The Magic of Recluce

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “We’re actually taking a walk, honored journeyman?”

  “Bostric. Enough is enough-unless you want to stay with the honored shop owner and feed the fire.”

  “While feeding the fire would be a great honor…”

  “Bostric…”

  “I’d prefer the walk.”

  Sometimes, I could see why Brettel had been able to find Bostric so quickly. His humor wasn’t exactly subtle, yet I had the feeling there was more depth there, hidden behind the obvious and respectful disrespect.

  Clink… clink…

  I nudged the apprentice, and we stepped toward the shop fronts as the single post-rider trotted toward the palace.

  “Wonder what news he brings?”

  “He doesn’t look happy. Perhaps the autarch…” He broke off as a soldier in the dark leathers of the prefect neared.

  The soldier, shorter and squatter than either of us, his eyes fixed beyond the street, plunged straight at us, as if we did not exist.

  I could sense an emptiness there, no aura -at all, except for a faint white kernel deep within.

  “What-” Bostric looked at me. “What was that?”

  I thought I knew, but only shook my head. “He had somewhere to go. He’s going to get there without taking a single turn.”

  No one else on the street-not the man in blue silks and leather with the long sword, nor the peddler woman with the sack, nor the urchin with the missing tooth and red hair-not one even seemed to notice the rigidity of the man’s mission as they stepped or scurried aside.

  Across the street, between two gray stone houses, there were two boxes of early-blooming red flowers flanking a narrow street, where with an almost furtive look the man in the blue silk shirt and dark-gray leather vest stepped out of sight.

  “What street is that?” I asked Bostric.

  “What street…” he mumbled in return.

  “That alley over there, between the flowers. You seem to know all the streets.”

  “That’s no proper street.” He was flushing.

  “No proper street?” I teased him, a little glad to have him on the defensive.

  “Not a proper street…” His words were dogged, and he didn’t even look in my direction.

  “What do you mean?” I glanced toward the red flowers and the narrow alley-whose contents were lost in the shadows.

  “All right. I’ll show you. You’ll see.” Turning suddenly and stretching his long legs into nearly a run, he crossed the avenue so sharply I was hard-pressed to keep up with him.

  We were both past the flowers before I had much of a chance to look around, or to react to the fragrances, a dozen or more different odors-roses, nightfires, lilies, and others I could not recognize, so many that my senses reeled.

  Narrow the way was, not much more than half a rod wide, and short, not more than a dozen houses on each side before curving to the right and ending in a wall that seemed to separate the street from the market square. The polished marble stones were spotless and bore no trace of horses or coaches.

  My eyes strayed up to a balcony not much above my head. There stood a woman, how old I could not say, though she was red-haired and older than I, wearing only a thin cotton shift so sheer that I could see every line of her body and even the dark nipples of her breasts.

  “… two young gents…”

  I swallowed. No wonder Bostric had flushed.

  He didn’t look at me, but his steps flagged, and he halted. “Here. The street of… ladies…”

  “Street of harlots, young fellow… we know what we are.”

  I didn’t see the woman whose hard voice made the statement, since my eyes, in turning from the redhead on the balcony, had fallen across a blond woman wearing nothing but a robe, unbelted enough to show small high breasts quite fully and that she was a blond in all aspects, and that those aspects were all well-formed.

  I think I forgot to breathe; my eyes blurred, and in shaking my head I looked down the way where a brunette, wearing only a filmy skirt, was drawing the man in blue silk inside a doorway.

  In the open and unglassed window of a house closer than where the brunette had enticed the dandy lounged another semi-clothed woman, this one with impossibly-formed breasts, also uncovered, and with the tiniest of waists.

  “Your pleasure here, young fellows… two or more, if you wish…” That voice came from the left, where my eyes flickered almost despite themselves, alighting on the low balcony opposite the redhead. This one was black-haired, with long flowing tresses that swirled over the creamy skin of her otherwise uncovered breasts and shoulders.

