Natural Ordermage

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Rahl smiled but didn’t laugh. For some reason, he thought of Deybri, although she certainly wasn’t the type for anyone to be loose with. She had made that point more than clear to Rahl.

  He finished the last of the stew and hard biscuits, then asked Galsyn, “Is there anything else you need for me to do this afternoon?”

  “Not for the moment. Later, you can help me check the ship’s accounts. I could do it alone, but it’s faster with two.”

  Rahl nodded, then waited for the mate and Galsyn to rise before following them out of the mess and onto the forward deck.

  The early-afternoon air was pleasant, if brisk, and the ship was only pitching moderately in strong swells rising out of the southwest. He walked to the bow, then realized that he’d be soaked before long from the fine spray coming off the bow, and retreated to a position just forward of the starboard paddle wheels.

  “Young man, you are the assistant purser, are you not?” The voice was firm—and feminine.

  Rahl turned, then paused, because the question had been addressed to him in Hamorian, and the woman who had asked it was the one whom all the crew stared at, and at whom all the male officers tried to avoid staring. She was black-haired and black-eyed, with flawless skin that carried a faint hint of almond. Although concealed somewhat by trousers and a black vest, her shape was clearly one of those alluded to by Galsyn.

  Abruptly, Rahl dropped his eyes just slightly and tried to remember the honorifics in Hamorian. “Yes, honored lady.”

  She smiled, and Rahl wondered what he had said wrong.

  “If I offended you, honored lady, I beg your pardon. I am still learning Hamorian.”

  “You speak it as a native, young man, if as a native of Ada who lived in Merowey. No, I was amused because you clearly did not wish to offend, yet you were more than properly respectful, unlike so many of those in the north. That is so refreshing.” She turned to the dark-haired handsome but muscular man with her and nodded. “You may leave us, Bartold.”

  The man inclined his head and stepped away, although he retreated only so far as the base of the foremast, and his eyes remained on Rahl.

  “How might I be of service?” Rahl asked.

  Rahl could sense the amusement, and he wondered if he’d used the wrong term for service, but he waited politely.

  “You may talk with me for now. There are few on board who have the time or the inclination.”

  “For a while, lady. Later, I will have to work.”

  “Accounts of sorts?” Rahl nodded.

  “This vessel seems small for both a purser and an assistant.”

  While she hadn’t exactly asked a question, that was the fashion in which polite Hamorian society made an inquiry, according to Magister Thorl, and Rahl replied. “It is to make me more aware. I’m being sent as a clerk to the Nylan Merchant Association in Swartheld.”

  “Those individuals of less-than-perfect parentage who manage that establishment could use more of the courtesy you exhibit,” replied the woman.

  At least, that was what Rahl thought she had said. “I will try to be polite to all.”

  “Politeness never hurts, Rahl, especially if you give, nothing except courtesy and what was paid for.”

  “I will keep that in my thoughts.” Rahl didn’t know the expression he really wanted to use.

  “And in your mind.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I have seen you sparring. For one who claims little experience, you exhibit much craft.”

  “My father taught me the truncheon early. Blades I learned later, and not so well.”

  She offered a knowing nod, then gestured out at the ocean and the seemingly endless swells, just high enough to show occasional traces of foam. “The ocean appears to have ho end when one can see no land.”

  “This is my first voyage.” And possibly my last, he thought to himself. “You must travel often.”

  “More than I would prefer, but I cannot find the… assistants and servants I need for my enterprises just in Hamor. Those who purchase from me often have particular needs.” She shrugged. “One does what one must.”

  “You must have a number of indentured servants, then.” That was a guess.

  “More than most, but my needs are greater. You are from the north of Reduce, I would judge.”

  “I am. You are more perceptive than I would be.”

  “Although you have black hair, your skin is fair, and your eyes are blue. Likewise, you are taller and broader across the shoulders than most men. Those traits are more likely in men from the northern reaches. You will find that you are taller than most men in Hamor. That may not be to .your advantage outside of your trading house.”

