Natural Ordermage

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “No… ma’am. I certainly won’t.” He wouldn’t, either, because he’d get at least two pieces out of it at home, and they didn’t get redberry pie—or any pastries—that often.

  “It’s the one in the corner here, covered with the cloth.” Nuelya turned to check something on the stove, then added to her daughter, who had stepped inside the rear door, carrying a large crockery pitcher, “Did you run the spigot a bit first?”

  “Just a little.” Delthea glanced at Rahl offering an all-too-knowing smile.

  Rahl smiled back blandly. “Good evening, Delthea.”

  ‘The same to you, Rahl.“

  “If you’d get the small plates, Delthea?” Nuelya gestured toward a tall triangular cabinet in the corner closest to the dining table.

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “What did you do today, besides cart amphorae down to the keep?” Rahl turned to Sevien, trying to change the unspoken subject quickly.

  “Mixed and blended clay. Then I shoveled the coal that Muldark delivered into the bin, except for the last bushel. I had to break that into the right-sized chunks before I loaded it into the kiln.” Sevien shook his head. “Waltar used to do it. I think he slaved to get his own works in Alaren just so someone else had to handle the coal. Clendal just went to sea, and that leaves no one but me. Anyway, someone’s got to do it. Mother and Da need to light it off tomorrow so that they can start firing the day after tomorrow for the next shipment for the Guards.”

  “That far ahead?”

  “We have to preheat the kiln. Otherwise, the‘ -temperature’s uneven.”

  All that sounded like even more work than copying books—and a lot dirtier, reflected Rahl.

  “Cold water doesn’t take off the coal easy. It takes, forever to get clean,” said Sevien.

  “That’s because you’re not careful,” suggested Delthea from the kitchen area.

  “And you don’t take long enough,” added Nuelya.

  Rahl refrained from grinning, not because Sevien was embarrassed but because sometimes all mothers sounded the same. “She and my mother could have been sisters,” he murmured, barely under his breath.

  “We’re third cousins, young Rahl, and we’ve got ears like the rock-owls.”

  That Rahl could believer

  Sevien did grin. “Did anything interesting happen at your place?”

  “Magister Puvort came by today. He was asking about some book,” Rahl offered.

  “He was here, too. He talked to Mother.” Sevien looked toward the kitchen, where Nuelya was now setting out the small plain earthenware plates that Delthea had taken from the cabinet.

  Rahl had never seen so much ceramic ware. Most people had plain platters and bowls and not much else, but he supposed that potters could make things for themselves. “He didn’t seem too happy. He said something to Da about the engineers and how things weren’t that good now.”

  “The magisters never think things are good,” countered Sevien.

  “Sevien,” cautioned Nuelya.

  “Magister Puvort was looking for, a book called The Basis of Order. I’d never heard of it,” Rahl went on. “He said that he thought someone around here might have a copy of it. I’m an apprentice scrivener, getting close to being a journeyman, but I’d never even heard of it until this afternoon.”

  “Sounds like they don’t want folks knowing about it.”

  “He didn’t sound very happy about the engineers in Nylan.” Rahl hoped Nuelya would say something.

  ‘The Council hasn’t been happy since the engineers built Nylan,“ said the potter. ”They’re always claiming that the black wall doesn’t really stop anyone. Walls don’t, whether they’re black walls or orchard walls.“

  “Especially orchard walls,” added Delthea.

  Rahl barely managed to avoid wincing.

  Sevien grinned more broadly, then murmured, “See what I got to listen to? All the time?”

  Tap, tap!

  Sevien turned and hurried across the common room to open the door. A tall young man and a slightly shorter young woman stood there. Both were redheads. With Sevien’s red hair, and Delthea’s, Rahl definitely felt outnumbered.

  “Rahl… this is Faseyn and his sister Fahla. They’re pretty new here.”

  Rahl had heard that the factor who had taken over Hostalyn’s chandlery had a son and a daughter. He’d seen them both from a distance but never met either. He stepped forward, smiling. “I’m glad to meet you both.”

