Chapter 14
When Journeyman Hagel returned he was cheered back by a cheerful group of apprentices; and Master Isimy congratulated him on instilling in Kemmern the intent to teach under him if he, Hagel, felt like tackling cabinet making now he had had the chance to refresh his training.
"Oh how I would!" said Hagel hungrily "I very much enjoyed working under Master Idoghan; I'd forgotten what a sour body Master Jaben is!"
Isimy laughed.
"Too many turns of dimwitted boys who can't wait to leave him I suspect!" he said.
"Yes; though having said that, there's this lad, Kispre, who is excused jointcrafting for his level of skill but comes anyway to build the most complex locking mechanisms and puzzle boxes that I'm longing to have a go at building myself!" said Hagel "As well as being fired with enthusiasm to make more complex furniture like Master Idoghan does!"
"Well, hopefully you'll find the apprentices have not forgotten all they have learned; we had a volunteer from the Weyr to revise the older ones and keep the little ones up to scratch; he's H'llon's foster son and by way of being something of a prodigy so after a dodgy day or so they took it well enough" said Isimy. Hagel's self confidence was fragile enough for the Master not to want to knock it by revealing right off just how young Radall really was!
Hagel gave a laugh that was half rueful, half bitter.
"Well, H'llon's relatives at Lemos could demonstrate most skills better than any of us original Journeymen here, down to and including Kispre, who Turned ten this spring! I certainly have a better idea of the standards for which we should be aiming and I've been glad of the chance to bring my own skills back up to what a Journeyman should be! It was an eye-opener I can tell you; Caim, Veller and Kaybez will get a shock all right; and so would Rillen and Kemmern if you sent them!"
"Well I'm sending Kemmern to the Weyr" said Isimy "He expressed an interest in pursuing mathematics to improve his jointcrafting and I was happy to suggest that he should study there. Banessan's going with him; you'll be surprised what enthusiasm over Weyr ideas could do when the rest of us had all but given up on him. He's built a quite respectable hexagonal table."
"Hexagonal? But the boy can't even mitre corners!"
"It's amazing, as I said, how something can catch the imagination! Banessan took to our weyrling woodcrafter – I'm not quite sure why but that he did suffices – and put in more work for him over the last couple of sevendays than I wager he has done in the last two turns."
"I confess, Master, to being wary of anyone Banessan took to" said Hagel.
"Normally I'd agree on general principles. And I was quite astounded that Banessan DID take to him" said Isimy. "I gather he admires the boy for being tough enough to overcome adversity; the lad was born without legs. Whatever; I for one was grateful."
"Yes indeed!" said Hagel fervently "If Banessan could find some enthusiasm we'd be halfway to the delightful atmosphere at Lemos!"
"Oh I think our young ones here, especially the new intake, are quite as cheerful as the Lemos youngsters" said Isimy "When they start producing harmless mischief we'll know."
wWwWw
The harmless mischief came sooner than anticipated.
The youngest of the apprentices were caught out in a sudden heavy rainstorm when out with Andreesas examining different trees and sketching their main features; and were, on their sodden return to the Hall, banished to bed after hot baths.
Bed rest soon palled – after about half an hour – and Tirrer collected the two girls for alpine sports.
Alaran, coming to check if the boys were asleep or might be permitted to get up if they were wakeful, heard squeals and thumps and giggles coming from the dormitory; and hastened to investigate.
All the beds had been lugged into a pile and the mattresses made into a rough slope down which the apprentices were tobogganing on pillows. One pillow had already burst and filled the air with enough wherry down to add the appearance of snow; and Alaran, who had not been expecting anything quite like this, blinked in amazement.
The apprentices froze, some halfway up their mountain; and one, unable to stop – it was Menisha – on a cushion on her way down cascaded right to Alaran's feet.
She gave him a deprecating grin.
"Id's in prebaradtion for dext widnter" she said in a voice thick with nasal constriction. The girl suffered terribly from hayfever and had a permanently blocked nose until the tree pollen subsided, despite the dose she had from the infirmary to help out. Not that the affliction seemed to stop her doing anything she wanted; so the Hall teaching staff did not, on the whole, worry.
