Chapter 7

The departure of Milly was a short-lived talking point; the other new apprentices in the new intake despised her heartily, but none actually cared enough to dislike her enough to gloat unduly or make anything much of the matter. She told lies and she disrespected Masters and so she was kicked out; and no-one questioned the justice in that.

"And deserves it, the mean!" said Sifora, who disliked her perhaps more than anyone for the embarrassment she had suffered.

"Cuh, yes, it's unfair enough to have the blood so young without having your stuff taken" said Ambreen, whose mother believed in early preparation, just in case. Sheesha had had the matter explained to her; and Adanna and Lirysa too had been enlightened by their seniors. As a point of fact, Lirysa was the eldest in the dormitory, and Sifora, the dormitory head, was the youngest, but Sifora was steady as well as having a turn's seniority on the new girls.

"I telled the dragon that was taking her away that she tells the smelliest of lies" said Kilaia. "She can't spread lies about in Lemos Hold now."

Sifora looked startled.

"Do you think she might?"

"I think she might try anything" said Kislaia darkly "but Shedith knows."

"Kilaia hears dragons" Ambreen explained to Adanna and Lirysa, "and so does Preslan. So take that superior look off your face, Adanna, she ain't pretending. And Lessa of Benden knows."

"Sorry" said Adanna to Kilaia, genuinely amazed. "I thought you were playing a game; I apologise."

Kilaia smiled gravely.

"That's all right" she said. "Mother Elissa says she always thought all people heard dragons but grew out of it like she did, 'cos of getting into the habit of not listening; but I'm s'posed to listen."

"You're lucky" said Adanna. "And you're a real all right kid standing up for your big brother."

"Preslan couldn't 'cos boys don't hit girls when they're feeble types like her" said Kilaia. "Reckon he could fight you if you wanted."

Adanna took that – rightly – as a compliment and grinned.

Milly was forgotten as utterly as if she had never come.

oOoOo

The seasons turned and the cold diminished. Buds would soon swell on the trees; and as the sap started rising, sugar maples were being tapped for the sap to make maple syrup and maple sugar. Far flung craftcots would make their own syrup; but those closer to brought in buckets and washing tubs full, ready for the sugaring-off.

"Master Halton says no sugar snow this turn" said Elissa to her fosterlings, charges, and Sadvia and Josis, the older girls having come to tea. Halton was H'llon's grandfather and was notoriously weatherwise, a talent H'llon found of use himself as a dragonrider, having inherited it.

"What's sugar snow, Journeyman?" asked Adanna. "Surely you can't make snow into sugar?"

"No, it's not that" said Elissa. "Maple syrup is made by boiling the sap of the sugar maple trees; it's tapped as it starts to rise to begin Spring. When there's a late snowfall it cools the trees down and stops the sap going as high as the leaves, so it runs for longer and makes more sugar. It's not so common an event to happen, but welcome when it does. Last turn the sugar snow gave the Hall a welcome boost to our income in having surplus to sell."

"Oh!" said Adanna. "I don't think I like snow much; it's pretty from indoors, but awfully cold."

"Oh, you'll have fun with it next turn when you're more used to it" said Elissa. "It's been a bit pathetic this turn, rather spare. I'm glad the Master laid aside plenty of syrup and sugar as well as selling some of the surplus; we might go short this turn."

Kispre looked up.

"Does that mean no maple candy?" he asked anxiously.

"Not a bit of it! Maple candy is a standard treat for apprentices and craftbrats!" said Elissa firmly. "We shan't be as sparse as that, just shorter than sometimes. Less surplus to sell."

"Good" said Kispre.

