“Has Master Gennell told you about the new girl yet?” Lorra asked.
“Halanna?” When Lorra nodded, Merelan went on, “Yes, I’d a letter from Ista Hold’s harper, Maxilant. He’s done as much as he can with her vocal training and says she’s too good to be messed up by an amateur like himself.” She smiled over Maxilant’s modesty.
“Petiron would be happy to have a good contralto on hand too,” Lorra said. She sang in that range, though never as a soloist. “Odd, isn’t life? You never really know how things’ll turn out until they
do, do you?”
“No, you don’t.” As Merelan sipped, she could feel the cordial seeping down her veins and the knot of tension in her belly beginning to ease.
“She’s of an age with the Hold daughters here, so I’ve placed her with them in the cottage,” Lorra said. “They may be here only until TurnOver, but they’ll help her ease into the routine here. It can take a bit of getting used to, can’t it?”
Merelan couldn’t help smiling at Lorra’s use of the word “routine’ in connection with the Harper Hall. No two days were ever alike in the fascinating, and sometimes frantic, atmosphere within this rectangle. She did very vividly remember her own first days there, and would help young Halanna as much as she could to become accustomed to the requisite study and practice. In fact, if Lorra was correct about Petiron, and she rather suspected the headwoman was, Merelan herself would welcome having a female student to bring on. She’d have less time to fret herself into stress over all the confrontations she imagined between son and spouse.
CHAPTER THREE
Halanna arrived, and created an instant impression on all who met her of an overly self-confident seventeen-Turn-old young woman who found fault with everything at the Harper Hall, and especially the cottage where she was lodged. She was accustomed to a room of her own, she informed Isla, who acted as foster-mother to her charges: she’d never be able to sleep, sharing a room. Why was there so little fresh food to be had when she was used to plenty of fruit? The weather was dreadful and she hadn’t the right clothing, though the three large bundles laboriously taken up by carrier beast from the ship which had delivered her at Fort Hold Harbour contained an immense quantity of clothing. Nor had she sufficient space to arrange half her things in the tiny room she had to share!
And where could she practise in peace and quiet with all the instruments and voices blaring constant cacophony into the rectangle?
The only one who found her at all bearable was Petiron. Once he heard her sing, he dismissed Merelan’s remarks about her lack of discipline and a lack of general knowledge about music which was close to illiteracy. Jubilant over having a contralto with such a rich timbre and wide range, with no “break’ whatever, he immediately began to write contralto solos into the TurnOver music he was currently composing. He discounted Merelan’s suggestion that the girl would not be able to “read’ the contralto line, much less manage the tempo changes or the cadenzas.
Unfortunately, Petiron’s approval merely increased Halanna’s
already overbearing manner. Merelan needed all her tact, and the weight of her position as MasterSinger, to get the girl to do the vocalizes that would strengthen her breath control, sustain her range and prepare her for the rigours of singing Petiron’s kind of vocally extravagant music. That Petiron had also envisaged a soprano/contralto duet did nothing to help Merelan, for it automatically put the girl on a par with a MasterSinger, which Halanna clearly was not despite an amazing natural voice.
Merelan hadn’t a jealous bone in her body and was quite willing to prepare the girl or remedy the gaps in her education – if Halanna had been the least bit amenable. But the young singer decided that, if she was good enough to sing a duet with the leading MasterSinger of pern, she had no need to do such dull exercises and study vocal scores. She sang loudly, completely ignoring any dynamic alteration for the appropriate performance of a song or aria, concerned only with showing off the power of her vocal equipment. “Soft’ was an unknown quality.