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The sand was gritty on his fingertips. Sebell blew the stray grains away with a sigh, and stared at what he had left of the bridge. It would do. He couldn’t feel happy with it, but it would do. It was singable enough, surely. He picked up the lap harp from its stand and ran through the chorus in a half-voice, filling in a basic chord progression without trying for the fleshed-out accompaniment line that would come later. “And she was free, and she was fair, /The wind blew through her long black hair…”
The ballad was a new setting of a folktale he’d known all his life, the one about the Lord Holder’s beautiful daughter who ran away to sea and lived all alone on an island somewhere. (On the Southern Continent, maybe, he thought now, but he’d deliberately avoided Southern imagery when he was working out the lyrics; no reason to stir up political feelings.) It was for the big Gather to be held at South Boll next week; Lord Sangel had requested an appearance by the new Masterharper in person, and was willing to pay the Hall accordingly.
His fingers automatically slid through the standard chord progression, and he set the harp down carefully and picked up the stylus again to scrawl in chord notations. The melody line was fine, neatly fitted to the lyrics. He’d want to rewrite it a little before sending it out for general circulation, maybe: written for his own singing voice, it stayed well within the tenor register, but more traveling harpers were baritones or basses. The scattering of new women harpers would want to take it up an octave, of course…
“Is that the new ballad?” said the original woman harper from behind him, her alto unmistakable.
Sebell turned to face his partner. “Such as it is, yes. How long have you been listening?”
“I just now came in.” Menolly perched on the edge of his desk. “Sing it through for me?”
He hesitated, and her eyebrows went up. “Not happy with it?”
“Oh, well…” Sebell swallowed reluctance. “I haven’t even begun thinking about the arrangement yet, it’s just the melody line and the chords. I’ll give you a couple of verses.”
He picked up the harp again and sang it for her, the first two verses and the choruses in between, through the point where the girl sailed her boat into harbor on her lonely island.
Menolly listened with the look of still distance that she always wore when taking in music. “How does it end?” she asked, when he left off.
Sebell cleared his throat. “She lives happily ever after on her island. With, you know, the birds and the fish and so on…”
“And firelizards?” She smiled.
Sebell laughed. “Not in the story I heard growing up. I could put some into the last verse, I suppose.”
“Maybe. I never heard that story from the SeaHolders, probably they don’t think of going to sea as romantic…” Menolly slid off the desk and came over to look over his shoulder at the sand table. “I like what you’ve done with the tune, you can hear the wind in it. Where’s the chorus?...oh, here. Are you sure about the chords in the second half?”
Of course Menolly’s ear would catch the one place he wasn’t satisfied with. “Well…”
“Look, here where the melody line turns chromatic? What if you went to the minor here, and then use a diminished seven to—“
“Yes,” Sebell broke in, hearing himself sound stiff—and he a harper, who should be able to keep his voice under control at any time. “I’m working on it.”
“And if you put in a whole step here—“
“Menolly.”
She looked up, startled out of her musical absorption. Both standing, they were eye to eye.
“Please leave it be. My name is going to be on the song; that’s what they asked for. I don’t intend to stand up there and sing a song under my own name when I know the best parts were written by—by another harper.”
Her mouth had fallen open, but he went on regardless. “Of course it would be a better song if you wrote it—don’t you think I know that? I’ve never written a song as good as any of yours in my life, and I can tell you I never will. How much easier would it be if I didn’t—“ Sebell bit the inside of his cheek, forcing himself to come to a stop. It was meaningless, and cruel, to take out his old frustration on Menolly, who couldn’t help her talent and had taken more than her share of grief for it.
To his bitter relief, she looked not so much stricken as entirely confused. “…I won’t touch it, then, of course,” she offered, sounding honestly puzzled. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think…”
“No, well.” Sebell took a deep breath and concentrated on sounding like his usual self, calm, detached, pleasant, even a little amused. “I didn’t mean to yell at you…only…maybe I need a little while alone with the song, yes? To think about it a little longer.”
