Chap. 299 Multitasker

Chap. 299 Multitasker

There. How does that feel? Are you pinching anywhere?

Raventh unfurled his wings and stretched like a big cat. The harness hardware shone in the afternoon sun.

It feels good. No pinching.

“Good. He says he doesn’t feel any pinching.”

She’d accompanied him into the harness shop. He remembered spending time in it as a weyrling. He even found where he’d surreptitiously carved his name in one of the scarred wooden benches. Every weyrling learned to make their own harnesses. The sometimes fatal consequences of shoddy workmanship encouraged attention to detail and proper manufacture.

There was a new addition to the shop: a ‘sew machine.’

“See, K’ndar, you pump this pedal with your foot, like this. If I’m sitting on the stool I can’t reach the pedal all the way so I’ll push it standing up. See how the needle goes up and down? Then you just run the strap along the scribe line, it punches the hole in the leather and pulls the sinew through all at once! You control the speed with your foot. You have to be careful, if you pump too fast you’ll mess up the stitch. And if the leather is too thick, it will break the needle and they’re expensive! We’re all just learning how to use it, the Master Tanner said the plans for the sew machine came from Aivas. And one of the journeymen said she was planning on maybe putting a sew machine on the back of a caravan and go all over Pern repairing harness and bridles and stuff. Maybe even boots, but I don’t know how that would work.”

He’d tried it, but lost his nerve after witnessing the gleaming, wickedly sharp steel needle effortlessly punching holes through a thick leather strap. Yes, one was in complete control of its movement with one’s foot-but his fingers were far closer to the needle than his foot. After several fruitless attempts at coordinating foot pedal work, keeping the leather strap in place, trying to follow the scribed line and having to repeatedly back up due to a misplaced hole, he surrendered.

“I’ll just go back to doing it by hand, Glyena. It will take longer, I agree, but I’m more comfortable using the thonging chisel and the blunt needle.” It was then he regretted choosing to installing two extra D rings in spots not normally used for attachment. They were hard to set correctly. But it would be worth the effort.

She clucked like a chicken, smirking at his fear.

She had gathered up the old harness. They’d used as a pattern for the larger new one.

“Look at this! Dry rot? Why did you let this harness get so bad?”

He bridled for a moment, then relented. She was right. It was easier to take her criticism than that from another dragonrider.

“It’s been so busy, it seems as if the day I signed into Landing my life was put on double time. I am ashamed to admit it, I was negligent.”

“Yes. You need to oil it more often! I won’t tell on you, though.”

“TELL on me? Who would you…”

“B’rant, the Weyrlingmaster!”

“Don’t you dare, you brat. I’ll never be able to show my face here again,” he growled, but secretly relieved that she had recovered from their emotional distress of the morning.

The Master Tanner came out to watch the harness fittings. He cast an expert eye on K’ndar’s work, even walking to the other side of Raventh to check the leatherwork. He touched a point on the harness. “Skipped with the skiver, there, K’ndar.”

“Yes, sir.” Damn, the man had eyes like a raptor.

“And your dragon?”

“Raventh, sir.”

“Good day, Raventh,” he said, bowing slightly to Raventh.

And a good day to him Raventh said.

“He says the same, sir.”

He scanned the fit of the harness on Raventh.

“Well done, save for the mishap here and there. Won’t hurt you, though, the leather is good. By the way, your sister there, Glyena, has a real talent for leather working.”

“She does, sir,” he said. He smiled down at Glyena.

“Thank you, sir, I had a good teacher. You,” she said. The Master Tanner crossed his arms across his ample belly and put his head to the side.

“Think you’ll be wanting to get into the craft, lassie? I have journeymen, you know.”

“Yes, sir, I know, but I think I want to be a dolphineer.”

The man grimaced. “I could use a good apprentice, lassie,” he encouraged. “Your average Weyrling is never interested.”

“Um-I’m only ten, sir. But I’ll think about it?”

“Please do.”

K’ndar grinned. He pulled out his pouch.

“How much do I owe you, sir?”

The man looked at the harness. It fit the dragon well, he thought.

“New harness leather, D-rings, and buckles? One mark.”

“Extra, sir, I added two more D-rings.”

“No matter. I can always use the old hardware on something else. It’s still just a mark and thank you for asking.”

K’ndar pulled out the money and handed it to the man.

Glyena looked shocked, but held her counsel.

The man picked up the old harness and left. K’ndar hoped he’d not say anything about the dry rot.

“K’ndar! You gave him money?”

“Of course, why wouldn’t I?”

