The White Order

XL

"NOW. . KEEP YOUR mind on the copying at hand,” said Tellis from the doorway. “No thoughts about your young friend the weaver. Not while you have a quill in your hand.” The master scrivener grinned.

Cerryl flushed. “Yes, ser.”

“When you become a true journeyman. .” Tellis paused. “By then, you won’t listen. I didn’t, either, but I was lucky, and then unlucky. Elynnya was special.” He shook his head. “Just appreciate what you have while you have it, and don’t ask too many questions.” His voice turned more cheerful. “After I beat some sense into Arkos, I’ll do the same to Nivor, and then I’ll be at the tower for most of the rest of the day. The honored Sterol wants something copied that cannot leave there.” The scrivener lifted his hand and pointed at his apprentice. “I expect continued good progress on the copying-and keep the letter width the same.”

“Yes, ser.”

Tellis nodded and turned away.

His young friend the weaver? Pattera was nice enough, and attractive in a dusky fashion, and certainly enamored of Cerryl. That wasn’t enough. But what was? A girl with redblond hair whose father would scorn a mere scrivener’s apprentice? And there was the redhead who kept turning up in his dreams-unwanted. She was certainly some type of mage; attractive as she was physically, she made his skin creep. He hadn’t ever thought of a woman that way before.

A moment later, Cerryl heard the front door open, and the off-key bells of the refuse wagon, before Tellis closed the door behind him.

Cerryl scurried to the waste bin by the worktable. He lifted the heavy wooden container and lugged it outside, following Beryal, who had the kitchen bin in her arms.

They stood as the square-sided wagon rumbled along the way, at a pace not much faster than a walk. Two young guards in white uniforms flanked the hauler, their bored eyes flicking from the wagon bed to Beryal and then to Cerryl, dismissing each in turn.

Cerryl lifted the bin and dumped the contents-leather trimmings too small for anything, palimpsest scrapings, squeezed oak galls-over the side of the wagon, then stepped back.

“Tellis isn’t ever here when the wagon comes. You notice that?” Beryal held the door to the shop for Cerryl.

“He is the master scrivener.”

“He would be the master of more than that.” Beryal shook her head, then started to close the door. “But he never will be. Those with coins keep them close.”

Benthann pushed by them and through the door, not even looking at her mother or Cerryl, and ran down the street to catch the wagon, a smaller waste box in her hands.

“Then there be some who think that the waste wagon waits for them.” Beryal grinned and closed the door before she turned back toward the kitchen.

Cerryl used the cleaning rag to wipe off the sides and the rim of the waste bin, before easing it back into place. He seated himself at the copy desk and started to clean the quill he had abandoned when he had heard the wagon bells.

Benthann glanced in the workroom door. “You could have called me.”

“I didn’t hear the wagon until it was almost here, and the big bin was full.” He looked up, but Benthann hadn’t stayed to hear what he said. He shrugged to himself, realizing he probably wouldn’t ever understand the young woman. Then, there were a lot of things he didn’t understand, undercurrents that kept tugging at him-like Tellis’s gloom when he mentioned his consort. He wanted to know more but dared not ask. There was so much he dared not ask.

After he finished sharpening the nib, he smoothed the vellum and dipped the pen into the ink. Tellis was right; he needed to make good progress on the Herbes book, boring as it might be.

He frowned as he recalled Tellis’s words-something copied that could not leave the mages’ tower. Did that mean that the books that really said something about how to handle the chaos forces always remained guarded by the mages? If that were so, how could he ever learn? Except by experimenting, and that was clearly dangerous.

He forced his eyes to the book on the copy stand and began to replicate the letters on the new vellum.

. . if the leaves be brown, and dried, and powdered, then they may be used as to purge the bowels. . save that never more than a thimble be used for a full-grown man. . and never be offered to a child or anyone of less than four stones. .

Another face appeared in the doorway from the front room.

“Cerryl, I be off to the market,” announced Beryal. “Benthann left for darkness knows where a time back. There’s a pair of coppers on the table in the common room, should Shanandra ever bring the herbs she promised. Two coppers for the lot, no more. You understand?”

“How big a lot? And what?”

“Ah. . some brains you have, unlike my daughter. Enough to fill the basket by the table without crushing the leaves. There should be sage and tarragon, fennel. . Dried, they should be, but not so dry as to powder if put under your thumb.” Beryal nodded, then left.

Cerryl cleaned the nib gently, afraid that the ink might have congealed or built up, then redipped the pen and tried a line on the practice palimpsest. “Good.”

His eyes went back to the copy stand and the Herbes book there.