The White Order(165)

“The ale.” Drinking anything called swill didn’t appeal to Cerryl.

The brown-haired serving girl was gone as quickly as she had come. He glanced at the corner table, the one where the conversation had been about him. Three older men sat around the battered and whitened circular table, nursing tall mugs. A single basket of bread sat in the middle.

Cerryl turned his glance to the table where a blond woman of indeterminate age, but not profession, sat with a gray-haired and heavy man in rich browns. He wished a certain blond mage had been sitting across from him. Since she wasn’t, his ears picked up the conversation from the corner.

“. . . see what you mean . . . looks right through you . . .”

“. . . coulda taken him . . . years ago . . .”

“It’s not years ago, Byum. Ha!”

A faint smile creased Cerryl’s lips.

“Here you be.” The bread and ale arrived with the thin server, a half-loaf of rye and a tall gray mug of dark ale, smelling strong enough to chew. Cerryl laid out two coppers and took a careful sip. At the prices in Fenard, he’d have to be careful—and quick.

The bread was moist, at least, moister than that in the Halls of the Mages, and by the time the platter that held a single fowl leg and a chipped brown crockery bowl of stew appeared, Cerryl had finished half the bread.

“Here you be.”

“Thank you.” Cerryl knew he needed to give her something. He fumbled out a copper.

“Thank you, ser.” She flashed a professional smile and slipped away.

The stew was peppery, hotter than burkha, and Cerryl didn’t care, but he listened as he ate.

“. . . a lot of lancers going out the east gates these days. Don’t see so many coming back . . .”

“. . . know a good cabinet-maker? She says we need a dowry chest for Hirene . . .”

“. . . good riddance to him . . . mages nothing but trouble. . . .”

Cerryl’s ears burned, but he took another sip of ale, another mouthful of bread, and then more stew.

“. . . say the white devils are raising mountains to the east . . .”

“Ha! Even they can’t do that . . . more stories . . . Like as not, next they’ll be talking of the black angels returning to Westwind. Or the great white birds landing on the plains of Kyphros . . . Don’t believe all you hear.”

“Don’t hear much about the black isle these days.”

“Good that we don’t. Got any ideas of whether Frysr do a better job on that chest than Donleb?”

“Frysr be a better crafter, but he’ll be costing twice what Donleb will.”

“She’ll say Frysr—only the best for Hirene.”

“Lucky you.”

Cerryl looked at the bowl and platter. He’d finished it all—and probably too quickly. With another glance around, he slipped away from the table.

No one seemed to notice—not obviously—when he left, and the hall upstairs was empty but not silent. A bed creaked repeatedly as he passed the door adjoining his.

His room seemed untouched, and there was no sense of chaos or disruption.

Cerryl dropped the bar in place. He brushed the bed with chaos, hoping that would remove most of the vermin, then took off the blade and sword belt, both sets of trousers and tunic and did the same with them.

He stretched out on the bed, feeling his eyes close almost immediately. Darkness, it had been a long day.





C




CERRYL WOKE WITH the gray light that filled the room even before dawn. His head ached, and his back and legs were sore. One arm itched with several small red bites—despite his efforts of the night before with the vermin.

He swung his feet over the side of the bed and just sat there for a time, slowly massaging first this neck and then his forehead. Finally, he stood and walked to the basin, where he washed up as best he could. After that, he pulled on his boots and the sword belt. The tunic and jacket had to stay in his pack.

In the wavering image of the wall mirror, thin-faced and drawn, he looked like anything but a well-fed student mage—or a mage of any type. More like a brown-coated weasel or something, he decided, or even a bravo down on his luck—as if he could do more than hack with the blade at his belt.

He definitely missed the razor—and the lady who had given it to him. Would he see her again? Would she care?

Don’t think about it . . . You have a task to finish.

He left his pack beside the bed and went downstairs to find something to eat. The hearth in the corner of the public room was cold, with the smell of ashes. The tabletops were covered in a thin film of whitish dust, and the only table taken was filled by the same three older men that had been there the night before. The three looked Cerryl over, nodded to themselves, and resumed their low conversation.