  While Rahl was slightly taller than most men in Land’s End, Faseyn was close to a half head taller than Rahl. Up close he was gangly, and he looked to be younger than his sister. Rahl guessed that Fahla was about his own age.

  She smiled warmly. “Father’s kept us so busy in stocking and reorganizing ”the chandlery that we haven’t met anyone who hasn’t come in to buy things.“

  “Scriveners don’t buy all that much,” Rahl replied. “Usually my mother’s the one—”

  “She must be Khorlya. She’s nice,” replied Fahla. “She’s quick, too.”

  “I suspect you’re very quick yourself,” Rahl replied.

  “So are you, and quicker with the girls you like, I’d wager.” Fahla smiled mischievously.

  Rahl shrugged helplessly before asking, “Where did you live before?”

  “Father and Uncle Karath had the factorage near Mattra. Really, they mostly supplied the ironworks north of there. When Hostalyn said he was getting too old to keep going, Father bought him out. Of course, it wasn’t quite like that, seeing as Hostalyn is his great-uncle, but Land’s End is so much more interesting.”

  Rahl didn’t think Land’s End was all that interesting, but he could see that it was likely to be far more engaging than a town off the coast and on the High Road near the ironworks—and far from both Nylan and Land’s End.

  “Fahla really runs the chandlery,” added Faseyn. “Father does the buying and trading, and that takes all his time.”

  Rahl had the impression that their father was without a consort, but he wasn’t sure how to ask that and decided against it.

  “Who else would?” replied Fahla. “You’re more interested in the accounts, but someone has to sell things and tell everyone what we have and why they should buy it.”

  “You-like doing that?” asked Rahl.

  “Much more than being a consort and doing all the cooking and chores, not that I don’t have to fit some chores and cooking in. Some of the older men aren’t sure I should be running the chandlery, but they don’t say much.” She laughed. “You can tell, though, the way they get all stiff and ask where my father is. I just tell them it’s their good fortune to deal with me since Father’s far less compromising.”

  Rahl had the definite feeling that it might be easier to dicker with her father. He also found her interesting, but her directness was more than a little unnerving. When she looked at him, her eyes seemed to focus intently on him, as if she were cataloging all his abilities and thoughts and racking them somewhere in her brain.

  Abruptly, Fahla turned and lifted two small pouches. “Nuelya… it took a while to dig it out, but here’s that cobalt powder you wanted, and the scarletine, too.” She slipped away and headed toward the kitchen.

  Before Rahl could follow, he heard a timid knock on the door, and he sensed that the person knocking had to be Jienela. -

  Sevien looked to Rahl. “Why don’t you answer it?”

  “It would be nice,” murmured Delthea, just loud enough for Rahl to hear.

  He slipped around the three to the door and opened it.

  Jienela smiled up at him. “Sevien said you’d be here. I hoped so.”

  He half bowed and gestured her to enter.

  “This is nice,” said Jienela as she stepped into the common room. “I’ve never been inside. Jaired and Jeason always come for the cider jugs.”

  “They may not have been in here, either. Sevien only invites his friends.” Rahl guided her toward the others. He watched Faseyn’s watery bl
ue eyes fix on Jienela from the moment she turned and moved toward the group.

  “Jienela,” Rahl said, “this is Fahla and her brother Faseyn. Their father took over the chandlery, and they help run it.”

  Jienela nodded shyly.

  “Jienela’s family has the big orchard to the north and east of here.”

  “It’s the only one,” protested Jienela, “and it’s not that big.”

  “The pearapples are the best, though,” said Sevien with a laugh, “and the” cider.“

  “You grew up here, didn’t you?” Fahla asked Jienela.

  “Father’s family’s been here since the first. He says that the soil was so bad then that the first trees didn’t fruit for years.”

  “Sand on top and hard clay below,” added Sevien. “That’s why there have always been potters around Land’s End.”

  “Are you going to be one, too?” asked Fahla.

  Rahl frowned inside at the question. Why would she ask that? If Sevien hadn’t- had the inclination and talent, he would have been apprenticed out years before. Besides, most children followed either the craft or lands of their parents or their consorts’ parents—-if. they had the talent. That was the custom, certainly.

