L. Modesitt - Natural Ordermage

Daelyt frowned for a moment. “The way Alamyrt was looking at you, I thought you did.”

“I saw him on board the Diev, and he said he was a wool trader. I didn’t realize he was part of something larger, not when he was traveling on one of our ships.”

“Doramyl and Sons is one of the largest.” Daelyt laughed. “They’ve got almost a score of vessels. Alamyrt is one of the family. He doesn’t always come, and he never talks when he does. I think he just wants to know what we’re charging.”

“Oh…” Rahl paused, then added, “He must want to get a feeling for it, too. He’d get the quotes from Hassynat.”

“It doesn’t matter to us, so long as they pay.” Daelyt paused. “You heard it all. Why don’t you write it up, and I’ll check it?”

“I can do that. Is the shipper Hassynat of Doramyl and Sons, or just Doramyl and Sons?”

“Hassynat of Doramyl.”

Rahl took a consignment form from his second drawer and set it directly before him. As he settled in to fill out the form, Daelyt slipped from his stool and headed back toward the archway, doubtless to tell Shyret that Alamyrt had recognized Rahl.

Rahl wanted to shake his head. No matter what he did, it seemed like something came up to create problems. Even when he went for a walk or out to find a meal.

He picked up the pen, and another thought struck him, something so obvious that he hadn’t really noticed it at first. For all that Daelyt had said about Klerchyn trying to trick him into offering a lower price for the wool, Rahl had not sensed more than the faintest trace of chaos-mist around the trader-far, far less than what surrounded Shyret, Daelyt, and Chenaryl. Nor had Alamyrt or Hassynat shown any more chaos than Klerchyn.

Rahl forced himself to concentrate on the details of the consignment form.

A people cannot survive in chaos, nor can a land. For this reason, the first duty of any who would rule is to maintain order. Too much order, and a land becomes a prison where nothing is accomplished, save keeping order. Before long in such a land, there will be neither food nor clothing, and order itself will vanish as each person struggles to find nourishment and shelter for himself and those he holds dear. Too little order, and no one respects anyone else, neither his neighbor nor his ruler, and that land, too, will fall into ruin and anarchy.

The lessons of history have illustrated all too clearly that, despite what people say about the need to do good and to respect the persons and property of others, most beings will only do good and respect others either when it costs them nothing or when they fear a greater power will cause them suffering should they not respect others. Using power to instill order and respect, without turning a land into a prison, that is the task of a ruler.

Power is not respected or feared when it is never exercised. Yet, if it is exercised excessively and in an arbitrary fashion, people will become unhappy and unproductive, and that will cause the order of a land to decline. People also become unhappy when power is always used harshly and disproportionately to an offense against order. Likewise, they become confused when the laws governing the use of power are complex and difficult to explain or understand.

Thus, the laws of a land must be both fair and simple. Sometimes, this is not possible, and if it is not, a ruler should err on the side of simplicity, because, no matter how hard administrators, mage-guards, and rulers attempt to assure fairness, absolute fairness is by nature impossible, and attempts to create it always lead to a wider and more complex set of rules and laws, which seem unfair because of their very complexity. In the end, attempting to create absolute fairness will create a greater impression of unfairness than maintaining a firmer and simpler set of rules.

The last precept about laws is this: Create no law that is not absolutely necessary to maintain simple order. Beyond the minimum for maintaining order, laws are like fleas or leeches. The more of them that exist, the more they vex a land and bleed it into chaos and anarchy…

Manual of the Mage-Guards

Cigoerne, Hamor

1551 A.F.

The mist that had cloaked Swartheld on eightday had given way by oneday morning to high clouds that in Recluce would have promised rain. Rahl had doubts that they would and went to work sweeping and mopping the floors. The brasswork could wait a few days, but he did oil and polish the woodwork and furniture. When he finished, he washed up and dressed. He replaced the registry bracelet in his belt wallet, wrapped in cloth once more, rather than wearing it. Then he went and bought some bread from Gostof that he ate in his own cubby, before returning to the front and waiting for Daelyt to arrive.

The older clerk came in whistling, but Rahl thought the melody was a bit off.

“Good morning, Rahl.”

“Good morning. How was your end-day?”

“Quiet. We slept late and went and saw friends. What about yours?”

“I explored a little and had a meal at Hakkyl’s.” Rahl laughed. “I won’t be doing that again anytime soon.”

“I can see why. I took Yasnela there once for her birthday. She told me she wouldn’t stand for my spending that many coins on food ever again.”

Rahl chuckled politely, even though he knew the older clerk was lying. “I suppose once will have to be enough. At least, the Association pays for our meals at Eneld’s.”

“In a way,” replied Daelyt. “We probably get paid less, but Shyret can get the meals for us cheaper than we can.”

Rahl hadn’t thought of it quite that way.

The day went quickly, with traders coming in and seeking consignment space on the Montgren -and even on the Black Holding, which wasn’t scheduled back until an eightday or more after the Montgren, or the Diev, which would arrive in Swartheld even later. Others came in looking to purchase various goods in the warehouse, or to see if they were available.

“We’re in the last eightday of summer, getting on toward fall,” Daelyt pointed out in one lull. “It gets busier then.”

“And winter?”

“That’s busy, too. Late summer is the slowest.”

As the sun dropped lower in the west, and the shadows lengthened outside the Association, a slender man wearing a pale blue fharong hurried into the Association. “I’ve got a remittance for the director.”

“I can take it,” offered Daelyt.

“No. It has to go to him personally. The trader wouldn’t be happy otherwise.”

Daelyt nodded at Rahl, and the younger clerk jumped off his stool and hurried back through the archway.

Shyret looked up from the ledger open before him. “What is it, Rahl?”

“Ser…there’s a man here with a remittance. He won’t give it to anyone but you. Daelyt sent me to tell you.”

The director rose, shaking his head, then ran his fingers through his short iron gray hair. “Because none of them trust their own clerks, they don’t trust mine.”

Rahl stepped aside and followed the director.

As Shyret approached the wide desk, Rahl could sense two kinds of chaos from the remittance man-that of a hidden blade and that of evil or corruption. His hand went to his truncheon.

The man stepped toward Shyret extending a large envelope. “Ser director, this is the remittance from Waolsyn.”

Rahl’s truncheon was out, and he was moving even faster than the attacker. The black wood slammed across the man’s wrist, and the dagger in the hand not holding the envelope dropped to the floor.

The man whirled, dropping the envelope, and sprinted toward the front door. Rahl couldn’t move around Shyret fast enough to stop him.