The White Order (The Saga of Recluce #8)(18)

“Darkness and demons! First, Erastus and now a cracked blade. That's a good ten golds for a blade like that.” He shook his head, then fingered his trimmed black-and-silver beard. “Ten golds ... where ...” His eyes focused on the youth. “You move like a serpent, young fellow. Never saw you until Erastus was leaving. How much did you hear?”

“Just the part about the duke wanting a black-oak-and-lorken chest, ser. And after that.” Cerryl met the millmaster's eyes.

“Well... let it be a lesson to you. Folks always expect that you'll do more for less if a duke or a great man wants something. Sometimes, it's like as true. Most times, the great man never heard. Old Erastus there, he was trying to get me to charge him less. You think that he'd be asking a copper less from the duke had I even given him the lorken? Ha!” Dylert snorted. “Now ... another blade to be reforged and tempered and cut and sharpened... They don't think of that when they want the wood cheap. No, they don't.”

Cerryl nodded.

“And another thing, lad. Don't think I don't know you been sweet-talking Erhana into teaching you the letters after dinner.” Dylert grinned. “Or any other time.”

“I don't do it when I'm supposed to work, ser.” Cerryl looked down at the clean-swept floor stones.

“That you don't, and you work hard. Harder than any boy I had here.” Dylert frowned. “Why the letters?”

“My da, he could read. Least I could do is learn my letters,” said Cerryl, knowing he was not telling the entire truth, and hoping Dylert did not press him.

“Trying to match your da.” Dylert nodded. “Folks don't talk much of your father. You know why?”

“They said he was a wizard.”

“He tried to be a wizard, lad. There be a difference.” Dylert paused, then added, “The white mages, they choose you... if they think you might be one of them. No one be making them do what they do not wish to do. No one be crossing them. And trying to be a mage without their blessing ... that be a mighty crossing.” Dylert cleared his throat. “You understand that, lad?”

“Yes, ser.”

A creaking issued from the door to the barn.

“Dylert! Wagon's here. I got a long trip back,” called Erastus.

“Then, we be loading right now,” returned the millmaster before looking down at Cerryl, if not so far down as the fall before. “You can use the handcart. Get the best ten gold oak planks from the second barn. You got a good eye. He gets good seconds. Understood.”

“Yes, ser.”

“Better run back and tell Brental that I'll be there soon as we get Erastus off. Then get the oak.”

“Yes, ser.”

“Good.” Dylert smiled. “Off with you.”

Cerryl scurried out of the barn and toward the mill, half-sighing in relief as he ran to give Brental the message. Dylert hadn't said he couldn't keep learning his letters, and he hadn't forced Cerryl into an actual lie.





White Order





XIV




In the background, Cerryl could hear both wheels rumbling and thumping, and the water roiled down the millrace behind where he sat in the shade, brush in hand. Neither the intermittent light breeze nor the shade was enough to keep him from sweating in the hot afternoon, nor to keep away the flies that buzzed back and forth, seemingly always at the back of his neck. He absently brushed one away, only to feel it circling back.

Whhhrannnnnn...

Cerryl looked up from where he sat on the low stone wall, not letting go of the stiff brush he used to clean the oxen's yoke. Scrubbing the yoke was a slow and tedious process, working the dirt and grime out without scarring the wood.

Inside the mill, at the far end of the center aisle, Brental, Viental, and Dylert worked a big pine log through the beginning of a series of cuts. On one side Brental checked the guides through which the log fed, drawn by the cradle wound from the upper and smaller waterwheel. One the other side, Dylert watched, one hand on the cradle release, the other on the drop gear. Viental reset the log after each pass, edging the cradle a quarter span more toward the blade.

Cerryl blinked. The reddish white glow surrounding the blackness of the blade-had he seen that? Right through the heavy log? He thought he had before, but on this afternoon, the glow seemed brighter. He squinted, leaning toward the mill, his fingers tightening around the broom handle.

Why could he sense something he couldn't see? Not see properly anyway. The reddish white glow was there-the same glow he'd felt in the mines that even Syodor had avoided-and the same glow that, in a much lesser degree, permeated the books from his father.

He frowned. Another question, one he pondered, time and time gain. Why had his uncle never mentioned that he had been the master-miner? Cerryl hadn't learned that until Dylert had said so.

He studied the yoke, then nodded. Even Brental would be pleased. He looked back at the blade. It seemed brighter, yet with an angry reddish tint, one he hadn't seen before.

He bent down to lift the yoke to carry it back up to the stables, but his eyes went back to the mill, where the reddish white of the blade, that color no one else seemed to see, loomed over the massive log and the mill blade, almost as though it were ready to lash out at Brental and Dylert. He took a step down the causeway, then stopped and glanced back again.