The White Order (The Saga of Recluce #8)(25)

“I beg your pardon,” Cerryl replied softly. “I know you did not.”

“You know, Cerryl, that folk reckon Da as more prosperous than most of the merchants in Lydiar? He doesn't talk fancy. Never had a velvet cloak nor even a fine linen suit...” Brental let the words trail off. “He also reckoned-Da does, I mean-your uncle as a good man. Means a lot from Da. He not be saying that 'bout many.”

“I know. He has been good to me, and I'm most grateful.”

“You be grateful from the first, and we all know that, but it not be what I meant.” Brental shook his head. “Fancy words be just fancy words, not the man. You work hard, and that makes you, not the words.”

Cerryl nodded. “That's true here, but uncle ... Syodor ... he always said that away from the mines, people judged on how one dressed and spoke.”

“You be thinking of leaving?”

“I have nowhere to go.” Cerryl blotted more sweat to keep it from his eyes and tried not to limp from the strained muscles in his legs.

Brental frowned slightly.

Ahead, the wagon creaked going around a wide turn in the road through a space of oaks and maples not much taller than the horses' ears.

“Can it hurt to listen to Erhana and try to speak better?” asked Cerryl.

“No ...” answered Brental with a laugh, “not so long as you keep working hard. Da nor I, we watch the work, not the words.”

Cerryl offered a faint smile.





White Order





XX




The handcart squealed as Cerryl pushed the load of gold oak planks toward the green-painted wagon drawn up before the mill door. He wanted to groan because the squeaking meant that he needed to grease the wheels and axle again, and he hated getting into the grease. Rather, he hated the time and effort it took him to get clean afterward. Somehow, he didn't have that deft a touch with matters mechanical and always ended up a mess, unlike Dylert or Brental, who always made everything around the mill look so effortless.

The handcart kept squealing, the sound drowning out the low rumble of the wheels on the stones of the causeway.

Under the high and hazy clouds of late summer, sweat streamed down his face and down the back of his neck. The meadow grasses below the causeway and to the east of the lower lane hung limply, already browning well before harvest. Not the faintest hint of a breeze had appeared for most of the past eight-day.

Cerryl pushed and sweated, and the cart squeaked and rumbled along the causeway toward the mill. Just outside the big south door, Dylert stood by the wagon talking to a narrow-shouldered man with a wispy ginger goatee in a sleeveless leather vest.

The youth's eyes passed over the emblem on the side of the wagon, then stopped. He squinted against the glare of the sun from the shiny paint and read to himself-“Enfoss and Sons, Master Builders”-half-wondering exactly what Enfoss built.

He slowed the cart as he neared the wagon.

“Here you be, master Enfoss,” said Dylert, putting out a hand to help slow the cart. “The best of the golden oak.”

“And at a pretty price, too, master Dylert.” Enfoss grinned at the null master, showing yellowed teeth that peered from his face like a rat's. “I paid for more than one puny cartload.”

“You paid for three, and three you'll get.” Dylert smiled back at Enfoss; then he moved to help Cerryl reload the wood onto the big green wagon. “Just set it on the tailboard, lad, and get the next load. I'll stack it right in the wagon.”

“Yes, ser.” Cerryl began to lift the planks, two at a time.

“You picking up more on the way back?”

“With what you charge, Dylert? Now, that be hardly likely.” Enfoss guffawed.

“You could go to Hewlett and pay twice as much for less,” suggested the millmaster, lifting four of the heavy planks as though they were feathers.

Before long, Cerryl was pushing the empty cart back to the first lumber barn, glad it only squeaked when laden and not all the time.

Cerryl's shirt was totally soaked by the time the high green wagon rolled down the lane. Enfoss never looked back. For a brief time, both Dylert and Cerryl watched, until the wagon turned eastward on the main road that, Cerryl had been told, eventually joined the wide, stone-paved, wizards' road between Fairhaven and Lydiar.

Dylert nodded, as though he had been assured that Enfoss was indeed on his way back to Lydiar, and then turned. “Cerryl?”

“Yes, ser? I know the cart needs grease again, but it didn't start making noise until I had a load on it.”

Dylert shook his head. “Would that all fellows were as worried about their tools. I was going to tell you that you do a good job of picking woods. Nice not to have to worry, it be. As for the grease, tomorrow be fine for that. Put the cart back in the first barn and go wash up and spend some time on yourself 'fore dinner.”

“Thank you, ser.” Cerryl grinned.

At the sound of a distant horn, both turned toward the lane that led down to the main road. A horse walked slowly up the last section of the road, turning onto the lane up to the mill, each step labored, hardly moving, carrying a bare-headed blond man in dark leathers. Cerryl could see the lather. He could also hear the drumbeat hoofs of many other horses and see the dust rising beyond the hillcrest on the road from Lydiar-a good two kays east of the mill.