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shouldn’t—’
    ‘How should you? Not to worry, Menolly. You’ll fit in here just fine. Now, let’s wrap up your bundle and show you the way to Dunca’s. Then Robinton wants you to borrow a gitar. Master Jerint is sure to have a spare usable one in the workshop. You’ll have to make your own, you know. Unless you made one for Petiron at the Sea Hold?’
    ‘I had none of my own.’ Menolly was relieved that she could keep her voice steady.
    ‘But Petiron took his with him. Surely you …’
    ‘I had the use of it, yes.’ Menolly managed to keep her tone even as she rigidly suppressed the memory of how she had lost the use, of the beating her father had given her for forbidden tuning, playing her own songs. ‘I made myself pipes …’ she added, diverting Silvina from further questions. Rummaging in her bundle, she brought out the multiple pipes she had made in her cave by the sea.
    ‘Reeds? And done with a belt knife by the look of them.’ said Silvina, walking to the window for more light as she turned the pipes in a critical examination. ‘Well done for just a belt knife.’ She returned the pipes to Menolly with an approving expression. ‘Petiron was a good teacher.’
    ‘Did you know him well?’ Menolly felt a wave of grief at her loss of the only person in her home Hold who had been interested in her.
    ‘Indeed I did.’ Silvina gave Menolly a frown. ‘Did he not talk of the Harper Hall at all to you?’
    ‘No. Why should he?’
    ‘Why shouldn’t he? He taught you, didn’t he? He encouraged you to write … Sent Robinton those songs …’ Silvina stared at Menolly in real surprise for a long moment, then she shrugged with a little laugh. ‘Well, Petiron always had his own reasons for everything he did, and no-one the wiser. But he was a good man!’
    Menolly nodded, unable for a moment to speak, berating herself for ever once doubting, during those lonely miserable days at Half-Circle after Petiron’s death, that he’d done what he said he’d do. Though the Old Harper’s mind had taken to wandering …
    ‘Before I forget it,’ Silvina said, ‘how often do your fire lizards need to be fed?’
    ‘They’re hungriest in the morning, though they eat any time, but maybe that was because I had to hunt and catch food for them, and it took hours. The wild ones seemed to have no trouble …’
    ‘Feed ’em once and they’re always looking to you, is that it?’ Silvina smiled, to soften any implied criticism. ‘The cooks throw all scraps into a big earthen jar in the cold room … most of it goes to the watchwhers, but I’ll give orders that you’re to have whatever you require.’
    ‘I don’t mean to be a bother …’
    Silvina gave her such a look that Menolly broke off her attempt to apologize.
    ‘Be sure that when you
do
bother me, I’ll inform you.’ Silvina grinned. ‘Just ask any of the apprentices if I won’t.’
    Silvina had been leading Menolly down the steps and out of the cliffhold of the Harper Hall as she talked. Now they passed under an arch that gave on to a broad road of paving stones, never a blade of grass or spot of moss to be seen anywhere.
    For the first time Menolly had a chance to appreciate the size of Fort Hold. Knowing that it was the oldest and largest Hold was quite different from seeing it, being outside the towering cliff.
    Thousands of people must live in the cliffholds and cottages that hugged the rock palisade. Awed, Menolly’s steps slowed as she stared at the wide ramp leading to the courtyard and main entrance of Fort Hold, higher in the cliff face than the Harper Craft Hall, and with rows of windows extending upwards in sheer stone, almost to the fire heights themselves. In Half-Circle Sea Hold, everyone had been in the cliff, but at Fort Hold, stone buildings had been built out in wings from the cliff, forming a quadrangle similar to the Harper Craft Hall. Smaller cottages had been added on to the original wings, on either side of the ramp.