Recluce Tales

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Well enough. Well enough.”

  “I thought you might be home earlier.” Jyll did not mention that she had drawn out her ride, hoping that she would not return until they were in the throes of unpacking.

  “Your father brought you something special, Jyll.”

  Jerohm extended an oblong enameled box to his daughter. “Artesia helped me pick it out.”

  Jyll took it, trying not to wince when she saw the garish red-and-black enamel and the yellow crest on the top. “It’s … very pretty,” she said cautiously.

  Artesia looked at her stepdaughter. “It’s lovely, Jerohm. Perhaps you should set it aside until Jyll is older.”

  Because Jyll knew exactly what her stepmother was thinking, she smiled sweetly. “Perhaps you should. Perhaps Artesia would be willing to keep it safe for me.”

  Jerohm’s face fell.

  “No … I’ll keep it. I know just where I’ll put it in my sitting room.” She smiled warmly at her father. “Thank you so much, Father. I’m so glad you’re home safely.” She didn’t have to put the emphasis on “you.”

  “Well … we need to get unpacked … and I’ll need to get to the warehouse to make sure everything coming off the Diamond Pride is properly stored.”

  “Thank you again, Father. I need to put this where it belongs.” She managed another smile before turning and walking swiftly toward the main hall and the grand staircase. Behind her, she could hear Artesia’s voice, which, low as it was, carried with a penetrating edge.

  “Behind all that sweetness, Jerohm, Jyll is a chaos-wielder.”

  “She’s only a child.”

  “She’s old enough to be consorted.”

  Only in that backwater you come from, thought Jyll.

  “She was wearing that awful orange blouse with lavender trousers,” Artesia went on.

  You would have called them purple before you married Father. Jyll hurried up the stairs and then into her sitting room, closing the door softly, not because she felt like it, but because she didn’t want to give Artesia the satisfaction of knowing she was upset.

  She glanced around the room, then decided to place the enameled box on the left side of the fireplace mantel, in turn moving the small Spidlaran knot basket to the side table flanking her reading chair. She forced herself to take several slow and even breaths before she went to the writing desk that doubled as her drawing board. Once there, she took out the smooth paper and the pastels and began to draw, her fingers sure.

  By the next afternoon, she was satisfied with the drawing, but the question was whether she could do what she wanted to with the image of Artesia. She’d managed subtler effects before, but this time … this time …

  Rather than ruin the portrait, because it had taken a great deal of effort, she took out another sheet of drawing paper. Once more she drew, or rather sketched, a quick caricature of her stepmother. A good half glass later, when she laid aside the last pastel crayon, she nodded.

  Then, she concentrated on ordering her thoughts, on putting aside her anger, and upon creating a compulsion to tell the truth, the truth about love.

  He’ll see. I’ll make her tell the truth.

  Somehow, she had to move that compulsion onto or into the crude quickly drawn image, not in a destructive way, but in a fashion so that it would become part of the pastels and paper. With the first attempt, the paper disintegrated and powdered pastels spread across the polished wood of the desk.

  A second caricature, cruder than the first, took another half glass to finish. Once more, she concentrated, but even in trying to be gently firm, her attempts to hold anger away from order were still unsuccessful, although the paper merely fragmented into strips, rather than disintegrating totally.

  On and off, over the next eightday, Jyll worked on her project. Frustrating as it was, it kept her away from Artesia except at meals, and her father was home for most of those. Finally, by the following threeday, she dared to imbue the pastel of her stepmother with the feelings she felt were only appropriate. It took her almost three glasses before she finished. Her back and neck ached, and her eyes were blurring so much that she had to close them for a time.

  When she studied the almost finished portrait, she smiled. While she wasn’t totally satisfied with the results, they should be sufficient for Artesia. Besides, you’ve spent more than enough time on the bitch.

  Next came the frame, and that took another two days, and another two for the dark oil to dry. But she waited, if impatiently, galloping out on Fieron for glasses at a time, because she wanted both frame and portrait to show the care she had lavished on them … and she wanted her father to see that care.

  At last, just before the midday meal on eightday, Jyll walked down the grand staircase and into the side parlor off the family dining room. Her father and stepmother were standing by the window overlooking the side garden.

  “You’re actually early,” offered Artesia. “How charming.”

  Jyll offered an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry if I upset you. I drew something for you.” She started to extend the drawing in the simple frame she had made.

  “Where did you get the frame?” asked Jerohm.

  “I made it. You said I could use the wood-shop when Varren wasn’t using it. There was some scrap pine from crates. I didn’t think you’d mind.” Jyll made her words soft and lowered her eyes.

  Artesia stepped forward and took the offering, studying the frame first, running her fingers along the edges. “The frame is quite good. You might do better to become a cabinetmaker.”

  “Jyll can do better than that. She has the spirit of an artisan,” said Jerohm proudly.

  Then … Artesia looked at the portrait. Her face paled. Her mouth opened. Then her knees gave way, and she crumpled.

  Jyll leaped forward and snatched the framed portrait in midair.

  Jerohm tried to cushion his consort’s fall, but was too late as Artesia collapsed onto the thick Analerian carpet. He knelt beside her, turning her onto her back.

