The Magic of Recluce

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  For breakfast, I paid another copper for half a loaf-a small half-loaf-of brown bread, and a cup of redberry.

  From there, another day took me into land so flat and treeless that you almost couldn’t tell where the horizon was. In the middle of the treeless expanse flowed the River Galios, nearly a kay across and less than a rod deep in early winter. Two side-by-side stone spans crossed it, one for traffic in each direction, each one wide enough for the largest of farm wagons. Another night in a stable followed, but the Prosperity Inn in Neblitt offered edible food and a clean straw-pile for no more than the night before.

  The right-hand road out of Neblitt and the end of the third day brought me to the low hills leading up to Fenard, and the welcome sight of trees. Bare and leafless trees, not conifers, but trees nonetheless.

  It also brought the second guard station.

  “Where are you bound, young fellow?”

  “Fenard.”

  “For the guards?”

  I looked at the two brawny soldiers and shook my head. “I don’t know much about war. I’m just a journeyman wood-crafter.”

  “Where are your tools?” the narrow-faced one asked.

  “That’s my problem, ser. I was in Freetown… and things changed rather sudden-like…” I shrugged.

  The two looked at each other. “Any weapons?”

  “Just my belt knife. I can hold my own with it.” The guards, veterans each, tried to hold back their grins. So did I. I would have grinned in their place.

  “You understand, young fellow, that if you can’t support yourself, you have to leave Fenard or join the guards?”

  “I would?” I asked, trying to look puzzled.

  “You would.”

  Creaakkkkk… A wagon pulled up onto the stones behind me.

  “Be on your way, fellow.”

  I flicked the reins, and Gairloch carried me forward and up the slope. Three hills and a bridge later, and near supper time and twilight, we stopped at the city gate. On the horizon to the north and to the west I could see a glitter of light, presumably the not-too-distant Westhorns.

  Unlike Jellico, the wall around Fenard was token, where it existed, and the gate was more of a formality than a real check. A bored and much flabbier guard than the one at the hillside gate looked at me and waved me on.

  Once in the streets, I stopped a youngster, round-cheeked and grinning, to ask for directions to the quarter with the most woodworkers.

  “Mills, you mean? They’re out the mill gate, not in the city.”

  “No, fine carpenters, crafters.”

  “The kind that make cabinets and chairs?”

  I nodded.

  “That’s by the mill quarter, straight down the market street there, as far as you can go. A copper, and I’ll show you myself, take you right to the Tap Inn, where Masters Perlot and Jirrle drink. They might be there now.”

  I tossed him the copper. “I can barely afford that, boy.”

  The barefoot youth just grinned. “Come on. Move that toy pony.”

  I could have found the Tap Inn with little difficulty, and even one copper was getting to be important. Sometimes you guess wrong, and the youngster probably needed the copper more than I did.

  At the crossing of the unnamed street to the mill gate and the market street, also without a name written down anywhere, stood a narrow two-story timber building. Only the hearth and chimney were stone, although the street-level walls were a grayed plaster applied over the old timbers. The roof bowed, and pigeons roosted under the eaves on the end away from the hearth.

  A portly and balding man stood, in a leather vest and no jacket, levering a long pole into the street’s single oil lamp. As Gairloch skirted a tinker and his pushcart, the man coaxed the lamp into light, even though the sun’s red ball had not yet dropped from the twilight sky.

  Two middle-aged men, not quite stooped nor erect, wearing dark cloaks, stepped into the narrow doorway on the market street side. As the door opened, a burst of laughter escaped.

  “… scoundrels…”

  “… away from…”

  My guide pointed. “That’s the place. The stable’s in back.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Erlyn. You can find me near the east gate most afternoons.” He turned and was gone, almost at a run.

  The Tap Inn was mostly eatery and drinkery, with five empty stalls that barely merited the title of stable, but there was an overhead loft, and another copper gained me the privilege of paying three coppers to sleep there and three more to stable Gairloch. The stablehand was rushed, trying to get back to the inn, where-from his club, heavy arms, large belly, and low voice-his job appeared to be keeping order while stuffing himself from the kitchen.

