L. Modesitt - Magi'i of Cyador

“We deserve it, one way or another. I hope as reward. You may need it as recompense. You can sit, dear lancer.” The redhead sets the stew kettle on the cracked green ceramic trivet in the middle of the table. She sniffs. “Oh … something’s burning.” She scurries back to the stove and uses a heavy woolen mitt to open the oven door. A curl of gray smoke drifts upward as she struggles to get a short baking paddle under the roughly circular loaf of dark bread. After a moment, she turns and eases the loaf into a dry woven grass basket that she carries to the table. “Good. It didn’t burn. It was just the dough that I slopped on the bottom of the baking grate.”

“You don’t slop things.” Lorn pulls out the ancient armless wooden chair and seats himself.

“When I cook, I do.” Ryalth seats herself.

Lorn takes the battered wooden-handled cupridium ladle and dishes the stew into Ryalth’s crockery bowl, then into his own. He nods toward the basket and the steaming loaf.

“You don’t trust my cooking?” Her tone is mock-plaintive. “Even before we’re to be consorted?”

“My most honored lady trader, I have always trusted your cuisine … long before I proposed this coming consortship. Or have you forgotten that so soon?” Lorn does his best to mimic her plaintive tone.

Her laugh is a warm caress, and he smiles inanely.

“The sole worry I have had about you,” he says, “is your traveling all this way from Cyad into the near wilds of the east of Cyador.”

“I did not travel alone, but your factor friend Dustyn was kind enough to provide lodging … for Eileyt-I thought it wise to bring an enumerator-and a hired guard.”

“You were probably most wise, and even wiser not to have them here.”

“Wiser for you … or for me?” Ryalth arches her fine eyebrows.

Lorn finds himself flushing, and takes refuge in a mouthful of the crusty hot bread. He swallows abruptly, reaching for the crockery mug that holds his Alafraan, as he senses the chill of a chaos-glass casting for him.

“Still?” Ryalth murmurs, her lips barely moving.

“It is the second time since I came off patrol,” he murmurs back, lifting the mug in a toasting gesture he does not feel, forcing a smile.

“To us, despite those who watch.” Ryalth responds with a smile that appears less forced than Lorn’s feels to him.

“To us.” His smile feels more natural as the chill of the glass fades.

“Has this happened often?” she asks quietly.

“At times since I’ve been here, but more often recently. A majer in Geliendra suspects that I am more than I appear. What of you?”

“But a time or two, and the chill was not near so … unfriendly … not so cold.”

“Perhaps it was my father. He has recently hinted that I was right about you, and that he was mistaken.”

Her fine eyebrows arch. “Your father of the Magi’i-the renowned Fourth Magus?”

“There is no Fourth Magus,” Lorn points out.

“Not in name, but that is what many call him, in respect,” Ryalth says. “All throughout Cyad.”

Lorn laughs. He cannot help it. “He tries to discover more of you, and you of him, and neither tells me.”

Ryalth shrugs so helplessly that Lorn finds himself shaking his head, half in admiration, half still in amusement.

After a moment, Ryalth takes a sip of the Alafraan, and then some of the stew. “It does have a good taste.”

His mouth full, Lorn nods.

They both eat for a time, until Ryalth looks up. “I’ve never been consorted,” she says slowly.

“Nor I, dear lady.”

“I know it must be recorded for the Emperor.”

“Recorded for, but not sent to him,” Lorn points out. “Unless requested. It may be that no one will request the records of the town of Jakaafra for a long time.” He shrugs. “If they do, what will they find? That a lancer consorted with a merchanter lady?”

“That is but what they would find in Cyad.”

“But where they find it conveys a far different message. Were we to consort in Cyad, all manner of schemes would be placed at our doorsteps. Here … the message is that we wish to escape notice.”

Ryalth frowns slightly. “You think that to be true?”

“I hope many will take it so. If indeed they discover such.”

“With Magi’i screeing us both?”

Lorn shrugs. “They may not scree farther, now that they have seen us together in a quiet dwelling. If none see the signing of the book tomorrow …”

“I care not who may know.”

“I would prefer none know till you return to Cyad. I will give you scrolls to my parents, and Myryan.”

“You would make me a messenger, now?”

Lorn flushes. “I meant just for you to carry them to Cyad and send them by messenger from there. That way, they would learn earlier.”

“So long as that is what you intended …” The serious phrasing that begins her admonition gives way to lilting, almost laughing, words that are followed by a grin.

“Woman … trader … you are most dangerous.”

“ You are the dangerous one.”

“Not me. Not now.”

Ryalth brushes off his disclaimer. “You worry about this majer?”

“I would not have him strike at you.”

“No. He will not strike at me. His lancer honor is too precious for that. Were he a merchanter, now …”

They laugh again, together.

LORN PACES BACK and forth in the dwelling’s main chamber, trying not to let the Brystan sabre bang into anything. He supposes he should have worn the lancer weapon, but he feels more comfortable with the older weapon, and it feels somehow right.

He glances toward the bedchamber where Ryalth is fastening a scarf over hair that she has laboriously curled, pinned, and braided. She wears a formal blue tunic with loose flowing blue shimmercloth trousers. Then comes a blue woolen cloak, with a narrow cream and green border, before she studies herself in a hand-mirror.

“Are you ready for me to get the mounts?” he asks.

“Are you worried?” Ryalth glances at Lorn, wearing his formal Lancer cream uniform with the green and white piping. “You keep walking back and forth.”

“No. I just feel useless at the moment.”

The redhead turns and studies him. “You’re going to makesure that everyone knows you’re a lancer.” She grins. “So much for a quiet consorting.”

“Everyone in Jakaafra would know no matter what I wore,” he points out. “Besides, they’ll all be looking at you, not at me.”

“Go get the mounts.”

He bows with a smile. “As you command, my lady.”

“Go.” Both her mouth and eyes return the smile.

The clear mid-morning remains chill, but the breeze out of the northeast is light, sometimes even dying away, as Lorn leads both mounts from the small stable to the door. He had saddled them before he had washed and dressed. A carriage might have been more appropriate, but he knows of none for hire in Jakaafra.

He waits for a time longer before the door, holding the reins of the two mounts, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, and wondering what other preparations Ryalth makes behind the privacy screen. He is almost ready to tie the horses to the hedge and go back inside when Ryalth steps out and latches the door behind her.

“You see? I wasn’t long.” She glances at his face. “Not too long, anyway.”

“You’re even more lovely than usual.” Lorn offers a hand as she mounts.

“I should get consorted more often.”

“I’m sorry it wasn’t earlier.” Lorn mounts easily.

They ride slowly toward the square and the center of town. As they pass one of the larger dwellings-on the north side of the road, two women standing outside the green ceramic privacy screen watch closely without speaking. Once Lorn and Ryalth have passed, the women’s voices drift toward them on the barely perceptible breeze.