The White Order

XXIX

CERRYL STRUGGLED TO sweep the sawdust away from the mill pit, but the cold wind coming through the east door kept blowing the sawdust and wood chips back toward the pit from which he had just shoveled them. His arms burned from the resins, and his gloves were worn through.

Behind him, the big blade rang like a chime. Clannnnggggg!!!

“Up. . up, you lazy apprentice!”

He glanced around the room in bewilderment. Where was his cubby? The open wardrobe wasn’t his. And his books? He sat up in the bed, shivering from the chill. What about the other blankets? One wasn’t enough.

“Breakfast is almost ready, and you need to bathe.”

Bathe? Cerryl shook his head, trying to climb out of the white fog and dream that seemed to hold him.

Clannnggg!!

“You awake in there?” demanded the voice. Beryal’s voice, he realized finally.

“I’m awake,” he croaked.

“Heard dead frogs more alive than you. Best be moving.” Beryal’s voice faded.

Slowly, he put his feet down on the chill stone floor, wincing. Then he stood and, in his drawers, pulled the threadbare towel over his shoulder and padded to the door, carrying his battered wash bucket. The courtyard was gray and gloomy before sunrise, and heavy clouds swirled overhead. A chill wind whipped across his bare chest as he filled the wash bucket and plodded back to his room.

Once clean-and shivering-he dressed and then left his room, opened the gate, and emptied the wash water into the sewer catch. He looked down the alleyway to the lesser artisans’ way but saw not a soul. Despite the swirling breeze, there was but a hint of the white street dust, and not a scrap of litter or rubbish in the alley. And not a single rodent.

From what Cerryl could tell, Fairhaven had few rodents-he’d never seen one-and streets cleaner than the floors of many houses in Hrisbarg. Nor did the air smell, except with a faint bitterness that reminded him of the mill blade after Dylert had cleaned, sharpened, and oiled it.

He closed the circular catch basin cover, not too much more than half a cubit across. From the sound of the wastes, the sewer beneath was large. He looked at the stone cover again. Why was it so small? Another minor mystery, and one probably not worth worrying over.

He walked back to his room, closing the gate and then replacing the wash bucket on the peg on the wall by the door. After deciding not to wear his jacket to cross the small courtyard, he hurried to the common room-warmed by the stove. The warmth felt good as he slid onto the empty bench.

“Took you long enough.” Beryal dumped two slabs of bread fried in something onto his plate.

He looked at the strangely fried bread blankly.

“Never seen egg toast before?”

“No, ser.”

“Beryal does it well,” said Tellis, taking the chair at the end of the table. “Best egg toast in Fairhaven.”

“You must be feeling good this mom,” observed Beryal from the stove where she fried more of the heavy bread.

“A good morning it is, if a bit chill, but the winter here is mild, compared to the plains of Jellicor.” Tellis yawned.

“Men.” Beryal smirked and walked back to the stove.

Cerryl looked around the common room. Benthann? Now that he thought about it, he’d never seen her at breakfast.

“Don’t be looking for her mightiness,” said Beryal. “Not afore midmorning, leastwise.”

Cerryl held back a cough. For a mother, Beryal wasn’t exactly warm and supportive of her daughter. Neither Nail nor Syodor had ever been that cutting, and he hadn’t even been their son. Nor had Dylert been that cross, even when Brental had nearly ruined the big blade on a lorken log with knotted heartwood.

Tellis coughed, loudly.

“Don’t you be coughing and snorting at me, master Tellis. I cook, and I clean and do as you order for the household, but my words be my own.” The sizzle of the frying bread emphasized Beryal’s statement. More emphasis followed when she slammed the crockery platter and the browned egg toast before Tellis.

Cerryl kept his eyes on his plate, except when he reached for his mug of cool water.

“Don’t know why I keep you two around,” murmured Tellis.

“We all know that, and there’d be no reason to talk more about it,” answered Beryal, back at the stove fixing her own egg toast. “Cerryl, would you want more toast?”

“If I could have another piece. . please.”

“That you can, and you ask, unlike some who sleep forever.” Beryal carried the skillet over and slipped a third chunk of the browned egg-battered toast onto his plate.

“That was yours. .”

“There is more where that came from. Not be starving myself, not in this household.” Beryal grinned. “And I thank you for caring.”

As she turned her back, Tellis grinned at Cerryl.

Not knowing quite what the grin meant, Cerryl offered a faint smile in return. “Good toast it is, ser.”

“It is indeed,” said Tellis. “Enjoy it as you can.”

Beryal sat down across from Cerryl and began to eat her egg toast. The three ate silently. Before he realized it, Cerryl glanced at his suddenly empty plate. He repressed a burp, took a last swallow of water, and then looked toward Tellis.

“You best start to work, Cerryl. I’ll be there in a moment. You set up to keep copying the Sciences book, but don’t you be starting yet.”

“Yes, ser.” Cerryl eased off the bench and went to the washstand, cleaning and drying his hands before heading to the workroom. He put the book on the copy stand but did not open it to the marked page. Then he took the penknife and put a fresh edge on his quill, laying it beside the inkwell.

He used a whittled twig to stir the ink and check its consistency. More water? He decided against that and took the top parchment sheet from the cabinet, getting out the bone buffer to ready it for copying. After polishing the sheet, he arranged his stool.

“Good,” said Tellis as he bustled into the workroom. The scrivener rummaged in the bottom of the supply chest before lifting out an oblong section of parchment that he carried and set on the writing table.

