Chapter 15
T'rin was not looking forward to testing Caralara. If he had to tell the girl she was no good, and the girl cried on her sister's shoulder, that would upset his gentle clutchmate. T'rin took his nervousness over the anticipated encounter – far more fearsome than the thought of fighting Thread – to a bottle of Benden Red, and sank quite half of it for the false courage over what might prove an ordeal! The young man had never felt any need to so bolster himself before walking sweep against Thread; it was upsetting people that caused his problems. He might wear an air of insouciance; but he was sensitive enough to really care about hurting people! He carefully rehearsed phrases like 'better to keep music as a hobby' and addressed several kindly but non-committal remarks to his bottle by way of practice.
Caralara was prompt; and T'rin nodded approval of that. He made her sing scales, major and minor; to tell him intervals; and to play several simple songs on her horrible gitar.
The chording she chose was simple; but reasonable. And if the gitar was fractionally off tune, T'rin – gritting his teeth at the discord – suspected that it was the deficiencies of the instrument rather than the girl's inability to tune it. She seemed capable of pitching well enough: and if she was no Menolly she had a pretty voice that would benefit from training and was as good as many a male apprentice that did adequately in the Harper Hall. It was not, after all, given to everyone to have perfect pitch. Caralara could be trained to be an adequate entertainer, and to teach the young; and as she had shown an interest in her sister's passion for logicating, why, harpers served in many capacities!
"So, am I good enough?" she broke in on his reverie.
T'rin frowned authoritatively.
"A would-be apprentice speaks when spoken to" he told her. She was effervescent; and as such must needs not be permitted to go too far. Easier to lighten than to tighten, as T'lana and R'gar often said. He added, "If you intend to chatter like a weesweet in season, I can teach you nothing, even were you as good as Menolly; which I hope you have the wit to realise you are not. If I take you on, you'll keep your mouth shut in class save to sing or to ask or answer questions; and you'll accept that there are those younger ones who are both more talented and more advanced than you. Can you meet those conditions?"
The girl gave an eager nod.
"Yes sir" she said simply.
T'rin was delighted that she had felt no need to qualify her acceptance.
In point of fact, Caralara had wanted to say more; but was prudent enough to realise it would spoil her chances!
"Very well, apprentice" he said. He grimaced: the subject had to be tackled. "Your gitar – did you make it?"
The girl shook her head.
"No, sir, I'm afraid I only bought it at a Gather. It was the finest I could afford, isn't it pretty?" her voice faltered at the end and she subsided as she noticed T'rin scowling ferociously.
"When you have the chance" said the young journeyman, choosing his words carefully "To play on a musical instrument, not a poorly-crafted gee-gaw like that, you will find it both easier to tune and to play and vastly improved in sound. Had you made it I should have tried to be kind. But it is" his tone was scathing "A travesty. The tone is poor, the tuning awkward and the decoration gaudy but ill executed. Do not, I pray you, show it to H'llon; he'll want to scrag anyone who made such, for so ill-using wood" he tried to look reassuring. "I will teach you how to CRAFT instruments that sound like such. Not….fairings!" the word was an insult. "And you shall make marks for yourself by selling such too when you are competent" he told her kindly. "Marks for yourself – and if you desire for the waifs and strays High Reaches supports that no-one else wants."
She looked surprised but eager.
"The Harpers raise marks for them?" she asked.
T'rin nodded.
"Apprenice Horgey, being crippled himself, spends most of his time making instruments, simple ones such as anyone can play that sell best, though he's competent enough at more complex work. He can help me show you simple techniques" he said. "Report for class tomorrow!" it was a dismissal.
Caralara grinned irrepresively, already recovering from her horror over his description of her instrument, filled with pleasure at the thought of learning to make one that would be easier to play! She ran off.
