The Magic of Recluce

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  I shrugged. “If I can…”

  “I’ll try to be indirect. Was your woodcrafter master the only one Dorman respected?”

  I had expected something along those lines. Destrin was a poor crafter, but perceptive nonetheless. “If I understand those involved, I think so.”

  Destrin sighed. “Had to be. So… you’re proposing for Bostric?”

  “Oh… !” Deirdre covered her mouth, but I heard the dismay, and it ripped right through my chest, like one of the prefect’s chaos-swords might have.

  “I don’t have any better ideas. I can add some to her dowry, and I have crafted a red-oak dowry chest for her… Before long, I need to leave, or you all could be in danger. Between Bostric’s family and Brettel… in the future… I would hope that would provide…” My words trailed off. I hated making the case for Bostric, and there were lumps in my chest and in my guts. My eyes were blurred.

  Yet deep inside, I knew I was not right for Deirdre, but that did not make my task any easier.

  “Snnnffff.” Deirdre was blowing her nose.

  “Hell of…” Destrin shook his head. “You like her, don’t you?”

  “Yes. That’s what makes it harder.”

  “You’d outlive her?”

  I knew what he was driving at, knew why he was asking.

  “Yes, if I survive the next few years. Probably by a lot.”

  Brettel nodded, then added, “Why are you asking this?”

  “Because I care, and because it’s the only way I can try to protect her, to allow her as much of her own life as possible.”

  Both older men looked at each other.

  “We’d like to talk for a moment, Lerris… Deirdre…” Destrin’s voice was calm, almost relaxed.

  Deirdre stood up as I did. “Papa, Godpapa…” Her voice firmed. “I need to talk to Lerris for a moment-alone. Please excuse us.” She looked at me with a smile, extending her arm almost like one of the ladies from the street.

  Propped up as he was in his chair, Destrin looked from Deirdre to me and back again. His brow mirrored puzzlement, and Brettel just touched his shoulder and nodded.

  I looked at Deirdre, somehow very regal in that moment, even in her faded blue trousers and blouse and old white apron. She seemed somehow relieved, yet, beneath the relief, I could sense the tension, like a coiled spring, or worse. So I took her arm1, and we walked toward the far end of the main room. I stopped, but Deirdre eased me on into her small room with the narrow bed, scarcely larger than the space I occupied in the shop below, save she had a window overlooking the alley and the stable. Her arm released mine.

  Click.

  “What…”

  Her ringer touched my lips to stop my words, and I could tell she was trembling.

  “Lerris… ?” Her voice was uneven.

  “Yes?”

  “I know you’re some kind of wizard… but…” She took a deep breath. “… would you ever hurt me?”

  “Of course not,” I protested, wondering where the conversation was going, and why she had closed the door. That faint scent of woman and roses reminded me of a night too long before and best forgotten.

  “Not ever?”

  “No. Why?”

  Crack!

  My head rang, and my eyes blurred from the force of her open hand, and when I could see, I could see the tears streaming from her eyes. “Why… ?” I shook my head.

  She just stood there sobbing. “Don’t you understand?”

  Whatever it was, I certainly didn’t understand it, but all I could think to do was reach for her hands. She let me take them, and we stood there for a time as she sniffled out the sobs.

  Finally, she swallowed. “I’m… not… not a brood pony… I’ll… do anything… for papa… and for you… but you… could have… asked… You… could… have… asked…”

  I was the one swallowing then, and finding it hard to see. Good old stupid Lerris, working like hell to save the girl, and not even asking her. But, even as I kept swallowing… I realized the tension within Deirdre was gone…

  “Sorry. I just wanted to do what-”

  “Lerris?”

  “Yes?” My voice was level, since I didn’t know what to expect.

  “There’s one other thing.”

  The one other thing was two arms around my neck and warm lips on mine and a very feminine body pressed close against me. Very close against me, and pulling me down onto her and the bed.

