Herbs?

“Piemur? What’re you doing here? Shouldn’t you be rehearsing?” began Sebell. His smile was pleasant and the whiteness of his teeth stood out against dark tanned skin. Herbs and a tan? Piemur would bet every mark he had that Sebell had just returned from the Southern Continent.

“Piemur’s voice has broken.”

“It has?” There was no doubting Sebell’s pleasure at the news. “And Master Robinton’s agreeable?”

Menolly grinned. “With a slight variation, according to the wisdom of our good Master!”

“Oh?” Sebell glanced first at Piemur and then back to Menolly for explanation.

“He’s been told off as apprentice to Master Olodkey.”

Sebell began to chuckle then. “Shrewd of Master Robinton, very shrewd! Right, Piemur?”

“I guess so.” At such a sour rejoinder, Sebell threw his head back and laughed, startling his queen who’d been about to land on his shoulder. She flew about his head, scolding, joined by Beauty and the two bronzes. Sebell threw an arm across Piemur’s shoulders, telling him to cheer up, and draped his other arm about Menolly. Then he guided them toward the holdstables.

There was a look on Sebell’s face that suggested to Piemur that the companionable arm about his shoulders had been an excuse for the one about Menolly’s. The observation cheered Piemur for he knew something no other apprentice did. Maybe not even Master Robinton. Or did he?

Variations on that notion contented Piemur on the initial leg of their hallward trip. The last three hours were spent in increasing physical discomfort. For one thing, he had sacks strapped front and back of his pad and another slung over his shoulder. It was difficult to adjust his rear end and find a spot not already beaten to a pulp by the runner beast’s action. Rather unfair of Menolly, Piemur thought with some rancor, to include him on an eight-hour ride his first time on a runner in Turns.

He was immensely relieved that he wasn’t expected to tend the mounts, too, as they handed mouth ropes to Banak. Then, Piemur wished he’d been able to dismount in the Harper Hall courtyard, for his stiff and seemingly reshaped legs made the short walk from beasthold to Hall an unexpected torture. Sourly he listened to Menolly and Sebell chatting as they preceded him. They talked of inconsequentialities so that Piemur couldn’t even ignore his aches by concentrating on their comments.

“Well, Piemur,” said Menolly as they climbed the steps to the Hall, “you haven’t forgotten how to pace a beast. Shells, what’s the matter with you?”

“It’s been five bloody Turns since I’ve ridden one,” he said, trying to straighten his sorely afflicted back.

“Menolly! That’s plain cruel,” cried Sebell, trying to keep a straight face. “Into the hot baths with you, lad, before you harden in that posture.”

Menolly was instantly contrite, with protests of dismay and apology. Sebell guided him to the bathing room, and when Menolly brought a tray of hot food for them all, she served Piemur as he floated in the soothing water. To Piemur’s utter embarrassment, Silvina appeared as he was patting his sore spots dry. She proceeded to slather him with numbweed salve and, making him lie down, massaged his back and legs. Just when he thought he’d never move again, Silvina made him get to his feet. Strangely enough, he could walk more normally. At least the numbweed deadened the muscular aches enough for him to make his own way across the court and up to three flights to the drumheights.

He slept through three drum messages the next morning, the fire lizards’ feeding and half the chorus rehearsal with instruments. When he woke, Dirzan gave him time for a cup of klah and a meatroll, then quizzed him on the drum measures assigned him the day before.

To Dirzan’s amazement, Piemur beat them out time-perfect. He’d had plenty of hours in which to memorize them on that runner ride. As a reward, Dirzan gave him another column of measures to learn.

The numbweed salve had worn off, and Piemur found sitting on the stool during his lesson agonizing. He had rubbed his seat bones raw, a combination of the stiffness of his new trousers and the riding. This affliction provided him with an opportunity to visit Master Oldive after lunch. Although Sebell’s sacks were in evidence in Master Oldive’s quarters, even to some herbs piled on the work-table, Piemur pried no new snippets of information from the Master Healer. Not even if this had been the first shipment of such medicines. He did learn that galls hurt more when treated than when sat on. Then the numbweed took over. Master Oldive said he was to use a cushion for sitting for a few days, wear older, softened pants, and ask Silvina for a conditioner to soften his wherhide.

No sooner had he returned to the drumheights, than he was sent with a message for Lord Groghe to Fort Hold, and when he came back, set to stand a listening watch.

He saw Menolly and Sebell the next morning when he fed his trio of fire lizards but, apart from solicitous inquiry about his stiffness, the two harpers were not talkative. The next day Sebell was gone, and Piemur didn’t know when or how. He was able, however, to observe, from the drumheights, the comings and goings, in and out of Fort Hold, of riders on runners, of two dragons and an incredible number of fire lizards. It occurred to him that while he had been congratulating himself on knowing most of what went on in the Harper Hall, the drumheights let him observe the larger world which, up till that day, had been unremarked by himself.

Several messages came in that afternoon, two from the north and one from the south. Three went out; one in answer to Tillek’s question from the north; an originating message to Igen Tanner Hall; and the third to Master-Briaret, the Masterherdsman. To tantalize him, all the messages were too quickly delivered for him to recognize more than a few phrases. Infuriated to be in a position to know more and unable to exercise the advantage to the full, Piemur memorized two columns of drum measures. If his zeal surprised Dirzan, it irritated his fellow apprentices. They presented him with several all too forceful arguments against too much application on his part. Piemur had always relied on being able to outrun any would-be adversaries, but he discovered that there was no place to run to in the drumheights. While nursing his bruises, he stubbornly learned off three more columns, though he kept this private, tempering his recitations to Dirzan. Discretion, he was learning, is required on many different levels.

He was not sorry six days later to be told to take a message to a minehold situated on an awkward ridge in the Fort Hold Range. With a signed, Harper-sealed tube of record hide, he mounted the same stolid runner beast Banak had given him for the previous trip.

Gingerly settling the seat of his now well-softened wherhide pants onto the pad, Piemur was relieved to feel no discomfort from his tail bones as the creature moved off. The journey should take him two to three hours, Banak said, as he’d pointed out to him the correct southwestern track. Three hours was probably correct, Piemur thought as his efforts to increase the pace of his runner failed. By the time the wide track had narrowed to a thinner trace, winding against a stony hillside, with deep gorges on the outside, Piemur was quite willing to let his runner go at that steady, careful pace. As he figured it would have taken the Fort Hold watchdragon only a few moments to make the trip, and the watchdragon’s rider was quite willing to oblige the Masterharper of Pern, he wondered why he’d been sent. Until he delivered his message tube to the taciturn mineholder.

“You’re from the Harper Hall?” The man scowled at him dubiously.

“Apprentice to Master Olodkey, the Drummaster!” This could be some sort of test of his prudence.

“Wouldn’t have thought they’d send a boy on this errand,” he said with a skeptical grunt.