  “I am among the taller men in Reduce, but there are many who are as large or larger.”

  “Size is not everything, young Rahl. Neither is strength.”

  Rahl nodded. He’d heard that often enough. “Can you tell me about Hamor?”

  “I could, but then you would not see it through your eyes.” She smiled.

  He could sense concern, calculation, and a hint of cruelty behind the words. He also could see Galsyn appear from the port hatchway, looking around.

  The woman caught his look and half turned “I see that the purser is looking for you. Perhaps we will talk later.”

  “I would appreciate that, lady.” Rahl inclined his head.

  She did not say more as Rahl eased around her and crossed the width of the deck toward the purser.

  “Ser?”

  “Oh, Rahl… I wasn’t looking for you. Have you seen the third?”

  “No, ser.” He paused, then asked, “Ser, who is the Hamorian lady?”

  “I’m not certain she’s properly a lady.” Galsyn laughed. “Her name is Valdra Elamira, but I think the Elamira isn’t really a name.”

  It meant something like “of great wonder,” Rahl thought, but he only said, “She’s traveling with a consort, although he looks younger.”

  “He’s a combination of bodyguard and lover. The captain says that she is the mistress of a number of brothels in Swartheld and in Cigoerne. She is quite wealthy.”

  Rahl managed neither to flush nor groan.

  “She’s had her eye on you.” Galsyn grinned. “It might be fun. A bit older, but most attractive.”

  “I think I’d worry about the bodyguard,” Rahl demurred. He was good with his truncheon, but against a true bravo?

  “Wouldn’t hurt to talk to her and be polite,” Galsyn pointed out.

  “I was, and I will be.”

  “None of my business, Rahl… but what did you do to get posted to Swartheld?”

  How could he answer that without revealing too much? After a moment, he smiled ruefully. “I made some mistakes that I shouldn’t have. Things that they felt I could have avoided if I’d just thought things out. I’d rather not say what.”

  Galsyn laughed. “Sooner or later, that’s true for all of us. Sometimes, the best we can do is survive our mistakes.”

  “Was that how you got here?”

  “That’s why I never got further than the Diev. It’s not a bad life as a purser. I get to see places I’d never see otherwise. I’ve got enough coins for what I need. I’ve got a decent cabin and a full belly, and I work for a good captain. One thing about Merchant Association ships… not a bad captain in the lot, Some are better than others, but the worst are better than the best from some places.”‘

  “Like Jerans?” guessed Rahl.

  “Or Biehl… or Hydlen.” Galsyn surveyed the deck. “Don’t see Carthold. I’ll get back to you later.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  After Galsyn turned and headed aft, Rahl glanced around the forward deck, but apparently Valdra had returned to her cabin or climbed the ladder to the bridge deck and moved aft far enough that he could not see her. Even before Galsyn had told him about her, Rahl had been a bit on edge.

  He decided to find a quiet spot and force himself to study The Basis of Order. -He might learn s
omething new, although he doubted it.

  XXXVII

  After more than two eightdays, Rahl was more than a little tired of life at sea. The Hamorian lady Valdra had quietly avoided Rahl, as if she had measured him and found him wanting, and that nagged at him. He wasn’t that interested in her, but he didn’t like being enticed and dismissed. Especially by a brothel mistress, or whatever the proper term might be.

  The days had gotten so long that Rahl even looked forward to copying and filling out forms for Galsyn. When he was not doing that, sleeping, or practicing with Mienfryd, if he couldn’t find someone to talk to, he forced himself to read through The Basis of Order page by page. Mostly, it was slow going, and boring, because he could either do what was mentioned, or, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t Mostly, he couldn’t. At least of the skills he understood.

  He’d also tried to find the passages that Aleasya had said Zastryl had wanted him to read. He only found three, and one had some nonsense about not truly mastering the staff order until casting it aside. Another said that a staff could be infused with order, and the third said that a staff was only a pale reflection of its wielder. Rahl had to wonder what Zastryl had had in mind, but at least the wording of those passages had been clear.