“Um, well, you never did before. None of the riders here do.”

“Gly. I’m not a member of the Weyr anymore, remember? I signed out. I live and work at Landing, now. I can’t just come in and take something without paying for it.”

“Oh. I didn’t think of that. I guess I forgot.”

Tell her my collar feels a little tight Raventh asked.

“Will you check Raventh’s collar? He says it feels a little tight. He’s very proud of it, you know. No other dragon has a collar, never mind one with his name braided into it.”

“Of course! If he needs a new one, it will take a little while, I think they’ve run out of dye for the leather braiding. But I can put a stretcher in it for now until I get the new one made.”

Lower your head, please? I want to take the collar off.

Raventh obliged. While he unbuckled the collar, Glyena began to scratch under his chin.

Tell her don’t stop. Ever.

He laughed and passed on the message.

“Raventh, you are so beautiful,” she said. Then she hugged him around the neck.

Handsome. Beautiful is the same as handsome?

It is. It’s better. Handsome is what you are to green dragons. Beautiful is what you are to humans.

“He is, isn’t he?” He handed her the collar and gave her a hug.

“Thank you for your help, Glyena.”

“You’re welcome. I like to work with leather. What did you do to this collar? There’s cut marks in it.”

“What?”

“See, look. Here, here, here, it’s like little claw marks all on the top part? Not at the buckle, though.”

“Oh, that’s from Siskin. When we fly, he hooks his hind claws into the collar, and puts his forelegs atop Raventh’s head. And sometimes, when Raventh is drinking, he hangs like a quorl from the collar and drinks, too.”

“Oh, that must look so cute! Siskin, you’re so smart!” she said.

Siskin chirped, and launched, spinning as he flew straight up.

“Dolphins do that! Siskin, did you learn that from the dolphins?”

No, he just does it to impress the females

K’ndar, laughing, relayed the information.

“You’ve certainly impressed me! Yes, you are the best fire lizard of all,” she said.

She looked at the collar closely. “I think I can make up some sort of loop in the collar for him, so it doesn’t claw up the leather. And maybe I’ll put his name in it, too! He’s too small for his own collar.”

“Thanks. I thought you were going to go into tannery, but tell me what you said about wanting to be a dolphineer?”

The look in her eye told him more than any words ever could.

“Oh, K’ndar, they’re just so amazing. I love horses”-she paused, mentally touching the fresh raw spot Jordan’s death had left on her heart-“but you can talk to dolphins, and they tell you what life is like in the ocean. They’re interesting. They’re people, just they don’t have arms or legs. I’ve been talking to them, Swash,and Leap, our cove is their territory. Sometimes I ring the bell just to talk to them. At first I thought I’d get in trouble, but they say it’s okay, they like to talk to humans. This past summer I was swimming with them and the other kids would come, too. K’ndar, I’ve been reading Master Dolphineer Readis’s books and I decided one day, I want to work with them.”

“You don’t want a fire lizard?” he teased.

“I did want a fire lizard,” she said, looking at Siskin, who’d returned to his shoulder, ‘but now I think one would be, um, in the way?”

“I can understand that. There’s nothing that says you can’t be a dolphineer AND a horseman, or a leathercrafter. We can always use all skills.”

“I know. There’s a bunch of things I want to do. I want to work with leather, and I want to be a Runner, and a dolphineer. I want to read every book in the library. I want to know everything.”

“Isn’t it lucky that now, you can? You’re here rather than at the cothold, where we only got a harper in once in a great while? And it was just math and teaching songs, remember? That was long before books.”

“It is. Don’t ever tell Mum, K’ndar. Please. I love Mum, I love Uncle Fland, and our brothers and the cothold, but I love being here. There’s so much to do here.”

“I understand. I felt the same way once I got used to being here.”

“Does it make Mum sad that I’m here?”

“For star’s sakes, NO. Gly, Mum already knows, she knows you’re happy here. She knew even back then, remember? How angry you were, from Hanliss? I can’t even refer to him as our father. He wasn’t, at least not to me. I was happy to leave, and happy he’s gone. And Mum is happy, too, and now she’s with Uncle Fland. Hanliss was cruel, Gly, he was killing your heart, just like he almost succeeded in us boys. You were a little girl, an easy target. He knew you’d never retaliate, not like Sand did.”

Her face twisted. “I hated him, K’ndar.”

