The Magic of Recluce - L. E. Modesitt [142]
No single street in Fenard bore a sign, but everyone named them—the avenue, the street of jewelers, the north road. I’d learned the names of many just by listening, but as for the side streets, the alleys, I doubted anyone who hadn’t spent a lifetime in Fenard or a great deal of time loitering would ever know all the names.
The names changed. I overheard Deirdre and Bostric talking about when the grocers’ lane had been the place of old inns. But the avenue was the avenue, the only really straight and perfectly-maintained street in Fenard. That might have had something to do with the fact that it ran from the prefect’s palace past the market square and straight to the south gate.
Because the day was pleasant, and because I wasn’t in the mood for doing detail work on the writing desk, not with Destrin in good enough health, temporarily anyway, and because Deirdre was sniffling and sneezing from the early flowers blooming, I had volunteered to wander past the market square to see if the cloth merchants from Horgland had arrived.
Bostric, of course, was happy not to be in the shop, caught between Destrin’s complaints and my demands.
“We’re actually taking a walk, honored journeyman?”
“Bostric. Enough is enough—unless you want to stay with the honored shop owner and feed the fire.”
“While feeding the fire would be a great honor…”
“Bostric…”
“I’d prefer the walk.”
Sometimes, I could see why Brettel had been able to find Bostric so quickly. His humor wasn’t exactly subtle, yet I had the feeling there was more depth there, hidden behind the obvious and respectful disrespect.
Clink…clink…
I nudged the apprentice, and we stepped toward the shop fronts as the single post-rider trotted toward the palace.
“Wonder what news he brings?”
“He doesn’t look happy. Perhaps the autarch…” He broke off as a soldier in the dark leathers of the prefect neared.
The soldier, shorter and squatter than either of us, his eyes fixed beyond the street, plunged straight at us, as if we did not exist.
I could sense an emptiness there, no aura at all, except for a faint white kernel deep within.
“What—” Bostric looked at me. “What was that?”
I thought I knew, but only shook my head. “He had somewhere to go. He’s going to get there without taking a single turn.”
No one else on the street—not the man in blue silks and leather with the long sword, nor the peddler woman with the sack, nor the urchin with the missing tooth and red hair—not one even seemed to notice the rigidity of the man’s mission as they stepped or scurried aside.
Across the street, between two gray stone houses, there were two boxes of early-blooming red flowers flanking a narrow street, where with an almost furtive look the man in the blue silk shirt and dark-gray leather vest stepped out of sight.
“What street is that?” I asked Bostric.
“What street…” he mumbled in return.
“That alley over there, between the flowers. You seem to know all the streets.”
“That’s no proper street.” He was flushing.
“No proper street?” I teased him, a little glad to have him on the defensive.
“Not a proper street…” His words were dogged, and he didn’t even look in my direction.
“What do you mean?” I glanced toward the red flowers and the narrow alley—whose contents were lost in the shadows.
“All right. I’ll show you. You’ll see.” Turning suddenly and stretching his long legs into nearly a run, he crossed the avenue so sharply I was hard-pressed to keep up with him.
We were both past the flowers before I had much of a chance to look around, or to react to the fragrances, a dozen or more different odors—roses, nightfires, lilies, and others I could not recognize, so many that my senses reeled.
Narrow the way was, not much more than half a rod wide, and short, not more than a dozen houses on each side before curving