The White Order

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Does anyone really need to master chaos? He laughed at his own question, softly, as he turned the corner onto the way of the lesser artisans. In the twilight, he continued slowly down the way toward the square, feeling that another pair of eyes followed him. He did not look back, knowing that he would see no one, trying to ignore the prickling on the back of his neck and the continuing throbbing in his skull.

  “Cerryl!” Pattera bounded out of the weaver’s door. “Where have you been these last eight-days?”

  “Master Tellis has had a large commission from… a large commission, and I’ve had to do much of the regular copying as well as the chores.” Cerryl shrugged. “And he wants me to read the histories as well.” The apprentice didn’t have to counterfeit the yawn.

  “You have dark pouches under your eyes. Oh, Cerryl…” Pattera glanced back at the light from the doorway. “I can walk down to the square with you. Where are you going?”

  “I was just walking,” he admitted. “I have a headache.” Cerryl took a step toward the square.

  “Your master makes you squint over those books too much.” Pattera began to match his steps.

  “You have to study books if you want to be a scrivener.”

  “Not all the time.”

  “Most of the time.” He paused at the avenue while a small donkey cart plodded past. The woman on the seat, reeking of roast fowl, did not turn her head.

  As he crossed the white pavement, Cerryl massaged his temples with his left hand, trying to loosen the tightness he felt.

  “Not that way,” said Pattera. “Just stop. Sit on the bench there.” He sat on the second stone bench in the square, the empty one, and let her strong fingers work through his shoulder blades and up into his neck, letting her loosen the tension there. The faint odor of damp wool clung to her arms, and he wondered if the acridness of iron-gall ink clung to him.

  How could someone who smelled of ink even think about a woman with silk hangings and dresses?

  Yet he did, and he knew he would, even as he felt guilty accepting Pattera’s ministrations while thinking of the blonde in green.

  XL

  “Now… keep your mind on the copying at hand,” said Tellis from the doorway. “No thoughts about your young friend the weaver. Not while you have a quill in your hand.” The master scrivener grinned.

  Cerryl flushed. “Yes, ser.”

  “When you become a true journeyman…” Tellis paused. “By then, you won’t listen. I didn’t, either, but I was lucky, and then unlucky. Elynnya was special.” He shook his head. “Just appreciate what you have while you have it, and don’t ask too many questions.” His voice turned more cheerful. “After I beat some sense into Arkos, I’ll do the same to Nivor, and then I’ll be at the tower for most of the rest of the day. The honored Sterol wants something copied that cannot leave there.” The scrivener lifted his hand and pointed at his apprentice. “I expect continued good progress on the copying-and keep the letter width the same.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Tellis nodded and turned away.

  His young friend the weaver? Pattera was nice enough, and attractive in a dusky fashion, and certainly enamored of Cerryl. That wasn’t enough. But what was? A girl with red-blond hair whose father would scorn a mere scrivener’s apprentice? And there was the redhead who kept turning up in his dreams-unwanted. She was certainly some type of mage; attractive as she was physically, she made his skin creep. He hadn’t ever thought of a woman that way before.

  A moment later, Cerryl heard the front door open, and the off-key bells of the refuse wagon, before Tellis closed the door behind him.

  Cerryl scurried to the waste bin by the worktable. He lifted the heavy wooden container and lugged it outside, following Beryal, who had the kitchen bin in her arms.

  They stood as the square-sided wagon rumbled along the way, at a pace not much faster than a walk. Two young guards in white uniforms flanked the hauler, their bored eyes flicking from the wagon bed to Beryal and then to Cerryl, dismissing each in turn.

  Cerryl lifted the bin and dumped the contents-leather trimmings too small for anything, palimpsest scrapings, squeezed oak galls-over the side of the wagon, then stepped back.

  “Tellis isn’t ever here when the wagon comes. You notice that?” Beryal held the door to the shop for Cerryl.

  “He is the master scrivener.”

