Cerryl inclined his head. “I trust that is correct.”
“It is…I tell you it is.”
“Good.”
“Is that all, ser?”
“That’s all.” Cerryl smiled. For now. He unlatched the door, letting his chaos senses scan the narrow passage before he opened the door and stepped out. The small hall was empty.
Freidr followed him, at a slight distance, letting Cerryl open the front door.
“Thank you again,” Cerryl told the factor as he left.
The door shut quickly, and Cerryl could hear the chains rattled into place. It wasn’t absolute proof-but 15 percent? According to what Myral had told him, the highest Guild tax on merchants outside of Fairhaven, and only the large ones, was a third of that. Even the Guild tax on factors in Fairhaven was but a tenth part.
Cerryl untied the gelding and mounted quickly. The intermittent snow had given way to a light rain of fat raindrops, splatting on the road stones. He turned his mount back westward.
What he had discovered also raised a few questions. Did Shyren know? If not, why not? Or if he did, why hadn’t he told Jeslek? And if Shyren had told Jeslek, what sort of scheme was Jeslek attempting?
Though Cerryl rapped on Pastid’s door, there was no answer. Cerryl rode around and down the back alley, but the rear loading doors were also locked and bolted from the inside. Finally, with the sun dropping over the western walls of the city, he headed back toward the viscount’s palace.
The ostler took the gelding without comment. Cerryl crossed the courtyard again and walked up the steps.
Shyren stood at the top, a lazy smile on his face. “Out for a ride, I understand?” the older mage said mildly.
“There’s little enough for me to do in the barracks and palace,” Cerryl answered with a laugh. “So I rode around the city a bit, asked a few questions, and tried to get more familiar with it.”
“You young mages…I suppose that’s wise. You never know where you might be going. Still…a place like Jellico has its dangers for those who don’t know its ways.” Shyren’s eyes glittered ever so slightly. “They are not what one might suppose.”
“I’m sure that’s true. Is there any place you would suggest I take care?” Cerryl asked politely.
“Everywhere and nowhere.” Shyren laughed softly, a sound almost sibilant. “Where coins are involved, or folk think they are, any step could be dangerous. And other lands are not near so…well tended as Fairhaven. What you would call peace is never achieved here, nor will it ever be.” The heavyset mage shrugged. “We Guild representatives do what we can, but we are limited-most limited.”
“I can see that might be a problem.”
“It is.” Another smile, almost regretful, crossed Shyren’s face. “I had come to tell you and Fydel that I just received a message from the High Wizard. He plans to reach Jellico in five days.”
“Thank you.”
“I thought you might like to know.” Shyren started to turn, as if to head down the stone steps, then paused. “I would suggest great care on your rides, young Cerryl. Five days is scarce enough to learn Jellico, and White mages are not held in near so high esteem here as in Fairhaven. While all may be fair to your face, watch your back.”
“I appreciate your words, and your concern.” Cerryl inclined his head.
After the Guild representative had left, Cerryl rubbed his chin. Definitely a message. Do you have to worry about arrows and traps? Or worse?
He took a deep breath and headed toward his room, his chaos senses extended. His room was empty, but the residual sense of disorder gave him the definite impression that Shyren had spent some time there. He smiled to himself. The longer he was in the Guild, the more he understood that he and perhaps Kinowin were among the very few Whites who could sense residual chaos. Why? Because you’re among the few who keep yourselves separate from chaos? Leyladin could, and probably most Blacks. Another skill to keep hidden…and if you develop more, they might be enough. But enough for what?
He shook his head.
As the first bell rang, he decided he needed to hurry if he wanted to wash up before the evening meal.
LXXXIII
CERRYL BLINKED AND let the image in the glass fade. Still nothing of substance had come from his efforts to follow Pullid and Dursus in the screeing glass. He picked up the glass, warm to the touch in the cold barracks room, and replaced it in the wardrobe. He glanced toward the barred and shuttered window. He might as well ride out-despite the wind and rain-to see if he could talk to either Triok or Pastid. Neither trader had been around for the past two days-Triok’s consort had insisted she expected him any day, while Pastid’s building remained locked.
After reclaiming his jacket, Cerryl left his stark barracks room and made his way down the stone steps and across the rain-splashed stones of the courtyard. The ostler nodded as he walked up, then disappeared into the stable. Cerryl glanced around the courtyard and at the miniature pools of water between the paving stones, pools occasionally rippled by the light rain that still fell. While he waited, he cast his senses toward the walls but could discern only a guard and no chaos. Then he shifted his weight and glanced around again, as he had been ever since Shyren’s words about the dangers of Jellico. The real dangers of Jellico are within these walls.
“Here he be, ser mage.” The ostler led out the gelding, still with the definitely bedraggled white and red livery.
The streets of Jellico seemed fractionally less crowded as Cerryl rode slowly out of the gates and turned the gelding north and toward Pastid’s warehouse. Pastid remained absent, the building locked.
With a deep breath Cerryl eased his mount back west and toward the lower hill, the back side of which held Triok’s establishment. The rain continued to spit out of the low clouds, intermittently, but the dark gray clouds promised a heavier fall before long. Cerryl continued to scan the areas through which he rode north and west of the viscount’s palace, with both his eyes and his chaos senses, feeling, somehow, somewhere, a slight increase in chaos. Was Jeslek nearing? Or something else?
Triok’s building resembled what Cerryl would have thought a trader’s place to be, with a small and narrow two-story brick dwelling attached to a timbered warehouse with a tile roof. A muscular bearded man was standing at one end of the wagon before the loading doors, shifting bales of something from under the canvas covering the wagon bed to the open loading door of the warehouse.
Cerryl dismounted and led the gelding toward the man. “Trader Triok?”
“None other, ser mage,” grunted Triok as he moved another bale.
“Your consort may have told you that I’d been trying to see you for the past few days-”
“That she did. That she did.” Triok straightened after setting down the bale and frowned. “Don’t be knowing what you Whites be wanting of me. Pay my tariffs and taxes. Don’t go your way often, but better this way.” He gestured toward the medallion on the wagon.
Cerryl nodded. “I just wanted to ask a few questions. You only pay one set of taxes, except for the medallion, but they’re collected by the viscount’s men-Pullid’s men, actually.”
“Been that way for years. Afore Pullid was Zastor. Don’t remember the fellow afore him.”
“Do you remember when the rate was a tenth?”
Triok frowned. “Not been that long ago. Three, four years, ’cause that was the year the brigands got Siljir in the pass heading down to Passera.”
“Do you recall when the rate went from a twentieth to a tenth part?”
Triok laughed. “Not that old, young ser mage, not by a mighty bow shot.”