  I swallowed again, feeling my trousers suddenly far too tight, as I viewed that hair across the impossibly beckoning breasts of the raven-haired harlot.

  Bostric… he wasn’t as silent as I was… his breath so loud that it penetrated my daze… partly.

  “… one of the woodcrafters… I think…”

  The identification was so whispery I almost missed it, but the words sent a chill across my neck, enough of a chill that I sent my feelings toward the black-haired wench.

  “Ohhh.” The heavy and squat woman beneath the illusion radiated not only chaos, but a coiled illness deep within, like an ooze-green serpent. My senses shifted to the redhead above and caught not only her scrawny leanness, but the long knife along one hip, and the vacant smile. What my eyes saw, my senses refuted. My guts twisted, and I had to re-swallow bile and whatever else remained from breakfast.

  Underfoot, the polished marble turned into rutted and cracked stone and clay, littered with certain items from the interiors of sheep, as well as other items. The odor of flowers was overlaid with other, less desirable odors.

  Bostric stood like a statue until I jabbed him in the ribs and took him by the elbow.

  We both stumbled out into the avenue, though he merely looked dazed. If I looked the way I felt, morning fog would have looked more substantial.

  “See…” Bostric said. “See…”

  I said nothing, just forced my feet to carry me toward the market square, breathing deeply and trying to get the odor of rotten roses out of my nostrils and my memory. Shaking my head and squinting, and asking myself who had recognized me… and why.

  I shivered, and reached out again, this time to Bostric, recognizing the slender thread of suggestion planted upon him.

  While it would have been the effort of an instant to snap that thread, despite the ugliness of that tie, I could not. So I infused Bostric with some additional order and let him shake himself free.

  “Wheee… ewww…”

  “Yes,” I added. “Let’s see about that cloth.”

  “Cloth? You can think about cloth after that?”

  “It’s a great deal safer.” I tried to keep my tone wry.

  “Safer?” Bostric’s eyes flashed in my direction. “Lerris… ?”

  I knew what he was thinking. “Yes.” My voice was tired. “I do like women. Healthy, young, and unmagicked women.”

  “Unmagicked?”

  I ignored his last question as we walked past another half-living guard stationed by the gate to the market square. The coldness surrounding him was hard to ignore, but I did, letting my eyes search for the bright-colored banner that Deirdre had described.

  Looking for cloth merchants was easier than speculating on the magic behind the Street of Harlots.

  Even past the empty fountain, halfway across the paving stones of the square, past the potters’ stalls, past the split-wood baskets from the farms, past the red-and-gold patterned blankets displayed by a twisted little man, there were no colored banners nor cloth merchants.

  Bostric shivered as we passed Mathilde, older but still blond, if plump, and bulging out of unwashed brown trousers and a tattered and open cloth coat. The flowers in her pots were already wilting within from the chaos contained in her blood. No evil there, just honest disorder.

  For all Bostric’s shivers, I would have bedded a dozen Mathildes sooner than any of the ladies on the
Street of Harlots. The deeper I looked at Fenard, the less I liked it. But would that have been true in any place where I stayed long enough to really look?

  I didn’t know.

  What I knew for certain was that the cloth merchants hadn’t arrived, and that I had no intentions of going anywhere near that narrow street again. ‘

  XLVIII

  CLING.

  “Wonder who it is?” mumbled Destrin.

  I looked at Bostric. He stood there, plane in hand. I looked at him hard and he jumped, setting down the tool and hastening to the door.

  Despite the late spring warmth in the air outside, Destrin had the window closed, a low fire in the hearth, and an old and raveled sweater on under his apron as he worked on yet another tavern bench.

  The work was going well enough, but every time I patted myself on the back, it seemed like something like the stable flood occurred. Regular storms I couldn’t attribute to disorder or Antonin. Even after my experience an eight-day earlier in the Street of Harlots, I couldn’t blame the weather on Antonin, and that was the problem. How could I separate what belonged to Fenard from whatever the chaos-master was weaving?

