'Ah, d'you have something that isn't harper blue?' he blurted.
'I do,' Merelan said, 'but I don't think Petiron does. Oh! You mean, he might aggravate someone?' She smiled to show that she understood perfectly.
'Ah, yes, that's about the size of it.'
'i'll see what I can do about keeping him occupied,' she said, smiling sympathetically.
Everything went very well for the first two days. The morning of the third, Merelan was entertaining all the children with game songs and teaching them the gestures that went with them, when a very tattered girl, eyes wide with delight, moved closer and closer with surreptitious stealth. When she was near enough, Merelan smiled at her.
'Do you want to join us?' she asked in a carefully soft voice.
The girl shook her head, her eyes wide now with a mixture of longing and fear.
'Oh, please, everyone else is here,' Merelan said, doing her best to reassure the timid child. 'Rob, open the circle and let her in, will you, dear?'
The child took another step and then suddenly squealed when she saw a man charging from the traders' wagon, right at Merelan's circle.
'You there ... you stop that, you harlot! You evil creature, luring children away from their parents ...'
Merelan didn't realize at first that he meant her. The child raced into the shelter of the heavy plantation just beyond the clearing, but that didn't seem to cool the man's fury, for he charged right up to Merelan with his arm raised to strike her.
Robinton ran to clutch his mother's skirts, frightened by the wild threats and crazed behaviour. Meren, the StationMaster, two of the male runners and three other traders charged to her rescue: Meren just in time to push the attacker off balance and away from Merelan. The children were by then all weeping and running away.
'Easy, Rochers, she's a mother, singing baby songs,' Meren said, holding the man away.
'She's singing, ent she? Singing comes first, don't it? Singing to lure kids away! She's evil. Just like all harperfolk. Teachin' things no one needs to know to live proper.'
'Rochers, leave be,' the Station Master said, exercising considerable force to pull the man away, shooting embarrassed and apologetic glances at merelan.
'Come, Rochers, we need to finish dealing,' said one of the traders. 'Come on, we'd nearly shook hands ...'
'Harper harlot!' Rochers shouted, trying to free a fist to wave at
Merelan, who was clinging to Robinton as much as he was clinging to her.
'She's not a harper, Rochers. She's a mother, amusing the kids,' the Station Master said, loudly enough to try to drown out what the man was saying.
'She had 'em dancing!' Spittle was beginning to form in the
corners of his mouth as the men pulled him back to the wagons.
'Get into Dalma's wagon, Merelan,' Meren said quickly. 'We'll clear him out.'
Merelan complied, picking Robie up in her arms and trying to calm his frightened sobs. She slipped behind a tree and through the wooded verge until she could duck into Dalma's wagon, one of the last in the Station clearing. She was shaking when she got inside it, and she nearly shrieked with fear when someone pushed open the little door. But it was only Dalma, her face white with anxiety. She embraced Merelan and tried to soothe Robinton all at the same time.
'Crazy, woods crazy,' she murmured reassuringly. 'Who'd've thought he'd even notice you over there, playing so nicely.'
'What did he mean?' Merelan asked, trying to control her sobs.
She'd never been so frightened in all her life. Especially since she had joined the Harper Hall, which was held with respect everywhere she'd gone as a MasterSinger. 'What could he mean? He called me a harper harlot. And how can singing be bad? Evil?'
'Now, now.' Dalma held Merelan tightly against her, stroking her hair and patting her shoulder, or patting Robie, though he had recovered within the safety of the wagon and in Dalma's comforting presence. 'We run into some real odd folk now and then. Some of 'em have never met a harper, and some don't hold with singing or dancing or drinking. Sev says it's because they can't make wine or beer, so it has to be evil. They don't want their children to know more than they did or you'd better believe it' – and Dalma gave a sour little laugh – 'they couldn't keep them from leaving those awful jungles.
'But it was the way he said 'harper' ...' Merelan swallowed at the tone of hatred in which the word had been uttered.
'Now, now, it's all over with. Sev and the others'll see those woodsie ones leave.'
'And that dear little girl ...'
'Merelan, forget her. Please.'
Although she nodded in compliance, Merelan wondered if she would ever forget the wistful hunger in that child's face: a hunger for music, or maybe just for other children playing. But she stayed in the wagon until Sev came to say that the woodsie ones had left and to apologize for exposing her to such a distressing incident.
There were no further upsets, although she did learn that not every hold where traders stopped had the benefit of harper education.
It was true that there were really not enough harpers to do more than stop in once or twice a year, but Merelan was still shocked at the realization that there was a significant number of cots and small holdings where no one could read or count above twenty.
She didn't dare discuss that observation with Petiron, but she knew she would discuss it with Gennell when she got back.
Though it was all too likely he was well aware of the lack.
Usually the trade caravan made a special occasion for those they visited, and Petiron was no longer merely resigned to performing in the evenings: he enjoyed it. So many good voices, so many instrumentalists – not as expert as those he was accustomed to playing with, but good enough and, more importantly, willing enough to add to the evening's entertainment. He also acquired variants of ballads and airs that were traditional with the small holders but unknown to him. He jotted those down. Some of them were quite sophisticated, and he wondered which was original: the Harper Hall's versions or those which had been passed down through generations in the holds.
One of the most nostalgic ballads – about the Crossing – could indeed be turned into an instrumental piece, starting with the basic melody, haunting enough, and then embellishments added. To transcribe this, Petiron acquired enough of the reed-based writing material which was a local product. It had a tendency to absorb so much ink that his scores were a bit blotchy, but he could amend that when he got back to the Harper Hall. He had always prided himself on his musical memory.
They reached Pietie Hold halfway through the morning of the twenty-first day of travel, even with a full two-day halt at Merelan's home hold. She had a chance to see her family, to exchange news and see all the new babies and congratulate the recent pairings – and to show off Robinton.
Petiron was warmly received by the aunt and uncle who had reared Merelan when her own parents died in one of the fierce autumnal storms which battered the western coastline. He was truly amazed at the number of really fine, if untrained, voices that her hold had produced.
'Not one of them that can't carry a tune,' he told her after the first evening. 'Which aunt did you say gave you your first training?' 'Segoina,' she said, smiling at his astonishment.
'That contralto?'
She nodded, and he whistled appreciatively.
'She insisted that I be sent to the Harper Hall,' Merelan said with considerable humility. 'She ought to have gone, but she'd already espoused Dugall and wouldn't leave him.'
'And wasted that glorious voice on a hold ...' Petiron rather contemptuously indicated the sprawling redstone dwellings which comprised the hold.
'Segoina has never wasted her talent,' Merelan said somewhat stiffly.
'I didn't mean it that way, Mere, and you know it,' Petiron replied hastily. He had seen the genuine respect and love that existed between the two women. 'But she'd have been a MasterSinger ...'
'Not everyone would find that as productive as we do, Petiron,' she said gently, but so firmly that Petiron saw he would offend her with further comment. Indeed, she thought wryly, remembering Rochers, the woodsie, not
