Natural Ordermage

IV

Rahl could hardly wait to finish dinner, but he forced himself not to appear hurried as he washed and dried the platters and replaced them in the narrow cabinet against the kitchen wall.

“You won’t be late, now.” His mother’s words were not a question.

“Not too late,” he replied with a grin. “But I wouldn’t want to leave too much redberry pie behind.”

“Don’t make a hog out of yourself, son. Folks’ll excuse a picky eater and one with a healthy appetite, but hogs aren’t welcome anywhere.”

Rahl forced another grin. “I think you’ve told me that before.”

“Doesn’t make it any less true.”

He smiled pleasantly, wishing that she wouldn’t keep dishing up the same old sayings, time after time, as if he had no brains or memory.

When he finally finished helping his mother, he washed up in the stone-walled area just outside the kitchen, then set off. He was careful not to take the shortcut and instead to turn at Alamat’s, where he could be seen by Quelerya-even in the growing twilight-as being on his way to Sevien’s. What a wretched old biddy Quelerya was, watching everyone, then telling if she saw anything she thought might cause someone trouble.

The dwelling attached to the pottery works was at least three times the size of the dwelling in which Rahl had grown up, although Rahl had felt fortunate enough to have his own room, small as it was at four cubits by six, with his pallet bed against the outer wall. Many children slept in the common room or with their parents.

Rahl stepped onto the low stone stoop before the front door. The stoop was almost wide enough to be a small porch under the wide eaves. He knocked.

Sevien opened the door. “Rahl! Come in. You’re the first one here.”

The front door opened into a common room with a long dining table at one end, nearest the kitchen. Chairs stood at each end of the table, with long benches at each side. Two brass lanterns-each in a wall sconce on opposite sides of the room-provided a steady low light. Facing the hearth, where a brick heating stove stood, unneeded on the comfortable spring evening, were two upholstered and low-backed benches. There were even high-backed chairs flanking the benches, rather than stools, and a sideboard for platters and bowls and tankards-and several real glass goblets.

Even from the front door, Rahl could smell the aroma of baking and spices. His mouth watered, but he swallowed and smiled.

Sevien closed the door behind Rahl. “Mother, Rahl’s here.”

The gray-haired Nuelya turned from where she stood beside the kitchen sink. “Rahl…I set aside one pie for you to take home to your mother. She was so kind to bring all that fresh asparagus by the other day-and even some early brinn. It helps with burns, and handling a kiln, they do happen.” She shot a brief glance to Sevien, who glanced away from his mother. “Now…you won’t forget it, will you?”

“No…ma’am. I certainly won’t.” He wouldn’t, either, because he’d get at least two pieces out of it at home, and they didn’t get redberry pie-or any pastries-that often.

“It’s the one in the corner here, covered with the cloth.” Nuelya turned to check something on the stove, then added to her daughter, who had stepped inside the rear door, carrying a large crockery pitcher, “Did you run the spigot a bit first?”

“Just a little.” Delthea glanced at Rahl, offering an all-too-knowing smile.

Rahl smiled back blandly. “Good evening, Delthea.”

“The same to you, Rahl.”

“If you’d get the small plates, Delthea?” Nuelya gestured toward a tall triangular cabinet in the corner closest to the dining table.

“Yes, Mother.”

“What did you do today, besides cart amphorae down to the keep?” Rahl turned to Sevien, trying to change the unspoken subject quickly.

“Mixed and blended clay. Then I shoveled the coal that Muldark delivered into the bin, except for the last bushel. I had to break that into the right-sized chunks before I loaded it into the kiln.” Sevien shook his head. “Waltar used to do it. I think he slaved to get his own works in Alaren just so someone else had to handle the coal. Clendal just went to sea, and that leaves no one but me. Anyway, someone’s got to do it. Mother and Da need to light it off tomorrow so that they can start firing the day after tomorrow for the next shipment for the Guards.”

“That far ahead?”

“We have to preheat the kiln. Otherwise, the temperature’s uneven.”

All that sounded like even more work than copying books-and a lot dirtier, reflected Rahl.

“Cold water doesn’t take off the coal easy. It takes forever to get clean,” said Sevien.

