Chapter 6
Traal meantime had worked hard enough for promotion to the second class; and Master Lynger declared that to make it fair all senior apprentices would sleep in Bronze dormitory regardless of their class. Seven was a better number than four anyway; and would permit room in Brown Dormitory for two more boys besides Traal if any really picked up speed and worked hard enough. It was probable that by spring the four hardest workers of the new ones would have pulled themselves up to nearly equal the less able in Blue Dormitory; though in Bretine's case that would make no difference to her sleeping arrangements. Janika too might one day be capable of surpassing her age group; but the Masterweaver had warned his masters and journeymen not to let the rather frail little girl push herself too hard.
As those of the third class of the first intake were, generally speaking, amongst the youngest of those that had arrived the previous turn things were starting to average out quite well; Bretine, Sajed and Jaid at least would be of an age with or slightly older than them, and if Arter was younger, well, so too was Nelon in the top group. Master Lynger was starting to consider having a Bronze A and Bronze B group, the latter for those of considerable talent and expertise but not mature enough to give senior apprentice tassels to. There would be those who would aspire to it soon enough with hard work as wel as those with talent beyond their turns; for Amrys was only twelve and a hard enough worker to bring herself on faster than her fellows even though she was not so talented as Tirley and Jerellan. And Tirley himself was no older than she, the Masterweaver reminded himself! There were eight available dormitories; one given to the paying students, one to the girls. If there were an upper and lower Bronze for the talented young, and upper and lower White to give an upper form for the new intake who pulled ahead and were prepared to take accelerator classes to move quickly into Blue – or to take those he felt needed holding back a turn with extra coaching from a previous Turn's intake – that left Blue and Brown for the middle ranked apprentices. It should work very well. And something of the nature of upper white would do for someone like the boy Lysax who HAD to be put up to the third class when the new ones came though he was scarcely adequate. And Lysax was already fourteen.
Master Lynger sighed.
The boy was disobliging, sullen, only nominally capable at some things and not the hardest worker. He would have to talk to the lad; for if he did not improve he must go when the full Turn was up. When this Hall was better established the Master felt that perhaps he could afford to put more resources into slow or recalcitrant boys; but not yet, not unless they were prepared at least to show willing.
Master Lynger was not even sure if the boy Lysax could even SPELL the word 'willing'.
Working on decorating their dormitories had kept the wilder spirits out of more spectacular trouble; pranks from Jeral, Larek and Kyilin had been of a minor nature and scarcely disturbed routine at all. The fitting of cow bells and cymbals to the big loom scarcely counted at all.
Lynger had punished this minor vandalism by sentencing the culprits to wear a cowbell throughout the daytime for a sevenday as they so enjoyed the music.
Needless to say the three were heartily sick of the music by about the third day. Especially as Ankevor and Brafor moo'd at them every time they went past.
It is noted that the younger boys' respective siblings threatened dire consequences if they continued to disrespect their seniors, who had been punished by the Master and needed no extra reminder.
What dire consequences were to fall the pair preferred not to find out!
"Which means" said Traal to Kevanna "At least we don't have to think of anything to do to them."
In all, the Hall settled down to being happier; for Cavan was learning many lessons too. That his work was not up to the standard of two of the despised girls in the class was an outrageous shock to him; and that his hidebound ideas engendered reactions from indignation to hilarity from boys who were patently not weak or effeminate was another. It was not in Cavan's nature to admit to a fault, even to himself; but he was dithering over changing his way of acting to fit in, for to Cavan, fitting in and not being different was the sweetest ideal.
Clareena was much happier; but still a victim of her own conscience. And one night while the blizzard howled outside her sleeping mind heard in it Amrys' heartbroken sobs over her baby sibling's spoiled layette.
Amrys herself, nearest the window, roused as the shutter rattled and sat up, wondering whether to risk opening the window to secure it; when all thoughts of shutters were driven from her head.
Otaysa had decreed that the girls should have a shaded glow basket because of Janika's tendency to awaken coughing; and in its soft light Amrys saw Clareena's figure rise from the bed, eyes wide open and apparently unseeing and head for the door.
"Clareena?" Amrys said softly.
Clareena appeared not to have heard her.
Amrys leaped out of bed, dragging on a robe, grabbing a heavy shawl to follow the little girl. Clareena was headed down the passage past the infirmary and into the opposite wing to the apprentice common room.
The fire had been covered but there was still a little warmth in the room, for which Amrys was profoundly grateful. Clareena sat down and began solemnly knitting without needles or wool.
