If her only use at the Harper Hall was to instruct people on being bogus seamen or turning fire lizard eggs, someone else could as easily perform those services. She’d managed to alienate more people than she’d made friends, and the few friends she’d acquired were far more interested in her fire lizards than they were in her. Briefly she wondered what welcome she would have received if she hadn’t brought the fire lizards or the two eggs with her. Then there would have been no fire lizard song for the Masterharper to rewrite. And he’d apologized to her for that. The Masterharper of Pern had apologized to her, Menolly of Half-Circle Sea Hold, for improving on her song. Her songs were what he needed, he said. Menolly took in a deep breath and expelled it slowly.

She did have music in the Harper Hall, and that was important! There might not be girl harpers, but no one had ever said there couldn’t be girl song-crafters and that mightn’t be a bad future.

Not to think of that now, Menolly, she chided herself. Think what you’re going to do when you appear before Master Jerint with no pipes. He might seem absent-minded, but she doubted very much if he really was. The pipes were in her room, on the little press, and nothing, not even obedience to, and love of, the Masterharper would force her into the cot while those girls were raging on about her.

Beauty took off from her shoulder, calling to the other fire lizards, and when they were all midair above her, they disappeared. Menolly pushed herself away from the cot’s wall and started back to the Harper Hall. She’d think of something to say to Master Jerint about the pipes.

The fire lizards exploded into the air above her, squealing so shrilly that she looked up in alarm. They were grouped in a tight cluster, hovered just a split second while her eye took in their unusual formation, and then they parted. Something dropped. Automatically she held out her hands, and the multiple pipes smacked into her palms.

“Oh, you darlings. I didn’t know you could do that!” She clutched the pipes to her, ignoring the sting of her hands. Only the stiffness in her feet prevented her from dancing with the joy of relief and the discovery of this unexpected ability of her friends. How clever, clever they were, going to her room and bringing her the pipes. No one could ever again say in her presence that they were just pets and nuisances, good for nothing but trouble!

“The worst storm throws up some wood on the beach,” her mother used to say; mostly to soothe her father caught holdbound during a storm.

Why, if she hadn’t needed the pipes so badly, and if the girls hadn’t been so nasty, she’d never have discovered how very clever her fire lizards could be!

It was with a considerably lightened heart that she entered Master Jerint’s workshop. The place was unexpectedly empty. Master Jerint, bent over a vise attached to his wide and cluttered worktable, was the only occupant of the big room. As she could see that he was meticulously gluing veneer to a harp shaft, she waited and waited. And waited until, bored, she sighed.

“Yes? Oh, the girl! And where have you been this long time? Oh, waiting, I see. You brought your pipes with you?” He held out his hand, and she surrendered them.

She was a bit startled by the sudden intensity of his examination. He weighed the pipes in his hand, peered closely at the way she had joined the sections of reed with braided seaplant; he poked a tool into the blow and finger holes. Muttering under his breath, he brought the pipes over to the rank of windows and examined them minutely in the bright afternoon sun. Glancing at her for permission, he arranged his long fingers appropriately and blew on the pipes, his eyebrows arching at the pure clear tone.

“Sea reeds? Not fresh water?”

“Fresh water, but I cured them in the sea.”

“How’d you get this dark shine?”

“Mixed fish oil with sea grass and rubbed it in, warm…”

“Makes an interesting hint of purple in the wood. Could you duplicate the compound again?”

“I think so.”

“Any particular type of sea grass? Or fish oil?”

“Packtail,” and despite herself, Menolly winced at having to mention the fish name. Her hand twitched. “And shallow-water sea grass, the sort that clings to sandy bottoms rather than rock.”

“Very good.” He handed her back the pipes, gesturing for her to follow him to another table where drum rings and skins of varying sizes had been laid out, as well as a reel of the oiled cord necessary to secure drum hides to frame. “Can you assemble a drum?”

“I can try.”

He sniffed, not critically—reflectively, Menolly thought—and then motioned for her to begin. He turned back to his patient woodworking on the harp.

Knowing that this was likely another test, Menolly examined each of the nine drum frames carefully for hidden flaws, for the dryness and hardness of the wood. Only one did she feel worth the trouble, and the drum would be a thin, sharp-sounding instrument. She preferred a drum with deep full notes, one that would cut through male voices in a chorus and keep them on the beat. Then she reminded herself that here she would scarcely have to worry about keeping singers in time. She set to work, putting the metal clips on the frame edge to hold the skin. Most of the hides were well cured and stretched, so that it was a matter of finding one the proper size and thinness for her drum frame. She softened the chosen hide in the tub of water, working the skin in her hands until it was flexible enough to draw across the frame. Carefully, she made slits and skewered the hide to the clips, symmetrically, so that one side wasn’t pulled tighter than another lest it make an uneven tone along the outside of the drum and a sour one in the center. When she was sure she had the hide evenly placed, she lashed it around the frame, two fingers from the edge of the surface. When the hide dried, she’d have a taut drum.

“Well, you do know some of the tricks of the trade, don’t you?” She nearly jumped out of her own hide at the sound of Master Jerint’s voice right by her elbow. He gave her a little wintry smile. She wondered how long he’d been standing there watching her. He took the drum, examining it minutely, humphing to himself, his face making a variety of contortions that gave her no real idea of his opinion of her handiwork.

He put the drum carefully on a high shelf. “We’ll just let that dry, but you’d better get yourself off to your next class. The juniors are about to arrive, I hear,” he added in a dry, unamused tone.

Menolly became immediately conscious of exterior noise; laughter, yells and the dull thudding of many booted feet. Dutifully she made her way to the chorus room where Master Shonagar, seemingly not having moved since she’d left him the day before, greeted her.

“Assemble your friends please, and have them dispose themselves to listen,” he told her, blinking a bit as the fire lizards swept into the high ceilinged hall. Beauty took up her favorite position on Menolly’s shoulder. “You!” And one long fat forefinger pointed directly to the little queen. “You will find another perch today.” The forefinger moved inexorably toward a bench. “There!”

Beauty gave a quizzical cheep but obediently retired when Menolly silently reinforced the order. Master Shonagar’s eyebrows ascended into his hair line as he watched the little fire lizard settle herself, primly flipping her wings to her back, her eyes whirling gently. He grunted, his belly bouncing.

“Now, Menolly, shoulders back, chin up but in, hands together across your diaphragm, breathe in, from the belly to the lungs…No, I do not want to see your chest heaving like a smith’s bellows…”

By the end of the session, Menolly was exhausted: the small of her back and all of her midriff muscles ached, her belly was sore, and she felt that dragging nets for offshore fishing would have been child’s play. Yet she’d done no more than stand in one spot and attempt, in Master Shonagar’s pithy phrase, to control her breathing properly. She’d been allowed to sing only single notes, and then scales of five notes, each scale done on the breath, lightly but in true tone and on pitch. She’d have gutted a whole net of packtail with less effort, so she was intensely grateful when Master Shonagar finally waved her to a seat.