The Chaos Balance

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Behind the smith, Ayrlyn set Weryl by her feet and drew the blade from her right scabbard, stepping into the street past the boy.

  “Stop!” screamed the gray-haired woman who dashed into the street in front of the two Lornians. “You’ll get killed, just like Gustor and Buil did. They’re the black angels! Don’t you see?”

  Nylan waited, blinking through intermittent vision, trying to see better, breathing heavily, but not daring to drop out of reflex boost.

  “The angel didn’t attack him,” insisted the gray-haired woman. “He pushed aside Gustor’s blade, two or three times. He said he was a traveler. They got a child, and Gustor went for a blade.”

  The brown-haired man reined up, nearly on top of the woman. “Jenny-leu… you’re Gustor’s cousin, and you stick up for those… always knew you were a woman-lover.”

  “Wister, I be forgiving that this time. I never want to hear it again. Understand?”

  Surprisingly, the rider lowered his head. “I be no idiot, either. I know one thing. They never attack first. You attack, and they be killing you. You see, Wister, how fast he moved.”

  Nylan hoped that belief in angels never attacking first, but being deadly, spread far and wide. He still gripped the blade- ready to throw it, if necessary, although he doubted that he’d be able to function, let alone move, if he had to kill another Lornian.

  Jennyleu and Wister stared at Nylan, but his eyes went to the second horseman. The other had reined up also.

  “See,” Jennyleu finally said. “A man and a woman and their child, and Gustor’s dead. If someone went for you and your kid, wouldn’t you stop ‘em?”

  Wister lowered the blade, smaller than Gustor’s but still nearly twice the length of the shortswords Nylan had used, and looked toward the smith. “You done, angel?”

  “I never wanted to fight. All I wanted was to buy some cheese for my son.” He swallowed. “I could have held off the first man, without hurting him, for a while, but not two at once.”

  “Idiots!” snorted Jennyleu. “Hotheads! A man wants to buy cheese, and you four darkness-near go off getting yourselves killed.”

  Wister kept looking at his mount’s mane, and the fourth rider eased his mount back toward the cooper’s. The cooper stood by the barrel, eyes wide, wooden mallet in hand.

  After glancing at Ayrlyn and Weryl, Nylan fumbled out the rag and cleaned the blade before sheathing it. Wister and the other rider sheathed theirs slowly. Ayrlyn did not, but no one said anything. Then Nylan bent and slowly lifted the blond man and carried the body across the street, draping it over the man’s saddle. Then he did the same for the smaller man. His eyes burned, and so did his shoulder. He hadn’t wanted to kill anyone.

  “See that. He picked up Gustor like he was a baby,” murmured Jennyleu to Wister. She turned to Nylan. “All you angels that strong?”

  “He’s a smith,” answered Ayrlyn. Her eyes flicked to Nylan’s left shoulder.

  The smith shook his head.

  “Glare!” snapped the woman. “Not only… never you mind. Wister, take ‘em home to Furste, and tell him that I don’t want to see any of his kin in town for a while. Not until he’s done some thinking.”

  “Tomorrow’s market day.”

  “We won’t sell to any of you-not tomorrow.”

  After the four horses-two bearing riders and two bearing bodies-trudged east out of Henspa, Nylan crossed the street again, Ayrlyn at his side.

  “I’m sorry,” he said to Jennyleu. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble. I’m glad you were here.”

  “I can’t say as I be so glad you are here, angel, but fair is fair. I saw you trying not to fight, and I saw Gustor not listening, and then that sneak brother of his. Weren’t they cousins I’d sent ‘em to darkness long ago.”

  “Who are you?” asked Ayrlyn. “Why… ?”

  “Me? Why’d they listen to an old lady? Oh… I figured” out a way to card wool faster, long time back, me and Vernt did, but Vernt died, and I had to do it by myself-three younguns, you know. One thing led to another. Own half the. Black Bull now. My boy Essin owns the other half.“

  “We were looking for a good meal,” Nylan said. “We have some coins.”

  “Bull’s better’n most, do say so myself. I’ll go over with you.”

  “There won’t be any trouble?” Ayrlyn glanced after the vanished riders.

  “Furste’s Vernt’s little brother. He’ll fume, and he’ll call me names, but Essin’d take him apart if I couldn’t. Don’t you worry.”

  “Daaaa!” exclaimed Weryl, extending a chubby fist.

  “Fine boy.” Jennyleu nodded. “Be bigger than you, I’d wager.”

  “I think so.” Nylan grinned sheepishly. “He already kicks hard.”

  “Tell you what. You eat at the Bull. You stay there tonight, and go to the chandler’s tomorrow.”

  Ayrlyn gave the slightest of nods to Nylan, and he answered. “We’d be happy to. Sleeping on a bedroll gets tiring.”

  “No pests in the rooms, either,” Jennyleu added. “Bring your mounts.”

  The two angels untied their mounts and the gray and followed the matriarch, first to the inn stable, and then, packs over their arms, to the Black Bull.

