The White Order

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  As she turned her back, Tellis grinned at Cerryl.

  Not knowing quite what the grin meant, Cerryl offered a faint smile in return. “Good toast it is, ser.”

  “It is indeed,” said Tellis. “Enjoy it as you can.”

  Beryal sat down across from Cerryl and began to eat her egg toast. The three ate silently. Before he realized it, Cerryl glanced at his suddenly empty plate. He repressed a burp, took a last swallow of water, and then looked toward Tellis.

  “You best start to work, Cerryl. I’ll be there in a moment. You set up to keep copying the Sciences book, but don’t you be starting yet.”

  “Yes, ser.” Cerryl eased off the bench and went to the washstand, cleaning and drying his hands before heading to the workroom. He put the book on the copy stand but did not open it to the marked page. Then he took the penknife and put a fresh edge on his quill, laying it beside the inkwell.

  He used a whittled twig to stir the ink and check its consistency. More water? He decided against that and took the top parchment sheet from the cabinet, getting out the bone buffer to ready it for copying. After polishing the sheet, he arranged his stool.

  “Good,” said Tellis as he bustled into the workroom. The scrivener rummaged in the bottom of the supply chest before lifting out an oblong section of parchment that he carried and set on the writing table.

  “Practice parchment. Not for writing, but for scraping.” He covered his mouth and coughed. “You’ve seen me scrape away your errors.” Tellis lifted the sharp-edged knife. “It’s time you became better, and practice is the only way. The blade must be sharp, yet absolutely clean. A blade with oil along the edge-the oil will mix with the old ink and leave flecks or dots that you’ll have to scrape even deeper to remove.”

  “Yes, ser.” That made sense to Cerryl.

  “And you must scrape at an angle, firmly and delicately enough to separate the ink from the parchment. Like this. Watch.” Tellis wiped the knife on a clean white cloth, then rehung this cloth on a peg. His fingers nearly concealed the knife as he slipped the blade against the top line of writing on the practice parchment. “See?”

  Cerryl blinked. Where three words had been, the parchment was clean, as though nothing had been written there.

  “No substitute for good parchment. Paper, even the woven split-reed paper, a few years and it’s dust, specially here in Fairhaven. A parchment volume will last forever, cared for as it should be.” Tellis paused. “I’ll do it once more. Now watch.”

  Cerryl watched as another set of words vanished.

  “You try it.”

  Cerryl took the knife and the cloth, and wiped the blade as he had seen Tellis do.

  “Good. Don’t put any pressure on the edge. Dulls it too soon.”

  Then the apprentice eased the edge across the next word on the line all too conscious of the scritching his scraping produced.

  “No… no…” Tellis’s voice took on an exasperated edge. “Angle the blade just so, the way I showed you. You want to scrape off but the slightest of the parchment, just to clean it. You must feel the grain and the nap of the parchment, polished smooth as it may be.”

  Feeling his fingers were like fat thumbs, Cerryl angled the knife against the nearly worn out palimpsest and tried to follow the example Tellis had demonstrated.

  “Better… better…” Tellis straightened. “After you copy another two pages, practice on that worn shred, just like that. A good palimpsest-a good one-it should be smooth enough and clean enough that none but the best of scriveners can distinguish it from a fair parchment.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “If I’m not back before then, copy another set of pages, and then practice with the palimpsest some more. I need to talk to Nivor about the latest oak galls. They don’t steep right.” Tellis shook his head. “And the iron brimstone has too much of the brimstone. In time, the ink made from it will burn the pages, and I’d never want that said of any of my books.”

  “How long will that take?” asked Cerryl.

  “Years, Cerryl lad, but books must last forever, not a mere handful of years. What be the point of a book that turns to dust before its scrivener?”

  Cerryl nodded, though he wasn’t certain he agreed totally with his master. Many people produced goods that didn’t outlive their maker yet were valued, and most of what he had copied or read seemed to be either common sense that didn’t need to be written down, or things of little use to most folk.

