Three doors open from the warehouse—a sliding door level with the rough stones of the street and wide enough to admit Liedral’s cart. The second door is iron-bound and barred, and the last, closest to the square, is a door of plain oak under a green-painted portico.
Brede swings off the gelding without an invitation and points to the sliding door. “You want me to open this one?”
“If you would. Leave it open. Freidr never airs anything out.” Liedral drives the cart through the door and onto the smooth and hard-packed clay. A faint aroma of spices permeates the space. Liedral climbs off the cart.
“If you want to clean the stables and do the loading, you can sleep in the stableboy’s room,” Liedral offers. “Freidr doesn’t keep one any longer. He claims it’s my responsibility, since I’ve got all the horses.”
“What about a place to wash up?” Dorrin is all too conscious of the grime that enfolds him.
“You can use the washroom as much as you like—so long as you pump the water and clean up any mess you make.” Liedral loosens the last strap from the cart harness and leads the horse into the second stall. “You three can have the last three stalls at the end. I daresay they’ll need some cleaning. But that comes after you help me unload and shift things around. The bins are probably a mess, again.”
“Is Freidr…” asks Kadara.
“My brother. He and Midala live on the third floor. My rooms are on the second—when I’m here. He factors here in Jellico what I gather.”
Brede tethers his gelding by the last stall. “What goes where?”
“The four purple jugs? That’s glaze powder, and they go up on the first level, just up the staircase. There should be a picture of a pot in purple outside the right bin and a jug like these inside.”
“What’s cerann?” asks Dorrin.
“Take it easy with that. It’s a rare oil, goes on the second level, the bin with the green leaf.”
“How rare is rare?” muses Kadara, lifting a heavy sack.
“Each bottle in the case is worth a gold and a half. The sack is sweet beets. Put it in that big bin over there.”
“That’s rare.”
Brede has returned to the cart. “What next?”
Dorrin climbs the stairs slowly, ensuring that each foot is placed firmly on each riser. He doesn’t have eighteen golds to spare. That he knows, and he doubts that Liedral can easily absorb such a loss. By the time he has stored cerann oil, tublane, pottery glaze, and dozens of other small items, Dorrin understands why the trader is broad-shouldered.
Liedral leads them through a doorway at the end of the warehouse. “Here’s the washroom. I need to talk to Freidr. We’ll have a late supper, sometime after the twilight bell. You’re invited. You might look around the great square.”
“After I do some wash,” Dorrin says, looking down at his travel-stained browns. “Actually, I need to find a good curry brush.”
Kadara grins. “The same fastidious Dorrin. In a new city, and you think about laundry and currying.”
“I’m also thinking about me, and the way I smell.”
Liedral pauses. “There are several curry brushes in the tack room. If you want to keep one of the older ones, that would be fine.”
“Thank you. Meriwhen will like it.”
“Now you’ve named the horse?”
Dorrin flushes.
Liedral backs away and steps through the doorway to the living quarters.
“Fine. Let me wash up first,” suggests Kadara. “I’m not doing laundry. You can go curry your Meriwhen.”
“Fine.”
While Kadara washes, Dorrin unloads Meriwhen, curries her, and gathers his soiled clothes. Then he pumps two tubs full of water before Brede appears. Brede is stripped to the waist and carries a small towel and a razor for his blond stubble.
“Still doing wash?” Kadara has changed into a gray tunic and trousers, with a bright green scarf that sets off her hair and eyes.
“I just started.” Then Dorrin sighs. Once again, he has answered a rhetorical question. He never learns.
“I’ll do mine later.” With the travel grime off her face and the light tan almost covering the faint freckles, she looks almost like an etching of an ancient Westwind Guard—beautiful and deadly. “I’m going to the square to see if I can find some things.”
“What things?” asks Brede from the other side of the washroom.
“Just…women’s things.”
