The White Order

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Your words say that no one likes a good ruler,” ventured Cerryl, wondering at the slight bitterness in Tellis’s last few words about those who took from others.

  “People are what they are,” answered Tellis. “Enough. Your eyes grow wide and like a mirror. I fear I have said too much, and I must return to binding.” Tellis stretched and shook out his fingers, as if to loosen any tightness in them. “And you to copying.”

  Cerryl picked up the quill and looked across the workroom at the green leather, evenly shaded all the way through, already stretched and shaped and ready for the binding. “You have not shown me much of binding.”

  “You wonder why, young Cerryl, I have taught you little, except by observation, about binding?”

  “I have had much to learn,” Cerryl temporized, carefully setting the quill back in its holder. He sat up straight on the stool, wondering about the volume Tellis had covered.

  Tellis laughed gently, pointing toward the page that the young man had copied earlier in the day. “Your hand, it is already better than mine. I should take you from that?”

  “You flatter me, ser.”

  “Not by much, young fellow. Not by much.” The scrivener shook his head. “Why do you worry about the binding? A binding is there to protect the words within-no more, no less. I do my poor best to make that protection beautiful, but what good is a fine binding that will last for generations if the ink you have copied onto the pages fades into faint shadows on the parchment?”

  “None, ser. Not after the ink fades.”

  “That is another matter, young Cerryl. Those who do not know books assume that any copyist can do what a true scrivener does. Do they think about what ink might be? Ink… you must know how to mix the ink, the proportions and the bases.” Tellis peered intently at his apprentice.

  Cerryl nodded, wondering if it would be a day where Tellis declaimed for all too long and then bemoaned the fact that Cerryl had copied too little.

  “Now… that is the formula for common ink?”

  “The distillate of galls,” began the young man, “the darkest of acorn seepings, boiled to nearly a syrup, the finest of soot powders, with just a hint of sweetsap…”

  “And only a hint,” interrupted Tellis. “And the stronger ink?”

  “Black oak bark, iron brimstone…” Cerryl paused. “You’ve never given me the amounts exactly.”

  Tellis shrugged. “How could I? The strength of the galls, the acorns, and the black oak bark are never the same. You must sense the ink, as I do, if you wish to be a master scrivener. Of everything in life be that true.”

  “What?”

  “Is the avenue the same each time you go to the square? Or a stream? It appears the same… but is it?”

  “That old argument!” A brassy laugh echoed through the workroom from the doorway where Benthann stood. “He has fine words, young Cerryl, but they are only words.” She stepped into the room and toward Tellis. “I need some silvers for the market.”

  Tellis stepped away from the worktable. “Get on with the copying, Cerryl. I’ll be but a moment.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  As the scrivener followed Benthann back toward the kitchen and common roam, Cerryl cleaned the quill’s nib, then took the penknife and sharpened it before dipping it into the ink.

  Oxen didn’t change-or Dylert’s hadn’t-and Tellis was saying that most people didn’t either.

  His eyes fixed on a faint ink splot on the plastered wall. He wouldn’t be most people. He wouldn’t.

  XXXIV

  In the gray before dawn, Cerryl stood looking at the bucket of water, ice already forming on the edge. How long would winter go on? He shuddered at the thought of washing in the freezing water. The trees hadn’t new-budded, and the old leaves remained gray, and that meant spring was more than a few eight-days away. Yet he hated both the freezing water and the way he smelled without washing.

  Too bad he couldn’t use the stove to warm his wash water the way Benthann did-or even Tellis. They expected him to be clean with water that froze on his skin. It wasn’t fair.

  He shook his head. Life wasn’t fair. The only question was what anyone could do about it, and he didn’t have a stove to heat his wash water. He shivered again as a gust of wind rattled through the courtyard.

  He frowned. A stove contained fire. So did chaos. He knew. He’d seen and felt the heat.

  He studied the bucket and the frost rime on the edge, looking at it as though it were a screeing glass. He frowned, trying to replicate the sense of white fire he could feel in the books-and had seen thrown by the fugitive.

