“How many Turns do you have?” Felena asked on the end of that long series of orders.

“I’ve fifteen, please,” answered Menolly, dazed and trying very hard not to cry. Her throat ached and her chest was tight and she couldn’t believe what was happening to her: people fussing over how she looked and what she wore. Above all, Lessa had smiled at her be cause she was so pleased about the clutch. And it seemed as if she didn’t have to worry about being sent back to Half-Circle. Not if the weyrfolk were ordering her shoes and giving her clothes….

“Fifteen? Well, you wouldn’t need much more fostering, would you?” Felena sounded disappointed. “We’ll see what Manora has in mind for you. I’d like you as mine.”

Menolly burst into tears. That provoked more confusion because her fire lizards began swooping dangerously close to people’s faces. Beauty pecked at Felena, who was only trying to offer comfort.

“Let us have some order here,” said a fresh, authoritative voice. Everyone, except the fire lizards, obediently subsided, and room was made for Manora. “And you be quiet, too,” she said to squealing Beauty. “Go on,” and she waved at the others, “go sit quietly somewhere. Now, why is Menolly crying?”

“She just burst into tears, Manora,” said Felena, as perplexed as everyone else.

“I’m happy, I’m happy, I’m happy,” Menolly managed to blurt out, each repetition punctuated by a heaving sob.

“Of course you are,” said Manora understandingly, and made gestures to one of the women. “It’s been a very exciting and tiring day. Now you just drink this.” The woman had returned with a mug. “Now, everyone will go about their duties and let you catch your breath. There, that’s better.”

Menolly obediently sipped the drink. It wasn’t fellis juice, but there was a slightly bitter taste. Manora urged her to drink deeply, and gradually Menolly felt her chest loosen, her throat stop aching and she began to relax.

She looked up to see that Manora was the only one at the little table, sitting with her hands folded serenely in her lap, her aura of calm patience very soothing.

“Feel more like yourself? Now, you just sit quietly and eat. We don’t take in many new people, so there’s bound to be a fuss about you. Soon enough to do everything else. How many fire lizard eggs did you find in that clutch?”

Menolly found it easy to talk to Manora, and soon she was showing the headwoman the oil and explaining how she’d made it.

“I think you did wonderfully well all on your own, Menolly, not but what I’d expect it of someone Mavi has trained.”

Menolly’s ease disappeared at the sound of her mother’s name. Involuntarily she clenched her left hand, feeling the scar tissue pull painfully from the intensity of her grip.

“You wouldn’t like me to send a message to Half-Circle?” asked Manora. “To say that you’re safely here?”

“I don’t want you to, please! I’m no use to them there.” She held up her scarred hand. “And…” she halted, she’d been about to add “a disgrace.” “I seem to be useful here,” she said quickly, pointing to the basket of fire lizard eggs.

“So you are, Menolly, so you are.” Manora rose. “Now eat your meat, and we’ll talk again later.”

When she had finished her food, Menolly felt much better. She was content to sit in her hearth corner, watching the industry of others. And in a little while, Felena came over with her shears and trimmed Menolly’s hair. Then someone watched the fire lizard eggs while Menolly changed into the first brand new garments she’d ever had, being the youngest in a large family. The tanner came and not only measured her feet for proper boots but by evening he’d also made up some soft hide slippers that fit loosely over her bandaged feet.

She was so changed in appearance that Mirrim, passing her table just before the evening meal, almost failed to recognize her. Menolly had been worrying that Mirrim was deliberately avoiding her because Menolly had Impressed nine fire lizards, but there was no restraint in Mirrim’s manner. Flopping into a chair across the table, she heartily approved the hair trim, the clothing and the slippers.

“I heard all about the clutch, but I’ve been so busy, up, down, in, out, running errands for Manora that I simply haven’t had a moment!”

Menolly suppressed a grin. Mirrim sounded exactly like Felena.

Then Mirrim cocked her head at Menolly. “You know, you look so much nicer in proper clothes that I didn’t recognize you. Now, if we can only get you to smile once in a while…”

Just then a little brown lizard glided in to land on Mirrim’s shoulder, snuggling affectionately up to her neck, and peering at Menolly from under her chin.

“Is he yours?”

“Yes, this is Tolly, and I have two greens, Reppa and Lok. And I’ll make it very plain that three is quite enough for me. How ever did you manage to feed nine? They’re so ravenous all the time!”

The last of Menolly’s awkwardness with her friend disappeared as she recounted how she had coped with her fair of fire lizards.

The evening meal was then ready, and Mirrim, ignoring Menolly’s protests that she was able to fetch her own, served them both. T’gellan joined their table and managed to coax Beauty, much to Menolly’s amazement, to accept some food from his knife.

“Don’t be surprised,” Mirrim told Menolly with just a touch of condescension. “These greedy guts will eat what’s offered from anyone. But that doesn’t mean that they’ll look to whoever feeds them. Besides, with nine…” She rolled her eyes so expressively that T’gellan chuckled.

“She’s jealous, so she is, Menolly.”

“I am not. Three’s quite enough, though…I would’ve liked a queen. Let’s see if Beauty will come to me. Grall does.”

Mirrim concentrated on coaxing Beauty to accept a piece of meat while T’gellan teased her, rather unfairly Menolly thought; but Mirrim returned his jibes with a few tart remarks of her own in a way that Menolly would never have dared address an older man, much less a dragonrider.

She was very tired, but it was pleasant to sit in the big kitchen cavern, listening to T’gellan, watching Mirrim coax Beauty, though it was Lazybones who finally ate from her hand. There were other small groups, chatting late over their evening meal, the women pairing with dragonriders. Menolly noticed wineskins being passed. She was surprised, at first, because the Sea Hold served wine only on very special occasions. T’gellan sent one of the weyrboys to get him cups and a skin and insisted that Menolly, as well as Mirrim, have a cup.

“Good Benden wine is not to be refused,” he told her, filling her cup. “There, now, isn’t that the best you’ve ever tasted?”

Menolly forebore to mention that, barring wine laced with fellis juice, it was the first. Living was certainly conducted on different rules in the Weyr.

When the Weyr’s Harper began to play softly, more for his own pleasure than to entertain anyone in the cavern, Menolly did not restrain her fingers from tapping the rhythm. It was a song she liked, though she felt his chords were dull, which was why she began to hum her harmony when it did not discord with his. She wasn’t even aware of what she was doing until Mirrim looked up with a smile on her face.

“That was just lovely, Menolly. Oharan? Come over here; Menolly has a new harmony for that one.”

“No, no, I couldn’t.”

“Why not?” demanded T’gellan, and poured a bit more wine in her glass. “A little music would give us all heart. There’re faces around here as long as a wet Turn.”

Timidly at first, because of the older injunction against singing in front of people, Menolly joined her voice to Harper Oharan’s baritone.

“Yes, I like it, Menolly. You’ve got a sure sense of pitch,” said Oharan so approvingly that she started to worry again.

If Yanus knew she was singing at the Weyr…But Yanus wasn’t here and he would never know.