“Of course,” Menolly repeated, gently. “Some tunes take longer than others…”
He shook his head, not meeting her eyes; made himself touch her cheek before he turned back to the sand table. He heard her close the door again behind her, quietly. Even then he wouldn’t let himself curse out loud, only managing a strangled murmur in the back of his throat.
Menolly wandered across the courtyard, pleased at the feel of the spring sun on her face. Unlike the big main Hall yard, this high-up space gave only on the hallway that led to the various Masters’ rooms, and so was tacitly off-limits to journeymen and apprentices. At this time of day it should be entirely untenanted.
Except that it wasn’t. The south wall was lined with low stone benches, and one of them was occupied by a lounging figure with three queen firelizards disposed about his person, all four asleep.
Menolly grinned to herself. She whistled low and one queen spread her wings and took flight, landing neatly on the leather shoulder patch all Menolly’s tunics bore. Beauty crooned with sleepy satisfaction in her ear, tail coiling around her neck for balance, sending her images of the other lizards in the fair—off at Ruatha with Jaxom’s Ruth, not surprisingly.
“Shells, that’s no way to wake a man,” Piemur grumbled. He sat up, making the other two queens--his own Farli and Sebell’s Kimi--launch disconcerted into air. Kimi winked out after a moment, probably gone to Sebell himself, and Farli imitated Beauty’s pose. Piemur was rubbing his stomach, which had taken the brunt of Beauty’s takeoff, with exaggerated discomfort.
“Did I tell you you could use my firelizard as a blanket?” Menolly inquired with mock tartness. “And you can’t be comfortable there.”
“This is just about as warm a place as there is around here. Can’t figure how I ever managed to live here…”
“Cheer up, you’ll be back South in half a Turn—less, now. The Settlement won’t go away, and neither will the new territories. Or even the sun,” she added mischievously.
Piemur growled in his throat, flinging his legs out to sit more comfortably. “You really don’t want to go back?”
“Back to the South? Believe me, I have every intention of going back there any number of times.” Menolly settled herself comfortably in the corner of the bench, at his right elbow. “Don’t forget who was the original discoverer of Cove Hold, after all.”
“Yeah, by boat, not—“
“Piemur, save your lecture on the moral superiority of walking for the apprentices,” she warned him, accompanied by an admonitory chirp from Beauty that made him chuckle reluctantly. “Walk, sail or fly, the Southern Continent is a part of all our lives now. Especially with Master Robinton settled at the Cove.” She swallowed. “But I’ve got work to do here in the North, as a harper. And Sebell can use the support.”
She wasn’t sure if something showed in her face or voice, or if Beauty and Farli had communicated, but Piemur’s eyebrows went up. “How often do I hear you criticize Sebell?”
“I didn’t! Did I--? No, I didn’t. You know I believe in Sebell—with Master Robinton in the South, no one could be a better Masterharper.”
“Then what’s got your forehead wrinkling?”
Menolly slapped lightly at his knee. “Really, Piemur, sometimes you’re still the pest you were as an apprentice…Oh, all right.” Piemur had known Sebell even longer than she had, after all; maybe he would understand. She summarized rapidly the conversation over the sand tray. “…and I feel like I’m missing something, but I don’t know what,” she finished, hearing in her own voice more frustration than she’d known she was feeling. “Sebell’s helped me polish a lyric any number of times, there’s that whole song sequence Talmor and Brudegan wrote together—that’s how harpers work.”
Piemur chewed his lip, watching her through narrowed eyes, and didn’t speak.
“Maybe because he’s newly-made Masterharper, and it was a tune on commission?” she had to speculate. “But that shouldn’t matter, not among harpers. And Sebell doesn’t think about rank that way.”
“Menolly, Menolly…” Piemur imitated a tone she recognized as Robinton’s, and then dropped back into his own voice. “You really don’t have a clue, do you?”
“I’ve enough of one not to care for being talked down to by jumped-up journeymen, thank you,” she retorted, a little more sharply than she’d meant.