  Then he stopped and picked up the bucket, walking to his room. If he did manage to warm his water, he wouldn’t do himself any good by showing the world-or Tellis, skittish as his master was about the white wizards. The son of a white? In some ways, that was hard to believe, and in others… all too easy.

  Once inside, Cerryl concentrated on the water in the bucket. He could get the sense of flame-a pinpoint of white fire appeared over the bucket-but when he tried to lower it to the water, it just vanished. Did water have too much of something? Order?

  Cerryl shook his head. Real fire held chaos, but it heated water.

  “Stupid,” he murmured to himself. “You can’t put a brand in a stream.” Or the burning splinter used to light tinder in a pitcher of water. So how would he heat the water? If he moved the fire under the bucket, he’d just burn the wood. Applying chaos-fire to the bucket would do exactly the same thing, and the burn marks would have Beryal, and especially Tellis, asking questions.

  He looked around the small room, his eyes finally lighting on the plain brass candlestick. Taking his own penknife, he cut a short length from the cord he usually carried in his pocket, then soaked the cord in the cold water, leaving it draped over the side of the bucket, half in the water, half out. He removed the candle from the holder and set it on the pallet, then placed the brass holder on the floor stones beside the wooden bucket.

  Cerryl swallowed. Would what he planned work?

  He enfolded the brass in the white of chaos until he could feel the heat almost blistering off the brass. Then he looped the wet cord around the metal and lifted its holder quickly, then lowered it into the water. With a hiss, a gout of steam erupted from the bucket.

  His head ached… even heating water took effort, just to warm it so that it was lukewarm. He coughed to clear his throat. He’d been so tense that he’d almost forgotten to breathe, and his throat was raw.

  He dipped the washrag into the warmish water and began to wash. With even half-warm water, it wasn’t bad, and practice would certainly ‘ help, as it had with his copying.

  Practice… but did he dare?

  He swallowed and looked at the bucket and the faint steam of the warm water in the cold room. Slowly, he lifted the now-tarnished candleholder out of the bottom of the bucket and set it back on the table.

  He had to think of a better way. The brass wouldn’t hold up for long. He massaged his forehead. Neither would his head.

  With a sign, he began to dress quickly, knowing that if he didn’t get to the common room quickly, Beryal or Tellis would be knocking on his door.

  He left his room with the door ajar, hoping the cool breeze would help remove the faint odor of hot metal and the slightest hint of chaos, and walked quickly across the courtyard.

  Still… even lukewarm water had felt better than freezing-much better.

  XXXV

  … and when they had come to the desert isle that was Recluce, Creslin the black slew all those of the duke’s garrison as who would not swear unyielding loyalty to him, and the remainder he bound with the chains of dark order.

  Once this evil deed was accomplished, more of the dark mages appeared, as if from the shadows, and stood behind Creslin, and gloom darkened the very sun.

  A handful of stalwart blades, seeing the power of Creslin and the darkness that cloaked him and the faceless dark mages, swore such a powerful oath, yet resol
ved to stand firm against the evil, seeking a means by which they could return Recluce to the white fold, and peace and prosperity.

  Megaera the wily, putting on perfumes and essences, enchanted them, and then, once under her spell, when they revealed their stalwart nature and fidelity to the Duke of Montgren and to the White Way of Truth, she laughed.

  She turned her powers upon them and burned them, saying to all that such stalwarts had attempted to force themselves upon her, and that she had but defended her virtue.

  Creslin and the dark mages declared that it was so, and so it was recorded, save in the true records of the Guild…

  Colors of White

  (Manual of the Guild at Fairhaven)

  Preface

  XXXVI

  Cerryl checked the ink, then laid out the quills, and finally took down the thin and worn brown leather volume Tellis had given him two days earlier. While far shorter than the Trade volume he and Tellis had finally finished for some merchant at the grain exchange, The Science of Measurement and Reckoning almost made reading the histories of Candar a pleasure.