  “He would be the master of more than that.” Beryal shook her head, then started to close the door. “But he never will be. Those with coins keep them close.”

  Benthann pushed by them and through the door, not even looking at her mother or Cerryl, and ran down the street to catch the wagon, a smaller waste box in her hands.

  “Then there be some who think that the waste wagon waits for them.” Beryal grinned and closed the door before she turned back toward the kitchen.

  Cerryl used the cleaning rag to wipe off the sides and the rim of the waste bin, before easing it back into place. He seated himself at the copy desk and started to clean the quill he had abandoned when he had heard the wagon bells.

  Benthann glanced in the workroom door. “You could have called me.”

  “I didn’t hear the wagon until it was almost here, and the big bin was full.” He looked up, but Benthann hadn’t stayed to hear what he said. He shrugged to himself, realizing he probably wouldn’t ever understand the young woman. Then, there were a lot of things he didn’t understand, undercurrents that kept tugging at him-like Tellis’s gloom when he mentioned his consort. He wanted to know more but dared not ask. There was so much he dared not ask.

  After he finished sharpening the nib, he smoothed the vellum and dipped the pen into the ink. Tellis was right; he needed to make good progress on the Herbes book, boring as it might be.

  He frowned as he recalled Tellis’s words-something copied that could not leave the mages’ tower. Did that mean that the books that really said something about how to handle the chaos forces always remained guarded by the mages? If that were so, how could he ever learn? Except by experimenting, and that was clearly dangerous.

  He forced his eyes to the book on the copy stand and began to replicate the letters on the new vellum.

  … if the leaves be brown, and dried, and powdered, then they may be used as to purge the bowels… save that never more than a thimble be used for a full-grown man… and never be offered to a child or anyone of less than four stones…

  Another face appeared in the doorway from the front room.

  “Cerryl, I be off to the market,” announced Beryal. “Benthann left for darkness knows where a time back. There’s a pair of coppers on the table in the common room, should Shanandra ever bring the herbs she promised. Two coppers for the lot, no more. You understand?”

  “How big a lot? And what?”

  “Ah… some brains you have, unlike my daughter. Enough to fill the basket by the table without crushing the leaves. There should be sage and tarragon, fennel… Dried, they should be, but not so dry as to powder if put under your thumb.” Beryal nodded, then left.

  Cerryl cleaned the nib gently, afraid that the ink might have congealed or built up, then redipped the pen and tried a line on the practice palimpsest. “Good.”

  His eyes went back to the copy stand and the Herbes book there.

  XLI

  In the dim light of predawn, Cerryl carried the chamber pot through the rear gateway and out to the sewer catch. He set the pot on the white-dusted stones, opened the stone lid, and, in a quick motion, lifted the pot and emptied it, holding his breath as the fetid fumes swirled up before he could close the lid. Sometimes the fumes were overpowering, and at times there seemed to be none at all.

  He carried the pot back into the courtyard, where he half filled it with water, which he swished around to rinse away any of the residue. Then he went back to the sewer dump and emptied the pot again. He sniffed the pot gingerly. It smelled clean enough to return to his room.

  He turned in the direction of a scraping sound fro
m the alley, near where it joined the way of the lesser artisans. Kotwin the potter was dosing his own sewer dump, chamber pot in hand.

  The faint and acrid smell of stove coal drifted into the alleyway as Cerryl turned. He smiled then, after closing the gate behind him, and stepped into the courtyard and back to his room, where the bucket of Wash water he had already drawn waited.

  With a quick glance at the closed door and shutters, he looked at the water in the bucket, concentrating on it, and on his vision of chaos fire in the shape of a poker into the bucket.

  Hsssttt… The steam rose from the bucket, and Cerryl smiled. Warm water was much better than the ice-chill liquid from the pump. He pulled off the ragged handed-down nightshirt and stretched.

