The Masterharper of Pern

by Anne McCaffrey

  “It doesn’t cost any marks to be gracious, no matter where you are or what you’re doing,” his mother was always saying. “No singer of a professional caliber would think of drowning out other singers” was another point she often made. Especially when she had been having all that trouble with Halanna. He hoped Maizella wouldn’t be as difficult.

  Although he knew all the words, Robinton didn’t sing along with her in the new song she presented as her final one of this evening. Then she sweetly begged to be excused for such a short program, but she promised she would be more forthcoming when she’d caught up with Benden time.

  She sat down to very enthusiastic applause and shouting.

  Falloner then nudged Robinton and rose. “Can you find your way back to your room, Rob?” he asked. “That was the signal for us to get out of the Hall and let the adults have it to themselves.”

  Lady Hayara had risen, too, and gestured toward the younglings so that they all obediently rose and started to leave the Hall. His mother caught his eye and motioned him to wait for her.

  “I’ll go up with Mother,” Rob said, though he would have liked more time to ask Falloner questions.

  “You’re lucky,” Falloner said under his breath. “A room of your own. I have to sleep in with a half a dozen. Oh, well, I did at the Weyr, too,” he added in a philosophical tone. “I’ll see you tomorrow, I ’spect.”

  “Thanks, Falloner,” Robinton said, a little shy but meaning his thanks. Falloner grinned a response as he started herding some of the younger ones ahead of him toward the inner staircase.

  Robinton never did find out from his mother the real reason for their precipitous departure from the Harper Hall, but he did learn that no one at Benden Hold had ever expected the famous Mastersinger to come there. And because she curbed the loudness of Maizella’s rather good basic voice, she was very welcome indeed, not just by the girl’s disenchanted half brothers and sisters, but by many of the adults who resided in the Hold. Lord Maidir was a good man, and generally fair, but he adored his daughter, Maizella, who at sixteen hadn’t the wisdom or common sense that characterized her brother, Raid. Robie found him a bit stuffy and prim, but Raid had inherited his father’s sense of fair play and would take criticism from any of the more senior members of the large group of people who managed the big Holding. Unlike his sister, he was popular. And there was a discreet understanding that Hayon, Rasa, and Naprila, the older of Lady Hayara’s children, were to be protected from Maizella, who either teased them outrageously or ignored them as the fancy took her.

  Inured to such tactics as Robinton was, having survived Halanna’s antics, he learned to smile and keep his tongue in his mouth. He had a sort of revenge a little later when his mother required Maizella to sing duets with him. He knew he had a good treble voice and had been more than adequately trained by Washell as well as his mother. In fact, he would have stepped into Londik’s place as senior boy soprano when Londik’s voice changed, but he’d also observed what happened to apprentices who flaunted their prowess. Besides which, his mother wouldn’t have stood for such behavior from him for one moment longer than it took to twist his ear to remind him to keep his place.

  Dealing with Halanna had also taught Merelan a trick or two about overdeveloped conceits.

  “Sing with a child?” The girl’s tone was insulting.

  “Singing with a well-trained treble voice, which my son—” Merelan paused briefly. “—has, will prove how much more he already knows about singing than you do. Shall we begin at ‘Now is the time’ . . .?”

  Merelan lowered her left eyelid just slightly at Robinton as she raised her arms to beat out the measure, and he was ready. He knew she meant that he should sing out now, something he had not done before, since he knew better than to dominate in group singing. Maizella almost missed her entrance, she was gawking so hard at him. Robinton enjoyed this moment of ascendancy and, from the susurrus of whispering from the rest of the class, so did the others.

  Maizella, naturally, tried to drown him out, and his mother canceled the beat and called her to order.

  “In duet singing, the voices must balance for the best effect. We know you can sing the crawlers out of their webs, Maizella, but there are none in this room.” Merelan regarded those tittering with a stern eye. “From ‘Now is the time’—and sing with the treble, not against him.”

