The White Order

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Wonder?” Cerryl felt stupid, as though each word were less intelligent than the last.

  “Wonder why Tellis puts up with me. Would you like to see why Tellis puts up with me?” The blonde unfastened two of the buttons on the thin shirt that left little to the imagination.

  Much as he would have, Cerryl shook his head with a slow smile “You’re far too rich for me, Benthann.”

  “You’re like the others. You’re a coward.” Yet her words were not biting, and her tongue ran across the full lips, sensuously.

  “It’s not always bad to be a coward,” observed Cerryl, stifling the urge to swallow and managing somehow to maintain an even tone. “Especially if you recognize those times and what you are.”

  “You don’t have to be a coward.” She stepped toward him.

  Cerryl could smell the roses, and something else, something that beckoned. He just stood there, barely able to keep from lurching toward her, just as he had wanted to lurch back into Muneat’s small palace, or summon the image of the woman in green again and again.

  “There’s no one else here.”

  “I’m here,” he finally said, all too hoarsely.

  Surprisingly, Benthann smiled. “You’re smarter than they were.” She stepped back.

  Cerryl shook his head. “I’m not that smart. I just watch and learn from others.” He wondered if he’d been all that wise to back away. He swallowed again.

  “Hard, isn’t it?” Benthann smiled more gently. “I mean, when a woman says she wants you-a pretty woman.”

  “You are pretty.” That was true and safe.

  “I am. I know that, for what it’s worth. Pretty and good at selling my body. You wonder why my mother puts up with me?” Benthann laughed. “I saved us both. I climbed into Tellis’s bed, and I don’t regret it. He was grieving, and he needed something.”

  “His consort?” ventured Cerryl.

  “And his son. Barely older than you, and he fled to the black isle.” Benthann smiled crookedly. “I knew Vieral; that’s how I found Tellis. It was better that than working off your debts and dying on the white road because your father gambled and drank his tavern away.”

  Cerryl wanted to shake his head… or something, but he listened, and his eyes strayed back to the thin shirt, and the curved figure beneath.

  “Sex is the only power a woman has in Fairhaven. Remember that. Even if she has a strong room full of coins, or, light forbid, she’s a mage, sex is the only real power a woman has.” She smiled brightly. “But I like you, Cerryl. You look at me like I’m real.”

  “You are real.” His voice was hoarse.

  His words brought a headshake. “I’m not. Everything is a pantomime. Oh, I’m mostly honest with myself, but no matter what I try or eee it’s all me same- Sex is all a woman really has.”

  Cerryl struggled for words before he spoke. “What about those women devils, the ones who used twin blades?”

  “Westwind? They’re all dead, aren’t they?” Benthann stretched again.

  Cerryl could see her nipples through the thin white fabric of her shirt, and he forced himself to think about the differences in the shape of the letter tok in Temple and old tongue.

  “A woman who has to defend herself with a blade doesn’t know her real power.” Her fingers played with the shirt again, and Cerryl caught a glimpse of a darker nipple against creamy skin. “Nor one who has to use coins to buy her men.”

  He swallowed silently.

  “Let me show you.” She leaned toward him, and her lips brushed his cheek. “I could… and I like you. You haven’t grinned that awful smile or panted all over place.”

  He could feel his trousers tightening. “I believe you. You don’t have to show me anything.”

  Benthann fingered the fourth button on the thin shirt, and leaned toward him.

  This time Cerryl did swallow.

  “I’m much prettier than that weaver girl.”

  “Yes,” Cerryl said hoarsely. “Yes, you are.”

  He couldn’t move as she took one last step and brushed his lips with hers, his chest with hers. She stepped back quickly. “Like all of them, you’re a liar. But you’re a sweet liar, and you try to do what’s right.” She offered a too-bright smile. “I won’t make both of us liars.”

  Cerryl swallowed, still swimming in the fog of roses and unknown flowers that ebbed and flowed around him.

  Benthann half-slumped against the trestle table. “I am a bitch. I told you that.”

