L. Modesitt - The Chaos Balance

“A small one…that be no problem. Gies would not charge for that, not with the juice. Two coppers, then.”

Nylan fumbled out the coins.

“Be back with the juice.” She scurried past the table with the three older men, and refilled all three mugs from the pitcher she bore, almost without stopping.

Before Nylan had finished looking around the room, the server was back with two large mugs.

“There.” She was off again, after flashing a quick smile at Weryl, whose eyes followed her back toward the kitchen.

Nylan sipped the juice. “Good.”

Two narrow-faced men sat at the other corner table. The dark-haired one nodded toward the angels, and Nylan tried to catch the gist of the conversation.

“…angel travelers, Jennyleu said…heard about Gustor…”

“…good riddance…scattered Lyswer’s flock last summer…for fun…”

“…got a child…silverhair’s a man…picked up Gustor’s body like a dead dog…said he’s a smith…”

“…wonder…those blades…”

“…not touch one myself…”

“…regents made peace…”

“…wouldn’t you…old holders the problem…couldn’t care…”

As the talk drifted toward other matters, Nylan took a sip of the cold greenjuice, happy for anything besides water and bitter tea.

“Here you be!” The round-faced serving girl deposited two large bowls, a loaf of bread, and a long thin wedge of cheese-and no utensils.

“Thank you.”

The woman looked at Weryl. “Boy or girl?”

“Boy,” the two answered together.

“Daaaa…” said Weryl, from Nylan’s lap.

“Good-looking. Wager he be making hearts trip when he be grown.”

“I hope he doesn’t make a habit of it,” said Ayrlyn.

Nylan laughed softly at her tone.

With a smile, the server was gone, and Nylan dug his spoon from his small belt pouch. Ayrlyn retrieved hers as well.

Nylan ate the big bowl of stew slowly, offering small spoonfuls to Weryl, interspersed with small bits of the biscuit and bits of the cheese the serving girl had brought.

“Good,” Ayrlyn affirmed. “Almost as good as Blynnal’s.”

Nylan wondered how the pregnant cook happened to be getting along, even as he spooned more stew into Weryl’s mouth. Then, he concentrated on feeding Weryl. He had to put aside the past and look to the future, even if he didn’t know where it led.

“Jennyleu said we should try the chandlery this morning.” Ayrlyn tied her mount to the stone post and then tethered the gray gelding.

“People do listen to her.” Nylan gave a short laugh as he dismounted and tethered the mare, and then the gray. With Weryl in the carrypak, he stepped into the chandlery warily. Ayrlyn followed.

Unlike the inn, the trading establishment smelled faintly musty, of oil and old leather. Despite the large glazed front window, the room seemed dim. A row of leather goods lay on a long wooden trestle centered on the left wall.

A square-faced woman in faded blue stood by the counter at the rear. “You two must be the angels. Jennyleu said you would be seeking travel food, and cheese. That be in the case here.”

“Thank you.” Nylan stepped past the neatly arranged leather riding gear, noting a child’s saddle, a pair of saddlebags so large than only a plow horse could have borne them, a folded square of what seemed to be oiled leather-a low-tech waterproof?

“I be Gerleu, and my consort is Jersen. Jennyleu said it might be best were I here for you.”

“Gerleu? Does that mean you’re related?” Nylan asked as he neared the brunette and the case beside her.

“We’re all related, somewise. Jersen’s a good man, but Jennyleu said he had to answer to the other menfolk. Store’s from my pa, and I got the right to serve who I please. I’m pleased to serve angels. Might change some things.” She smiled at Nylan. “Does me good to see a man carry a child. Jersen did, but not when folks watched.” Her head turned toward the curtain to her right, which fluttered, although there was no wind. “That be you, Marleu? Come right on out. The angels are peaceable.”

A girl with brown hair and wide brown eyes eased from behind the brown curtain and sidled toward Gerleu. Marleu’s eyes darted over Nylan to Ayrlyn, and widened as she took in the flame-red hair.

Nylan smiled and slipped to the cheese case. All the cheeses were in cloth bags. He opened one, and found a layer of wax around the square lump.

“The top line-that’s yellow brick. The next is white brick. The white is tastier, but the yellow lasts longer than any journey anyone in his right mind would take.”

“How much?” asked Nylan.

“The white runs around three coppers for two, the yellow a copper each.” Gerleu put an arm around her daughter, whose head barely reached past her waist, but who still looked at Ayrlyn.

The healer smiled gently. “We’re just people, Marleu. It is Marleu, isn’t it?”

The girl nodded solemnly. She opened her mouth, then closed it.

“I can’t guess what you wanted to say.” Ayrlyn’s voice was soft. “Did you want to know about the Roof of the World?”

“It’s…cold…”

“Very cold.”

“Are…you…all women?”

Ayrlyn inclined her head toward Nylan. “Nylan is a man. He is a smith. The ship that brought us from the heavens had more women, but that was an accident. It could have had more men than women.”

“Don’t see men without beards here,” observed Gerleu.

“Some of the other men had beards,” Nylan said, pulling out four white cheese bags and two yellow. “I get too hot with a beard, and my skin itches, especially around the forge.”

“Knew a smith like that years ago. Kerler…I think,” said the chandler.

The smith paused before a glass jar and looked at Gerleu.

“Travel biscuits. Six for a copper.”

“Four coppers’ worth, then.” Nylan thought they might be good for Weryl’s emerging teeth, and they had gathered nearly a gold and a half in silvers and coppers from the bandits’ purses, and from the two who had attacked the afternoon before.

Gerleu extracted two dozen of the biscuits and replaced the lid, then tied the biscuits into a worn scrap of cloth.

“You have two blades,” said Marleu.

“That’s so we can throw one if we have to, and still have one to defend ourselves.”

“Jennyleu said your fellow threw his right through Buil…that so?”

Ayrlyn glanced at Marleu, then nodded. “He doesn’t like to fight, but he had to.”

“That’s what she said.” Gerleu shook her head. “Wish more men were like that. You be fortunate.”

Nylan stepped up beside Ayrlyn and set the cheese on the counter, then quickly caught Weryl’s hands before the boy grabbed at one of the short daggers laid out there. “Those are too sharp for you.”

“Silver and two coppers,” noted the chandler.

Nylan extracted three coins. He almost felt guilty that killing two men had more than paid for their stay in Henspa, but no one had complained about their taking the dead men’s wallets, as though it were the accepted practice in Lornth. He still didn’t feel guilty about the bandits.

Outside, under the clear green-blue sky and the sun that promised a hot day for travel, Nylan slipped the cheese into Weryl’s food pack, now fastened to the docile gray, then all but one of the travel biscuits, which he tucked into his shirt pocket, adjusting the fabric so that neither the carrypak nor the shoulder harness for his second blade crushed it, although he had some doubts that anything could dent the biscuit.

Across the street, the cooper worked on another barrel, and two dogs trotted past the statue. The yellow dog paused and anointed the corner of the low wall before following the black and white mongrel eastward and down the street.