The Magic of Recluce - L. E. Modesitt [162]
She looked at me, questioningly, for the first time with tears flowing from both eyes.
“I stopped the hurt, but for how long?”
“Poor…poor papa…”
“Don’t let him get up. Tell him he has a chill.”
“How long?”
I knew what she meant.
“If he rests, if he is quiet, perhaps half a year, but that’s just a guess. He could have died today, but he doesn’t want to.”
“Poor papa…”
That afternoon, I paid Wryson two coppers for the loan of his wagon and followed it, and the red-oak dower chest, out to Brettel’s house. In case it was to be a surprise, I had covered it with a blanket.
On the way across the avenue and toward the north road, we pulled up for a cavalry troop returning. A single prisoner, blindfolded, hands tied behind her back, wearing green leathers, swayed on the last horse. A dark splotch stained her short-cut blond hair. The prefect’s troops had left her an empty scabbard, perhaps because, disoriented and wounded, she still radiated order.
The last four horses bore only empty saddles, and the reek of disorder, of chaos, was faint, as if expended in whatever battle they had fought.
“…make way…make way…”
…clink…clink…
“Make way…make way…”
Sensing primarily tiredness and pain, nothing resembling new-cast chaos, despite my awareness extension, I waited until the troop had passed. Still, I was on edge until the wagon pulled inside the big stone warehouse. The woman in green bothered me. She could have been Wrynn or Krystal. She wasn’t, but she could have been.
“Lerris, you’re earlier than I expected. I told you to take your time.” He still grinned.
“Do you want to see it?” I glanced around.
“Dalta’s at the market square.”
Using both arms, I moved the chest, still covered, from the wagon.
“Here.” Sperlin—Wryson’s driver—got a copper I couldn’t afford. “Just go straight back.”
“Thank you, ser.”
Not until the wagon rumbled down the ramp and back onto the north road did I turn back to Brettel.
“You’re thinner, Lerris, hunted-looking.”
“We passed a cavalry troop…lots of empty saddles.”
Brettel just shook his head. “Why? The autarch isn’t bothering him.”
I didn’t know the answer, either, except there were more soldiers in Gallos.
“Do you want to see the chest?” I changed the subject back to the reason I had come.
“Of course, of course.”
After lifting the blanket gently, I waited, watching his face.
He looked for a long time. Finally, he turned to me. “I can’t afford that. That’s a piece worthy of Dorman or Sardit—their best.”
While it wasn’t that good, the chest was exquisite, and equal to the lesser but good pieces my uncle had done. But comparisons weren’t fair. I could see into the wood, and they couldn’t.
So we stood there for a time, and Brettel kept gazing at the chest. “She won’t appreciate it.”
“She will. Later, at least.”
At last, he looked at me.
“Why are you here? Now?”
“To ask that you allow Bostric to marry Deirdre.”
“Why now?”
“Because Destrin is dying, and I have to leave before it’s too late, and before anything becomes too public. I only hope I haven’t waited too long.”
“There’s a problem, Lerris.”
“I can see a number.” My voice was wry, even to my own ears.
“While Bostric has taken over the bench work and the simple chests, and his work is better than Destrin’s was, you’re still the craft-master…”
“I’m no craft-master.” I felt I had to protest, but my guts turned at the thought that I actually might be approaching that level.
“No…not if you compare yourself to Perlot and Sardit. And Dalta’s chest there even gives that the lie. If you consider Rasten or Deryl or Hertol or Ferralt, already they can’t compare. Not at all.”
“Look,” I said. “Deirdre’s a good seamstress, almost good enough to carry the household on her own. It won’t be easy for them, but she has a dowry—”
“She does?” the mill-master asked.
“I made her a chest like Dalta’s, not quite as good, and she has a small dowry of five golds, not much…”
“Lerris…” He shook his head.
“I know…it’s not really enough, but—”
“Lerris. What are you? You’re a stranger, who has lived here little more than a year, who has held