  A tall mahogany-haired man with a matching beard met them at the recently painted white door. Nylan noted that the polished plank floors had been recently swept, perhaps even mopped.

  “Essin, these are travelers, like any others. Treat ‘em right,” Jennyleu announced.

  Nylan glanced up at Essin. The young giant would have overtopped Gerlich by a head. No wonder Jennyleu said Essin had no troubles with people.

  “Pleased to meet you, angels.” The innkeeper grinned. “Saw the last of that fight.” He shook his head at Nylan. “Any fool could tell you were trying not to hurt him. Then that little sneak Buil messed it all up. He ever did. I always said he’d get Gustor in big trouble.” A rumbling cough followed. “You can have the big room for the regular.”

  “How much is regular?” asked Ayrlyn.

  “Four coppers for the two.”

  The flame-haired angel extracted the coppers. “What about the stable?”

  “Comes with the room, ‘less you want grain instead of hay. A copper more for each mount-that’s all the grain they can eat.”

  Ayrlyn handed over three more coppers. “They’ve carried us a long ways.”

  “Good to see folks who understand.” Essin palmed the coins. “Stew comes with the room. Brew or jack’s extra. Be serving pretty near after you get your gear stowed. You can carry your blades in the public room, but no bare steel, ‘cepting an eating dagger.” The big young man gestured, and a small girl scurried over. “Lessa, these are angels. They get the big front corner room.”

  “Sers-you are warriors?” asked the girl, who barely reached Nylan’s chest.

  “Yes,” Ayrlyn answered.

  “Good. I want to bear a blade when I’m bigger.” She headed up the wooden stairs as if she expected them to follow.

  Ayrlyn smiled and headed up the steps. After a moment, Nylan shifted his grip on Weryl, who grabbed for the brass lamp in a wall sconce, and followed.

  After going down a short wide hall, Lessa opened a solid wooden door, oiled, rather than painted.

  Nylan was impressed-the room had two windows and a wide bed with a coverlet, plus a table with a pitcher and wash basin, and a chamber pot in the corner. The windows were not glazed, but bore both solid outer shutters and louvered inner shutters. There was a small lamp on the wash table. “This is nice.”

  “My favorite,” said Lessa. “You can bolt the door, but you don’t need to. No one ever does anything bad here.”

  Nylan kept from grinning at the serious tone. “Thank you.”

  “Someday, I want to use a blade like yours.” Lessa bowed slightly, then slipped out.

  “We were lucky,” Ayrlyn said quietly. “I was lucky here before, and I’m beginning to understand why.”

  “Because Jennyleu r
uns this town?”

  “It looks that way, doesn’t it?”

  “I told you that not all women in Candar were oppressed,” Nylan said.

  “Not all-but too many. Places like this are rare.”

  Nylan set the saddlebags in the corner, along with the bag containing Weryl’s clothes. “I’m hungry.”

  “So am I.” Her face darkened. “Did you have to dive into the dust? Your shoulder isn’t that well.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about that. I just didn’t want another blade touching me.”

  “Nylan-”

  “What else was I supposed to do?”

  “Let me check it.”

  Nylan set Weryl on the floor and slipped off the carrypak harness, waiting as Ayrlyn lifted his shirt. Her fingers were cool and precise on his skin.

  “Everything you’ve done has spread the stitches… but there’s no infection. That’s probably because you can use the order fields now that you’re stronger. You will have a darkness-huge scar there, to match the stitching in the shirt.” She let his shirt fall. “Now, I’d like to get some of the dust off.”

  “After you, dear.” The engineer took Weryl, and Ayrlyn poured water into the wash bowl. One-handed, he opened the two wallets. One had two silvers and a handful of coppers, the second a silver and four coppers. “That’s a lot for here,” observed Ayrlyn. Did that mean that he’d killed two of the wealthier young men in town? Nylan worried. Or that people carried more of their assets in a low-tech culture? He didn’t know.

  When they had both washed, and washed Weryl, they started out the door.

  “Do you think things will be safe?” asked Nylan.

  “Not everywhere… but here.” Ayrlyn nodded toward the floor below.

  At her expression, Nylan grinned. He couldn’t imagine many travelers taking on Essin-in anything.

  The smell of cooking, not grease, struck Nylan even before his boots touched the bottom step of the stairs. He followed his eyes and nose to his left and through open double doors into the public room.

  There were no more than a half dozen tables, with four simple dowel-backed chairs around each square wooden table. Three tables were taken-one by a single man in dark brown leathers and a beard nearly as dark, one by three older men with only mugs before them, and one by two narrow-faced men.

  Ayrlyn and Nylan took the remaining corner table, and were barely seated when a round-faced woman appeared.

  “Sers… the stew comes with the room. A copper extra for chops, but forgo them tonight. Greenjuice is one, and brew or jack two.” She raised her eyebrows.

  “Stew, and juice,” said Ayrlyn.

  “The same,” Nylan added, “but could I have a wedge of cheese, a small one for my son?”

  “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.

  XXXI

  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.