Chapter 8
Amrys, meanwhile, had half carried the frozen drudge to the Hall.
"We need to heat you up slow but sure," the little girl said. "What's your name?"
"Molly, my lady," the teeth chattered.
"Yes, between is just the coldest … even coming out into the ridiculous heat of a High Reaches summer," said Amrys. "What silly idiot let you come without wherhide stuff?"
Molly stared.
"Wherhide is not for drudges, my lady!" she said. "Surely you wouldn't put drudges in wherhide?"
"To fly between? Of course I fardling well would!" said Amrys indignantly. "It might not fit very well, but we have clothes for anyone to draw if they are travelling dragonback! Do you take me for … Oh, I suppose you do, as that thing you came with seems quite idiotic and I'm wearing my Rank knots to squash the pretentious. I thought Lord Larad was supposed to be a decent type who cared for his people," she added scornfully.
Molly flushed.
"He probably does; except that drudges don't count as people for most Ranking," she said. "And besides, My Lady Fenoria and her parents have their own suites of rooms."
Amrys sniffed; and opened the bathing room door.
"Right; I'll get warm water in there and add hot; strip off! I'll get you some nicer clothes too – that dress looks like more mend than cloth! Has she no pride in the appearance of her menials even if she don't care for you as a person, silly clunch as she is?"
"No, I … I suppose not," said Molly. "I'm invisible."
"Huh," said Amrys. "I SAY! She strikes you too?" the young girl had bruises and welts on her back and buttocks.
Molly shrugged.
"Well, lady, I guess I'm glad she don't take much exercise or she'd strike harder." She shot Amrys a shrewd look. "You'd not be wanting a drudge yourself, lady?"
"Me? Never had one, I can shift for myself," said Amrys. "Oh, sorry, you mean, will I offer you a job so you can escape?"
"Well … yes," Molly flushed.
"I'll have to think about that," said Amrys. "Here; you lie and soak for a while. I'll be back in a minute," and she whirled off with her customary vigour.
That Molly had been less intimidated by her managing attitude than shy Marra spoke something for the girl's independent mind; and Amrys was formulating a plan.
First however she made a quick visit to the Gold Dormitory to tell the girls about Fenoria's arrival with an ill-treated drudge – she could rely on Kelia's indignation over bringing someone ill-clad between, the results of which Fenoria duly felt– then she went to her own coterie to put together sundry garments for the dressing of Molly.
When she returned, the girl was luxuriating in hot water, her head right back.
"Shall I help you wash your hair?" asked Amrys. "It looks like it needs it, I'm afraid!"
Molly jerked up into a sitting position, embarrassed to be caught relaxing.
Amrys laughed.
"Enjoying a bath isn't a crime! Shells, are you telling me you don't often get one?"
"This is the first hot bath I've ever had," ventured Molly. "Well, the first real bath, actually. We have a bucket of cold water to wash quickly as best we may; and I give most attention to my hands because my lady wouldn't like dirty finger marks on her mending."
Amrys said a few short and ugly words.
"And what madam wants is a few pink finger marks on her fat tush," she opined. "Back you go; I've got a nice piece of woodcrafter lyesoap here, 'cos H'llon makes it and he's next thing to being kin. I'll do your hair and you can have a nice body scrub with it after."
Turns of ingrained grime never properly washed off turned the bathwater brown, and Amrys cheerfully refilled the bath.
"Wow, you so have got pretty hair!" she gasped.
"Have I?"
"Oh yes! My dear Molly, you're a beauty under all that; no wonder she wanted you dirty, you quite show her up! Your hair – have you never seen it clean?"
Molly shook her head.
"I suppose it's brown," she said.
"You suppose wrong! It's the most glorious auburn – a shade or two darker than T'lana's, but just as vivid – and your skin, I reckon, will be a lovely shade and texture when we've got you fed up a bit! Your eyes would be perhaps lovelier if they were a darker blue, but they've plenty of life in them," said Amrys, surveying ice-blue eyes critically. "And when we have some colour in your cheeks they'll show up better too. Here, I got you some of our mixed clothes; and stuff to replace anything as bad as you were wearing," her eyes flicked to the meagre bag. "And it's my guess that with your bright hair in decent clothes she won't even recognise you! You can bed down with us apprentices overnight and the Master will decide what to do about you in the morning."
"Oh please, lady, please don't send me back! They'd punish me for deserting her, and probably for looking decent too, like drudges shouldn't!" she held out imploring hands.
Amrys took her hands.
"I'll tell the Master," she said. "I won't let him send you back. If nothing else, I'll send you to work for my mother; she's a kind lady and having a willing girl to help with my little sisters would be a good thing. Now! Tell me quickly, have you any relatives they can hurt to punish you for being elsewhere? Now we have some friends in Telgar Weyr they could pull them out on excuse of Search."