  We lay there for a long time, only holding and kissing. Then, slowly, before I lost total control, I let go of her and rolled away.

  She sat up on the narrow bed. “That’s what you’re going to miss.” She smiled sadly. “And what I’m going to miss.”

  I just stood there.

  “Thank you… for me, for papa… for caring… and for being you…”

  By then I couldn’t see anything, but neither could she. So we ended up hanging on to each other again, and I cried as much as she did.

  Thankfully, neither Destrin nor Brettel interrupted, and, in time, we pulled ourselves apart.

  There wasn’t anything else to say, not then. After we wiped our faces, she opened the door.

  “… just fine… Destrin… too damned honorable…”

  “… so you say…”

  “… you know it as well as I do…”

  Deirdre grinned for the first time, even with the sadness beneath. “You are too honorable…”

  I didn’t have any choice any longer, not if I wanted to survive. I still had to explain it to Bostric, although I thought it was less likely that he would either haul off and hit me or kiss me. So I left the three to discuss details and went down to the shop.

  Bostric was working on the tavern bench, and doing so quite effectively, having shortened the piece to cut out Destrin’s mis-drilling.

  I pulled out the two stools and set them by my workbench. “We need to talk.”

  Bostric could read when to tease and when not to. He took one look at the side of my face, which was probably still red, nodded, and set down the shaper.

  “Sit down,” I said as I pointed to the empty stool.

  “Is there a problem?” For once, he looked worried.

  “Yes. But it’s more mine than yours. Brettel says that your family has not arranged any future alliances-a marriage or anything like that. Is that true?”

  “That’s true.” His voice was cautious. “I’m the fourth son, and my brothers are healthy. The land is too small for me to inherit anything.”

  “What do you think about woodworking?”

  “I told you. I’ll never be in your class.”

  “Do you like it?”

  The redhead nodded. “I like the woods, and living in Fenard is better than the farm.”

  “What do you think about Deirdre?”

  This time his mouth did hang open. “You… can’t… she likes…” He shook his head.

  “I take it that you find her acceptable.” I kept my voice dry.

  This time he grinned.

  “I have to leave before long. You know I’m not from Fenard. Brettel and I did not want to promise you anything until we saw-”

  “-Whether I could be a woodcrafter?”

  I nodded.

  “But?”

  “Deirdre can almost take care of herself, but without a husband in Fenard, she cannot hold the property. Destrin can’t last much longer, and I couldn’t even marry her out of convenience.” I swallowed. Leaving Deirdre was going to be harder than I realized.

  “You like her. A lot.”

  “Yes,” I admitted. “But that doesn’t matter.” And when my mind and heart were only sad, not rebelling at the statement, I knew that what I said was true.

  Bostric shook his head. “I don’t understand you. You’re the finest crafter in Fenard since Dorman, and you will walk away from fortune and a beauty who loves you?”

  “I don’t have any choice, Bostric. Please don’t ask.” I cleared my throat. I was still having trouble seeing.
“I take it that your family won’t object. Oh, and she does have a small dowry.”

  “No. They’ll be so happy for me, just joyous that clumsy Bostric actually found a beauty with property-”

  “Stop it!” I put an arm on his shoulder. “One of us needs to be happy, and you and Deirdre can be happy together.”

  “Yes, oh wizardly craft-master.”

  I punched him on the arm, but not too hard. “And I’ll… do something creatively wizardly if you ever do anything to make her unhappy…”

  He paled. “I think you would.”

  I shook my head. “Just love her.” What else could I ask? If he did that, most everything else would follow, especially with Brettel’s help. “I know it won’t be easy-not with Brettel looking over your shoulder.”

  He looked at me strangely before shaking his head.

  Then, for a time, I sat down in my corner alcove.