“That’s because you’re not careful,” suggested Delthea from the kitchen area.

“And you don’t take long enough,” added Nuelya.

Rahl refrained from grinning, not because Sevien was embarrassed but because sometimes all mothers sounded the same. “She and my mother could have been sisters,” he murmured, barely under his breath.

“We’re third cousins, young Rahl, and we’ve got ears like the rock-owls.”

That Rahl could believe.

Sevien did grin. “Did anything interesting happen at your place?”

“Magister Puvort came by today. He was asking about some book,” Rahl offered.

“He was here, too. He talked to Mother.” Sevien looked toward the kitchen, where Nuelya was now setting out the small plain earthenware plates that Delthea had taken from the cabinet.

Rahl had never seen so much ceramic ware. Most people had plain platters and bowls and not much else, but he supposed that potters could make things for themselves. “He didn’t seem too happy. He said something to Da about the engineers and how things weren’t that good now.”

“The magisters never think things are good,” countered Sevien.

“Sevien,” cautioned Nuelya.

“Magister Puvort was looking for a book called The Basis of Order. I’d never heard of it,” Rahl went on. “He said that he thought someone around here might have a copy of it. I’m an apprentice scrivener, getting close to being a journeyman, but I’d never even heard of it until this afternoon.”

“Sounds like they don’t want folks knowing about it.”

“He didn’t sound very happy about the engineers in Nylan.” Rahl hoped Nuelya would say something.

“The Council hasn’t been happy since the engineers built Nylan,” said the potter. “They’re always claiming that the black wall doesn’t really stop anyone. Walls don’t, whether they’re black walls or orchard walls.”

“Especially orchard walls,” added Delthea.

Rahl barely managed to avoid wincing.

Sevien grinned more broadly, then murmured, “See what I got to listen to? All the time?”

Tap, tap!

Sevien turned and hurried across the common room to open the door. A tall young man and a slightly shorter young woman stood there. Both were redheads. With Sevien’s red hair, and Delthea’s, Rahl definitely felt outnumbered.

“Rahl…this is Faseyn and his sister Fahla. They’re pretty new here.”

Rahl had heard that the factor who had taken over Hostalyn’s chandlery had a son and a daughter. He’d seen them both from a distance but never met either. He stepped forward, smiling. “I’m glad to meet you both.”

While Rahl was slightly taller than most men in Land’s End, Faseyn was close to a half head taller than Rahl. Up close he was gangly, and he looked to be younger than his sister. Rahl guessed that Fahla was about his own age.

She smiled warmly. “Father’s kept us so busy in stocking and reorganizing the chandlery that we haven’t met anyone who hasn’t come in to buy things.”

“Scriveners don’t buy all that much,” Rahl replied. “Usually my mother’s the one-”

“She must be Khorlya. She’s nice,” replied Fahla. “She’s quick, too.”

“I suspect you’re very quick yourself,” Rahl replied.

“So are you, and quicker with the girls you like, I’d wager.” Fahla smiled mischievously.

Rahl shrugged helplessly before asking, “Where did you live before?”

“Father and Uncle Karath had the factorage near Mattra. Really, they mostly supplied the ironworks north of there. When Hostalyn said he was getting too old to keep going, Father bought him out. Of course, it wasn’t quite like that, seeing as Hostalyn is his great-uncle, but Land’s End is so much more interesting.”

Rahl didn’t think Land’s End was all that interesting, but he could see that it was likely to be far more engaging than a town off the coast and on the High Road near the ironworks-and far from both Nylan and Land’s End.

“Fahla really runs the chandlery,” added Faseyn. “Father does the buying and trading, and that takes all his time.”

Rahl had the impression that their father was without a consort, but he wasn’t sure how to ask that and decided against it.

“Who else would?” replied Fahla. “You’re more interested in the accounts, but someone has to sell things and tell everyone what we have and why they should buy it.”

“You like doing that?” asked Rahl.