Molly shook her head, the amazement showing on her face that dragonmen should do such things, and that anyone should think of it.
"I'm a drudge's bastard, and so far as I know, my mother's probably dead," she said. "I was taken from her when I was about eight, to drudge for my lady."
"Words quite fail me," said Amrys, "and that's a rare occurrence, I assure you! Can you read and write?"
"Yes, Lady. I picked up a bit when my lady was having lessons. I had to be there to run errands for her."
"Heh, bright, too … c'mon to Green dormitory and meet the others," said Amrys.
Molly found herself rapidly introduced to the others, each with a potted history of what Amrys saw fit to tell her, which in Clareena's case was not a lot, and left to settle in while Amrys whisked off to seek the Master. The others, being used to Amrys, didn't turn a hair.
"Sure, and we'll help you unpack, so we will," said Lyssa. "And hasn't that scamp Amrys just crammed the things we sorted into this bag anyways! Ye might as well unpack and put it in the press, for when Amrys has that managing look in her eye, things generally happen."
"She sorted me out to be a real apprentice," said Marra. "Do you want to be an apprentice, Molly?"
"I don't know," said Molly. "It has to be better than drudging for my lady, Fenoria. And a craft at the end of it. I sew well enough, I guess!"
Molly was a cynic; it was hard to accept someone of Amrys' Rank being nice to her, and for the time being she was prepared to grab any gift and comfort offered her, and scheme to get more. The question was, would it be a better life to drudge for a kind lady, if she was kind to drudges as well as to her daughter, with some childcare duties, or whether it would be an easier life as an apprentice. And having a craft out of it that could pay well for the putting in of some hard work.
"You'd probably better stay down a turn if you do join, 'cos of coming late," said Clareena. "But I'm to stay down because … because I've been ill."
"I don't know if I'll make the grade to move up or not," said Marra. "My sewncraft is good, but I'd only done a little weaving, and of course no dyeing or printing. But it's no problem; they bring you on in what you're weak in! Have you ever done any knitting or lacecrafts?"
Molly shook her head.
"A little knitting, but not the other things. I've just been there to mend clothes and do some embroidery."
They seemed really keen, these girls, she thought, to persuade her to better herself. And a craft meant independence, and that surely had to be better than any amount of kind mistresses, who might die, and leave one at the mercy of harsher relatives. Molly was quite unafraid of independence! This was the opportunity of a lifetime, now it was sinking in what was possible, and if she was offered it, she would buckle down to work and not waste it.
"I'm not afraid of hard work to catch up," she said.
"Good kid," said Bretine. "Actually, I think you might be older than us, so calling you a kid is almost cheek, but it doesn't count for that much as Amrys is still head of the dorm."
"Oh, for her Ranking?"
"Fardles to that!" said Bretine, snapping her fingers. "If that were so it'd be me as I'm weyrbred. No, it's Amrys 'cos she is the champion interferencer and organiser as well as being the first apprentice here along with Kevanna, and she's the sort of person people go to with their troubles. If she wasn't Lady Holder of Rivenhill here, and only waiting to grow up to confirm, she'd have made a smashing Queen Rider!"
"Well, I've just turned fourteen; a month or so past, I think," said Molly. "Ma told me I was a midsummer babby."
"I'm almost fourteen so there's only a few months between us," said Bretine, "and Amrys is twelve, going on twenty and with more sense than most grown up candidates to Queen eggs I've ever seen."
"Do you think they'll let me stay?" asked Molly, dubiously.
"Sure, and d'ye not think that's what our own dharlin' Amrys is off t'fix roight now?" said Lyssa. "And won't she present such good reasons t' the Master 'til the poor man's head is swimming and he gives in for a quiet life?"
"Lyssa! The Master is not going to let himself be bullied by Amrys!" said Kevanna.
Janika gave her quiet chuckle.
"But she has such er, cogent arguments!" she said.
Kevanna regarded her severely.
"You've been letting Amrys teach you long and unapprentice-like words again, scrub," she said.
Janika giggled.
"I like Amrys' long words," she said. "So does Uncle Otelek. He sits there killing himself laughing when she's on one of her holdings- forths."
"Journeyman Otelek's a real sport," said Bretine. "And you know you're not supposed to call him 'uncle' during work time."
"Well, 'tisn't work time either, so stick your head in a wether!" said Janika, cheekily.
"It is, too, it's not a holiday," said Bretine, poking the little girl in the ribs and making her giggle still more. "You're a cheeky scrub when you're healthy!"
Janika beamed sunnily at her, and Bretine hugged her. It was impossible to be cross for long with Janika, who was turning into a sunny and loving child after her life's terrible tragedies.
Molly watched, covertly.
