L. Modesitt - The White Order

Cerryl almost felt as though his breathing were too loud in the hushed city. He straightened his shoulders and followed the white stone walk across the center of the empty square to the far side. There was a single street there-without a name or symbol. Was it the way of the lesser artisans?

With the slightest of shrugs, he crossed the empty eastern half of the avenue and started up the unnamed street. Cerryl glanced into the first shop, peering between vivid blue shutters drawn back open against bright white-plastered outside walls. A potter sat cross-legged, throwing a pot on a wheel powered by a foot pedal. Behind him was a low wooden shelf displaying an array of pots and crockery. The gray-haired man did not look up as Cerryl studied him.

Cerryl walked slowly eastward, along the lesser artisans’ way that was but the eastern side street away from the square-exactly across the square opposite the side street that adjoined the alley leading to the rear courtyard of Fasse’s shop.

The next shop was that of a weaver. Two girls, each younger than Cerryl, one brown haired, one redheaded, sat on the floor working backstrap looms. Behind them a man flicked the shuttle on a floor loom that filled half the small room. Skeins of colored yam-all colors of yam, except black-hung from pegs set into the wall just below the roof beams. The round-faced brown-haired girl grinned shyly at Cerryl, even while her fingers slipped the yam wound on the hand shuttle through the spread woolen yam.

Cerryl offered a grin in return.

“Mind the loom, Pattera,” came the comment from the weaver.

“Yes, ser,” murmured the girl, dropping her eyes from Cerryl.

Cerryl nodded and continued along the street. Pattera had been pretty enough, yet nothing to compare to the golden-haired girl he had seen but once in his screeing glass. Would he ever meet her? Or was she the daughter of some white mage who would treat him like the other whites had dealt with his father-or the fugitive at Dylert’s mill? He repressed a shiver. “Careful. . Cerryl,” he whispered to himself.

On the inside wall of the next shop were rows of small shelves filled with small wooden boxes and a large chest of many drawers, and a scent-many scents-that Cerryl didn’t recognize. Spices? Why so many? The heavy man who looked up from a wooden mortar and pestle on a polished table offered an enigmatic smile before looking back at the dried herbs before him.

So silent was the lesser artisans’ way that Cerryl could hear his own footsteps. Somehow, he had expected that Fairhaven would have been busier, even so early in the day.

The line of shops ended at another cross street, rather than at the alleyway he had expected. On the far corner was another shop, but this one sported a sign over the open door bearing an open book and a quill poised above it. Hoping that the sign referred to the scrivener’s, Cerryl crossed the street and eased into the shop, pausing just inside the open door to let his eyes adjust.

The front of the shop was a small area, less than four cubits square, with white-plastered walls and empty except for two stools and with a golden oak cabinet that was made up of a two-drawer chest with three attached bookshelves above the chest. The top shelf held a silver pitcher, and the second two were each largely filled with leather-bound volumes.

Even from the door, Cerryl could smell the tanned leather. He took another step into the front room and paused, scanning the two dozen or so books on the shelves before him, but aside from the different colors of leather, there were no identifying marks on the spines. Nor did any of the books bear the unseen but sensed whitish red of chaos that the three books in his own pack bore.

Two doors led from the front room-one on the right side, which was closed, and one on the left. After another moment, Cerryl stepped toward the door behind the left side of the chest, stopping in the doorway.

A single man bent over a table in the workroom, a space not much bigger than the front room. The far wall was filled, half with a huge doorless cabinet that contained shelves transformed into cubbies filled with rolled leathers, parchments, palimpsests, real glass jars, stoppered crockery vials, and other manner of items unfamiliar to Cerryl. On each side of the cabinet were racks, the one on the left holding an array of hand tools; the one on the right, green leathers cut into long strips perhaps two spans wide and more than two cubits in length. A writing desk was flush against the left wall, the worktable against the right. The scrivener was stitching something with a long needle that flashed in his fingers.

Cerryl waited until the man paused before speaking. “Master Tellis?”

Tellis straightened and turned, revealing a spare and surprisingly thin face above a more rotund frame. “Yes, young fellow? Are you here on an errand for your master?” The scrivener seemed to squint as he surveyed Cerryl.

“No, ser.” Cerryl stepped forward and extended the scroll. “Master Dylert sent me, ser.”

The briefest of frowns crossed Tellis’s face as the scrivener took the scroll. Cerryl waited, his eyes not leaving the scrivener, much as he wished to study the workroom.

Tellis read through the scroll, licking his lips, once, twice, as he neared the end. “Dylert says you’re a shirttail relative.”

“Yes, ser.”

“He also says you work hard, and that’d not be something he’d offer easily.” Tellis scratched the back of his head, absently disarraying the thick, brown-flecked hair. “Tell me about master Dylert. What does he look like, and what does he favor?”

“Master Dylert. .” Cerryl managed not to frown. “He is a fraction of a span taller than you are, ser, but tall as he is, he is a wiry man. His beard is black but shows silver. His eyes are brown. He always wanted the mill clean, and the planks and timbers stacked in the barns by their size and quality.” Cerryl shrugged. “His speech is hard, but he is fair.”

“And his household?”

“His consort, Dyella, she is warmer.” Cerryl smiled. “She often gave me extra food.”

“Spoken like a young fellow, thinking of the food. Go on.”

“She has brown hair. It’s thinner. Erhana favors her mother, excepting her face, and Brental-I don’t know. He is the sole one with red hair, so far as I know, but. . he was good to me as well.”

“Where are your people?”

“None are living. . now. My uncle. . he lived in Montgren.” Cerryl swallowed, fighting the burning in his eyes, wondering why the question had upset him.

“You lived with your uncle, then?”

“Yes, ser. Until I went to work for master Dylert.”

“You miss him, your uncle, I mean?”

Cerryl nodded, swallowing again. “My aunt, too.”

“Dylert. . a good judge of men, but far too good for his own good.” Tellis shook his head. “Ah. . well. . we have you to deal with. Not so as I really need an apprentice, you understand, but an extra pair of working hands. . that we can manage.”

“Yes, ser.” Cerryl kept his eyes on Tellis, his voice polite.

“A few matters, young fellow. .”

“Cerryl.”

“Important matters, if you intend to remain here.”

Cerryl nodded again, waiting, trying not to shift his weight from one leg to the other as the scrivener studied him again, trying to appear serious and attentive.

“Well, Cerryl. . you’ll learn as the days pass. But there are some things that don’t change. You’ll be pumping the water for all, and we’ll be getting to that. Water’s close here in Fairhaven, and this is a clean house. You look neat, but clean is better. I expect you to bathe leastwise every third day, and wash your hands and face every time before you work in the shop here. That’s after breakfast and after supper. Dirty hands, dirty sweat-they’ve ruined more books than fires or bugs. And you’ll need another set of clothes. I’ll provide that, but you wash them.”