  He shook his head.

  “The white mages are the same, you know?”

  Cerryl could feel the look of bewilderment cross his face before he could control it.

  “They’re men. They like sex. No matter what they say, that’s all a woman offers them.”

  “Women offer more than that,” protested Cerryl.

  “You’re young, Cerryl. See if you feel that way ten years from now Even five.” Benthann gave a hard short laugh. “It works the other way too. The only thing a man offers a woman, really, is power. Coins are power. Don’t forget that. Sex for power, power for sex, that’s the way the world works. Tellis had the power to save us, and I give him sex for that, and sometimes he’s gentle.”

  Cerryl let the appalled expression fill his face.

  “I could love you just for that look. Tellis is pretty good to me, but he’s still randy beneath that proper exterior. Who would think it of the most proper scrivener?”

  His apprentice would have, especially after thinking of the green angel book, but he didn’t think voicing such an opinion would have been exactly wise-not at that moment. “We don’t see everything, no matter how hard we look.”

  “Some folks don’t want to see things.”

  “I can see that.” Cerryl took a half-step toward the kitchen.

  Benthann smiled lazily. “Still worried?”

  “Yes.” Cerryl took another step.

  “You should be.” She paused, then added, “You know, Cerryl, I could have gotten you between the blankets, if I’d really wanted to.”

  “I know,” Cerryl admitted, slipping slowly toward the door to the front room. “I know.”

  “You’re too nice. You didn’t pretend to listen. You really listened.”

  “Next time, I might not be so nice,” he answered, his hand on the doorway to the showroom.

  “I’ll remember that.”

  Cerryl smiled, almost sadly, knowing there wouldn’t be a next time, knowing Benthann knew that as well. Neither could afford a next time.

  XLIII

  In the hot and still air of the workroom, Cerryl set the jar of ink on the worktable.

  “Let’s see.” Tellis poured a small amount of the fluid into the inkstand, then lifted one of the older quills from the holder before him and dipped it into the ink. “It looks right.”

  The master scrivener wrote three words on his working palimpsest, with a quick fluidity that Cerryl envied. Then Tellis set aside the quill and studied what he had written. Finally, he nodded. “You can’t tell for certain for years, but I’d say you did a good job. It feels right, and you do get a feel for these sorts of things in time.”

  “Thank you, ser.” Cerryl didn’t know what else to say.

  “You listen, Cerryl. I wasn’t sure at first, you know. You always are so polite. Some folks are polite and never hear a thing.” Tellis cleared his throat. “Enough praise. You need to get to work on the new job.” He looked toward the volume by the copy stand-An Alchemical Manual.

  Cerryl nodded. He’d already looked through the first pages, and the manual was even more boring than the herbal book had been, even more boring than the measurements book had been.

  “After you finish cleaning up,” Tellis added.

  Clunk! With the sound of the opening door to the front room came a hot and light breeze, more of the fine white dust from the street-and voices.

  “Is this the place?”

  “Trust me, Fydel.”

  “Not so much as others, dear A
nya.”

  Tellis glanced at Cerryl. “You stay here. You can fill the inkstands and then put away the ink.” The scrivener hurried around the worktable and into the front room. “Could I help you, sers?”

  “Do you have The Book of Ayrlyn?” The voice was feminine, if hard, and Cerryl thought he’d heard her before. The white mage in the street? What was she doing at the scrivener’s? His heart beat faster. Why would she enter the shop?

  “I’m afraid I don’t know that book, ser.”

  Cerryl frowned as he filled the inkstand on the worktable and moved to the copy desk. Even he could tell Tellis was lying.

  “You have not heard of it?”

  “There’s not a scrivener alive who has not heard of it. None of us would dare touch it, much less copy it.”

  Cerryl could sense the absolute truth in the scrivener’s words. He forced himself to concentrate, then filled his own inkstand.

  “Ah…” A musical laugh followed. “That is more truthful, scrivener. Have you ever seen the book?”

