Recluce - Colors Of Chaos Part 71

"Is it far?"

"Less than a kay."

Whuff! Leyladin's mare sidestepped as the wind blew a sc.r.a.p of gray cloth across the way before them. "It's so ... empty."

"Jeslek's terms were hard. Most of the people fled. A few have returned."

"Your terms aren't so hard?"

"I try to apply the Patrol rules here, even to lancers. Sometimes I haven't been that popular."

"Why? The rules are fair."

"I've executed three or four lancers and several locals. One lancer raped and killed a local woman-a harlot, and she shouldn't have stayed, but that didn't mean she could be killed."

"Still trying ..." She turned in the saddle and smiled sadly. "Even if you became High Wizard, you'd be disappointed."

"Probably more so. Things wouldn't work out, and I couldn't blame Jeslek."

They turned onto the short hilltop lane that held the quarters' dwelling.

"There, at the end."

"I like it better up here," Leyladin affirmed.

"Jeslek's is the big mansion-over there to the north. There's a back lane, and it's about two hundred cubits."

"Don't tell him. Make him ride the long way."

"I'm the one who goes to him." Cerryl's mouth quirked "Remember?"

Leyladin giggled as they reined up by the carriage gate. They groomed both the mare and the gelding and put them in the two adjoining stalls in the small stable of Cerryl's quarters, then made their way through the light snow into the front foyer, stepping past the two lancer guards.

Cerryl turned. "Zoyst, Natrey, this is the Lady Leyladin-one of the few healers.

She'll staying here."

"Yes, ser."

"I'm pleased to meet you both." Leyladin smiled warmly.

Though neither guard returned the smile, Cerryl could feel their reserve lower.

She can do that, and I can't. They respect me, I think, but everyone loves her.

Almost everyone, except Anya.

Cerryl gestured toward the front sitting room.

"These are your quarters? I expected ..." She crossed the room and peered through the archway at the desk and table in the rear study.

"Something more like a lancer's?" Cerryl asked. "I do have a few rooms to myself, but I eat what the lancers eat."

"And you make sure they know that, I'm sure." Leyladin's eyes twinkled. "You don't sleep here, do you?" She gestured toward the conference table.

"I spend more time here." He paused, then added, "Oh ... I'll show you." He took her hand, and they walked to the foyer and the narrow steps up. "Up there." He pointed to the top of the staircase.

"Do you mind if I look?"

"There are two other bedchambers up there. One is empty. I mean... there's a bed and everything."

Leyladin smiled again. "I understood." She started up the step, and, after a moment, Cerryl followed.

The healer looked into the bedchamber on the left, then crossed the landing and stepped into the larger chamber. "This is lovely." She studied the four-poster bed, the small settee, and the curved rails of the wash table. "You've even kept it neat."

"There's nothing like the showers of the Halls," Cerryl said, "and I have to heat the water with chaos."

"You'll be ... good ... to have around." The healer took a half-step toward the still-shuttered window, then turned, still smiling.

"Are you hungry? There are some biscuits and cheese in the kitchen. Nothing like Furenk's around here. I'm not sure there ever was." Cerryl started for the doorway and the steps down to the kitchen.

"Cerryl?"

He stopped.

"You may have seen me through your gla.s.s, but I haven't seen you in more than a year. You don't have to rush off after biscuits."

"I do," Cerryl confessed. "I'm starving. I haven't been able to see you in the gla.s.s for more than an eight-day. I haven't eaten much."

An even softer smile appeared. "I actually worried you? I just wanted to surprise you, and I didn't want to worry you. It was work, holding those s.h.i.+elds on the road."

"You surprised me."

"I could stand something to eat." She shook her head. "But there's something more important."

Cerryl froze. What had he overlooked?

"Nothing like that." She stepped forward. Not only did her arms encircle him, her lips on his, but her body was against his as well, far warmer, far more yielding, and far more demanding ...

Forget about biscuits ... His arms went around her.

