The Towers of the Sunset - L. E. Modesitt [165]
“I didn’t want the fields we still have to be washed away in the rain. Why is that so hard to understand?”
Hyel and Shierra exchange glances. “Well . . .” begins the brown-haired man, “it’s just that you ask so much of yourself. If you occasionally asked, rather than led by grueling example . . . anyway, would you think about it?”
Shierra nods.
“Since you two seem to agree, I guess I do have to think about it.” He folds the towel and lays it on the clammy stone of the windowsill. “And I’m going home.”
Hyel and Shierra look at each other again. Shierra suppresses a smile.
With his muscles aching and his damp clothes cool on his body, Creslin sees no humor in the situation. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Vola is saddled and ready,” Shierra adds, stepping farther into the room and beside Hyel.
“Thank you.” Creslin nods and departs.
A young black-haired guard turns over the black’s reins to Creslin. “Good evening, Regent Creslin.”
“Good evening.”
Outside the stable, the rain pelts at him more heavily than earlier, although the water feels somewhat warmer. The road from the keep is firm as far as the upper end of Land’s End, where he reaches the muddy way uphill to the holding and the drainage ditch that has become a fast-flowing stream.
Spewing toward the town below, the miniature torrent beside the road has deepened from a mere depression into a jagged cut two cubits wide and nearly as deep. Ignoring the water that now flows from his hair across his face and down his neck, Creslin nudges the mare toward the Black Holding.
Even his oiled jacket is sodden by the time he ducks under the still-green wooden beam framing the doorway. Although Klerris had order-strengthened the wood, some of the green timber will shrink and crack. But there is neither time nor coin for seasoned woods.
Outside, the water continues to cascade from the dark gray clouds. Dismounting, Creslin pulls off the oiled-leather jacket and hangs it over a stall wall. Vola shakes, and water sprays across him.
“. . . getting to you . . .” He loosens the saddle, removes and racks it, and reaches for the brush.
“Why?” he asks himself. Why does his meddling with the weather always yield such absolute results? Recluce scarcely needs all the rain it has had in the last eight-day. “. . . tried to be careful . . .” he mutters.
He brushes the mare, casting his senses beyond the stable. Megaera, Aldonya, and Lynnya are in the kitchen, as well as someone else: Lydya. For a moment, blackness wavers before him, and he reaches out and touches the wall to steady himself. Then he resumes his currying.
Finally he puts up the brush, adds some grain to the feed trough, and closes the stall door. After picking up his leather jacket, he walks out of the stable and along the slippery black stones of the walkway and into the front entryway. He stamps his feet, trying to remove excess water and mud.
The jacket goes on a peg in the open closet, next to Megaera’s jacket, also damp. A small puddle remains on the stone floor underneath. After looking at his sodden boots, he pulls them off, nearly crashing into the wall twice. Then, barefoot, he pads across the Great Room and into the warm kitchen. “Greetings.”
“Greetings, Creslin.” Standing at one side of the small but heavy stone oven that Aldonya has obtained from somewhere, Lydya holds a steaming cup in both hands. Megaera cradles Lynnya, while Aldonya is slicing long green roots.
“Quilla again?”
“It is good for you. Even great wizards need to eat all the right foods.” Aldonya gestures with the knife.
“You’d rather have the seaweed?” Megaera shifts Lynnya to her shoulder, patting the infant on the back as she does.
“If I have to choose between . . . between chewy roots and soggy . . .” Creslin shakes his head. “Anyway, I’m outnumbered.”
“You just noticed, best-beloved?”
Creslin looks past Megaera and through the window to the darkness from which the rain continues to pour. Then he searches for a cup. “Do you think this is in time to save the orchards?”
“Pearapples can stand a lot