  “Many years ago, in Lydiar, the duke had a copy, and his personal scrivener showed it to me. I did not touch it or read it.”

  “My… you do respect us. That is good. What about Colors of White?”

  Cerryl put the ink jar on the proper shelf, then walked to the wash-stand and basin.

  “… copied that for the honored Sterol.”

  A young-faced and stocky man in white-although he had a dark and heavy beard-peered through the doorway into the workroom. He stared for a moment at Cerryl.

  Cerryl got the same feeling as when he felt he was being watched through a screening glass. “Might I help you, ser?”

  “No. I was just looking.” A lazy smile followed. “Are you the scrivener’s apprentice?”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “The only one?” Cerryl nodded.

  “I suppose you do things like mix inks and scrub the place?” The mage’s voice was pleasant but held a condescending tone.

  “Yes, ser.” Cerryl wanted to meet the man’s eyes but looked down instead, afraid the other would see the anger and fear within him. “I also do some copying and run whatever errands master Tellis wishes.”

  “You know your letters?” The mage stepped to the copy desk and opened the cover of the book, then closed it, half contemptuously. “Yes, ser.”

  “Both tongues?”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “I suppose you know Temple better?”

  “I’m better with the old tongue,” Cerryl admitted. “Thank you.” The mage nodded and turned out of the doorway and toward Tellis. Cerryl listened.

  “Was there anything back there?” asked the woman mage. “Just the apprentice, and an alchemist’s book to be copied.” A deep laugh followed. “I think we can go, Anya.”

  “Thank you, master scrivener.”

  The front door closed, and Tellis stepped back into the workroom. His forehead was glazed with sweat. Cerryl knew his own forehead was damp as well.

  “The bearded one. What did he want?” asked Tellis. “He wanted to know if I were your only apprentice. I said I was.”

  “What have you done, Cerryl?” Tellis’s voice sharpened. “What have you done?”

  “Nothing.” The apprentice looked helplessly at the scrivener. “I can’t think of anything out of the ordinary. I’ve read the books, run errands, and copied things, I’ve never even been close to their tower.”

  “Do you know any black mages?” The bushy eyebrows seemed to stand out as the scrivener peered at his apprentice.

  Cerryl looked directly at Tellis, meeting his eyes squarely. “Ser, I wouldn’t know a black mage if he appeared in the front room.”

  “I don’t understand. I’ve been so careful.” Tellis fingered his bare chin. “Why would they be here?” He looked at Cerryl again. “Are you sure you don’t know anything about this?”

  “Ser,” Cerryl said carefully, “we’ve all felt we’ve been watched. Beryal said something about that. I’ve felt people were looking from the alleyway.” He shrugged again. “I haven’t done anything any different. I haven’t stolen anything. I haven’t insulted anyone. I haven’t gone anyplace I wasn’t supposed to go.”

  “Then why did the white mages come in here? They didn’t want a book. They asked me about a forbidden book.”

  “They asked about The Book of Ayrlyn. You’ve never said anything about it. What is it?” Cerryl glanced at Tellis. “Why would they ask about that? You only copy the books they want.”

  “That’s just it.” The scrivener fingered his chin once more, frowning. “I don’t know why they asked that.”

  “I don’t know what the book is,” Cerryl suggested obliquely, hoping Tellis would offer a clue.

  “Oh… one of the old forgeries. It’s supposed to be the story of one of the ancient black angels. It couldn’t be. There’s nothing from that time. They didn’t have scriveners. The Guild would know.”

  “So they’re looking for a forgery? They should know you better than that.”

  “They should,” Tellis agreed. “You haven’t been copying anything else, have you?”

  “No, ser. I haven’t copied a line you haven’t told me to. Not one.”

  “I believe you.” Tellis frowned again. “But it doesn’t make sense. What could they possibly be looking for?”

  Me, Cerryl wanted to answer. But why? It can’t because of Uncle Syodor and Aunt Nail. They’d already have turned chaos on me. “They act like they’re looking for something, but maybe they’re asking all the scriveners or people who might have books. They didn’t seem upset when they left.”