“Much more than being a consort and doing all the cooking and chores, not that I don’t have to fit some chores and cooking in. Some of the older men aren’t sure I should be running the chandlery, but they don’t say much.” She laughed. “You can tell, though, the way they get all stiff and ask where my father is. I just tell them it’s their good fortune to deal with me since Father’s far less compromising.”

Rahl had the definite feeling that it might be easier to dicker with her father. He also found her interesting, but her directness was more than a little unnerving. When she looked at him, her eyes seemed to focus intently on him, as if she were cataloging all his abilities and thoughts and racking them somewhere in her brain.

Abruptly, Fahla turned and lifted two small pouches. “Nuelya…it took a while to dig it out, but here’s that cobalt powder you wanted, and the scarletine, too.” She slipped away and headed toward the kitchen.

Before Rahl could follow, he heard a timid knock on the door, and he sensed that the person knocking had to be Jienela.

Sevien looked to Rahl. “Why don’t you answer it?”

“It would be nice,” murmured Delthea, just loud enough for Rahl to hear.

He slipped around the three to the door and opened it.

Jienela smiled up at him. “Sevien said you’d be here. I hoped so.”

He half bowed and gestured her to enter.

“This is nice,” said Jienela as she stepped into the common room. “I’ve never been inside. Jaired and Jeason always come for the cider jugs.”

“They may not have been in here, either. Sevien only invites his friends.” Rahl guided her toward the others. He watched Faseyn’s watery blue eyes fix on Jienela from the moment she turned and moved toward the group.

“Jienela,” Rahl said, “this is Fahla and her brother Faseyn. Their father took over the chandlery, and they help run it.”

Jienela nodded shyly.

“Jienela’s family has the big orchard to the north and east of here.”

“It’s the only one,” protested Jienela, “and it’s not that big.”

“The pearapples are the best, though,” said Sevien with a laugh, “and the cider.”

“You grew up here, didn’t you?” Fahla asked Jienela.

“Father’s family’s been here since the first. He says that the soil was so bad then that the first trees didn’t fruit for years.”

“Sand on top and hard clay below,” added Sevien. “That’s why there have always been potters around Land’s End.”

“Are you going to be one, too?” asked Fahla.

Rahl frowned inside at the question. Why would she ask that? If Sevien hadn’t had the inclination and talent, he would have been apprenticed out years before. Besides, most children followed either the craft or lands of their parents or their consorts’ parents-if they had the talent. That was the custom, certainly.

“Haven’t your parents always been factors?” asked Sevien.

“Mother was the mate on a trader. Father took up factoring after her ship was burned by pirates.”

For Sevien’s sake, Rahl almost wanted to shrink into the mortared gaps in the gray stone walls. How were they supposed to know that?

“Are you all ready for some pie?” Nuelya’s voice rose over the conversation.

“We’ve been drooling all along,” Rahl called back cheerfully.

“Then come over and get a piece.”

Nuelya had slices cut and set on small crockery plates, with the reddish juice oozing out from the golden brown crust. “Take a plate and one of the small beakers, and settle at the long table over there. We have a bit of watered ale for you young people. Not enough to upset your folks but enough to go with the redberry pie.”

Rahl maneuvered things so that he was seated beside Jienela and across from Fahla. Mostly he listened as the others chattered.

“…Quelerya’s always looking for something she can tell…like amouser…”

“Not so bad as Widow Wylla. She peeks through her shutters so that no one knows she’s looking…”

As he listened, Rahl took his time eating the redberry and spaced out his sips of the ale.

After he took the plates back to the pails in the kitchen and washed both his plate and Jienela’s, he eased back to where she stood at one side of the other four.

“Good cheese is hard to find, the kind that will keep,” Fahla was saying. “So are good knife blades, especially here on Recluce, Father’s always saying…”

Rahl touched Jienela’s forearm. “This way…toward the lamp.”

“But…”

“I just want to see if something is as I thought.”

After a moment, Jienela took several steps forward.

Rahl glanced from her eyes to the lamp and back again. He smiled. “I thought so.”

She offered a puzzled frown.

“The yellow-gold flecks in your eyes are the same color as the yellow in the lamp flame. Maybe that’s why your eyes always look so alive.” He reached out and squeezed her hand, gently, and only for a moment.