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Menolly had been a journeyman almost a year when she decided to compose a piece for a group of instruments, rather than for voice.
Robinton had told Menolly often enough that her strength in teaching songs was important—but she still admired Master Domick’s music, and she knew the Masterharper would hardly object to her widening her horizons.
And while she’d composed songs about fire lizards before—she wanted to share their voices with Pern.
She couldn’t very well compose music for a chorus of fire lizards—not if she wanted anyone but herself and her fair to sing it! But she could mimic their voices with those flutes… “Yes, like you,” she said, tapping Mimic on the nose.
Even at the Harper Hall, it would be hard to find nine flute players; most found the wooden pipes easier. But four, she thought, could be done—two at standard pitch, one low and one high. So she worked out a core tune, first humming and then playing on a standard flute borrowed from Domick. When she was happy with it she wrote it down, working through variations on a sand table of her own.
Each of her fair would have their own movement, she decided—their own verse, if there had been words.
Uncle’s movement would center on the highest flute, soft and hesitant; the two Aunties followed—both focused on the standard flute with some accents from the highest, the one setting forth a pattern and the other elaborating on it at a faster pace. Her browns followed a similar pattern: close to theme for Brownie, then slow and soft, like a lullaby, for Lazybones, who drifted off in her lap as she practiced and the others accompanied her. For Mimic she brought in a third standard flute, played like an echo; then she went back and worked it into the rest of the piece, to be played as quietly as possible until it was time for it to come to the fore.
For the bronzes she showcased the deepest flute, letting the rest fall into the background. A fast-paced staccato movement became Rocky’s, recalling how he’d once scrambled over the rocks hunting spiderclaws; that would go between the browns’ sections and Uncle and the Aunties’. The swoops that had given Diver his name inspired a nearly opposite variation on the theme—sweeping, gliding notes. That would be second to last, she thought.
Because the final movement had to be Beauty’s, of course—all the flutes together, with the most complex part going to the first standard flute. Privately she thought it was the loveliest of the passages—just like her little queen.
The opening gave her the most trouble. Rocky’s and Diver’s passages were too distinct for the place; the aunties’ were a pair, and the browns’ likewise formed a set. Though she felt a twinge of guilt, Uncle’s verse didn’t seem strong enough to start with. And she couldn’t move Beauty’s to the beginning—none of the others was suited to the conclusion.
So she shuffled and reshuffled the sections as summer gave way to winter, making subtle changes to please her own ear and on advice from from Domick and Sebell and even the Masterharper, but never finding what she was missing.
And then, one day, hearing the apprentices sing The little queen all golden as a choir, she laughed. Of course—the old queen, her fair’s mother. The fire lizard that had flown at her, demanding help, all that time ago…
She thought back to that day—the sound of the sea, the old queen’s fierce protectiveness, bright wings in the air—and she thought, too, of the mating flight she’d seen. She remembered the little queen’s rule over her flight, and that gave her the variant she wanted: all five flutes sounding as one, before the first, the queen’s voice, emerged, with the others fading into the background.
Yes, that would do. Tomorrow, she’d go to Domick and ask who he’d recommend for the other three parts. Today—
Menolly raised her flute to test out the central role, and her flight joined in once more.