  Jyll said nothing as Artesia’s eyes fluttered. Then Artesia moaned. Slowly, her eyes opened, and she looked almost in terror at her consort. “Jerohm…”

  He helped Artesia to her feet, then settled her into one of the side chairs before striding back to face his daughter. Jyll had not moved, nor had she smiled.

  “What did you do?” demanded Jerohm.

  “I gave her the portrait.”

  “Let me see it.”

  Wordlessly, she extended the frame and watched as he studied the pastel drawing.

  Finally, he looked up, his face puzzled. “I don’t understand.” His eyes went to Artesia. “It’s a quite lovely drawing of you. You look beautiful.”

  “It’s a demon gift,” snapped Artesia. “Burn it.”

  “But … it’s lovely,” protested Jerohm.

  “Burn it!” demanded Artesia.

  Jyll managed not to smile, her eyes moving from her father to her stepmother.

  II

  The Student

  As she sits on the black stone wall, from where she can see and hear the ocean—she has no idea why the waters north of Land’s End are called the Gulf of Muir—Jyll looks to the wiry redheaded young man to her left, intently whittling or carving on a chunk of wood, as he often does. “Why does Lortren always call you ‘toymaker’?”

  “Because I want to make machines that will make the world better. She knows I make models of them. She calls them toys because she thinks that I’ll never be able to make them real.” He offers an embarrassed smile. “I think you already knew that.”

  “I thought it was something like that.”

  “Why are you here?” He eases the small knife into its sheath. “At the Academy of Useless and Violent Knowledge, I mean?”

  “That’s not really its name.”

  “No, but for me, it’s appropriate. I’ll never be that good with weapons, not like Kadara and Brede … or you. You’re almost as good as they are.”

  “My father le
t me train with a retired Guard so that I could ride alone.”

  “You never said why you were here,” he says gently.

  “You don’t let up on questions, do you?” Jyll smiles, trying to defuse the edge her words had held.

  “If I don’t ask questions, I can’t find answers.”

  Should you answer? Finally, she speaks. “I’ve never told anyone here. I suppose Lortren knows, but … please don’t tell anyone, not even your … friend Kadara.”

  He does not reply for a moment, then nods.

  “I drew a portrait of my stepmother…” When he does not speak, Jyll goes on. “It was more than a portrait … I did something to it. She looked at it and fainted. She insisted that my father burn it. It was a good portrait. He just pretended to burn it and hid it away. She kept saying that I was filled with chaos and evil. Finally … well … here I am.”

  “So you used order to focus hatred on your stepmother? I didn’t know that was possible.” He frowns.

  “No,” she replies firmly. “It’s not like that. I … it’s sort of like … I knew she didn’t really love him … so I made the portrait … I guess … it was sort of an order compulsion to face who she was.”

  “You … put … an order compulsion into a drawing?”

  “The drawing was really good.”

  “I know.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ve seen what you’ve drawn. Loric showed me the one you did of Lisabet.”

  “Drawing! What use is that?”

  “The image of Lisabet wearing a pendant looked almost real. I mean, the pendant did.”

  “So?”

  “What if you made jewelry? People pay for that.”

  “Make things?”

  “They’re going to exile us. We’ll have to do something.”

  “You won’t be able to make your toys and survive,” she points out.

  “I can heal a bit, and I am an apprentice smith.”

  She bit off the reply she almost made.

  “Men can get by if they’re street artists,” he says. “It’s harder for women.”

  “Isn’t everything? Except spreading our legs?”

  Even in the early twilight, she can see him flush.

  “I could teach you about forges…,” he finally says. “If … if you want to make jewelry…”

  “You’re sweet, but … you don’t understand. It’s not as though I slashed her with a knife. Besides, she seduced Father because he’s a wealthy merchant, not because she really loved him. Now, she’s convinced herself and everyone else that she does.”

  “Then … does it matter, if that’s what she feels? Maybe your order compulsion forced her to truly love him. That is possible.”

  Jyll feels the blood draining from her head. Could you … could you really…? A wave of nausea washes over her.

  He reaches out and touches her wrist. “Are you all right?”

  She does not answer, her thoughts whirling, her stomach churning.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “You don’t understand!” Abruptly, she slides off the black stone wall and begins to walk downhill toward the ocean.

  Maybe the sound of the waves will drown out everything for a time.

  III

  The Missing Apprentice

  Flaghiern sat at the corner table, staring at the battered pewter mug, half-full, and his third already, for all that it was still light outside, not that the spring air managed to ooze past the smoke and staleness that filled The Overflowing Bowl.

  An angular white-haired man slid onto the chair across the small table from him. “Thought you’d still be at the shop.”

  “No reason to be there now.”

  “Oh … the girl holding it down?” Dowlon laughed. “Your apprentice.”

  “She’s gone, her and the babe. Child now, I guess.”

  “Gone? Where’d she go? You throw her out?”

  “Suppose I did. Didn’t mean to.” Flaghiern lifted the mug and took a deep swallow, then set it on the table with exaggerated care. “Just wanted her to be more than … she was … we were.”

