The White Order (The Saga of Recluce #8)(65)

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 sewer 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.

Should he run?

He shook his head. Running would only tell them he had done Wrong-and they'd kill him like his father and the fugitive at Dylert's.

They might anyway, but he hadn't done anything that wrong, of that he was convinced. But... did they care?

Should he get rid of the books and his father's amulet? No... if they came for him, those wouldn't matter, one way or another, and he wasn't going to give up what little he had of his father out of fear.

Still... he shuddered as he dipped the washrag into the bucket of too-chill water. For all his hopes, for all his dreams, he had nowhere to run and no way to escape.

The cold water on his face helped ... for a moment.





White Order





XLV




Tellis cleared his throat. “I continue to wonder about those mages. No one at the tower has said so much as a word, and yesterday Sterol requested that I come again the day after tomorrow to act as a copyist.” The scrivener scratched the back of his head, then fingered his chin.

Cerryl continued to sweep the floor stones of the workroom, bending to ease the dirt and tiny leather and vellum scraps and bits of dried glue into the wooden dust holder. For days, Tellis had been muttering about the mages, for days, always half-questioning Cerryl, not quite insisting that Cerryl was the reason.

“What do you think, Cerryl?”

The apprentice finished sweeping the dirt and leavings into the holder and straightened, carefully emptying the holder into the waste bin before replying. “I don't know, ser.”

“They were here. How can you not think something?”

“I was afraid,” Cerryl admitted. I still am. “I'd never seen more than one white mage before I came to Fairhaven.”

“The one even questioned you.” Tellis's voice bore the faintest tone of reproach.

“All he asked was what I did and whether I was the only apprentice.” Cerryl slipped the empty dust holder onto its peg and leaned the broom in the corner. He stepped over to the washstand to clean his hands. “He stared at me for a moment, and then he left.”

“That's all he did?”

“Yes, ser.” How many times had Cerryl told Tellis that?

“But why would they ask about that book?” Tellis fingered his chin again. “They have to know I wouldn't ever cross them.”

“Neither would I,” Cerryl added. Not openly. It's too dangerous. “I didn't even know that there was such a book.”

Tellis coughed. “Can't get my throat clear. Not for anything.” He coughed again. “I just don't understand. I've always followed the guidelines. Always.” His voice cracked slightly.

“They are mages,” Cerryl said evenly, drying his hands and stepping toward the copy desk and the waiting volume-An Alchemical Manual.

“That is just it,” insisted Tellis. “They must have a reason; they must have.”

“They must have.” Cerryl leaned forward and inspected the quill in the holder, forcing his voice to remain even, trying to keep his hands from shaking. “They are mages.” He paused. “Do you want me to keep working on this, ser?”