The Magic of Recluce

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Leave them there for now. It will be a while, but we need to get ashore as soon as the Eidolon ties up.”

  “Safer for us or them?”

  Isolde didn’t answer, perhaps because she had left.

  The Eidolon, with the grizzled captain on the bridge, continued to make surprising speed, the engine substituting for the sails, which now hung nearly limp. Once we had neared the hills and entered the bay, the wind had died, as had the waves.

  Sammel appeared at the rail, followed by all of the dangergelders but Dorthae-and Isolde. Myrten wore a white bandage on his forearm, which showed only when he reached to steady himself on the railing.

  The sun had disappeared totally behind the shapeless clouds by the time the ship rounded Cape Frentala. Freetown, at first glance, was not prepossessing. Only a single spire graced the gray sky, and the harborfront was mostly of low wooden buildings. The piers were of heavy weathered and unpainted gray timbers, except where a brown line showed the replacement of an older plank by a newer one.

  “Get your gear…” Isolde, now wearing solid black and looking grim, was talking to Sammel, but I didn’t need a personal reminder. At her belt was a sword, also black-hiked, and a long knife.

  In the short time it took me to go down the ladder and claim cloak, pack, and staff, the Eidolon was jockeying up to the pier, where a handful of figures waited.

  “Tax guards…” muttered Myrten. For whatever reason, he stood nearly next to me at the railing.

  “Tax guards?”

  “The duke wants his cut first.”

  “Of everything?”

  “Everything. Isolde will have to shell out a gold penny for each of us.”

  “We have to pay to come here?”

  “Hell, isn’t it?” Myrten smirked.

  I hadn’t thought about that. Would we have to pay entry taxes in other provinces? My stock of coins was looking less and less adequate.

  “Dangergelders!” called Isolde.

  I turned to see her motioning and followed her gestures. Someone wanted us off the Eidolon as soon ‘as possible. The gangplank was barely in place as we lined up and walked down. A pair of seamen were still tying lines to the bollards on the pier.

  A round-faced official with gold braid on both shoulders and a silver breastplate waited at the bottom of the plank. Behind him stood ten soldiers, each wearing a sword but carrying a club ready to use. Their breastplates were cold iron. Behind them lurked a shadowy presence, a woman in white, with the same sense of disorder I had felt once before, in the blade the trader had tried to sell Krystal.

  In the dampness I wanted to shiver, but tightened my grip on my staff. Strangely, it felt even warmer now than on a sunlit day.

  “Dangergelders?” rasped the round-faced man. His eyes looked beyond Isolde, avoided looking at any of us.

  “Seven,” noted the woman in black.

  “That will be seven golds.”

  “You have a receipt?”

  The round-faced man looked to his right, where a thin youngster scribbled on a tablet, then handed the single sheet to the tax agent.

  Isolde offered the coins and took the receipt.

  “Weapons?”

  “Nothing except the normal-staves, swords, knives, and a few pistols. All for personal use.”

  “Magicians?”

  Isolde hesitated briefly, so briefly I doubt the official caught it, before answering.

  “No magicians. Two blackstaflfs.”

  “That’s another four golds.”

  “Since when?” Isolde fixed full concentration on the official.

  The round-faced man said nothing, but his forehead was damp.

  “Since… since…”

  “This afternoon, perhaps?”

  “Magistra… it has not been a good year…”

  “Additional duties are not in the Agreement.”

  The round-faced man swallowed. His forehead was clearly wet now, and not from the dampness of the afternoon. He swallowed again.

  A soldier, his iron breastplate bearing a four-pointed star on the upper left, eased forward from the armed group.

  Isolde shifted her weight ever so slightly, and I imagined she was smiling, although I could not see her face, wedged as I was into the narrow space just at the foot of the plank. Myrten was in front of me, breathing noisily. {Crystal’s hand was on the hilt of her blade.

  “The duke has insisted, has he?” prompted Isolde. “With your head on the line?”

  A few drops of rain splattered on my face, and the wind from the hills overlooking the city seemed ever cooler. I glanced back toward the Eidolon. The weathered captain and two officers stood at the top of the plank, watching. All three carried halberds I hadn’t even seen during our passage.