  There were more than a few passages whose ideas he didn’t understand at all. One remained in his mind.

  When snow falls, the flakes do not fall in a precise pattern, each flake only so far from another. Nor are the flakes of one snowfall like unto another, yet once it is fallen, one snowflake clings to another in a pattern that coats all, and one can mold snow into forms. If one melts that snow, it becomes water and only has the structure of what confines it. In the winter, one can freeze that water and sculpt it into any shape. One can also boil water and turn it into a chaotic mist. Thus, water can be ordered or not. So is water of order or of chaos?

  The obvious point was that in some circumstances water was chaotic and in others ordered. But what determined those circumstances? Just how hot or cold it was? Somehow, Rahl couldn’t believe that just heating something made it chaotic. Black iron was the most ordered of all metals, and it was created by great heat.

  As he stood in the shaded area just aft of the starboard paddle-wheel assembly in the early afternoon, he tried to dismiss the paragraph, but he knew it was always somewhere in the back of his mind. Finally, he turned and made his way up the ladder to the bridge. Sometimes, the‘ captain would talk to him.

  At the top of the ladder in a space of sunlight falling between the full sails, he wiped the sweat from his forehead with a square of cloth. Within the last four days the air had gotten far warmer, the sun more intense, and even the spray from the bow had lost its chill. The heavy long-sleeved gray tunic had become uncomfortably warm, and Rahl usually wore ‘the lighter clerk’s summer tunic.

  The captain stood on the covered but open bridge, to the left of the helm. Rahl stopped at the edge of the bridge, waiting for either an invitation or a dismissal.

  “You picked a good time to come up, Rahl.” Liedra pointed ahead, just off the port bow. “If you look hard there, you can see Hamor.”

  Rahl followed her gesture, staring out over the gentle swells that barely seemed to move the light blue waters. A thin line of white was visible just above the blue. Farther east, but north of the white, was a line of smoke.

  “The white line’s the cliffs to the west of Swartheld,” the captain explained. “Before long, we’ll be swinging to a more easterly heading to avoid Heartbreak Reef. Don’t ever want to come into Swartheld in a storm or the dark. There’s a lighthouse there, but ship breakers will use fires to copy it, get unwary captains to drive onto the reef.”

  “There’s smoke over there, ser.”

  “I’d guess it’s a Hamorian warship. Might be one of their new iron-hulled cruisers. Nasty beasts with iron cannon. All that iron means a mage has to get really close to touch off the powder, and they don’t let anyone they don’t know get close. Cannon make more sense on a ship. It’s harder to use order- or chaos-forces at sea.”

  Rahl nodded, although lie hadn’t noticed much with what he could do with order.

  He stood by Liedra for a, time as the smoke drew nearer, and a dark-hulled vessel without rigging appeared, moving north of the Diev. He squinted. “There’s an iron box just aft of the bow, and two in the rear.”

  “Gun turret. They can point in any direction and fire. The Hamorians like guns, and lots of warships.”

  “Are they all iron-hulled?”

  “Just the warships.”

  “Where do they get all the iron?” Rahl knew that there was an ironworks in the mountains north of Feyn in Reduce, but no one had ever told him about the Hamorian iron warships.

  “Don’t know where they mine the iron, but the Hamorians have a whole city that smelts and forges iron.

  Some claim that they produce more iron and steel there in Luba than in the rest of the world combined. Don’t know as I believe it, but all that iron has to come from somewhere, and it’s not from Candar or Recluce. They’ve got small mines and works in Lydiar, but that’s barely ‘enough for the east of Candar, not that Fairhaven likes to see much iron produced.“

  Cold iron was hard on chaos-mages. That, Rahl did know.

  After a time, the captain spoke again. “Look hard just off the starboard bow, on the peninsula, inshore of the reef.”

  Rahl looked. In the distance was a stone tower with a shimmering dome.

