The White Order

IV

CERRYL GLANCED OVER his shoulder, down the long, if gentle, incline toward the road that led from Hrisbarg.

Syodor pointed. “Over the hill, another three kays or so, the road joins the wizards’ road. A great road that be, if paved with too many souls.”

“Paved with souls?”

“Those displeasing the wizards built the great highway.” Syodor grunted.

Cerryl studied the distant clay road again, nearly a kay back from where he trudged on the narrower road up the slope to the sawmill. To the right of the road was a gulch, filled with low willows and brush, in which ran a stream, burbling in the quiet of midday. Puffs of whitish dust rose with each step of Cerryl’s bare feet and with each step of Syodor’s boots.

“How much longer?” asked the youth, looking ahead. The roofs of the mill buildings seemed another kay away-or farther. A trickle of sweat ran down the side of his face, and he wiped it away absently.

“Less than a kay. Almost there, lad.” Syodor smiled. “This be best for you. Little enough Nall and I can offer. Be no telling when this duke will come and take my patent, and open the mines one more time, and leave us with naught. Too old, they’d be saying I am, to be a proper miner.” He snorted softly. “Too old. .”

Cerryl nodded, sensing the strange mixture of lies and truth in Syodor’s statement, knowing that Syodor was truthful in all that he said, but deceitful in some larger sense. So Cerryl concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.

“Stand aside.” Syodor pointed toward the oncoming horse team and the wagon, then touched Cerryl’s shoulder. “Back.”

Cerryl stepped onto the browning grass on the shoulder of the road to the sawmill and lowered the faded and patched canvas sack to the ground. His feet hurt, but he did not sit down.

His gray eyes fixed on the four horses. Though each was a different color, all were huge, far bigger than those ridden by the duke’s outriders or the white mounts favored by the lancers of Fairhaven. He’d seen the white lancers only once. When he’d gone to Howlett right after spring planting with Syodor and Nall, a company had ridden through, not looking to the right or left, every lancer silent.

The wagon driver grinned as he passed, and waved to Syodor. “Good day, grubber!”

“Good day to you, Rinfur!” Syodor waved back.

The long and broad wagon was piled high with planks and timbers, set between the wagon sides and roped down, and on the side board was a circular emblem with a jagged circular gray sawmill blade biting into a brown log. Under the oval of the design were symbols. Cerryl’s lips tightened as his eyes ran over the symbols-the letters he could not read.

He stood there long after the wagon had passed, the sun pressing down on him through the cloudless green-blue sky.

“Cerryl, lad? It be but a short walk now.” Syodor’s voice was gentle.

“I’m fine, Uncle.” Cerryl lifted his pack and stepped back on the road, ignoring the remnants of the fine white dust that drifted around them in the still hot air.

A fly buzzed past, then circled Cerryl. He looked hard at the insect, and it wobbled away. As he and Syodor neared the flat below the hillcrest, Cerryl’s eyes darted ahead. The sawmill consisted of three buildings-the mill itself and two barnlike structures. Above the mill on the hillside were a house, what looked to be a stable, and a smaller structure.

The mill was of old gray stones and sat beside a stone dam and a millrace. The waterwheel was easily four times Cerryl’s height but stood idle.

“Slow at harvest time,” Syodor said, gesturing at the dry stone channel of the millrace below the wheel. “Folks don’t think about building or fixing now.”

The road they walked continued uphill and past the millrace, where it intersected a stone-paved lane that extended perhaps a hundred cubits from the open sliding door in the middle of the side of the mill facing the two lumber barns. Beyond the stone pavement, the road narrowed to a lane winding past the mill on the right and uphill toward a rambling long house, with a covered front porch. The wooden siding had been freshly oiled, and the house glistened in the midday sun.

An ox-drawn lumber cart was drawn up to the mill door, and a man taller than Syodor was checking the yoke.

“Brental?” asked Syodor.

The young red-bearded man turned from the oxen and glanced at the two dusty figures for a moment, then said, “Syodor? You’d be wanting Dylert?”

“The same.”

“I’ll be getting him for you, once I get the cart out of the door.” Brental lifted the goad, but did not touch either ox, and called, “Gee-ahh!”

The oxen started forward, slowly pulling the heavy but empty log cart away from the open sliding door in the south side of the mill. Cerryl watched as the cart rumbled along onto the stone causeway across the intersection with the road.

Once the cart was clear of the intersection, Brental gestured with the goad and said mildly, “Ahh. .”

The oxen obediently stopped, and Brental walked past Syodor and Cerryl, giving them a nod, and into the mill.

