XXXVII
Cerryl glanced from his notes to his half-written daily report to Isork, then at the doorway as Isork himself stepped into the small duty room.
“Ser.” Cerryl stood immediately. “I didn’t know you were coming.” He gestured at the desk. “I was just finishing my report. Gyskas should be here before long.”
“I didn’t come to see Gyskas.” Isork slipped into the chair across the desk. “Sit down.”
Cerryl sat.
“I understand you occasionally still walk with one of the patrols?”
“Yes, ser. Not too often… but every so often. I don’t tell them before that day when, or why… I just do it.”
“Why?”
“Ser… I couldn’t say exactly,” Cerryl fudged, “but… it feels better when I do. People know I’m young, and I felt that they had to know I intended to learn the city and keep the peace.”
“You also walk the section by yourself when you aren’t on duty.”
“Yes, ser. I don’t know that I’m helping much… Nothing seems to happen when I go with any patroller…”
“You’re keeping the peace if nothing happens.” Isork laughed. “When you’re on duty, even when you don’t patrol, almost nothing happens.”
“Ser… you said that people respected the Patrol here. I just wanted to make sure that they still did.”
“Oh, they respect you. So do the patrollers. They see you walking the streets by yourself, checking out things-”
“I’m still trying to learn where everything is,” Cerryl explained. “I don’t want to have my lead patrollers trying to explain where something happened.”
“We need more mages who’ve been through whatever you’ve been through.” Isork shook his head. “Your patrollers call you their tough little sawmill bastard. First new Patrol mage in three years that I can keep. First one who’s either patrolling or where he’s supposed to be, too.” The pudgy-looking but muscular Patrol chief glanced around the room, then frowned. “Don’t let that go to your head. You’ve still got a lot to learn, but you’re on the right road.”
“Thank you, ser.” Cerryl waited, suspecting from the Patrol chief’s body position that Isork had more to say.
After a moment, Isork looked at Cerryl. “I heard you were asking about silksheen.”
Cerryl didn’t bother to ask how the senior Patrol mage knew. “Someone killed a trader and stole some silksheen. It’s costly, and there couldn’t be many places where it could be sold. No one reported anyone missing or any cart being stolen. So I thought people who handled silksheen might know.”
Isork nodded slowly. “Asking general questions discreetly is fine. I’d appreciate it if you would tell me if you find out anything. Silksheen, as I am most assured you have discovered, is only traded by two or three merchants in all of Fairhaven. They are quite close to many of the senior mages.”
Cerryl returned the nod. “I did discover that, and I have no reason to make further inquiries.” Not now, and certainly not in any direct way, not after what I found out so far.
“You’ve got a good head on your shoulders.” Isork rose. “I enjoy reading your reports.” After another smile, he nodded a last time, turned, and left the duty room.
Cerryl swallowed. Not a very good head, not at all.
XXXVIII
Cerryl strode through the open double doors of the section building’s assembly room and crossed the floor to the speaking stones, ignoring the murmurs from the four patrollers to the right of the entryway. He stepped up on the stones and looked out at the small group. His eyes fixed on lead patroller Sheffl. “What happens to be the problem?”
The muscular patroller cleared his throat. “Ser mage, these two men cannot agree. They stopped us on patrol.” He raised his eyebrows and half-smiled, gesturing to the two shorter figures who stood on either side of him.
A squat, fair-skinned, and red-haired man dressed in brown glared at the other man. The second had short gray hair, was tanned as if he worked in the open often, and wore faded blue trousers and a sleeveless blue vest. The tanned man in the vest ignored the glares from the squat man, and his eyes rested on Cerryl.
“They were arguing?” Cerryl asked the patroller. “Close to breaking the peace?”
“You might say that, ser.” Sheffl’s limp black hair flopped across his forehead with the nod he gave. “Karfl-he’s the mason there, in the blue vest-he was waving a stone hammer a lot. Queas was reaching for a staff. He was really yelling, could hear him from the back alley. Thought maybe…” The lead patroller shrugged.
Beside the double doors, just inside the room, the other four patrollers waited, watching, their faces indicating various degrees of boredom and interest.
Cerryl looked at the tanned mason. “Why were you arguing?”