  He glanced toward the showroom, wondering where Tellis might be, and whether he should open the front door-or at least the shutters. The master scrivener had not been at the table when Cerryl had eaten his gruel, and Beryal had said nothing, just urged Cerryl to eat and get on with his business.

  “Open the front shutters! You’d think…” Tellis’s voice rasped from the front showroom.

  Cerryl set the Measurement volume on the copy stand and hurried to comply.

  Tellis dragged himself over to the workroom table and slumped onto the stool. After a moment, acting as though each movement caused great pain, he stood and shuffled to the chest, unlocking it and extracting something. Then he shuffled back to the table and looked morosely down at the faded green velvet wrapped around what appeared to be a thin volume.

  “Is there anything I can do, ser?”

  “Suppose you have to. Promised this… I’d be doing this myself, but this flux…” Tellis coughed, then held his forehead and closed his eyes for a moment.

  “I can do it, ser,” Cerryl said, glancing at the green velvet.

  “I know. Dependable, you are.” Tellis massaged his forehead once more, then looked up. “Master Muneat wanted this as soon as I finished it.” Cerryl stepped over to the worktable. A slim volume bound in green leather lay on a square of green velvet. He knew vaguely that Tellis had been working on the book, but it was one of those the scrivener kept to himself.

  “Do not be opening it.”

  “But what is it… if I might ask, ser?”

  “It is… verse… of a particular sort.” Tellis flushed.

  “Oh…”

  “It’s called The Wondrous Tales of the Green Angel. And I don’t know why.” Tellis coughed, almost retching, drawing himself erect after a foment. “But Muneat, he wanted it… and matters have been slower than I would have liked… don’t turn down a pair of golds for a volume of less than fourscore sheets…”

  Two golds?

  “I promised, and it needs be delivered.” Tellis looked at Cerryl.

  “You can deliver a volume, can you not?”

  “Yes, ser… ah… where am I going?”

  “Master Muneat’s. You know the houses past the exchange? Past the jewelers’ row?” Tellis tried to clear his throat.

  “Yes, ser, just past the market square?”

  “His is the first house on the far side, the very first one. There is a fountain with two birds in the courtyard before the front door. You go to the front door.” Tellis paused, then swallowed hard. “This must go only to the hand of master Muneat himself. He is short, not much taller than you are, and he has a wide white mustache, and he is mostly bald.”

  “What-”

  “You just tell whoever opens the door that you must deliver it to his hand, and his alone, and that you will wait-or return whenever he deems fit. You be most polite, but only to his hand-or return.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “And wear your good tunic. Go get it on and return.”

  When Cerryl returned, Tellis had wrapped the volume in the velvet, then tied the cloth with thin strips of vellum, so that none could see the volume. Cerryl picked it up, wishing he’d known of it… just to see what such wondrous tales were. Green angels? He’d heard of the black angels of Westwind, but not green angels.

  “You go straight there, and come straight back. You hear?”

  “Yes, ser. Straight to master Muneat’s. The first house past the market square on the far side. A fountain with two birds.”

  “Good…”

  Cerryl bowed again, then gingerly picked up the wrapped volume. Tellis did not move, and the apprentice slipped away and out through the showroom door.

  The air on the street was cold, but the bright sun helped warm Cerryl as he walked down the way of lesser artisans toward the square. The shutters were still closed at the weaver’s, though he could hear the shuttling of the big loom when he passed.

  Across the market square, Fasse’s door was ajar, and a wagon stood at the curb of the avenue, with a driver beside it. Some cabinet being picked up by whoever had commissioned it? Who had the coins for such-besides people like dukes and viscounts?

  Cerryl turned down the avenue, past the inn, and the smell of fresh-baked bread, and past the ostlery beside it, and the faint scent of hay brought in from somewhere and stacked in bales beside the stable door. Hay? In very early spring? Or had it been stored somewhere all winter?

  Three carriages were lined up by the grain exchange, with the drivers standing by the middle carriage.

  “Morning, boy!” called the older driver at one side.

