The White Order

XXVI

WITH THE RUMBLING of the big wheels on the smooth wizards’ road and the hot afternoon, Cerryl found his eyelids getting heavier and heavier. The late afternoon sun, shining directly at his face, offered another incentive to let his eyes close.

“Darkness!”

At Rinfur’s expletive, the team swerved, and Cerryl found himself grasping for the sideboard with one hand and the wagon seat with the other. His eyes popped open.

“Demon-cursed messenger! Think they own the road,” mumbled Rinfur as he guided the team back from nearly scraping the right-hand wall.

Cerryl glanced over his shoulder, but all he could see was a mist of white road dust.

“Course they do. You don’t give them the road, and the wizards have you whipped.”

“Even if it happens on the part of the road in Lydiar, or Certis?” asked Cerryl, shifting his weight on the hard wagon seat.

“Don’t be wagering on that. The wizards rule their roads. And a lot more besides that.”

Cerryl waited.

“Dylert, he was telling me. Years ago, it was. The old line of dukes, the ones in Lydiar I be meaning, they told their traders not to be paying the road tariffs to the wizards. Three days later, there were two-hundred-score lancers on the road outside Lydiar and a score of white wizards. Never said a word, did they. Just marched into Lydiar and cast fire down on the duke’s palace. He was in it, a course. Ruins stood for nigh-on forty years ’fore anyone dared rebuild it-even the new duke the wizards named.”

“If the white mages are so powerful, why aren’t they the dukes of Lydiar and Certis and. .”

Rinfur raised his free hand.

“Used to be a Duke of Montgren, once upon a time. He befriended that black demon-Creslin, I think. The whites killed him and all those in the keep. Then they leveled the keep. Montgren still belongs to Fairhaven.”

“But you said they did that to Lydiar. Leveled the duke’s place, I mean, but there’s still a Duke of Lydiar.”

“Got me,” said Rinfur. “All I know be that no duke or viscount or whatever in his mind be crossing the white mages. No teamster not give way to a white messenger.” He shrugged. “That be enough.”

Cerryl glanced ahead. The almost mountainous hills the road had bored through after they had left Hrisbarg had already dwindled into low rolling hills, half topped with trees, half with meadows, and each line of hills seemed lower than the previous set.

“Won’t be long. Hills about to end,” confirmed the driver.

Cerryl nodded and watched.

Fairhaven rested in a gentle valley, and the road descended ever so gradually toward the mixture of white structures, white road, and green grass. The trees were mainly ever-greens barely again as tall as the roofs they shaded. Cerryl saw no leaf-bearing trees, none. Was that why Dylert could send white oak to Fairhaven?

The paving stones of the road, somewhere along the way, had turned from pinkish granite to slightly off-white gray granite, as had the stones of the walls. As the wagon cleared the last low hill, the road walls ended, replaced with a long curb slightly more than a span high. Beyond the curb was green grass, green still despite the nearing of harvest.

Cerryl had trouble seeing the city ahead against all the whiteness, a white that seemed somehow brighter than it should have been even with the clear sky and the glare of the late afternoon sun in his face. The glare seemed to intensify as the lumber wagon rolled closer.

“Ahead be the gates,” explained Rinfur, gesturing almost directly in front of the wagon, down the avenue of white stone wide enough for at least four wagons abreast.

Cerryl tried to see where Rinfur pointed, but the sun hung just above the horizon, and looking westward only left Cerryl with a headache and an image of blinding whiteness from the sun off the white of the road.

Rinfur began to rein in the team, slowing the wagon gradually until it creaked to a stop behind a mule cart piled with pottery. In front of the mule cart was another wagon, a small one drawn by a single bony horse and filled with gourds or squashes. The squash wagon stood just short of a small white stone building outside the gates. The stone gates did not seem that tall to Cerryl, not more than ten or twelve cubits high, not particularly impressive for a city that ruled, in one form or another, much of Candar.

The two white-clad soldiers or guards stepped up to the driver of the squash wagon, inspected the wagon, poked desultorily at the squashes, and motioned the farmer past the gates. The mule wagon creaked up to the gates, and Rinfur eased the lumber wagon forward but had to touch the brake to ensure the wagon stopped completely.

A squealing continued after the lumber wagon slowed. Cerryl turned. A coach and a wagon had lined up behind them. The coach, dark gray with a pair of grays, was driven by a teamster in gray as well. The driver avoided Cerryl’s eyes. Behind the coach was another wagon, but the coach blocked Cerryl’s view, and he looked back toward the gates.

The two guards had stepped up to the driver of the mule cart. One gestured at the medallion. The driver gestured, shrugging as if he did not understand.

Cerryl strained to hear the words.

“. . your pass is two years old. .”

