“Is that what the messengers are saying?”
“The blues-or that Black warleader, they say his name is Brede or some such-are using knives you can’t see to cut lancers out of their saddles. They pose as peasants or merchants and then shoot unsuspecting lancers in the back. The men are angry.” A sad smile crossed Hiser’s face. “Ours but grumble.”
“Better grumbling than dead.” Brede… he’s causing enough trouble that even the men know his name?
“Most think that way.” Hiser nodded, then looked to the north and the lingering red in the western part of the northern sky. “Might be getting some rain.”
“The air feels damp,” Cerryl agreed. What else can you say? Besides that you don’t know what the High Wizard is doing-or why?
C
Slightly past midafternoon, well after the morning patrol, Cerryl was grooming the gelding, something he did less well than he would have liked, when one of the lancer scouts rode up to the crude corral.
“Ser? That supply wagon? It’s for us.” The thin redhead’s words burst forth.
Cerryl looked up.
“That’s what the lead guard said. He asked if I was one of your’n. He did, and then he said he had stuff, but you had to claim it.”
“I guess I’d better get there. How far out are they?” The mage set aside the brush and began to saddle the gelding.
“Three kays east or so.”
“I’ll be ready in a few moments.” A supply wagon for them? Coming all the way from Fairhaven? When he had first seen the wagon in the screeing glass, he had assumed that it held some form of supplies and luxuries for the High Wizard.
Once he had the gelding saddled, Cerryl and the lancer scout rode not quite directly into a cool wind out of the northeast. The grasses beside the road bent in the steady wind, and the air held that indefinable scent that promised fall before summer had ended-a mixture of heavy grass, leaves ready to winter-turn gray, late-blooming flowers, and the touch of mold from the first grasses and fallen leaves already decaying.
The mounted guard before the wagon consisted of five White Lancers and five guards in green. All slowed, as did the wagon, when Cerryl rode up, accompanied by the red-haired scout and followed by Ferek and a half-score lancers.
“Ser mage? I be Ersad, senior trade guard for Ser Layel,” said the white-bearded guard in green, riding at the front of the column beside a lancer subofficer. “You are Cerryl?”
“I’m Cerryl.”
“He’s Cerryl,” blurted the scout.
Behind the scout, Ferek laughed, once, but gently. “He is Cerryl, White mage and commander of the two companies that hold the road for Fairhaven and its friends.”
Both the subofficer and the older guard looked coldly at the scout, who flushed and clamped his lips together.
The older green-vested guard leader inclined his head, studied Cerryl for a moment, then extended a scroll. “We have supplies for you and your lancers from ser Layal and Lady Leyladin.”
“We are most grateful.” Cerryl inclined his head and took the scroll but did not break the green wax of the seal as he slipped the scroll into his tunic. “And we appreciate your effort in bringing them all this long way to us.”
“Our task, ser mage.”
Cerryl turned his mount and rode alongside the older guard.
Ferek brought his escort around behind the high-sided and canvas-covered wagon, past the circular emblem of Layel, painted in gold over the green of the wagon body.
“How was the journey?” Cerryl addressed the trader’s lead guard, then nodded toward the lancer subofficer.
“Better than it will be after season turn,” replied the guard in green, a far darker green than that Leyladin affected. “We trust we will be able to deliver the other supplies to the High Wizard and be back through the Easthorns by then.”
“The High Wizard is but three, perhaps four days to the west-on this road.”
“Hmmmm… close riming for the Easthorns, but may chaos favor us.”
“Chaos and prosperity be with you,” Cerryl answered. “You are most welcome to camp here tonight. What we have is simple, but the lancers would hear of what happens in Fairhaven.”
“We shall do so.” The lead merchant guard nodded, as did the lancer subofficer who rode beside him.
When they reached the encampment, Cerryl watched from his sad-die as the barrels were rolled into the small structure that had once been a barn and now served as a storehouse-barrels of flour, of salted pork, of maize meal, even a small barrel of dried fruit and one of roasted and salted nuts.