  Clearly, we weren’t expected back aboard.

  “No… Magistra… but the needs of the duchy…”

  “Then I demand the right of instant trial.” Isolde took a step forward, and the tax official squirmed backward.

  Myrten looked at me. I looked back. Right of instant trial? Our lectures hadn’t covered that.

  “But…” protested the official.

  “You wish to repudiate your own laws?” asked Isolde softly.

  The man shook his head mutely.

  I jabbed Myrten in the ribs. “Move. We’re too crowded.” I tried to whisper, but Tamra looked around Wrynn and Myrten and glared at me.

  I shrugged and rolled my eyes.

  She shook her head, but edged outward.

  “Who represents the duke?” demanded Isolde, ignoring the shuffling our movements created. Her voice cut like a knife.

  “I do.” The soldier who stepped forward was the one who had moved earlier. He topped any of us, even me, by half a head, and Isolde by more than half a cubit. His face was lean, clean-shaven and unscarred, but his short black hair bore traces of silver, and his eyes were flat and lifeless.

  “Blood or death?” asked Isolde.

  “It has to be your death, Magistra. You are an outlander, and death is prescribed if you fail.”

  “I was talking about you.” Isolde’s voice was cold enough to make the tax official scuttle back further.

  The soldier inclined his head. “That is your choice, Magistra, but I will fight until I cannot. That is also prescribed.” His voice was polite, but rough, as if unused.

  One of the soldiers unrolled a reddish cord that had presumably once been scarlet. A cord-defined square about ten cubits on a side appeared on the gray pier planks. The square was about two-thirds the width of the pier.

  Two soldiers took positions, with unsheathed swords, at opposite corners.

  “Your corners, Magistra?”

  Isolde did not take her eyes off the Duke’s champion. “Krystal… Lerris… take the other two corners.”

  The tax collector’s eyes widened as Krystal stepped forward. He paled, I thought, as she unsheathed her blade, and took the corner farthest from the Eidolon. That left me the corner only cubits from where I had been standing.

  The wood of my staff was almost uncomfortably warm.

  “… blackstaff,” murmured one of the soldiers in the guard group, which had retreated to the shore side of the pier as if to block our way to Freetown.

  “Are you ready, Magistra?”

  “I’m sorry for you, Duke’s Man.” Isolde sounded sorry, yet I wondered why she was so confident. The whole thing was a setup. The man had to be the best in the duke’s forces.

  “Are you ready?”

  “Yes.”

  They both stood for an instant, blades out. Isolde’s back was to me.

  The man’s blade flashed, impossibly quickly. Yet, in scarcely moving her own blade, Isolde somehow deflected the attack.

  Flttt…

  … hsssttt…

  … hsssttt…

  Blades caressed, never meeting directly, edges sliding against each other.

  Clank…

  Thud…

  The Duke’s champion lay f
ace-down on the pier, separated from sword and life. Just as suddenly as it had started, it was over.

  The tax collector’s mouth hung open. So did those of the other soldiers.

  I held my staff ready, wondering what would happen next.

  “I trust you will record that the duke’s proposed tariff on blackstaffs has been nullified.” Isolde’s voice had reverted to a merely matter-of-fact tone at least as chilling as the coldness she had conveyed moments earlier.

  “… uh… yes, Magistra…”

  One of the two soldiers who had served as corners began to reel the faded reddish cord back onto the spool. I stepped aside, but continued to watch the remainder of the squad. So did Krystal.

  Two others hoisted the body and began to carry it toward the horse-drawn wagon that waited at the causeway at the end of the pier. Another retrieved the sword.

  The thin youth scribbled some more onto his tablet, and the tax collector wiped his sweating forehead with a darkish cloth.

  “You understand, Magistra… Duke Holloric… we only serve his requirements…”

  Isolde nodded briskly. “Convey our best wishes to the duke. We trust he will wish to continue maintaining the Agreement without further attempts at one-sided changes.”

  “Yes, Magistra…” He backed away, then turned.

