The White Order (The Saga of Recluce #8)(79)

“I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking.”

“You were a scrivener's apprentice ...” Faltar said gently.

“I told you, didn't I?” Cerryl wasn't sure what he'd told to whom anymore, but he thought he'd told Faltar.

“Yes. When you first came to the halls.” The blond student mage glanced up the avenue, toward the line of clouds to the east. “We'd better hurry. That looks like rain.”

“It won't get here for a while, and the wind feels good.” Cerryl walked faster, enjoying stretching his legs.

“Sometimes ... I wonder what it would have been like. To have a trade, I mean.”

“It's different. I don't miss the sawmill.”

“Sawmill?”

“Oh, I was a mill boy before I was apprenticed to Tellis. The winters were cold, and I never seemed to get warm. Dylert was fair, but the work only got harder as I got bigger.”

Faltar's steps slowed as he looked sideways. “No one would ever guess. You're not that big. You look more like a scrivener.”

“Thin and scrawny?”

Faltar flushed.

Cerryl laughed softly. “I do. I know it.”

Two girls, probably not much older than Pattera, saw the white tunics and slipped down the side way in the middle of the row of the grand houses with their now-gray trees and gardens.

“They weren't that pretty,” said Faltar.

“Who?”

“The girls. Don't you like girls?”

“I like girls. I wasn't looking.”

“Ever had a girl? You could, any time, if you wanted.”

“No. I could have, but...” Cerryl wondered how Benthann might be doing. Somehow, he'd felt it would have been wrong to go back to Tellis's, even if he couldn't quite say why.

“And you didn't?” Faltar's voice rose slightly. “It could have caused a lot of trouble.”

“Well... it's different here. If you find a girl who's willing, and most will give you a tumble.”

“Why? Because they'll get a dowry settlement from the Guild?” Cerryl struggled to keep the edge from his voice. “Well... it's better that way.”

“I suppose.”

“Oh.” After a moment, Faltar asked, “You've been through a lot of hard times, haven't you?”

“Why do you say that?”

“I don't know. Except you don't see things the same way. And you're so quiet. Sometimes, when you're in a place, it's as though you're almost invisible.”

“Sometimes, I wish I could be. Especially now.”

“Derka says that some of them can do that. They bend light around themselves. There's another way to do it, but he won't tell me what it is. He says it's not a good thing to do.”

Light again-always light. Cerryl nodded. “Why do you want to be invisible?”

“I am already. Kesrik, Bealtur, they wish I didn't exist. I'm not a mage's son, and I don't come from coins.”

“Kinowin didn't, either.”

“And he looks like he had to beat them into accepting him. He's a head taller than even Jeslek.”

“They say that Creslin was small.”

“But he was a black mage.”

“Power is power,” said Faltar.

Was it? Cerryl glanced past the last house on the left-Muneat's, the only one he knew, with the bird fountain-and to the square, where only a handful of shoppers still remained around the colored carts. “They say coins are power, too.”

“It's not the same. Coins aren't. Kesrik comes from coins, and Sterol doesn't give a copper.”

“Maybe that's why Sterol is High Wizard.”

“It's not just chaos power. Jeslek can hold more chaos than anyone.” Faltar glanced around nervously.

“It's what you can do with it. I know that. And Sterol and Jeslek aren't the best of friends. They wouldn't have quarters as far apart as they do if they were.”

“That's true. None of the mages talk about it, though.”

“What good would it do?” Cerryl stepped off the curb and started across the empty avenue to the square. “They'd risk making either Sterol or Jeslek angry.”

A wisp of thin smoke, bearing the smell of roast fowl, drifted by the two students.

“Smells better than anything in the halls.”

Cerryl had to admit that it did.

“Split a half fowl?”

“How much, do you think?” asked Cerryl.

“Two coppers, maybe, for a half. One for you and one for me.”

“Since it's not often...” The younger student grinned, trying not to think how many days' pay that would have been once.

Faltar walked over to the blue wagon and the hefty woman in gray at the spit over the charcoal in the metal firepit. “How much for a half?”

“Three coppers, ser.”

“Two,” insisted Faltar. “I'm hungry enough that I don't want to haggle.”

The woman shrugged. “Two, I can live with. It's late.” She pulled the spit off its holder and deftly lifted a thick black knife-more like a cleaver.

Cerryl found his mouth watering as Faltar handed him the browned and dripping quarter fowl, and he bent forward so that none of the drippings would touch his tunic.