Chapter 10

When Kelia, Bretine and Amrys returned from walking sweep, a prophylactic action some hours after the end of Fall since no-one expected apprentices to turn out hours before their normal rising time , it was to find Fenoria wallowing in the hot bath drawn by Otaysa for their shared use.

Even without finding tunnels, the agenothree smell was pungent; and the girls had squirted a suspect hole that turned out to be no more than weather cut.

"Kelia, feet," snapped Amrys, "Bretine, left arm."

The girls bodily lifted the startled Fenoria and dropped her – none too gently – on the floor. Kelia had already started stripping and completed her task in a hurry to leap in, so the water was occupied; the younger girls peeled quickly, Amrys putting all the soiled clothes in the laundry basket as Bretine scrambled in the other end.

"And plenty of room for two side by side," she said gaily, and Amrys joined her.

"This is more jolly than taking turns as we usually do," said Amrys, soaping herself happily; Sadvia provided scented bar soap from the Woodcrafter Hall courtesy of the newly appointed Journeyman Soapcrafter, Saskia.

"You rotten brats! How dare you!" Fenoria knelt up, running water.

"Didn't you know the hot is for those walking sweep?" demanded Amrys.

"She did; Otaysa warned us last night," said Kelia. "She's a thief and a sneak, too, and Fenoria, you so had better mop that puddle up, that you're making, because we're all responsible for our own mess."

"I shan't! And how dare you lie and call me a thief!"

"But you are a thief," said Amrys. "You stole the use of the hot water that wasn't for you,"

"And she stole all the hot last night," said Kelia. "And she sneaks like mad … we shan't sneak about it being your mess, but Otaysa will find out, you know."

"No! You made the mess, dragging me out!"

"Uh-uh," said Kelia. "Doesn't work like that. You shouldn't have been there to need dragging out. You clear it up and be thankful it's still hot enough in the bath that we don't take your water thieving further."

Fenoria sullenly dried herself, wriggling prudishly in her drying cloth, and dressed with her back to them, with the towel wrapped around her as she donned her clothes.

The puddle remained, and the discarded drying cloth in it.

oOo

The two female dormitories were stopped on their way to breakfast by an annoyed Otaysa.

"Who left the big puddle in the bathing room?" she demanded.

"It was that precious weyrbrat and the two apprentices who walk sweep," said Fenoria, spitefully.

Otaysa raised an eyebrow. The three girls were looking outraged.

"Oh?" Otaysa sounded disbelieving. "I've never found any of them unwilling to confirm any wrongs they commit before, nor have I found them untidy."

"We left the mess, Otaysa, but another girl's body made it," said Amrys, "and we felt it was her responsibility to clear up."

"Another girl was washing at the same time as you early ones?" Otaysa was surprised.

"We're not about to sneak, Otaysa, about who snuck out early," said Bretine.

"No reason anyone should not get up and wash early, if they had some work to get on with," said Otaysa. "Ah. Someone else was using the hot water?"

"We removed an obstruction to our washing," said Kelia.

"It dripped a bit," said Bretine.

"It dripped a lot," said Amrys.

Otaysa nodded.

"Well it seems clear to me that the person who accuses you of leaving a mess must have been there to see it. Fenoria, you were expressly forbidden to use the hot water; and in addition, you leave a mess on the floor, and I wager the crumpled drying cloth thrown down in the puddle rather than being folded into the dirty linen bin was yours too. And worst of all, you try to get three girls into trouble to shift blame from your own well-padded shoulders by lying. You can come right up now my girl and clear it up!"

"But … breakfast!" whined Fenoria.

"Won't do you any harm to miss it for once! Did you get your walk?" she asked sharply. "If so, I'll see you have something to eat."

"She wouldn't come, Otaysa," said Kelia. "And short of dragging her bodily I couldn't really take her."

"Well, I can see I shall have to supervise her walks myself, like a small child, if she can't act older than a preharper moppet of four turns or so," said Otaysa, grimly. "And if there's any more nonsense about hot water, I will take steps. I heard the whole as Kelia has a carrying voice and yours is shrill, but I had been going to leave it to dormitory discipline. With this piece of dishonesty, I shall be watching you, and any further dishonesty and I shall be bathing you night and morning myself."

Fenoria gasped. This was so humiliating!

oOo

It was also humiliating getting on her knees at Otaysa's direction to mop up the puddle of water.

"This is drudge work!" she wailed. "I've never been treated so!"

"My dear child, if you marry and run a Hold, you'll need to know every chore to know how to direct and correct the drudges!" said Otaysa.

"And what do you know about running a Hold?" sneered Fenoria. Then she gasped. Otaysa grabbed her by the scruff and proceeded to administer half a dozen hard rebukes to the girl's backside.

