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quentialities so that Piemur couldn't even ignore his aches by concentrating
on their comments.
"Well, Piemur," said Menolly as they climbed the steps to the Hall, "you
haven't forgotten how to pace a beast.
Shells, what's the matter with you?"
"It's been five bloody Turns since I've ridden one," he said, trying to
straighten his sorely afflicted back.
"Menolly! That's plain cruel," cried Sebell, trying to keep a straight face.
"Into the hot baths with you, lad, before you harden in that posture."
Menolly was instantly contrite, with protests of dismay
and apology. Sebell guided him to the bathing room, and when Menolly brought a
tray of hot food for them all, she served Piemur as he floated in the soothing
water. To Pie-
mur's utter embarrassment, Silvina appeared as he was pat-
ting his sore spots dry. She proceeded to slather him with numbweed salve and,
making him lie down, massaged his back and legs. Just when he thought he'd
never move again, Silvina made him get to his feet. Strangely enough, he could
walk more normally. At least the numbweed deadened the muscular aches enough
for him to make his own way across the court and up to three flights to the
drumheights.
He slept through three drum messages the next morning, the fire lizards'
feeding and half the chorus rehearsal with instruments. When he woke, Dirzan
gave him time for a cup of klah and a meatroll, then quizzed him on the drum
measures assigned him the day before.
To Dirzan's amazement, Piemur beat them out time-
perfect. He'd had plenty of hours in which to memorize them on that runner
ride. As a reward, Dirzan gave him another column of measures to learn.
The numbweed salve had worn oS, and Piemur found sitting on the stool during
his lesson agonizing. He had rubbed his seat bones raw, a combination of the
stiffness of his new trousers and the riding. This affliction pro-
vided him with an opportunity to visit Master Oldive after lunch. Although
Sebell's sacks were in evidence in Master
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Oldive's quarters, even to some herbs piled on the work-
table, Piemur pried no new snippets of information from the
Master Healer. Not even if this had been the first shipment of such medicines.
He did learn that galls hurt more when treated than when sat on. Then the
numbweed took over.
Master Oldive said he was to use a cushion for sitting for a few days, wear
older, softened pants, and ask Silvina for a conditioner to soften his
wherhide.
No sooner had he returned to the drumheights, than he was sent with a message
for Lord Groghe to Fort Hold, and when he came back, set to stand a listening
watch.
He saw Menolly and Sebell the next morning when he fed his trio of fire
lizards but, apart from solicitous in-
quiry about his stiffness, the two harpers were not talka-
tive. The next day Sebell was gone, and Piemur didn't know when or how. He was
able, however, to observe, from the drumheights, the comings and goings, in
and out of
Fort Hold, of riders on runners, of two dragons and an incredible number of
fire lizards. It occurred to him that while he had been congratulating himself
on knowing most of what went on in the Harper Hall, the drumheights let him
observe the larger world which, up till that day, had been unremarked by
himself.
Several messages came in that afternoon, two from the north and one from the
south. Three went out; one in answer to Tillek's question from the north; an
originating message to Igen Tanner Hall; and the third to Master Bri-
aret, the Masterherdsman. To tantalize him, all the mes-
sages were too quickly delivered for him to recognize more than a few phrases.
Infuriated to be in a position to know more and unable to exercise the
advantage to the full, Pie-
mur memorized two columns of drum measures. If his zeal surprised Dirzan, it
irritated his fellow apprentices. They presented him with several all too
forceful arguments against too much application on his part. Piemur had al-
ways relied on being able to outrun any would-be adversar-
ies, but he discovered that there was no place to run to in the drumheights.
While nursing his bruises, he stubbornly learned off three more columns,
though he kept this pri-
vate, tempering his recitations to Dirzan. Discretion, he was learning, is
required on many different levels.
He was not sorry six days later to be told to take a mes-
sage to a minehold situated on an awkward ridge in the
Fort Hold Range. 'With a signed. Harper-sealed tube of record hide, he mounted
the same stolid runner beast
Banak had given him for the previous trip.
Gingerly settling the seat of his now well-softened wher-
hide pants onto the pad, Piemur was relieved to feel no discomfort from his
tail bones as the creature moved off.
The journey should take him two to three hours, Banak said, as he'd pointed
out to him the correct southwestern track. Three hours was probably correct,
Piemur thought as his efforts to increase the pace of his runner failed. By
the time the wide track had narrowed to a thinner trace, winding against a
stony hillside, with deep gorges on the outside, Piemur was quite willing to
let his runner go at that steady, careful pace. As he figured it would have
taken the Fort Hold watchdragon only a few moments to make the trip, and the
watchdragon's rider was quite will-
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