  This time Maizella modulated the volume and even she could sense the effective difference—though she didn’t, from the scowl on her face, appreciate it.

  “That was much better, Maizella, much better. Let’s see if we can blend in the third voice.” And when the soprano line began, it was Merelan who sang it and showed, by her example, exactly what she had meant by balancing voices.

  The rest of the children in the class clapped as the song ended.

  “You didn’t tell me you could sing like that,” Falloner accused Robinton as they trotted out to the courtyard where they had a half hour’s respite from lessons.

  “You didn’t ask,” Robinton said, grinning.

  “You been waiting to show Maizella up?”

  “Not waiting,” Robinton said, bouncing the large goal ball. There was a hoop set on a pole, and the aim was to see how often one could get the ball through the hoop each go. Rob was pretty good at goal ball but, just as he was aiming, he saw the dragons flying in a distant formation and missed the hoop entirely.

  Falloner intercepted the ball from Hayon’s hopeful hand and lobbed it neatly through the hoop, catching it deftly and returning to the white line to toss again.

  Robinton ignored all that, keeping his eyes on the rapidly disappearing V of dragons.

  “Better get used to seeing ’em in the sky, or you’ll never get a turn at goal ball,” Falloner said on their way back to the classroom after their recess.

  “I suppose you’re used to it,” Robinton said, “but to see them like that, the way the music says, well, that was special to me.”

  Falloner gave his friend an odd look. “Yes, I guess it would be. Just like you singing as good as any harper I’ve ever heard is a surprise for me. Say, let’s scare the watch-wher!” He grinned from ear to ear.

  Robinton stared at him. “But you’re weyrbred.”

  “So what? They’re not dragons, and it’s good fun to see how loud you can make it so—” Falloner never finished that sentence, because Robinton head-butted him to the dirt, then flopped down on his chest, holding a fist in readiness.

  “I don’t let watch-whers get teased, not at Fort, or the Hall, or here!” he said in a loud and forceful voice. “Say you won’t?” And he cocked his arm further, ready to strike.

  “But it’s not hurting them . . .”

  “If they scream, they hurt. Promise?”

  “Sure, whatever you say, Rob.”

  “You mean it?”

  “On my hope of riding a dragon!” Falloner said fervently. “Now let me up. I’ve a stone digging in my ribs.”

  Robinton gave his friend a hand up and then brushed him off. “Just don’t let me catch you breaking your word.”

  “I gave it to you!” Falloner said in a surly tone. “Don’t know what’s got into you.”

  “I just don’t like to hear them scream.” Robinton gave a convulsive shake. “Goes right through my ears and down to my heel-bones. Like chalk on a slate.”

  “It does?” Now Falloner gave himself a shake at the thought of that sound. “Doesn’t me, but . . .” He held his hands up defensively as Robinton made a fist again. “I’ll keep my word.” He shook his head, though. Robinton’s unexpected behavior was beyond his comprehension.

  There were, of course, other teachers at the Hold, to cope with the basic reading, writing, and figuring that all children were obliged to learn before their twelfth year. After that, they would take up apprenticeships to whatever Hall their inclination suited them, or go on in their family Hold’s work. With a large Hold like Benden, there were enough pupils to be divided by age and ability. But all h
ad their hour of daily musical training with the Mastersinger.

  Without ever calling attention to the assignment, Merelan had her son teaching some of the younger children their scales and how to read music, since he was actually well ahead of whatever Falloner and Hayon had learned from the Hold’s previous harper. Robinton never minded such duties. He liked seeing the little ones learn more quickly because he knew exactly how to get them to learn it—the way he had with Lexey. In the privacy of their own quarters, his mother tutored him at his own pace, and encouraged him to use one of the instruments when he was composing. For he still wrote music. He couldn’t not write. Tunes just pushed against his temples until he had to put them down, especially when he saw dragons in the sky. And, accustomed as he had become to not mentioning this activity, no one, not even Falloner, knew that the songs Merelan was teaching them had been composed by Robinton.