  “Haven’t your parents always been factors?” asked Sevien.

  “Mother was the mate on a trader. Father took up factoring after her ship was burned by pirates.”

  For Sevien’s sake, Rahl almost wanted to shrink into the mortared gaps in the gray stone walls. How were they supposed to know that?

  “Are you all ready for some pie?” Nuelya’s voice rose over the conversation. ,

  “We’ve been drooling all along,” Rahl called back cheerfully.

  “Then come over and get a piece.”

  Nuelya had slices cut and set on small crockery plates, with the reddish juice oozing out from the golden brown crust. “Take a plate and one of the small beakers, and settle at the long table over there. We have a bit of watered ale for you young people. Not enough to upset your folks but enough to go with the redberry pie.”

  Rahl maneuvered things so that he was seated beside Jienela and across from Fahla. Mostly he listened as the others chattered.

  “… Quelerya’s always looking for something she can tell… like a mouser…”

  “Not so bad as Widow Wylla. She peeks through her shutters so that no one knows she’s looking…”

  As he listened, Rahl took his time eating the redberry and spaced out his sips of the ale.

  After he took the plates back to the pails in the kitchen and washed both his plate and Jienela’s, he eased back to where she stood at one side of the other four.

  “Good cheese is hard to find, the kind that will keep,” Fahla was saying. “So are good knife blades, especially here on Reduce, Father’s always saying…” -

  Rahl touched Jienela’s forearm. ‘This way… toward the lamp.“

  “But…”

  “I just want to see if something is as I thought.” After a moment, Jienela took several steps forward.

  Rahl glanced from her eyes to the lamp and back again. He smiled. “I thought so.” She offered a. puzzled frown.

  “The yellow-gold flecks in your eyes are the same color as the yellow in the lamp flame. Maybe that’s why your eyes always look so alive.” He reached out and squeezed her hand, gently, and-only for a moment.

  V

  By late morning on threeday, Rahl had finished copying another two of the stories within Tales of the Founders and was beginning on the next. He also had bruises on his right shoulder and his left thigh from the early-morning sparring session with his father.

  The workroom door opened, and Kian stepped inside, closing the door behind him. He carried an ancient leather folder. “What do you think of the book now?”

  “It’s interesting.” So far the stories were more like terrible or boring, but Rahl didn’t want to say what he really thought. Creslin had been an idiot to flee Westwind to avoid a pleasant life in Sarronnyn. Instead, he’d had to try to build a land on what had been a huge desert isle. He’d almost died a half score of times, and he’d been blind for much of his life and died younger than he should have. While Rahl was glad Creslin had succeeded, for his own selfish reasons, he didn’t have to approve of what Creslin had done. He knew his father would hardly appreciate his comments. “Where have you been? I didn’t see you leave, but you were gone when I got back from checking the ink.”

  “I was over at Alamat’s. He wanted me to write a letter to his son in Valmurl.”

  “Valmurl? That’s in Austra. How…” Rahl didn’t ask why Kian had gone to the weaver rather than having

  Alamat come to the scrivener. These days, scriveners couldn’t be too choosy.

  “By ship. It will cost two silvers, and Lieran will have to pick it up at the port-master’s at the harbor there.”

  How did a weaver’s son end up in Valmurl? Rahl wondered. “Two silvers for just a letter?”

  “How else can he keep in touch?” asked Kian. “Lieran, insulted ‘Magister Rustyn. Rustyn told him to behave. Lieran told Rustyn that he was a useless flea on the back of the mangy dog that was the Council. They put him on the next ship out. He was lucky it was bound to Austra, and not Candar or Hamor.”

  “Oh.” Lieran didn’t sound terribly dangerous. Stupid, but hardly dangerous to the Council. “When did this happen?”

  “Nine years ago. Alamat finally got the first letter from Lieran something like three years ago. It took a while for the boy to get settled, but he’s a weaver in Valmurl now.” Kian shook his head. “When Lieran talked to Rustyn, he’d had too much hard cider and not enough sense to go home and sleep it off. Quelerya was on her way from Feyn. They were to be consorted, but Lieran was gone before she arrived.”

