L. Modesitt - Natural Ordermage

“I had to make four copies of the notice this afternoon. After that many copies, you do remember what something said. The effective date is tomorrow.”

Fahla’s lips tightened. Then she stepped back, and called, “Sevien, I have to go.”

“You just came,” the young potter protested.

“I…forgot…something.” Fahla hurried toward the door, then opened it. “Good night, Sevien, Rahl.” With a wave, she was gone.

Sevien strode over to Rahl. “ What did you say to her? She was happy until you two talked.”

“I just told her about the newest Council edict. We worked all afternoon copying it. It was about trade, and how the Council is forbidding trade with Jerans because of the pirates.” Rahl glanced toward the door, still slightly ajar. “She was worried. I wonder if her father’s been trading with the Jeranyi, or even with the pirates.”

“Father says he has good prices, better than the other factors.” Sevien looked at Rahl. “Did you have to tell her?”

“I thought she’d want to know. Besides, all she ever talks to me about is goods and trade, and things like that.”

“That’s all she ever says to me, either,” Sevien retorted. “But what I say doesn’t make her run off.”

“I’m sorry, Sevien.” He was, but he was also worried about Fahla. She was always so sure of herself, and when she’d hurried off, she hadn’t been that way at all, not inside. “I think I’d better go.”

“You…”

“I’ll see you later.” Rahl offered a smile, then hurried out, closing the door behind him.

Once outside, he started home.

As he passed the wall to the orchard, he couldn’t help but worry about Jienela. She’d been upset as well, but he hadn’t promised her anything, and she’d been the one who’d encouraged him. Besides, she’d wanted him to do what he had.

Fahla’s abrupt change in attitude and feelings weighed on him more. She’d arrived cheerful, then almost run out the door. How could trading with Jeranyi upset her that much? Or were she and her family involved in more than that?

It was probably stupid-and possibly dangerous-but he decided to walk down to the chandlery. After all, it wasn’t that late.

He walked confidently through the darkness, knowing that he could find his way better than most people because he had a clear feeling for where things were.

Even before he reached the chandlery, he could sense people around it, but the shutters were closed, and no lamps showed. Rahl had the feeling that whatever was happening was at the loading docks in back. He retraced his steps to the narrow alleyway beside the alchemist’s and eased his way into the deeper gloom near the wall. His left hand rested on the butt of the truncheon for a moment before he grasped it and slipped it out of the leather loops.

Why was he doing this?

He had no idea, except that he was worried about Fahla. She’d acted like she was in trouble, and she never had done that before.

Ahead of him he could sense two wagons backed up to the chandlery’s loading dock. He slowed and hugged the stone wall as he moved silently toward the wagons.

He tried to hear the whispers.

“…sure about this…”

“…copied the notice…quoted it word for word…” That was Fahla.

“…be here in the morning…”

“…can get to the east cove and wait…”

Rahl smelled vinegar. At least, he thought it was vinegar, or maybe pickles.

“…sure that’s wetted down good. Wouldn’t want an explosion now…”

“…vinegar and water…done solid…”

Although Rahl was trying to catch the words, his darkness senses registered someone moving toward him from out of the shadows on the south side of the loading dock.

The man felt as though he carried a red-tinged shadow as he moved toward Rahl, except it wasn’t a shadow exactly. Rahl lifted the truncheon.

The man said nothing, but lunged and thrust at Rahl with a long blade.

Rahl near-instinctively slid/parried the thrust, then stepped inside the blade and kneed the man in the groin while slamming the truncheon across his temple.

Rahl swallowed hard, because a sense of redness-and death-washed over him, even before the man toppled onto the dusty stones. How could one blow from a truncheon have killed a man?

“You hear something? Where’s Hondahl?”

Rahl backed away from the dead man and slipped back down the alleyway as quickly and quietly as he could. He couldn’t believe that the man was dead, and he still worried about Fahla, but he was much more concerned about his own safety.

He stayed close to the wall and kept moving, as well as trying to check to see if any other guards might be nearby, but he didn’t hear, see, or sense any.

Only after he was well away from the chandlery and headed back home did he consider the implications of what he had seen and heard-and done. Somehow, Fahla and her family were tied up with the Jeranyi traders and possibly the pirates. That was probably how they kept their prices low. They also feared more than losing goods if they were loading wagons in the darkness, without a single lamp lit, and had guards ready to kill people.

He was still holding the truncheon in his left hand when he reached his dwelling, and he’d been looking over his shoulder the entire way back.

“Rahl?” called Khorlya a moment after he closed the door.

“Yes. I’m back.”

“Good. Sleep well.”

Sleep well? After everything that had happened?

“Good night,” he finally said as he moved through the darkness to his own small chamber and narrow bed. He closed the door, close as it made the room feel.

After undressing, he lay on his pallet, looking up into the darkness and thinking. Should he have gone to the magisters? But how could he after having killed a man? He knew that was cause for exile, if not worse, even if he had been attacked. But he’d been attacked because he was where he shouldn’t have been after he’d probably revealed something he shouldn’t have to someone who was guilty.

But…he hadn’t known that. He hadn’t even realized that Fahla was guilty until after he’d seen her face at Sevien’s. And then what could he have done?

He shook his head.

Rahl had finally managed some sleep on fiveday night, after persuading himself that he really hadn’t done wrong. He’d only been trying to defend himself against someone who’d wanted to kill him. But he had wondered about the reddish white shadow around the bravo, something that he’d felt, but not seen. Even after getting some sleep, he’d felt tired when Kian had wakened him on sixday.

Then his father had insisted on sparring before breakfast.

Rahl had taken another bruise or two. He had to admit that his father was good with the truncheon, and he probably owed his life to his father’s training, but he wasn’t about to tell him-not for a long time, if ever.

While Kian washed up, Rahl oiled the scarred area of the truncheon where he’d slipped the attacker’s blade, then studied the wood. The scar wasn’t that noticeable, unless he looked very closely. Then he washed up, finished dressing, had breakfast, and headed to the workroom.

There he laid out the mathematics text. He was almost finished, with just a few pages left to copy. As he settled in, Kian appeared with a broad smile.

“You’re almost finished, aren’t you?”

“Yes, ser.”

“Good. I’ll be able to start binding it on oneday, and you can take over the copying of the Philosophies of Candar. ”

Rahl thought that might be even worse than Natural Arithmetics.

“I need to finish the frontispiece, though, and I’d like you to hurry down to Clyndal’s to pick up a book from him. I’m not sure if it’s properly a book, but his nephew’s been apprenticing with him, and Clyndal’s grown fond of the fellow, and he wants to give him a copy of his formulae so that he can set up his own alchemy shop in Lydkler. There isn’t one there, and it’s probably one of the few towns of any size in Recluce that doesn’t have one.”