  “This isn’t like the Harper Hall, Robie,” she explained carefully the day before she introduced the first of his melodies. “Where everyone knows you. I don’t want to put you at a disadvantage. Do you understand what I mean?”

  Robinton thought a moment. “Yeah, Maizella would go all tissy about having to sing something I wrote.” And he made his grin as understanding as he could. “Can we tell her someday, though, Mother?” he added wistfully.

  She ruffled his hair. “I can promise you that, my love. When it seems auspicious?”

  “That means ‘favorable,’ doesn’t it?”

  She chuckled. “It does . . .”

  “Harpers use that word a lot.”

  “Harpering is not just knowing the words and melody to a lot of songs . . .”

  “And not just knowing when to sing them, either.” He finished the saying for her.

  She tilted his face up to her and regarded him with a very pensive expression on her face. “I think, my darling son, that you are going to make a splendid harper.”

  “I plan to,” he said, grinning impishly at her.

  She gave him a quick hug and then asked to see the lessons she had set him in contrapuntal theory.

  A few evenings later, Merelan asked Maizella to sing a new song after dinner. At first, the conversations didn’t abate, but gradually a respectful silence rewarded the noticeable improvement in both tone and volume. Maizella sat down flushed with achievement and didn’t notice that the applause was more from relief than approval. Then Merelan had her and Robinton sing the duet they had practiced in class.

  By now, Merelan had identified other good voices in the Hold, and gradually the evenings featured four-part harmonies and the addition of several more instruments, as well as more new songs and a far larger chorus.

  Then about six sevendays after their arrival at Benden, Falloner told Robinton that the Weyrleaders were coming to the Hold with some of the wingleaders and their women.

  “They come often?” Robinton asked, awed. Would his mother ask him to sing for the dragonriders? There would surely be music after dinner.

  Falloner shrugged. “Often enough. S’loner and Lord Maidir get along real well because Benden believes in the dragonriders and Carola, who’s Weyrwoman, is the daughter of Hayara’s oldest sister. So they’re kin.”

  “S’loner?” Robinton couldn’t help gawking at his friend. He knew how weyrfolk named children—generally using some part of the father’s as well as the mother’s name. “Your father’s the Weyrleader?”

  “Yeah.” Falloner gave an indifferent shrug. Then he grinned at Robinton’s startled expression. “That’s one reason why I’m sure to Impress a bronze and why I’ll get the chance to stand on the Hatching Ground as long as there’re eggs clutched. There’ve been a lot of Weyrleaders in my lineage.” He straightened up proudly. “And why I’m here because I’m supposed to learn more than I’d get taught at the Weyr since we don’t have a Hall-trained harper. If I’m going to lead the Weyr in the next Fall, I’ve got to know more than the average bronze rider, don’t I?”

  “I guess you do,” Robinton murmured, still trying to cope with the status of his friend.

  “Ah, don’t go looking at me like that, will ya, Robie?” And Falloner gave his shoulder a friendly buffet.

  When they were in their own quarters, Robinton had to tell his mother.

  “I knew that, dear, and it’s one reason I encourage your friendship with him. Falloner’s a good-hearted lad and intelligent enough to want to learn. I feel that it’s very important for you to have this chance to get to know something about how the Weyr operates. Especially as we only have the one now.” She looked off into the middle distance for a long moment.

  “Isn’t that what the Question Song is about?”

  “I didn’t know you knew about that one,” she said almost sharply, staring at him. “How did you come across it?”

  “Oh, when I was copying out some of the worm-eaten music in the Archives. Master Ogolly says I write with a good, neat hand, you know.” He preened a bit.

  “Yes, I do know, love.” She finger-stroked a part into his thick dark hair. “Do you know the music?”

  “Of course, I do, Mother,” he said, mildly indignant. She, of all people, should know that he memorized music after one hearing or one reading.