  A chill mistlike sense filled the small room, and there was the feeling of being inspected somehow, but a cold inspection, as though he were a side of beef or a gutted river trout. He forced himself to finish washing and dressing as methodically as normal, somehow knowing that reacting to the unseen inspection would only make his situation in Fairhaven worse, and hoping that the unseen observer had not caught his little use of chaos.

  He never tried to call the chaos forces when he felt watched, but it was clear someone, somehow, was using something to look for chaos use. Should he go back to cold water? He had to fight a wince at that thought.

  He couldn’t help wondering, as he pulled on his tunic, what he had done to have a white mage using a glass to follow his actions. Had it been the red-haired mage?

  Tomorrow, he told himself, no warm water. Then, he’d said that the day before as well. He sat on his pallet and pulled on his boots. He carried the wash water back out to the sewer dump before returning the bucket to its peg on the wall and heading across the courtyard to the common room and breakfast.

  “Saw you a-coming.” Beryal slid a crockery platter with a slab of egg toast on it in front of him even before he sat down.

  “Thank you.” He poured a small portion of the bitter yellow tea, knowing it would cut some of the greasiness of the toast.

  “Cerryl?” rumbled Tellis.

  “Yes, ser?”

  “I checked the herbal book when I got back last night.” Tellis mumbled his words. “You are doing well, and you’ve kept the letter width about the same. A little variation, but not at all bad.”

  “Thank you.” Cerryl popped a large mouthful of the heavy toast into his mouth and followed it with a sip of the tea.

  “You’ll have to keep it up. The High Wizard wants me back again today, and it could be late most nights for an eight-day or two. They have a great deal of copying.”

  “No one else can do it?” asked Beryal. “You’d think as they’d have their own copyists.”

  Cerryl kept a straight face and took another mouthful of egg toast, letting the master scrivener address the question.

  “Like as they do, but not for works that should last. Those who handle the stuff of chaos-I’ve told you this, Beryal; why don’t you listen?_if they were to copy those volumes, the life of both the originals and the copies would be far shorter.” Tellis moistened his lips before taking another swig from his mug and then the last morsel of his egg toast. “Another piece, if you please. A long day ahead.”

  Beryal slipped away from the bench and walked back to the hot stove, scooping a dollop of tallow into the heavy iron skillet.

  “What else do you want of me, master Tellis?” Cerryl finished his own egg toast.

  “You need to keep working on the herbal book. Almost nearing the end, are you not?”

  “Yes, ser. Within the next few days, or sooner.”

  “I’ll be needing another batch of the dark iron-gall ink, too. And so will you. I’m taking the big jar.”

  “Egg toast.” Beryal dropped another slab of the egg-battered bread into the skillet, and then a second. “And one for the apprentice, too.”

  “Thank you.” Cerryl smiled and poured more of the tea.

  “Don’t forget to clean the jars before you mix new.”

  “No, ser.” Cerryl gathered himself together, then asked casually, “What sort of books do you copy there?”

  “Whatever they wish,” answered Tellis with an enigmatic smile.

  “I was not asking about what was within the books, ser. I only wondered…”

  “There’s little enough in them I understand-or would want to, my dear apprentice.” Tellis’s face grew stern. “Nor should you, when you are called by one of the great ones. It is a challenge and an honor.”

  “Better than that,” interposed Beryal. “It pays good coins.”

  Tellis ignored her comment and stood. “It would not do to be late, not for the mages. I’d not like to have their glasses spying on me.”

  “Spying on you? Why would they do that?” Cerryl asked innocently.

  “Who knows?” Tellis shrugged. “I’ve little enough to hide these days, but in Fairhaven even the blank walls have eyes. Best remember that, young Cerryl. Even with your weaver friend.” A broad grin crossed the scrivener’s face before he gave a quick nod and stepped to the washstand.

  “Aye,” agreed Beryal. “Little enough that they don’t see, there is.”

  Cerryl gulped the last mouthful of egg toast.

  “And keep those hands clean,” Tellis added before he stepped out of the common room and into the front room to gather supplies from the workroom.