“Don’t bite my nose off. I guess it’s even a compliment to you, in a back-handed kind of way. Look. Let this jumped-up journeyman explain it all to you. Are you sitting comfortably?”
She glared.
“Excellent. Now. Most all harpers can tune, as you used to call it. If you’re traveling and the Holder wants a wedding song or a new setting of a ballad or whatever, the harper’s got to be able to put a singable set of lyrics together and set them to a tune that won’t offend dull holder ears and might even get their feet tapping. The thing is, though, once or twice a generation—speaking empirically—there’s a harper who can do a lot more than that.”
“Master Robinton.”
“Sure. Domick, in his way, although if he had his druthers he’d spend all his time on those strange spiky instrumentals of his that even most harpers can’t find their way around. And you.”
“I’m not—“
“Don’t interrupt. When you write a tune, it stays with people. Look at the way you got to the Harper Hall in the first place. Even the songs you just dash off—look at that bloody silly thing about the green firelizard, people all around Pern have been singing that for months.”
Menolly blushed, remembering the song she’d written for her own amusement—and the Masterharper’s—on the ship going South. The sailors had picked it up and sent it throughout Pern before she knew it, to her mortification.
“And your serious work—people will be singing “Brekke’s Song” for generations, to name just one. You do know that, right? No, maybe you don’t. Anyway, take it from me, you have a gift. And most people—most harpers—don’t. Sebell’s as good a musician as any we have, a harper to his bones, but he’s never going to be able to compose the way you can. And he knows it. And you wonder why he gets proddy over you trying to help him tune?”
Piemur always did like being in a position where he knew more than you did, Menolly reflected, momentarily pushing away the larger disturbance. “Are you saying Sebell’s jealous of me?”
Piemur rolled his eyes at her, throwing his arms back behind his head. Farli, dislodged, hissed annoyance and settled on his knee, digging her claws sharply into his trousers. “Ow, off, girl…No, that is not what I am saying, dimglow. I’m saying he’s a harper, he has his own pride. He wants to write the best song he can, not the best song you can.”
“But I wouldn’t grudge it to Sebell…”
He wrapped a long arm around her shoulders—Beauty blinked out, reappearing in the sunniest patch of flagstone—and used it to shake her lightly from side to side. “You still don’t understand. Just leave him be when he’s writing a song, eh? Easier for him that way. He’ll want you around every other minute of the day, take it from me.” A wink.
Menolly sighed and put her head on his shoulder, grateful for the comfort, if comfort it could be called. “Music shouldn’t be so complicated,” she murmured.
“Heh, well, if you wanted the simple life you should have stayed in your fishhold.” At that she laughed, and Piemur grinned at her. “That’s better. Here.” With unexpected adroitness for one who had spent months wandering around the South with only a firelizard and a runnerbeast for company, he bent his head and kissed her on the lips. Menolly kissed back without hesitation, amused and reassured, also curious. In the end it was Piemur who pulled away.
“Are you sure you’re holdbred?” he demanded, scowling at her.
“What, did you expect me to be shocked?” Menolly laughed at him. “You may aim for aggravation when you’re talking, but you can’t expect to kiss a girl on the same principles.”
“Don’t need your advice,” he muttered, looking for a moment just like the apprentice she’d first met here Turns ago, skilled kisser or not. “I thought you’d figure it was too hard on old Sebell, is all.”
“I won’t even ask why you tried it on, in that case.” She was unoffended. “Sebell…well.” She’d fallen in love with him in the context of her love for their Master, and he knew it. Kissing Piemur wouldn’t throw him. “He understands me.”
“A lot better than you understand him,” Piemur groused. “Listen, Menolly, this song? What did you say it was for again?”
“The South Boll Gather next week, at Lord Sangel’s invitation.”
“Are you going too?”
“Well…probably, yes, I will, some of the other new tunes need a woman’s voice and none of the new girls are experienced enough yet, but…”
“Tell Sebell to put in a part for you on his new song, then. You can take the main accompaniment line on gitar and free him up to sing.”