“There are also two baskets for you, ser,” the green-vested guard said as one of the armsmen in green approached with two circular wicker baskets tied in rope. Each cylindrical basket was not quite two cubits high and a cubit across.
“Ah… could you set them by the door of that cot there?” asked Cerryl, gesturing toward the cot that served as his conference room, bedchamber, and screeing place.
“Yes, ser.”
Once the wagon had been unloaded and the merchant guards and the lancers were establishing their camp, Cerryl rode to the corral and dismounted.
“The men are pleased already.” Ferek had already dismounted, and he turned to the mage. “How did… ah… Merchants are not known to favor the White Tower…”
“Ser Layel is one who does.” Cerryl smiled.
“We need watch the dried fruit. Too much will turn their bowels to water.” Ferek frowned.
“As you see fit, Ferek. Ration it out so that there is some in the eight-days ahead.”
Hiser marched toward them. “Those… are they truly for us?”
Cerryl nodded.
“The trader Layel sent them to Mage Cerryl and his men.” Ferek grinned. “Even more so, I am glad to be termed such.”
“He sent supplies to the High Wizard as well,” Cerryl pointed out.
“Only to keep the High Wizard from feeling slighted, I wager,” said Hiser.
Cerryl wasn’t about to take that wager. “Layel would like to be thought supportive of the White Tower.”
“I’ll make sure the men know he sent the food-and the fruit and nuts.” Hiser grinned.
“That would be good.” Cerryl unsaddled the gelding, then led the horse into the corral, where he took off the bridle. He patted his mount’s shoulder, and the horse snorted, then tossed his head, before trotting away and toward the water trough.
Cerryl walked back to his cot. There he extracted the scroll and broke the seal. He unrolled the short length of parchment, looking at the flowing characters set so precisely in green ink-green ink for a green-eyed healer.
Dearest…
Dearest? Cerryl swallowed. You didn’t expect that.
Sending you provisions is doubtless breaking some Guild or lancer rule, but few will complain if your men benefit. Most is for them, and you, as their commander, except for the two baskets for you…
I have also sensed your presence, gently, over the seasons, and that presence has come to mean much to me, in spite of the differences between us. Kinowin has told me of your duties pa-trolling the road, and we both feel that is for the best in these days, though you will be in Elparta before winter, we feel…
In Elparta before winter? Did that mean Jeslek was about to take the city at last? How would she and Kinowin know that for certain? Even glasses did not show what might be.
Ersad can be trusted to return any scroll to me…
Cerryl grinned. That was definitely a suggestion.
I miss you and look forward to your return, no matter the seasons that may pass or the distances that separate our bodies…
Cerryl swallowed, and his eyes burned.
After a time, he brought the two baskets into the cot. He untied the hemp rope on the first basket carefully, coiling it and setting it on the bench beside the trestle table for what uses it might serve in the season ahead.
The first basket contained personal items-several bars of oil soap, wrapped in waxed parchment, two sets of new smallclothes, a set of new whites, and a pair of sturdy white boots, made by his own boot maker.
In the second basket were waxed packets of things-several of hard white cheese, what looked to be travel bread, and packages of dried fruit wrapped in waxed linen.
None of it meant as much as the single word at the top of the scroll.
After he closed the baskets, he took out the portable inkwell and a quill and one of his remaining sheets of parchment, then sat at the trestle table.
How will you reduce all you want to say into a single scroll?
He shrugged, then grinned, looking at the off-white parchment lying on the wood before him. Dearest… The single word ran through him, and his grin broadened into a wide smile.
CI
Cerryl stood and walked around the cot, his jacket fastened almost to his neck. His breath had been steaming in the cold morning air just after dawn, but the small fire he had built and the fall sun had warmed the unseasonably cool day enough that he no longer resembled a chimney with each breath as midmorning approached.
Although the cold rain had passed, Cerryl had called off road patrols for the next few days, relying instead on his screeing and upon the mud and pooled water on the roads and trails to delay or halt any possible Spidlarian force. What force? The blues shouldn’t have enough lancers to hold even Elparta.
