Dragonsinger recap

Menolly arrives at the Harper Hall as the Masterharper's apprentice, the first girl the craft has taken, with nine fire lizards, a scarred hand and no idea what she is entitled to. Lodged among Lord Holders' daughters who resent her, tested by craftmasters who assume she is a fashionable indulgence, and convinced she was brought only because of her fire lizards, she works through a punishing few days of examinations in composition, theory, voice and instrument-making. Master Oldive treats her hand so that it will heal properly; Silvina, the apprentice Piemur, the journeyman Sebell and the kitchen helper Camo take her side; the bullying at the girls' cottage comes to a head and she is moved into the Hall itself. She teaches others to Impress fire lizards, including the Lord of Fort Hold, and she discovers that songs she wrote alone on a beach are already being sung across Pern. At the end of the week the Masterharper ends her apprenticeship and walks her to the journeymen's tables, making her the Harper Craft's first journeywoman.

Pern's people shelter in stone holds from Thread, a spore that falls from a neighbouring planet and devours anything living; dragons and their bonded riders burn it out of the sky, and the crafts, each with its own hall and Master, supply everything else. The Harper Craft reaches furthest of all: harpers are posted to every hold, and their teaching ballads carry Pern's history, law and survival lore, so the Masterharper's word travels everywhere. In Dragonsong, Menolly, youngest child of the Sea Holder at the remote Half-Circle Sea Hold, was taught music in secret by the hold's old harper Petiron, who sent two of her songs to the Masterharper without saying whose they were. When Petiron died her family forbade her music, insisting a girl could not be a harper, and a gash across her palm was allowed to heal badly enough to end her playing. She ran away, sheltered in a cliff cave during Threadfall, and was present when a clutch of fire-lizard eggs she had saved from the tide hatched; she Impressed nine of the creatures, which nobody had known was possible. Living wild on the coast worked her scarred hand loose again. Caught in the open during a Fall, she was rescued by a dragonrider and taken to Benden Weyr, where the Masterharper found her, identified her as the author of the two songs, and took her away to the Harper Hall as his apprentice.

Menolly reaches the Harper Hall in Fort with her nine fire lizards and immediately runs into a problem nobody warned her about: the Hall has never had a girl apprentice, so there is nowhere obvious to put her. She is lodged not in the apprentice dormitories but in a cottage where a keeper named Dunca houses girl students, most of them daughters and granddaughters of Lord Holders sent to acquire accomplishments rather than a craft. Their reaction to a fisherman's daughter with an apprentice's knot, the Masterharper's personal attention and nine fire lizards is immediate and hostile, and Pona, the best connected of them, organizes the rest. Menolly, raised to expect exactly this, assumes it is her own fault and keeps her head down. Silvina, the Hall's headwoman, and Camo, a slow-witted kitchen worker enchanted by the fire lizards, are the first people to treat her decently.

Menolly's first days are a succession of examinations, because the craftmasters were given an apprentice without explanation and mean to find out what she is. Master Shonagar takes her voice in hand and cares about nothing else. Master Jerint puts her among the instrument-makers to see what her hands can do. Master Morshal, who considers the whole business improper, tests her theory expecting to find gaps. Master Domick, the composition master, is the most pointed of all, treating her as a fashionable acquisition of the Masterharper's and setting work designed to expose her. Meanwhile the apprentice Piemur, who knows everything happening in the Hall, attaches himself to her and starts explaining the politics, and the journeyman Sebell treats her as a colleague. Masterhealer Oldive examines the scar across her palm and tells her plainly that it was mishandled, that it can be improved, and that she must not play until he says so.

Forbidden to play while her hand is treated, Menolly is left with time, no clear place in the Hall's hierarchy and a growing conviction that the Masterharper brought her only because she can Impress fire lizards. Her clutch is a continuing disruption: they follow her everywhere, respond to her feelings, and fascinate everyone who sees them, which does nothing to reduce the resentment at the cottage. The campaign against her escalates from exclusion to open accusation, with Dunca inclined to believe the girls whose families matter to her. Only Audiva, one of the cottage girls, is uneasy about it. The situation ends with Menolly out of Dunca's cottage and lodged in the Harper Hall itself, which removes her tormentors at a stroke and quietly settles the argument about whether she is a student or an apprentice.

Established in the Hall, Menolly is put to work. She teaches fire-lizard care and Impression to harpers and to visitors, including Lord Groghe of Fort Hold, a conventional and short-tempered man who wants one badly and gets a queen, which converts him from a sceptic into an ally. Sebell, who travels for the Masterharper, wants one for a more practical reason: fire lizards carry messages. Piemur, meanwhile, makes sure she hears about herself, and she discovers that songs she made up alone on a beach with nobody to hear them are being sung all over Pern by harpers who have no idea who wrote them. Domick keeps setting her harder work and keeps getting it back completed, which changes his opinion faster than he admits.

Menolly's hand improves under Oldive's treatment and steady use, and she begins playing again. Domick brings out a demanding new composition of his own and puts her in it, which is both a test and an admission, and she gets through the rehearsals and the performance. Her own songs are performed at the Hall. The craftmasters who examined her have their answers, and the Hall's apprentices, who had been taking their lead from the older students, come round once it becomes clear what she can actually do. What remains unresolved for Menolly is her own fear, which she has not said aloud to anyone: that the fire lizards are the whole reason she is there, and that when the novelty passes she will be sent back to the coast.

The last of the tests are behind her and the Hall's opinion has turned. Morshal's objections are overruled by demonstration, Domick states his verdict in the only way he knows how, and Robinton, who has been letting the craftmasters reach their own conclusions rather than imposing his, judges the argument finished. Menolly is teaching, composing and playing again, with Silvina, Sebell, Piemur, Camo and Audiva around her and no cottage to go back to. She is still expecting to be told her place is provisional.

At the Hall's evening meal the Masterharper ends Menolly's apprenticeship after barely a sevenday and walks her to the journeymen's tables, making her a journeywoman of the Harper Craft and the first woman to hold the rank. The craftmasters who spent the week testing her, Domick and Morshal included, accept the judgement because they made it themselves. Her hand is healing, her songs are already travelling Pern ahead of her, the fire lizards are being Impressed all over the north with her as the authority on how, and Lord Groghe of Fort is an ally rather than an obstacle. Her fear that she had been taken in only as the keeper of nine fire lizards is answered directly: she was brought to the Hall because of what she writes. She ends the book with a craft, a rank, a place to live and the Masterharper's plans for her still unexplained.

Menolly's standing at the Harper Hall is settled in her favour on every count. Her hand, treated properly by Masterhealer Oldive and worked steadily, recovers enough for her to play as she used to. The craftmasters who set out to test her, Domick and Morshal in particular, are satisfied by what she can actually do: she sight-reads and performs Domick's demanding new work and holds her own in theory, instrument-making and voice. The trouble at the girls' cottage ends with her out of it and lodged in the Hall itself, and Pona's clique loses its ground. Fire lizards spread further under her instruction, including a queen for Lord Groghe of Fort Hold, and Menolly's own songs are being sung across Pern by harpers who have no idea who wrote them. At the Hall's evening meal the Masterharper ends her apprenticeship after a matter of days and walks her to the journeymen's tables, making her a journeywoman of the Harper Craft, the first woman to hold the rank. Her fear that she was brought to the Hall only as the keeper of nine fire lizards is put to rest: she was brought there to write. What is not settled is what the Masterharper actually intends to do with a journeywoman whose songs travel faster than his harpers do.