L. Modesitt - Colors of Chaos

Layel shrugged. “It will come to such. Not this year, but it will.”

“Why do you think that?” asked Cerryl.

“The prefect will not oppose the Guild, not openly. But he will not send hordes of his own armsmen to collect our taxes, even though his own people gain vast sums of coin from the White highways. The Spidlarian traders will not impose or pay the tax, and they will sell where they can. The regular tax for them is half what it is for us. The only truly high taxes are the surtaxes, and yet they complain and complain.”

“So we will have a war over taxes?”

“No. We will have a war over trade. That has always been the basis of war with Recluce. They can travel the seas more cheaply than we can build and travel the roads. And their magics allow them to create some goods more cheaply.”

“Enough of this talk of war,” Leyladin said abruptly. “If it comes, then we can talk of it. I’d rather talk even of wool carding and dyeing.” She glanced at her father. “Or Aunt Kasia’s tatwork and embroidery.”

Cerryl smiled sheepishly. So did Layel.

“Who is your Aunt Kasia?” Cerryl finally asked, after enjoying several mouthfuls of the cheese-and-sauce-covered potatoes.

“Mother’s youngest sister. She consorted with a landholder near Weevett. I spent a summer there, and she insisted that I learn the ladylike skills of tatting and embroidering. ‘After all, dear, your children should be well turned out, and you should know how to teach them needle and yarn work. All those coins your father has amassed may not last.’”

Cerryl found himself grinning at the blonde’s mimicry of her aunt.

“It was a very long summer,” Leyladin said dryly.

“What about your aunt?” asked Layel, looking at Cerryl. “She raised you, I understand.”

“Aunt Nall?” Cerryl paused, then said slowly, “She wanted the best for me, but she didn’t want me to be a mage. There wasn’t a glass or a mirror in the house. She was always telling me that glasses were only for the high-and-mighty types of Fairhaven.” His lips quirked as he lifted his goblet. “I feel far less than high-and-mighty.”

“Would that more of ’em in the Halls felt that way. Much they’ve done for Candar and the city, but just folk with mighty skills-that’s all they are.” Layel lifted the leg-the sole remnant of fowl on his plate-and chewed on it.

Folk with mighty skills? Cerryl half-smiled at the thought, knowing that the very words would upset both Anya and Jeslek…and amuse Kinowin.

After the three finished, Meridis cleared away the china and returned with three dishes of a lumpy puddinglike dish.

“Bread pudding…good…” Layel smiled.

Leyladin took a small morsel of the pudding, then laid her spoon aside.

Cerryl took one modest mouthful-enjoying the combination of spices with the richness of the creamed and sweetened bread. Then he had another.

“See; even the White mages like bread pudding,” Layel announced after his last mouthful.

“Not all mages,” countered Leyladin. “It’s too sweet for this one.”

“I do have a fondness for sweets,” Cerryl confessed, then blushed as he saw Leyladin flush.

“I have noticed,” added Layel.

Leyladin shook her head. “You…you two.”

Cerryl took the last bite of the pudding, trying not to look at her. “It is good.”

“Next time, Daughter, you may pick the dessert, but occasionally your sire should have a choice.”

“Yes, Father.”

Contentedly full and relaxed, Cerryl found himself yawning, and he closed his mouth quickly.

“I saw that,” Leyladin said. “When do you get up?”

“Before dawn,” he admitted.

She glanced toward the window and the pitch-darkness beyond the lead-bordered glass diamonds. “You need to go.”

“I suppose so.”

“I am sure you will be back many times, Cerryl,” said Layel, rising with Leyladin. “My daughter much prefers your company to mine.”

“She has spoken quite well of your company,” Cerryl managed as he rose from the velvet-upholstered white oak chair. “Often.”

“Would that she did around me.” Layel still smiled fondly at his daughter.

“Oh, Father…”

“See your mage off, dear.”

Leyladin escorted Cerryl back through the silk-hung sitting room and front hall to the foyer. She opened the door.

“Thank you. The dinner was wonderful,” Cerryl said. “And I did learn some new things from your father. I think I have each time.”

“You always listen.” Leyladin smiled.

“Are you going to be in Fairhaven for a while?”

“I hope so.”

“So do I.” So do I!

“I will be.” She leaned forward and hugged him, then kissed him, this time gently on the lips.

His lips tingled-was it how he felt or the interplay of order and chaos?

“Both,” she said, drawing back slightly.

“Both?” He shook his head.

“When we’re that close, I can almost sense what you feel. That’s why it will be a long time.” She offered another warm smile. “Good night, Cerryl.”

As he walked back to the Halls of the Mages, through the rain that had begun to fall, with the headache that had also begun to grow, he understood what she hadn’t said. If they were ever to become closer, he could not handle chaos the way Jeslek or Anya or most of the Whites did. In fact, he’d probably have to get better at keeping chaos away from and out of his body.

Could he manage that? As a Patrol mage? As any kind of White mage? Without verging on the gray that the Guild-and Recluce-abhorred?

CERRYL LOOKED AROUND the room, a space less than six cubits by nine-the duty room, it was called, with bare stone walls composed of faded pink granite blocks a cubit long and a half-cubit high. Both the walls and the cubit-square stone floor tiles were polished to a dull finish. A single high barred window no more than one cubit by two offered the only ventilation.

The single flat table that served as a desk contained two open-topped wooden boxes for scrolls and documents, an inkstand with a quill holder, a stack of blank coarse paper for reports, and a polished but ancient brass table lamp. The only other pieces of furniture were the straight-backed wooden armchair behind the desk and two backless oak chairs across the desk from it.

Cerryl set down On Peacekeeping and massaged his forehead.

“Ser?”

Cerryl glanced up to see a squad leader of one of the four-man patrols standing in the open doorway, a man of medium height with thick short brown hair and a sweeping mustache. Cerryl struggled for a moment with the name. “Yes, Fystl?”

Fystl stepped into the office and shifted from one foot to the other. “A problem, ser.”

Cerryl stood. “Where?”

“Well, ser…it wasn’t as though…ah…well…She said he didn’t know what he was doing, but she stabbed him, and he bashed her with a staff…and right at the edge of the lower Market Square. What were we to do? We dragged ’em here for you to deal with.”

“Are your patrollers all right?”

“Ah…Hurka, he got a slash-it’s not deep, ser-and Veriot got some bruises from the staff.”

Cerryl took a deep breath. His third day as a full Patrol mage, and there were two people he was supposed to turn into ash-according to the manual and the guidelines set forth by Isork. Yet Fystl wasn’t acting as though the two were doomed, but apologetic.

“Maybe you should talk to them.” Fystl looked down at the floor.

“You brought them here?”

“They’re in the big room, yes, ser. Big fellow’s name is Gerlaco; the woman’s name is Jeyna.”

“Gerlaco and Jeyna. Let’s go.” Cerryl followed Fystl out of the duty room and down the short corridor to the big room, the room where the patrols mustered in the morning and where offenders were brought to Cerryl for disposition, except the ones there were his first. As in the duty room, the walls of the assembly room were of stone, and the two head-high windows were barred. Unlike the duty room, there was no furniture. On the back wall was a stone platform elevated somewhat less than two cubits above the floor tiles. The space was approximately square, each wall twenty cubits long.