“Now who’s telling the Masterharper how to compose?” Menolly scoffed, regaining her balance. “Didn’t you just finish lecturing me about leaving him alone to write his song? It’s up to him to decide what the arrangement will be and who’ll sing on it, not me or you.”
“Fine, I’ll tell him myself,” Piemur declared haughtily. “He ought to listen to me.”
“Oh, Piemur…” Menolly sighed, then grinned in spite of herself. “Then why not make it a trio? It’s about time you started performing in public again.”
He glared. “I’m a Southern harper. It’s different.”
“Yes, yes, I know, that’s why you’re here at the Hall, to tell the apprentices all about the Southern Continent. That doesn’t mean you’re abjured from public performance in the North.”
“Get off my back, Menolly.”
“Just a little taste of your own medicine.” Menolly sighed, leaned over in her turn to kiss the corner of his mouth lightly. “Talk to Sebell, then. He’ll work it out some way.”
“You and him—enough to tie our tails in knots!”
In the event, it wasn’t until the day before they were all due to leave for South Boll that Piemur had a chance to talk with Sebell. Menolly had left earlier that day, carried off to Fort Weyr by Mirrim and her Path, who would bring her to Boll later on. (The green dragon seemed to have an attachment at Fort Weyr these days, although Mirrim was still a Benden rider, and Menolly went to visit quite regularly. “How can you put up with that tongue?” Piemur had asked, unwisely, when they were all at Ruatha for Jaxom’s wedding. Brekke, who had happened to be sitting nearby with F’nor, had pointed out with extreme sharpness that if Piemur and Jaxom and the rest of the men on Pern would stop treating Mirrim as if her sex life was both abnormal and a matter of public record, she might have less reason to snap at them all. Menolly seemed to have taken this to heart as well.)
The Harper Hall was bustling with preparations for the harpers going to the Gather, both to perform and to enjoy. It was high night by the time Piemur begged meatrolls and fruit from Abuna in the kitchens, going back to his apprentice ways, and fled to the Masterharper’s apartments.
Sebell answered his knock with a raised eyebrow. “Come in. Escaping the crowds?”
“You said it. Shards, Sebell, I don’t know how I ever lived up here in the middle of so many people. You’ve spent time walking the roads, you know what I mean, don’t you? Not that traveling in the North is the same thing, of course…”
“Yes, we all know about the inimitable experience of walking across the Southern Continent,” Sebell said, more mildly than Menolly would have. “Sit down by the fire. Is that redfruit? Clever of you.”
Piemur set the platter down and made himself comfortable on the fur by the big fireplace, Farli settling by Sebell’s Kimi on the mantel. “You’ve perturbed Menolly, you know.”
“You never did have any small talk,” Sebell remarked, coming to sit across from him. He had produced a wineskin and two glasses.
Piemur stared. “Is that--?”
“Part of Master Robinton’s store of Benden white? It is, and I have his explicit permission—indeed, more along the lines of an order—to break into it, else I wouldn’t dare touch a drop. Are you old enough to appreciate it by now?”
That line earned the rude noise it deserved. Sebell poured for both of them; Piemur sliced the redfruit and shared out the meatrolls, and for a few minutes they savored the wine as Robinton would have insisted, enjoying a few moments of peace after the hectic day.
“I perturbed Menolly?” Sebell said idly, after a while.
“You hadn’t noticed? She couldn’t figure out why you wouldn’t let her lend a hand with your new ballad.”
“Oh.” Sebell sipped wine. “And did you clear up the matter for her?”
“Who can? She’s not equipped to understand that not everyone can tune just like that and come up with the best songs in Pern.”
“It’s easy for her, after all.”
Piemur reflected irritably that Sebell’s mirror-still calm made it hard to tell when he actually was unruffled and when he just wasn’t showing anything on the outside. He must have been unusually upset to let Menolly see there was anything wrong at all—or maybe he was different when he and Menolly were alone? Brushing that thought off in discomfort, Piemur wondered how long it would take the grandees of Pern to get used to Sebell’s placid demeanor, as familiar as they must have been with Master Robinton’s expressiveness.
