“Well, you did me a favor, too, little queen,” Menolly called, speaking into the breeze and waving her hands high. “See? My hand is better.”
There was no answering chirp or sound, but the soft whistle of Hie seaborne breeze and the lapping of the waves against the bluff. Yet Menolly liked to think that her words had been heard. She turned inland, feeling considerably relieved and rather pleased with the mom-ing’s work.
She’d have to scoot now and gather what she could of greens and early berries. No point in trying for spiderclaws with the tide so high.
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Chapter 5
Oft, Tongue, give sound to joy and sing Of hope and promise on dragonvring.
No one, as usual, noticed MenoHy when she got back to the Hold. Dutifully she saw the harbormaster and told him about the tides.
“Don’t you go so far, gjrl,” he told her kindly. “Thread’s due any day now, you know. How’s the hand?”
She mumbled something, which he didn’t hear anyway, as a shipmaster shouted for his attention.
The evening meal was hurried since all the masters were going off to the Dock Cavern to check tide, masts and ships. In the bustle Menolly could keep to herself.
And she didseeking the cubicle and the safety of her bed as soon as possible. There she hugged to herself the incredible experience of the morning. She was certain that the queen had understood her. Just like the dragons, fire lizards knew what was in the mind and heart of a person. That*s why they disappeared so easily when boys tried to trap them. The/d liked her singing, too.
Menolly gave herself a squeeze, ignoring the spasm of pain in her now stiff hani Then she tensed, remembering that the bronzes had been waiting to see what the queen would do. She was the clever one, the audacious one. What was it Petiron was always quoting? “Necessity breeds solution.”
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Did fire lizards really understand people, even when they kept away from them, then, Menolly puzzled again. Of course, dragons understood what their riders were thinking, but dragons Impressed at Hatching to their riders. The link was never broken, and the dragon would only hear that one person, or so Petiron had said. So how had the little queen understood her?
“Necessity?”
Poor queenl She must have been frantic when she realized that the tide was going to cover her eggsl Probably she’d been depositing her clutches in that cove for who knows how long? How long did fire lizards live? Dragons lasted the life of their rider. Sometimes that wasn’t so long, now that Thread was dropping. Quite a few riders had been so badly scored they’d died and so had their dragons. Would the little fire lizards have a longer life, being smaller and not in so much danger? Questions darted through Menolly’s mind, like fire lizards’ flashing, she thought, as she cuddled into the warmth of her sleeping fur. She’d try to go back tomorrow, maybe, with food. She rather thought fire lizards would hlce spiderclaws, too, and maybe then she’d get the queen’s trust Or maybe it would be better if she didn’t go back tomorrow? She should stay away for a tew days. Then, too, with Thread falling so often, it was dangerous to go so far from the safety of the Hold.
What would happen when the fire lizard eggs hatched? What a sight that would bel Hal All the lads in the Sea Hold talking about catching fire lizards and she, Menolly, had not only seen but talked to them and handled their eggsl And if she were lucky, she might even see them hatching, too. Why, that would be as marvelous as going to a dragon Hatching at one of the WeyrsI And no one, not even Yanus, had been to a Hatching!
Considering her exciting thoughts, it was a wonder that Menolly was able to sleep.
The next morning her hand ached and throbbed, and she was stiff from the fall and the climbing. Her
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half-formed notion of going back to the Dragon Stones’ cove was thwarted by the weather, of all tilings. A storm had blown in from the sea that night, lashing the harbor with pounding waves. Even the Dock Cavern waters were turbulent, and a wind whipped with such whimsical force that walking from Hold to Cavern was dangerous.