L. Modesitt - Ordermaster

Kharl could sense that the steward was telling the truth-and that he felt strongly about the situation. “Did they leave anything else? Other weapons? Tools?”

“Just an unopened keg of cammabark.” Fundal shook his head. “Cammabark, in a place where folk live. Didn’t get a bad price for it, though, but half of that went to Guarlt because I had to go through the Armorers’ Guild.”

Cammabark? A keg of it? In quarters over a stable where it could explode and burn down both the stable and the envoy’s residence? That bothered Kharl, not because it confirmed Hensolas’s treachery, but because it was so at odds with everything he had heard about the lord’s caution. “I’m glad you took care of all that.”

“That’s what a steward’s for, ser.” Fundal smiled, if faintly.

“Did you ever find out where all the mercenary guards came from?”

“Seemed like they came from everywhere. I heard one say he was fromJellico, and another was talking about being glad to leave Analeria. The others … they could have come from anywhere.”

″Thank you.″

“If you’ll not be needing me …″

“I’ll let you know if there’s anything,” Kharl promised.

He moved on toward the back hall. As Fundal had said, the armory had been repainted recently, and there was but the faintest sense of chaos in the space. In less than half a glass, Kharl finished going through the barracks and retainer quarters, and he and the undercaptain made their way back to the library in the main residence.

Kharl closed the door before speaking. “What do you think about what Fundal said?”

“He was telling the truth, wasn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Cammabark? Be an idiot to keep that except in an underground and stone-walled armory, even with what it’s worth.”

“He didn′t take it with him,” Kharl mused. “I’d wager he didn’t buy it, either.”

“Why didn’t he sell it, then, the way Fundal did? Why did he leave the rifles?”

Those were good questions, especially since Hensolas had taken out all the golds he could. Kharl could only shrug.

He walked to the study window, the one nearest the rear of the dwelling, and looked out at the corner of the formal gardens. The white roses were in bloom, as were the lilies. One of the gardener’s boys was following his father, picking up the clippings that fell from the shears as the older man trimmed the boxwood hedge.

Beyond the garden and the grounds, through the trees, Kharl could just make out a far larger dwelling. For all that he had lived in Brysta most of his life, this was a section of the city about which he knew little.

“Ser?” asked the undercaptain.

“We need to take a ride,” Kharl said. “A carriage ride through and around Brysta. Mantar can tell us everything he knows. We need to learn more about Brysta.” Especially the parts that Kharl had never frequented.

“I suppose so, ser.”

“We might not have time, later.”

Demyst nodded.

“If you would tell Mantar to ready the carriage, then find Erdyl.”

“Yes, ser.” Demyst bowed, then turned.

Kharl had his reasons for the ride. First, he did want Demyst and Erdyl to see more of the city. Second, he wanted to see what had changed. Third, he wanted to see if he could sense any more concentration of chaos. And finally, he wanted to see where the other envoys were, as well as where the lord justicers and others of power and wealth lived. As he’d realized, looking beyond the residence gardens, those were parts of Brysta he’d never known, because the wealthy buyers of his barrels had always sent their retainers to pick up the cooperage-and what cooper ever had time to walk around the city?

The ride on sevenday had proved useful not only to Demyst and Erdyl, but, as Kharl had hoped, to himself as well. Mantar had been happy to show off his knowledge of Brysta, and to point out everything from the Quadrancy Keep-the walled hilltop keep of Lord West and his family and retainers-to the various enclaves below it on the hill, the largest of which was the Hamorian. It had also been recently enlarged. At least, several of the outbuildings and walls looked new, and felt that way to Kharl. He had not sensed a chaos-wizard there, and that had worried him, in some ways, more than if he had, although he could not have said why.

Also, in addition to the new barracks building in the old slateyard, there was another set of barracks and stables on the south side of Brysta, beside the road south to Surien, the same road Kharl had walked to Peachill. Patrollers guarded both.

Kharl had the feeling that they had been followed, but not by wizardry or wizards, and supposed that was to be expected. Only a single additional merchant ship, from Suthya, had ported in the harbor, and the coastal schooner had departed. One of Lord West’s two gunships had also ported, looking old, small, and insignificant compared to the Hamorian warships Kharl had seen on the high seas and in port at Swartheld.

Kharl had requested that Mantar take them down Crafters’ Lane, but while his old cooperage now bore the name of Mallamet, he had not seenthe cooper, nor had he been able to make out the inscription on the adjoining building that had once been Tyrbel’s scriptorium. Gharan’s shutters had been closed-not at all unusual for a crafter on sevenday afternoon-so that Kharl could not tell whether Jeka still worked for the weaver. The drive itself was all he thought prudent for the present, until he had a better idea of how matters stood-but he wished he had been able to see and sense more.

After returning, Kharl had sampled the leather-bound books in the library, going through and opening them, reading sections at random. Several were merely compilations of folktales. One was called History of the Ancients, and Kharl read several pages. One paragraph caught his attention.

All across Candar, there are people, usually women, who talk about the “Legend.” Yet there is no evidence to support this Legend, save for the ruins of Westwind itself, and the ruin of a black tower and a walled keep on the Roof of the World tells nothing of its inhabitants or how they lived … They are no written histories dating from that time, except those reputed to be in the archives in Nylan, and no one not of Reduce has ever been granted access to those, if they even exist …

So far as Kharl could tell, most of the pages before and after that paragraph were written in the same vein-claiming that years of tales passed down meant nothing. They had to mean something. They just couldn’t be dismissed, although what they meant Kharl wasn′t certain.

The other volumes were even drier. One was a manual on tanning, and another dealt with rendering. At that, Kharl recalled Werwal, the renderer, who had been one of the few crafters in Brysta who had not turned against Kharl. Another was a thin volume that offered a guide to bookkeeping. There were several hundred volumes on the shelves, and Kharl did not see a one that he found interesting, or likely to be of immediate use, except perhaps the one that dealt with accounts. But he did not wish to spend more time looking through all of them, one at a time, some were so old he could not even make out the titles on their fronts or their spines.

After his brief perusal of the volumes on the shelves, most of which were stuck to the wood on which they rested, Kharl had begun to study the residence ledgers and accounts in greater detail-much greater detail. Hecontinued that effort on eightday. By late afternoon, he was convinced that Fundal was relatively honest. He also felt that the steward was a timid man at heart, and one fearful of changing providers or asking firmly for a better price.