Magi'i of Cyador (60 page)

"Mmmmm... if you don't mind... too much?"

He grins at the mock-plaintive note in her voice. "I'll start it and then come back until it's wanner."

The stone floor-the part not covered by the few braided rugs-is indeed cold to Lorn's bare feet. He pads into the main chamber where he sorts out some of the thin strips of wood in the starter basket, and then piles some of the larger pieces above it in the firebox. Then he concentrates.

Hst! The tiny chaos bolt is sufficient to create a small blaze within the stove.

Lorn smiles and walks back to the bedchamber, where he slips under the covers again.

"Your feet are cold."

"I did get the fire started in the stove."

"Good." Ryalth kisses his cheek, then pauses, before asking, "Have you ridden around Jakaafra much?"

"Except for the ward-wall? No. When you're on duty most of the time... well... the only riding I really did was to Jakaafra to deal with Dustyn and to arrange for the consorting and dwelling."

"You should. Now that you're consorted, you can wear that uniform when you ride with me."

"I hadn't thought of wearing anything else."

"You hadn't thought of wearing anything at all today, you lecherous consort," Ryalth teases.

Lorn flushes. "We've never had days like this together before, and they won't last that long."

"I know." She sighs softly and hugs him, then kisses his cheek again. "I hoped for this for a long time. I didn't think it was possible."

"Lancers consort with merchanters."

"But Magi'i don't, and you were a student magus."

"I still would have."

"The way you are now, you would," she admits.

"I don't think I could have been otherwise." His arms encircle her, and they kiss, a long and lingering kiss.

They both stiffen as they sense the chill of a chaos glass screeing them, and they hold to each other, barely breathing, until the scrutiny ends, and the chill fades away.

"Whoever... has no decency." Ryalth snorts, leaning back just slightly.

Lorn wonders if his small use of chaos drew Maran, for it could be no other, or if the majer is merely curious about Lorn's furlough.

"I didn't feel that yesterday or at the consort signing... did you?" she asks.

"No."

"Then he must think you've enticed your mistress to Jakaafra. I hope he gets very jealous. Very jealous."

"He might be."

"It's getting warmer," she says. "What did you do? Stoves don't heat up that quickly."

"A trick I learned as a student," Lorn admits.

"Be careful who sees that." She frowns.

"I am. You're the only one who knows."

A trace of another frown crosses her brow before she speaks. "Best it remain that way, my very dear lancer." She half sits up, pulling the coverlet around her. "You didn't read me a poem. One from the book. You brought it, didn't you? You know it was really my first present to you?"

He smiles, thankful he can. "It's in my bag. You want me to read one now?"

"One... we're waiting for the stove to warm things up."

Lorn eases out of the bed a second time, extracts the silver-covered volume from bag, and then extends it to her. "You read one. Your favorite." He slips back under the covers.

"Tonight, you have to read me one."

"I will."

She leafs through the book, then stops, nodding. After a moment she reads.

Like a dusk without a cloud,

a leaf without a tree,

a shell without a sea...

the greening of the pear slips by...

Lorn smiles gently to himself as she finishes the verses.

...and wait for pears and praise

...and wait for pears and praise.

"I like that one, too," he says, leaning next to her and kissing her cheek. After a moment, he takes the book and gently closes the cover.

Her fingertips hold him at bay. "You promised we could take a ride."

"Do you really want to ride around Jakaafra?"

Ryalth nods. "People should see us, and the air will feel good."

"And?"

"I might get some more ideas. I think I know where I can sell that amber melon ice wine, if it will travel."

"Always the trader?"

"Not always." She kisses his cheek again. "Not always."

CIII

Lorn cocks his head to the side, then looks down at the draft of the scroll he writes on the table that serves for eating and writing and anything else in the small dwelling. He glances toward the glassed panes of the window whose inner shutters he has opened to get more light. Outside the warmth of the dwelling, a light but cold wind blows through a gray mid-morning. When he had saddled both mounts earlier, Lorn had been glad for his winter jacket. From the table, warmed by the ceramic stove, he studies the sky once more. The clouds are high, and still do not look to bring rain or snow, or not soon.