Alaran surveyed the scene making clear from his demeanour that they were in trouble. It gave him the opportunity to make sure he would not giggle when he did finally speak. Shards, he thought, even Kelat has joined in! Only Lirred was sulking in his own bed refusing to join in; Lushall, being older, had not been made to lie down; at least one would not have to discipline a boy that old.
Alaran, addressed Menisha's rather specious explanation.
"Nice try but no prize" he said. "I think I must be having a rather bad daydream; I'm going away for a quarter of an hour and this place better be tidy when I return and good little apprentices lying down quietly in their own dormitories."
"Yes Journeyman" it was a resigned chorus.
Alaran withdrew to a linen cupboard down the passage where he might freely indulge the release of his carefully controlled mirth.
He gave them a good quarter of an hour.
On returning, he found the girls gone and the beds back in – mostly – good order. The offending pillow had disappeared and only a few flecks of wherrydown remained. Alaran decided not to look out of a window to see whether there was a large amount of surrogate snow on the ground.
"Well I think you lot may as well get up" said Alaran "I'll see all of you in my study in minutes five."
"I never joined in, Journeyman!" Lirred was quick to point out.
"Noted" said Alaran "I'll see you nonetheless."
He asked Birella if the girls might be sent along too, giving her a quick resumé of what had happened. Birella agreed that if they were in the mood for such high jinx, bed was NOT the place for them!
wWwWw
The seven youngsters surveyed Alaran warily; Lirred stared resentfully too.
"Well as you lot have excess energy and used it up because you can't be trusted to be obedient" said Alaran " – YES Lirred I KNOW you didn't join in – I should think that six of you have tired yourselves out too much to come on an instructive walk with me. Lirred, as a good obedient boy, you may come."
Lirred looked horrified.
Going on an instructive walk was not on his agenda as a high treat, though the others were exclaiming in disappointment.
"MUST I sir?" he whined "I'm still tired! Master Andreesas dragged us all round the High Reaches today AND we got wet!"
"You walked no more than about three miles" said Alaran unsympathetically, gazing on the boy with dislike. "Well if you are still tired you should rest of course. We have the welfare of our apprentices at heart, including the feebler ones among you…..it's not the alpine sports, you lot, that I'm punishing you for; it's for being untrustworthy. You were trusted to rest because you are growing fast and our healer feared a chill could jeopardise your good health. You broke trust and I'm disappointed in you. I'll have to wait and see if you can ever be sufficiently trustworthy again before I even consider giving permission to lay mattresses down the main stairs for alpine sports."
Alaran felt that the sturdy structure of stairs would be safer for such sports than the rickety support of hastily and precariously piled up beds.
Besides it had looked fun.
They looked eager and tried to look trustworthy, a few spontaneous cries of delight at the prospect escaping as Alaran dismissed them all.
"Cuh, he'd a spordt all righd!" declared Menisha "He as good as dsaid if we b'have ourselbves we cad slide down dthe stairs anudder time!"
"He's fair is Journeyman Alaran" said Prin "And I feel pretty bad that we disappointed him!"
The general consensus was agreement!
Lirred, whisked off to the infirmary by the Healer as he was tired enough to be worried about, was less happy. Lazing was one thing; supervised bed rest was something else!
wWwWw
Alaran had the Journeymen's common room in stitches when he recounted the incident.
"FAR more creative than I ever was!" said the young Journeyman "Little horrors! I want a go and I hope you'll all back me to give permission when they've been as good as gold for a while?"
"If holding out the promise of a day of riotous games will keep them well behaved and their noses to the grindstone I'm for it to start with" said Zayven. "Those girls are inventive little horrors; I caught them using wood-dye to change the colour of their shoes for the Gather, of all things!"