“Practice parchment. Not for writing, but for scraping.” He covered his mouth and coughed. “You’ve seen me scrape away your errors.” Tellis lifted the sharp-edged knife. “It’s time you became better, and practice is the only way. The blade must be sharp, yet absolutely clean. A blade with oil along the edge-the oil will mix with the old ink and leave flecks or dots that you’ll have to scrape even deeper to remove.”

“Yes, ser.” That made sense to Cerryl.

“And you must scrape at an angle, firmly and delicately enough to separate the ink from the parchment. Like this. Watch.” Tellis wiped the knife on a clean white cloth, then rehung this cloth on a peg. His fingers nearly concealed the knife as he slipped the blade against the top line of writing on the practice parchment. “See?”

Cerryl blinked. Where three words had been, the parchment was clean, as though nothing had been written there.

“No substitute for good parchment. Paper, even the woven split-reed paper, a few years and it’s dust, specially here in Fairhaven. A parchment volume will last forever, cared for as it should be.” Tellis paused. “I’ll do it once more. Now watch.”

Cerryl watched as another set of words vanished.

“You try it.”

Cerryl took the knife and the cloth, and wiped the blade as he had seen Tellis do.

“Good. Don’t put any pressure on the edge. Dulls it too soon.”

Then the apprentice eased the edge across the next word on the line, all too conscious of the scritching his scraping produced.

“No. . no. .” Tellis’s voice took on an exasperated edge. “Angle the blade just so, the way I showed you. You want to scrape off but the slightest of the parchment, just to clean it. You must feel the grain and the nap of the parchment, polished smooth as it may be.”

Feeling his fingers were like fat thumbs, Cerryl angled the knife against the nearly worn out palimpsest and tried to follow the example Tellis had demonstrated.

“Better. . better. .” Tellis straightened. “After you copy another two pages, practice on that worn shred, just like that. A good palimpsest-a good one-it should be smooth enough and clean enough that none but the best of scriveners can distinguish it from a fair parchment.”

“Yes, ser.”

“If I’m not back before then, copy another set of pages, and then practice with the palimpsest some more. I need to talk to Nivor about the latest oak galls. They don’t steep right.” Tellis shook his head. “And the iron brimstone has too much of the brimstone. In time, the ink made from it will burn the pages, and I’d never want that said of any of my books.”

“How long will that take?” asked Cerryl.

“Years, Cerryl lad, but books must last forever, not a mere handful of years. What be the point of a book that turns to dust before its scrivener?”

Cerryl nodded, though he wasn’t certain he agreed totally with his master. Many people produced goods that didn’t outlive their maker yet were valued, and most of what he had copied or read seemed to be either common sense that didn’t need to be written down, or things of little use to most folk.

Once Tellis had slipped out into the chilly late morning and up the lesser artisans’ way, Cerryl glanced at the book on the copy stand-The Sciences of the Heavens, then read the lines carefully, half aloud.

. . not always understood that all the stars were not studded on a distant and concave surface, but are scattered at immense distances from one another in space so limitless as to be inconceivable. .

So limitless as to be inconceivable? The words seemed to roll through Cerryl’s thoughts. So limitless that one could not understand or comprehend the distance? He shook his head. Why did the white mages write about such matters? Where were the books that told about how to handle chaos? Or order? The stars might be distant, so distant that the ancient angels had traveled forever, but how would such stuff help him understand about mastering chaos?

He took one slow easy breath, then another, before dipping the quill once more into the iron-gall ink and slowly copying the next line of the manuscript. . and the next.

He finished one set of pages, then scraped clean two lines off the practice palimpsest and started copying the next set of pages from The Sciences of the Heavens.

. . stars, established and scattered as they are at vast distances from the sun, cannot receive the fires of chaos from the sun, and thus, must contain their own founts of chaos, which appear as points of light in the night sky. .

“How can you even see?” Benthann peered into the workroom. “The day is dark. It’s like a cave in here, and you haven’t even lit the candle.”

Cerryl glanced up, realizing that the workroom was dark. Somehow, he hadn’t even noticed the growing dimness. “I didn’t realize. .”

“Such a hardworking apprentice. You even save him the costs of candles and lamp oil. Do you know where Tellis might be?”

Cerryl eased the quill away from the parchment. “He said he was going to Nivor the apothecary’s.”

“A course, he’d think of that just before it snows. More of the formulations for ink?”

“He did not say, Benthann.” Cerryl used her name because she wasn’t that much older than he was, yet she slept with Tellis but wasn’t his consort. He wondered if Tellis had ever had a consort.

“Light be praised that he’s not over at Arkos’s place. Should it cross his mind to ask, I’m off to the traders’ market. Before it snows.” With a toss of her head and a flip of the short blond hair, she stepped out of the doorway from the showroom, then into the street, leaving the door ajar.

Cerryl set the quill on the holder and eased away from the desk and out to close the door. He paused at the outside door, his hand on the brass lever, and watched as snowflakes danced in the gray day, soaring desperately on the swirling breezes as though they did not want to touch the bleached granite stones of the street.

Benthann had already vanished, and he shivered as the wind gusted. He shut the door and walked back to the desk. He paused before using the striker to get the candle lit. No sense in calling attention to his ability to see in the darkness.

Before he reseated himself, he wiped the quill on the cleaning rag, gently and with the angle of the nib’s cut, then dipped it into the ink, trying to sense as well as see the amount of ink drawn up into the shaft.

The iron-gall ink felt similar-in a faint way-to the big sawmill blade. He nodded. Both were iron, and, to him, iron felt different, not menacing but definitely something to be wary of, even if he didn’t quite understand why. He wasn’t a mage, not even close to being one.