“No, sir, I didn’t. But then, I don’t think I really knew what does go on in a Harper Hall.”

“Well said, Menolly, well said,” and the Harper laughed as well as Sebell. “The other crafts can jibe that we want to know too much about what is not strictly our business, but I’ve always felt knowledge of matters minor or major makes for better understandings. The mind that will not admit it has something more to learn tomorrow is in danger of stagnating.”

“Yes, sir.” Menolly caught Sebell’s eye, anxiously hoping that the Harper had not heard the minor—or was it major—matter about her missing her scheduled lesson with Domick. An almost imperceptible shake of the brown man’s head reassured her.

“Give me your opinion of our eggs, Menolly, for I must be out and about a great deal, but I don’t wish to risk the Hatching without me in attendance. Right, Sebell?”

“Nor do I wish two fire lizards instead of the one I’m entitled to have.”

The two men exchanged knowing glances as Menolly obediently checked the eggs in their warm pots. She turned each one slightly so that the colder side faced the heat of the glowing embers on the hearth. Robinton added a few more blackstones and then eyed her expectantly.

“Well, sir, the eggs are hardening, but they are not hard enough to hatch today or tomorrow.”

“So, will you check again tomorrow morning for me, Menolly? I must be away, although Sebell will always know where I can be reached.”

Menolly assured the Masterharper that she would keep a watchful eye on the eggs and inform Sebell if there were any alarming changes. The Harper walked her back through his study to the door.

“Now, Menolly, you’ve played for Domick, been thoroughly catechized by Morshal and sung for Shonagar. Jerint says your pipes are quite allowable, and the drum is well-constructed and should dry out sound. The fire lizards will sing sweetly with others than yourself, so you’ve accomplished a very great deal in your first days here. Hasn’t she, Sebell?”

Sebell agreed, smiling at her in a quiet, kind way. She wondered if either man knew how Dunca and the girls felt about her presence in the Harper Hall.

“And I can leave the matter of the eggs in your good hands. That’s grand. That’s very good, indeed,” the Masterharper said, combing his fingers through his silvered hair.

For a fleeting moment, his usually mobile face was still, and in that unguarded moment, Menolly saw signs of strain and worry. Then he smiled so cheerfully that she wondered if she’d imagined his weariness. Well, she could certainly spare him anxiety about the fire lizards. She’d check them several times during the day, even if it made her late to Master Shonagar.

As she returned to the cot, pleased that there was some small way in which she could serve the Masterharper, she recalled what he’d said about fish in a Harper Hall. For the first time, Menolly realized that she’d never really thought about life in a Harper Hall—except as a place where music was played and created. Petiron had spoken hazily about apprentices and his time as a journeyman, but nothing in detail. She had imagined the Harper Hall as some magical place, where people sang all conversations, or earnestly copied Records. The reality was almost commonplace, up to and especially including Dunca and the spiteful Pona. Why she had considered all Harpers, and harper people, above such pettiness, endowed with more humanity than Morshal or Domick had shown her, she did not know. She smiled at her naivety. And yet, Harpers like Sebell and Robinton, even Domick, were above the ordinary. And Silvina and Piemur were basically good, and certainly had been kind to her. She was in far better circumstances than she’d ever enjoyed in Half-Circle, so she could put up with a little unpleasantness, surely.

It was as well she had reached this conclusion because, no sooner was she inside the door, than Dunca pounced on her with a list of grievances. Menolly received a tirade about her fire lizards, how dangerous and unreliable the creatures were, how they must behave themselves or Dunca would not tolerate them, that Menolly had better realize how little rank mattered in Dunca’s cot and that, as the newcomer, she must behave with more deference to those who had been studying far longer at the Craft Hall. Menolly’s attitude was presumptuous, uncooperative, unfriendly and discourteous, and Dunca was not having a tunnel-snake in her cot where the girls were as friendly and as considerate of one another as fosterer could wish.

After the first few sentences, Menolly realized that she could put forth no defense of herself or her friends acceptable to Dunca. All she could do was say “yes” and “no” at appropriate intervals, when Dunca was forced to stop for breath. And every time Menolly thought the woman must surely have exhausted the subject, she would surge onto another imagined slight until Menolly seriously considered calling Beauty to her. The appearance of the fire lizard would certainly curtail the flow of abuse, but would irrevocably destroy any possibility of getting into Dunca’s fair record.

“Now, have I made myself plain?” Dunca asked unexpectedly.

“You have,” and since Menolly’s calm acceptance momentarily robbed Dunca of speech, the girl flew up the steps, ignoring the stiffness of her feet and grinning at the explosive and furious reprimands Dunca made at her retreat.

Beauty woke her at sunrise. The other fire lizards were awake, too, though one thing was sure, no one else in the cot was awake yet.

Last night, when Menolly had reached the relative safety of her room, she had closed and barred the door, and then opened the shutters to admit her friends. She had recovered her composure by oiling their patchy skin with Master Oldive’s salve. This was the first opportunity she’d had since they’d left the cave by the Dragon Stones to tend and fondle each one. They, too, were communicative. She got many impressions from them, mostly that they’d been bathing daily in the lakes above Fort Hold, which weren’t much fun because there weren’t any waves to sport in. Menolly caught pictures from their minds of great dragons and of a Weyr differing in shape from Benden. Beauty’s pictures were the sharpest. Menolly had enjoyed her quiet evening with them; it had made up for Dunca’s irrational attitudes.

Now, as she became aware of the early morning stillness, she knew she’d have time to do a few tasks for herself. She could get a bath and wash the fruit stains out of her tunic. It ought to dry quickly on the window ledge in the morning sun. There should be time before Threadfall, for she remembered that would occur today.

Quietly she unbarred the door, listening in the corridor, and heard only the faintest echo of a snore. Probably Dunca. Adjuring her fire lizards to silence, she walked noiselessly down the steps to the bathing room at the back of the first level. She’d always heard of the thermal pools in the big Holds and Weyrs, but this was her first experience with them. The fire lizards came clustering in behind her, and she hushed their excited twitterings at the sight of the waist-high trough of steaming water. Menolly dipped her fingers in the warm water, checked to see if there were sandsoap and then, throwing her clothes on the floor, slipped into the bath.

The water was delightfully warm and soft to her skin, a change from the harsh sea or the mineral-heavy water in Half-Circle Sea Hold. Menolly submerged completely and came up, shaking her hair. She’d wash all over. One of the others pushed Auntie Two into the bath, and she let out a high-pitched squeal of protest and fright, then paddled happily about in the warm water. The next thing Menolly knew, all the fire lizards were splashing about, their talons unexpectedly catching her bare skin or tangling in her hair. She hushed them often and sternly, because she wasn’t sure how far noise carried from the bathing room: all she’d need, after last night, was for Dunca to come charging in, roused from her night’s rest by her least-wanted guests.