“I did not know, ser.” The cart driver shrugged, looking at the soldiers helplessly.

“You knew. Don’t lie to us.” The taller soldier took the driver by the arm and pulled him off the cart.

“Handlers!” called the second guard. At his word, two men jumped from somewhere and unhitched the mule, leading it away down a lane to the east toward a low structure. A stable? Cerryl wondered, still looking at the unattended cart of wood and pottery.

Whhsttt! Whhhstt! Two firebolts flared from the top of the guard tower, enveloping the cart. When Cerryl’s eyes cleared and the flames had died away, all that remained before the gates was a calf-high pile of white dust, sifting back and forth in the light breeze.

Cerryl managed to keep from swallowing as he could half-see, half-feel the currents of red-tinged white energy that swirled around the gates, energies apparently unseen by anyone save the mages who had employed them-and Cerryl.

Two men in chains appeared from the gate, one bearing a broom, the other a scoop and two large buckets. Almost before Cerryl could swallow, the ashes and the men in chains were gone, and the soldier was motioning for Rinfur to pull up the lumber wagon.

Cerryl turned to Rinfur.

“It happens, young fellow. See why you not be crossing the white mages?” Rinfur chucked the reins gently, just enough to get the team to take a dozen steps or so and bring the wagon up to the white guard building.

The two white-clad soldiers stepped away from the white stone curb, just as they had with the wagon and the cart, almost as if nothing had happened. One inspected the medal on the wagon side. The other looked at Rinfur. “Goods? Destination?”

“White oak from Dylert, the millmaster of Hrisbarg. The wood be going to Fasse, the cabinet maker off the artisans’ square.” Rinfur’s words were polite, even, and practiced.

How often had the teamster carried white oak to Fairhaven?

The second soldier’s eyes lingered on Cerryl for a moment, then passed on, dismissing him as scarcely worthy of scrutiny, before lifting the canvas in the rear and studying the stacked woods. Then he nodded to the other soldier in white. “Wood.”

The first soldier stepped back and nodded. “You can go.”

“Thank you,” answered Rinfur politely.

Cerryl managed to keep from swallowing until the wagon was rolling again, past the gates and down the avenue. Shops and dwellings were set back from the avenue, and the avenue itself was divided so that on the side taken by Rinfur, all the carts and wagons and riders traveled toward the center of Fairhaven.

From what Cerryl could see, though, more wagons, empty wagons, were departing, heading for the gates through which he and Rinfur had just passed, their wheels rumbling on the whitened granite paving stones.

Scattered individuals walked briskly along the stone-paved walks flanking the avenue, their steps firm and quick. Only one looked toward the lumber wagon, and that was a young mother in a pale blue tunic and trousers, burping a child on her shoulder.

Cerryl smiled but received no response as she turned and resumed walking in the same direction as the wagon. He watched for several moments, but the wagon slowly extended the distance between the woman and Cerryl, and he looked ahead again. To each side of the avenue were houses, large but low houses of a single story, each surrounded by a low wall with a wooden gate. Trees with dark green leaves rose from the courtyards created by the walls, the dark leaves contrasting with the white roofs and walls.

“It’s quiet,” said Cerryl.

“A lot quieter than Lydiar, I dare say. More peaceable, too.”

“Coins. . too,” ventured Cerryl.

“Coins, aye. Always be coins where you find power. Still, can’t say as I exactly like Fairhaven,” Rinfur said with a lowered voice. “Sort of gets on your nerves after a time.” The teamster shrugged, not taking his eyes off the avenue, although he had kept the wagon to a slow walk. “Safe place. Safest city in all Candar. Say you could leave your purse on a wall and come back a day later and find it. Me. . I wouldn’t be trying that, but it be what they say.”

Cerryl’s eyes, slowly adjusting to the glare, looked westward toward the single white tower that rose out of a square that had to have been more than a kay away down the avenue. He could see-or feel-waves of the unseen red-tinged whiteness emanating from the tower, almost like flames and heat from a fire, except that whatever the tower radiated wasn’t hot, not like a fire, anyway. “What’s that?”

“That’s the wizards’ square-their tower. You not be wanting to go there.” Rinfur shivered. “No, ser.”

Cerryl nodded.

The two halves of the avenue split apart into half-circles around a space of green grass, white stone paths, and low spread-leafed trees. A low fountain gurgled in the center of the circle. The outside of the avenue was dotted with shops-a cooper’s, then a coppersmith’s, several shops whose symbols were unfamiliar to Cerryl, then an inn, and a stable.

“This be the artisans’ square, here. You can go round the circle and drive back the way we came. Down that side way we go.” Rinfur eased the team down a street to the right, a side way almost as wide as the main and only street of Hrisbarg. “Fasse’s be the second shop there. Can’t put a wagon before a shop. Have to use the rear courts.”

