Dragonsinger by Anne McCaffrey Read Free Book Online Page A

continued to stroke the now coyly curved neck. ‘She sings, Domick?’
    ‘Surely you heard this morning’s glorious descant, Jerint?’
    This stocky man was Master Domick for whom she must play? True, he wore an old tunic with a faded journeyman’s markings, but no journeyman would have addressed a master by his bare name nor would he be so self-assured.
    ‘This morning’s descant?’ Jerint blinked with surprise, and some of the bolder apprentices chortled at his confusion. ‘Yes, I remember thinking the pitch was a bit unusual for pipes, and besides that Saga is traditionally sung without accompaniment, but then Brudegan is always improvising …’ He gave an irritable wave of his hand.
    Beauty reared up on Menolly’s arm, startled into fanning her wings for balance and digging her hind talons painfully through Menolly’s thin sleeve.
    ‘Didn’t mean you, you pretty thing,’ Jerint said by way of apology and caressed Beauty’s headknob until she’d subsided to her former position. ‘But all that sound from this little creature?’
    ‘How many were actually singing, Menolly?’ asked Master Domick.
    ‘Only five,’ she replied reservedly, thinking of Dunca’s reaction to the figure nine.
    ‘Only five of them?’
    The droll tone made her glance apprehensively at the stocky Master, wondering if he were taunting her, since the half-smile on his face gave her no real hint.
    ‘Five!’ Master Jerint rocked back on his heels with amazement. ‘
You
… have five fire lizards?’
    ‘Actually, sir, to be truthful …’
    ‘It is wiser to be truthful, Menolly,’ agreed Master Domick, and he was teasing her, not too kindly either.
    ‘I Impressed nine fire lizards,’ said Menolly in a rush, ‘because, you see, Thread was falling outside the cave, and the only way I could keep the hatchlings from leaving and getting killed by Thread was to feed them and that …’
    ‘Impressed them, of course,’ Domick finished for her, when she faltered because Master Jerint was wide-eyed with astonishment and incredulity. ‘You will really have to add another verse to your song, Menolly, or possibly two.’
    ‘The Masterharper has edited that song as he feels necessary, Master Domick,’ she said with what she hoped was quiet dignity.
    A slow smile spread across the man’s face.
    ‘It is wiser to be truthful, Menolly. Didn’t you train all your fire lizards to sing?’
    ‘I didn’t actually train them, sir. I played my pipes, and they’d sing along …’
    ‘Speaking of pipes, Jerint, this girl has to have an instrument until she can make one herself. Or didn’t Petiron have enough wood to teach you, girl?’
    ‘He
explained
how …’ Menolly replied. Did Master Domick think Sea Holder Yanus would have wasted precious timber for a
girl
to make a harper’s instrument?
    ‘We’ll see in due time how well you absorbed that explanation. In the meantime, Menolly needs a gitar to play for me and to practise on …’ He drawled the last two words, his stern glance sweeping around the room at all the watchers.
    Everyone was suddenly exceedingly occupied in their interrupted tasks, and the resultant energetic blows, twangs and whistles made Beauty spread her wings and screech in protest.
    ‘I can hardly fault her,’ said Domick as Menolly soothed the fire lizard.
    ‘What an extraordinary range of sounds she can make,’ remarked Master Jerint.
    ‘A gitar for Menolly? So we can judge the range of sounds
she
can make?’ Domick reminded the man in a bored tone.
    ‘Yes, yes, there’s any number of instruments to choose from,’ said Jerint, walking with jerky steps towards the courtyard side of the L-shaped room.
    And indeed there were, Menolly realized as they approached the corner clutter of drums, pipes, harps of several sizes and designs, and gitars. The instruments depended from hooks set in the stone and cords attached to the ceiling beams, or sat dustily on shelves, the layers of dust increasing as the