“How can you even see?” Benthann peered into the workroom. “The day is dark. It’s like a cave in here, and you haven’t even lit the candle.”
Cerryl glanced up, realizing that the workroom was dark. Somehow, he hadn’t even noticed the growing dimness. “I didn’t realize. .”
“Such a hardworking apprentice. You even save him the costs of candles and lamp oil. Do you know where Tellis might be?”
Cerryl eased the quill away from the parchment. “He said he was going to Nivor the apothecary’s.”
“A course, he’d think of that just before it snows. More of the formulations for ink?”
“He did not say, Benthann.” Cerryl used her name because she wasn’t that much older than he was, yet she slept with Tellis but wasn’t his consort. He wondered if Tellis had ever had a consort.
“Light be praised that he’s not over at Arkos’s place. Should it cross his mind to ask, I’m off to the traders’ market. Before it snows.” With a toss of her head and a flip of the short blond hair, she stepped out of the doorway from the showroom, then into the street, leaving the door ajar.
Cerryl set the quill on the holder and eased away from the desk and out to close the door. He paused at the outside door, his hand on the brass lever, and watched as snowflakes danced in the gray day, soaring desperately on the swirling breezes as though they did not want to touch the bleached granite stones of the street.
Benthann had already vanished, and he shivered as the wind gusted. He shut the door and walked back to the desk. He paused before using the striker to get the candle lit. No sense in calling attention to his ability to see in the darkness.
Before he reseated himself, he wiped the quill on the cleaning rag, gently and with the angle of the nib’s cut, then dipped it into the ink, trying to sense as well as see the amount of ink drawn up into the shaft.
The iron-gall ink felt similar-in a faint way-to the big sawmill blade. He nodded. Both were iron, and, to him, iron felt different, not menacing but definitely something to be wary of, even if he didn’t quite understand why. He wasn’t a mage, not even close to being one.
XXX
CERRYL WIPED UP the last of the stew with the dark bread, then took a sip of water from the battered brown earthenware mug that was his. In the cool of late winter, the hot midday meal warmed him all the way through. He was in no hurry to go back to copying in a workroom heated only indirectly by the kitchen stove, not until his fingers warmed up more, anyway.
“Ah, a good stew,” said Tellis, stretching.
“Everything I cook is good, master Tellis.” Beryal smiled from where she sat across the table from Cerryl. “But the next one won’t be so tasty.”
“It is,” confirmed Benthann. “I never complained about your cooking, Mother.” She raised her left eyebrow, arched so high that Cerryl wanted to laugh.
“Let us not get into that,” Tellis interjected hurriedly, then added, “Why won’t the next one be so tasty?”
“Spices-what few peppercorns I have would not season a mugful, and we have no saffron, no cumin, no-”
“Enough! I understand.” Tellis covered his mouth and coughed.
“Have you ever been to the traders’ square?” asked Beryal, looking directly at Cerryl and ignoring Benthann’s second raised eyebrow, this time the right.
“No. I’d never been to Fairhaven before I came here,” Cerryl admitted. “I’ve only been out around the square here, and to the farmers’ market.”
“There’s no place like Fairhaven anywhere,” said Tellis. “Lydiar is damp and rotting away, and they talk of Jellico and its walls, but inside the walls are crooked streets and hovels and beggars.” The scrivener snorted. “Fenard has a great and glorious history, but outside of history and walls, it’s a pigsty.”
“The white mages don’t need walls,” pointed out Beryal. “Who would dare attack Fairhaven?”
Cerryl didn’t voice an answer, but it struck him that there were probably people who would like to. . or someone who would sooner or later.
“You keep Cerryl inside the shop too much,” said Beryal.
“Apprentice has to earn his keep.”
“You can spare Cerryl for a bit,” noted Beryal. “He needs to see more of Fairhaven than the artisans’ way. What if you want him to run something for you?”
“Not too long, then,” answered Tellis with a theatrical sigh.
“I need four silvers, too.” Beryal said, her eyes straying toward the untended stove. “Spices do not buy themselves.”
“Four?” Tellis counterfeited an incredulous look, then winked at Cerryl, smoothing his face as Beryal looked up.
“Five’d be better,” countered Beryal. “Spices are dear this time of year, and will be getting more so.”
“Coins. . you’d think that this poor scrivener is made of coins.”
“Coins-not at all. Excuses, yes.” Beryal turned her eyes to Cerryl. “Well. . you best be getting ready, since you gulped down all there was to swallow.”
Cerryl slipped off the bench and headed for the washstand.
“After you wash, best you change to that new tunic,” Beryal said. “What you’re wearing is frayed at the elbows. And wear your jacket. I’ll wait, but be quick about it.” She turned to her daughter. “Today, you can do the dishes.”
“If I must.” Benthann raised her hands and dropped her shoulders in an overdone shrug. “A burden to bear.”
“Only if you wish to eat,” answered her mother.
Cerryl scurried back to his room and pulled off the brownsplotched work shirt and slipped on the pale blue tunic that Tellis had left one day on his pallet without a word.
“Better,” said Beryal when he reappeared in the common room holding the leather jacket from Dylert that still fit tolerably well. Tellis had left, presumably for the workroom.
“You look like a real apprentice,” added Benthann from the kitchen worktable where she sloshed dishes in the washtub.
“I don’t like to wear it around the inks and dyes and the glues,” confessed Cerryl.
“The boy thinks about his clothes,” said Beryal, “unlike some. Considering how they might be dirtied. . imagine that.” With a twisted smile, her eyes went to Benthann.
“Oooo. . I might drop one of these.” The younger blond juggled an earthenware platter, then caught it.
“Trust that you don’t,” suggested her mother, adjusting the short gray-and-blue woolen wrap that was too heavy for a shawl and too short for a cape. “Master Tellis may offer coin for clothes, but platters be another matter.”
Cerryl looked at the recently washed floor stones.
“We need be going,” said Beryal, touching his shoulder. “Out the front way.”
“Yes, Beryal.” Cerryl glanced through the open door from the showroom into the workroom, where Tellis was hunched over the stretching frame. The scrivener did not look up as they stepped out onto the street. Cerryl closed the door gently.
The sun shone through high hazy clouds, imparting little warmth to either Fairhaven or Cerryl. He fumbled the top bottom on his jacket closed and slipped his hands up under the bottom edge to keep them warm.
“It’s another five long blocks down toward the wizards’ square, not so far as the white tower, say three blocks shy of that.” Beryal shifted her basket to her left arm and started down the lesser artisans’ way toward the artisans’ square.
Cerryl shivered as they stepped back into the shadows of the narrow street. The shutters of all the shops were closed against the chill, and the light and fitful breeze occasionally carried the smell of burning ash to him. He thought he heard the click of the big loom as they passed the weavers, but it could have been the shutters rattling or the sound of the cooper’s wooden mallets.
“Are we getting anything else?” he asked when they stepped out of the shadows at the edge of the artisans’ square. The square was empty except for a man hunched on a white stone bench under a blanket.
“Besides spices? Not unless it be a true bargain.” Beryal laughed as she turned left and continued her brisk pace. “Like as I have to run out of things before Tellis opens his purse-for spices and stuff for the kitchen, anyway.” Her eyes went to the man under the blanket. “On the crew for the Great White Road, he’ll be afore long.” She shook her head. “Some folk never learn. Anything be better than that.”