  LVI

  DESPITE MY RESOLVE and Destrin’s agreement, nothing could be arranged as quickly as I had hoped. There were banns to be posted, agreements to be formalized, and parties to be attended-parties held by Bostric’s parents, by Brettel and his family. While I went, I stayed as much in the background as possible, hoping that all the festivities would eclipse me. Everywhere I went, I watched, looking like a wolf for the hunters. But I never found them, and with each failure, my guts tightened, as I wondered whether the next instant would find me in the sights of a crossbow. Yet until Deirdre was taken care of, I did not want to leave. But my staying was stupid, and I wrestled myself night after night.

  As the fall waned, the sun dropped from the zenith, the rains occasionally fell, and the grasses greened again, Destrin lay stiller and stiller upon his bed, not even arguing with Deirdre, sometimes unable even to eat.

  Deirdre was quiet, though she still sometimes favored me with a smile, and I smiled back, and both smiles hurt, and I knew I should leave.

  In the end, once again, I had no choice, not if I wanted to live with myself. Each day, more soldiers rode out to the slaughter, faces blank, and they were younger and younger. Each day, more girls and women wept and damned the autarch. Only the conflict kept the assassins from me, I suspected.

  Antonin’s strategy was working, working all too well, fueled by the prefect’s anger against the autarch. What could the autarch do? Let the bloodthirsty chaos-ruled Gallian soldiers kill her people and troops?

  Still, I could not afford to take on Antonin himself. Remembering the power he had displayed in sweeping me aside earlier in the year, I wasn’t ready for that. But I didn’t think I had to, not yet.

  I pushed Bostric unmercifully, mindful of Brettel’s concerns, not daring nor wanting to leave Fenard yet, not until I could be assured that Deirdre and Bostric would be all right, yet worrying that my continuing presence might endanger them all.

  At the same time, I was all too aware that, despite my efforts to learn the knowledge contained in The Basis of Order, all too many sections of the book I had merely learned by rote, without really understanding what lay behind and beneath them.

  There was no one to ask, especially about the more cryptic phrases-the ones that seemed so simple, like the one that read, “and no man can truly master the staff of order until he casts it aside.” Or the one about “love no one until you can love yourself, for love of another is merely empty flattery and self-deception for one who cannot accept himself without pretense.” The second one sounded right enough, but how honestly could a man love himself without pandering to his own wishes to see himself as he wished?

  Then there was the one that went: “Order and chaos must balance, but as on a see-saw. The power of chaos is for great destruction in a confined area, for order by nature must be diffused over vaster realms. If you would battle chaos, or establish order, you must limit the area and the time in which it must be balanced.” While that one really seemed simple, I didn’t have the faintest idea of how to limit chaos.

  Knowing I could not limit chaos did not keep me from walking the streets more often. I finally had let Deirdre sew me a set of clothes suited to holidays and relaxation -still of dark brown, but the fabric was a close-woven cotton. When she refused to let me pay more than the fabric cost, I put the difference in the hidden strongbox that would be her dowry.

  “Now you look the craft-master,” Bostric had said, and I wished he had been joking.

  I had just shaken my head.

  The first real chill dropped on Fenard early, even before the early melon harvest, although it did not frost. I ambled through the market at midday, hoping to pick up some fresh melon for Destrin, the honey-sweet kind that eased the dry-ness in his thin throat.

  White clouds, tinged with gray, floated above the western horizon, as if coming from the Westhorns, but the breeze was light, and the warmth almost summery. I wiped my forehead more than once as I looked for some of the light green melons.

  Ahead was Mathilde, the flower lady, who kept casting her eyes at the long wall, as if trying not to. That was where the prefect displayed the results of his justice-the heads of those who displeased him. Usually, the heads were those of common thieves, or a deserter from the prefect’s guards, or a murderer.

  I looked up there. This time, there were two heads. I could feel the chill in my guts and the bile in my throat as I saw the woman’s head, seeing the short blond hair-Wrynn? Then I looked again and saw the dark splotch on the short-cut blond hair and the difference in the shape of the face-recognizing the captive I had seen being brought back by the prefect’s soldiers. But it easily could have been Wrynn, and who knew where she was?