  “Yes, you would, wouldn’t you, dear.” She gave a final pat to his hair. “Well, run over it in your mind. It might be suitable for tonight. And a treble voice would make it more poignant, I think. Yes, rehearse it, dear.”

  Falloner was not at the head table as Robinton thought he might be, since S’loner was his father. Carola was not his mother and, as Falloner took his usual place next to Robinton, he muttered something about her disliking S’loner’s weyrlings.

  “Aren’t weyrlings small dragons?”

  “Yes,” Falloner said with a little snort. “Applied to us,” he explained, sticking his thumb into his chest, “it’s not a compliment. All she can get is girls. When she has anything.”

  Robinton nodded and decided maybe now wasn’t the time to ask more questions about the Weyr. Besides, the special dinner was being served, special even for those at the lower table, since Nerat had sent up fresh redfruits and other delicacies, transported a-dragonback.

  Robinton had watched with awe as the great beasts, having deposited riders and burdens in the courtyard, rose to the top of Benden’s cliff, spacing themselves along the fire heights. The golden queen, Feyrith, settled in the exact center; the other ten dragons, including her weyrmate, settled on either side of her, like guardians. Which was silly, because there wasn’t anything on the entire planet that would attack a queen, much less eleven dragons. Robinton thought they were the most beautiful creatures he had ever seen as they peered down at the courtyard, their beautiful faceted eyes gleaming in the late spring evening. He hadn’t thought “bronze” could come in so many different shadings.

  “Cortath? Kilminth? Spakinth?” he thought daringly.

  No one answered his tentative query. Well, maybe none of the bronzes he had spoken to before were on the heights. He could scarcely pick out the individual features from this distance. Or maybe because they were guarding the queen, they couldn’t talk to a little boy.

  The evening entertainment was nearly more splendid than the meal that had preceded it. Not only were there acrobats, but a man who could make things disappear—and reappear from behind Raid’s ear or Maizella’s sleeve—or produce the world’s smallest canine from his cloak or a tiny tunnel snake from under the cap on his head.

  When everyone had settled down again after that diversion, Merelan signaled for the group of singers and players she had been practicing with to take their places. Robinton hurried to join them. The Duty Song, which was one of the first Teaching Ballads taught by any harper to a class, should be sung in honor of any dragonrider guests: Robinton had heard it practiced prior to every Gather. From the quick look he shot at the Weyrleaders, they were expecting it, but they hadn’t foreseen a proper instrumental accompaniment. Nor the quality of the soloists. Robinton waited for his
mother’s signal and sang the first verse, noting the surprise on S’loner’s face. So Robinton sang the words with all his heart for this special audience.

  S’loner kept right on smiling and tapped out the rhythm as the chorus came to “From those dangers dragons-braved.” The applause was suitably enthusiastic, his loud clapping leading the others.

  Then Maizella stepped forward from her place in the chorus. Robinton heard the rustle: dismay or annoyance. They were in for a surprise, too, now that his mother had taken the girl in hand. Instead of planting herself in a defiant way, as if to indicate that she was going to sing and everyone had better listen to her, she came to the front in a quiet and professional manner and then looked to Merelan, who was accompanying her on the gitar.

  Robinton couldn’t miss Weyrleader Carola’s expression—total dismay—until Maizella started singing. Even S’loner regarded the girl with a pleased look and murmured something to Maidir, who nodded and smiled back.

  Merelan sang harmony to the chorus of the song, which had four verses. The hearty applause was certainly as much an improvement as her performance, and there was a nice rumble of remarks as she stepped back.

  Merelan beckoned for the rest of the chorus to attend her signal, and they sang a ballad that was new in the Harper Hall and had such a beat to it that, before long, everyone was stamping or clapping to the rhythm.

  The band played new music, and although Robinton caught a few sour notes, he knew how hard they’d worked. A few more rehearsals and performances and they’d be as good as any Gather band. But he was glad he’d be singing with just his mother to accompany him. And he was next. At her gesture he came to her side. Flute in one hand, she put her other arm around his shoulders as she made her introductory remarks.