Cerryl stood, shifting his weight from one bare foot to another, his sack by his feet, ignoring the dampness of his sweaty shirt.

Syodor cleared his throat. “Dylert. . he runs a good mill.” After a moment, he said again, “A good mill. A good man.”

Cerryl nodded, waiting.

Shortly, an older and taller man, taller even than Brental, over four cubits in height, his brown shirt and trousers streaked with whitish sawdust, stepped through the open sliding door of the mill.

“Syodor, Brental said you were here to see me.” A broad smile crossed the man’s face. “I have no coins, not until after harvest.”

“I be not selling today,” Syodor said slowly. He cleared his throat, then continued. “Ser Dylert, you said you wanted a boy-a serious boy.” After a pause, he added, “Cerryl’s serious.”

“That I did say.” Dylert fingered his trimmed, white-streaked black beard, his eyes on Cerryl. “And you need not ‘ser’ me, Syodor, not as one honest wight to another.”

Syodor nodded.

Cerryl glanced up at the tall Dylert and met his scrutiny, not challenging the millmaster, but not looking away.

“Harvest time, it is now,” suggested Dylert. “The mill is quiet, and few coins flow for timber and planks.”

“That it is,” agreed Syodor. “A good time for a boy to learn.”

Dylert smiled. “A peddler you should have been, Syodor, not a miner and a grubber. Not with your silver tongue.”

“You’re too kind, millmaster. Cerryl’s a good boy.”

“He is slight, Syodar, but he looks healthy. You and Nall took him as your own, Dyella says.”

“We did.” Syodor smiled. “Not a regret for that.” He shrugged. “Time now for him to start on his own. No place to go in the mines. Not these days.”

“True as a pole pine,” answered Dylert. “No place for anyone in the mines, even back when the duke reopened them.” He shook his head. “Folks say they’re no place these days, with what’s there.” The millmaster looked hard at Syodor.

“Could be,” admitted the one-eyed miner. “Cerryl’d do better here.”

The boy looked at Syodor, catching his uncle’s uneasiness. The mines had seemed fine to him, except for those places that anyone with sense had to avoid. Why were Dylert and Syodor talking as though anything connected to the mines happened to be dangerous?

“I did say I needed a mill boy.” Dylert cleared his throat. “You sure about this, Syodor?”

“He be much better here, ser Dylert. Nall and me, we did the best we could. Now. .” The miner shrugged apologetically.

“You think I’d do right by him, Syodor.”

“Better ’n aught else I know.”

“That’s a heavy burden, Syodor.” Dylert offered a wry smile before turning his eyes back to Cerryl. “Even for a boy, mill work is hard.” Dylert paused.

After a moment, understanding that an answer was required, Cerryl replied, “I can work hard, ser.”

“Mill work be dirty, too. You’d be cleaning out the sawpits, and the gearing. The blades, too. Not sharpening. I do that,” Dylert said quickly. “And probably other chores. Feed the chickens, cart water-most things that need doing. Take messages.” Dylert looked from Cerryl to Syodor. “Can he listen and understand?”

“Never had to tell Cerryl anything twice, ser Dylert.”

Dylert nodded. “Good words from your uncle, boy. He may have a golden tongue, but his word is good. Some ways, that be all a man has.”

Cerryl thought his uncle might say something, but Syodor gave the smallest of headshakes.

“Half-copper an eight-day to start. After a season we’ll see. Get your meals with us.” Dylert laughed and looked at Cerryl. “Dyella’s cooking be worth more than your pay.” The millmaster turned to Syodor. “You certain, masterminer?”

“Aye, as sure as I can be.”

“It be done, then,” Dylert said.

Syodor bent and gave Cerryl a quick hug. “Take care, lad. Dylert be a good man. Listen to him. Your aunt and I. . we be seeing you when we can.”

Cerryl swallowed, trying to keep his eyes from tearing, trying to understand why he felt Syodor’s last words were somehow wrong. Before he was quite back in control, Syodor had released him and was walking briskly down the lane away from the mill, the sun on his back.

Cerryl felt as though he watched his uncle from a distance, even though Syodor was still less than a dozen cubits away. His lips tightened, but he watched, his face impassive.

For a time, neither Cerryl or Dylert spoke-not until Syodor’s figure vanished over the nearer hillcrest.

Then the millmaster cleared his throat.

Cerryl turned, waiting, still holding on to the sack that contained all that was his.

“Your uncle, he was near right. We’ve got time to set you up.” Dylert fingered his beard once more, then looked down to Cerryl’s bare feet. “Need some shoes, boy, around here. Let’s go up to the house and see what we got. Might have an old pair of boots.” Dylert started up the lane to the freshly oiled house with the wide front porch.

