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shouting got them through the learning faster. True, they were singing one of
the longer Sagas, word perfect, but with far more exuberance than was strictly
needed. Perhaps it was that exuberance that infected Menolly and reminded her
of a tune she'd tried to set down the day before.
She did not consciously disobey. She certainly was unaware that the fleet had
returned from an early catch. She was equally unaware that the chords she was
strumming were not--officially--of the Harper's craft And it was doubly
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unfortunate that this lapse occurred just as the Sea Holder passed the open
windows of the HalL
: He was in the Little Hall almost at once, summarily dismissing the
youngsters to help unload the heavy
; catch. Then he silently, which made the anticipation of the punishment
worse, removed his wide belt, signaled
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to Menolly to raise her tunic over her head and to hend over the high harper's
stool
When he had finished, she had fallen to her knees on the hard stone flags,
biting her lips to keep back the sobs. He'd never beaten her so hard before.
Hie blood was roaring in her ears so fiercely that she didn't hear Yanus leave
the little HalL It was a long while before she could ease the tunic over the
painful weals on her back. Only when she'd got slowly to her feet did she
realize that he'd taken the gitar, too. She knew then that his judgement was
irrevocable and harsh.
And unjust! She'd only played the first few bars ... hummed along . . . and
that only because the last chords of the Teaching Ballad had modified into the
new tune in her head. Surely that little snitch wouldn't have done any lasting
harm] And the children knew all the Teaching Ballads they were supposed to
know. She hadn't meant to disobey Yanus.
"Menolly?" Her mother came to the classhaH door, the carrying thong of an
empty skin in her hand. "You dismissed them early? Is that wise . . ." Her
mother stopped abruptly and stared at her daughter. An expression of anger and
disgust crossed her face. "So you've been the fool after all? With so much at
stake, and you had to tune..."
"I didn't do it on purpose, Mavi. The song ... just came into my mind. I'd
played no more than a measure . . .
There wasn't any point in trying to justify the incident to her mother. Not
now. The desolation Menolly had felt when she realized her father had taken
the gitar intensified in the face of her mother's cold displeasure.
"Take the sack. We need fresh greens," Mavi said in an expressionless voice.
"And any of the yellow-veined grass that might be up. There should be some."
Resignedly, Menolly took the sack and, without thinking, looped the thong over
her shoulder. She
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caught her breath as the unwieldy sack banged against her scored back.
Before Menolly could avoid it, her mother had nipped up the loose tunic. She
gave an inarticulate exclamation. '^You'll need numbweed on some of those."
Menolly pulled away. "What good's a beating then, if it's numbed away first
chance?" And she dashed out of the Halt
Much Mavi cared if she hurt, anyhow, except that a sound body works harder and
longer and faster.
Her thoughts and her misery spurred her out of the Hold, every swinging stride
she took jarring her sore back. She didn't slow down because she'd the whole
long track in front of the Hold to go. The faster she went, the better, before
some auntie wanted to know why the children were out of lessons so soon, or
why Menolly was going green-picking instead of Teaching.
Fortunately she encountered no one. Everyone was either down at the Dock Cave,
unloading, or making themselves scarce to the Sea Holder's eyes so they
wouldn't have to. Menolly charged past the smaller holds, down aways on the
marshroad, then up the nghthand track, south of the Half-Circle. She'd put as
much distance between herself and Sea Hold as she :could: aH perfectly
legitimate, in search of greenery.
As she jogged along the sandy footpath, she kept her open for fresh growth,
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