“Demon-damned artisans… be all the same. Queas… he said he be a-tradin‘ a set of china pieces, ten platters and ten mugs and two pitchers, if I would repair and rebuild the stone wall at the back of his courtyard.” Karfl shrugged. “Should have known better. Got the wall one, and a bit of work it was, too. Some fool had backed a wagon through it, mud-brick and not fired brick or stone. Then Queas offers me ten platters and two pitchers and says I should be lucky. Only did it because I wanted the set as a consort gift for my daughter Viaya.
Can’t have a consort gift without mugs.“ Another shrug followed.
“I see.” Cerryl could sense the man’s belief that the situation was as he had told the Patrol mage. After a moment, Cerryl glanced at Queas. “What do you have to say?”
“I offered him ten platters, yes, and two pitchers, but not the mugs,” Queas replied. “I am a poor potter, and I had the platters already. So the pitchers I had to throw and fire and glaze. Pitchers, they are not easy, not if you want their handles to be strong. But the pitchers, they are good, good enough to sell anywhere. So are the platters.”
Cerryl held up a hand. “Did you offer him the platters and the pitchers when you first talked about how you would repay him for repairing the wall?”
“That is what I said, ser mage.”
Cerryl frowned, catching something about the words. “Did you tell him that you were offering ten platters and two pitchers, or did you say you were offering him a set of ten and two pitchers?”
“A set of ten, it is ten platters.”
Cerryl turned to Karfl. “What did you think he said to you?”
“A set of ten, and that means platters and mugs. Some places, it be even ten small plates as well, but I weren’t expecting that.”
Cerryl pursed his lips. Demons! People arguing over the meaning of what a set was. He directed his next words to Queas: “If a merchant, like Likket or Nivor, or Tellis the scrivener, asked you for a full set of ten pieces of china… what would he expect to get?” Cerryl’s eyes focused on the potter, as did his senses.
Queas shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Ah… but… ser mage… Karfl is not… ah… he is a mason.”
“You have a different meaning for masons?”
Queas bowed his head. “I will make ten mugs. It will take an eight-day, though. I cannot fire and glaze properly, not with the work I have accepted coins for… not sooner.”
Cerryl looked toward Karfl.
“An eight-day don’t matter, ser mage. Just so as I can get a proper consort gift for Viaya.” The mason squared his shoulders.
Cerryl addressed the two. “I trust this will not come before the Patrol again.”
“No, ser mage,” murmured Queas.
“Not ‘less he don’t deliver the mugs,” stated Karfl.
Cerryl nodded to Sheffl. The lead patroller gestured to the door, and Karfl marched out, followed by a subdued Queas.
“… mages got some uses.”
Cerryl smiled faintly as he heard Karri’s muttered comment. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what Queas might be saying or thinking.
Back in the duty room, Cerryl sank into the high-backed chair. Sometimes, even when people heard the same words, they still didn’t agree. Sometimes people, like Queas, were too quick to interpret words in the way that they wished. He took a deep breath. At least, he hadn’t had to put them on road duty or refuse duty or flame them.
At the scritching sound, he looked up.
Weilt paused in the doorway. “Ser?”
“Yes, Weilt… come on in.” Cerryl gestured to the chair. “Sit down. Your feet have to be sore.”
The blond messenger glanced around the duty room, then leaned forward and murmured, “Ser… you have to be careful.”
Cerryl frowned. “Careful? I always try to be careful.” His words were low, probably because the messenger’s had been also.
Weilt whispered, “It’s not in the southwest, ser.” He straightened and said loudly, “Will that be all, ser mage?”
Cerryl swallowed, then answered. “Ah…” He raised his voice: “That’s all for now, Weilt.”
“Thank you, ser.” Weilt left quickly.
“Be careful,” Cerryl murmured. And not in the southwest section… Why? His inquiries about silksheen? Why would that upset people? Yet Isork had suggested care. Where had Weilt heard what he’d heard? Cerryl smiled. Messengers often overheard things, he imagined.
He frowned.
As with so many other things in Fairhaven, much more was hidden than revealed. He needed to talk to Leyladin, if he could, since she was the only one beside Myral and Kinowin he trusted. But Myral was failing, and Kinowin was Isork’s superior. That left Leyladin, yet… he worried about bringing her too much into the intrigues.