"I've warned you about your insolence and disrespect, my girl!" said Otaysa. "As it happens, I know a great deal about running a Hold; I learned at the knees of my grandfather, Lord Sangel of Boll. But as a Master's wife helping with the running of the Hall, it comes to the same thing."

"But … you never said you were Ranking!" Fenoria whined.

"You knew that I am Ranking; I am a Master's wife!" said Otaysa, sternly. "And that counts a good deal more to most people than being the extra offspring of the august testicles of one of the proddier members of the Blood!"

Fenoria was glad to escape in time to down a mug of klah and choke down a jam roll before being dismissed to class!

oOo

Fenoria also came in for censure in class.

"Great Shells, girl," exclaimed Master Braelek, "anyone would think you've never touched a needle in your life! I never saw such clumsy stitching!"

Fenoria was easily bored; and her stitches quickly degenerated into 'homeward bounders' that no sewing teacher at the Hold had dared criticise, for fear of dismissal or even being made Holdless!

"I'm upset!" whined Fenoria. "I've been being bullied by that rotten tunnel-snake Otaysa!"

Braelek stiffened and the other girls gasped in horror. The Master asked, softly,

"Do any of you other girls feel you have any complaint to make about my wife?!

"Oh, Fenoria's a spoilt brat who's never been taught to live amongst civilised folk, master," said Barla. "She's got rotten manners, she steals and lies and sneaks, and screeches like a wherry-kite or a Tillek fish-wife, and she don't like being told off for not acting better than the caprine of an oaf of a cotholder."

"Barla, can you even spell the word 'tact'?" asked Braelek, anger and shock readily melting before amusement. This was one girl's spite, and though it was a problem, a Lord Holder's daughter's opinion trumped that of a brat of uncertain antecedants.

"No, sir," said Barla, "but you should know it's all Fenoria; and Otaysa has been trying her best to teach her decent ways to live."

Fenoria was horrified.

She knew Otaysa was a Master's wife, and she had assumed it was Master Lynger that she was married to! She would not have dared to complain to the woman's husband, had she known! She was pale.

Braelek looked around.

"Girls, this is a serious allegation; Barla assured me that my wife has not bullied this girl, but before the allegations go to the Master, as any complaint against one of the faculty must do, have any of you anything more to say?"

"Master, it's so much tripe," said Kelia. "Otaysa is a brilliant house mother, and I've been in more hot water with her than anyone else, you know! Fenoria, I suggest you apologise right now for lying about Otaysa. We can all testify that you tell lies, you know, after you lied to get the two weyrbred and Amrys into trouble this morning. If this goes before The Master as a complaint, you so are going to come out of it looking silly. Sillier, I should say."

"The rider was unnecessary, Kelia," said Braelek.

"Sorry, Master," said Kelia, not sounding sorry.

Fenoria was not clever; but nor was she stupid. She had gone too far and knew it. However, she had no idea how to apologise properly, nor even really what it was that had caused the need, other than irritating Otaysa's husband.

"I apologise for calling Otaysa a tunnel-snake," she said, stiffly, "but I feel she has acted rather harshly. She even struck me!"

"Why?" demanded Kelia.

"That is not for you to ask, Kelia," said Braelek, keeping his voice even with an effort. "The Master needs to determine it. Kelia, as representative of the others, and head of Gold dormitory, please take Fenoria to The Master to make a formal deposition of her complaint against Otaysa; he may ask you to add your own testimony."

The girls were shocked and quiet; and Braelek looked quite grey.

A formal complaint was serious!

Kelia got up and hoisted Fenoria to her feet, none too gently.

"But I don't want to go to The Master!" whined the girl.

"Shouldn't have made an allegation against Otaysa, then," said Kelia. "Decent folk can't be slandered by the likes of you without having a right to reply! Too harsh? If I'd been Otaysa's shoes, I'd have leathered you more than once, I can tell you, and so would my weyrlingmistress if you were a candidate! And you'd have been running up and down to the fireheights carrying firestone! You say Otaysa is too harsh, and you'll fardling well say so to the Master and give her official right of reply, not spread lying rumour!" She shook the other girl and waited until she had manhandled her out of earshot of Master Braelek to add, "You little ninny! As soon as I get the chance I'm going to slap your silly face pink!"

"You're a bully!"

"And what do you think you are, laying complaint on a decent woman doing her best to give you reasonable standards to live up to, in order to help you not be given rough justice by the rest of us? Little fool!" she added scornfully.

oOo

Kelia delivered Fenoria to Master Lynger with the comment,

"Little idiot thinks Otaysa is too harsh! And when she's finished whining to you that Otaysa won't let her throw her rather too padded weight around and steal what belongs to others, nor insult other people willy-nilly, I can tell you a few things about how restrained Otaysa is before you see her. Because when this little wretch is doing something this rotten, it's not sneaking to tell it like it is."

