L. Modesitt - The White Order

“She had to leave? Why?”

“They had lancers a-looking for her most places. . Shandreth asked me once if I’d seen her. Had to tell him no, even when she was eating and sleeping not a hundred cubits from the hearth.”

“Looking for her?”

“Don’t know as who else. White lancers. . they be mean men, Cerryl. You stay clear of them, no matter what it be taking.”

Cerryl shivered, thinking about the day he’d seen the white lancers in Howlett. They’d looked mean then.

“The mages. . they be mages, but the lancers are killers, without souls, no better than the old black demons of the Westhorns.” Syodor fingered his chin. “Could be a mite worse, from what I hear.” He shrugged. “Well, boy. . got to be going, be well away from here afore the rain lifts. Wouldn’t want my image showing in the glass, not with the power of them books showing, too.” Syodor extended a big hand and clapped Cerryl on the shoulder. “We’ll be seeing you as we can. You know that, lad, do you not?”

“I know.” Cerryl swallowed. “I know.”

“Be off now.”

Cerryl stood under the dark oak, watching until Syodor vanished into the rain and mist. Then he walked slowly back to the lumber barn.

In the dimness of the room, Cerryl eased open the canvas, glad that he could see better than most in the dark. There were two slender books, bound in age-darkened leather. His eyes watered as he glanced at them.

Then he frowned. Between them was a white-bronze circlet. He turned it over. Two rough patches in the metal on the back indicated brackets or something had once been attached.

Except for a thicker rim, the circlet, a half-span across, was of uniform thickness and smooth to the touch. Yet. . Cerryl studied it for a long time in the darkness.

Finally, he nodded. Somehow, the pin or ornament was made of two separate metals that met in an undulating edge, put together so smoothly that he could not feel the joins, only sense them with the sight that was not sight.

The books went behind the board with the book fragment he already had cached there, but the circlet-that he kept, his fingers around it even when he lay back on his pallet and drifted into an uneasy sleep.

A soft breeze brushed across the porch, carrying the scent of late apple blossoms, the turned earth of the garden to the southwest of the house, and the less welcome odor of the horse manure Cerryl had spent the day cleaning out of the stable.

Cerryl sat on the edge of the porch, his boots on the top stone step, looking eastward, supposedly toward Lydiar. The more distant hills were fading into the early twilight.

“What do you do at the mill, Cerryl?” asked Erhana from the bench behind him.

“Whatever they need me to do. You saw me with the shovel and manure.” Cerryl’s hair was still damp, plastered against his skull, and his forearms itched, despite his washing in cold water before dinner. Without the nightly washing before dinner, he had discovered, his arms became covered with an ugly red rash, and after dealing with the stable, he’d definitely needed to wash up, almost all over.

“Da-Father-Siglinda says that I should say ‘Father.’ Father doesn’t let me in the mill. He let Brental in there when he was smaller than I am.”

“Brental will have to run the mill.”

“I wouldn’t want to.” Erhana lifted her head slightly-Cerryl could tell that without turning. “I’m going to have a wealthy consort and live in a fine house in Lydiar.” Her voice dropped slightly. “You didn’t say what you really do in the mill.”

“I sweep floors, stack the timbers, move things, clean the sawpit. Brental’s beginning to teach me about the oxen.” He paused, then asked, turning finally to look at the dark-haired girl, “What do you do with that lady in the parlor?”

“She be-she is not a lady. She’s Siglinda, and she gives me my lessons.” Erhana cocked her head and offered a superior smile. “I’m learning my letters.”

“Oh?”

“Letters are important for a lady.”

“I’d wager you don’t know them well enough to teach me.

“Why would you want to know letters? You’re always going to be working in the mill.”

“See?” Cerryl said with a grin. “You can’t do it.”

“I can, too.”

“You’ll have to prove it.” Cerryl looked disbelieving.

“I don’t have to prove anything to you.” Erhana sniffed.

“You don’t. That be right,” Cerryl said, grinning again.

“You couldn’t learn letters, anyway.”

“You don’t know that, not until you try and I can’t learn.” Cerryl smiled. “Of course, that might mean you couldn’t teach me, either. Your da, he says. .” Cerryl let the words trail off.

“He says what?” Erhana’s voice sharpened.

“Nothing. . nothing.”

“You’re. . nothing but a mill rat, Cerryl.”

Cerryl forced a shrug, intent on keeping any concern from his face. “If you really knew your letters, you could teach them to a mill rat. You’re just calling me names ’cause you can’t.”

“Cerryl. . you are. .” Erhana paused. “You are. .”

He stood. “If you’re that good, you can teach me letters. I be here every night after supper.”

“I don’t have to teach you anything.”

Cerryl forced a smile, then grinned before turning and walking down toward his cubby room.

“Cerryl. .”

He forced himself to keep walking.

CERRYL RUBBED HIS forehead again, trying to massage away the dull ache from somewhere deep within his skull. The massage didn’t help, and he resumed restacking the flooring planks, ensuring that there were indeed ten in each pile, as Brental had instructed him-a dozen stacks of ten.

He paused, his eyes going to the half-open mill door and to the steady rain beyond, rain that had fallen from gray skies for the past two days. He looked back at the span-wide planks, his eyes watering. With a sigh, he counted the last stack again. Ten.

Why did the steady rain give him such a headache? Syodor had said it affected all the white mages. He could use his mirror fragments to pull up images-places like Fairhaven, the white city, and even the cows in the lower pasture. Did those things mean he was a mage-or could be? Or that the mages would kill him, as they had his father, if they discovered him?

He’d only been able to have a few sessions with Erhana and her copybooks, but already he could pick out some of the letters in his books, although the script was curved and more elaborate than that in hers. He could make out a handful of words, not enough to read anything. . not yet.

His fingers went to his belt pouch and tightened around the talisman-was that what it was? — that Syodor had given him. Had it been his father’s? Or had his father picked it up somewhere?

“. . afore midsummer, Dorban will be here for the seasoned oak-the big timbers for the shipyard. .” A good thirty cubits away, Dylert’s voice trailed off.

“He always complains,” said Brental, “but he comes back.”

Cerryl did not turn his head. He’d learned years earlier that his hearing was sharper than that of most folks. He’d also learned that he gained more information by not letting on.

“He hopes that we’ll lower the price if he complains enough. .”

Cerryl kept listening as he started in on the third pile.

“Oooo.” He stopped and carefully eased out the splinter. Although he tried to be careful, wood had splinters, some of them sharp enough to cut deeply if he was careless or if his mind wandered-as it just had.

Cerryl shook his head. Was Erhana right? That he’d spend the rest of his life in the mill, the way Rinfur was?

His lips tightened, but his eyes and attention went back to the hardwood planks.