L. Modesitt - Natural Ordermage

“Jienela,” snapped Jaired. “She’s going to be your consort, one way or another.”

Rahl smiled easily. “I’m sorry. Why would I do that? I’m but an apprentice scrivener.”

“Because you’re the one who got her with child.”

How could that be? Jienela? Rahl hadn’t sensed that she was…anywhere near that time, but Jaired bore an air of complete conviction.

“Are you so sure of that?” Rahl didn’t want to say he hadn’t slept with her.

“Who else could it be? You’re the only one she’s been looking at or walking with,” retorted Jaired.

“That’s what you’ve seen. Maybe we haven’t done anything more than that. Walking with a girl doesn’t get her with child.”

Jaired flushed. Then his face hardened. “You’ll not be slandering my sister. She’d not be doing what she shouldn’t.”

Rahl refrained from pointing out that Jienela couldn’t be carrying a child without having done something Jaired felt she shouldn’t have been doing. “And I suppose that was true of you and Coerlyne?”

“You leave her out of this!”

Rahl was between the copying table and the back stone wall of the workroom, and still without any weapon. “You’ve come in here and accused me of something without even letting me say a word. Don’t you think I should be able to say something?”

“I’m not for talking. It’s what you do to make things right that counts.”

“Let’s talk about what you want me to do.”

“You ask Da for her hand. There’s nothing else to talk about.”

“Then what?” asked Rahl. “After that, I mean.”

“You become consorts. That’s what.”

“And will your da pay Jienela a stipend?”

“A what?” A momentary look of confusion crossed the young grower’s face.

“Coins. Apprentice scriveners don’t make that much. My father barely brings in enough coins for himself and my mother.”

“You shoulda thought a’ that. That’s your problem, Rahl.”

“If…if I did what you say, it is,” admitted Rahl. “But…if you insist on our becoming consorted, it becomes Jienela’s problem as well. Do you really want your sister not to have enough to eat? Or not enough warm clothes come winter?”

“You shoulda thought a’ that,” repeated Jaired.

Rahl was getting tired of that phrase, but he was in no position to object strenuously. Not yet.

“If…as I said, I did what you think, I should have. But if I didn’t, why would I?”

“You did it. I know you did.”

“Oh…and I suppose Jienela told you?” Rahl’s voice was gently scornful.

“Jienela’s protecting you, but you’d not be deserving that.” Jaired raised the truncheon.

“But she is.”

Jaired stopped.

“If…if I did it, then you don’t want to injure me because how would I support your sister? If I didn’t do it, you shouldn’t injure me because I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You twist words worse than a magister,” growled Jaired.

“I’m only pointing out that trying to beat me with that truncheon won’t do anyone any good. Neither will coming in here and yelling at me and telling me I have to do something that I never promised to do and that my parents are against.” Rahl moved away from the copying table and toward the narrow heavy frame Kian used to stretch leather for binding. There was a long knife in a battered sheath fastened to one side of the frame, the side shielded from the young grower.

Rahl had never liked using the knife; it bothered him almost as much as the gelding knife Shahyla had showed him. But Jaired didn’t have to know that.

Jaired frowned. “You think you’re so smart.”

“Everyone’s smart at different things,” Rahl said, taking another step toward the frame. He extended a hand as if to straighten the frame, then let his hand drop to the knife hilt, grasping it and sliding it out.

Jaired looked at the long knife and at Rahl.

Rahl smiled.

“You’d better think about what you’re doing,” the grower said. “Just because your da’s a scrivener, you can’t get away with hurting my sister. You’ll see.”

“I certainly didn’t force your sister to do anything,” Rahl said. “I don’t like being blamed and threatened for what she wanted to do. I never promised anything.” He took a step forward, holding the knife low. The afternoon light coming through the windows glinted on the polished dark iron.

Rahl could sense the other’s fear. In a strange way, that amused him, how Jaired had been so sure of himself when he’d thought he’d had the only weapon and the upper hand. Was confidence all about who believed himself to have more power?

“You can’t do that to her,” Jaired said.

“I’m not doing anything to anyone,” Rahl said. “I’m just saying that you can’t force what you want on me.” He took another step forward.

“This isn’t over,” blustered Jaired.

“I tell you what,” Rahl said quietly. “You just get out of here, and you think about things over the end-day, and so will I.”

“You better think hard, scrivener. You’d better.” Jaired backed up to the half-open door, then turned and left, hurriedly, but not quite at a run.

As soon as he was certain Jaired was well away from the house and workroom, Rahl replaced the binding knife with a shudder of relief. Then he quickly hurried to his sleeping chamber. There he reclaimed his truncheon before returning to the workroom. He laid it on the side of the copy table.

Should he tell his father and mother? He might as well-or at least suggest part of the problem. They’d find out before long and not necessarily in the way least unfavorable to Rahl. But…when…that was the question…and how much?

He didn’t know how much time had passed, but it wasn’t long before the workroom door opened and Khorlya peered in. “I was coming up the road, and I saw someone leaving…”

“That was Jienela’s brother Jaired.”

“What would he have been wanting?”

“To know if I intended to ask for Jienela’s hand. I don’t know where he got that idea.”

“It might have been that you spent more than a little time in the orchard with her.”

“I never said anything about consorting her, and I said so. He wasn’t happy when I told him that. He threatened me with a truncheon.”

“He’s concerned about his sister.”

“That doesn’t give him the right to barge in here and demand I consort with her.”

“Rahl…I told you that you shouldn’t see her.”

“I stopped seeing her-eightdays ago. Jaired didn’t like that, either.”

“He always has been a hothead, but-”

“From what I’ve heard, he’s always been hot elsewhere.”

“Rahl!”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Did you sleep with her?”

“She’s a year older than I am,” Rahl pointed out.

“You’re not answering the question.”

“I did…once.” That was partly true. He had slept with her once, then several times more. “She surprised me.” That was totally true, not that he’d been displeased.

“Rahl…” His mother shook her head. “This could make things very difficult.”

“You know that when you told me not to see her anymore, I didn’t. And I didn’t promise anything.”

“Sometimes, actions are promises,” Khorlya said tiredly. “What you do is more important than what you’ve said.”

Rahl could feel himself getting both angry and irritated. “She was the one who started things, and now Jaired and you are both blaming me. I wouldn’t have done anything if she hadn’t been the way she was…and I didn’t let it last very long.”

“Rahl…what’s done is done. Who was more to blame isn’t the question.”