Cerryl nodded. After what he’d seen at the gates, he had no doubts that the laws of Fairhaven were followed. He glanced back at the grass of the square, vacant except for two toddlers tended by a girl barely older than Cerryl and a white-haired man sitting on a stone bench. Cerryl felt something was missing, yet he hadn’t any idea what that might have been.

As the wagon turned down an alleyway and then rolled into the back courtyard of a shop, a thin man hurried out. Everything about him was thin, Cerryl decided-the twiglike and wispy mustache above narrow lips, the angular face, the skinny shoulders, and the pointed brown boots.

“Greetings, master Fasse.”

“Greetings, ah. . teamster.” Fasse’s eyes flicked from Rinfur to the wagon and then to Cerryl. “Who’s the young fellow? I don’t need another apprentice, you know? Haven’t needed an apprentice for years, thank you.”

“Cerryl knows the woods right well,” drawled Rinfur, a glint in his eye. As Fasse opened his mouth, the driver added, “He be headed to master Tellis in the mom.”

Fasse closed his mouth and nodded abruptly.

“I shouldn’t be telling master Dylert you be needing an apprentice, should I?” asked Rinfur almost belatedly.

“No apprentices,” confirmed Fasse. “Not now. Not ever.”

Rinfur ensured the wagon brake was locked, then inclined his head to Cerryl, who began to loosen the ties on the canvas covering the wood.

“Careful there, young fellow. Don’t let the canvas cut the oak. Even oak can be scarred.” Fasse hurried to the tailboard and unfastened one side as Rinfur loosened the other.

Cerryl folded the canvas and laid it across the wagon seat, then slipped down to the ground and joined the other two at the rear of the wagon.

“Which first, master Fasse?” asked Rinfur.

“The heavy ones, of course, for the big racks on the wall. Would I put light planks there? The very thought of it!”

“Just two planks,” Rinfur said to Cerryl, “there not being much room to work with.”

Cerryl nodded and walked his way back along the planks as Rinfur slid them gently out of the wagon. The two carried the set inside through a narrow door that opened out. The cabinetry shop was small, no more than a dozen and a half cubits square, and half of that was taken with racks for wood. The youth’s nose itched with the faintest trace of sawdust, and he wished he could scratch it, but carrying the wood took both hands. He sniffed instead, and his nose itched even more.

“Gentle, gentle with that oak. Not a scar, not a scratch. The whites, they can sense if but a bruise there be.” Fasse scurried around Rinfur and Cerryl as they carried in the wider planks. “On the first rack there, the one padded with the rags. Do be gentle.”

The two eased the planks onto the padded rack, then walked back to the wagon for another load. Cerryl rubbed his nose. What was it about sawdust?

The sun was touching the tops of the shops to the west by the time, following Fasse’s directions, they had unloaded and stored all the white oak.

Rinfur stretched. “We need to stable the horses. We can leave the wagon in the courtyard,” Rinfur explained.

“The stable by the inn?” Cerryl glanced around the courtyard that barely held the wagon.

“Aye. If you sweep out the wagon and cover it. .”

“I can do that.”

“Master Fasse?” called Rinfur.

“Yes, teamster?”

“A broom, perhaps, so that Cerryl can clean up the wagon and the courtyard while I stable the horses?”

“There be an old one here somewhere.”

By the time Fasse had reappeared with a ragged-edged straw broom bound in cloth strips, Rinfur had long since departed with the team.

“The dust and scraps. . in the pail in the corner. Piddling chunks, too. Don’t be leaving any signs of sawdust or dirt. The patrol won’t be having that.”

“Yes, ser.” The patrol? Cerryl merely nodded as he wondered. Patrols inside the city? For what? Then he wanted to shake his head. If the courtyard had to be spotless, why was Fasse so reluctant to come up with a broom?

By the time Rinfur returned, Cerryl had finished sweeping the courtyard and was pushing the wagon, a span at a time, into the corner where it blocked neither the shop door nor access to the alley itself. The teamster added his shoulder to Cerryl’s efforts, and they eased the wagon into place. Cerryl covered the wagon with the canvas and reclaimed his pack.

By then, Fasse had reappeared and stood in the doorway. “Not much to offer you this eve,” he suggested, not looking toward either of the two from Hrisbarg.

“Whatever you have, master crafter, that will serve fine,” answered Rinfur with a smile. “We’re just poor mill workers.”

“Ah. . yes. . let me check with the consort.” Fasse turned and went through the door and vanished down a narrow hall.

“Always does that,” said Rinfur. “He has to feed us, but he never wants to admit it. Folks from Kyphros, they say, be like that.”