For a moment, turning to follow the millmaster, Cerryl had to squint to shut out the brightness of the early afternoon sun.

Dylert waited at the top of the three stone steps to the porch, then pointed to the bench beside the door. “Just wait here, boy.”

Cerryl sat on the bench, letting the sack rest on the wide planks of the porch, glad to be out of the sun. Not more than fifty cubits to the south, while occasionally brawkking, yellow-feathered chickens pecked the ground around a small and low chicken house.

Cerryl could feel his eyes closing.

“Boy?”

He jerked away and looked up at Dylert. “Yes, ser?”

“Long walk, was it not?”

“We left well before dawn.”

“I’d imagine so.” The millmaster extended a pair of boots, brown and scarred. “You be trying these.”

“Yes, ser. Thank you, ser.” Cerryl slipped on the worn leather boots, one after the other, wiggling his toes inside.

“Those were Hurior’s ’fore he left. They fit?”

“Yes, ser. I think so, ser.”

“Good. One problem less.”

A dark-haired girl peered from where she stood in the doorway over at Cerryl. She wore a tan short-sleeved shirt and matching trousers, with a wide leather belt that matched her boots.

“Erhana, this be Cerryl, the new mill boy.” Dylert laughed. “Don’t be distracting him while he works.”

Erhana stepped onto the porch, and Cerryl could see that she was taller than he was, and possibly older. She had her father’s brown eyes and square chin, but dark brown hair, cut evenly at shoulder length. “He’s thin.”

“Your mother’s cooking will help that.”

“He’ll still be thin,” prophesied Erhana.

“Maybe so,” said Dylert. “You can talk at supper. I need to get him settled and show him the mill.”

“Yes, Papa.” Erhana slipped back into the house.

Dylert led Cerryl back down to the nearest of the lumber barns to the west-or uphill-side, where three doors had been cut into the siding and rough-framed with half-planks. “These are the hands’ room. The far one-that’s Rinfur’s.”

Cerryl nodded.

“You know Rinfur?”

“No, ser. Uncle. . Syodor. . offered him a good day. He was driving the wagon.”

“Your uncle said you listened.” Dylert pointed to the second door. “That’s Viental’s.” Dylert grinned. “You know him?”

“No, ser.”

“He’s the one does stone work and helps with the burdens. You’ll know Viental when you see him. Let him go off and help his sister with the harvest. He’ll be back in an eight-day. Now,” continued the millmaster, opening the door nearest the mill, “this be yours.”

Cerryl glanced around the bare room, scarcely more than four cubits on a side, and containing little more than a pallet, a short three-legged stool, and three shelves on the wall to the right with an open cubicle under them on the wall.

The bottom of the window beside the door was level with Cerryl’s chin and a cubit high and half a cubit wide. It had neither shutters nor a canvas rollshade, just a door on two simple iron strap hinges with a swing bolt on the inside.

“Nothing fancy, but it be all yours. Put your stuff in the cubby there, boy, and I’ll show you around the mill. You need to know where everything is.”

Cerryl stepped inside and slowly eased the sack into the cubby, his eyes going to the bare pallet on the plank platform.

“Be sending down some blankets for you after supper. Mayhap have some heavy trews, too. Yours are a shade frail for mill work.”

Cerryl swallowed, then swallowed again. “Yes, ser.”

“Don’t be a-worrying, boy. You work for me, and I’ll see you’re fitted proper. ’Sides, I owe your uncle. Little enough I can do. He be a proud man.”

Cerryl kept his face expressionless.

“Not so he’d talk of it, but when he was the masterminer-that was years back, mind you-he was the one. Insisted that the timbers be right, and no shaving on their bearing width. Saved many a miner, I’d wager. Saved the mill, too.” Dylert shrugged. “I offered him a share here. He’d have none of it.” The millmaster looked at the youth. “Be ready to see the mill?”

“Yes, ser.”

“Said, he did, that someone had to look after the mines, old or not, and that was his duty.” Dylert led Cerryl around the back corner of the lumber barn and toward the mill.

A brief shadow crossed the hillside. Cerryl glanced up, but the small cloud passed the eye of the sun, and he had to look away quickly as the light flooded back.

Cerryl glanced toward the second lumber barn. The oxen stood placidly, still yoked in place, without their driver.

They stepped through the wide door to the mill. The entire mill was floored with smoothed stone, worn in places, cracked in others, but recently swept. An aisle of sorts-wide enough for the oxen and lumber cart-led to the far wall, where a raised brick-based platform stood.

