.
SeHa’s jaw worked with anger. “Old, my footl I know your ways, girl. And you’re dodging work. You get back to the kitchen. You’re needed now.”
“I am not dodging work. I taught this morning during Threadfall and then I had to go with the crews.”
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“Your crew’s been in this past half-day or more and you still in smelly, sandy clothes, mucking up the room I have to sleep in. You get below or I’ll tell Yanus you’ve been tuning.”
“Hal You wouldn’t know a tune if you had your nose rubbed in it.”
But Menolly was shedding her work clothes as fast as she could. Sella was just likely to slip the word to Mavi (her sister was as wary of Yanus as Menolly) about Menolly piping in her rooma suspicious action on its own. Though Menolly hadn’t sworn not to tune at all; only not to do it in front of people.
However, everyone was in a good mood that night: Yanus, because he’d spoken to Flar the Weyrleader and because there’d be good fishing on the morrow if the weather held. Fish always rose to feed from drowned Thread, and half the Fall had been over Nerat Bay. The Deep would be thick with schools. With Yanus in a good mood, the rest of the sea holders could also rejoice because there’d been no Thread on the ground at all.
So it wasn’t any wonder that they called on Menolly to play for them. She sang two of the longer Sagas about dragons; and then did the Name-Song for the current wingleaders of Benden Weyr so her Sea Hold would know their dragonmen. She wondered if there’d been a recent Hatching that Half-Circle mightn’t have heard about, being so isolated. But she was certain that FTar would have told Yanus if that were so. But would Yanus have told Menolly? She wasn’t the Harper to be told such things as courtesy.
the sea holders wanted more singing, but her throat was tired. So she played them a song they could sing, bellowing out the words in voices roughened by wind and salt. She saw her father scowling at her, though he was singing along with the rest of them, and she wondered if he didn’t want hera mere girlto play men’s songs. If galled her because she’d played them often enough when Petiron was alive. She sighed at this in-16
justice. And then wondered what Flar would have said if he’d known that Half-Circle Sea Hold was dependent on a mere girl for their harpering. She’d heard everyone say that Flar was a fair man, a farseeing man, and a fine dragonrider. There were even songs about him and his Weyrwoman, Lessa.
So she sang them, in honor of the Weyrleader*s visit, and her father’s expression lightened. She sang on until her throat was so tight that not a squeak would come out She wished that someone else could pky to give her a rest but, as she scanned the faces of the holders, there wasn’t any of them who could beat a drum properly, much less finger a gitar or pipe.
That was why the next day it seemed only logical for
her to start one of the children learning the drum rolls.
Plenty of songs could be sung just to drumbeat. And
one of Soreel’s two children still in Teaching was sensi-
‘ tive enough to learn to pipe.
Someone, Sella perhaps, Menolly thought bitterly, informed Mavi of Menolr/s activity. “You were told no tuning…” “Teaching someone drum beats is not timing…” ; “Teaching anyone to play is Harper business, not : yours, m’gui Just your good fortune Sea Holder is out > in the Deep or you’d have the belt across your shoulders, so you would. No more nonsense.” .>. “But ifs not nonsense, Mavi. Last night another ; drummer or piper would have…” . Her mother raised her hand in warning, and Menolly bit shut her h’ps. “No tuning, MenoUyl” And that was that