“Yes, Anya.” He returned her smile with one he hoped was friendly and pleasant.
“Later,” she said enigmatically.
Cerryl kept from swallowing as she nodded and headed past him in the direction of the lower steps to the tower. He continued on to the washrooms, arriving as the first bells of evening rang.
He hurried through his ablutions and started for the meal hall.
Even from the archway, he could see that dinner was plain roasted fowl and boiled potatoes and bread—bread baked earlier in the day and already partly stale.
Lyasa and Faltar sat at one of the round tables, and Kesrik, Kochar, and Bealtur at the one almost adjoining. Lyasa motioned to Cerryl, and he nodded in response as he loaded his platter. Plain food or not, he was hungry.
As Cerryl neared the table, Lyasa glanced at him, then toward Faltar, then back at Cerryl.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Are you all right? The sewers . . .”
“You mean,” he asked wryly, “have they had a ‘diminishing’ impact? Probably, but I suppose that’s the price you pay for control. Or the one I’m paying.”
Cerryl could sense Kesrik’s eyes on his back—or perhaps Bealtur’s.
Lyasa nodded tightly. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Myral does fine.” Cerryl wanted to smile but kept his face as expressionless as he could as he set the platter on the table beside Lyasa.
After he seated himself, he could feel Lyasa’s hand under the table, briefly touching and squeezing his upper leg, a gesture of reassurance and sadness, all in one. He wanted to tell her that it was all right, but steeled himself and murmured, “It’s hard, but it happens.” In a way, the words were true, just not in the way Lyasa would take them.
Faltar looked up from his fowl, a puzzled look crossing his face.
“You’ll understand later,” murmured Lyasa. “How long have you been in the sewers? One eight-day?”
“Almost two. I’m not moving very fast.” Faltar shook his head and pulled a long face.
“Most don’t,” said Lyasa. “Not at first.”
“. . . can say that . . .” mumbled Faltar.
“Have you heard anything new about Gallos or Spidlar?” Cerryl asked quickly.
Lyasa glanced back over her shoulder, toward the table that Kesrik and Kochar had just vacated. Her face clouded momentarily. “Ah . . . no. I mean . . . nothing’s changed.” She lifted her mug and winced.
“What’s the matter?” Cerryl asked, his eyes following Kesrik, wondering what Lyasa had seen—or heard.
“Kinowin has taken over showing students about arms. He stuffed me into full armor and then beat me around some.”
“To show you what guardsmen and lancers go through,” said Cerryl. “Eliasar did that to me.”
“I certainly don’t want to be a lancer.” Lyasa laughed. “The black angels were crazy in more ways than one.”
“The ones from Westwind?” asked Faltar. “They supposedly knocked everyone else around. I can’t believe it, though.”
“You don’t think women are tough enough?” Lyasa’s eyebrows rose.
“I didn’t say that,” answered Faltar quickly.
“You didn’t have to say it.”
Cerryl held back a grin.
“You know a good number of the blades on Recluce are still women. So are some of the white lancers.”
“I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“So you did say something?” Lyasa kept a straight face.
Faltar sighed, despondently, almost in the exaggerated fashion of a traveling minstrel. “Go ahead, flame me. Beat me . . . anything you wish . . . for I am in pain and misery . . .”
“Next time . . .” Lyasa laughed.
“There won’t be a next time,” Faltar promised.
Cerryl laughed at his plaintive tone.
“Why did you ask about things?” Lyasa turned back toward Cerryl.
“Jyantyl—he’s the head guard for my sewer work—he said there were rumors about more guards and lancers being sent to Certis, and something about Axalt.” He paused. “What do you know about Axalt?”
“It’s an old walled city. It used to be on the main trade road from Jellico to Spidlar—until the Great White Road was completed through the Easthorns. It’s not quite a land, but it owes no allegiance to any other ruler.”
“Maybe we’ll all be mages before it comes to war,” suggested Faltar.
“Maybe.” Cerryl wasn’t sure that was good. He broke off a chunk of bread.
“War doesn’t make sense,” said Lyasa.
“Many things don’t make sense,” pointed out Faltar, mumbling through his food again. “Why should war?”