The White Order

XXXIII

CERRYL SET THE quill in the holder, then yawned.

Tellis glanced from his worktable and away from the thin green leather volume on which he was completing the last steps of binding-something Cerryl had seen only intermittently, as though Tellis were keeping it from him. The scrivener looked at his apprentice and the copying desk. “I trust that your yawn is because you were awake late and reading the Great Historie not because you find the trade book so boring.”

“I have been reading the Historie,” Cerryl answered, trying not to reveal just how boring he found copying Rules, Laws, and Accompaniments of Trade.

“And what has it taught you about the founding of Fairhaven?” asked Tellis, straightening, and sweeping a scrap of old velvet over the thin volume.

“Ser. . I’ve not read that far. I’ve just finished reading about Relyn and how he brought iron forging to Montgren. .”

Tellis brought his hand down in a chopping motion. “And that does not tell you about Fairhaven? Cerryl. . Cerryl. . you must read what is written and what is not written.”

Cerryl let his face reflect the puzzlement he felt.

“You have read, then, about how the black demons brought down ancient Cyador and seized all of Candar beyond the mighty Westhorns?”

“Yes, ser.”

“And how this Relyn started spreading their teachings to the east?”

“Yes, ser.”

“Then. . where did the white mages go? Does that not suggest something to you?” Tellis snorted in exasperation.

“They must have come east and built Fairhaven?”

“What does the very name Fairhaven suggest?”

Cerryl nodded, feeling stupid as he realized that Fairhaven effectively meant white haven, or the equivalent.

“Well?”

“A place of refuge for the whites,” Cerryl supplied.

“Oh, young fellow, I’m not angry at you. No one has taught you to think, and a scrivener must learn to think, especially about words and what they mean and where they came from.” Tellis shook his head slowly and sadly. “Words say so much more than anyone supposes. So much more.”

“Master Tellis?” Cerryl ventured after a moment of silence.

“Yes?” Tellis’s tone was patient.

“How can you tell whether what is written in a book is true? I mean, if it’s about something you don’t know?”

Tellis smiled. “There may yet be hope for you. A good question that is, a very good one, and one for which there exists no simple answer. Still. . I will try.” The scrivener fingered his bare chin for a moment. “First. . nothing which is written tells all the truth, even if every word be true, because the scrivener chooses which parts of the truth to include and which to exclude.”

Cerryl nodded. That made sense, but it didn’t help much.

“So you must always keep in mind that some of the truth is absent. Then, you must ask if the words that the writer used are in accord with each other. That is why I have my doubts about many parts of The Naturale Historie of Candar. The book is written pleasantly enough, if that be the only guide, but,” Tellis frowned, “there are sections that do not agree. It records that the first druids slew all the armies of Cyador at the Battle of Lornth. How could that be when the historian earlier wrote that Nylan forsook the way of the blade and when he went bare-handed into the forest of Naclos after the battle? Or that Ayrlyn slew scores, yet was a healer? There hasn’t ever been a healer who could lift a blade.” The scrivener snorted. As the snort passed, a wistful look flitted across his face and vanished.

“Could things have been different then?” asked Cerryl.

“It is possible, but,” emphasized Tellis, “but. . people and their traits change seldom, and it is more likely that the historian erred than that people changed in great measure.”

Cerryl concealed a frown, attempting to look as though he were considering the master scrivener’s words. At the same time, questions raced through his mind. The white mages were jealous of their powers-did that mean they always had been? If people truly didn’t change. . was that why Candar was little different from in the days of Cyador-with one white empire replacing another, one black power replacing another?

“How do you tell a truly good ruler?” he blurted, as much to cover his confusion as to seek an answer.

“That is another good question.” A crooked smile crossed Tellis’s lips. “And one even more difficult to answer. A good ruler may not be loved by his people, for all people have appetites greater than their abilities and must be restrained. That is one task of a ruler. He must also ensure that the roads are good, and that enough grain is stored away for times of famine and pestilence. Both tasks require taking from the people, and seldom do we like those who take from us.” Tellis picked up a thin wisp of leather or vellum, possibly a trimming from the binding frame, and tossed it in the direction of the waste bin. The scrivener missed, and Cerryl knew he’d have to pick it up later.

“Your words say that no one likes a good ruler,” ventured Cerryl, wondering at the slight bitterness in Tellis’s last few words about those who took from others.

“People are what they are,” answered Tellis. “Enough. Your eyes grow wide and like a mirror. I fear I have said too much, and I must return to binding.” Tellis stretched and shook out his fingers, as if to loosen any tightness in them. “And you to copying.”

Cerryl picked up the quill and looked across the workroom at the green leather, evenly shaded all the way through, already stretched and shaped and ready for the binding. “You have not shown me much of binding.”

“You wonder why, young Cerryl, I have taught you little, except by observation, about binding?”

“I have had much to learn,” Cerryl temporized, carefully setting the quill back in its holder. He sat up straight on the stool, wondering about the volume Tellis had covered.

Tellis laughed gently, pointing toward the page that the young man had copied earlier in the day. “Your hand, it is already better than mine. I should take you from that?”

“You flatter me, ser.”

“Not by much, young fellow. Not by much.” The scrivener shook his head. “Why do you worry about the binding? A binding is there to protect the words within-no more, no less. I do my poor best to make that protection beautiful, but what good is a fine binding that will last for generations if the ink you have copied onto the pages fades into faint shadows on the parchment?”

“None, ser. Not after the ink fades.”

“That is another matter, young Cerryl. Those who do not know books assume that any copyist can do what a true scrivener does. Do they think about what ink might be? Ink. . you must know how to mix the ink, the proportions and the bases.” Tellis peered intently at his apprentice.

Cerryl nodded, wondering if it would be a day where Tellis declaimed for all too long and then bemoaned the fact that Cerryl had copied too little.

“Now. . what is the formula for common ink?”

“The distillate of galls,” began the young man, “the darkest of acorn seepings, boiled to nearly a syrup, the finest of soot powders, with just a hint of sweetsap. .”

“And only a hint,” interrupted Tellis. “And the stronger ink?”

“Black oak bark, iron brimstone. .” Cerryl paused. “You’ve never given me the amounts exactly.”

Tellis shrugged. “How could I? The strength of the galls, the acorns, and the black oak bark are never the same. You must sense the ink, as I do, if you wish to be a master scrivener. Of everything in life be that true.”

“What?”

“Is the avenue the same each time you go to the square? Or a stream? It appears the same. . but is it?”

“That old argument!” A brassy laugh echoed through the workroom from the doorway where Benthann stood. “He has fine words, young Cerryl, but they are only words.” She stepped into the room and toward Tellis. “I need some silvers for the market.”

Tellis stepped away from the worktable. “Get on with the copying, Cerryl. I’ll be but a moment.”

“Yes, ser.”

As the scrivener followed Benthann back toward the kitchen and common roam, Cerryl cleaned the quill’s nib, then took the penknife and sharpened it before dipping it into the ink.

Oxen didn’t change-or Dylert’s hadn’t-and Tellis was saying that most people didn’t either.

His eyes fixed on a faint ink splot on the plastered wall. He wouldn’t be most people. He wouldn’t.