“She’s not some holdgirl stinking of fish any more,” he tested the waters. “She ought to have been around enough harpers by now to know it’s not that easy for the rest of us.”
Sebell gave a half grin, rueful. “But then she’d have to admit that she has an unusual gift.”
“So what, why shouldn’t she? If anyone could cross the Southern Continent on foot, I wouldn’t be here in this bone-chilly cramped little Northern Hall teaching goggling apprentices about the ways and means of the South. If it didn’t take unusual gifts to be the Masterharper, you’d be on the road from Telgar to Crom right now with that harp—“ Piemur pointed at Sebell’s lap harp in its stand— “on your back, hoping for a good meal or two from the next cothold.”
“And who would be Masterharper then?”
“How should I know?” Piemur helped himself to the last meatroll and spoke with his mouth full. “Brudegan or Jerint or someone. What does it matter? In the real world you’re the Harper, is what I’m saying, and Menolly is the best composer of our generation, and—“
“—and you are the first true Southern harper.”
“Leave me alone and pour me some more wine,” Piemur demanded, contradictorily. “And while we’re at it, let me hear this ballad—find out what you’re both making a fuss over. Maybe I can help.”
Sebell gestured a smack to Piemur’s forehead, recognizably echoing Master Robinton. “It’s finished, for what it’s worth. I don’t have much voice left at this point, but if you insist…” He took a long swallow of wine, wiped his hands carefully on the hem of his tunic, and went to pick up the lap harp.
Piemur sprawled back on his elbows and listened with half-closed eyes. The story of the ballad was vaguely familiar, although he did suspect that in Sebell’s setting the girl’s “sea-blue eyes” and so on might have come from an inspiration closer at hand. The tune was an eminently singable one, he thought judiciously, and well suited to Sebell’s steady, crystalline tenor, though the high notes would come off a lot better when he wasn’t hoarse from a day of rehearsals and coachings.
The last chorus ended with a long-drawn-out third and a soft flurry of harp notes, and Sebell put the instrument down and coughed, rubbing his throat. “Now I know why Master Robinton made such a fetish of having a wineskin around at all times. Well, you’ve heard all there is to hear.”
Piemur refilled the other harper’s winecup and handed it over with something of a flourish. “I’ve heard a lot worse,” he allowed, a handsome compliment that made Sebell choke on his first mouthful of wine. “They’ll like it at the Gather, and it’ll be good for the traveling journeymen to pick up too.”
“I suppose. It’s not what Menolly would have done, of course.”
“Do you know what she would have done? I thought you wouldn’t let her tell you.”
For that he got a flat look, as close as Sebell normally came to a glare. “If I knew of myself what she would have done, I’d have done it in the first place. That’s the point—my songs can’t go that far.”
“Yes? So?”
Sebell blinked at that. “What do you mean, so?”
“So, so what? You’re the Masterharper. It’s your song.”
The Masterharper sighed. “That’s the problem.”
“You and Menolly are both as bad as the other,” Piemur said in exasperation.
“What comfort did you give to Menolly, then?”
Piemur grinned. “You really want to know?”
“I’ll take what I can get, Southern Harper.”
As always, there was no way to know what Sebell was really thinking. Piemur decided that could work in his favor for a change. “I’ll show you,” he said, leaned across the rug to tip Sebell backward a little and kissed his mouth, which tasted pleasantly of Benden wine.
As with Menolly, only even more disconcertingly, Sebell didn’t resist; he didn’t kiss back as sweetly as Menolly had, but he leaned sideways to let Piemur have a better angle, and generally seemed to be totally undisturbed by a lingering kiss from a journeyman.
Doesn’t this man get upset about anything but Menolly? Piemur thought impatiently in the middle of the kiss, and broke it off rather roughly. Sebell tilted his head sideways and contemplated him with thoughtful brown eyes.