His pack half-dangling from his shoulder, Cerryl stifled a yawn. It had been a long day, a very long day.

“Not that we be having much this eve, saving a mutton stew that be mostly carrots and onions, but you be welcome,” said Fasse, reappearing suddenly.

“Thank you, master crafter,” offered Cerryl.

“Thank you,” added Rinfur.

Fasse gestured toward the door, and the two entered. The door closed behind the three with a snick of the latch.

“All the way to the end, and the door on the right,” Fasse suggested.

Cerryl followed Rinfur down the narrow corridor and stepped through the door from the gloom into a surprisingly bright room, the walls a spotless white plaster, the floor a polished golden oak.

The odor of stew filled the room, coming from the stew pot that sat on the oblong waist-high black metal structure that Cerryl realized, after a moment, must be a stove. A scuttle of coal sat beside the stove, which was set in an alcove with windows on each side. The windows and shutters were open wide. Cerryl nodded almost to himself, sensing the flow of chaos-tinged heat from the hot stove out the window on the right side.

“This be my consort, Weylenya.” Fasse jerked his head toward the gray-haired, round-faced woman in brown who stood before the stove, then gestured to the benches flanking the trestle table. There was a place set on each side and at each end. Backed stools faced the ends of the tables.

“I am honored to meet you,” Cerryl said after an awkward moment.

“Good it be to see you, again, lady,” added Rinfur.

“A poor stew it be, but filling.” Weylenya inclined her head. “Company we had not expected.”

After waiting his turn to use the washstand in the corner, Cerryl stood back until Rinfur picked the bench where he would sit. Then Cerryl stood behind the bench on the other side.

“Sit,” said Weylenya with a laugh, carrying the stew pot toward the table. As the men sat, she ladled stew into the four brown earthenware bowls. “Bread be coming.”

Soon, the aroma of dark bread mixed with that of the stew as Weylenya set a wicker basket in the center of the polished walnut table.

“Brew in the gray pitcher, watered wine in the brown,” Fasse explained.

Following Rinfur’s example, Cerryl poured the amber beer from the gray pitcher into a brown mug with a chipped handle. With a chunk of the brown bread in one hand, he sipped the beer. Despite the slight bitterness, he enjoyed the taste.

“Good brew,” affirmed Rinfur. “Always have a good brew here.”

“Get it from Herlot out in Weevett. Keep it in the coldest corner of the shop. The woods help, but I don’t know why.” Fasse took a swallow from his own mug. Weylenya drank the watered wine between small bites of bread and stew.

Cerryl found himself looking down at an empty bowl.

“Growing lad, I see.” The crafter’s consort stood and returned with the stew pot, refilling both the teamster’s bowl and Cerryl’s.

“Thank you.” Cerryl offered a grateful smile with the words.

“A polite young fellow you are.” Fasse nodded. “Polite indeed. Why you be coming to Fairhaven, young fellow? Aim to make your fortune?” Fasse laughed. “Seen lots of young fellows. Either want to pile up the coins or become mages. One or the other.”

Cerryl finished chewing a mouthful of the hot bread. “I have to learn to become a scrivener.”

“What? No coins?” asked the cabinet maker. “No great dreams?”

Cerryl forced a gentle smile but said nothing.

“Know your letters?”

“Yes, ser.”

“Knowing your letters, and not having dreams, you might yet make a good scrivener.” Fasse shook his head. “Too many folk these days, wanting to be rich or powerful. Not like the old times, when a man took pride in his work. That was when the work counted, not the coins.”

A half smile crossed Weylenya’s lips, as if she had heard the words more than a few times before.

“Now. . the young ’uns, they want the coins afore the first join is set, afore the barrel holds water, afore the. . ah, what’s the use? An old crafter railing ’gainst a world that doesn’t know where it’s going, doesn’t recall where it came from.” The crafter lifted his mug and drained it, then looked at Rinfur. “You be sleeping in the loft, the two of you. You know where, teamster.”

“Yes, master crafter.”

Cerryl finished his stew and the last corner of the dark bread, trying not to yawn while he ate. The day had been long, and his buttocks were sore.

Yet, even after he straggled up the short ladder to the loft and the narrow pallet alone, not caring that Rinfur had said he was taking a walk, he could not sleep, tired as he was. Though he lay on the narrow pallet, thinner and harder than the one at Dylert’s, his eyes remained open, resting on the thick beams of the workroom ceiling.

Around him, beyond the stone walls of the shop, he could sense the flows of red-tinged white. The energies he’d felt in the mines, or even with the white mages who had fought at the mill, were insignificant compared to those which suffused Fairhaven. He shivered.

Careful. . he would have to be most careful. Already he had seen enough to know that Fairhaven was a dangerous place for him-for anyone. With those thoughts, his eyes finally closed.