  Once Tellis had slipped out into the chilly late morning and up the lesser artisans’ way, Cerryl glanced at the book on the copy stand-The Sciences of the Heavens, then read the lines carefully, half aloud.

  … not always understood that all the stars were not studded on a distant and concave surface, but are scattered at immense distances from one another in space so limitless as to be inconceivable…

  So limitless as to be inconceivable? The words seemed to roll through Cerryl’s thoughts. So limitless that one could not understand or comprehend the distance? He shook his head. Why did the white mages write about such matters? Where were the books that told about I how to handle chaos? Or order? The stars might be distant, so distant that the ancient angels had traveled forever, but how would such stuff help him understand about mastering chaos?

  He took one slow easy breath, then another, before dipping the quill once more into the iron-gall ink and slowly copying the next line of the manuscript… and the next.

  He finished one set of pages, then scraped clean two lines off the practice palimpsest and started copying the next set of pages from The Sciences of the Heavens.

  …stars, established and scattered as they are at vast distances from the sun, cannot receive the fires of chaos from the sun, and thus, must contain their own founts of chaos, which appear as points of light in the night sky…

  “How can you even see?” Benthann peered into the workroom. ‘“The day is dark. It’s like a cave in here, and you haven’t even lit the candle.”

  Cerryl glanced up, realizing that the workroom was dark. Somehow, he hadn’t even noticed the growing dimness. “I didn’t realize…”

  “Such a hardworking apprentice. You even save him the costs of candles and lamp oil. Do you know where Tellis might be?”

  Cerryl eased the quill away from the parchment. “He said he was going to Nivor the apothecary’s.”

  “A course, he’d think of that just before it snows. More of the formulations for ink?”

  “He did not say, Benthann.” Cerryl used her name because she wasn’t that much older than he was, yet she slept with Tellis but wasn’t his consort. He wondered if Tellis had ever had a consort.

  “Light be praised that he’s not over at Arkos’s place. Should it cross his mind to ask, I’m off to the traders’ market. Before it snows.” With a toss of her head and a flip of the short blonde hair, she stepped out of the doorway from the showroom, then into the street, leaving the door ajar.

  Cerryl set the quill on the holder and eased away from the desk and out to close the door. He paused at the outside door, his hand on the brass lever, and watched as snowflakes danced in the gray day, soaring desperately on the swirling breezes as though they did not want to touch the bleached granite stones of the street.

  Benthann had already vanished, and he shivered as the wind gusted. He shut the door and walked back to the desk. He paused before using the striker to get the candle lit. No sense in calling attention to his ability to see in the darkness.

  Before he reseated himself, he wiped the quill on the cleaning rag, gently and with the angle of the nib’s cut, then dipped it into the ink, trying to sense as well as see the amount of ink drawn up into the shaft.

  The iron-gall ink felt similar-in a faint way-to the big sawmill blade. He nodded. Both were iron, and, to him, iron felt different, not menacing but definitely something to be wary of, even if he didn’t quite understand why. He wasn’t a mage, not even close to being one.

  XXX

  Cerryl wip
ed up the last of the stew with the dark bread, then took a sip of water from the battered brown earthenware mug that was his. In the cool of late winter, the hot midday meal warmed him all the way through. He was in no hurry to go back to copying in a workroom heated only indirectly by the kitchen stove, not until his fingers warmed up more, anyway.

  “Ah, a good stew,” said Tellis, stretching.

  “Everything I cook is good, master Tellis.” Beryal smiled from where she sat across the table from Cerryl. “But the next one won’t be so tasty.”

  “It is,” confirmed Benthann. “I never complained about your cooking, Mother.” She raised her left eyebrow, arched so high that Cerryl wanted to laugh.

  “Let us not get into that,” Tellis interjected hurriedly, then added, “Why won’t the next one be so tasty?”

  “Spices-what few peppercorns I have would not season a mugful, and we have no saffron, no cumin, no-”

  “Enough! I understand.” Tellis covered his mouth and coughed.

  “Have you ever been to the traders’ square?” asked Beryal, looking directly at Cerryl and ignoring Benthann’s second raised eyebrow, this time the right.

