Anya flashed the smile Cerryl detested. “You know shopkeepers, Cerryl. Perhaps you should find an appropriate chair and awning.” She turned away, as if there were no question that Cerryl would find both.
A cabinet maker and a chandlery-where would he find those? After a long deep breath, he turned the gelding and rode back to his lancers. “Hiser, Ferek, we’re searching for a cabinet maker’s shop.”
Hiser shook his head, and Ferek shrugged.
“We’ll just look for a sign-or a local.” A sign will be easier to find with everyone cowering behind barred doors. “Let’s head back south. I thought it looked like an artisans’ area back a half-kay or so.”
The subofficers flanked him, and the lancers fell in behind him as he turned the gelding. They rode on the left side of the main avenue, almost single file past the rest of the White Lancers still riding toward the harbor square.
Cerryl raised his hand to Leyladin as he and his lancers passed the last of the Fairhaven column headed toward the square.
“What now?” The healer flashed a sardonic smile.
“Searching for some things for the High Wizard,” he answered. “We’re setting up in the area around the harbor square. I’ll try to see you later.”
She nodded, and Cerryl continued.
After more than a half-kay of riding down the side streets, he reined up outside a shuttered building that displayed a small sign depicting a chest above a plane and a chisel.
“Hope his work is better than the sign,” said Ferek.
So did Cerryl. “Knock on the door.”
No one answered.
“Tell them that either they open the door or I’ll burn it open,” Cerryl said loudly.
A rasping from behind the door drew a smile from Ferek and a headshake from Hiser. The door slipped open, and a man peered out.
“Are you the cabinet maker?” asked Cerryl.
“Please, ser wizard…spare my consort…” The cabinet maker had short gray and ginger hair that clung to his scalp in tight curls and a short, curly beard more gray than ginger. He stared up at Cerryl.
“Are you the cabinet maker?” the mage asked again.
“Spare us…my consort,” stammered the man.
What have they been told? “I’m not interested in your consort,” Cerryl said tiredly. “I’m trying to find the best armchair I can-one for the High Wizard.”
“I cannot afford to keep what I make…”
“I know.” Cerryl turned to Hiser. “Guard his place. I don’t want his family or his consort touched.”
“Yes, ser.” Hiser nodded.
“Have one of your men lend a mount to the cabinet maker.” Cerryl focused on the artisan. “Who has your best chair, the one most suitable for the High Wizard of Fairhaven?”
“Reylerk, the trader, ser wizard.”
“Fine. Get on that mount and lead us there.”
“Ser?” The artisan’s eyes went from the closed door of the shop to the mount from which a lancer Cerryl did not know dismounted.
“Get onto that mount,” ordered Hiser.
Cerryl wiped his damp forehead and waited for the man to mount. “Now…where does this Reylerk live? Show us.”
“Ah…to the north, ser.”
“Fine. Lead the way.”
As they rode along the narrow lane and then back out along the wider avenue, Cerryl studied the shuttered dwellings and shops. Clearly, the folk of Spidlaria-those who remained-feared the worst.
Reylerk’s dwelling was on the hilly section of Spidlaria north of the wharves, up a winding but paved lane. The gates were closed.
“Behind the gates…” stammered the cabinet maker.
Cerryl nodded at Ferek.
“Open the gates!” demanded the subofficer.
No words answered the order.
Cerryl shrugged and mustered chaos, focusing it into a tight beam at the point where the two gates joined.
Eeeeee-wwhsssst! When the flash cleared, the gates slowly shivered apart, a half-cubit missing from each edge, and sagged to the stones.
After a moment two lancers used their mounts’ shoulders to edge the timbered gates open, and Cerryl and Ferek rode into the courtyard, a courtyard paved with large red oblong stones, smooth as a table. Opposite the gates rose a dwelling, the lower floor of the same red stone, the upper of plaster and timber. As in every other dwelling in Spidlaria, the shutters were closed-except for one on the upper level that appeared to be cracked.
Thrung!
An arrow buried itself in the shoulder of Ferek’s mount, and the lancer subofficer struggled to control the horse.
The closing of the once-cracked shutter told Cerryl from where the arrow had come, and he responded with a second chaos bolt. Eeeee! Whssst! A man-sized hole appeared in the second story of the dwelling, and a charred figure tumbled onto the courtyard stones.
“Another arrow and you’re all dead!” roared Ferek. Somehow he’d managed to work the shaft from his mount’s shoulder.
Silence greeted his statement.
“Open the front door!”
The carved lower door swung open, but no figure showed.
“Out! All of you!” boomed Ferek.
A heavy, red-faced, and bearded figure in green silks waddled out from behind the door and stood on the portico outside the doorway. An equally rotund and white-haired woman followed, and shortly two older serving women cowered behind them. None looked at the ashes or at the charred figure that had once held a bow.
“Ser wizard…spare us. Please spare us,” begged the man, presumably Reylerk.
“Why?” Cerryl asked with a snort.
The trader gulped. “We have done nothing except defend our land.”
Cerryl urged the gelding forward, then reined up a few cubits short of the short shadow cast by the house. “You took advantage of the roads Fairhaven built, but you refused to help pay for those roads. You traded with our enemy and used the roads we built to sell the goods you bought to others. You sent men out to kill us and to die, and now you wish to be spared.”
The fat and bearded man looked down.
“And you remain here because you would not be safe among those who fled because you brought the war to Spidlar out of your own greed.”
Reylerk did not look up, confirming Cerryl’s suspicions.
“I’m not here to pass judgment.” Cerryl motioned to the woodworker. Except that you just did. “Go find the chair of which you spoke.” He turned to the trader. “If this man is even scratched, I will reduce your dwelling and all in it to ashes.” The mage smiled coldly. “Including the daughters and sons you have hidden within.”
“Let Besimn take whatever he wants…Let him do it!” screamed the trader. “Do not harm anyone!”
Cerryl gestured for the cabinet maker to enter the dwelling. Besimn trembled as he dismounted and walked toward the open door.
“It’s not for Besimn,” Cerryl said. “It’s for the High Wizard. Might you have some red silk or velvet hangings?”
“Ah…”
“I see you do. Please have your consort and the serving women fetch them for us.”
The three women scurried into the house, as if they feared the lancers would follow, the oldest looking back over her shoulder so fearfully that her shoulder rammed into the door frame.
“They’ve got much hidden in there.” Ferek laughed. “Young girls, too. Pretty girls.”
“That might be,” Cerryl grudged, “but Jeslek wants the chair and the hangings, and the girls weren’t the ones who shot the arrow.”
“Ser?” Ferek’s question implied more.
“If we have to rule these people, it won’t help if you ruin their daughters. The fathers, they created the problem-not the children. We’ll not harm the children.” Cerryl stared at the trader.
The trader swallowed silently.
“You, trader, are to proceed to the square by the wharves. If you are not there shortly, we will find you, and your life will be forfeit. There is no escape from Spidlaria.”
“And my family?”
“The High Wizard is not interested in punishing the innocent.” Even as he spoke the words, Cerryl wondered exactly what he meant. In a war, was any adult in a trader’s family totally innocent? Had the luxuries they enjoyed led them to persuade Reylerk to support the Traders’ Council’s defiance of Fairhaven? Had the trader’s consort kept silent? Or had she protested? How could anyone really know?