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"She wouldn't vocalize to warm her voice and told me' – Petiron swung on his spouse – "that you didn't bother ..."
"I didn't "bother" because I could never get her to see the necessity, Petiron," she replied with considerable vehemence. "Washell is of the opinion that if she continues to sing in alto for another few years, she won't be able to squeak."
Petiron recoiled in surprise at his gentle spouse's critical remark.
"No wonder you were so eager for me to coach her," he said almost sullenly.
"If you can't, no one in this Hall will be able to," she said, looking him squarely in the eye. "She might believe you, where she's certain I'm jealous of your interest in her."
Petiron scowled. "Aren't you?"
Merelan laughed. "My love, I wouldn't be that child for all the diamonds on Ista's beaches. Washell's right, you know. She won't have a voice left if she keeps on this way."
"He is right," Petiron admitted, and scowled more deeply. "Well, she is not..." he paused dramatically "... mining either the duet or the aria. I shall make some changes in both that will put the music at a level she should be able to sing."
Merelan merely nodded.
When Petiron held his next session with Hala
"You can't do that!" Hala
"Oh, yes I can! You're incapable of singing what I wrote."
"Incapable? How dare you?"
"How dare you address a Master in such a tone, young woman! I don't know what Maxilant taught you, but it wasn't ma
"Simple score? You're notorious all over Pern for the complexity of your music. I never hear anyone singing what you write. No one can!"
"The first-year apprentices have no trouble. But then, they can read music and know the value of the notes they're singing."
"I do know how to read music."
"Then prove it."
"No!"
"You will sing."
"You can't force me!"
Many agreed that they had heard the crack of flesh hitting flesh. And it was true that the right side of Hala
"I hope he didn't push her too far," Merelan murmured to Washell.
"Perhaps it might be better for all of us if he did," he replied uncharitably.
After that session, Hala
She was seen a little later on her way across the great Fort Hold courtyard to the cottage where she slammed and bolted the door of the room she still shared.
What they didn't realize until the next morning was that she had bribed a Drum Tower apprentice to send an urgent message to her father, Halibran, saying she was being abused. Petiron admitted that he had slapped her, to stop her hysterical ranting – to which everyone in the Hall had been audience. Any Master was permitted to chastise a student for inattention or failure to learn assigned lessons.
When MasterHarper Ge
"No one understands me in this place. I'm being humiliated at every turn, and I had expected so much from you!" she said. "So much, and you're like everyone else after all!"
Betrice later told Merelan that she almost laughed out loud at such a performance.
"No one has humiliated you, young woman," Ge
"Apologize?" Hala
"That's enough out of you," Ge
That was more easily said than done. It took Ge
The sentry on the Fort Hold eastern tower spotted the ten armed men racing up the harbour road and blew the alarm, which alerted both Lord Grogellan and the Harper Hall. Having been informed of the illegal drum message, Grogellan assembled a larger force from his sons, nephews and armsmen to meet the newcomers just as they turned into the Harper Hall quadrangle. Master Ge
As Halibran and his troops halted their ru
"She's been at it again, Father," one of Halibran's riders said in disgust. "She was the one abusing, I've no doubt." The resemblance to his sister was obvious, and he was not the only young blond male in the group with a similar cast of countenance.
Halibran, dismounting, waved the young man to hold his tongue. Not a major holder, though a wealthy one from the produce of his lands and the mines under them, he had none of his daughter's arrogance as he mounted the steps and held out his hand to the MasterHarper.
"Since she is sequestered, I assume that Hala
Master Ge
The screeching, which the new arrivals were pointedly ignoring, took on a shriller note.
"The fault lies in me," Halibran said with a weary sigh. "Her mother died at her birth, and with six brothers she has been much cosseted."
The brother who had spoken gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head and then looked away. The other two managed not to grin, but it didn't escape anyone that they had probably tried to get their father to school his daughter's behaviour.
"What did happen that made her send such a message?" Halibran asked.
Ge
"She is musically almost illiterate, Holder Halibran," he said in a flat and firm voice, "although I know Harper Maxilant to be a competent musician."
"Maxilant did suggest that the Hall might succeed where he was failing," Halibran said, raising both gloved hands in helplessness, his answer directed more to Ge