Amrys hesitated, unsure what to do; and her decision was taken from her by the door crashing open and Serry looming in.
"AHA! Caught you red-handed!" he cried.
"SHHH!" Amrys put a finger to her lips "You mustn't startle her –she's sleepwalking!"
"A likely story!" Serry sneered, bounding over to grab both girls by the arm.
Startled out of sleep Clareena shrieked; and screamed and screamed in pure terror.
"Clareena! It's all right dear! It's only stupid Serry being dafter than usual!" said Amrys reachingout to take the little girl's free hand. It was as cold as ice.
Serry slapped Amrys hard.
The blow was witnessed by the several Masters, Journeymen and assorted wives who had poured out of their rooms to see what the noise was about.
"I caught these two apprentices up to trouble with as lying a tale as ever can be!" said Serry self importantly "It's that brat Amrys of course; she's always at the root of any trouble."
"You stupid ass!" flared Amrys "Of all the insensitive, dimglow, wherry-headed fork-wits I ever came across, Serry you are the greatest! Otaysa, please, Clareena needs the infirmary, make him let go of her!"
"Oh yes? And if she's ill what's she doing HERE?" Serry sneered.
"Sleepwalking! I TOLD you!" said Amrys.
Otaysa had come over to Clareena and bobbed down to put her arms around the little girl, shushing her; and firmly removing Serry's hand from the child's arm by dint of bending back the fingers until he had to let go.
"Well Serry? Did she warn you?" asked the Masterweaver coldly. He also stared at Serry's hand on Amrys' arm until the boy sullenly let go.
"Oh she told her usual lies" said Serry "I didn't believe her, of course; she lies all the time, and puts on airs as though she's somebody."
"Serry" said the Master "I have tried to warn you. Your interference and blatant stupidity do nothing but make you a laughing stock amongst the youngsters. Now your idiocy has potentially caused a serious illness in a child. You may leave in the morning for Southern Boll to request a stint with a journeyman who needs a helper with moderate competence where there are no younger apprentices to hinder – uh, help with."
Serry gaped.
"But…but that'll delay me making journeyman, Master!"
"I doubt you are EVER going to make journeyman" said Master Lynger "Until you take time to learn to take more notice of your own business than that of other people. How is she, Otaysa?"
Otaysa had lifted Clareena onto her lap and was rocking her gently.
"I can't really say if there has been lasting damage Master" she said "But she's relaxed now and half asleep. I'll give her some fellis presently and I hope she'll be none the worse. What was a big boy like you, Serry, doing out of bed anyway?" she asked tartly.
"Yes, what WERE you doing out of bed?" asked Lynger.
"I heard a noise. Footsteps" Serry said sullenly, staring at the floor.
Master Lynger looked quizzically at the bare feet of the two little girls.
"S'funny, Serry, 'cos all I could hear was blizzard" said Amrys. "I woke 'cos the shutter was rattling and I saw Clareena; she didn't make a noise walking and I don't think I exactly clumped 'cos I didn't want to disturb her you know. I followed her, Master; and I was wondering what I ought to do when that clodhopping oaf bursts in like the Fax in a strolling player group and about as melodramatic. And I TOLD him to 'sh and that she was sleepwalking but he's too daft to recognise it or to listen to sense. Reckon if you dropped Thread in his ears it'd die of starvation in the hollow between them!"
"A little picturesque" murmured Lynger not bothering to reprove Amrys on her intemperate outburst. "He slapped you?"
"I was rude" said Amrys "Because I was upset about him shaking Clareena to wake her."
Otaysa narrowed her eyes; and passed the almost sleeping child to her husband. Then she stood up and slapped Serry hard and regarded him, arms akimbo.
"How dare you manhandle any of my girls?" she demanded "Especially a sleepwalking one? Your ideas of civilised living are not what I call decent, boy! Now get out; and we shall all consider in the morning what you might have been doing creeping surreptitiously about the Hall to the bad example of the morals of the babes!"
Serry opened his mouth to protest; but shut it again; and left. Braelek carried Clareena, now swaddled in the shawl Amrys had brought, to the infirmary.
"Bed for you Amrys" said Otaysa. "Do you want me to heat you some milk to help you sleep?"
"No thanks; I'll be off well enough now she's safe" said Amrys cheerfully "Thanks to H'llon my feet aren't even too cold! Poor kiddie; she was busy knitting with nothing. Reckon she's working too hard to make up for being a wet idiot for the first few sevendays."
"More than likely" said Otaysa. "You people have got her sorted out anyway; the Master won't send her home if she doesn't make the grade, not so long as she's willing to try."
