The White Order(69)

XLII




IN THE EARLY afternoon, Cerryl sat at the trestle table, chewing on the fresh-baked bread that Beryal had left. He had sliced several small chunks of cheese from the yellow brick.

“Tellis won’t be home until well after the taverns are shuttered,” Beryal had said with a snort right after Tellis had left in the early morning. “As for my daughter, she can cook, if she wishes. The bread and cheese are for you. I’m off to see Assurala—my mother’s sister’s daughter. She lives in Ghuarl—that’s this side of Weevett.” With that, Beryal had marched out the front door, even before Cerryl had been able to ask how she was getting there.

So he had kept copying until his fingers were numb before returning to the common room for something to eat . . . and drink. With a good afternoon’s work, he might finish the remainder of the herbal text yet before evening.

A slight breeze drifted in from the courtyard, through the door and shutters he’d opened before he sat down. On the barely moving air came the scent of roses and other flowers, though there were none in the courtyard. Tellis didn’t believe in such fripperies.

The courtyard was quiet, and the door to the bedroom Tellis and Benthann shared was closed, although the shutters beside the door were open.

Cerryl used his left hand to rub his stiff neck. If only Tellis hadn’t taken Colors of White with him. He tried to shrug the stiffness out of his neck and shoulders. With more time, maybe he could have made more sense out of the book.

Finally, he stood and put the cheese into the cool chest and the bread in the big bread box on top of the pantry cabinet in the kitchen. Then he walked out into the courtyard to wash at the pump. The day was warm enough, and that way he wouldn’t have to empty the basin and refill the pitcher in the common room.

As Cerryl stepped into the sun, he realized that the day had become hot, not just warm, as the light seemed to cascade around him like a rain of warmth, of fire. He paused and tried to sense the light, to feel it.

After a long moment, he swallowed. The light was so much like chaos fire . . . and yet different. For a time, he just bathed in the light, letting his perceptions weave with it.

Then he shook his head and walked to the pump. He washed quickly and straightened up as he heard a door open, looking to the rear gate first. No one was there.

“You were almost glowing—when you stood in the middle of the stones there.” Benthann stood in the shade by the door to her—and Tellis’s room.

Cerryl shook his hands dry and tried to avoid looking at the blond, who leaned against the wall by the door.

“You did, you know? A golden youth.” Her face clouded for an instant. “And you don’t even know. Neither does your little weaver girl.”

Cerryl waited, not certain what to say.

“You’re the only one here,” observed the blond. “Mother went off to prattle on with cousin Assurala.” Her voice rose from a husky purr into a shriller parody. “Life was so much better, Assurala, oh, yes, it was, back when the young folk listened.” Benthann grinned, more girlishly than Cerryl had ever seen.

He nodded, trying not to look directly at Benthann and the thin shirt that left little to the imagination. “I need to get back to work.”

“I suppose you feel that need.” She smiled again and turned toward the common room door, walking in front of Cerryl. As she stepped from the shade of the eaves and into the sunlight, Cerryl swallowed. Her shirt was like mist in the full sun, and she wore nothing under it. Nothing.

Cerryl let her go into the main part of the house and waited several moments before he followed and opened the door.

Benthann stood by the table, her back to him, when she spoke. “I wondered if you’d come in.”

“I have to finish the copying.”

“I’m a true bitch,” said Benthann, turning and stretching so that the mist-thin fabric outlined every curve. “I know it. Tellis knows it. My mother certainly does.”

“You . . . you’ve been . . . fair to me.”

“You mean I’ve mocked you less than I’ve mocked the others?” A crooked smile crossed her lips. “You must wonder.”

“Wonder?” Cerryl felt stupid, as though each word were less intelligent than the last.

“Wonder why Tellis puts up with me. Would you like to see why Tellis puts up with me?” The blond unfastened two of the buttons on the thin shirt that left little to the imagination.

Much as he would have, Cerryl shook his head with a slow smile. “You’re far too rich for me, Benthann.”

“You’re like the others. You’re a coward.” Yet her words were not biting, and her tongue ran across the full lips, sensuously.