  “That doesn’t sound like you threw her out.”

  “Worked out the same. She left.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “How’d I know? She left a note, not that I can read it.” Flaghiern looked into the mug.

  “So … you’ll get another apprentice.”

  “Not like her.” The goldsmith shook his head. “Never like her.”

  “I’d not want to be prying, but…”

  “The more fool I was … told her she could consort me … or leave. She left in the middle of the night.” Flaghiern shook his head. “Neath those leathers, pretty little thing she was.”

  “But … you took her in.”

  “That’d be three years back, now. She worked the first three eightdays for naught. Slept in the stable. She said her da had been a silversmith, but she didn’t know other metals, especially not gold. Begged for a chance to show me what she could do.”

  “What could she do?” Dowlon leered.

  “It weren’t like that. Don’t know that she came from Southwind, but she might have. She wore those paired blades. Last year, some of Baldo’s boys came in, found her alone. Thought they’d have some fun. One dead, one without his manhood, and the third lost his arm.”

  “I heard about that. I thought you were the one.”

  “I never told anyone otherwise. Better that way.” The goldsmith took another swallow from the mug. “Thought so anyway.”

  “Oh … why’d she come here?”

  “She never said. Never said how she ended up with a bairn, either. She worked hard. Never saw anyone learn so fast. Don’t think she really knew the fine metals, though. Seemed to know about smithing and iron more. Doesn’t matter now.”

  “There’s rules for runaway apprentices…”

  The goldsmith shook his head. “Not ifn it’s not in writing. Was a bad year afore she came. You know that. Dimon … he was the real goldsmith. When he died of the flux…”

  “The Guild would still back you.”

  “Didn’t go through the Guild. Everyone thought she was just a shopgirl, tend the counter. Demon rats … was me ending up on the counter.”

  “Why’d you let her…”

  “Because she was good…”

  “She the one did those bracelets for the portmaster’s wife? The delicate ones?”

  Flaghiern nodded.

  “She take anything? So’s you could send the patrollers after her?”

  “No. Nothing except what I owed her. Maybe less … Even left me some fine rings and a bracelet I never saw before. Better than anything Dimon ever did. You know … she was even polishing rough stones afore she left … had the touch.” The goldsmith looked down at the battered wood of the small square table. “Just wish she hadn’t been so fine looking … maybe woulda worked out…”

  After a time, he raised the empty mug for the server girl to refill.

  IV

  The Exiles

  The tall man with the white-blond hair, wearing the dark blue jacket of a ship’s officer, stopped outside the shop on the narrow side street of Southport. The shop itself was no more than four yards across the front. The door was not centered but at the right side, and there was a single narrow display window, a yard wide, centered between the door and the south end of the shop. The officer looked at the items displayed in the window, taking in a pendant. The brilliant blue stone was oval and set in silver, with a silver chain.

  He stepped back, studying the shop, solidly made, everything in place, ordered in all particulars. Then he moved forward again, drawn by the pendant. He frowned. Somehow, the pendant looked familiar. He’d never seen one like it in any of the silversmiths or goldsmiths he’d visited.

  Could this be the place? After all these years?

  Finally, he walked back over to the door and opened it, stepping inside, and then closing it.

  “I
’ll be there in a moment.” The voice came from the back room of the shop.

  Was the voice familiar? He wasn’t sure.

  He looked around. The front room was neat, and largely empty, except for two portraits, one on the wall above the left end of the counter and the other above the empty space between the counter at the right end and the wall. In the middle of the counter was a display area under glass. In it were two rings, another pendant, and an amulet of a design he’d never seen.

  The craftswoman—or goldsmith or silversmith—stepped through the narrow archway and up to the counter.

  He looked at the fine dark brown hair, still cut to chin length, if now shot with silver, and the dark blue eyes. “Hello, Jyll.”

  Her mouth opened, then closed. “Loric! What are you doing in Southport?”

  “So you did recognize me after all these years.” He smiled broadly. “Looking for you, at the moment.” I’ve looked for years. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

  “I fear I have.”

  “Not in the ways that count.”

  “In more ways than I would like to think.”

  “You look to be quite successful.”

  “Thanks to others.”

  “No. You always had the skill and the talent. When I saw that pendant in the window … Didn’t you draw one like that, for the portrait you did of Lisabet?”

  “I might have. That was a long time ago.”

  He glanced at the wall to her right. Hanging there in a simple wooden frame was a portrait of a beautiful young woman with blonde hair.

  “You did that as well, didn’t you?”

  She nodded, her mouth offering a wry and rueful smile.

  “Is that a relative … a … daughter, perhaps?”

  Her laugh was more rueful than her smile had been. “No … the other portrait is her. She doesn’t have her father’s hair. His generosity, perhaps…”

  “Jyll … you know why I’m here.… You must know.”

  “I’ve made too many mistakes, Loric. You, of all people…”

  “Why do you think I’ve spent the last seventeen years looking for you? Why do you think I worked my way up from ordinary seaman? How else could I visit every port in Candar?”

  She smiled sadly.

  “I have, you know, and every town I could get to, but Southport isn’t where … I’ve been able to port in the last few years.”