At the hearth, still warm with coals from the small morning fire, Cerryl paused. Despite the closed plank door, the wind still seeped through the cracking and badly chinked mud bricks of the wall, around the warped and the mis-hung door, and up under the roof sills, leaching away the slight heat of the hearth fire.
His first attempts had shown only muddy and empty roads around their hamlet and encampment, although the images of the western side seemed to display less water and mud. Still, nothing remotely resembling the opposing Spidlarians appeared anywhere. Nor was there any trace of the concentrated order that accompanied Black mages - not any closer than Dorrin, the smith in Diev, and he was about as far from Cerryl as one could get and still remain within the boundaries of Spidlar.
Cerryl let the glass go blank once more, then paced back to the fire and then to the door, which he opened. A light but cold wind enveloped him, despite the sunshine from a sun that did little to warm him. The green-blue sky seemed more like that of winter than early fall.
Would the winter be as much colder than usual as the fall was showing? Cerryl shivered. That kind of cold he could do without. He closed the door and walked back toward the table.
After massaging his forehead, Cerryl stood and looked down at the glass, silver against the time-smoothed wood. He concentrated, thinking about Elparta and Fydel, rather than Jeslek, since the square-bearded mage was hardly sensitive enough to notice he was being watched through a glass.
The silver mists formed and parted to reveal an image. The scene in the glass was clear enough - too clear. A large mass of villagers… peasants… locals - whatever Cerryl wanted to call them, they were people, and they were being herded along the road. From what Cerryl could tell, the lancers who flanked them were urging them westward along the road.
Why?
Cerryl brushed thin brown hair back off his forehead. Why would Jeslek herd people ahead of the White Lancers? To keep the Spidlarians from attacking? To use the people as a shield to reduce the casualties to the levies and the White Lancers?
Is Jeslek that short of lancers and armsmen?
For several moments more Cerryl watched, until he could sense the beginning of yet another headache. Then he let the image slide away until the glass reflected only the ceiling beams of the cot and the underside of the branch and thatch roof.
Villagers or people being herded along a road toward something? Why? Again, the question leapt into his thoughts. Because of the Black warleader or something the Black smith had created to use against Jeslek and the White Lancers?
Cerryl fingered his chin. Was that why Jeslek was so adamant that Cerryl remain to guard the road? Because the Blacks had developed something that couldn’t be felt or seen with a glass?
He shook his head, knowing that he didn’t know enough but sensing that what Jeslek was doing with the people would cost someone more, a great deal more, before the war in Spidlar was over.
Are you just saying that because you disagree with what he’s doing? Or because you honestly feel that way? What if Jeslek is right?
Cerryl brushed his thin and too-long hair back off his forehead again. He probably should groom the gelding and then talk to Hiser and Ferek and wait for any instructions from Jeslek. If they ever come.
CII
Standing between Ferek and Hiser, Cerryl studied the provisions remaining in the shed-one half-barrel of wheat flour, in which he’d had to use chaos to kill off the weevils twice already, and less than a quarter of a barrel of maize meal. The last of the dried fruit and nuts had gone nearly two eight-days previous. The shed, whose gap-boarded walls had been rough-caulked with moss and mud, smelled of moss, mud, and mold, despite the efforts of various lancers to keep it swept and dry. A spiderweb glistened in the corner above the remaining barrels, trembling ever so slightly the light breeze that swirled through the shed itself.
The roll of distant thunder rumbled across the valley, and for reasons he couldn’t place Cerryl thought about chaos and the people Jeslek had been herding down the road. Three days had passed, and there had been no scrolls or orders from the High Wizard-and nothing in the glass, except images of White forces circled around the walls and closed gates of Elparta.
Cerryl blinked and tried to catch what the subofficers said.
“… not enough for even half an eight-day, not with proper-like rations,” finished Ferek.
“We’ll be needing more coin, ser Cerryl,” offered Riser, “or we’ll be having to forage off the local folk again. Be having to do that sooner, excepting for the provisions your friends sent us.”