  “The northwest light tower. At night, a beam of light that swings from east to west” After a moment the captain added, “You’d better find Galsyn before long. See what he needs from you. You won’t be-leaving until we’re off-loaded. You can take the last wagon to the Association. Oh…” Liedra coughed gently. “I’d suggest you be very polite to folks in Swartheld. Ever since the days of the Founders, the Hamorians haven’t taken that kindly to those of us from Recluce.”

  “That… that was hundreds of years ago.”

  “A little more than five hundred,” Liedra said. “They didn’t like the fact that Creslin destroyed one of their fleets and forced them to trade with Recluce.”

  “Five hundred years ago, and they’re still mad?”

  “I wouldn’t call it mad, but the Hamorians hang on to grudges like no one else. They can cheat you and think nothing of it but you cheat them, and you’re likely never to be welcome in Swartheld again. They don’t forget anything,” the captain replied. “Now… on your way.”

  “Yes, ser.” At the top of the ladder down to the main deck, Rahl looked toward the stone lighthouse and the white cliffs beneath it. Five hundred years. He still had a hard time believing that. How could they hold a grudge that long? That was truly holding to the past, and not in the best way.

  XXXVIII

  The Diev entered the harbor at Swartheld with canvas furled and under steam power in late afternoon. The port dwarfed Nylan, with ships anchored in deeper waters offshore, others tied at the long and wide piers so closely that there looked to be almost no vacant spaces.

  As Liedra guided the Diev after the pilot boat and toward the third pier south from the northeastern most wharf, Rahl stood by the railing, taking-in everything that he could. On the western side of the bay, barely visible across the stretch of open water beyond the offshore moorings, was another set of piers, holding black-hulled warships of various sizes, with iron hulls and white superstructures and white gun turrets. Rahl tried to count them, but lost track after ten.

  He turned his attention to the Diev and the pier.

  “Full astern!” came from the bridge above.

  “Full astern, ser!”

  Rahl listened as the captain walked the ship into the pier, nearly between two bollards.

  “Lines out!” ordered the boatswain’s mate.

  The handlers on the pier secured the twin lines to the bollards fore and aft.

  “Double up!”

  “Gangway!”

  Rahl stepped back as the deck
crew hurried in his direction, setting himself aft of the quarterdeck and against the bulkhead outboard of the ladder to the bridge deck.

  As he waited for Galsyn to summon him to work, Rahl turned and studied the pier where the Diev was tied. It was not only more than six hundred cubits-long, but a good hundred cubits wide, and there were wagons and carts everywhere. Already, several wagons were headed toward the Diev, and two vendors with handcarts were rolling them toward the gangway.

  “Silks, silks… the finest silks from Ada…”

  “… the finest wools from Recluce and Brysta…”

  “Spices… brinn from Candar, brinn and astra…”

  “Tools… iron tools, Hamor finest from the works at Luba…”

  Rahl glanced toward the foot of the pier, where two vessels larger than the Diev—not the smallest of ships from what Rahl could tell—were tied up. So many street and cart vendors pushed around the wagons that he wondered if the teamsters driving the wagons would have to push through the crowds to force them away from the ships. While Nylan had peddlers and vendors, the numbers and variety were nothing compared to those on just the one pier where the Diev was tied.

  “Clear the forward hatch,” ordered Gresyrd. “Power takeoff for the crane.”

  Before that long, the first wagon—bearing lettering on the side that proclaimed “Nylan Merchant Association”— rolled to a halt forward of the gangway, directly opposite the forward hatch.

  At that moment, Galsyn appeared on deck, carrying a large leather folder and the portable writing board. He walked over to Rahl and handed him the writing board. “Stand by. It will be a little while.”

  The captain made her way down the ladder, then glanced at the purser. “Everything ready?”

  “Yes, Captain. Declarations and current manifest.”

  Liedra nodded and walked to the section of railing that had been swung back for the gangway. Mienfryd joined the captain there, wearing his black blade.

  “The manifest?” asked Rahl quietly.

  “Sometimes, the tariff enumerators ask what else you have on board. They’re not supposed to, but…” Galsyn shrugged. “That’s another reason why Mienfryd stands by the captain. It’s a symbol, but it helps. Most of the time.”