L. Modesitt - Magi'i of Cyador

“Yes, ser.” Chyenfel agrees quickly.

“As you command,” adds Rynst.

“As you require,” concludes Bluoyal.

Toziel stands, and the three advisors bow. Then the Emperor and his consort depart, Ryenyel remaining a half-pace behind Toziel until they have left the audience chamber and until the door has closed behind them. They return silently to the Empress’s salon.

There, the two sit side by side on the white divan. Toziel’s hand caresses his consort’s neck, and then her shoulders.

She turns. “Chyenfel believes what he tells you, my dear.”

“That is worrisome. I would rather that he did not.”

“You would have him lie?” she asks.

“No. I know he deceives, but when he does not lie, I cannot tell where he deceives.”

“That is true, and they will all start rumors, except Rynst, and his truths will be taken as rumors.”

He laughs sardonically: “Of course. But it will be interesting to see exactly what kind of rumors each creates.”

Ryenyel offers a tired shrug, then massages her forehead with her right hand.

“I am sorry. Audiences such as that are hard for you,” he offers.

“They are hard on you, too.” She leans her head against his shoulder. “Each knows something, and should each know what the others do …”

“Hush …”

“That is why there is an Emperor, and yet each would replace you, and each would fail, and why yet we search.”

“You are kind, I fear.”

She shakes her head, even as it rests against his shoulder. “I am not kind, for I help you to do what no other can do, and we both suffer.”

He turns so that his arms enfold her … gently.

LORN STANDS IN his stirrups, trying to stretch his legs while the mare travels a section of road that is damp but appears firm. The early spring or late winter wind carries alternating gusts of chill and warmth past the undercaptain, but everything is brown-the grass, the road itself, the hills to the south and north. The puddles in the road are muddy brown.

The mare’s forelegs are coated with brown from the mud of the road, and even the lower parts of Lorn’s once-creamcolored trousers are splattered with the mud that remains cold and greasy despite the clear and bright mid-morning sun.

“One time when riding the fields be faster …” The words drift forward from one of the lancers in Shofirg’s company, carrying on a light gust of wind to Nytral and Lorn.

Nytral shakes his head. “The fields be like the great swamps below the Accursed Forest. You take a mount there, and he’d be in over his fetlocks, then hock deep afore you know it. The barbarians know it, and we’ll not be seeing them for another eightday.”

“So we’re the mud patrol? To see when the ground firms up and when they’re likely to begin their attacks?” Lorn’s eyebrows arch as he asks the question.

“Aye. That be why the Fifth Company rides now.”

“To save the others for the first attacks … that makes a sense of sorts.” After all, Brevyl had told Lorn that he’d be handed nasty jobs, but not more than he could handle, and a mud patrol certainly fits the description of nasty and within his capabilities.

At Lorn’s open and humorous laugh, Nytral looks quizzically at his superior.

“It’s about what Sub-Majer Brevyl promised,” Lorn says. “He does keep his word. You have to admit that.”

“Be times we all wish he’d not, ser.”

“Probably.”

Lorn’s eyes drop to a single sprig of green in a muddy patch a half-dozen cubits off the shoulder on the north side of the road. There is but the faintest hint of red within the center of the tight-curled wild-flower.

“Blood-drop,” he murmurs to himself, looking to the northern hills that conceal the barbarians beyond.

IN THE LATE afternoon, before dinner, Lorn sits at the corner table in the officers’ study, his fingers carefully clasping the bronze pen whose nib will bend too easily should he exert too much pressure. He dips the pen into the inkstand and continues the scroll to Ryalth, ignoring the chill in the room where the heat from the always-inadequate but long dead fire has much earlier died away.

… have not received a scroll from you lately, but I hope that is from either oversight or the lack of interest in my stilted writing, and that you are well and prospering in your trade. If you have any spare coins, a few might go to copper futures on the exchange … only a few, though.

He half-smiles, half-frowns, his eyes going to the folio of maps set by his left elbow. He should be studying those maps, for he knows his understanding of the terrain he patrols is still not instinctive-and it should be, for the time will come when he will not have the luxury of looking at a map.

He purses his lips and continues with the scroll.

… most presumptuous of a lancer to offer mercantile advice to a merchanter, but you know I have never lacked presumption.

… our patrol schedule is being increased now that spring is about to arrive in the Grass Hills … and I may be the one with little ability to write or to have my missives sent southward to you ….You would be pleased to know that I have heeded your advice about reading, and have taken care with that with which you entrusted me.

After affixing the closing and his signature, Lorn folds the letter flat, then glances around the still-empty study. With no one near, he holds the stick of green seal wax over the paper edges and focuses the slightest flare of chaos he has drawn from around him on the tip of the wax. Almost as the droplet of green wax strikes the paper, Lorn presses his seal ring to it.

“Much easier …” murmurs to himself.

He still must write Myryan, a task he always postpones because he is still unsure whether his words to his father about Ciesrt will have made any lasting impact. Since he has received but a single scroll from his younger sister, and that far too many eightdays ago, he worries.

Finally, he takes a smaller section of paper, then gently cleans the bronze nib of his pen. He looks at the blank paper, then pauses.

Chyorst-the sole overcaptain at Isahl-walks into the officers’ study, surveying the entire room before his eyes come to rest upon Lorn. The overcaptain turns towards the junior officer, deliberatively.

Lorn slips the pen and paper under the folio of maps and stands as the overcaptain walks toward him.

“Maps?” Chyorst’s eyebrows lift.

“Yes, ser. I try to match them with what I’ve patrolled and study where I may be assigned.”

Chyorst nods. “Can’t hurt. Might help so long as you remember that maps are only an incomplete representation ofwhat’s out there.” The overcaptain looks around the study once more before asking, “Have you seen Jostyn, undercaptain?”

“No, ser. Not since last night.”

“Thank you.” Without another word, the overcaptain steps away from Lorn, and then leaves the officers’ study.

Lorn waits for a time before he returns to his letters.

AFTER ENTERING THE square tower that holds the sub-majer’s study, removing his winter jacket and brushing the dampness from the oiled white leather, Lorn hangs it on one of the pegs on the wall rack set forward of Kielt’s table.

“Go ahead, ser,” says the senior squad leader. “He’s waiting.”

“Thank you, Kielt.” With a nod to the lancer ranker, Lorn opens the white oak door and steps into the oblong room on the first floor of the square tower. As usual, Sub-Majer Brevyl looks up from the table desk with the hard green eyes that are half-bemused, half-impatient. The sub-majer’s thick white hair has been trimmed shorter than normal, shorter even than that of a new lancer recruit. He motions for Lorn to take one of the armless chairs facing him.