Amrys nodded and left her to slip back into her own dormitory. As she prophesied, she was soon fast asleep, her own conscience being quite clear!
Clareena stayed in the infirmary for a couple of days; and cried with a mix of emotions when the other girls visited her with little gifts to make her feel better. And when she was allowed back into lessons, people were all kind to her, from the masters to the youngest boys. Even Cavan was civil! The poor child's feelings of guilt were even worse over this. That she was listless, however, nobody wondered at; it was only to be expected if she had made herself ill with overwork!
It turned out – though Master Lynger did NOT pass the information on to the youngsters – that Serry had taken it upon himself to patrol the corridors late at night, in the hopes of catching apprentices at naughtiness.
What the Master thought of such egregious officiousness, allied with the detriment to the boy's own health and studies, Serry soon learned; and that the Master also considered Serry's overbearing attitude an invitation to the apprentices to try to make a fool of him.
"And they don't need to try very hard because you make a fool of yourself without their help" said the Master. "So pompous an air in a boy of thirteen turns newly made senior might be expected; but in a lad of some seventeen turns is merely childish."
Being called childish hurt far more deeply than being scolded for interference; for Serry had always prided himself that his attitudes had been more adult than the laxity of some of the masters and the journeymen!
No-one was sorry when the boy was gone; and several youngster – most of Brown Dormitory in fact – were fined heavily a whole quarter mark apiece for singing the words 'I gloat' to a tune by Menolly, whilst doing a wild celebratory dance. It was a chant introduced by Nelon; for it was a weyrling chant invented by one Carina to celebrate the comeuppance of a bully.
Clareena actually came in for a fair amount of vicarious popularity for being the vehicle by which the unpopular Serry was dismissed!
Clareena might have managed to find courage to confess with the brief period of unusual popularity; but Janika managed to pick up a cold which turned to a cough and Otaysa was more concerned about her granddaughter's ill health than in noticing Clareena's discomfort; and Amrys too was seriously worried about the little girl, to whom she had drawn so close. Janika ran a high fever for several days; and the whole of the girls' dormitory was sombre and worried about her. Winter seemed to be dragging on; though as Amrys pointed out, dry cold was probably better than a potentially wet spring anyway.
It was, of all people, the boy Brollom who caused the next concern; he forgot his snow goggles when going out to play; and made the ill-considered decision not to go back to fetch them even though the sun was bright, on the principle that surely winter sun could not hurt him.
The boy hailed from Fort Hold, from the Harpercraft Hall; where snow occurred only lightly, and where the altitude was not so great as across much of the High Reaches. He had no idea of the blinding whiteness of snow in a high alpine area where the sun shone with fierce intensity through the thin dry air.
The flare of red mist that started to develop did not concern him straight away; he played on, shaking his head slightly; then suddenly he looked up and screamed in terror!
"What is it?" Zayven was quickly there "Where are your goggles?"
"I forgot…. I can't see, it's all red!"
"Well, you prize prune, one follows from the other, obviously!" said Zayven "Do you think it's a Hall rule to wear them because the Masters like to see us looking like wherries with staring eyes? Here, Hetel, help me get this idiot back to the infirmary; you're in for a nasty few days my lad and serve you right!"
"Will – will it get better?"
"Of course – but you'll see red mists for days and have to have your eyes bathed in warm salt water every couple of hours" Zayven had taken the lad's arm to guide his shaky steps back to the Hall. "Really, with Janika ill you might have had more consideration than to give yourself a self inflicted wound like that you ass!"
Brollom, inclined to be sorry for himself, was much chastened by that blunt assessment!
The result of that piece of stupidity was that the Master announced that if apprentices could not be trusted to wear snow goggles for their own safety, the non wearing would be punished by loss of leisure time outside whilst others played; and even if the culprit could produce them straight away there would be a heavy fine.
"Your craft depends on your sight" said the Master crossly "You do NOT take stupid risks to destroy your most precious gift!"
"He really was waxy" said Larek later on.
"Quite right too" said Amrys. "You'd not go out in midsummer on Keroon's plains at midday without a hat, would you?"
"No, of course not. Oh. Same thing I suppose!"
"Quite" said Amrys. "Boys! Really, I wonder if half of you were born without brains and the rest spent your leisure hours picking what few you had out of your ears and noses!"
"Now, f'sure that is HARSH!" said Jeral "And I'm thinking so I am there's enough brainless girls about t'be making it more than a trifle unfair too!"
Amrys laughed.
"Well all right; I concede that!" she said.