"We promised you should go to the sugaring-off and you shall" said Elissa. "We'll all be attending the dance."

oOoOo

Sugaring-off took place in a huge clearing. Awnings hung from trees around it, with raised floors away from the cold forest floor for the families of those involved in boiling the sap, which took place at a distance; and every visiting family contributed comestibles for the party. Hefty loggers took it in turn to lift the liquid of the sap in huge ladles from the boiling kettles, hung over huge fires, and pouring it back in, to keep the temperature even and to check on its consistency while their oldest sons saw to the fires and kept them burning at an even rate. When the liquid thickened it would be syrup. Some of it would be poured into barrels and kept as syrup; the rest would make sugar and maple candy.

Making sugar involved yet more careful boiling; but that was traditionally done by the women, while the celebration dancing went on, the women taking turns tending the boiling and at joining in the dancing, all dressed in their Gather best, but with big aprons while they tended the boiling syrup. Harpers played dance music and there was no such thing as bedtime!

A piercing whistle from one of the women at the pots had all the children scurrying to fill plates with snow, a great pile of which had been packed together to prevent it melting just for this, This was the moment at which the liquid was ready to make into candy! Jugs were dipped, and the youngsters poured it into the snow to cool, some choosing to make plain blocks, others making fantastical shapes that hardened in the snow as they poured. Adults made candy for those left behind for some reason and to store as treats; and the children might eat as much as they pleased of what they had poured!

Maple candy was good, but was filling enough that nobody wished that they might have a second plateful, though Kispre muttered to Mart that he bet that Milly would have wanted more.

Mart grinned.

"Well, she has only herself to blame that she missed out" he said, and promptly forgot her as he munched on his own candy.

And then the call came:

"GIRLS! It's graining!"

The women ran like firelizards hatching; all the boiled syrup must be poured out to cool into cakes of rich brown sugar for use in cooking all through the turn, and enough to fill a small bubbly-pie tin for each child of fourteen and below too, for it was a time of celebration where children might be indulged; for did not too the apprentices help to tend the maple stands, and to carve the wooden troughs that were driven into the bark to tap the sap, and check the buckets that the sap ran into, and cut new bucket staves for new buckets to be made by the hall cooper. Those involved in the timber side of things had spent the winter clearing old dead branches and building up the store of wood to burn for this, Even the small children who were not yet apprenticed had been making themselves useful gathering sticks to help with fuelling the fire and some had helped in sanding the bucket staves to smoothness.

Elissa's fosterlings enjoyed themselves hugely; and finally fell asleep on the piles of quilts and furs laid on the raised floor for that purpose! The huge fires kept everyone warm and on the morrow there would be porridge for breakfast with maple syrup; and then back to lessons as normal after the noon meal.

It was very satisfying!

Josis drank it all in; and watched what the women did, noting what changes occurred to the syrup. One day she might be helping to run a sugaring-off herself, if she failed to Impress, or if the women of High Reaches Weyr also made maple sugar!

oOoOo

After the Sugaring-off, Spring came in earnest, green creeping across the canopies of the trees almost as fast as anyone could watch; and the apprentices woke one morning to find that the tight green buds had burst open while they slept on many of the trees, and suddenly there was a canopy of leaves! With the thaw, hibernating weesweets had emerged and were busy singing from holes in trees, finding mates to raise broods, and early flowers put up pastel heads to the sun. Spirits brightened no end with the lengthening days, and more apprentices and Journeymen might be heard singing and whistling as they went about their work.

oOoOo

One of the spirits that was brightening most was Horslas; he was learning that friendship was a vast improvement on one-upmanship and cronyism. He and Redlan had drifted into a friendship consolidated by being outsiders together as well as Horslas' gratitude for Redlan's aid. The former bully was also finding a tentative friendship with Kispre and his friends. Kispre's woodcrafting skills already surpassed many of the older boys at Threewoods, to Horslas' amazement, though Kispre shrugged it off as being bred in blood and bone. Horslas decided it was the care and precision the little boy applied to everything; all that he made was neat and well finished, never skimped. Horslas was determined to emulate that!

