The White Order (The Saga of Recluce #8)(147)

The dark-haired boy grinned. “I'll get your mount. The chestnut, right?”

“That's the one.” Cerryl glanced back toward the inn but didn't see Prytyk, which was just as well. A thin line of smoke rose from the chimney, and the smell of something baking drifted into his nostrils, a scent far more pleasant than his stale breakfast or the smell of the streets. Overhead, puffy white clouds, with barely a touch of gray, dotted the green-blue sky.

The stable boy had brushed the chestnut. That was clear enough from the sheen of the horse's coat. “I gave him some grain. Not supposed to...” The boy glanced toward the stable, then over Cerryl's shoulder toward the inn door.

Cerryl smiled and slipped the youth another copper he couldn't afford.

“Thank you, ser.” A pause followed. “Some say you're a bravo ...”

“You wonder if that's true?” Cerryl smiled as he began to strap his pack and bedroll on the chestnut, unwilling to leave them behind, even for the day. “I can't give you an answer you'd believe. If I am, then I won't say I am, and if I'm not, I won't say I am.” He laughed, pleased at his answer.

“I don't think you are.”

“Probably not in the way you mean.” The mage swung up into the saddle, half-amazed that he'd finally gotten somewhat graceful at mounting the big horse. “Tonight.”

“Yes, ser.”

Cerryl hoped he didn't have to stay another night, but he had no idea of what to expect in Fenard-or if he could even get close to the prefect. Or if the prefect even happened to be in Fenard.

The Golden Bowl looked even more dingy in the morning light, yellow plaster walls grayed and chipped, roof tiles cracked, with some missing. One shutter beside the front door hung tilted from a single bracket. Cerryl held in a shiver, noting that it was probably a good thing he hadn't been able to see the place well the night before.

He guided the chestnut out onto the narrow street and west, toward the main avenue, through the sour odors of a city with too many open sewers. There, even in the early morning, a line of carts trundled to his right, north, in the direction he hoped led to the central square or what passed for such.

He'd only ridden a block or so when he had to guide the chestnut around a cart that had collapsed, one wheel snapped in half, the cart tilted, and baskets of potatoes half-emptied into the cart bed-and into the street, and even the open sewer ditch.

A half-dozen urchins were scooping up the tubers into their ragged shirts, then scuttling down the alley. Cerryl swallowed as he watched one scoop two potatoes out of the filth.

“Out! Leave a poor farmer alone!” The carter lifted a staff, and the urchins suddenly vanished.

Cerryl kept riding, his eyes never stopping their study of the surroundings, even when he passed a set of ancient rock pillars and looked into the central square-just a cobblestoned and open expanse filled with carts and wagons and hawkers. Most of the wagons were of bare wood, brown or gray, not like the painted carts in the market square in Fairhaven.

To his right, standing on an empty mounting block, an urchin with cold eyes studied Cerryl, then looked away.

“You!” snapped the mage.

“Ser? I didn't do nothing. I didn't.”

“Which way to the prefect's?”

“You? They won't let you in the gate.” The urchin gave a diffident sneer.

“My cousin's in the guard there.”

“Up the hill past Gyldn's. The goldsmith.”

“Thank you.”

“Frig you, bravo.” The urchin spat.

Cerryl urged the chestnut into the square, eyes traveling across the carts, the women with baskets, and the two wagons tied on the other side, opposite what looked to be a warehouse. Two men lugged bundles wrapped in gray cloth from the wagon through the open door.

“Spices! Best winterseed this side of the Gulf...”

“Ser! Flowers for your lady!”

Cerryl shook his head.

“Then she be no lady!”

The young mage half-grinned, looking for the goldsmith's as the chestnut carried him around the square. A signboard with a golden chain against a green background caught his eye, and he made for the place, and the street that seemed to slope gently up past three-story buildings that bore shops on the main level and dwellings above.

“Scents and oils . .. scents and oils ...”

“... harvest-fresh roots .. . fresh roots ...”

Once out of the square and on the cobblestones of the upsloping side street, he could make out the walls ahead on his right. The prefect's palace was indeed walled, and the walls were a good ten cubits high. Two hundred cubits uphill on the paved street was a gate-or the first gate. While the two wrought-iron gates were open, the four guards were alert, one studying Cerryl as he rode by. Cerryl ignored the scrutiny and continued past the gate, a gate made up of interlocking iron bars forming rectangles that afforded a view of an empty paved courtyard.

Should he be cautious?

He shook his head. There was a time to be bold and a time to be cautious. Mostly, in the past, he'd had to be cautious, and that had to be what Jeslek was counting on. Despite Sterol's advice about there being no old bold mages, if he weren't bold, he'd never have the chance to get old. The sooner he removed the prefect-if he could-and returned to Fairhaven, the better ... before Jeslek's stories could get out of hand.