His elbows deep in the tub, Brede splashes water across his face and looks up at Dorrin, water dripping down in a stream from his chin. Dorrin looks at Brede, and Kadara is gone.
Dorrin rinses out his travel trousers and wrings them over the waste bucket, then hangs them over a laundry table as he picks out a soapy tunic.
Brede hurriedly finishes washing and dries off, leaving Dorrin alone in the washroom. The healer finishes all his once-filthy clothes, and carries them out into the warehouse, hanging his wash in the empty fourth stall, spreading it on a rope he has found coiled in the corner of what was once a tack room.
“You don’t have to be that careful, healer.”
The short and squat man who accompanies Liedral nods. Despite the dark beard and cold blue eyes, he appears little older than Dorrin.
“This is my brother Freidr.”
“I’m pleased to meet you. My name is Dorrin.”
“Are the others around?”
“They went off to the great square. I thought I would follow their example after I wash up.”
“We will see you at supper, then.” Liedral points, and the two traders climb the steps. “The cerann was a good buy…overextended a bit…”
Dorrin returns to the washroom with his one dry and clean set of browns, where he washes himself thoroughly, then cleans the washroom, then dries and dresses. As an afterthought, he reclaims his staff from the stableboy’s room.
As he walks toward the great square, he notes again the relatively small number of people on the streets, few indeed, even for a blustery spring afternoon under gray skies. The stones underfoot are dry.
Dorrin passes several booths selling weapons, but all have the white-bronze blades of the Whites. Nowhere does he see iron. Is Jellico totally controlled by the White Wizards?
“Dorrin!” Brede waves from fifty paces away.
The healer returns the wave and steps toward the tall blond.
“Have you seen Kadara?”
“I just got here,” admits Dorrin. He pauses to look at the display to his left, at the edge of the square.
“Seeds! The best spice seeds this side of Suthya!” The man’s white hair bears an unhealthy yellow tinge, and his gray garments almost flicker with white. Pouches of seeds are set on the small single-axled cart, a cart that could be drawn by a man or a dog. Neither a dog nor a pony is visible.
Dorrin edges closer to the small leather pouches, frowning at the water stains on the leather, wondering about the use of leather with seeds. If the leather has been tanned with acorn extracts or other acids, and then gotten damp, neither brinn nor astra will grow.
He extends a hand toward the nearest pouch, not touching the leather, letting his healing senses reach the seeds. Most are dead. He shakes his head. His left hand tightens on his staff.
“What’s the matter?” asks Brede.
“Most of the seeds are dead,” Dorrin explains.
“You’re a fraud, friend,” claims the peddler. “My seeds are the best, the very best.”
Dorrin nods politely, and steps back, heading toward the cart with a grill from which drifts the warm dripped-fat scent of roasting fowl.
“The youngster in black said his seeds were dead…” mumbles an older woman in brown.
Dorrin frowns. His clothes are brown, a deep and dark brown, but brown.
“More ’n likely,” sniffs another gray-haired woman in a patchwork of wools. “He’s a white-back.”
The three women leave the white-haired man without customers.
“I said you’re a fraud!” The peddler shouts. “Thief! Thief!”
Two white-coated guards appear before Dorrin, white blades pointed toward him. “What’s the problem?”
“Him and his Black quackery! He says my seeds aren’t any good. That’s theft!” The peddler is almost hoarse, his voice is so loud and ragged.
Bystanders step away, almost melting into the streets off the square.
“You a Black healer?” snaps the square-faced guard.
“No. I’m a questor.”
“Same thing. What about what the peddler says?”
Dorrin faces the guards, his staff resting still in his left hand. “I said nothing, except to my friend. I certainly am no trader.” A warning flash slides through his brain, although his words are literally true.
“Those women—they would have bought except for him!”
“What women?” asks the other guard, looking around the nearly deserted section of the great square.
The peddler looks around, then waves his arms. “He scared them away.”
“Likely story.” The guards lower the white blades.
