L. Modesitt - The White Order

“Oh. . you were the boy in the window.”

Cerryl wasn’t sure he liked being called a boy, but he nodded and kept smiling.

“Father doesn’t like it when I look at boys.” She glanced over her shoulder and down the alleyway. “I’d better go. I’m supposed to be at the market.” Another shy smile, and she was gone.

Cerryl picked up the bucket and reentered the house.

“Those weaver girls are nothing but trouble, Cerryl. Mind that,” said Beryal. After a moment when he didn’t answer, she added, “Cerryl? Did you pump one pail and empty it out first? I didn’t see that.”

“I rinsed the bucket.”

“Like I told you? Just like I told you?”

“No, ser.”

“Go do it, and be thankful I’m asking. Benthann would have emptied the pitcher over you.” Beryal had covered the bread dough with a gauzelike cloth and was slicing pale green roots into a skillet. “Then she would have made you mop the floor.”

Without speaking, he turned and went out and through the courtyard and the gate and lifted the access stone to the sewer, pouring out the bucket. It was easier to comply with Beryal’s whims than to argue that he’d cleaned the bucket before he’d started and run the pump through several cycles, letting the water flow over the wash stones.

Cerryl replaced the stone and straightened, feeling eyes upon him, then looked toward the end of the alleyway. Pattera waved at him from where alley and street met. With his free hand he returned the gesture. Carrying two long cylindrical loaves of bread in her left arm, the brown-haired girl slipped from sight down the lesser artisans’ way.

Back in the courtyard, Cerryl refilled the bucket and returned to the kitchen, where he first refilled the pitchers on the table in the corner.

“Do it right first, next time.”

“Yes, Beryal.”

Beryal turned and slipped the skillet onto the hot stove.

Cerryl stepped away from the heat of the kitchen, wiping his forehead on his sleeve, and out into the courtyard, where he replaced the bucket on the peg over the pump. After washing his hands and face, and feeling the chill of the breeze on his damp skin, he hurried back to the workroom.

No sooner had he stepped through the door from the kitchen into the showroom than Tellis called out, “Cerryl?”

“Yes, ser.”

“At the desk.”

Cerryl cautiously approached the empty writing desk against the wall.

“Just sit down.” The scrivener set the wood-framed and oblong slate on the writing desk. Beside it was the sheet of parchment that contained the practice sentences-one for Temple script and one for the old tongue. Each sentence contained every letter character. Tellis handed Cerryl an oblong of chalk. “You need more practice. Look at the models. Every letter you write should be identical to every other one-of the same letter, I mean.”

Cerryl understood. Each letter alir should be the same as every other alir. The tedium bothered him, not the ideal Tellis espoused. “How do you know whether to write a book in Temple or old tongue?”

Tellis cleared his throat. “Mostly old tongue here in Fairhaven. In Lydiar, were I scribing there, most would be in Temple. The blacks were stronger there after the fall of Cyador and Lornth, and Relyn is still revered on the coast.”

“Relyn?” The name wasn’t familiar to Cerryl, and he wondered if Relyn had been a duke or something.

“The founder of the Temples.” Tellis shook his head. “You must read more. I’ll give you an old history. . but wash your hands each time before you open it.”

“I will,” Cerryl promised, even as he wondered what good history would do him. Still, scribing promised a better life than millworking, and if Tellis thought he should read a history, it might not hurt too much.

“The Temple tongue is easier, and it is used more every year.” Tellis shrugged. “The white mages prefer the old tongue, though, like as I can see, the two are not that dissimilar. Now. . practice.”

Cerryl looked at the chalk between his fingers, then looked at the practice lines of old tongue, even if he really didn’t need to do so to know the words. He already knew the sentence by heart. Still. . he’d better concentrate on replicating the shapes of the letters.

At the sound of footsteps in the front showroom, when Cerryl had written but a dozen lines on the slate, Tellis straightened from his repairs to the recalcitrant nipping press.

Cerryl did not turn. He could sense that the customer was a white mage; the telltale red-tinged white energies suffused the shop. He forced himself to copy another sentence, concentrating on the form and shape of the letters, almost drawing them, his fingers trembling.

“Yes, honored ser?” offered Tellis smoothly.

“Do you have The Founding of Fyrad and the White Lands ? Sterol had said that you had recopied versions of some of the old tales.”

“Yes, ser. In the burgundy on the end. . would you like me to show you?”

“Please.” The voice was bored.

“Here. You see, this was copied from the master version-”

“That’s clear enough. Show me the end pages.”

Cerryl forced himself to begin another sentence in old tongue. The chalk squeaked, but neither Tellis nor the mage spoke. Cerryl stopped and used the small bronze scraping knife to whittle off the imperfection in the chalk stick.

“. . not interested in. . Red Shield of Rohrn . . what about The Legend of Fornal? ”

“I am still copying that, honored mage. Another two eight-days, perhaps.”

“Here is a silver. That should hold the Fornal volume, should it not?”

“Yes, ser.”

“I see you have Histories of Cyador. . both volumes, yet. For what are you offering them?”

“They are hand-copied with light brimstone iron ink, ser. A gold and two silvers each.”

“Two golds for the set, and another gold for the Fornal when it is ready. That’s beyond the silver I gave you. . if. . if it is ready within three eight-days.”

Cerryl swallowed. Three golds and a silver for three volumes? He’d never seen a gold himself. At his wages. . earning a gold would take years.

“Yes, ser. It will be ready.”

“Good.”

“Do you want me to deliver the histories?”

“I’ll take them. . if you have something for me to carry them in.”

“A book carry bag. I have one here for you, ser.” A drawer of the showroom chest rumbled slightly. “Fine wool, it is.”

“Put the histories in it. Gently, scrivener. Gently.”

Cerryl found himself looking blankly at what he had written when Tellis stepped back into the workroom.

“That’s better, young fellow. Keep looking at the models.” Tellis stepped toward the workbench.

He had not quite filled the slate when Tellis reappeared at his shoulder.

“A fine hand you have, young Cerryl, but it takes more than pretty characters to make a scrivener.” Tellis shook his head. “You can work. That I know, for you work without praise or punishment, and Dylert can judge that better than any man I ever met.”

Cerryl waited. Usually waiting attentively would encourage people to say more-that he had learned.

“Even a fine hand and hard work will not make a scrivener,” Tellis went on. “Nor will colored leather bindings and the finest folio stitching.” He paused and looked at Cerryl.

“What will, master scrivener?” asked the apprentice, taking his cue from Tellis’s pause.

“That. . that takes a love of the words, of what they say. A scrivener is not just a bookbinder. He is not just a scribe. Not just a recopier of ancient tales and histories. .”

“So. . you’re filling another poor lad’s ear with dreams and drivel?” Cerryl looked up at the acid tones.