He dips the pen again and adds a sentence to the draft of the scroll before him, then pauses before crossing out several words and penning in changes to the side.

"You are busy this morning," Ryalth observes as she emerges from the bedchamber, wearing working merchanter blues. She walks over to Lorn, and bends down and kisses the back of his neck.

"Are you ready?" he asks, replacing the pen in its holder and looking up at her.

"As ready as you, my dear lancer." She smiles warmly. "You do not mind accompanying me on merchanter business?"

"Not at all."

"Even after yesterday?"

Lorn laughs. They had ridden nearly ten kays to a hamlet where a smith supposedly forged unique iron implements, only to find that their uniqueness was only in their size and crudeness. Then they had talked to a pearapple grower whose fruit was renowned in the region, but Ryalth had decided even from the dried and winter stored samples that the fruit would remain a local delicacy because it bruised too easily. Most of the day had been like that.

"It is just that I seldom get this far east and north...." She shakes her head. "I would never get this far were it not for you." She sets a blue leather wallet on the edge of the table, and there is the dull clink of coins. While Lorn has seen it before, he had never looked that closely, thinking it a trader's wallet, and little more. This time, he sees, embossed on the leather, a green emblem-the intertwined letters "R" and "L" set within an inverted triangle.

Lorn studies the emblem, his lips curling into a smile.

"That's the symbol I've been using from the beginning," she explains.

"You never showed me."

"You never asked."

Lorn shakes his head. "I can't ask what I don't know about."

"Neither can I." She laughs. "Someone I love taught me that a long time ago."

They both laugh.

"What do you think of this?" Lorn hands her the scroll he has written. He stands and looks over Ryalth's shoulder as she reads through his revised and crossed out words.

...Father had written some time back that, after discussing possible consorts with Jerial, he had decided that the lady I have spent so much time with over the years is most suitable. Because that was also my inclination, and because she is my love, and because it appears likely that I will not be returned to Cyad at any time in the years immediately before me, she traveled to Jakaafra, where we were consorted.

I know this was not exactly as we all had hoped for the placement and timing of such an event, but you all know how unwise making such a union public in Cyad would be at this time. Mother has also told me that she views the lady as most lovely....

Ryalth looks up. "You didn't tell me that."

"I didn't? I thought I did."

She shakes her head ruefully. "Lorn... my dearest lancer, there are times when I can almost see that there are thoughts running through your mind, and you look as though you ought to be talking, and I think you are hearing all the words you would speak. Then, I think you sometimes feel you have spoken them."

"I will try to be better with you," he says slowly. "Do not fret about it. That is the way you are."

"Sometimes I dwell in my thoughts and words too much." He glances from the redhead to the scroll. "What do you think?"

"Do you think they'll be too terribly upset?"

"I don't think so. Did you know that mother told me not to spend too much time with them when I was in Cyad? She said to spend it with 'my friend.'"

"I hope they won't be too upset."

"They won't be. They want us to be happy."

"People say that," she points out, "until someone else's happiness upsets them. I still worry about upsetting your parents."

"If you'd rather I not tell them...."

"You have to... I understand that. All may be as you say. But I worry. So do you, or you would not take such care in drafting your scroll." The redhead looks toward the door. "It's colder out, isn't it?"

Lorn nods.

"It won't get warmer while we wait."

He smiles as he takes the draft scroll from her and sets it on the table. Then he takes the sabre from where he has set it in the corner and attaches the scabbard to his uniform belt. Then he dons the white leather winter jacket and his winter riding gloves.

Ryalth wears a wool-lined blue leather vest over her tunic, and then a heavy dark blue woolen cloak. Her gloves are also dark blue.

"I've already saddled them."

They walk the fifty cubits to the stable together. Lorn leads out the chestnut first, then the white gelding, closing the stable door and then mounting.

The raw and damp wind blows in their face out of the northwest as they ride toward the square, and the smells that had hinted at coming spring in the days immediately after their consorting have vanished with the return of winter. Neither speaks as their mounts carry them the kay into the center of Jakaafra.

