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"Oh, Robie," she said teasingly. "I'm much better. Don't fret. You know things will be easier ... now ..." she added apologetically. "I shall write or drum if I don't hear from you, young man. You hear me?"
"Indeed I do, MasterSinger. They've quite a good network of ru
"They'd have to," she said with a patronizing sniff. "Living back of beyond like that."
The unmistakable trumpeting of a dragon reverberated through the courtyard. "I believe your transport has arrived," she said, smiling, though her chin seemed to quiver.
He hurried to load up his packs, but was interrupted by the appearance of Masters Ge
"I'm honoured – I mean, you don't need to ..." Robinton tried to protest, but he was overruled. Shrugging, he allowed them the duty.
Master Ge
"You made it, huh?" F'lon shouted as he slid down to Simanith's raised forearm and started piling luggage on the harness.
"Congratulations, Journeyman Robinton! You've got greetings from all your old friends at Benden, Weyr and Hold." To the other new journeymen waiting in the courtyard for their conveyancing, he said, "Your dragons will be along shortly – and congratulations."
Loading took only moments and then Robinton had to make his farewells. His mother pulled his head down for one last kiss and embrace. He shook hands with the Masters and promised them that he'd do his best.
"Give my special regards to Master Lobira," his mother called as he climbed up to Simanith's back. "He may remember me."
"Now who can forget you, Merelan?" Master Ge
That was how Robinton remembered his mother in the trying initial days under Master Lobira's supervision. Fortunately, F'lon deposited him and his effects in the courtyard of the high and windy Hold and departed, seen by relatively few. And especially not Master Lobira.
For that person was unimpressed with having so young a journeyman.
"Don't know what Ge
It didn't help, Robinton thought, that he towered above the diminutive MasterHarper. The man came not quite to Robinton's shoulder; he was heavy in the chest – he sang bass – and narrowed through the hips to short, ski
"I never expected to walk so soon," Robinton murmured, trying to be self-effacing.
Lobira gave him a quick look, as if he thought Robinton was dissembling. "I shall expect much from you then, young man. Where were you raised? Who are your parents?"
Robinton was quite happy to answer since he hoped that would mollify his new Master. But if his mother met with Lobira's approval, his father did not. Robinton was at first shocked – less at the blunt remarks about his father's sort of composing, which Lobira felt was far too sophisticated to be of any use to anyone, than at hearing such criticism voiced, especially in front of the man's son. Not that it didn't mirror his own very private assessment of Petiron's ornate compositions, but to have mentioned such doubts would have seemed disloyal and a betrayal: as if his own songs merited more attention than his father's more ambitious works. It came as another shock that it was his music which Lobira used extensively – though Lobira did not know that Robinton had been the composer. That had been a secret kept in the Hall, evidently, and not made public even to Masters outside the Hall.
Robinton knew better than to make something of that approval, but it did much to help him endure Lobira's crotchety behaviour, his temper, his inconsistencies and his general dislike of having to break in a "snot-nosed, wet-eared" novice.
Still, when the old Master saw how patient Robinton was with some of the more backward students, he began to mellow a trifle.
He even delivered a word or two of appreciation. Lobira himself was too short-tempered, and quick with a slap for the inattentive, so Robinton was given not only the slow but the very young, who had to be taught the basic Teaching Ballads. He didn't mind: in fact, it was a pleasure to sing those songs of his which Master Ge
He was also assigned the duty of spending several days of each seven-day going to the distant holds, often the only outsider they would see. These trips would end once the heavy weather settled in
the high hills; so he copied out extra music for the holders to keep and study until his next trip. He had to write a report for each of his journeys; to his surprise, Lobira went over these reports carefully.
Besides Robinton and Lobira's three apprentices, there was another journeyman harper, Mallan, who was High Reaches born, and who handled other Teaching routes and also some of the classes in the big Hold. The two journeymen shared a small i
"None of them could carry a tune in a sack," Robinton once heard Lobira say in total disgust. "Took after their mother's side.
But they've done well. They've done well."
Lotricia was always bringing "her boys' – as she called the journeymen – extra food. "You're all growing, and you're all nothing but bones," was her happy complaint, and her offerings were always welcome.
With such constant travel and the busy schedule in the Hold when he wasn't travelling, Robinton had little time to compose. He took to writing the tunes which filled his head while on the road, stopping frequently to note, in tiny cramped script, the measures that he had piped, whistled or sung into being as he trudged up and down steep tracks. He barely missed injuring himself on several occasions when composing so distracted him that he strayed off the narrow ru
With the first big snowstorm, his travelling came to a halt. In fact he was trapped for three days in Murfy Hold, which was cramped at best, and worse when the fifteen members of the hold were confined day and night.