  “No trouble, boy! You understand? Keep that mountain beast under control, and close that stall door.”

  I nodded and began to brush Gairloch.

  Much as I needed to eat, and to listen to the whispered soul of Fenard as unfiltered through loosened tongues, I was in no hurry. I forced myself, after I had found some grain for Gairloch, to amble into the Tap Inn through the same side door I had watched the older men enter.

  Holding back, I winced at the din while I let my eyes adjust. Half a dozen men gathered at the sole round table in the room, each cradling a tankard-big earthenware mugs, really.

  Four widely-spaced wall oil lamps and a low fire supplied the light. Grease burning off a stove somewhere and green wood burning in the fireplace supplemented the acrid smoke. Add to that the sourness of spilled raw wine and cheap beer, the sweat of working men, and the combined odor defined the Tap Inn. I preferred the stable.

  Instead, I eased for a small corner table-vacant, as I discovered, because it wobbled alarmingly on the uneven plank floor.

  “Wine or beer?” The serving-girl had unruly black hair, a thin face and body, and a livid slash-scar from the right corner of her mouth to her ear.

  “You have redberry?”

  “Costs a copper, just like a beer.” .“Redberry. Bread and cheese?”

  “A copper gets you two slices and a small wedge of yellow. Two, and you get four slices and a wedge of white.”

  “Two slices and the yellow.” I put two coppers on the table, then covered them with my hand.

  She nodded and left. “Red stuff and a small bread and cheese.”

  The six men around the center table were joined by a seventh.

  “Rasten! Always the last. Did your new apprentice have to slaughter the horse for glue?”

  “Double vine for the man!”

  Thunk! Redberry slopped onto my hand, and by the time I looked up the girl was flirting with the stooped Rasten. He didn’t seem to mind at all.

  A pair, not much older than me, sitting a table away began to talk louder, to be heard over the older center group.

  “… you think about Destrin? That daughter…”

  I “… she’s nice enough…”

  “… no future there…”

  Seeing the serving-girl coming, I had the coppers and my question ready. “Which one is Perlot?”

  She jabbed a thumb at the seven, including Rasten the latecomer. “Silver hair, thin guy next to the fellow nearest the door. Want anything else?”

  “Not now.”

  She was headed back to flirt with Rasten.

  The bread was neither fresh nor stale, but somewhere in the middle; but the cheese was sharp and cool, better than I expected.

  “… benches for the pits… and they wanted black oak, for that price. Can you believe that?”

  “… another wizard loose in the Easthorns… walked through a wall…”

  “… just an excuse because the fellow skipped and didn’t pay, that’s all…”

  The pair nearest me got up and left. No one took their place.

  Sitting in the corner on the long bench, I nursed one red-berry, then another, listening not only to the older group, but to others scattered throughout the room…

  “… apprentic
eship? With his daughter? That’s a prison…”

  “… he’d like those golden chains! Wouldn’t you, Sander? Wouldn’t you?”

  “… frig out…”

  “… say some of the old duke’s guard trying to carve out their own place…”

  “… Northern Kyphros…”

  “… wilderness…”

  “… autarch will show them…”

  “… how you’d like her bed?…”

  “Let’s have another round.”

  “Who’s paying?”

  Between the continuing smoke from the kitchen, the pervasiveness of soured beer and wine, and the acridness of green wood in the hearth, my eyes burned, but I kept listening, waving away the thin serving-girl with the scar down her cheek, nursing my second redberry, and watching…

  Perlot pulled back his chair, and I started to stand up, then sat down. Approaching a craft-master in a tavern was an invitation to trouble. So I waited for him to leave before I made my way out to the stable and Gairloch.

  Although the air was cleaner and the stable far warmer than the Easthorns had been, my sleep was restless, as if the thunder of that sudden winter storm in Certis still echoed in my head, and I kept hearing the phrase “another wizard in the Easthorns.” In time I did sleep, though I woke and washed in the trough before the stablehand arrived.

