Natural Ordermage

“Rahl… how are you coming on
Tales of the Founders
?“ In the light of a spring afternoon, Kian glanced across the workroom toward his younger son, seated behind the battered but spotless oak copying table. The two south windows were glazed and overlarge for the workroom, but the light they provided made the work far easier.

“I’ve just finished the embellishments on the bottom of the last page in the fourth chapter.” The-black-haired apprentice scrivener smiled politely. “I’m copying those exactly as they are. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?” Rahl knew well that was what his father desired, but he’d also learned that such questions reassured the master scrivener.

“After you finish that, would you check the next batch of ink? I worry about the latest oak galls we got from Clyndal… and the iron-brimstone.” Kian carefully set the copper-tipped iron-pointed pen down on the blotting pad, well away from the inkwell. “Folks don’t take the care they used to, not at all. It was bad enough in my father’s time, but these days…”

Rahl finished the last stroke, then cleaned his pen and . set it aside. “I’ll check that ink now, while the embellishment is drying.”

“Don’t take too long. I promised that copy to Ziertol before the turn of summer.”

Rahl was well aware of that. His father mentioned it at least once a day. But the youth said nothing as he made his way out of the workroom, past the angled and padded shelf set before the small glass display window. On the shelf were sheets of parchment—samples of Kian’s handwork—and a thin black-bound copy of the Council Ordinances. Rahl had actually copied some of that, but only a master scrivener would have been able to tell, so much like his father’s was his hand, especially when he used standard hand style.

The oak door was propped ajar to let in the fresher air of spring, and Rahl had to move the heavy square gray stone blocks that served as doorstops in order to open the door wide enough to let himself out. He also had to be careful not to hit his head on the doorframe, since the door and frame had been built for Kian’s sire, a man almost half a cubit shorter than Kian, and close to a full cubit shorter than Rahl.

Once he was outside, he replaced the doorstops immediately to forestall any words from his father. The late-afternoon sun had almost touched the top of the hills to the west, and the shadow of the structure that held both shop and dwelling stretched almost to the far side of the narrow paved street.

If Rahl had walked to the comer, he could have looked northward and downhill to the small harbor at Land’s End. Instead, he walked around the house to the small brick shed set a good ten yards back of the rear covered porch and beside the grape arbor. A third of the shed was for ink and binding preparation, and the remainder was where his mother wove and stored her baskets before she sold them. The arbor ran from the southwest corner of the porch due west and parallel to the shed. Beyond the shed were the low square walls that held the compost heap that he periodically took from to fertilize his mother’s garden. The garden itself stretched another ten yards beyond the shed to the stone wall that marked the beginning of the protected forest— such as it was—with its low pines.

Rahl slipped the catch on the shed door and stepped inside, where he checked each of the covered glazed pots that held the ink. The ink was setting up properly, as it should, although it had taken just a touch of order to stabilize the iron-brimstone. The brimstone had been a touch excessive, but Rahl had managed. He’d never told his parents of his small order-abilities. The last thing in the world he wanted was to undergo instruction in the use of order by the magisters—and risk exile and dangergeld. Besides, his abilities were modest, and he’d never even tried to use them other than for good results—even with the girls.

Even though he sensed that the ink would be fine, he dipped a thin strip of reed-paper in the first pot, another in the second, then held them away from him to dry. After a moment, he covered the pots again and left the shed. He was careful to re-latch the door and to keep the ink-damp paper from touching his tunic. His mother would berate him all too thoroughly if he were careless enough to get ink anywhere but on his hands and blotting pad—and especially if he got ink on any of her reeds and grasses. If he ended up with much ink on his hands, he’d hear about it from his father.

At the separate outside door to the shop, he bent and moved the outside doorstop, then stepped inside and replaced it. He straightened-and carried the two thin strips to Kian.

“Here you are, ser.”

Kian set aside his pen once more. His eyes studied the strips. Then he smelled them. Finally, he pressed them against his blotting pad. “Getting there. Not quite, but they’ll be ready before we finish off this batch” He looked up at Rahl. “Best get back to copying. Book won’t copy itself, Rahl.”

“Yes, ser.” Rahl slipped back to the smaller copying desk, where he settled himself onto the square woven-reed seat of the stool—backless, unlike the one used by his father. He opened the original of Tales of the Founders, and his eyes read the next few lines.

… Shierra was in those days the Guard Captain of the Westwind Guards, and her twin blades were near as mighty as those of Creslin and Megaera, and her skill as an instructor in arms was unsurpassed. In less than three years, she and Captain Hyel created the Guards of Reduce, more than five squads, each squad more than a match for five squads of the best blades from any other land…

Rahl suppressed a snort. Five times as effective? He paused. The original Guards of Reduce had eventually, become the Guards of the Council, and his brother Kacet was one of those guards at the garrison at Reflin. More than once Kacet had told him stories of how comparative handfuls of marine guards had boarded pirate vessels and destroyed entire pirate crews. From his own senses, Rahl had known Kacet had not been lying.

His eyes dropped back to the book. Still… five times as effective? Even against the crimson of Hamor?

Only a single oil lamp sat upon the oblong oak table. Spotless and shining as the glass mantel was, or had been, the light in the chamber was dim because the wick barely protruded over the edge of the brass flange of the wick tube.

Kian sat at the head of the table, his back to the kitchen area, with Khorlya to his right, and Rahl across from him.

Rahl took another spoonful of the barley-and-fowl soup. It was really thick enough to be a stew, but he’d learned years before that, no matter how thick it was, if his mother called it a soup, it was a soup. He added a small dollop of the cherry conserve to the chunk of fresh bread on the edge of the platter that held the old ochre soup bowl. He would have preferred dark bread with the soup, but molasses was getting dear again. Or so his mother had said.

So he took another small spoonful of the stew-soup, and then added another dollop of conserve to the bread. He’d learned as a small boy that small dollops were seldom noticed the way heaping spoonfuls were, particularly by his mother. After several more small spoonfuls of the soup, he added a last small portion of conserve to the bread and took a bite.

“Good bread, Mother,” he said after chewing his mouthful deliberately. “It’s always good. So is the soup.”

“We do the best we can. Of course, we might have done better in Nylan.

Khorlya glanced at her consort. ”They have more coins for decorative work.“

Kian ignored the sideways look. “Excellent soup. Couldn’t ‘get barley this good down south. Not near Nylan.”

“No, but the fowl would be cheaper,” countered Khorlya.

“Both Land’s End and Nylan are better than Reflin, aren’t they?” asked Rahl.

“That’s like saying a snug cot and a mansion are better than a hut,” replied Khorlya. “Anyway, we’re probably better here… now.”

Kian looked up, clearly surprised.

“They say that the black engineers of Nylan are working on a machine that will copy many books at one time,” offered Khorlya “They won’t need scriveners before long.”

“Who are these people who say that?” asked Kian dryly.

“Eldonya. Her brother is a road patroller between Skil and the Black Wall of Nylan.”

“How many people have repeated what he said? Skil is seven hundred kays or more from Land’s End.”

“Kacet says that the engineers are always working on things,” Khorlya added.

“That’s why they’re engineers. But not everything they make is good for everyone. That’s why the wall is there and why the Council is here in Land’s End. I can’t see the Council allowing a machine—even one bound in order— to replace the honest work of a scrivener, and that’s if they can even build something that works.”