“Did it work on Menolly, too?” he inquired.
“You--! You know—“ Piemur clenched his fists in the slack of his tunic. “Is that all you’ve got to say?” He breathed in through his nose, settling his aim. “You should be taking advantage of this opportunity, you know. We all love Menolly, but I’m probably better between the furs than she’ll ever be. You don’t want to miss out, this once.”
The expression on Sebell’s face was not the anger or self-reproach he might have been angling for; instead, infuriatingly, it was a little smile, a look that wanted to say something like you should be so lucky, reminding Piemur that Sebell had more than just a kiss with which to judge Menolly as a lover. The corner of his mouth, just a little reddened, quirked up a bit and Piemur hit him.
It was hard to say which of them was more startled. Sebell lost his balance and fell backwards, twisting automatically to keep well away from the risk of knocking the harp over. Piemur sucked on his stinging knuckles, wondering what expression Sebell was going to wear when he sat up again, and if there were special penalties for punching a Craftmaster.
Sebell’s face, when it came back into view, wore a look of simple bemusement. “I think that was uncalled for,” he said mildly, fingering his cheekbone with caution. “Ow. Do you know how embarrassing it’s going to be for the newly created Masterharper to go down to Silvina and ask for something to hide a bruise?”
“Ashamed of being the one to take the punch?” Piemur drawled, feeling both relieved and foolish for no clear reason he could name.
“It wouldn’t be the first time. But I’ve never before had to stand up and sing as the Craft’s representative in front of most of western Pern, and I’d just as soon not do it with half my face swollen.”
“You might have a point there,” Piemur admitted. “If only for the honor of the Hall. I tell you what, I’ll go and get you something from Silvina. I’ll tell her the apprentices were fighting, no problem.”
“And she’ll believe you?”
“Sebell, everyone believes me. Except sometimes you and Menolly.”
“Fair enough.” Sebell grinned, and winced. “When did you learn to throw such a punch?”
“I’m a man of many talents,” Piemur shrugged. Standing up, he remembered his original mission. “Speaking of which? Sebell. Your song?”
Probably no one who wasn’t a harper would have noticed the sudden tension in Sebell’s shoulders, a reaction neither Piemur’s sexual goading nor his punch had been able to bring about. “What?”
“You’re going to let Menolly accompany you, right?”
Sebell hesitated, his lack of expression perhaps not entirely due to the swelling cheekbone. “She did say she would. If I wanted her to.”
“Well, you do. And after this—no, I guess it’s too late at night, he’s getting old. Tomorrow before the dragons come to transport us to Boll, you need to go to Master Jerint and ask for one of his best bass gitars. And bring it with you to the Gather.” Piemur was pleased to find that he could carry off an order to his Craftmaster with aplomb.
“Bass gitar…? For Menolly? But she has her own gitar.”
“Just do it, Sebell, all right? Jerint won’t say no.”
“Not if I wrap it up well enough against between. No. Well, I’ll see what I can do…but…” Sebell frowned. “Is this something you and Menolly have cooked up together? She sent me on an errand to Jerint as well.”
“Did she now.” Piemur hadn’t planned on that. “I wonder what she has in mind. No, honestly, Sebell, I don’t know. I didn’t mention Jerint to her.”
Sebell sighed. “I’m not making any promises, Piemur. I know you and Menolly have the Craft—“
“—and the Craftmaster—“
“—in mind, but I need to do this in my own fashion. I’ll do what I can, that’s all I’ll say. Now go and get me that poultice so we can both get some sleep.”
Gather Day at South Boll was all it should be, warm and sunny and glorious with no threat of Thread, the wide Gather grounds thronged with holders and crafters and riders from all over Pern. The main stage faced the dancing-space, where the evening would see dances until the moon set; now, in early afternoon, it was filled with people in more orderly rows, mostly sitting on their cloaks to listen to the harpers perform.