  The soldiers followed him back down the pier. Not one looked in our direction.

  I looked at Tamra. She raised her eyebrows. I nodded. We both knew. For whatever reason, it had been an attempted setup by the duke. And the Brotherhood had known. I suspected Isolde was one of the best the Brotherhood had, and that was scary. Giving away nearly a cubit and a half an arm’s length, she had dispatched the duke’s best in instants.

  No wonder the soldiers wanted off the pier.

  I glanced back at the Eidolon. Only one guard remained by the railing, just a regular crewman. He grinned at me, then let his face turn impassive as the captain walked past him to the top of the gangplank.

  Isolde turned to face the man.

  “Our appreciation, Magistra. Our appreciation.”

  Isolde nodded, and he nodded back, then turned back to his command.

  “Let’s go.” Isolde looked unruffled and was five paces gone toward the shore end of the pier before we started after her.

  By the time we reached the causeway, the tax collector, the wagon, and the troops were gone, carried into the mist that clung even more heavily around the wooden buildings of Freetown.

  Given all of the bollards on all the three long piers, Freetown seemed deserted. Only the Eidolon and a smaller fishing boat rested at the piers, and there were no traders, no cargos obvious for unloading or loading.

  I caught up to Isolde. Her steps were still quick, and she didn’t even look at me as we stepped off the pier and onto the stone pavement of the causeway. “Will your success teach the duke anything, or will this… embargo… whatever it is… go on?”

  “Who knows?” For the first time, her voice sounded tired.

  “You didn’t want to do that?”

  “Lerris…” The exasperated sound of her voice was more effective than an explanation.

  “Oh…”

  “That’s right. Now, we need to get to the Travelers’ Rest before the duke gets any more ideas. We’ll turn at the next street, if you can call it that.”

  The buildings looked almost ghostly in the dim light and heavy fog and mist. Every so often, an oil lamp peered through the gloom, or a single person scurried away from us.

  Tamra had caught up and walked beside me as we followed Isolde up the street away from the harbor proper. Every step seemed to echo, and no one said a word. We just kept walking.

  XVIII

  THE FOG THINNED by the time we had stumbled and generally trudged uphill for several long blocks. In the middle of an open space where two narrow streets crossed, I paused for a moment. Over my shoulder, I could see the mast tips of the Eidolon.

  “Ooooffff…” Sammel, head down, ran into my shoulder.

  “Sorry…” I turned and took several quick steps to catch up to Tamra and Isolde.

  Overhead, higher clouds had turned dark gray, and a touch of a damp breeze brushed my cheek then was gone. The mist still dropped a faint gauze curtain over the buildings we passed. Many were deserted, or at least dark. From a handful of windows oozed the golden light of lamps. The acrid tang of wood smoke mixed with the dampness of mist.

  “Ghost town,” muttered Myrten from somewhere behind me.

  “We’re the ghosts,” responded Isolde. Her voice was so low I doubted that Myrten had heard her.

  I supposed we were, outsiders haunting the streets while, inside, the Freetowners huddled around the lamps and fires that held an unseasonably early fall at bay.

  “Here we are,” announced Isolde.

  I glanced ahead over her shoulder.

  The building’s weathered timber walls looked gray, spirit gray in the thinning mist and growing dark. But a golden glow poured from every first-floor window, and the blue shutters were folded back to let the light escape, almost as if making a statement that the structure would not draw into itself against the forces of chaos.

  “Travelers’ Rest” proclaimed the sign hanging over the wide double doorway. The doors themselves, their thick brass handles glinting in the light of the two oil lamps that flanked the doorway, were still folded back against the wide timbers of the front wall, almost as if daring the dark to enter.

  I took a deep breath, feeling some of the tension begin to leave me as I followed Isolde through the doorway.

  A second set of doors, red oak like the first, although half the thickness, swung open at her touch.

  Within moments we all stood on an open polished wood floor separating a parlor-like area from a wooden counter. Like the doors, the counter was finished and smooth-planed red oak, without ornamentation except for matching oak coping covering the corner joins. The wood was protected by a dull varnish that radiated the gold of the lamps on the wall. Right before us was a wide wooden stairway with a brownish-carpeted runner covering most of the stairs themselves.