Horgey was like to make Journeyman soon too, reflected T'rin, for his untiring help with teaching the basics and his help showing harper basics too to the untrained apprentices. And not least his insistence that the instruments he crafted be sold for the benefit of other children in need – and his firmly held belief that if someone like the High Reaches logicators had existed when he was growing up they would have rescued him. They might too have done so, reflected T'rin. It was what logicators – indeed dragonriders – were all about; and the people of the High Reaches were beginning to realise it and come forward with their woes and problems. For Horgey's new unselfishness, T'rin had extracted a tithing from all the boy's profits and set them aside to hold for Horgey himself; for the young journeyman was determined that Horgey should have a store of marks when – and T'rin felt that it would be when – he returned to finish his training at the Harper Hall.
He had little time to ruminate; for Imbelinne came in with a message from R'gar that he was ready, if the Journeyman would care to find time to come, to run through formation flying with him and the two minebred lovers, B'lan and D'nor.
T'rin murmured apologies to the Weyrlingmaster when he reached the Bowl and felt he got off lightly to receive merely a disapproving grunt from his much-admired foster father. R'gar was harder on T'rin than on others of his clutch – because he was fond of the youth!
T'rin enyoyed working with B'lan and D'nor. They were steadier lovers than some, and B'lan was never as hysterical as some Green Riders could be. Leviath was a large beast, and T'rin sometimes wondered privately if she carried some characteristics of a Queen, though not as pronounced as the greenish-gold sport Mirrith, acknowledged by a queen by everyone now, especially since she had laid a perfectly normal and fertile Queen egg. Leviath was as large as, or slightly larger than his own blue Renpeth; who was large as Blues went. It was well D'nor had Impressed brown Chereth: none of the blues had a chance of catching Leviath when she rose, and many Brown Riders would inhibit their dragons by their own heterosexuality. T'rin got on well with these lovers, who had helped to build the Harperweyr complex, and never felt uncomfortable around them. As T'rin was always on demand from the Weyr females for his own unerring taste he acknowledged to himself that, whilst he preferred women, he had a strongly feminine side, probably developed from the necessary closeness between him and his sister when they lived Holdless and he had to help her so much. If he but knew it, it was one of the things that attracted women to him!
The practice went well; T'rin, D'nor and B'lan worked well together. Both miners liked T'rin: he was a journeyman like B'lan, and D'nor had been a senior apprentice, almost a journeyman himself. T'rin was no threat to their relationship, liking only women, but was friendly with them both. Even in weyrs where such things were accepted, some heterosexual riders were uncomfortable around the homosexual ones!
This group did more complex formation work than their fellows; T'lana had expressed an interest in adding Leviath to the Queens' Wing for her strength and stamina; and te group was practising new tactics as protectors of the growing number of female Green Riders. The Green Riders in the Queens' Wing must, of necessity, change halfway through a sweep, owing to their lower strength and stamina; and R'gar wanted certain groups attached to the Queens' Wing able to protect the second group of arriving Greens as they emerged from Between, the point at which any dragon was most vulnerable to Thread. He picked Leviath for her size, Chereth for the closeness between both riders and dragons, Renpeth for his strength for his colour; and he had been influenced on the choices to by the steadiness of the riders. Large, strong dragons were required for the main fighting wings, and even so risks were taken by swopping in Greens half way through. If all went well with the Queens' Wing, R'gar hoped to extend the strategy by utilising steady Brown and Blue Riders in a protection wing. People like K'shon from Ista Weyr who had transferred with some radical ideas of his own – and who could sense where other dragons were precisely. T'rin was privy to his foster father's ideas and enthusiastically endorsed them, cheerfully learning extra patterns as well as the ones he learned generally with his clutch mates.
And if, as seemed likely from what D're said - and he could sense the colours of eggs after all – that a significant number of female candidates Impressed, it was the more necessary. Knowing that their daughters would fly protected in the Queens' Wing was one of the deciding factors for many in permitting their daughters to come to try for green eggs!