The square-faced one turns to Dorrin. “You, youngster—keep your Black thoughts to yourself. You understand?”
“Yes, ser.” Dorrin nods politely.
“I don’t want to see you making more trouble, young fellow.” The square-faced guard turns to Brede. “Nor you either, with that iron toothpick!”
Brede nods. “I will be careful, ser.”
The two guards march across the square.
“Well, are you going to pay me?” snaps the peddler.
Brede looks at the peddler. “For what? False accusations? The healer couldn’t tell an untruth if his life depended on it. That’s more than one could say of you.”
The white-haired man shrinks away from Brede’s glare. “Black bastards…trouble-makers…all of them…”
Brede grins. Dorrin shrugs as they walk toward the stalls on the far side of the square. Brede’s grin vanishes as he watches two men fold their tables at the approach of the two questors. Another throws a cloth over his silverwork to signify that he is closed.
“Sorry,” Dorrin apologizes.
“There’s not much we can do.” Brede nods toward the avenue. “Might as well head back.”
Dorrin feels the eyes of the White guards on their backs as they cross the square and head back up the avenue toward Liedral’s building.
Kadara is hanging up her laundry when they slide open the stable area door. “You weren’t gone long.”
“We had a few problems.”
“I had a few problems,” Dorrin corrects. “A local peddler was selling dead seeds. I remarked on it, and the authorities overheard. By the time there were through, everyone decided it was time to close.”
“Oh, Dorrin.” Kadara pats his shoulder.
The doorway from the quarters opens. “If you’re all back, we could eat,” Liedral announces. The trader wears clean dark blue trousers and a high-necked tunic, with damp and clean brown hair longer than Dorrin’s but shorter than Kadara’s ear-length cut.
The dining room is on the lowest level. The long red-oak table is polished, oiled, and only slightly battered along its eight-cubit length. There are wooden armchairs, not benches, for the six who gather. Four other chairs are placed in the corners and against the wall. Freidr stands by the head of the table. To his right sits a thin blond woman.
“Dorrin, Brede, and Kadara, I would like to introduce you to Midala. Midala,” Liedral says smoothly, “Kadara and Brede are blades; and Dorrin is a healer.”
Freidr smiles and gestures to the table. “Please be seated.”
Dorrin finds himself between Midala and Liedral, who sits at the foot of the table. Brede and Kadara sit side by side with their backs to the high windows that front upon the street.
A young woman in dark blue sets a platter heaped with thin strips of meat covered in a dark brown sauce before Freidr. As he serves himself and Midala, the serving woman returns with two other deep platters, one filled with potatoes coated in cheese and another with limp and dark greenery.
Liedral takes a small helping of the potatoes and hands the platter to Dorrin, who follows her example.
“What’s the greenery?”
“Chiltach. It is bitter enough that it takes some getting used to, but it goes well with heavier meat and potato dishes.”
“How have you found Candar so far?” asks Midala.
“Generally hospitable.” Brede spears some meat and places it on his plate. “Somewhat colder than I thought, and”—he grins—“the size, especially of the mountains, takes some getting used to.”
“You haven’t seen the Westhorns yet, either.” Liedral takes a moderate helping of the chiltach.
“Why does Recluce still send young people to Candar?” Midala has taken only a small nibble of the potatoes.
“The idea is that we should come to appreciate order more,” volunteers Dorrin. “Especially the way the order-masters want us to.”
Kadara swallows hard, almost choking on a bite of meat.
“You don’t sound thrilled with the order-masters, healer.” Freidr pours from the brown pitcher placed before him by the serving girl. “This is dark beer. The white pitcher has redberry.”
Dorrin looks at the white pitcher, then lifts it to pour for Liedral, who nods. He fills the trader’s mug, and then his own, before turning to Midala.
“Yes, please.” The blond woman nods.
“Well,” Dorrin temporizes, “following order most strictly can be somewhat difficult if one is young.”