  He didn’t know exactly where Perlot’s shop was, but pointed generally to the far side of the mill quarter, and I greased him with another copper to leave Gairloch for the day.

  “Before sunset, boy!”

  I didn’t grin, but we both knew that he wouldn’t touch Gairloch with even a pitchfork. All being late would cost me was money, and I was losing that fast enough anyway.

  Perlot’s Grafting. That was what the sign read. Under the sign was a display window with a cabinet and a wooden armchair, both darkened red oak in the Hamorian style. The Grafting was better than anything I had seen since leaving Uncle Sardit, and the cabinet might even have gotten a nod from him.

  Since the door was ajar, and no customers were standing hi the waiting area, I stepped inside.

  On the other side of the half-wall, the craft-master was directing two others, a junior apprentice, and either a young journeyman or senior apprentice slightly older than I was, They were discussing the composition of an oil finish.

  “You there. I’ll be with you shortly.”

  “Please don’t hurry on my account, mastercrafter,” I answered, carefully inclining my head. Then I walked to the back side of the display window to inspect the three-drawered cabinet, comparing it more closely to my recollections of Uncle Sardit’s work.

  “What do you think?” Perlot’s voice was even more raspy in the morning.

  I turned to face him.

  “Well… you seem to know something about woodwork. What do you think?”

  I swallowed. “The finish is superb, as are the proportions. The grain on the side panel is angled, not much, but enough to detract. Since the joins are hidden, I can’t say much about the strength, but the mitering doesn’t jam the wood or leave gaps.” _

  “What about the wood?”

  “The cabinetry is better than the oak. The design would have been better in black oak, but that might have raised the cost to more than most buyers would pay.”

  Perlot nodded. “You’re looking for a job, that’s clear, and you know what’s expected. That’s clear, too. I can’t help you.” The words rushed together, as if he wanted to be done with them.

  “I see.” It was my turn to nod. “Do you know any crafter who might be able to use a junior journeyman?”

  The mastercrafter rubbed his chin. “Among the good ones… no. We all have more relatives than work.” Then he laughed. “If you’re as good as you talk, you might try old Destrin. He could use the help, but…” The man shrugged.

  “Where could l find him?”

  “He has a place in the jewelers’ street, across the market square.” The crafter looked over at the youth and the young man, then back at me.

  “Is this a hard time for woodcrafting?”

  “Not wonderful. Not terrible. I’m no Sardit, but sometimes we come close.”

  I managed to nod without dropping my jaw.

  “You ever seen his work, young fellow?”

  “Yes. I once saw a chest he made-black oak.”

  Perlot pursed his lips. “Why do you need a job?”

  “I left home young. I didn’t like my apprenticeship. My uncle said I was too unsettled. So I headed for Freetown. Then, what happened there forced me to leave… rather suddenly.”

  “It forced more than a few people to leave.” His voice was dry. “Well… I wish you well. Try Destrin, but I’d advise you against using my name. That’s your choice, of course.”

  Before I had even reached the door, the crafter was back among the finishes.

  Gairloch remained in the stable while I sought out Destrin, heading toward the jewelers’ street and following the sketchy directions provided by Perlot.

  The structure itself, faced in dark-red brick and sharing common walls on both sides with more recently-painted houses, bore only a small sign above the shop door: Wood-

  The house had two doors-one which covered a stairway up to the second-floor quarters, and an open doorway on the street level leading into the woodshop.

  The wide shutters on the lone woodshop window were open though a trace askew on their hinges, as if the pins were worn down and had not been replaced in years. The blue paint on the window casement and upon the shutters themselves had faded nearly to gray, where it had not peeled away to reveal a battered and faded red oak beneath. From what I could tell, there was a small attached structure in the back that might have once housed horses. Certainly the other houses in the area had such small stables.

  I stepped inside the open doorway and stood at the edge of the workroom.