He received a joint letter from Haella and Siffio – rather disjointed as each added their own thought – wishing him well and expressing sympathy for his life of being bullied. They wrote that Banessan had knuckled down to work and was mostly ignoring the little ones, which they considered a vast improvement.

Horslas was not to know that the children had viewed his apology with a degree of suspicion until Haella had received a letter from her brother mentioning that Horslas had pulled up his game and really seemed to be improving as a person too! With that evidence, discussed with Siffio, the children were ready to be generous. As Siffio pointed out, maybe Horslas would not have been so bad if he and Banessan had not egged each other on and been encouraged by ol' Maybret!

Isimy and Bendarek discussed the phenomenon too, and asked H'llon for input.

"We had a case told to us – two cases really – from the Harper Hall" rumbled H'llon. "Now Domick shares information with us logicators he told us that he recognised a fatal pairing in two boys from something he had seen in his youth. One boy is more dominant than the other, but the second must not just be a willing drudge to the first but has some sense of initiative himself. Then each becomes worse together than they are apart. The leader is often, it seems, more a dreamer than a doer; the follower perhaps has a poor self image. The admiration of the follower encourages the dreamer to do things – but often quite terrible things – he would not otherwise do, to prove his supposed superiority over others, hurting and even killing to prove that he has power of life and death over whom he designates as lesser being. The follower feels boosted by being privileged to share the deeds of the leader and also commits heinous acts to prove that he is worthy, which seeming big to the follower pushes the leader to worse and worse. We've called it a High/Moderate assertiveness situation. When it occurs, split the two. The lad – or, I suppose, girl – of lower assertiveness can be a high achiever if given the right encouragement. The one of higher assertiveness has the POTENTIAL to be great; but, it seems, often has a streak of laziness or a feeling that life owes him. Pass it about to your logicators, will you?"

The other Masters nodded and promised to do so. Bendarek reflected that it was pleasant to think that Horslas would probably actually be pleased to know what had happened to him; and that H'llon felt that he had a chance of high achievement.

Isimy was concerned too with H'llon's assessment that Banessan felt that life owed him; the boy was generally resentful, though he was working well enough now. Isimy could not see him ever wearing Journeyman's knots though!

oOoOo

Horslas was indeed glad to find out that his descent into serious bullying had a root cause that was partly beyond control; and was glad to discuss his feelings and analyse how he had come more and more under Banessan's control, and how Banessan had liked to show off to him. Elissa made extensive notes; as she said, having the inside story direct, as it were, from the runnerbeast's mouth, gave them an advantage in recognising the phenomenon another time.

"And you'll be logicator expert in picking up on it" she said to Horslas. "I should think that Master Bendarek would take your word immediately if you recommend splitting two apprentices."

Horslas grinned.

"Well I can think of some that should be separated by the length of the continent for peace of mind for the rest of us" he said "but none yet have I seen with the same tendencies."

"Good" said Elissa. "Yes, Ambreen and Sheesha have rather woken up to the fact that they haven't annoyed anyone for several months; I should have realised it was too good to last."

"What have they done NOW?" demanded Sadvia, wearily. Having Ambreen as a little sister could be wearing!

Elissa grinned.

"There's a bunch of senior apprentices who think that they are about to make Journeyman, and who are practising giving orders rather prematurely; not real bullying, but past what I like. The girls cheeked them egregiously and were well cuffed for it. I didn't stop that, the girls had asked for it, though I did tell the senior apprentices that they were exceeding their authority and that if they could not manage to use the limited authority they had appropriately, they were jeopardising their chance of being made up to Journeyman. Which I think settled THEIR hash. Only, unaware I had taken matters in hand, those little horrors planned their own revenge…" here she broke of and dissolved into gurgles of mirth.

"And you a responsible Journeyman!" said Gerney with mock severity. "Yes, I know the three lads you mean, and a fourth one who runs with them at times. I will NOT be recommending their promotion unless they buck their ideas up. Go on – if you've recovered from the giggles."

Elissa grinned.

