Thank you for the kind comments - if you are enjoying the story then I must be keeping in the right path - mutters - turns for years, turns for years...
Andova barely stopped herself shrieking aloud as the whirling cloud of firelizards resolved themselves into a recognisable group of seven. They seemed to be dancing in the air above Menolly, swirling and reforming in an acrobatic display.
"There now! I told them I'd be back soon, and no doubt they've been chased out of their usual haunts by something."
"Nothing could frighten them, surely?" Andova still stood with her head tipped back, watching the firelizards, and as she spoke one descended slowly to eyelevel, allowing her to bring her neck out of its painful crick. She found herself staring into eyes of opalescent colour and tried to fix the image to show Porgrun so that he could translate it into slipware. The dragon took off again with a screech and disappeared in the blink of an eye and Menolly turned to look accusingly at Andova.
"What did you do that for?"
"Me? I didn't do anything! I was admiring it. What a beauty!"
"That's her name. Beauty. She's my queen. She shot me an image of flames and heat and interpreted it as either - " she jerked her thumb up towards the sky, "or dragons flaming firelizards. What did she pick out of your mind?"
Andova rubbed the back of her neck and declined to answer, staring at the other firelizards, and suddenly Beauty was back, hovering in front of her, and Andova carefully pictured her uncle lovingly shaping the pots, peeling the silhouettes from the moulds and placing them, and then the finished products. Beauty gave an approving churr and landed on Andova's shoulder, wrapping her tail around her throat and peering into her face, one tiny paw on the top of her left ear. She warbled a few interrogative notes and Andova obligingly pictured the rows of pots ready for sale.
The other firelizards did not seem to have taken any notice of the byplay, dancing happily around Menolly, but the girl was still staring at Andova.
"That's a pretty powerful imaging you did," she said slowly. "Have there ever been Searches in your valley?"
"Searches for what?" Andova asked as, greatly daring, she scratched Beauty's eyeridges. "For dragon riders, you mean? Not since the Pass began, and we look to Fort, not Benden, so they wouldn't have come looking so far south."
"I suppose that's right. I think they've missed out, though. Come through here, and tell me about your songs, if you would?"
Andova looked around the yards, at the boys and men hurrying about their business, the sweet notes of someone practicing, the not so sure sound of someone going over and over a singing exercise.
"Well - they aren't really songs," she prevaricated. "Just little rhymes to help the evening out."
"Those are songs," Menolly said firmly, taking her by the arm and leading her to the great double doors of the hall. "In here - oh, Master Domick - this is Andova - she has some new songs for Master Robinton."
"More songs - more twiddles more like," the older man said in a sour voice. "Another girl harper to plague us, Menolly?"
"I don't know - do you play and sing, Andova?"
Andova could hear mischief in the girl's voice, but curtseyed respectfully to the Master.
"I do both, Master Domick, but not to the standard your students must achieve in the Hall."
"Hmmph." He stalked away and Menolly shook her head.
"Right answer to such a naughty question. Come through here."
They entered a side room with a sandtable set at a convenient height for writing, and Menolly picked up a gitar.
"That little thing Viman was singing - I wrote down what I could remember - is this right?"
She sang it through, in a gentle voice, but true on all the notes.
"High and free, high and free,
The sky your proper domain.
With wings of power your watch you keep,
To guard the denizens of Pern, and me.
All colours, come, come to birth,
Learn to flame and go between.
With wings of power and eyes so keen,
Burn the Thread and prove your worth."
Andova nodded. "That's right."
"And the final verse?"
Andova blinked. "Final verse? That's all there is of that song."
"The music doesn't say so," Menolly replied. "I wrote the tune out, and there are subtle differences in each verse ending, and to resolve it, there should be a third, ending on a more triumphant final note."
"There are no more verses," Andova said flatly. "If you want some of our songs, I'll write them out for you, and hum the tune, but that's all."
Menolly put the gitar down, staring at her, and Andova shrugged.
"You have things in Harper Hall I'm sure you aren't allowed to speak about, and it's the same in our family. There are things we don't speak about."
Beauty had accompanied them into the room, and suddenly she inflated her throat and "sang" the tune, but with the last final note to complete it. Menolly looked from the firelizard to the angrily defiant holder girl, and shook her head.
"It's not up to me to probe. If you won't tell, then you won't, but there aren't supposed to be any more secrets in this Pass, not since we nearly lost everything in the Long Interval. Four hundred Turns, and things were forgotten or brushed over, or distorted, and that was why Lessa went back in time to collect the Old Timers."
"It was heroic."
"It was mad," Menolly replied. "Mad but heroic. They wrote the Question Song so that she would recognise it."
"And the tapestry at Ruatha. My father's seen that."
"When was he at Ruatha? Is he from there? No, you said you were all from Fort. But Ruatha is part of Fort."
"He was there as a young man, before he settled back into the hold."
"So not everyone stays in their valley and keeps their eyes on the ground?"
"That's not fair! The work has to be done, and done well, before there's time for relaxation and gathers and such."
"I'm sorry. Yes I am, because my father was such a man, duty first, and pleasure later."
"There's been times, in the fields, when my father pauses, and leans on the plough, and looks out at the world, and he says he finds it very beautiful," Andova said coldly. "Have we finished here?"
She turned and walked out into the main hall and was considerably embarrassed to find Master Harper Robinton there.
"I did wonder what the last note would be," he said mildly. "Thank you, Beauty."
"You would have known straight away," Andova said hotly. "You're the Master Harper. A finishing chord must be something you know instinctively."
"Actually, it is, my dear Andova. So why didn't you make up some words for the final verse? Why leave it hanging when you must have known Harpers would question it?"
"No one's ever commented on it before."
"Because everyone in your valley, or at least in your branch of the family, knows the final verse," Robinton said at once. "Is it really such a secret?"
"You would need to speak to my father about it."
"And maybe I will," Robinton replied amiably. "But in the meantime, won't you join us for the midday meal? I promise no one will moither you about your valley."
She accepted his peaceful intent, and came to the guest table where to her surprise Mendal was seated. He stood up at once and smiled at her.
"Hullo! I didn't expect to meet you in here - I've a cousin who sings, so I came to see how he's getting on."
"They wanted some of the valley songs," Andova replied. "I thought you would have gone on with the convoy."
He shrugged as they sat down. "Decided they had enough guards, and Thread not due for a while. Did you send that request to the Weyr?"
"Yes. I want to wait until I get a reply, but it may not be soon."
Mendal served her deftly from the plates of food. "I doubt that too. Maybe we could ask some of the other dragon riders."
"What dragon riders?"
"There's a whole group of them due here soon, so it's said, something about a sickness in a couple of the Weyrs, something they've not encountered before. Probably picked up something nasty from those old abandoned caves! Goodness knows what was living in them before the Old Timers came forward!"
Andova laughed. "More likely that the ones coming forward brought a sickness that was eradicated over the Turns we've been without them!"
Mendal paused and looked at her. "Did you mention that to the Healer when you saw him?"
"No I didn't . I've only just thought of it now."
He nodded. "It's as good a theory as the other way around, though, isn't it? Why not? Me, I prefer to think it was the nasty things that might lurk in the caves. Never could abide caves. There was one near where I grew up, where all the children dared each other. Stupid practice."
"We have a tree in the valley where all the boys challenge each other to climb, and carve their initials," Andova said with a smile.
"And you put yours higher than theirs," Mendal said accurately.
"As high as my arm could stretch," Andova admitted, and they laughed together, and talked about other things as they finished the meal, Andova wondering who else would be asking her awkward questions about their family and its secrets.