The “backstage” area was a little lean-to with some heavy sacking draped over it, shielding the harpers about to perform from the eyes of the audience and their instruments from the sun. The program was long and varied, including everything from a choir of children from the main Hold to one of Domick’s song cycles (grudgingly edited by the composer for performance before non-harpers who might not have appreciated its more recondite harmonies), all supervised by Yukis and Toryun, the Hold harpers, who seemed to be in their element.
Toryun’s resonant bass-baritone could be heard now, singing Robinton’s familiar ballad about Lessa’s ride back through time. There were a lot of Robinton’s songs on the program today, Sebell reflected, which was only as it should be.
He and Menolly were the next to perform; alone in the backstage space, they stood by the instrument rack in enforced quiet. The firelizards had been banished to the fireheights with the dragons for the occasion, but would probably return as soon as they were finished singing. Sebell kept his breathing steady, drawing himself into a state of mind where he could perform, starting with the awareness of his own physical presence that Robinton had taught all of them.
One area where he and the Masterharper (as Sebell still thought of his Master) had never seen eye to eye was clothes. Robinton had enjoyed taking every performance as an opportunity for a new suit of clothes, the more elegant the better, and wearing them with panache. As long as he was clean and protected against the elements, Sebell couldn’t manage to take an interest in what he had on his back. This time, though, he could admit reluctantly that his everyday clothes just wouldn’t do; Menolly and Silvina between them had bullied him into acquiring a new outfit from the Masterweaver, although he’d managed to keep it as simple as Zurg would allow. Undyed pants and a heavy, square-necked overtunic in vibrant harper blue, no more, but it was the first time he could remember wearing anything made-to-measure, and the slight extra room in the shoulders—a legacy of Zurg’s years making clothes for Robinton, allowing for freedom of movement when playing an instrument—was a novelty. The soft heavy fabric pleased his callused fingertips, too.
Menolly, not much of a clotheshorse herself as a rule, was wearing a reversed version of his own clothes—harper-blue pants and a woman’s knee-length overtunic in a blue so pale it was almost cream—made from some silky material he’d never seen her in. The effect was to emphasize her height and slimness in an utterly feminine way.
She already had her gitar slung over her shoulders, one hand touching the strings lightly to keep them from resonating to the music on stage. Sebell’s harp was in the rack at his left, along with the bass gitar Piemur had insisted he acquire from the instrument master. He’d offered it to Menolly, but she blinked and shook her head.
“That’s not for me,” in the backstage whisper they were accustomed to. “You know I don’t play bass—“ A smile broke suddenly across her face, and she shook her head again and laughed under her breath. “Just make sure it’s tuned?”
“It is.” He had done that automatically. “What is Piemur scheming, then?”
“We won’t know if he doesn’t show up soon, Toryun’s set is more than half finished.” Menolly frowned. “I told him to come. I’ve a scheme of my own for him.”
On cue, a narrow shaft of sunlight shot across the small room as the entrance flap swung open. Piemur was momentarily outlined against the light as he stepped inside. “Shards!” with enough volume to make both of them shush him automatically. “Half Pern’s here. Haven’t seen so many people since…Can I just go back to Southern now?”
His tone was jocular, but Sebell’s ear caught the tremor. “You’ll be all right. Now what did you have in mind for the bass gitar?”
“You mean I have to spell it out for you? Anyway, that’s for later. Here—“ Piemur held out a hand to each of them. “Careful, they’re still hot.”
Menolly took the little clay dish from his hand, and laughed, hastily muffling the sound. “Bubbly pies!”
“Absolutely. The one thing you can’t get in the South for love nor money—yet. Did you really think I’d go to a Gather and miss out? Sebell, hurry up and eat yours. I’ve a skin of water to clear your throats for singing afterward.”
Sebell took the pie and bit into it almost absently, managing not to burn his tongue. “What about your own?”
“Ate one already. Or three or four.”
“Or five or six,” Menolly suggested, with her mouth full. She had demolished the little pie already. “Oh, I’d forgotten how lovely they taste. Sebell, you’re dripping berry juice!”