"Boys will be boys, and girls who will be boys do it even more" said Alaran philosophically. "Joyous mischief is healthy; it's ragging teachers or other apprentices in class that shows something is wrong. And I mean ragging, not the odd practical joke. They could have forced Lirred to participate if they'd had a cruel streak; but they left him to his solitary boredom. "
"Healthy minded kids have a keen sense of justice" said Hagel "Two little girls at Lemos were cuffed by a bubbly pie maker who falsely accused them of thievery on grounds that they were apprentices; so they put cayenne in his pies."
"Old Villarno?" Alaran was amazed.
"Some new vendor as I understand" said Hagel.
"Oh an upstart pushing in…. And he accused OUR kids of theft? What cheek! He deserved that loss of revenue!" said Alaran.
"Yes; the children were punished for allowing dragonmen to consume two doctored pies and took that as fair" said Hagel.
Alaran nodded.
"Quite so!" he agreed. "Can't let dragonmen be poisoned with impunity; it isn't done!"
"Do you think – going back to the alpine sports business – we ought to check out that it's totally safe?" suggested the papermaker, Caim.
Alaran grinned.
"You took the words RIGHT out of my mouth, old man!" he said.
"Besides, we can't have the kids see us whooping with pleasure beside them – FAR better to do it long after they've gone to bed" said Margand.
The Journeymen all exchanged guilty looks; and sudden, comradely grins!
wWwWw
The main staircase was transformed that very evening, and the Masters too threw dignity to the winds to slide down.
"Ah, that was exhilarating!" said Isimy "And this NEVER happened!"
"No Master" they all agreed.
"Kemmern will be sore to have missed it" said Rillen.
"Oh well, as youngest new Journeyman, we can make him test it before we let the kids on" said Alaran "As a demonstration that we have their safety at heart. That's fair, isn't it?"
"Reckon he'll think so" grinned Rillen.
It had been an eye-opener to discover that his former teachers were really quite human!
wWwWw
The mattresses had barely been restored to their proper places when the storm broke!
Alaran and Margand went straight away to the youngest two groups of boys, directing Rillen to the three boys in the next class, to check if the crash of thunder, audible through the stone, had woken them.
The youngest of all slept the sleep of the overtired; but several of Deaky's coterie had woken.
"You heard it? It is a doozy" said Alaran. "Do you think you can get to sleep again? If not, you'd better put on some clothes and go and get a mug of milk before you return to bed, because I reckon it'll rumble for a while yet."
"They can be bad up here" said Deaky "May I watch it? I'm used to do so from my father's craft cot; to check out for fires, you know."
"Lightning won't usually cause a bad fire" said Alaran.
"Ball lightning does" said Deaky "I remember once when I was little we had to go down the cellar and the wood burned right over us."
Alaran nodded.
"All right, those of you who wish may come into my latheshop and watch out so long as you stay back from the windows. Dress fully, or at least bring a blanket and remember your slippers. It'll get cold when the rain starts. Reckon that downpour earlier was just a forerunner."
"It did thunder a bit as well, but in the distance and it went away" said Siffio "Is the soaking enough to hinder fire, would you think, Deaky?"
"Hard to say" said Deaky "It's such a fierce heat…. And pine is so full of resin, if it once catches the amount of damp won't make much difference."
wWwWw
The storm was quite spectacular; Alaran had never seen anything like it.
"Well they say High Reaches has the crankiest weather on Pern" he said "What's that?" a glowing ball of fire hurtled precipitately into the woods.
"THAT'S ball lightning!" Deaky was pale "It'll burn the forest again!"
"No it fardlin won't!" Alaran stroked little Wally's soft brown hide and visualised H'llon for his little firelizard, with a picture of the ball lightning to pass on.
Wally vanished between,
He was back in moments, chirping self importantly.
wWwWw
It was only a few minutes after that that the dragons arrived; and they were flaming.
"What are they DOING?" Deaky cried out in horror "Isn't there enough fire?"
The forest was blazing where the great burning ball had crashed into the trees.
"Firebreak" said Alaran "And a back-fire. You lot may stay here on the understanding that you touch nothing and stay put; they'll need help to pull things out of the way and work the back-fire on the ground. C'mon Margand."