Dylert gestured to the racks on either side of the cleared space. “Holding racks. Be where we sort the planks and timbers after cutting. Use some of the racks for special cuts. Special cuts-that’s for the cabinet makers or the finish carpenters. Takes special work; charge ’em special, too.”

Cerryl waited.

“There be the brooms. When the blade’s cutting, you sweep, unless I tell you otherwise. Have to keep the mill clean. You know how fast sawdust burns? Goes like cammabark-faster maybe. Poof! Helps sometimes if’n you dip the end of the broom in water-specially if we’re cutting the hardwoods. The dust there, it be specially fine.” Dylert strode toward the platform.

Cerryl followed.

“This be the main blade, boy.” The dark-bearded man pointed to the circle of dark iron. “Don’t you be touching it. Or the brake here, either.” His hand went to an iron lever.

Cerryl looked at the iron blade, barely managing to repress a shiver at the deep blackness within the iron that almost felt as though it would burn his hands. “No, ser.”

“Good. Now. . see. . this drops the gear off the track, so the blade stops even if the mill turns. Up there, that’s the water gate. Most times, the blade’s on gear track when the gate opens. That way, we fret less about breaking the gears.” Dylert fingered his beard. “Cost my father more coins to have the drop gear put in, but it’s better when a house has two doors. That’s what he said, and it’s saved me a blade or two along the way-and blades, they’re dear. Black iron, you’d best know.”

Cerryl nodded. “That’s hard iron?”

“The hardest. Not many smiths as can forge it, even with a black mage at their elbow.” He laughed harshly. “Good smith and a black mage-few of either, these days, or any times.”

Cerryl managed not to frown. Why couldn’t white mages help a smith? Why did it have to be black mages?

“Here. . the entrance to the sawpit. You’ll be cleaning that.” Dylert frowned. His voice hardened. “You never go under the blade, less the water gate’s closed and the drop gear’s open. Stay away from the blade even so. You understand that?”

“Yes, ser.”

“No one but me tells you to clean the pit. Understand? Not Rinfur, not Brental, not Viental. No one but me. You understand?”

The gray-eyed boy nodded.

“First time, I’ll show you how. Not today.” Dylert smiled. “Be taking you a mite to get used to us. Let’s go to the barns.” He turned and started toward the big door. “Good days, we open the swing windows on the west. More light.”

Cerryl’s eyes went to the iron blade, and he shivered. Black iron? Why did it feel so. . dangerous? Then he turned and followed Dylert out of the mill and toward the first of the two barns.

Dylert slid back the door, the same kind as the main mill door, and stepped inside into the middle of an aisle between racks of wood that stretched the length of the barn. “Some mills-like in Hydlen-they just put a roof over their cuts and say that’s enough. Lucky if the mill lasts from father to son. You want wood to last. . then you have to season it right-lots of air, but you don’t let it get too hot or too cold. Our cuts are the best. Last season, a mastercrafter sent a wagon all the way from Jellico for my black oak. Something for the viscount. . suppose that’s all he does now that Fairhaven. .” Dylert shook his head. “There I go, woolgathering again.”

Cerryl wanted the millmaster to keep talking, and he nodded, without speaking, as Dylert continued.

“This first barn here. See-it’s smaller. Mostly hardwoods-oak, lorken, maple. Some fruitwoods, like cherry and walnut and pearapple, when we can get it. Crafters, cabinet makers-they’re the ones who use it-and the builders who work for the duke or the white wizards. Fairhaven-they want a lot of white oak.” Dylert walked over to one of the racks on the left of the aisle. “See. You can touch it.”

Cerryl let his fingers brush the wood, white, but with a trace of yellow or gold that would darken with age, like the chest Syodar and Nall shared. The white oak felt cool to his touch, reassuring, unlike the black iron of the saw blade.

“People think there’s no difference between lorken and black oak.” The millmaster shook his head. “Not seen a blade struggle through lorken, they haven’t. Here.” He pointed to a stack of thin, nearly black planks, no more than a span wide and three cubits long. “Pick up the top one.”

Cerryl had to strain for a moment. “It be heavy.” The dark wood felt warm to his touch, smooth as polished silver, yet prickly beneath the patina, and he quickly eased it back onto the pile.

“That’s lorken. Not more than a handful of crafters can handle it. One big lorken log, and even the keenest mill blade needs sharpening. Got some logs on the back racks, seasoning till a buyer comes. No sense in blunting a blade.”

Dylert led Cerryl to the next set of racks, also bearing dark narrow planks. “Lift one of those.”

Cerryl complied. “Not so heavy.”