  While the workroom wasn’t a disaster, the little signs of chaos were everywhere-the careless racking of the saws, the sawdust in the chalk drawers, and the cloudiness of the oil used with the grindstone.

  “Yes?” A dark-haired man-slightly stooped shoulders, thin-faced, and wearing a clean if worn leather apron over dark trousers-^glared at me.

  “I’m looking for Destrin.”

  “I’m Destrin.” His voice was thin.

  “My name is Lerris. I understand you might be interested in having some help.”

  “Hmmmmmmmm…”

  “I’d be willing to work on a junior journeyman basis.”

  “I don’t know…”

  Shaking my head, I let my skepticism show through as I looked over the incipient chaos, saying nothing.

  Destrin stood by a half-finished tavern bench, backless. The seat was in place, and he had drilled the holes for the pole legs. At a glance, I could tell it was made from three different kinds of wood-scraps or castoffs, probably. Not quite a crude piece, but definitely not up to the quality or the array of the tools, nor to the size of the workroom or the house or the merchant’s neighborhood.

  “Well,” he demanded in a thin and testy voice, “can you do this kind of work?”

  “Yes.” I didn’t feel like elaborating.

  “How can you show me?”

  I glanced around. The bins were empty, except for scraps. “I’ll make something, and you can judge for yourself. All it will cost is some scraps and the use of your tools.”

  “They’re good tools. How can I be sure you know how to handle them?” His thin voice degenerated into more of a whine. “Acccuuu… ufffff… ufff…” His hand touched the workbench to steady himself, but his eyes stayed on me.

  “Watch me. Or work on your bench while I show you.”

  “Hhmmmmphmm.”

  I took that for agreement and began to rummage around. In the end, I found a piece of red oak with some twisted grains at one end that could be turned to an elaborate breadboard, and some smaller plank-ends of white oak that would make a small box, perhaps for needles.


  That turned out to be the easy part. None of the small saws or smaller straight planes had been sharpened in years, and the peg plane was clogged with sawdust and chips in a way that indicated it had been forced. So I cleaned it first, then oiled it and sharpened if. I managed to do the same with the other planes, but the small saws were beyond my ability, except to clean them.

  Destrin kept looking at me as I cleaned and sharpened the tools, and then as I cleaned off the second bench, re-racking all the odds and ends into the old cabinets that seemed to have a place for everything.

  Only after I had done that, and I realized it was well after noon, did I lay out the wood pieces for the box.

  “Father…” A light voice came from the now-open door at the back of the shop, a second staircase to the quarters. “I didn’t know anyone was here.” The girl was golden-haired, thin like her father, and petite, although definitely feminine in shape and demeanor. Her voice was thin like his, but not whiny, just thin, or tired. Her face was not quite elfin, with a short but straight nose a touch too long to be called cute, and her eyes were a brown-flecked green. She wore a faded blue apron over calf-length brown trousers and an equally faded yellow shirt. Her feet were in sandals.

  “I didn’t mean to surprise you. My name is Lerris,” I told her.

  She looked from her father to me and back again.

  “I’m trying to persuade your father to take me on as a journeyman.”

  “Hmmmmphhmmm,” noted Destrin. He coughed again.

  I wondered if that were his way of avoiding commenting on anything. Again, I said nothing as I finished measuring the wood scraps.

  “Would you like to join us for some dinner?” she asked. “It’s only soup with some fruit and biscuits.”

  Destrin glared at his daughter.

  “Neither one of you knows me. I appreciate the offer, but, until I finish something of value for Destrin…” As I spoke I could see the woodcrafter relax.

  “Let me bring you something to drink and some fruit at least.”

  “I wouldn’t object to that, mistress, but I need to keep working.”

  She looked down, then retreated up the stairs.

  As usual, everything took longer than it should. I had to readjust the wood vise, including a minor repair of the fastening on the bottom plate, and the sawing took longer because the blades weren’t as sharp as Uncle Sardit’s.