L. Modesitt - Colors of Chaos

They walked from the sitting room to the dining hall, where Layel stood behind the head chair.

“Good! We can eat.” The factor seated himself, as did the others, Cerryl waiting slightly for Leyladin.

No sooner than the three were seated did Meridis appear with a large steep-sided china bowl that she set before Layel.

“Meridis? What might this be?”

“Fowl casserole, ser.”

“Fowl casserole? That be a dinner?” Layel glanced at Meridis.

“Begging your pardon, Master Layel, but all the beef is tough and stringy, and so are the fowl in the market. Stewed and with wine and spices and cheese, and even the broad mushrooms…”

Layel lifted his hands. “You did the best you could, and for that I am grateful.”

Meridis returned to the kitchen and came back with another platter, which she set before Layel. “Quilla, as you wished.”

“That is better.” A broad smile crossed the factor’s face.

Standing behind Layel, Meridis rolled her eyes, then set the bread platter before Leyladin, before again retreating to the kitchen.

“You said it was a long day at the Exchange?” Cerryl said as he poured the white wine from the clear bottle into the factor’s goblet.

“Yes…ah, thank you.”

“Why might it have been so long?” Leyladin asked, her eyes twinkling.

“Grain prices…they go up, and then down a little, and then up…Recluce is buying more grain in Sarronnyn. That means-” Layel eased half the quilla on the platter onto his own plate, then glanced at Leyladin. “You won’t be eating this, I know.”

“Recluce is buying more grain,” Cerryl prompted.

“There isn’t enough left to ship to Hydlen at the old price, and that means that grain prices, and the prices of flour and bread, will rise all through the fall and winter, even until next harvest, perchance. Ah…would that I had seen it earlier. Saw it early enough for a modest gain, but, oh, had I seen it far earlier.” The factor shook his head and spooned out a moderate helping of the casserole, his nose wrinkling slightly.

After Leyladin served herself, Cerryl took a modest helping, as well as bread and but a small serving of quilla, a serving he hoped he could eat without merely choking it down. He started with the casserole and found himself taking another bite. “This is good.”

“Meridis makes a good casserole…when Father lets her.”

“A man’s food is meat untainted with all such delicacies, or where such delicacies add to the flavor and do not bury it,” Layel mumbled through a mouthful of quilla.

“I often prefer the delicacies,” Leyladin said.

“I like both,” Cerryl confessed-truthfully, since he’d had little enough of either growing up.

“Spoken like a mage.” Layel laughed.

“He is a mage, a very good mage.” Leyladin took a sip of wine.

“I work at it.”

“Everything takes work. Trading does.”

“How did you get started being a factor?” Cerryl asked.

“Long time ago…my father, he was a cloth merchant, one step above a weaver, and I asked myself, ‘If Da is a merchant, why can’t I be a factor?’ I went to the Market Square and watched what people bought and what they paid…and when they bought, and I saved every copper until I could go to the weavers in the late spring, for that is when times were the worst, and buy all that I could, and I saved it until after harvest…”

Cerryl and Leyladin listened as Layel spun out his tale of rising from the son of a cloth merchant to a powerful factor. Layel barely paused when Meridis cleared the empty dishes and returned with three cups of egg custard.

“Egg custard?”

“You told me to take care with the honey and the molasses, that they would be hard to come by in the seasons ahead,” answered the cook.

“So I did. So I did. Egg custard. There’s worse. There’s no custard, and no eggs,” mused Layel. “And, you know, there were times like that. Bought my first coaster…and lost her on the second voyage…Folk said I was failed. They were wrong…”

Leyladin smiled at Cerryl.

He smiled back.

“…wrong ’cause I had coins saved, not enough for another ship, not then, but I took a share in an Austran spice trader that ran the Black Isle leg-can’t do that now…no, you can’t. Can’t do this, and can’t do that…world’s not the same now, not by a long bolt…”

Later, when the lamps cast all the light in the house and in the front foyer, Leyladin and Cerryl stood by the door.

“I’m sorry it’s so late,” Leyladin apologized. “Father, he was so pleased to be able to tell someone how he got to be a factor. You have to get up early.”

“So do you. I don’t have to ride to Hydolar.” Cerryl wrapped his arms around Leyladin, ignoring her wish for an almost chaste hug for just a moment before releasing her. “Be careful, very careful.” Myral doesn’t have any visions about you, Leyladin . He concealed a wince at the thought that he might be accepting what Myral had said.

“I’ll be fine.”

“Make sure that you are,” he insisted.

“You take care of yourself, and watch out for Jeslek and Anya.” For the first time, her lips met his, warm-and loving. “And keep doing what Myral told you…I want to be able to kiss you again.”

So do I . Cerryl held her for a long time, without speaking.

CERRYL PAUSED AT the top landing of the White Tower, wondering again why, after more than a year of ignoring Cerryl, Jeslek had summoned him.

Hertyl was the guard outside the High Wizard’s chamber, and he nodded at Cerryl, then opened the door. Cerryl nodded back and stepped into the chambers of the High Wizard. Behind him, the door closed with an ominous thud .

Jeslek’s white hair shimmered, and his sun-gold eyes yet glittered out of the youthful face. He gestured to the chair by the table that held the screeing glass, a glass that had been recently used, Cerryl knew, from the residual chaos that swirled unseen around it.

“Please have a seat, Cerryl.”

“Thank you, ser.” Cerryl noted the rain running down the thick glass of the Tower windows, a warm rain, but still unwelcome for the steam that would cloak the city later-and his headache.

“Mock politeness does not become you or any mage, Cerryl, except upon ceremonial occasions.” Jeslek took the chair across the table. His eyes bored into the younger mage. “There is little point in wasting time with evasions and maneuvers. I do not care for, shall we say, your careful approach to handling chaos. You do not care for my use of chaos on a massive scale. We both, however, wish that Fairhaven prosper.” The High Wizard paused.

“That is true.”

“You cannot, or will not, raise chaos in huge measure. You have shields strong enough to withstand that amount of chaos. Thus, I cannot destroy you with chaos, nor you me. You cannot lead Fairhaven, but, young as you are, you could keep it from being led.”

Cerryl detected a certain amount of untruth in Jeslek’s words but merely nodded that he had heard what the High Wizard said. Cerryl glanced in the direction of the toy on the shelf, a detailed miniature of a windmill with a small black iron crank. His eyes opened-black iron, bursting with order. Yet the toy, or model, or whatever it was, had been finely detailed, so finely that it looked as though it could pump water.

“Oh, that? A small part of the problem in Spidlar, one you as a Patrol mage need not concern yourself with. Not at present.” Jeslek flashed a smile.

“Black mages in Spidlar?”

“As of now, there are three Blacks in Spidlar, Cerryl, a smith and two armsmen. There may be a Black healer as well. It is strange. We have all this difficulty with Spidlar, and there are all these Blacks there. It’s not your concern, but it will be discussed at the next Guild meeting.” Jeslek smiled. “The smith’s name is Dorrin, not that it should concern you, but…I will satisfy your curiosity. This time.”