  “That’s true.” Tellis’s face brightened slightly. “They just take people away for the road if they’ve done something wrong.” A furrow crossed his forehead. “It is troubling, though.”

  “Yes.” Cerryl had to cough to clear his throat. “I could barely answer when he stood there.”

  “You see why you don’t ever want to cross them? They know almost everything.”

  “Yes, ser.” Cerryl only hoped they didn’t know absolutely everything. His stomach remained clenched in knots, and every word felt like an effort. He knew there would be no more warm water, and no more reading of forbidden books-not for a long, long time.

  He swallowed.

  “Well… white mages or not… you’ve copying to do.” Tellis’s voice sounded forced, and he wiped his forehead.

  “Yes, ser.” Cerryl feared his own voice sounded equally false.

  “Take out that ink and get to it, then.”

  “I filled the stands already.” Cerryl stepped toward the copy desk.

  “Good. I need to go over to Nivor’s. It won’t be more than a moment or two. You see what you can do. Skip the illustrations on the overleaf. I’ll do those. You start on the main text.”

  Cerryl took out his penknife, hoping his hands would not shake too much, hoping Tellis would leave and that he could gather himself together.

  “Keep the letter width thin.” Tellis stood by the workroom door for a moment, then jerked his head away. The door closed firmly, almost as though it had been slammed.

  Cerryl just sat on the stool for a time before his hands stopped shaking, and before he dared to sharpen the quill.

  XLIV

  Cerryl rubbed his eyes, then picked up the chamber pot and trudged out through the courtyard and through the gate to the sewer catch, still in his tattered nightshirt and half-wondering why he bothered.

  Because some white mage probably tracks all the sewer dumps. He frowned, then lifted the lid and held his breath as he dumped out the odoriferous contents into the even more concentrated and noxious wastes that flowed through what seemed to be a large runnel of fired and glazed brick. How many kays of such runnels ran beneath Fairhaven… and why? So that the city smelled a little better?

  When the chamber pot was empty, he lowered the dump lid and retreated to the courtyard pump, where he rinsed the battered crockery chamber pot. Then he returned to the se
wer dump. Once was enough, especially since he wasn’t looking forward to bathing in chill water, not that he had dared to do otherwise for the last eight-day. Not after the visit from the pair of mages, and not with Tellis looking sideways & him and grumping at everything he did, as if he’d suddenly been declared a thief-or worse.

  “Cerryl…”

  He looked up. Pattera was flattened against the whitened bricks of the alleyway-gray in the dawn-less than a dozen cubits from the sewer dump and the back gate.

  “Don’t say anything,” she whispered. “They say that the mages are coming for you-that you’re a… renegade. That’s what they say.”

  “Who says?” Cerryl hissed back, turning.

  “They do.”

  “Who?”

  “Just… I have to go. You have to get away before they come. Just go… please.”

  She turned, and Cerryl watched blankly as Pattera scurried back down the alley, the shawl over her nightdress flapping as her bare feet padded on the stones.

  A renegade? Him? For heating some water? They couldn’t have known about his reading Colors of White. Besides, the book really hadn’t said anything, not anything that wasn’t common sense, except for the history part. He’d read the same things in the histories that Tellis had given him, and those weren’t forbidden. Tellis didn’t dare to have anything like that around.

  With a last look down the now-empty alley, he lifted the chamber pot and reentered the courtyard, closing the gate. He glanced down the alley again from the gate. The way was empty, without a sign that Pattera had ever even been there.

  His bare feet carried him back to his room. Why had she come to warn him, and how had she known? Did the weavers’ guild know? Or had her father overheard something?

  Cerryl moistened his lips and opened his door.

  When he had replaced the chamber pot in the corner of his room, he returned to the pump again, this time with his wash-water bucket. The cold water spilled across his hands as he filled the bucket.

  Cold water? For how long? For the rest of his life? Or until someone showed up to claim he was a renegade?

  He walked slowly back into his room.