  The other problem was that there wasn’t all that much I knew how to do in working with order. Yes, I could provide support for Destrin, reinforce Bostric’s basic goodness, and help a few good souls resist the twists of chaos sent forth by whoever was sending them forth. But beyond that? I shook my head slowly.

  “You all right, Lerris?” Destrin bent toward me.

  “I’m fine.” And I was. Winter had departed, and I enjoyed the spring, watching Deirdre, and visiting the market. I just didn’t enjoy the heat in the shop.

  Wiping my forehead, I studied the grain of the white oak, asking myself again why I had agreed to do a writing desk. Without Dorman’s faded plan book, I would have been in even bigger trouble. Even so, it took all of my concentration to visualize the desk, to mentally draw the pieces from where they lay buried in the wood, and try to fit them together.

  That sort of mental exercise helped, not only in Grafting, but somehow in beginning to understand more of The Basis of Order. I had read and re-read the slim volume, and half of it was still unclear. As was the desk for Dalta, Brettel’s daughter, the desk he wanted as a wedding gift. That made the third piece he had commissioned, far more than he needed to do even as a friend of Destrin’s. Dalta would have an entirely furnished house before long, and she wasn’t even betrothed!

  “Here, ser.” Bostric handed a fiat envelope to Destrin, then returned to smoothing the kitchen table we had roughed out together.

  I knew I was forcing the red-haired youth, even more than Sardit had forced me, but how much time I had I didn’t know, certainly not enough, however long it might be, to carry him through a full apprenticeship. Already his touch was defter than that of Destrin, and while Deirdre was older than Bostric, a few years was not insurmountable, and he was kind enough at heart.

  I repressed a sigh. How had I gotten into this mess?

  “Lerris!”

  I glanced up. Destrin had paled. “Accufff… accuu…” He grasped for the bench.

  Bostric looked to me.

  “Just get the line right,” I told him as I walked around the end of the bench.

  “Look at this.” Destrin rasped, thrusting the heavy paper at me.

  I glanced over the announcement.

  Be it noted that the Prefect must maintain the defenses of the Kingdom of Gallos against the growing threat of invasion by the Autarch of Kyphros, and be it noted that Gallos must combat the unrest in the smaller eastern principalities of Candar caused by the actions of Black Recluce. These demands on the Treasury require an increase in the quarterly levy.

  That was the standard language. Underneath, a different hand had penned in darker ink, “Destrin the Woodcrafter, quarterly levy, five golds.”

  Originally, the tax bill had showed three golds, but the three had been crossed out and the five written above it. The change bore the initial “J.” A heavy blue-waxed seal had been affixed at the bottom.

  “… can meet the first one… but we won’t eat much but barley soup. There is no way I can make the second one, even at year-end. We can’t afford the wood for the holiday buyers if I have to pay five golds.” Destrin leaned against his bench, his breath coming more quickly.

  Looking at the thin man, I could see the distress. His system was wasting away, bit by bit, even with the order-strength I had quietly added to his wasting frame. I didn’t know enough to stop the degeneration, only to give him energy and keep it at bay.

  “We’ll find a way,” I assured him, keeping my voice confident, even as I wondered how.

  “But… how?” The old crafter gulped for air. “… Accuuu… accc… aaccc…”

  “We’ll find a way.” I looked back at my workbench and the white oak. “Starting with the desk for Brettel.” I wondered, though. Just as the shop was beginning to rise significantly above the expenses, the levy went up. The last levy had only been a gold and five silvers. It had been doubled, and then someone had added another two golds-scarcely coincidental, I felt, but who was I to say?

  Who set and collected taxes went beyond my knowledge.

  I was having enough trouble with woodcrafting and trying to read and learn The Basis of Order.

  “You need something to drink after that,” I added. “Come on. Let’s see what Deirdre has.”