“What else?” prompted Dylert.

Cerryl replaced the plank. “I don’t think it be quite so dark, and it seems rougher.”

Dylert nodded. “Black oak. It be hard, not so hard as lorken, not so heavy, not so smooth.” He snorted. “And folks say there be no difference.”

Cerryl nodded. The dark oak hadn’t seemed so warm to the touch, either.

The tall man walked toward the back of the barn. “Sometimes we get virgin logs, the big ones. If I’ve the time, I’ll crosscut a section. Takes a different blade, and a lot of care. But some of the cabinet makers like bigger wood sections. Can charge them as much as a silver a section that way.” He wiped his forehead. “Work, though. A lot of work, and the sections are brittle-break just like that if you drop ’em. Only do a few a year.”

Cerryl hurried to keep up with Dylert’s long stride.

“A lot of guessing if you be a millmaster. . keep the wide planks back here. Charge more for them, but a lot of folks rather’d use more of the narrower cuts. .”

The gray-eyed youth found himself struggling to take in all the words as Dylert turned at the rear wall and walked back toward the door.

“Folks always want some lumber. Some years, we couldn’t cut and season enough. . hate to let go of green wood. . even if you charge less and it splits, folks don’t forget. .”

As soon as Cerryl stepped into the sunlight, Dylert shut the barn door and strode quickly toward the second barn.

Again, the youth had to hurry to catch up.

“This barn-it’s where we put the rougher cuts and the heavier timbers used for bigger buildings. Not that simple, but you’ll learn.” The millmaster opened the door and stepped inside, between another set of racks.

Cerryl followed, his eyes adjusting to the dimness and taking in that the racks in the larger barn seemed fuller.

“The racks on the right-they’re for planks, smaller timbers, that aren’t as good as those in the first barn. On the left here. .”

Cerryl squinted, concentrating on every word, even though his stomach growled, and sweat continued to ooze down his back.

After going through all the racks in the second barn, and then escorting Cerryl back out onto the stone causeway that connected both barns and the mill, Dylert grinned. “Lucky I’d be if half of that stuck in your head, young fellow. But you’ll learn. Yes, you will.”

Cerryl tried to look attentive.

Dylert fingered his beard. “Now. . for the house.”

Cerryl could feel the weight of the new boots and his feet dragging as he followed Dylert back up the lane to the house, up the three steps that felt even steeper, and to the door in the middle of the porch.

Dylert gestured, and Cerryl stepped inside. The kitchen ran most of the length of the space behind the front porch. At the left end of the kitchen was a hearth-of yellow bricks-that held two separate niches for fires and three iron oven doors for baking. Out from the hearth area were two large worktables, and two large cabinets were against the side wall nearest the hearth. A narrow many-drawered chest stood between the cabinets.

At the right end of the kitchen was a long trestle table with a bench on each side and a straight-backed chair at each end.

A woman looked up from a large wooden bowl on the worktable and smiled, dipping her hands in the wash bucket, then wiping them on a gray rag. Her brown hair was piled behind her head in a bun, from which wisps escaped in every direction.

“Dyella, this be Cerryl, the young fellow raised by his uncle Syodor you heard me talk of.” Dylert patted Cerryl on the shoulder. “Dyella, she cooks so well you’d think I’d be twice my size.”

“How could that be?” answered the thin-faced and black-eyed woman. “Never be said that you stopped long enough for the food to settle.” She glanced at Cerryl. “White, he is. You’ve run his legs off, Dylert, and he’s scarce arrived.” She lifted a knife and turned toward one of the long tables. When she turned back to Cerryl, she handed him a thick chunk of bread. “Here. Eat it, so Dylert doesn’t have to scrape you off the planks, boy.”

“Thank you, lady.”

“No lady. I be Dyella, first, last, and always.”

“Thank you, Dyella.”

“Polite young fellow.” Dyella looked at Dylert. “Blankets.”

“Oh. .” Dylert nodded and stepped out of the long kitchen.

Cerryl ate the bread slowly, feeling strength returning, his hearing sharpening.

“Mind you, don’t try to keep up with Dylert. None I know can. Just do your best, boy, and that’ll be better than most. More bread?”

“Ah. .”

“Don’t be shy. You walked all the way from the mines, and I’d wager not a morsel to eat since dawn.” Dyella thrust another chunk at him. “Now. . why don’t you eat it and wait on the porch? Dylert’s fetching your blankets, and supper be needing my hand.”

“Thank you.”

Dyella smiled as she held the door.

Cerryl sat on the bench and ate, slowly, trying to digest both the bread and the day.