  To our left opened another archway, through which I could see a series of tables covered in red checked cloths, with individual chairs drawn up to each table.

  Behind the counter stood a gray-haired woman with a cheerful smile. She said nothing as Isolde turned and looked us over.

  “Each of you has a single room. It has been paid for. You may make other arrangements if you wish. We will have dinner together in the small dining room which is behind the one you see on the left. Meet there as soon as you are settled. You can leave your weapons in your rooms. They will be safe there. Now… please check in at the counter.”

  Her words reflected long practice, and while I was wondering how many groups she had escorted to Freetown, she had already stepped up to the counter.

  “We didn’t think to see you again, Magistra.”

  “The unexpected can change everyone’s plans.” Isolde laughed an off-tone laugh. “Here’s the normal.”

  Clink…

  The momentarily-widened eyes of the woman in the faded green blouse indicated that the payment was scarcely normal.

  “Did you meet the new tax collector?” asked the counter lady.

  “Ah, yes. We also met the duke’s new and late champion.”

  “Oh, dear…”

  “I doubt the duke’s enforcers will be here immediately, but I won’t be staying after this group leaves tomorrow, not this time.”

  “The new duties are unpopular, and rumor has it that the Hamorian legate left Freetown rather suddenly. No ships are likely to enter the harbor until some certainty is established.” The innkeeper raised her eyebrows slightly as she eyed Isolde.

  “If Hamor is thinking of acting, that’s certainly true. No ships are likely to be seen.”

  I didn’t frown, but I knew how Isolde was leaving. The only question in my mind was what else she might be doing before she left.
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br />   “Come on, Lerris. Don’t gape. Step up.” Isolde had stepped aside without my noticing it.

  “Ah… a young blackstaff… I’ll bet the harbor guard didn’t like that. Especially now.”

  “No…” I looked at the open ledger, which had a space only for each traveler’s name-no country. Scrawling down my single name beneath Isolde’s, I started to step away.

  “Here’s your key, young man. Room fifteen, second floor at the back.”

  The key hung from a brass square nearly the size of my fist. I took it and headed up the stairs, not looking at anyone, just trying to keep my staff from banging on the staircase railing posts.

  I followed the upstairs carpeted hallway, also lit by a set of oil lamps, to the back and number fifteen. Two doors stood side by side-fourteen and fifteen. The key opened my door easily, without so much as a squeak, then swung quietly closed at my touch.

  Click.

  The room held a double bed, a low three-drawer red-oak dresser topped with an oak-framed mirror, a washbasin table with towels, and a wardrobe. A braided rag rug covered the wide and polished gold-oak planks from next to the bed to just before the dresser. The single window was closed, flanked by cheerful red-checked curtains tied back with thick white cords. A lamp over the low headboard lighted the room. The bed was covered with a handmade red quilt showing a pattern of geometric red-and-white snowflakes.

  After hanging my cloak in the wardrobe, I stripped off my tunic and rummaged through my pack.

  The water in the basin was warm, and with the small bar of soap, the razor from my pack, the water, and the heavy towel, I did my best to make myself presentable.

  The mirror showed me as clean-shaven, tanned, reasonably decent-looking-but young, still too young to be doing what I was going to have to do beginning in the morning.

  Picking up the tunic and looking it over, I decided it was still adequate. Slightly grimy, but wearable, and there wasn’t either the time or the place to wash it. So I put it back on, and used a dampened corner of the towel to remove a few of the more obvious smudges.

  As I placed the pack in the wardrobe, I had to shake my head. The Travelers’ Rest was definitely more than it seemed-the sort of inn that probably only the very well-off could afford. The staff just barely fit inside the wardrobe and only at an angle, but, Isolde’s words to the contrary, I didn’t really want to leave it in plain view. The lorken was cool to my fingers, reassuring me that at least I wasn’t in the presence of overt chaos, although that was scarcely likely with someone such as Isolde leading us.