“So did I. Trust me, Mum’s heart was torn into little bits when she decided fostering was best for you. You were on a bad path. I was so shocked when you were rude to Nyala’s hands. Mum knew why, we all knew why. She didn’t want to let you go. But she was helpless, she couldn’t keep Hanliss from tormenting you. He did it to all us kids. Mum blamed herself, she believed SHE was being a bad mother. She wanted what was best for YOU, despite wanting you home.”

“No, K’ndar! She was never a bad mother! I remember, her crying after he beat her. I was so little then, but I knew it was wrong what he did. I would hide, I was afraid he would start beating me with the strap. And everyone quit. Even Cooky quit, remember? Oh, wait, that was after you left. Everyone quit. So Mum did all the cooking and cleaning, and I tried to help, and Uncle Fland and Mardriss did all the barn work, all the outside work. Dad was always yelling at him. Uncle Fland started getting in between him and Mum and only because he was bigger, I think, kept Dad from beating on him. They’d fight but not with fists. I never remembered Sand, he left when I was just a baby. So when she said I could stay here, I was glad but I was sad, too. I remember. I cried that first night, K’ndar, even though I didn’t want to go back. I was so homesick, even with you being here.”

“I was, too, the first night I got here. I didn’t want anyone to know I was homesick-and afraid.”

Those were bad times, he thought. How lucky I was to be Searched-and Impressed. I’d probably either be dead or on the run, because I was this close to killing him.

“She released you because she loved you, Gly, and knew that Hanliss would only get meaner, and crueler. It was like she and you were on a sinking ship, with only one dolphin available to save one of you. She chose you.”

“That must have been so hard for Mum.”

He gave her a big hug. “It was. It was hard on all of us, even though I felt lucky to have you here. I still am. Many weyrlings never have their family here, unless they’re weyrbred.”

“I was glad you were here, too. But not that first time, when we rode here from the cothold. I thought you were being mean, too, because of Jordan.” She heaved a sigh.

The thought of losing her horse in the morning gave her pause. Then she remembered when she’d ridden Jordan into this very yard for the first time. She felt ashamed at the memory.

She saw K’ndar about to protest his innocence.

“I didn’t want you to think I couldn’t care for Jordan. I was afraid you’d keep him for yourself. I was wrong to be rude to Nyala’s hands. They’re very nice people. Some people call them drudges but I won’t, ever.”

“That was a shock to all of us, Glyena, and I hope now you understand why I was so hard on you.”

“I do. I was mad at dad, at the world.”

“Yes. And your treatment of them at first is what made Mum decide you needed to get away from Hanliss. And now, look at you. It’s done you a world of good, sis.”

Glyena made a show of inspecting Raventh’s harness. “Master Tanner was right, you slipped with the skiver here, K’ndar,” pointing out a gouge on the edge of a strap.

“Yes, Miss Perfectionist, you are right. But it doesn’t damage the integrity of the harness as a whole.”

She was silent for several long moments. Then, “I have never cried like I did this morning, over Jordan. I feel strange, like it’s almost a good thing to have cried like that.”

“That’s called catharsis, and trust me, I feel it right now, too. I loved him just as much as you.”

She looked at her hands, then met his eyes.

“Does it mean I’m bad when I say I never cried, not once when Dad died? Because I was happy that he was dead.”

K’ndar laughed, remembering her victory dance when they learned Hanliss had died. “Not in my eyes, Gly. And you are not alone. I don’t refer to him as Dad or father because he wasn’t one to me, to you. I refer to him by his name. No. I know there are people who will say yes, we are bad to admit to hating Hanliss. He was our sire, after all. But people who make that sort of judgment never lived with him, now did they?”

“No. No! And I don’t know how to tell them. My sisters ask me sometimes why I’m there, because I’m not weyrbred. And Shirae says they don’t need to be ‘burdened’ by what happened to me. Later on then she will talk to me about it. She’s my second Mum, K’ndar, she’s very kind to me. She says to just let it go. but I can’t, K’ndar. Sometimes things will happen to make me remember and I want to punch something. Hurt him back.”

“That was why you were so rude, so obnoxious. You were releasing your anger in the only way you knew. You were six! The adults around you understood. Even I did and I was only eighteen.” He hugged her.

“You know, now, you don’t have that excuse. You don’t hurt people because you’re hurting. They’re not to blame, nor are you. HE did it and now he’s dead and you are a happy, intelligent girl who wants to be a dolphineer.”

“I do! And a Runner. And I want to make things out of leather. And I want to read all the books in the library so I can be the smartest girl on Pern.”

“ALL of those things? All of them?”

“Can’t I?”

“Well, I don’t know, can you run on water while reading a book about making leather harnesses for dolphins?”

She fell over, laughing.

.