  Whispers went around the square, and the whispers weren’t for the Kyphran soldier, but for the other head-that of an older man, who had clearly been blinded and tortured first.

  “… why…”

  “… devil chairs… someone said…”

  “… killed the whole household… the prefect did…”

  “… why the sub-prefect?… don’t understand…”

  I did not run, but stood there, stone-still behind Mathilde. The example of the sub-prefect left my guts churning. Because the man had displayed something of order in his house, or because ordered chairs had burned someone of chaos- that had been his fate?

  The golden coach was gone, with Antonin in it, and now I was out of time and out of excuses. No guards had yet moved against Destrin or the shop, and none moved the streets while I stood in the square, but that could change.

  My head and then my feet turned toward the avenue. I walked to the shadows by the palace and cast a cloak around myself, letting my feelings sense whether a guard troop might be moving into the city.

  First, there were the two guards by the main gates. While scaling the wall looked easier, I had no idea what wards Antonin or any other wizard might have placed there. Wards couldn’t be used on the main entrances, or they would be warning someone every instant, especially during the day, since there were bound to be soldiers and ministers and horses in and out of the palace all the time.

  I just stood there beneath the wall, far enough away so that my breathing would not be heard, and sat down in the shade and waited.

  Clink… clinkedy… dink…

  The first horse passed by, heading for the barracks, carrying another chaos-ruled killer.

  I kept waiting, my heart still beating too fast.

  … clickedy… click… clickedy… click…

  The delivery wagon never reached the palace gates, but turned at the sub-prefect’s vacant house.

  … click… click…

  Another soldier, this one walking tiredly toward the barracks.

  I took a deep breath, trying to relax. The relaxation lasted until the next sound of hooves.

  Clickedy… click… clickedy… click…

  “Hold it.”

  Unseen, I eased toward the rider and his horse, another one of the chestnuts.

  “I’m Captain Karflis with a message for the Military Council.”

  “
Yeah, he’s Karflis. He shows up the day before the council meets.”

  Click… My foot caught on a curb my senses hadn’t distinguished.

  “What’s that?”

  I froze, knowing they couldn’t see me.

  “Relax. It’s broad daylight. There’s no one in sight.”

  Creakkkkk…

  As the iron gates swung open, I followed the good captain on foot, and not too close to the rear of his horse, but close enough that any sound I might make would be covered by the louder impact of the chestnut’s hooves on the stone of the courtyard inside the gate.

  I stopped as he dismounted, sensing almost a fountain of chaos somewhere off to my left. The captain, however, turned right, and I decided to go with him. Following the captain into the palace was almost as easy, since he walked with a heavy tread and his boots echoed on the marble floors.

  From the courtyard, where he left the horse with a military ostler, or whatever they were called, he passed another pair of guards in the main hall. Then he bypassed the grand staircase and walked through a small archway to the side, leading to a narrow corridor that opened into another hallway at the back of the palace. After a left turn, he walked through a red oak doorway with an elaborate stained-glass mural inset over the open door. My senses did not distinguish the scene all that well, except there was a lot of lead around the glass panes.

  “Captain Karflis. You are expected. The marshall is inside.” Another pair of guards flanked the closed door to the right of the desk where the other officer-I assumed that from the gold on his shoulders-was sitting.

  This time, I barely made it inside without getting the door shut on me, and I actually brushed the captain, recoiling from the swirling chaos locked within him as I did so.

  He brushed at his coat. “Spiders… or something…”

  “How goes it, Karflis?” The marshall was thin, that I could tell, and his voice was flat and cold.

  “The autarch refuses to attack until our men cross into her territory. She has a new weapon that flings crossbow bolts in greater numbers beyond the range of our wizards to detect them.”

  “How effective is it?”

  As Karflis continued to stand facing the marshall and to report, I studied the room, from the high and arched ceiling to the cold, if large, hearth, from the table with four chairs around it to the large desk behind which the marshall sat.