Eileyt and Usylt, the trade guard, are standing under the narrow porch of Dustyn's establishment as Lorn and Ryalth ride down the lane from the square. As Lorn and Ryalth rein up, the two men hurry down from the porch to untie their horses and mount.

"We're only going across the square," Ryalth says, "to the cuprite master's shop."

The shop is on the south side of the square, close to two hundred cubits from the recording hall, and distinguished by a small square sign fastened to the eaves of the overhanging front porch. The sign shows a yellow lamp, and the porch is empty. Lorn dismounts and ties the gelding to the short hitching rail at the very end, then offers a hand to Ryalth.

She smiles as she takes it. "I'll have to get used to doing without all this courtesy before long."

"Enjoy it while we can."

After she dismounts, Ryalth unfastens the blue leather Ryalor House wallet and extends it to Eileyt. She nods to Lorn. "It's custom in the smaller towns. If you have an enumerator, then he should disburse and collect the coins."

"I'll watch the mounts," Usylt says, more to affirm that he wishes to remain outside, Lorn suspects.

"Thank you," Ryalth replies.

Lorn hurries up the three wooden steps and crosses the wide porch from which many had watched their consorting nearly an eightday earlier. He wonders at how quickly the time has passed for them and how soon he must return to duty and Ryalth must return to Cyad. He cannot help but worry that her absence will not help her trading. With those thoughts on his mind, he opens the door for Ryalth, then morions for Eileyt to enter as well.

The enumerator shakes his head and stands back to let Lorn follow Ryalth.

Inside, Ryalth steps forward to study the items on a small table which include several ornate lamps, a kettle, and a lamp that looks more like a storm lantern of some sort. Ryalth studies the storm lantern.

The odor of hot metal permeates the shop. In the rear are a small forge, two workbenches, and a rack containing tools Lorn does not recognize. A man appears to be heating something in or over the forge, but his back is to Lorn, and a youth pumps a bellows, sweat streaming down his forehead. The young man's eyes widen as he sees Ryalth, and he says something to the crafter.

The crafter turns. He is a squarish man, short, not even to Lorn's chin, but muscular, with stubby fingers that set aside what appears to be an ornate bronze vessel. He steps toward the three figures at the front of his shop. "Lady Trader... Captain... I be Ghylset." The crafter's eyes flick from Ryalth to Lorn and back to Ryalth. "What might I do for you?"

"You show good work, master crafter," Ryalth offers. "Better than many I have seen, even in Cyad and Fyrad."

"Thank you." The hint of a frown accompanies his words. "Do you seek something?"

"I seek good work." Ryalth half-turns and gestures at the table and the objects upon it. "Which of these might show such?"

"The one you be looking at, Lady."

Ryalth studies the bronze lamp carefully.

"Begging yer pardon, Lady Trader... but if you'll be looking at the way the mantel's set... that's the secret... that lamp... really more a lantern but small enough to carry by mount or ship or set on a carriage, and it will burn through a gale and the heaviest of rains."

Lorn can sense the truth of the crafter's words, and he knows Ryalth can as well.

"Could not another cuprite master copy this?" questions the redhead.

"Well... supposing they could, but it'd take someone good as me, and I've figured some ways to make the seals with the glass tighter 'n most, and quicker to form." Ghylset shrugs. "At five silvers a lamp for a lamp that'll burn in the worst of storms.... I don't think there's none can match me for quality nor price."

"Four silvers apiece if I order in lots of a half-score," Ryalth suggests flatly.

"Half-score?"

"Can you make a score of them by the turn of spring?" Ryalth asks. "A score... mayhap more." The crafter frowns. "But four... that is low."

"Nine golds for a score," Ryalth says firmly. "If they sell, I will order more."

"Nine golds... aye... that be not too burdensome. Yet... I cannot begin so many... not without some estimation of faith... beggin' yer pardon, Lady Trader."

While Ryalth and the cuprite crafter talk, Lorn studies another series of lamps set on the shelf against the outer wall, taking in those of various sizes. He smiles as he sees one that is smaller than his clenched fist, wondering as he does what use such a lamp might have.