Her experiences of girls together were of the spites and one-upmanship of the drudges, the lowest of the low, and so grabbing what status they might vicariously accrue from their mistresses; or the equally spiteful vying for status amongst the visiting Ranking girls or fosterlings, who sucked up to Fenoria to her face and made unkind comments behind her back. It could have been such a comment about Amrys that she was, what was it, a 'champion interferencer and organiser' had it not been modified with the comment that people went to Amrys with their troubles; and the description of Amrys persuading the Master was tolerantly amused, and accepting, not couched in bitchy terms.
And the biggest girl here did not bully the littlest, they bickered in what seemed to be an amicable way and made up with hugs!
Molly resolved to keep very quiet until she had worked out the unwritten rules here!
oOo
As surmised by the others, Amrys had gone straight to Master Lynger.
"Master, we have a problem," she said, with her usual lack of preamble.
"Oh?" Master Lynger had not yet had a report from Otaysa, but had heard that the new girl had arrived, and promptly feared the worst.
"The new thing from Telgar brought a drudge with it," said Amrys, who was in agreement with dragons over not naming any person they disliked. "And brought her between in a summer frock and sandals; and the drudge is never allowed time or facilities to bathe properly, and has been beaten with more vicious intent than harmful efficiency, but still badly enough that coming between was not appropriate."
Master Lynger swallowed a chuckle at Amrys' powers of description, though it was no laughing matter.
"We can't keep a drudge," he said. "It's not something we've made provision for."
"I know that, but the girl Molly begged me not to send her back," said Amrys, "and with her back in the state it is, we'd be Charterbreakers to send her between in any case. She'd be punished for not insisting on staying to wait hand and foot on the sugar distaff, and probably she'd be punished for daring to be clean as well. I said she'd not have to go," Amrys looked straight at him, "and I can send her to mother if you won't make her an apprentice. It won't recognise her with clean hair and decent clothes; and at least she mends and sews well. I've seen her work on her own clothes, and she won't have had as much time to work on them."
"Fenoria does have a name," said the Master, mildly reproving.
"Dragons won't name people they don't like," said Amrys.
"You, however, are not a dragon. A thirtysecond for cheek to me," said Lynger.
Amrys bowed her head.
"My apologies, Master; I would never intentionally be cheeky to you. If it is your will, I will name this … Fenoria."
"It is," said Master Lynger. "I rather think that Lord Larad hopes that there may be some cure for her."
Amrys started to sniff in disbelief but stopped in time.
That would be disrespectful.
"Anyway, sir, how about apprenticing Molly and seeing if she can pick up other skills?" she asked. "It's not like Marra, who was at least appointed by Lady Varilka. And if she can't catch up, then she can go to Rillys."
"Amrys, I have no intention of apprenticing anyone who isn't suitable," said Lynger, "but," he added, as her eager face fell, "If the other girls are happy to keep her in the dormitory for now, and she goes to classes with the newer ones, we shall see." He smiled kindly. "I shan't see a child sent back somewhere to be ill-used, Amrys; you know I shan't! We shall see how she goes, and if she cannot make a minimum grade, I shall, as you suggest, send her to your mother to find work for. I'm sure she needs plenty of sewing done. But I will not promise more! Are you sure Fenoria will not recognise her?" he asked, doubtfully.
Amrys laughed.
"From a dirty creature with lank brownish hair in a tangle to a 'prentice brat in trews and vibrant auburn locks? I don't somehow think so!"
Master Lynger nodded. That was a relief! Though technically the girl Molly had every right to leave Hold for Hall, some nasty accusations might be made.
oOo
Amrys burst back into the dormitory; Molly noticed she was the only person to jump. Amrys addressed her.
"Molly! The Master says you have to work like stink to prove we can keep you as an apprentice. Well, he didn't put it like that, but it's what he meant," she amended. "You're to go to classes with Clareena, Janikka and Marra, and learn as much as you can by Turnover to prove you can stay!"
Molly's eyes flared with hope.
"Oh, My Lady! Really?"
"Here! None of that 'my lady' crackdust between apprentices!" said Amrys. "I'm Amrys, and we don't Rank in here. And yes, really, and if you can't make the grade, there's always my mother. But you will. And I bet," she added, "talking of Rank, that Kelia is sitting on any pretensions of Rank Fenoria the Flabby-minded is trying to pull."
"Flabby arse too, from what I saw out of the window," said Bretine. "Why are we still here? We've got time for a game of kabaddi outside before we're called in for supper."
"Excellent idea!" grinned Amrys. "And even numbers now, to play!"
oOo
Molly had never played Kabaddi, but she had seen it played by big Hold league teams, and she soon got the idea.
It seemed, too, as an apprentice she might have a chance to capture some of the childhood lost in drudging for her spoilt mistress!