The Harperweyr was itself responsible for bringing in one of the candidates; L'gal had taken T'arla to find her kin to disseminate the knowledge that the Weyr would take Holdless orphans or unwanted infants where they had discovered someone they considered eminently suitable as a candidate. Chavul, a fourteen turn old tinker of T'arla's family had steadfastly held his hand in fire to burn out Thread that had dove deep, leaving the hand virtually useless. Such bravery in the face of Thread seemed to the riders to be an excellent sign, and when they got him back to the Weyr, L'gal asked R'cal for a firelizard egg to give the lad extra manipulation. R'cal got D're to pick a bronze, for bronze firelizards were acknowledged as more intelligent and trainable. Chavul fought back tears of happiness at his cousin's and her friends' kindness! T'arla had promised that he should stay in the weyr whether he Impressed or not - for he could not earn his way Holdless, as her uncle had said when first they found out about Chavul – since it was the very thing High Reaches had set itself out to do in any case, and since he could pass on his skills as a tinker as well as add his observations to the logicators.
Chavul had never thought that so dire an injury could bring so much happiness! He doubted that his cousin and her lover were right about his worthiness to ride a dragon; but he was touched by their faith in him and by their admiration of his steadfast courage. And even if – or when, as he told himself – he did not Impress, they felt he still had useful skills and would not be a drone as he would to his own immediate family!
As it happened, of the fifteen green eggs, ten were Impressed by female candidates!
The hatching started with drama, a candidate for the Queen egg actually attacking the favourite to Impress her, Zaira. T'rin was not the only one to rise crying out in indignation; but Impression had already taken place, and with poor Z'ira unconscious on the sands, little Tiabeth seemed set to produce her own revenge. Big H'llon, Z'ira's weyrmate, hooked the culprit, Lasolly, out of the sands and to safety; and T'rin chuckled to himself
"Out of the frying pan into the fire!"
He noticed H'llon shaking the girl like a dish clout as the oldest candidate, Elexa, Impressed the largest green – and another it was that had a goldish cast.
"Best not advertise THAT" murmured L'gal "We'll have comments about Segrith producing too many sports!"
T'rin snorted.
"Fardles. Mirrith lays perfectly normal eggs. Leviath won't breed for chewing firestone; Denth isn't Segrith's anyway – though I wager any who would comment will conveniently forget that – and Warneth saved our Sh'allen's sanity. L'exa has the attitude to carry off being peculiar, even if her dragon doesn't lay full Queen-type clutches. And it'll help the strength of the Women's Wing."
L'gal grinned.
"Of course you're not partisan because Mirrith is ridden by your foster mother and her daughter by your sister…."
"Of course I'm fardling well partisan!" scoffed T'rin "Why shouldn't I be? Solpeth is Mirrith's son and Frith her granddaughter as Renpeth is her grandson. You should be partisan too!"
L'gal held up his hands, laughing, then pointed at the sands.
"Look – that little Green is going to Imbelinne!"
Speechless with joy, each re-living his own Impression, the Journeymen harpers saw two of their apprentices Impress; I'linne and – to T'rin's surprise – C'lara. Jaysen showed no signs of disappointment: and as he put all the hours he could into his music, T'rin was not surprised.
That two logicator protégés, J'leth and Ch'vul also Impressed was a bonus! L'gal yodelled happily like a seabred man – having pestered Y'lara to teach him how – when Ch'vul Impressed Bronze Kordath, for as T'arla's cousin, L'gal looked on him as kin. J'leth was delighted with Blue Mnanth too! T'arla's other protégé, Siselly, from L'gal's own Hold failed to Impress; and L'gal was not surprised. However, she was but young: and both Harpers were gratified to find that she had subsequently approached Allessa about working as the Harper Headwoman's assisitant.
All in all it had gone well; and if the studies of two apprentices were to be disrupted at least their dragonriding teachers would be flexible because of it!
T'rin was delighted.
The Harperweyr of High Reaches was doing just fine!
The End
'Horgey Makes Good' follows this but there are a couple of other parallels to go up first; New Girls at High Reaches Weyr and Kaili the Whisperer