  Destrin looked puzzled, as well he might, for I had not pushed him quite so hard before; but his face had gone beyond pale into a grayish shade, before I added just another trace of order to his struggling heart and practically took all his weight-not that he was that heavy any longer-as I helped him up the stairs.

  “I’m… all right…”

  I didn’t say anything as he leaned on me and crossed the room to his favorite chair.

  Her face calm, Deirdre had set down the cushion she was working on and crossed the large room to meet us. She said nothing, just looked from Destrin, still clutching the tax bill in his clawed hands, to me. Then she went to the shelf and poured a mug of redberry as I eased Destrin into the battered armchair.

  As the old crafter sipped the juice, I nodded to Deirdre. “I’ve got to check Bostric,” I explained as I left. That much was true. It had to be. The more I learned about order, the more fearful I was of self-deception, knowing that I practiced it all too often anyway.

  The other thing I was going to do was open the windows so Bostric and I didn’t die of heat poisoning.

  XLIX

  “CAPTAIN TORRMAN WANTS you to take the hill path and hold it against the rebels,” announces the messenger, spewing forth the words in one long burst before taking a deep breath. The squad leader looks at the messenger. “When? Are we expecting the entire army of the Duke of Hydlen to reinforce us?” A bewildered expression crosses the youngster’s face. “That was the order…”

  The squad leader takes a slow and silent breath, then purses her lips. The wind whips her short black hair away from her face, and the black eyes turn full on the messenger. “We have the message.”

  The youngster shrivels under the darkness of her gaze, then salutes. “Will that be all, leader?”

  “Tell Captain Torrman that we will accomplish his objective.”

  “What, leader?”

  “Tell the captain that we will accomplish his objective.” Her soft voice is even colder, and the bells that ring in it are the bells of a funeral dirge. “Provided he guards the southwest road to Gallos,” she adds.

  “Provided he guards the southwest road to Gallos?” The messenger repeats the words.

  “That is correct. He must use the rest of his forces to hold the southwest pass.”

  The messenger sits astride the pony, his mouth not quite hanging open.

  “That will be all,” the officer adds. “You may convey my reply to Captain Torrman.”

  The messenger looks from the cold-eyed woman to the troopers behind her. One fingers a knife, and
the messenger looks back to the officer.

  “That will be all,” she repeats.

  The messenger swallows and lifts the reins, then nudges the pony back downhill.

  The squad leader looks down at the valley to the north, then at the folded square of the map she had needed and paid too much for, for all that many others would have said she paid little indeed of true value. She takes one breath, then another. Despite the cold bath of the night before last, she feels unclean, as if she had not bathed in weeks. Her hand touches the hilt of her blade. Her head lifts, and she studies the hills to the east.

  The trooper beside the squad leader swallows as he watches his superior study the map. He edges his mount sideways toward another woman, a blond woman with a pair of knives at her belt, the only other woman trooper in the squad.

  “She’s not going to follow the captain’s orders…” he whispers.

  “Look down there,” returns the blond, gesturing at the roiling dust rising from the road at the far end of the small valley they survey. The packed figures of the soldiers are not visible, but both know they are there. “Would you?”

  “Torrman’s killed leaders for less…”

  “All right…” The woman wearing the leather officer’s vest looks at the two whispering subordinates, then urges her mount to the east, not toward the hill path below, but along the ridge line.

  “That’s not where Torrman ordered us…”

  The squad leader ignores the not-quite-whispered statement drifting up from the third file as another trooper grabs the protester by the tunic.

  “… remember Gireo, you idiot…”

  The swallowed gulp almost brings a smile to the blond woman’s face, but the squad leader’s eyes remain fixed on the space between the hills.

  “… don’t like this…”

  “… just shut up…”

  “… Torrman’s a mean bastard… gut the whole squad…”

  “… she’s right. Take the hill path, and you won’t have any guts left for Torrman…”

  “… still don’t like it…”

  “… got any better ideas?”