“Now, now, it’s all over with. Sev and the others’ll see those woodsie ones leave.”
“And that dear little girl …”
“Merelan, forget her. Please.”
Although she nodded in compliance, Merelan wondered if she would ever forget the wistful hunger in that child’s face: a hunger for music, or maybe just for other children playing. But she stayed in the wagon until Sev came to say that the woodsie ones had left and to apologize for exposing her to such a distressing incident.
There were no further upsets, although she did learn that not every hold where traders stopped had the benefit of harper education.
It was true that there were really not enough harpers to do more than stop in once or twice a year, but Merelan was still shocked at the realization that there was a significant number of cots and small holdings where no one could read or count above twenty.
She didn’t dare discuss that observation with Petiron, but she knew she would discuss it with Gennell when she got back.
Though it was all too likely he was well aware of the lack.
Usually the trade caravan made a special occasion for those they visited, and Petiron was no longer merely resigned to performing in the evenings: he enjoyed it. So many good voices, so many instrumentalists – not as expert as those he was accustomed to playing with, but good enough and, more importantly, willing enough to add to the evening’s entertainment. He also acquired variants of ballads and airs that were traditional with the small holders but unknown to him. He jotted those down. Some of them were quite sophisticated, and he wondered which was original: the Harper Hall’s versions or those which had been passed down through generations in the holds.
One of the most nostalgic ballads – about the Crossing – could indeed be turned into an instrumental piece, starting with the basic melody, haunting enough, and then embellishments added. To transcribe this, Petiron acquired enough of the reed-based writing material which was a local product. It had a tendency to absorb so much ink that his scores were a bit blotchy, but he could amend that when he got back to the Harper Hall. He had always prided himself on his musical memory.
They reached Pietie Hold halfway through the morning of the twenty-first day of travel, even with a full two-day halt at Merelan’s home hold. She had a chance to see her family, to exchange news and see all the new babies and congratulate the recent pairings – and to show off Robinton.
Petiron was warmly received by the aunt and uncle who had reared Merelan when her own parents died in one of the fierce autumnal storms which battered the western coastline. He was truly amazed at the number of really fine, if untrained, voices that her hold had produced.
“Not one of them that can’t carry a tune,” he told her after the first
evening. “Which aunt did you say gave you your first training?” “Segoina,” she said, smiling at his astonishment.
“That contralto?”
She nodded, and he whistled appreciatively.
“She insisted that I be sent to the Harper Hall,” Merelan said with considerable humility. “She ought to have gone, but she’d already espoused Dugall and wouldn’t leave him.”
“And wasted that glorious voice on a hold …” Petiron rather contemptuously indicated the sprawling redstone dwellings which comprised the hold.
“Segoina has never wasted her talent,” Merelan said somewhat stiffly.
“I didn’t mean it that way, Mere, and you know it,” Petiron replied hastily. He had seen the genuine respect and love that existed between the two women. “But she’d have been a MasterSinger …”
“Not everyone would find that as productive as we do, Petiron,” she said gently, but so firmly that Petiron saw he would offend her with further comment. Indeed, she thought wryly, remembering Rochers, the woodsie, not every Pernese approved of harpers.
When they were settling into Pierie Hold, his misgivings about this assignment returned. There were only three rooms for their quarters: the baby would have to sleep in with them, at the foot of the bed which took up nearly all the room, though there were storage compartments cut into the rear wall of the cliff. The larger room was clearly for daily affairs including kitchen work, with an outer wall hearth. The third was more of a cubicle than a room and served the purpose of toilet and bath, though merelan said gaily that most everyone bathed in the sea. Petiron gazed askance at the long flight of steps which led down to a sandy crescent of a beach