  Cerryl nodded. Clean hands and another long day of copying and worrying about whether he had already doomed himself-like his father.

  He thought of the amulet that lay hidden in his room. Would he end like that? A memory to a few people and a piece of jewelry the only remnants?

  He forced himself to finish the bitter yellow tea, knowing he would need the warmth within him.

  XLII

  In the early afternoon, Cerryl sat at the trestle table, chewing on the fresh-baked bread that Beryal had left. He had sliced several small chunks of cheese from the yellow brick.

  “Tellis won’t be home until well after the taverns are shuttered,” Beryal had said with a snort right after Tellis had left in the early morning. “As for my daughter, she can cook, if she wishes. The bread and cheese are for you. I’m off to see Assurala-my mother’s sister’s daughter. She lives in Ghuarl-that’s this side of Weevett.” With that, Beryal had marched out the front door, even before Cerryl had been able to ask how she was getting there.

  So he had kept copying until his fingers were numb before returning to the common room for something to eat… and drink. With a good afternoon’s work, he might finish the remainder of the herbal text yet before evening.

  A slight breeze drifted in from the courtyard, through the door and shutters he’d opened before he sat down. On the barely moving air came the scent of roses and other flowers, though there were none in the courtyard. Tellis didn’t believe in such fripperies.

  The courtyard was quiet, and the door to the bedroom Tellis and Benthann shared was closed, although the shutters beside the door were open.

  Cerryl used his left hand to rub his stiff neck. If only Tellis hadn’t taken Colors of White with him. He tried to shrug the stiffness out of his neck and shoulders. With more time, maybe he could have made more sense out of the book.

  Finally, he stood and put the cheese into the cool chest and the bread in the big bread box on top of the pantry cabinet in the kitchen. Then he walked out into the courtyard to wash at the pump. The day was warm enough, and that way he wouldn’t have to empty the basin and refill the pitcher in the common room.

  As Cerryl stepped into the sun, he realized that the day had become hot, hot just warm, as the light seemed to cascade around him like a rain of warmth, of fire. He paused and tried to sense the light, to feel it.

  After a long moment, he swallowed. The light was so much like chaos fire… and yet different. For a time, he just bathed in the light, letting his perceptions weave with it.

  Then he shook his head and walked to the pump. He washed quickly and straighte
ned up as he heard a door open, looking to the rear gate first. No one was there.

  “You were almost glowing-when you stood in the middle of the stones there.” Benthann stood in the shade by the door to her-and Tellis’s room.

  Cerryl shook his hands dry and tried to avoid looking at the blonde, who leaned against the wall by the door.

  “You did, you know? A golden youth.” Her face clouded for an instant. “And you don’t even know. Neither does your little weaver girl.”

  Cerryl waited, not certain what to say.

  “You’re the only one here,” observed the blonde. “Mother went off to prattle on with cousin Assurala.” Her voice rose from a husky purr into a shriller parody. “Life was so much better, Assurala, oh, yes, it was, back when the young folk listened.” Benthann grinned, more girlishly than Cerryl had ever seen.

  He nodded, trying not to look directly at Benthann and the thin shirt that left little to the imagination. “I need to get back to work.”

  “I suppose you feel that need.” She smiled again and turned toward the common room door, walking in front of Cerryl. As she stepped from the shade of the eaves and into the sunlight, Cerryl swallowed. Her shirt was like mist in the full sun, and she wore nothing under it. Nothing.

  Cerryl let her go into the main part of the house and waited several moments before he followed and opened the door.

  Benthann stood by the table, her back to him, when she spoke. “I Wondered if you’d come in.”

  “I have to finish the copying.”

  “I’m a true bitch,” said Benthann, turning and stretching so that the mist-thin fabric outlined every curve. “I know it. Tellis knows it. My Mother certainly does.”

  “You… you’ve been… fair to me.”

  “You mean I’ve mocked you less than I’ve mocked the others?” A crooked smile crossed her lips. “You must wonder.”