CXIX.

Cerryl glanced over at the blonde head on the pillow beside him, then leaned back in grayness before dawn. After all these years ... why now?

"...waited all these years ..." Leyladin's voice was thick with sleep, but she turned toward him. "... you waited, too."

"I saw you in the gla.s.s ... more than a half-score of years ago." He propped himself up on his left elbow to study her, and his fingers traced the line of her chin.

"I didn't know who you were, then."

"I didn't know who you were, either."

"I haven't changed much."

"You still like green."

Leyladin wrapped her s.h.i.+ft around her as she sat up against the headboard, a pillow behind her.

"You don't need that," teased Cerryl. "The s.h.i.+ft, I mean."

"Oh?" She arched her eyebrows.

"You didn't last night."

"That was last night." The archness of her voice broke into a laugh.

Cerryl laughed with her.

After a moment, she cleared her throat. "Oh ... I'd better tell you. Kinowin made me promise."

"Promise what?" Cerryl didn't want to talk about Kinowin or Jeslek or anyone else.

"He had a message, one he didn't want to write down." Leyladin shook her head. "He's getting old, like Myral did. He was always so tall and strong, and now he's a little stooped, and he has to concentrate when he walks so that he doesn't shuffle."

"So quickly?"

"It happens quickly." Her eyes misted as she looked at Cerryl.

He s.h.i.+vered, knowing yet another reason why she had come to Spidlar.

"It's not that-yet." Her voice thickened. "Life is short enough... It's too short."

Cerryl was already discovering that. "Ah... what?"

Leyladin swallowed. "He said ... you did not need to fight Jeslek. Just follow Myral's teaching about keeping chaos from you when you channel it, and you'll do what Myral expected."

"I wasn't thinking about fighting Jeslek."

"Kinowin didn't think so, but he wanted you to understand that Anya is the real danger to Fairhaven."

"Because she doesn't believe in it and because she's using her ties to Jiolt to influence the traders?"

Leyladin shook her head ruefully. "Why am I telling you this?"

"Because I might not have known and because it helps for someone else to think the same thing and because I trust you and Kinowin." He paused, thinking about the silksheen he had never been able to follow up on-that he had known went to Jiolt. "Besides, a lot of what I know about Anya is from what I sense but couldn't ever prove. So it helps to know others have discovered things or feel the same way." Cerryl's stomach growled-loudly.

"I suppose I should let you eat." Leyladin leaned forward and her lips brushed his cheek.

"If you want to abuse me like you did last night..."

"Abuse? Who abused whom?"

Cerryl found himself flus.h.i.+ng.

"You're handsome when you do that."

"Do what?"

"Blush." Leyladin grinned. "It goes all the way down."

Cerryl knew he was red at least from the waist up. "You."

"Go on. You get dressed first."

"Me?" Cerryl swallowed, realizing that any more byplay and he'd only embarra.s.s himself more.

"You can figure out what we'll eat while I'm dressing."

"Oh."

"Let a poor woman try to regain a little mystery."

"Mystery-that you'll always have." Cerryl put his feet on the rug around the four-poster bed, then walked to the wash table. The water was cold, and he took a moment to infuse it with chaos.

After shaving and dressing, he emptied the water out the north side window, where it did little damage, adding to the icy pyramid against the brick below, and refilled it.

"Close the window ... please."

"I'm sorry." He closed the window and heated the water until it was almost steaming, even though his head was throbbing.

"Dearest... you didn't have to do that." Leyladin leaned forward, and Cerryl didn't care about the headache.

"You-you are impossible."

Suddenly he swallowed. "You know what I feel... some of the time."

"I didn't need much to know that." The playful smile vanished, and she nodded.

"At times, you know what I feel. It happens, sometimes, with mages."

Cerryl sat down on the edge of the chair. "I just thought I was imagining."

"No ... dearest. Why do you think I'm here?"

"Because I'm impossible?" He forced a smile.

"You know better than that."