Dragonsong Read Free

first oarsman held out a hand to her.
    Startled by the unexpected courtesy to a girl her age, she was about to jump down when she saw in his eyes the respect due her at this moment. And his hand, closing on hers, gave silent approval for her singing of the Harper’s elegy. The other men stood, too, waiting for her to disembark first. She straightened her shoulders, although her throat felt tight enough for more tears, and she stepped proudly down to the solid stone.
    As she turned to walk back to the landside of the Cavern, she saw that the other boats were discharging their passengers quickly and quietly. Her father’s boat, the biggest of the Half-Circle fleet, had already tacked back into the harbor. Yanus’s voice carried across the water, above the incidental sounds of creaking boats and muted voices.
    ‘Quickly now, men. We’ve a good breeze rising and the fish’ll be biting after three days of storm.’
    The oarsmen hurried past her, to board their assigned fishing boats. It seemed unfair to Menolly that Petiron, after a long life’s dedication to Half-Circle Hold, was dismissed so quickly from everyone’s mind. And yet … life did go on. There were fish to be caught against winter’s hungry months. Fair days during the cold months of the Turn were not to be squandered.
    She quickened her pace. She’d far to go around the rim of the Dock Cavern and she was cold. Menolly also wanted to get into the Hold before her mother noticed that she didn’t have the drum. Waste wasn’t tolerated by Mavi any more than idleness by Yanus.
    While this was an occasion, it had been a sad one and the women and children and also the men too old to sea-fish observed a decorous pace out of the Cavern, making smaller groups as they headed towards their own Holds in the southern arc of Half-Circle’s sheltering palisade.
    Menolly saw Mavi organizing the children into work groups. With no Harper to lead them in the Teaching Songs and ballads, the children would be kept occupied in clearing the storm debris from the white-sanded beaches.
    There might be sun in the sky, and the dragonrider still circling on his brown, but the wind was frigid and Menolly began to shiver violently. She wanted to feel the warmth of the fire on the great Hold’s kitchen hearth and a cup of hot klah inside her.
    She heard her sister Sella’s voice carrying to her on the breeze.
    ‘She’s got nothing to do now, Mavi, why do
I
have to …’
    Menolly ducked behind a group of adults, avoiding her mother’s searching glance. Trust Sella to remember that Menolly no longer had the excuse of nursing the ailing Harper. Ahead of her, one of the old aunts tripped, her querulous voice raised in a cry for help. Menolly sprinted to her side, supporting her and receiving loud protestations of gratitude.
    ‘Only for Petiron would I have dragged these old bones out on the cold sea this morning. Bless the man, rest the man,’ the old woman went on, clinging with unexpected strength to Menolly. ‘You’re a good child, Menolly, so you are. It is Menolly, isn’t it?’ The old one peered up at her. ‘Now you just give me a hand up to Old Uncle and I’ll tell him the whole of it, since he hasn’t legs to leave his bed.’
    So Sella had to supervise the children and Menolly got to the fire: at least long enough to stop shivering. Then Old Auntie would have it that the Uncle would be grateful for some klah, too, so when Mavi entered her kitchen, her eyes searching for her youngest daughter, she found Menolly dutifully occupied serving the oldster.
    ‘Very well then, Menolly, while you’re up there, see that you set the old man comfortably. Then you can start on the glows.’
    Menolly had her warming cup with the Old Uncle and left him comfortable, mournfully exchanging tales of other burials with the Aunt. Checking the glows had been her task ever since she had grown taller than Sella. It had meant climbing up and down the different levels to the inner and outer