The two young journeymen ran to raise the other horrified Journeyman and hurry to the forest.
A dragon landed.
"Don't worry, we've hooks and ropes" said the young looking weyrling, his face wrapped against smoke. "Only people on dragons allowed; but if you people will have klah for us and healers on hand for anyone hurt, and succour for the craftcotholders we'd be pleased."
"Thank you, Blue Rider, we'll see to that" Isimy hurried up to answer him.
The lad nodded and touched his hand to his flying helmet in salute and took off again.
wWwWw
Presently dragons started bringing in terrified families evacuated from the path of the raging flames; and the Hall healers were busy treating burns as the other support staff and journeymen saw to settling terrified people into the dining hall. Lady Thalara herself came up too with people from the Hold to lend a hand.
"It's a mess" V'lie stopped long enough to take a quick drink of water and to confide such news as she had, fighting a smoke-induced cough "And we must fight Thread tomorrow too….not over you, just to the south, but the storm's hit there too, it's creating mayhem throughout the region. It's….." she paused as thunder drowned out any words she might say "It's the worst storm in living memory."
"We appreciate the Weyr's help" said Isimy.
"You fetched up with most of us inexperienced Thread fighters to save the efforts of most of the Bronze Riders I'm afraid" said V'lie "The Weyr can't jeopardise its main function."
"And for what help you've sent we thank you sincerely" said Isimy "without you, all we could have done would be to withdraw inside the cliff and sit it out and break the news to the kids tomorrow how many of them might be orphans."
"Oh we protect and serve, Master!" V'lie laughed self deprecatingly "That water was welcome; I'd better get back,"
wWwWw
It was a long night.
The flames had got a good hold of the resinous trees and even using burn-back to create fire breaks had not prevented huge swathes of damage to the stands; and the driving out of several families. Deaky's father was a rarity in building a cellar as well as putting a stone cot against a rise. Some cots were actually built of logs, relying on skybroom resin smeared all over them and overhanging slate roofs to protect them from Thread. None of which precautions protected them from fire. Several times the watching woodcrafters saw dragons swooping, then winking between as they rose again and Wally was full of images of the Healer Hall and burned people.
Alaran felt quite sick; and so helpless!
Not that he was in any way idle; far from it! He and the other Journeymen and senior apprentices – who had been roused to help out – helped with carrying people with lesser burns from dragonback to the Hall's own healers. These included Murgen's father and Murgen and the boy's mother and a couple of infants. The logger was screaming about his other children.
"The dragonmen are there" said Alaran "The chances are they've gone with a different dragon."
"Murtine was sleeping with the animals" said Murgen, looking scared "She's fond of animals, and when the storm rumbled up at first and we locked 'em in, she said she'd stay and calm 'em. Gensa said she'd stay too, that's my next sister. They're locked in!"
Alaran stared in horror.
"Locked in?" he cried.
"O' course!" said Murgen's father "Or in a storm, beasts get jumpy and break out and go straying!"
"It's a bad habit among cotholders up here" Deaky was at Alaran's elbow "Please sir, I'm not exactly disobeying you, but the others got tired and so I sent them to lie down and Haella and me have come to help and I thought we ought to report as we'd left where you left us. Did I done right?"
"Well for a disobedient brat you know enough to reason when is the time to disobey" said Alaran "Yes, if they were tired bed is the best place…. You two can run errands. Locking animals in? Insanity!"
"People don't like rounding them up in the morning" shrugged Deaky
"The girls'll be all right, da!" said Murgen "The dragonman had brought Kemmern and Banessan; and I seed Banessan jump clear off of the dragon, I seed him when Kemmern pulled us up; he heered you shout about the girls!"
Alaran felt sick.
Did the dragonman KNOW that Banessan had jumped off and that he and two little girls were there? The lock on the byre door would be a simple bolt and easy to undo, but the fire…..
Alaran came from a family who were inclined to Impress; and he thought as hard as he could at L'sya's Nefreth!