  “No. I’d never been to Fairhaven before I came here,” Cerryl admitted. “I’ve only been out around the square here, and to the farmers’ market.”

  “There’s no place like Fairhaven anywhere,” said Tellis. “Lydiar is damp arid rotting away, and they talk of Jellico and its walls, but inside the walls are crooked streets and hovels and beggars.” The scrivener snorted. “Fenard has a great and glorious history, but outside of history and walls, it’s a pigsty.”

  “The white mages don’t need walls,” pointed out Beryal. “Who would dare attack Fairhaven?”

  Cerryl didn’t voice an answer, but it struck him that there were probably people who would like to… or someone who would sooner or later.

  “You keep Cerryl inside the shop too much,” said Beryal.

  “Apprentice has to earn his keep.”

  “You can spare Cerryl for a bit,” noted Beryal. “He needs to see more of Fairhaven than the artisans’ way. What if you want him to run something for you?”

  “Not too long, then,” answered Tellis with a theatrical sigh.

  “I need four silvers, too.” Beryal said, her eyes straying toward the untended stove. “Spices do not buy themselves.”

  “Four?” Tellis counterfeited an incredulous look, then winked at Cerryl, smoothing his face as Beryal looked up.

  “Five’d be better,” countered Beryal. “Spices are dear this time of year, and will be getting more so.”

  “Coins… you’d think that this poor scrivener is made of coins.”

  “Coins-not at all. Excuses, yes.” Beryal turned her eyes to Cerryl. “Well… you best be getting ready, since you gulped down all there was to swallow.”

  Cerryl slipped off the bench and headed for the washstand.

  “After you wash, best you change to that new tunic,” Beryal said. “What you’re wearing is frayed at the elbows. And wear your jacket. I’ll wait, but be quick about it.” She turned to her daughter. “Today, you can do the dishes.”

  “If I must.” Benthann raised her hands and dropped her shoulders in an overdone shrug. “A burden to bear.”

  “Only if you wish to eat,” answered her mother.

  Cerryl scurried back to his room and pulled off the brown-splotched work shirt and slipped on the pale blue tunic that Tellis had left one day on his pallet without a word.

  “Better,” said Beryal when he reappeared in the common room holding the leather jacket from Dylert that still fit tolerably well. Tellis had left, presumably for the workroom.

  “You look like a real apprentice,” added Benthann from the kitchen worktable where she sloshed dishes in the washtub.

  “I don’t like to wear it around the inks and dyes and the glues,” confessed Cerryl.

  “The boy thinks about his clothes,” said Beryal, “unlike some. Considering how they might be dirtied… imagine that.” With a twisted smile, her eyes went to Benthann.

  “Oooo… I might drop one of these.” The younger blonde juggled an earthenware platter, then caught it.

  “Trust that you don’t,” suggested her mother, adjusting the short gray-and-blue woolen wrap that was too heavy for a shawl and too short for a cape. “Master Tellis may offer coin for clothes, but platters be another matter.”

  Cerryl looked at the recently washed floor stones.

  “We need be going,” said Beryal, touching his shoulder. “Out the front way.”

  “Yes, Beryal.” Cerryl glanced through the open door from the showroom into the workroom, where Tellis was hunched over the stretching frame. The scrivener did not look up as they stepped out onto the street. Cerryl closed the door gently.

  The sun shone through high hazy clouds, imparting little warmth to either Fairhaven or Cerryl. He fumbled the top bottom on his jacket closed and slipped his hands up under the bottom edge to keep them warm.

  “It’s another five long blocks down toward the wizards’ square, not so far as the white tower, say three blocks shy of that.” Beryal shifted her basket to her left arm and started down the lesser artisans’ way toward the artisans’ square.

  Cerryl shivered as they stepped back into the shadows of the narrow street. The shutters of all the shops were closed against the chill, and the light and fitful breeze occasionally carried the smell of burning ash to him. He thought he heard the click of the big loom as they passed the weavers, but it could have been the shutters rattling or the sound of the cooper’s wooden mallets.

