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 in 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 Hiser, “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.”
Cerryl should have looked into the supplies more closely, but all the screeing and waiting and worrying had distracted him, tired as he was from all the effort required to use the glass so much and so often.
A wave of unseen white, a fading echo of some distant and massive use of chaos, swept across Cerryl as he stood in the small provisions shed. He fought off the shudder. What has Jeslek done? Raised more mountains?
Hiser looked at Cerryl. “You all right, ser? Matters…stuff, it be not that bad yet.”
The mage shook his head. “It wasn’t…isn’t that. Someone is using chaos-too much.”