What they didn’t realize until the next morning was that she had bribed a Drum Tower apprentice to send an urgent message to her father, Halibran, saying she was being abused. Petiron admitted that he had slapped her, to stop her hysterical ranting – to which everyone in the Hall had been audience. Any Master was permitted to chastise a student for inattention or failure to learn assigned lessons.
When MasterHarper Gennell and Healer Journeywoman Betrice interviewed her about the impropriety of her actions, not to mention the content of the message, she was defiantly tearful.
“No one understands me in this place. I’m being humiliated at every turn, and I had expected so much from you!” she said. “So much, and you’re like everyone else after all!”
Betrice later told Merelan that she almost laughed out loud at such a performance.
“No one has humiliated you, young woman,” Gennell replied, as stern as Betrice had ever seen him. “You were welcomed, and the very best instructors assigned. You have been paid a high compliment by Master Petiron, who wrote a part especially to show off your voice – scarcely a humiliation, but an honour you seem unable to appreciate. You will apologize to Master Petiron for your unresponsiveness—”
“Apologize?” Halanna rose from the stool in amazement. “I am the daughter of a Holder, and I apologize to no one. He’s to apologize for slapping me, or—”
“That’s enough out of you,” Gennell said, and turned to his spouse. “She’s to be quartered in an appropriate room and given only basic rations.”
That was more easily said than done. It took Gennell, Betrice and Lorra to get her, screeching and straggling, up to the third storey of the Harper Hall to one of the spare rooms used by messengers or overflow guests. She refused to eat the food supplied at mealtimes and actually emptied the first three pitchers of water until her thirst got the better of her histrionics. Since it took nearly six days before her clandestine message brought results, she got hungry enough to devour what she was given, though she refused to apologize or promise to remedy her attitude. Such interviews usually resulted in her hurling threats and promises of just retribution at those trying to talk sense into her. Even MasterHealer Ginia had no luck in trying to talk sense into the girl.
The sentry on the Fort Hold eastern tower spotted the ten armed men racing up the harbour road and blew the alarm, which alerted both Lord Grogellan and the Harper Hall. Having been informed of the illegal drum message, Grogellan assembled a larger force from his sons, nephews and armsmen to meet the newcomers just as they turned into the Harper Hall quadrangle. Master Gennell, Betrice, Ginia, Petiron and Merelan were waiting on the broad steps, while every apprentice, journeyman and Master had found some vantage point from which to view the confrontation.
As Halibran and his troops halted their runners, he had no trouble locating his “abused’ daughter who was screeching at the top of her lungs from an upper window.
“She’s been at it again, Father,” one of Halibran’s riders said in disgust. “She was the one abusing, I’ve no doubt.” The resemblance to his sister was obvious, and he was not the only young blond male in the group with a similar cast of countenance.
Halibran, dismounting, waved the young man to hold his tongue. Not a major holder, though a wealthy one from the produce of his lands and the mines under them, he had none of his daughter’s arrogance as he mounted the steps and held out his hand to the MasterHarper.
“Since she is sequestered, I assume that Halanna has not seen fit to apologize. Let me do so in her stead,” he said, allowing everyone to heave sighs of relief.
Master Gennell, however, shook his head slowly. “It is her place, not yours, Holder Halibran, to make restitution for her behaviour and her refusal to accept the usual necessary disciplines of the Harper Hall. She has much to learn.”
The screeching, which the new arrivals were pointedly ignoring, took on a shriller note.
“The fault lies in me,” Halibran said with a weary sigh. “Her mother died at her birth, and with six brothers she has been much cosseted.”