“If he wants to Impress his fire lizard, he’ll have to make a choice, won’t he?”

Silvina gaped at Menolly for a long moment and then burst out laughing.

“Might be the best thing that’s happened since the queens were killed,” Silvina said, mopping laugh tears from her eyes. ‘The man’s had no more than a few hours sleep a day…” Silvina gestured toward the study room, flicking her fingers at the scattered piles of records, the scrawls on the sandtable’s surface, the half-empty wine sack with its pouring neck collapsed ludicrously to one side. “He won’t miss the Impression of his fire lizard! But isn’t there some sign to tell if the Hatching is imminent? The dragonmen can tell. And what the Harper’s doing is really urgent.”

“When Beauty and the others hatched, the old queen and her flight hummed, sort of deep in the throat…” Menolly said cautiously, after a moment’s thought.

Silvina nodded encouragingly.

“This isn’t Beauty’s clutch, so I don’t know if she’ll react, though the dragons at Benden Weyr hummed for Ramoth’s clutch. So it seems logical that the fire lizards would react the same way.”

Silvina agreed. “There’d be a slight interval in which we could track the Harper down? Supposing we can’t get him to stay put here for the next day or two?”

Menolly hesitated, reluctant to agree to a conclusion achieved by guesswork.

“And they eat anything when they hatch?” asked Silvina who appeared content with the supposition.

“Just about.” Menolly remembered the sack of claws, not the easiest of edibles, that had gone down the throats of her newly hatched friends. “Red meat is best!”

“That will please Camo,” Silvina said cryptically. “Now I think you’d best stay here. Well, what’s wrong with that? Robinton would give up more than the privacy of his quarters to have a fire lizard. He’s even threatened to forego his wine…” Silvina had a snort for that unlikely sacrifice. “Well, what is wrong with you?”

“Silvina…it’s afternoon, isn’t it?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“I’m pledged to go…I must go…to Master Shonagar. He was very insistent…”

“Oh, he was, was he? And will he explain to Master Robinton that your voice is more important than the Harper’s fire lizard? Oh, don’t get yourself in a pucker. Sebell can sit in for you. And you tell your fire lizards to stand by…” Silvina walked to the open window and peered down into the courtyard "Piemur! Piemur, ask Sebell to step up to the Harper’s room, will you? Menolly? Yes, she’s awake and here. No, she can’t attend Master Shonagar until Sebell arrives. Yes? Well, go through the choir hall to the journeymen’s quarters and give Master Shonagar my message. Menolly answers to Master Robinton first, me second and then any of the other masters who require her attention.”

Menolly fretted about Master Shonagar’s certain wrath while Silvina made her wait until Piemur had found and returned, at a run, with Sebell.

“They’re hatching?” Sebell slithered to a stop in the doorway, breathing hard, his face flushed and anxious.

“Not quite yet,” Menolly said, ready to speed to Master Shonagar but unwilling to brush impolitely past the journeyman blocking the entrance.

“How will I know?”

“Menolly says the fire lizards hum,” replied Silvina. “Shonagar insists on her presence now.”

“He would! Where’s the Harper?”

“At Ruatha Hold now, I think,” Silvina said. “He went off to Benden Weyr when the dragonrider came for him. He said he’d stop off to see Mastersmith Fandarel at Telgar…”

Sebell’s eyes went from Silvina to Menolly in surprise, as if Silvina were being indiscreet.

“More than any other, saving yourself, Menolly will need to know how many tunes a harper, much less the Harper, plays,” she said. “I’ll send more klah and…” now she chuckled, “have Camo lay about with that hatchet of his on the meat.”

Menolly told the fire lizards to stay by Sebell, and then she scurried down the steps and across the courtyard to the chorus hall.

Despite Silvina’s reassurance, Menolly was apprehensive as she made her tardy arrival before Master Shonagar. But he said nothing. That made her dereliction harder. He kept looking at her until she nervously began to shift her weight from foot to foot.

“I do not know what it is about you, young Menolly, that you can disrupt an entire Craft Hall, for you are not presumptuous. In fact, you are immodestly modest. You do not brag nor flaunt your rank nor put yourself forward. You listen, which I assure you is a pleasure and relief, and you learn from what you are told, which is veritably unheard of. I begin to entertain hope that I have finally discovered, in a mere slip of a girl, the dedication required of a true musician, an artist! Yes, I might even coax a real voice out of your throat.” His fist came down with an almighty wallop on the sandtable, the opposite end flapping onto its supports. She jumped. “But even I cannot do much if you are not here!”

“Silvina said…”

“Silvina is a wonderful woman. Without her the Hall would be in chaos and our comfort ignored,” Master Shonagar said, still in a loud tone. “She is also a good musician…ah, you didn’t know that? You should make the occasion to listen to her singing, my dear girl…. But,” again the voice boomed, Master Shonagar’s belly bouncing, although the rest of him seemed stationary, “I thought I had made it plain that you are to be here without fail every single day!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Come fog, fire or Fall! Have I made myself plain enough?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Then…” and his voice dropped to normal proportions, “let us begin with breathing…”

Menolly fought the desire to giggle. She mastered it by breathing deeply and then settled quickly to the discipline of the lesson.

When Master Shonagar had dismissed her with a further injunction to be on time not the next day, which was a rest day and he needed his rest, but the day following, the work parties were back from their chores. To her surprise, she was greeted by many of the boys as she raced past them to get back to the fire lizard eggs. She answered, smiling, unsure of names and faces but inwardly warmed by their recognition. As she took the steps to the higher level two at a time, she wondered if the boys all knew about the previous night’s disturbance. Probably. News spreads faster in this Craft Hall than Thread could burrow.

The sounds of soft gitar strumming reached her ears as she got to the upper hall. She slowed down, out of breath anyhow, and arrived at the Harper’s quarters still breathing heavily, much as Sebell had done. He glanced up, grinned understandingly, and held up a hand to reassure her. Then his hand gestured to the sandtable. All her fire lizards were there, crouched, watching him.

“I’ve had an audience. What I can’t tell is if my music has pleased them.”

“It has,” Menolly told him, smiling. She extended her arm for Beauty, who immediately glided to her. “See, their eyes tell you…the green is dominant, which is sleeping pleasure. Red means hunger, blue and green are sort of general shades, white means danger, and yellow is fright. The speed of the eye whirling tells you how intensely they feel about something.”

“What about him then?” And Sebell pointed to Lazy whose eyes were first-lidded.

“He’s called Lazybones for good reason.”

“I wasn’t playing a lullaby.”

“Except when he’s hungry, he’s that way. Here,” and Menolly scooped Lazy up from the sandtable and deposited him on Sebell’s arm. Startled, the man froze. “Stroke his eye ridges and the back joints of the wings. There! See? He’s crooning with delight.”

Sebell had obeyed her instructions, and now Lazy collapsed about the journeyman’s forearm, locked his claws loosely about the wrist and stretched his head across the back of Sebell’s hand. Sebell caressed him, a shy and delighted smile on his face.