Silvina had been leading Menolly down the steps and out of the cliffhold of the Harper Hall as she talked. Now they passed under an arch that gave onto a broad road of paving stones, never a blade of grass or spot of moss to be seen anywhere.
For the first time Menolly had a chance to appreciate the size of Fort Hold. Knowing that it was the oldest and largest Hold was quite different from seeing it, being outside the towering cliff.
Thousands of people must live in the cliffholds and cottages that hugged the rock palisade. Awed, Menolly’s steps slowed as she stared at the wide ramp leading to the courtyard and main entrance of Fort Hold, higher in the cliff face than the Harper Graft Hall, and with rows of windows extending upward in sheer stone, almost to the fire heights themselves. In Half-Circle Sea Hold, everyone had been in the cliff, but at Fort Hold, stone buildings had been built out in wings from the cliff, forming a quadrangle similar to the Harper Craft Hall, Smaller cottages had been added onto the original wings, on either side of the ramp. There were dwellings bordering the sides of the broad paved road that led in several well-traveled directions; south to the fields and pastures, east down the valley toward the low foothills and west around to the pass in the cliff that would lead to the higher mountains of the Central Fort Range.
Silvina guided Menolly now toward a cottage, a good-sized one with five windows, all of them shuttered tight, on the upper floor. The cottage nestled against the slope of the ramp. As they got close enough, Menolly realized that the little cot was also quite old. And the cottage door was metal, too! Incredible! Silvina opened it, calling out for Dunca. Menolly had just time to notice that the metal door closed as the one at the Harper Hall did, with a small wheel throwing the thick rods into grooves in ceiling and floor.
“Menolly, come and meet Dunca who holds the cottage for the girls who study at the Harper Hall.”
Menolly dutifully greeted the short, dumpy little woman with bright black eyes and cheeks like a puff-belly’s sides. Dunca gave Menolly a raking look, at odds with her jolly appearance, as if measuring up Menolly to the gossip she’d already heard. Then Dunca saw Beauty peeking around Menolly’s ear. She gave a shriek, jumping back.
“What’s that?”
Menolly reached up to calm Beauty, who was hissing and raising her wings, getting one entangled in Menolly’s hair.
“But, Dunca, surely you knew—” Silvina’s voice chided the woman, “—that Menolly had Impressed fire lizards.”
Menolly’s sharp ear caught the edge to Silvina’s voice, and so did the little queen, for Beauty thrummed softly and warningly in her throat as her eyes whirled at Dunca. Menolly silently called her to order.
“I’d heard, but I don’t always credit things I’m told,” said Dunca, standing as far away from Menolly and Beauty as the hall permitted.
“Very wise of you,” replied Silvina. The set of the headwoman’s lips and the wary amusement in her glance told Menolly that Silvina was not overly fond of the little cotholder. “Now you’ve a windowed room vacant, have you not? I think it’s best if we settled her there.”
“I don’t want another hysterical girl who’ll panic during Threadfall and scare us all with imagining that Thread is actually in the cottage!”
Silvina’s eyes danced with suppressed laughter as she glanced Menolly’s way. “No, Menolly won’t panic. She is, by the way, the youngest daughter of Yanus Sea Holder of Half-Circle Sea Hold, beholden to Benden Weyr. The sea breeds stern souls, you know.”
Dunca’s bright little eyes were almost lost in the folds of her eye flesh as she peered up at Menolly.
“So you knew Petiron, did you?”
“Yes, I did, Dunca.”
The cotholder gave a disgusted snort and turned so quickly her full skirt followed in hasty swirls as she made for the stone steps carved into the wall at the back of the hallway. She kept twitching her skirt, grunting at the steepness of the risers as she heaved her small fat person upward.
Two narrow corridors, lit at either end by dimming glows, went left and right from the stairwell. Dunca turned right, led them to the far end and threw open the last door on the outside.
“Lazy sluts,” she said truculently, fumbling at the catch of the glowbasket. “They’ve cleared the glows.”
“Where are they kept?” asked Menolly, wishing to ingratiate herself with the cotkeeper. Fleetingly she wondered if she’d always be trotting up and down narrow steps after glows.
“Where’s your drudge, Dunca? It’s her task to bring glows, not Menolly’s,” said Silvina as she walked past Dunca and flipped open first one, then a second set of shutters, flooding the room with sunlight.
“Silvina! What are you doing?”
“Threadfall’s not for two more days, Dunca. Be sensible. The room’s fusty.”
Dunca’s answer was a shriek as the other fire lizards swooped in through the opened window, diving about the room, chittering excitedly. There was nothing for them to cling to, since the walls were bare of hangings and the bed a frame, empty of rushes, the sleeping fur rolled up on the small press. The two green Aunties and blue Uncle fought for landing space on the stool and then zoomed out the window again as Dunca’s screams startled them. The little cotholder cowered in the corner, skirts about her head, shrieking.
Menolly ordered the browns to stop diving, told Auntie One and Two and Uncle to stay on the window ledge, got Rocky and Diver to settle on the bedstead while Silvina calmed Dunca and led her from the corner. By the time the cotholder had been cajoled into watching Silvina handle Lazybones, who’d let anyone caress him so long as it involved no effort on his part, Menolly realized that Dunca would never be comfortable in their presence and that the woman disliked Menolly intensely for witnessing her fearfulness. For a long, sad moment, Menolly wished that she could have stayed at the Weyr where everyone could accept fire lizards equably.
She sighed softly to herself as she stroked Beauty, absently listening to Silvina’s reassurances to Dunca that the fire lizards wouldn’t harm anyone, not her, not her charges; that Dunca’d be the envy of every other cotholder in Fort to have nine fire lizards…
“Nine?” Dunca’s protest came out in a terrified squeak, and she reached for her skirts to throw over her head. “Nine of those beastly things flitting and diving about my home—”
“They don’t like to stay inside, except at night,” said Menolly, hoping to reassure Dunca. “They’re rarely all with me at one time.”
From the horrified and malicious look Dunca gave her, Menolly realized that she herself would be rarely with Dunca if the cotholder had anything to say in the matter.
“We can stop here no longer now, Menolly. You’ve to pick a gitar from the workshop,” said Silvina. “If you need more rushes, Dunca, you’ve only to send your woman to the Hall,” she added as she motioned Menolly to precede her from the room. “Menolly will be more closely involved with the Hall than the other girls…”
“She’s to be back here at shutter time, same as the others, or stay at the Hall,” said Dunca as Silvina and Menolly went down the steps.
“She’s strict with the girls,” Silvina remarked as they emerged into the bright midday sun and started across the broad paved square, “but that’s to the good with all those lads vying for their attention. And take no heed to her grumbles over Petiron. She’d hoped to wed him after Merelan died. I’d say Petiron resigned as Fort Hold Harper as much to get free of Dunca as to clear the way for Robinton. He was so very proud that his son was elected Masterharper.”
“Half-Circle Sea Hold is a long way from Fort Hold!”
Silvina chuckled. “And one of the few places isolated enough to prevent Dunca from following him, child. As if Petiron would ever have taken another woman after Merelan. She was the loveliest person, a voice of unusual beauty and range. Ah, I miss her still.”