“Came prepared for that too—“ Piemur whipped a cloth from his belt, and Menolly dabbed briskly at Sebell’s collar over his protests, managing to catch the splash of juice before it could stain his tunic.
“—Sebell, what’s this?” in a different tone of voice.
“Hm?” Sebell was calculating how much time they had left until going onstage.
Her finger traced the thin white line that ran vertically over his collarbone, making him shiver a little. “I never noticed this before.”
“It doesn’t matter now, Menolly…well, it’s what it looks like, Threadscore. Years ago, when I was a journeyman up in Tillek and joined the ground crews one Fall.” In recent years he’d had fewer nightmares about that day. “The holders laughed at me afterward. We all had wherhide gloves, and if I’d put a hand up—“ he demonstrated—“I might not have been touched at all.”
“You couldn’t risk your hands,” Menolly said in horror, harmonizing with Piemur’s “And maybe lose your Craft?” They all laughed then, a little hollowly; as Menolly in particular had good reason to know, harpers lived by their hands.
“I didn’t know you’d been out in Fall,” Piemur said quietly.
Sebell shrugged. “No reason you would.”
“You don’t talk about it…”
“I don’t keep it a secret, either. It’s just…”
“You should write a song about it. That’s one not so many harpers could write.”
“The fewer the better,” Sebell said gently. Maybe he would write that song, someday. For now, the future was almost on them. “Piemur, what about this bass?”
“Oh. Well, naturally it’s for you. You don’t need the harp, not with Menolly’s gitar. Your voice, her accompaniment, your bass line.”
“And—“ from Menolly, before Sebell could react to this—“your drum line. I had Sebell ask something else of Master Jerint.” From the drum shelf, she picked up a bowran and a stick, and pushed them into Piemur’s hands.
“Menolly!”
“Shush. It’s about time you did some ensemble playing again, journeyman. You know Sebell’s song, and you’re a one-time drum apprentice. What’s the matter?”
“Menolly—“
“Quiet,” Sebell told him, beginning to grin. “Take it as an order from your Craftmaster, Piemur. But—I haven’t played the bass in years.”
“No, of course not, journeymen don’t take a bass with them when they travel. I remember back when, though. Master Robinton always said you played the best bass line in the Harper Hall.”
So he had. Sebell had been very proud of that, in his teens.
Applause sounded from out front. Yukis’ head appeared through the entrance flap. “Masterharper, are you ready? Toryun’s coming off.”
“…Ready,” Sebell said, and picked up the bass, because you did not keep an audience waiting. What would Master Robinton have said?
On stage, feeling Menolly and Piemur time their breathing to his, it all made more sense. Sebell pitched his singing voice strong and clear to carry, making the most of the high notes (you’re a natural tenor, don’t be ashamed of it, as Master Domick had once told him irritably). His own lyrics came automatically, while the back of his mind concentrated on the bass fingerings. He heard again Master Robinton’s voice from years before, saying to someone else and Sebell plays the best bass line, and wondered if the Harper had meant more than he’d known. The bass line held the tune together, drawing the drumbeat along, anchoring the gitar chords, stabilizing the sung melody. Not flashy, not demanding audience attention, not requiring fantastic technical brilliance. But a bass line that wavered for even a moment could ruin a song; conversely, a good bass player could bring out all the song’s rich potential. For the first time, there on the stage with Menolly and Piemur at his shoulders, Sebell felt that he might have the gifts he needed, after all, truly to become the Masterharper.
“And she was free, and she was fair…” On the first chorus he sang alone; on the second, Menolly’s alto added a harmony line. On the third, they were both galvanized to hear a husky baritone fill out the chord, surely the first time Piemur had sung in public since his voice broke.
Sebell took a deep breath and launched into the last verse, suddenly wishing Master Robinton were there to hear them. One day it would happen—he would find some time and the three of them would sail down to Cove Hold again, in a cloud of firelizards, to show the old Craftmaster what the Harper Hall had given them, and what they had given each other.