  “And she just stayed?”

  “Why not? Alamat’s not as young as he used to be, and Lieran was their only boy. Quelerya’s a good weaver. Your mother says she never wanted children anyway. If she were younger, she’d be a good catch for you.”

  Ax-faced Quelerya? Whose tongue was as sharp as her nose and eyes? Rahl repressed a shudder.

  “I’d like you to take the letter down to the portmaster right now. Alamat’s already paid for it, and Hyelsen is expecting it from either you or me. There’s a Suthyan trader coming in, according to the ensign she flying, and they usually run straight from here to Brysta, then Valmurl.”

  Rahl cleaned his pen and set it aside, then rose from his stool. He was more than happy to run the letter down to the port. Much as he didn’t mind copying, he did get stiff sitting on the stool all the time, and he now had a way to stop by the chandlery and see Fahla without his parents being the wiser.

  “No detours through the orchard on the way back, either,” added Kian.

  “No, ser. I won’t be headed to the orchard.” He still wished they wouldn’t keep harping on the orchard and Jienela. At least they didn’t know about Fahla,-or they’d be telling him not to stop at the chandlery as well.

  Kian handed Rahl -the parchment envelope with the Wue wax of a scrivener that held the imprint of Alamat’s simple seal. The outside bore the inscription: Lieran, Weaver, Portmaster, Valmurl, Austra.

  “Don’t be long. You’ve got copying to do.”

  “Yes, ser.” Rahl inclined his head, then slipped out through the door. He closed it quietly. The air was warm and still, the sky hazy, and the afternoon would be warmer than usual for midspring, almost like summer, Rahl suspected.

  Envelope in hand, he turned northward and headed down the gray-stone-paved street that led from the orchard and craft houses on the slopes south of the town down toward the center of Land’s End. His sandals scuffed the stone, and the fine sand filtered around his toes. He would have liked to have boots, but decent boots were too expensive for a scrivener. ‘ Within half a kay, the dwellings and shops were closer together, and even the gardens beside the dwellings were narrower. Before long, the street intersected the avenue that led to the harbor.
After dodging behind a wagon heaped, with coal, Rahl crossed to the east side and headed north. If he had turned the other way, he soon would have reached that point where the avenue became the High Road that stretched the length of Reduce, all the way from Land’s End to Nylan in the south.

  He walked through the crafters’ quarter, passing first a tinsmith’s, and then a cabinetmaker’s, and beyond that the shuttered windows and closed doors of a shop that Rahl thought had been an apothecary, but it had been closed for years.

  Behind the crafters’ shops, on the low rises to the east, overlooking the avenue, were a handful of grander two-storied dwellings, surrounded by walls with iron gates, behind which were vast gardens and fountains. They belonged to ship-owners and factors. At least, that was what Khorlya had told her son.

  As Rahl walked northward on the wide avenue that was the northern end of the High Road, the closer he got to the harbor piers, the more wagons and carts appeared. Still, there were probably less than a score in the two or three hundred cubits before the avenue reached the base of the piers. Voices rose over the creak of wagons and the clopping of hoofs on the stone pavement.

  “… careful with that team!”

  “… got a consignment of fruitwood logs from Naclos… tell you, those are rare… Druids don’t cut many…”

  “… need to be here when they port. Suthyans travel fast and keep cargoes dry, but they’d just as soon sell to whoever offers a single silver more than you… contracts not worth the paper they’re written on…”

  “… frigging idiots… don’t leave shit hanging out the tailgate…”

  Rahl stayed on the eastern sidewalk and kept moving. At the foot of the pier was a pair of Council Guards from the keep assigned to port duty. He scanned the faces quickly, but neither was a familiar face from the handful of Council Guards he’d met through Kacet before his brother had been transferred to the keep at Reflin.

  Just beyond the guards was the black-stone building that held the portmaster and the customs collectors. Rahl slipped through the port-master’s door, then stopped short of the guard stationed inside. The guard took in the truncheon at Rahl’s belt and dismissed it.