Piemur found it getting progressively harder to rise from one table and move to another. Not that he was drinking any wine; he had sense enough not to do that. He just seemed to be more tired than he ought to be; if he could just put his head down for a few moments.

He was scarcely conscious of the cold of between, only annoyed because he was being forced to walk when he wanted to sit down. He did recall some sort of argument going on over his head. He could have sworn it was Silvina giving someone the very rough edge of her tongue. He was mercifully grateful that finally he was permitted to stretch out on a bed, feel furs pulled over his shoulders, and he could give in to the sleep he craved.

The bell woke him, and his surroundings confused him. He looked about, trying to figure out where he was, since he certainly wasn’t in the drum apprentices’ quarters. Further he was on a rush bag on a floor—the floor in Sebell’s room, for the clothes Sebell had been wearing for the past two days were draped on a nearby chair, his flying boots sagging against each other by the bed. Piemur’s empty clothes had been neatly piled on his boots at the foot of the rush bag.

The bell continued to ring, and Piemur, keenly aware of the emptiness of his belly, hastily dressed, paused long enough to splash his face and hands with water in case anyone, like Dirzan, wanted to fault him on cleanliness and proceeded down the corridor to the steps and the dining hall. He was just turning into the hall when Clell and the other three came in the main door. Clell flashed a look at the others and then strode up to Piemur, grabbing him by the arm roughly.

“Where’ve you been for two days?”

“Why? Did you have to polish the drums?”

“You’re going to get it from Dirzan!” A pleased smirk crossed Clell’s face.

“Why should he get it from Dirzan, Clell?” asked Menolly, quietly coming up behind the drum apprentices. “He’s been on Harper business.”

“He’s always getting off on Harper business,” replied Clell with unexpected anger, “and always with you!”

Piemur raised his fist at such insolence and leaned back to make the swing count in Clell’s sneering face. But Menolly was quicker; she swung the apprentice about and shoved him forcefully toward the main door.

“Insolence to a journeyman means water rations for you, Clell!” she said and, without bothering to see that he’d continued out of the hall, she turned to the other three who gawked at her. “And, for you, too, if I should learn of any mischief against Piemur because of this. Have I made myself perfectly clear? Or do I need to mention the incident to Master Olodkey?”

The cowed apprentices murmured the necessary assurances and, at her dismissal, lost themselves in the throng of other apprentices.

“How much trouble have you been having in the drum-heights, Piemur?”

“Nothing I can’t handle,” said Piemur, wondering when he could get back at Clell for that insult to Menolly. “Water rations for you, too, Piemur, if I see so much as a scratch on Clell’s face.”

“But he…”

Bonz, Timiny and Brolly came flying into the hall at that point and hailed Piemur with such evident relief that, after giving Piemur a long, forbidding glance, Menolly went off toward the journeyman’s tables. The boys demanded to know where he’d been and he was to tell them everything.

He didn’t. He told them what he felt they should know as far as the Igen Hold Gather was concerned, an innocuous enough tale. And he could, and did, describe in great detail the Impression of Path to Mirrim. The bare bones of that unexpected event was already the talk of the Hall, and Piemur had heard the public version so often that he knew he wasn’t committing any indiscretion. He was careful to play down, even to his good friends, the circumstances that had brought him to Benden Weyr at such auspicious occasion.

“No dragonrider was going to take me, an apprentice harper, all the way back to the Hall when there was a Hatching, so I had to stay.”

“C’mon, Piemur,” said Bonz, thoroughly disgusted with his indifference, “you can’t ever get me to believe that you didn’t enjoy every moment of it.”

“Then I won’t. ’Cause I did. But I was just bloody lucky to be at the Igen Gather right then, Otherwise I’d’ve been back polishing the big drums yesterday!”

“Say, Piemur, you getting on all right with Clell and those others?” asked Ranly.

“Sure. Why?” Piemur kept his voice as casual as he could.

“Oh, nothing, except they’re not mixers, and lately, they’ve been sort of asking about you in a funny sort of way.” Ranly was worried, and from the solemn expressions on the other faces, he had confided their concern.

“You just haven’t been the same since your voice changed, Piemur,” said Timiny, blushing with embarrassment.

Piemur snorted, then grinned because Timiny looked so uncomfortable. “Of course, I’m not, Tim. How could I be? My voice is changing, and the rest of me, too.”

“I didn’t mean that…” and Timiny faltered in a muddle of confusion, looking at Bonz and Brolly for help to express what puzzled them all.

Just then the journeyman rose to give out the day’s assignments, and the apprentices were forced to be quiet. Piemur held his breath, hoping that Menolly had not made Clell’s discipline a public one and felt relieved when it was obvious that she hadn’t. He was going to have enough trouble with Clell as it was. Not that he worried about the apprentice going hungry. He’d seen the other three secreting bread, fruit and a thick wherry slice to smuggle out to him.

As the sections dispersed for their work parties, Piemur went to the drumheights, wondering exactly what awaited him. He was not surprised to find that the drums had been left for him to polish, or that Dirzan grumbled about his absence because how could he learn enough to be a proper drummer. And it was only to be expected that there was no word of praise from Dirzan when he came out measure perfect on all the sequences Dirzan asked him. What Piemur wasn’t prepared for was the state of his belongings when Dirzan dismissed him. He got the first whiff when he opened the door to the apprentices’ room. Despite the fact that both windows were propped wide open, the small room smelled like the necessary. He opened the press for clean clothes and realized where the worst of the offending stench lay. He turned, half-hoping this was all, but as he ran his hand over his sleeping furs they were disgustingly damp.

“Who’s been…” Dirzan came striding into the room, finger and thumb pinching his nose against the odor.

Piemur said nothing, he merely let the soiled clothing unroll and held the furs up so that the light fell on the long, damp stain. Dirzan’s eyes narrowed, and his grimace deepened. Piemur wondered what annoyed Dirzan more: that Piemur’s unexpectedly long absence had made the joke more noisome than necessary, or that here was proof positive that Piemur was being harassed by his roommates.

“You may be excused from other duties to attend to this,” said Dirzan. “Be sure to bring back a sweet candle to clear the odor. How they could sleep with that…”

Dirzan waited until Piemur had cleared the noxious things from the room, and then he slammed the door with such force that the journeyman on watch came to see what was the matter.

With everyone scattered for work sections, Piemur managed to get to the washing room without being stopped. He was so furious he wouldn’t have trusted himself to answer properly if anyone had asked him the most civil of questions. He slapped the furs, hair side out into the warm tub, sprinkling half the jar of sweetsand on the slowly sinking bedding. He shook the half-hardened stuff out of his clothing into the drain, and then, with washing paddle, shoved and prodded the garments to loosen the encrustations. If there were stains on his new clothes, he’d face a month’s water rations but he’d pay them all back, so he would.