L. Modesitt - Natural Ordermage

“There aren’t any here. The magisters don’t allow them. Now…enough dilly-dallying. Finish up and get on to your chores.”

Rahl finished eating, then washed his bowl, and racked it before turning to deal with chamber pots and his other chores, as well as checking the newest batch of ink.

Later, he did take his time washing up and dressing. He’d just donned his better tunic when he heard his mother.

“Rahl? Are you about ready?”

“I’ll be right there.”

Khorlya was standing by the front door, holding the basket she’d been working on earlier. “Here you go.”

Rahl took the basket, his eyes checking it. Right above the base was the linked chain, woven out of the rushes soaked in thinned ink so that they took up the blackness. The chain swirled up and into the handle and then down the other side. It took a special talent to weave and braid a design so intricate that it looked as though a black chain was actually imbedded in the basket itself. The basket was one that would have sold for a half silver. That wasn’t good, not at all, not when his mother was sending him off with one of her best.

Kian moved toward them from where he’d been sitting at the table, but the scrivener did not speak.

“The honey cake needs to be kept moist,” Khorlya added. “So tell her what it is immediately.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“You’re going to court a girl, not to exile.” Exasperation colored Khorlya’s words.

He was being told to court a girl he didn’t want to consort who lived on lands four kays from anywhere, and it wasn’t exile?

“Now…you take the High Road south, until you get to the base of the long rise that leads to the Black Holding. There’s a lane that heads east, with two stone pillars there, and a set of horns on the right pillar. You take the lane almost a kay until you get to the fork…”

Rahl listened carefully. The last thing he wanted was to get lost-and then have to admit it and ask someone for directions.

“I hope you have a pleasant day, and if you run into trouble, try to talk before you use that truncheon.” Kian opened the door, a clear sign that Rahl was to be on his way.

“And make sure her day is pleasant, too,” added Khorlya.

“I’ll do what I can.”

“Do better than that,” suggested Kian.

“Yes, ser.” Rahl inclined his head, then stepped out into the sunlight.

Once he began to walk southward, he felt better. The breeze was just brisk enough to be cooling. At the corner, he saw Quelerya and Alamat sitting on the weaver’s porch. He grinned and waved with the hand that wasn’t carrying the basket. “Good day!”

“Good day, Rahl,” Alamat called.

Quelerya said nothing, but Rahl could sense curiosity from the old biddy. He kept walking. As he passed the short lane to Sevien’s dwelling, he glanced down it, but he didn’t see anyone there. He walked almost half a kay before his sandals were on the smooth stone-paved surface of the High Road.

He looked southward. He had at least another two kays before he reached the lane. His eyes strayed to the low black-stone buildings at the distant crest of the rise. Were his parents doing the same thing to him that Creslin’s mother had done to him? He shook his head but kept walking.

Behind him, he heard hoofs, and then a voice called out, “‘Ware on the left!”

He eased to the right side and glanced up as a rider in the black of a Council Guard went by. The woman didn’t even really look at him as she hurried past. She could have offered a greeting, but some of the Guards thought they were so important. He snorted. They were all errand runners for the Council. From what he’d heard and seen, the black engineers in Nylan were the ones who did the real fighting and protected Recluce, not that he was about to say that to either his parents or Kacet.

And why were they suddenly so intent on his courting Shahyla? While Rahl had seen and talked to Shahyla more than a few times growing up, he’d never walked all the way to her father’s holding. Why was he doing it? Why were his parents so insistent? Was there something to what his mother had said about machines being used to make books?

But wasn’t there something he could do besides learn to become a herder? Or a Guard? He’d much rather be a factor, even, and working with Fahla, he suspected, wouldn’t always be easy. But it wouldn’t be boring. He grinned at that thought.

He looked up and watched as a cart approached. A gray-haired woman walked beside a mare, holding the mare’s leads loosely. The cart held potatoes. They had to be from the previous fall and probably had been stored all winter in a root cellar.

“Good day,” Rahl said politely as he neared her. “Potatoes for the Guard keep?”

“Indeed, young ser. How did you know?”

“It’s end-day, and the markets aren’t open. It would have to be one of the inns or the keep. That’s a lot of potatoes for an inn.” Rahl grinned.

The woman smiled back as she passed.

Rahl continued on his way, occasionally passing, and being passed by riders and wagons. None of the teamsters going his way offered him a ride, and he found that irked him, especially when he thought about the man who had an empty wagon.

Before long, he reached the point on the High Road where it began to climb and found the first set of pillars easily enough although he was blotting his forehead by then. Before setting off down the lane, he took off his tunic and tied it around his waist. The light undertunic felt far more comfortable, but when he reached the fork, he wasn’t all that much cooler, but he wasn’t sweating as much as he had been.

The right fork wound between two hills. Just beyond the hills were the gate and stone walls that marked the edge of Bradeon’s holding. Rahl stopped and blotted his forehead. He found a spot on the wall shaded by an old pine and sat down to cool off.

After a time, he redonned the tunic and climbed over the wall rather than fiddle with the elaborate latches on the gate. The lane beyond the gate was even narrower and rutted as it rose gently perhaps ten cubits over a quarter kay.

Rahl studied the lands on both sides of the lane. Those to the north were lush meadows or pastures. He wasn’t sure what the difference was. Those to the south looked to have been more heavily grazed and not so fertile. There were trees scattered here and there, and beyond the walls to the south, perhaps a kay farther on, rose the scrubbier juniper and pine protected forests, although in places, he could see the greener and thicker growth of leaved trees.

Just below the top of the low rise was a cluster of buildings-several shedlike barns, smaller sheds, and a long gray stone house perhaps twice the size of the one in which Rahl had grown up. As he neared the dwelling, he could see that at least one of the small sheds held chickens. A hissing told him that there were also geese.

Shahyla stood under the eaves that shaded the front porch, clearly waiting for him. She was a tall girl, taller than Sevien, with wavy brown hair cut just at neck level. She had a pleasantly curved figure, Rahl noted, and clear skin. Her nose was crooked, and her left eye twitched. She wore dark brown trousers above scuffed boots and a clean but faded pale blue shirt. When he stepped up onto the porch, she smiled. The boards of the porch creaked.

“You walked all the way out here?”

Rahl grinned. “How else would I get here?” He extended the basket. “This is for you and your family-both the basket and the honey cake in it.”

“Rahl…the basket is lovely.”

“Mother made it for you.”

“Oh…I’m forgetting manners.” She gestured toward the battered bench set against the outside front wall of the dwelling, between the door and the small square window, open to capture the breeze. “You must be hot and tired. It is a long walk. Please sit down. I’ll get you some ale. That’s all right, isn’t it?”