The White Order (The Saga of Recluce #8)(5)

IV




Cerryl glanced over his shoulder, down the long, if gentle, incline toward the road that led from Hrisbarg.

Syodor pointed. “Over the hill, another three kays or so, the road joins the wizards' road. A great road that be, if paved with too many souls.”

“Paved with souls?”

“Those displeasing the wizards built the great highway.” Syodor grunted.

Cerryl studied the distant clay road again, nearly a kay back from where he trudged on the narrower road up the slope to the sawmill. To the right of the road was a gulch, filled with low willows and brush, in which ran a stream, burbling in the quiet of midday. Puffs of whitish dust rose with each step of Cerryl's bare feet and with each step of Syodor's boots.

“How much longer?” asked the youth, looking ahead. The roofs of the mill buildings seemed another kay away - or farther. A trickle of sweat ran down the side of his face, and he wiped it away absently.

“Less than a kay. Almost there, lad.” Syodor smiled. “This be best for you. Little enough Nail and I can offer. Be no telling when this duke will come and take my patent, and open the mines one more time, and leave us with naught. Too old, they'd be saying I am, to be a proper miner.” He snorted softly. “Too old . . .”

Cerryl nodded, sensing the strange mixture of lies and truth in Syodor's statement, knowing that Syodor was truthful in all that he said, but deceitful in some larger sense. So Cerryl concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.

“Stand aside.” Syodor pointed toward the oncoming horse team and the wagon, then touched Cerryl's shoulder. “Back.”

Cerryl stepped onto the browning grass on the shoulder of the road to the sawmill and lowered the faded and patched canvas sack to the ground. His feet hurt, but he did not sit down.

His gray eyes fixed on the four horses. Though each was a different color, all were huge, far bigger than those ridden by the duke's outriders or the white mounts favored by the lancers of Fairhaven. He'd seen the white lancers only once. When he'd gone to Hewlett right after spring planting with Syodor and Nail, a company had ridden through, not looking to the right or left, every lancer silent.

The wagon driver grinned as he passed, and waved to Syodor. “Good day, grubber!”

“Good day to you, Rinfur!” Syodar waved back.

The long and broad wagon was piled high with planks and timbers, set between the wagon sides and roped down, and on the side board was a circular emblem with a jagged circular gray sawmill blade biting into a brown log. Under the oval of the design were symbols. Cerryl's lips tightened as his eyes ran over the symbols-the letters he could not read.

He stood there long after the wagon had passed, the sun pressing down on him through the cloudless green-blue sky.

“Cerryl, lad? It be but a short walk now.” Syodor's voice was gentle.

“I'm fine, Uncle.” Cerryl lifted his pack and stepped back on the road, ignoring the remnants of the fine white dust that drifted around them in the still hot air.

A fly buzzed past, then circled Cerryl. He looked hard at the insect, and it wobbled away. As he and Syodor neared the flat below the hillcrest, Cerryl's eyes darted ahead. The sawmill consisted of three buildings-the mill itself and two barnlike structures. Above the mill on the hillside were a house, what looked to be a stable, and a smaller structure.

The mill was of old gray stones and sat beside a stone dam and a millrace. The waterwheel was easily four times Cerryl's height but stood idle.

“Slow at harvest time,” Syodor said, gesturing at the dry stone channel of the millrace below the wheel. “Folks don't think about building or fixing now.”

The road they walked continued uphill and past the millrace, where it intersected a stone-paved lane that extended perhaps a hundred cubits from the open sliding door in the middle of the side of the mill facing the two lumber barns. Beyond the stone pavement, the road narrowed to a lane winding past the mill on the right and uphill toward a rambling long house, with a covered front porch. The wooden siding had been freshly oiled, and the house glistened in the midday sun.

An ox-drawn lumber cart was drawn up to the mill door, and a man taller than Syodor was checking the yoke.

“Brental?” asked Syodor.

The young red-bearded man turned from the oxen and glanced at the two dusty figures for a moment, then said, “Syodor? You'd be wanting Dylert?”

“The same.”

“I'll be getting him for you, once I get the cart out of the door.” Brental lifted the goad, but did not touch either ox, and called, “Geeahh!”

The oxen started forward, slowly pulling the heavy but empty log cart away from the open sliding door in the south side of the mill. Cerryl watched as the cart rumbled along onto the stone causeway across the intersection with the road.

Once the cart was clear of the intersection, Brental gestured with the goad and said mildly, “Ahh...”

The oxen obediently stopped, and Brental walked past Syodor and Cerryl, giving them a nod, and into the mill.

Cerryl stood, shifting his weight from one bare foot to another, his sack by his feet, ignoring the dampness of his sweaty shirt.

Syodor cleared his throat. “Dylert... he runs a good mill.” After a moment, he said again, “A good mill. A good man.”

Cerryl nodded, waiting.