  “Good morning, ser.” The sun felt good on Cerryl’s face, and he smiled as he hurried down the walk past the jewelers’ row-the iron-bound doors yet closed. He did catch the odor of hot metal from the last shop before the market square. In the square itself, the many-colored carts filled the pavement, but only a handful of those interested in their wares had appeared.

  Cerryl’s steps slowed as he passed the square. The first dwelling on the far side… He paused at the open wrought-iron gate, looking into the open expanse of dark green grass, bordered by bushes that lined the inside of the wall, and split by the polished granite walk that led straight to a fountain-a fountain with a bird on each side of the jet of water that splashed into the basin. Two birds, Tellis had said.

  Cerryl just looked at the front of the dwelling for a moment longer. The walk circled the fountain and led to a stone-columned and roofed portico that sheltered a huge polished red oak door-bound in iron. He’d thought that the houses along the avenue had been little more than one level. He’d been wrong, but that had been because they were larger, far larger in breadth, than he had thought. While the dwelling before him appeared to be but one level, that one level was twice the height of most of the shops along the way of the lesser artisans.

  The shutters were open to reveal real glass windows-at least a half score on each side of the entry portico, each window composed of dozens of diamond-shaped glass panes that glittered in the morning sun, casting a silvered reflection across the deep green grass that filled the space before the house-or small palace.

  Beside the smooth stones of the granite walk were rectangular and raised flower beds, filled with dark green plants bearing delicate white flowers. The scents of flowers-different kinds, scents he’d never smelled-drifted around him in the still air of morning, yet he could see no flowers.

  Finally, he squared his shoulders and stepped through the gate, walking slowly but firmly up the walk. Tellis had told him the front door, and that was where he was headed.

  Several drops of water flecked his face as he passed the fountain, and he shifted the book to his left hand, away from the fountain.

  Standing in the shadows of the portico, a tall space that made him feel very small, he lifted the heavy and brightly polished brass knocker, then let it drop.
r />   Thrap! The hard impact on the knocker plate seemed to echo through the stillness. Cerryl waited.

  A gray-haired man in a blue tunic and trousers opened the door. “Trade is at the side door.”

  “Master Tellis told me to deliver this to master Muneat, to his own hand.”

  “‘Til take it for him, boy.” The servitor smiled pleasantly. “No, ser. Only to his hand. I can wait, if he would like. Or I can come back again.”

  The man in green frowned. “Wait.” The door closed.

  Cerryl shifted his weight from one foot to the other. The sun seemed to beat on his back, even the back of his legs.

  Finally, the door reopened, and the green-clad servitor looked at Cerryl. “Master Tellis, you said?”

  “Yes, ser. The scrivener.”

  A faint smile cracked the thin lips. “I’m Shallis, and I’m not a ser I’m the house seneschal.” He opened the door and stepped back. “You are to come in and wait here in the foyer.”

  Cerryl eased inside. The foyer ceiling was high, twice as high as the showroom’s in Tellis’s shop, and polished dark wood planks stretched between the arching granite supports. The base of each pillar was a polished rose-tinged stone, so smooth that it shimmered in the light from the open door.

  “You may sit on the bench there.” Shallis closed the door and pointed to a white oak bench with a low back, set slightly away from the waist-high polished rose marble wainscotting. His eyes went to Cerryl’s boots. Then he nodded. “Master Muneat will be here when it suits him.”

  “Thank you.” Cerryl didn’t know what else to say. He sat on the front edge of the bench as Shallis stepped through the archway into the house proper.

  Cerryl’s eyes followed the seneschal, taking in what he could see of the hallway beyond the foyer, a hallway that was larger than the large common room in Tellis’s house, even larger than the kitchen and eating area in Dylert’s house.

  The sole archway he could see from the bench was draped in blue, a fabric that dropped in fine folds that shimmered in the indirect light from the windows Cerryl could not see. The hallway floor beyond the foyer arch was polished marble, set in interlocking squares, so smooth and so clean that Cerryl would have feared to walk on it.