"You know the necessary block up at the sawhouse has a channel that runs under the seats? Well, our small horrors played hookey from Tirris' finishing class, with the other girls covering for them, having suffered equally in the past; because the seniors were with Challer at the time. Came the break and they went to the necessary, and I do wonder if they'd had their klah spiked to make sure of it… to make all want to sit down that is. The kids had made paper boats like you do with birch bark, only they got some reject paper sheets, and set light to them, and sailed them downstream. Four anguished and strangled yelps in a row! I was up there and I heard it…" she laid her head in her arms sobbing with laughter. "It was exquisite revenge and I have to say, deserved, so I took the expedient of looking for them in the finish shop and left Tirris to deal with them for playing hookey as the best way to enact discipline for it" and she collapsed into mirth again.

"Shells! Half the necessaries at Threewoods are like that!" said Horslas in lively horror. "I AM glad none of our brats there were so creative!"

"It'll come" said Gerney, in a resigned tone. "You'll probably get to see it when you're teaching there, lad!"

Horslas was overcome at the idea that he might one day be trusted to teach at Threewoods!

"Th-theyre idiots and d-deserve it" said Tirlo. "I w-wish we had Sh-Shoris to come up w-with some phrase about b-being s-somewhat s-scrotally singed!"

"We don't need him; you did it instead" chuckled Elissa "Not that it's even really that bad, the channel's deep enough that there's no damage, just a degree of unwonted warmth from the south as you might say. If they'd been badly burned I'd have had more to say to the girls!"

oOoOo

Redlan and Josis, as senior apprentices, determined to keep an eye on the four rather self-opinionated boys. They were of an age with Sadvia and her twin Kyal; and had generally deferred to the Ranking boy before he had left to take up the post as Journeyman Woodcrafter in his father's own Hold. Tirlo and Teerel, themselves also seniors, passed this on to the two new seniors; and approved the idea of new eyes looking at the group!

"We just have always thought them daft and so have taken no account of them" said Teerel. "Barek is their leader; he's also the youngest at seventeen. The hanger on and sometime fourth is Shardo; he's not so bad, though some of his work is ill researched and all the neat finishing on Pern can't hide a poorly-drawn dragon design from the outset. Elvy's just a fool and Pompous Portin came half-trained from a journeyman father who filled the boy's head with nonsense about how wonderful he was. Worse than Birgel, who is at least a sport now we've broken him of being childish" he added.

The new seniors observed all four; none was particularly nasty as such, just rather conscious of their dubious position and inclined to feel rather above 'the kids'. Cutting out Shordo, the hanger-on, was a simple matter; a smile from pretty Josis had the boy far more interested in impressing her than in hanging around with the others! It was perhaps unscrupulous, but Josis knew that the hearts of young men were both susceptible and changeable; and hoped that she could instil a few sensible ideas in him during his infatuation! He was a serious boy, and knowledgeable, so conversation with him was no chore, and Josis was glad of that. His work was excellent too, if one ignored his poor design work.

After all, a Journeyman could always pick designs from those kept in the great design book sewn together from the individual leaves that was stored in the design shop.

Redlan chatted to Elvy; and found his pomposity an overlay covering uncertainty in the face of the confident Barek. Redlan dragged Elvy into helping Horslas catch up to Senior, after explaining the whole matter to Horslas!

Tirlo spoke to Journeyman Leichalle, Master Challer's daughter; and Pompous Portin found himself as a forestry assistant away, most of the time, from the rest of the hall, which as he was inclined to go on rather about the efficiency of the sawmill and boast about his knowledge of different trees had rather been something he had brought upon himself.

The high-moderate assertiveness situation may not have been there; but some situations were better diffused before they happened. And without cronies to fuel their pomposity, the four seniors might too do better, as well as causing less ructions!.

The gentle reader might recognise the high/medium dominance syndrome as typified by Leopold and Loeb or Brady and Hindley.