The Towers of the Sunset - L. E. Modesitt [41]
“Stew.”
“Fowl pie.”
The serving woman again refrains from looking at Creslin. “Eleven coppers. Four each for you two with the wine, three for you.” She inclines her head toward Creslin.
Derrild drops a silver and a copper on the table, then covers them with a heavy fist.
“Just make sure they’re there when your stuff comes, trader.”
“Don’t worry, lass. Don’t worry.”
“I guess I can trust you, trader.”
Hylin manages not to grin until she has turned toward another table. “Such charm you have, Derrild.”
“At least someone trusts me,” snorts the trader.
Creslin glances around the room. His eyes sting from the greasy smoke, and he wishes he dared to summon the slightest of breezes, but with the sullen white vapor that infuses the city, he refrains. He blinks his eyes against the stinging. The tears help.
“Now, isn’t that some lady?” observes Hylin.
Creslin follows the other’s eyes toward a corner table where a slender man dressed in white sits beside a dark-haired woman. Even through the smoke, Creslin can sense the allure of the woman. He can also sense the white wrongness that surrounds both of them and spills over onto the two armed men seated at each side. The armed men do not eat, but watch the other diners.
“Let’s have those coins, pretty boy,” rasps the waitress as three metal tankards come down on the battered wood.
Derrild surrenders the coins reluctantly. “Let’s have those meals, pretty woman,” he roars back.
“If I were younger, I might believe you.” She smiles briefly, revealing blackened teeth.
Creslin lifts the tankard of redberry juice. His eyes catch Hylin’s. “When we rode in, you said something about beliefs, and why the prefect has to stay in Fenard . . .”
Hylin finishes a slow mouthful of the wine. “Ah, better than that mountain ale. Much better.”
Creslin waits, and Derrild says nothing.
“Oh . . . about the prefect. I don’t know—”
“You’re right. You just know blades,” interrupts Derrild, his voice surprisingly soft and low. “There’s another reason why the prefect won’t leave Fenard, another prophecy in the Book.”
He pauses for a gulp of wine, then wipes his mouth with a large cloth he has pulled from his belt; it might once have been fine white linen. “The Book says something like the Plains of Gallos will stay united under one ruler until long after they are split by the mountains of the magicians, when then they shall be ruled by a woman with a sword of darkness who will hold the highlands of Analeria and the enchanted hills.” He shrugs. “So one prophet says the prefect has to stay and the other says he can’t lose the southern plains anyway. I mean, mountains in the middle of the plains . . . how could that ever be? And who’d ever want the highlands, anyway? Goats ruled by princes from round tents, that’s all Analeria is. Damned foolishness.”
A chill touches Creslin, and he looks past the trader toward the man in white at the corner table, who smiles a knowing smile, not at Creslin, but at Derrild’s back.
Three heavy, chipped crockery platters drop on the table, a bent and battered tin spoon resting in each.
“See, pretty boy? I always deliver. It’s you men who can’t deliver when you get up there in years!”
Creslin smiles in spite of himself.
Hylin grabs the spoon and begins to slurp up the stew.
Derrild shakes his head at the broad backside of the serving woman. “. . . still can deliver, thank you.”
Creslin eats slowly, methodically, wondering about the pervasive whiteness of the city, the White Wizard in the corner, and the white birds that have trailed him, on and off.
He watches, absently sipping the redberry, as Hylin smiles at a woman on the far side of the room. She sits with other women, and even Creslin does not need to see their painted cheeks to appreciate the women’s looks and expertise. But only to appreciate them from afar. The last thing he needs is to be involved with another woman.
Megaera . . . who is she, and why is she still on his mind? The images tell him— But what do they tell him?
He shakes his head as Hylin looks from him to the women and back. “Not tonight.