“I’ve heard it’s difficult at any age.” Liedral sips from the stoneware mug.
The serving girl returns with a woven basket filled with steaming golden-crusted bread sliced into wide slabs. After offering it to Liedral, who declines, Dorrin takes a slab and offers the basket to Midala. The blond woman takes the smallest slice and sets the basket before Freidr.
“What about you?” Freidr turns to Brede.
“If one is a blade, I suppose some experience helps.”
“You’re not told to scout an area or bring back information?”
“I rather doubt that is necessary,” Dorrin says. “The air wizards can see a great deal from the winds.”
“You’re rather confident about that,” laughs Freidr.
Dorrin flushes, and covers his embarrassment behind the mug of redberry. Then he takes two slices of meat and begins to slice them and eat quickly.
“I think that’s been well known since Creslin,” notes Kadara tartly. “It’s not exactly a secret.”
Freidr inclines his head to Kadara and smiles warmly. Midala smiles also, politely.
“I take it that trading is a family tradition.” Brede’s voice breaks the momentary silence.
“The tradition is somewhat strained these days.” Liedral stabs a slice of the meat and lifts it from the platter to her plate.
“Oh? Why is that?”
“Politics,” adds Freidr. “To travel the great white roads, one must have a license, and that means approval of the Prefect, who is advised by his White Wizard. It used to be a simple tax.”
Brede nods. “It has become a loyalty test?”
“Of sorts. It appears as though everyone has a loyalty test these days, does it not?” Freidr looks at Dorrin.
Dorrin takes refuge in another sip of redberry. His eyes stray to the small and dusty guitar upon the wall.
“That? Actually, that’s an heirloom. It’s said that Creslin once played it. Who knows? It’s an old family tale, but, these days, there’s certainly no way to tell. It’s seen better days.” Freidr shrugs off the instrument. “Ah, yes, loyalty and legends.”
“If I might ask,” Kadara smiles politely at the dark-haired Freidr, “What exactly do you do while Liedral is out trading?”
“Mind the warehouse, try to factor what she’s gathered to shops in Jellico—that sort of thing. It doesn’t do much good to obtain thi
ngs if you don’t sell them.”
“Freidr’s very good at factoring,” Midala adds proudly.
“I can imagine,” Kadara says brightly.
Dorrin eats, wishing he were in the stable or even in the great square.
“Tell me,” continues Freidr, as if nothing had been said, “where you will be heading from Jellico.”
“Toward the Westhorns.” Brede refills Kadara’s mug with the dark beer, then tops off his own. Setting the pitcher down, he sips the foam almost silently before taking a healthy swallow.
“Through Passera and Fenard?”
“That’s along the wizards’ highway?” asks Kadara.
“The wizards haven’t finished it there. You’d have to take the old road through Gallos.”
Brede and Kadara exchange glances, but avoid looking at Dorrin.
“I would think a more northward route,” ventures Brede.
“That might be the wisest.” Freidr inclines his head to Kadara. “If you would pass the beer?”
“Of course.” Kadara smiles and hands the young factor the pitcher.
Dorrin reaches across the table and retrieves the bread, taking a slab before offering the basket to Liedral. All six eat for a time as the serving woman replaces the depleted bread basket and removes the empty meat platter.
“Faya! Some more beer!” Freidr lifts the pitcher.
When Faya returns, Freidr fills his mug and offers to pour for Kadara.
“No, thank you, ser Freidr.”
Dorrin quietly refills his mug with redberry and takes another slice of the warm bread. He looks at the remnants of the chiltach on his plate.
“It’s not that bad, Dorrin.”
“I think I’ve seen rotten seaweed that smelled better,” he mumbles.
“You must have tasty seaweed then,” Liedral quips.
“You eat seaweed on Recluce?” asks Midala.
“Sometimes.” Again Dorrin finds himself flushing.
“Are you finished, ser?” asks Faya, standing at Dorrin’s elbow.
The Magic Engineer Page 13