"Thank you, Kelia; you may wait outside," said Master Lynger.

Acquaintance with paying students and with weyrfolk and with Amrys' family had largely cured Lynger of his awe of those socially elevated. And his austere dignity actually impressed Fenoria, especially as Kelia obediently curtseyed and went out.

The Master sat, waiting for the girl to speak, and even Fenoria cringed slightly as her diatribe tumbled out, her subconscious at least recognising how childish it sounded.

"So, you were given six slaps for your tone of voice," The Master said, as she wound down. "But my dear child, you approve of corporal punishment! Amrys reported to me that your drudge was marked with welts and bruises!"

"That's different! Menials need punishment!"

"Oh? Are they a different species? Not human?" he explained seeing her look confused.

"Hardly! They smell, too!"

"How surprising! Anyone not permitted proper washing facilities or time to use them are likely to smell," said Lynger. "Given a bucket of cold water and no soap, for your ablutionary needs and I doubt you would manage any better than your erstwhile drudge, my girl! So, back to your spanking. And a spanking, not a whipping. Do you feel Otaysa mistook the intent of your tone of voice?"

Fenoria flushed.

"How was I to know I shouldn't address her as a menial? She never said she was Ranking," she said resentfully.

"You were surely aware that she is a Master's wife?" he asked, incredulous.

"But that doesn't count! I mean Blood, not just being able to do a few stupid crafts …" she broke off.

Lynger got abruptly to his feet.

"That is your opinion of those of us who have laboured for Turns to achieve Mastery, is it? You who I doubt can even ply a needle with much skill or weave more than the simplest tabby-pattern? YOU IGNORANT LITTLE MUCK-WORM! YOU INSOLENT PEST! I CAN SEE WHY OTAYSA SPANKED YOU AND BELIEVE ME, SHE WAS LENIENT! GET OUT OF MY SIGHT! I WILL SPEAK TO YOUR UNCLE ABOUT YOU!"

Fenoria fled.

"Shells!" said Kelia. "I never even knew he could shout!"

Fenoria didn't care; she ran for her bed to sob.

oOo

Lord Larad came in person; though recently happily remarried he was grim of face over his young relative's faults as Lynger explained them to him. The Lord Holder also heard Otaysa's dispassionate commentary, and Kelia's snide one.

"Do you want me to remove her?" he sighed. "I don't want another Thella!"

"I'd like you to point out to the little wretch firstly that Blood obligates, and secondly that there are more people who Rank than those whose accidental birth places them in certain families, My Lord, and to inform her that she is under Hall discipline and must accept that," said Otaysa. "She has no idea of how to live with people other than trying to push them around, and has yet to learn that Pern does not revolve for her convenience, and that other people have as many rights as she does. I hope I can change her attitude, but I can't do a thing unless someone she recognises as the Blood, and able to give her orders, tells her how wrong and stupid are her ideas that Masters are beneath her, and that her house mother is a menial. She needs to know that her own selfish desires cannot be put above the needs of others, and that I, and the Journeymen and Masters who teach her, have the right to tell her so."

Larad nodded grimly.

"I'll talk to her," he said.

oOo

The talk also involved the loss of temper on the part of Lord Larad and the energetic plying of his belt end across Fenoria's chubby rump for causing him so much embarrassment and trouble. He gave her to understand what he thought of a girl who behaved so childishly and in so ill-bred a fashion in front of the daughter of another Lord Holder, and weyrfolk, and of even stealing from weyrfolk. Fenoria had not known that Bretine was also weyrbred and that High Reaches Weyr counted Amrys as such, and contemplated in horror the thought of being exiled to the Eastern Isles as Lord Larad suggested she might be if she continued such disrespect.

"You don't know who any apprentice might be, and anyone with an ounce of sense and a thumblength of decorum would treat them all with equal courtesy!" said Larad. "As for disrespecting the weavers, you leave me speechless! A Master Ranks with a Bronze Rider or a Holder, and don't you forget it, my girl! Do you want the weavers to withdraw goodwill from Telgar because they think us uncouth?" he demanded. "All weavers recalled – a refusal to sell us fabric. That means, to your spoilt little world, no more velvets or brocades, if you've not worked it out! And it also means you'd be weaving from dawn til dusk to make sure we were at least clad, as you've received some training in it! And my Hold a laughing stock because of you! That girl Kelia asked if we couldn't breed women more like Famira or Bonna, rather than those like Thella or Kylara, and there wasn't a fardling thing I could say to her, cheek as it was, because she was correct! And I certainly don't plan to irritate weyrfolk more by being rude to her to choke off such embarrassing questions! Now behave yourself, my girl, or I'll shift your craft training to Minercraft, and I'll ask that they teach you at the seam face, not cutting pretty jewels!"

Fenoria was horrified.

She also believed him.