  “Are we getting anything else?” he asked when they stepped out of the shadows at the edge of the artisans’ square. The square was empty except for a man hunched on a white stone bench under a blanket.

  “Besides spices? Not unless it be a true bargain.” Beryal laughed as she turned left and continued her brisk pace. “Like as I have to run out of things before Tellis opens his purse-for spices and stuff for the kitchen, anyway.” Her eyes went to the man under the blanket. “On the crew for the Great White Road, he’ll be afore long.” She shook her head. “Some folk never learn. Anything be better than that.”

  Cerryl wondered at the slightly bitter undertone, suspecting he knew all too well to what Beryal referred.

  ‘“The history Tellis made me read, it says that the black mage-the one who founded Recluce-he worked on the white road and escaped, and that he was the only one who ever did.”

  “If he did…” Beryal laughed and lowered her voice to almost a whisper, “no wonder that he cared little for the white mages.”

  “Is it that bad?”

  “It is nothing to talk about.” Beryal shook her head. “Especially not where others can hear. Or Tellis.”

  “Tellis?”

  “Aye, Tellis.” Beryal lowered her voice. “His father was a white mage, save he knows not whom.”

  “What?” blurted Cerryl, wondering why Dylert had sent him to Tellis, repressing a shiver.

  “The mages, they cannot love a mage woman.” Beryal shrugged. “She would not survive the birth. Most times, anyway, they say. The children of the mages, for they have women but not honest consorts, they are raised in the pink house off the wizards’ square. They call it a creche. Some become mages. Some do not. Those who have not the talent, they are apprenticed into the better trades. Tellis is a scrivener.”

  Cerryl forced a nod. “That… I did not know.”

  “I had thought not. Best you do, and say little.” Beryal seemed to walk a shade faster.

  Cerryl stretched his own legs to keep up.

  The artisans’ shops around the square gave way to a line of larger structures-an ostlery, then a long building without a sign of any sort, although two carriages waited by the mounting blocks outside the arched doorway.

  Cerryl glanced across the avenue at the building, his view; blocked for a moment by a wagon laden with long bundles wrapped in cloth that was headed in the same
direction as he and Beryal. The rumble of the ironbound wheels on the whitened granite of the paving stones sounded almost like distant thunder.

  “The grain factors’ exchange,” Beryal explained, lifting her voice above the sound of the wagons. A second wagon-its high sides painted right blue and drawn by a single horse-followed the first.

  What did grain factors do? Cerryl wondered. “How do they exchange grain there? There aren’t any wagons or silos.”

  Beryal laughed. “They exchange pieces of parchment. Each piece of parchment has on it a statement of how much grain the factor will sell-something like that. Tellis explained it once.”

  Cerryl nodded, understanding that such trading made more sense than carting grain from place to place. “Are there other exchanges? For other things?”

  “I’m sure there are. Tellis has talked of them, but I’ve forgotten where most of them are. There’s an exchange for cattle somewhere on a square south of the wizards’ tower. I remember that because it’s near where they sell flowers from Hydlen.”

  Beryal stepped off the stone sidewalk and into the avenue around a squat woman balancing a basket of folded laundry on her head. Cerryl followed, glancing down the avenue ahead. Another wagon was headed their way, but a good hundred paces away. He stepped back onto the sidewalk beside Beryal, still marveling at how many wagons rolled up and down the avenue.

  Tellis, the son of a mage? He pushed the thought away.

  The next block, past a cross street narrower than the way of the lesser artisans, held small stores-none seemingly more than ten cubits wide, and all with iron-banded doors left open. Cerryl peered around Beryal at one of the doors, getting a glimpse of a man working at a battered desk or table, and a sense of metals glittering.

  “The jewelers’ row,” Beryal said. “Silversmiths, goldsmiths, those who cut and polish gems.”

  A whole row of such? Cerryl shook his head.

  “Nearly ten eight-days, and you’ve not been here?”

  “I’ve been along the avenue, but always in the evening when the doors were bolted, and I wondered why.”