Free Natural Ordermage by L. E. Modesitt Jr. Page B

But he’d been attacked
because he was where he shouldn’t have been after he’d probably revealed
something he shouldn’t have to someone who was guilty.
    But… he hadn’t known that. He hadn’t even
realized that Fahla was guilty until after he’d seen her face at Sevien’s. And
then what could he have done? He shook his head.

IX
    Rahl had finally managed some sleep on
fiveday night, after persuading himself that he really hadn’t done wrong. He’d
only been trying to defend himself against someone who’d wanted to kill him.
But he had wondered about the reddish white shadow around the bravo, something
that he’d felt, but not seen. Even after getting some sleep, he’d felt tired
when Kian had wakened him on sixday.
    Then his father had insisted on sparring
before breakfast.
    Rahl had taken another bruise or two. He
had to admit that his father was good with the truncheon, and he probably owed
his life to his father’s training, but he wasn’t about to tell him—not for a
long time, if ever.
    While Kian washed up, Rahl oiled the
scarred area of the truncheon where he’d slipped the attacker’s blade, then
studied the wood. The scar wasn’t that noticeable, unless he looked, very
closely. Then he washed up, finished dressing, had breakfast, and headed to the
workroom.
    There he laid out the mathematics text.
He was almost finished, with just a few pages left to copy. As he settled in,
Kian appeared with a broad smile.‘
    “You’re almost finished, aren’t you?”
    “Yes, ser.”
    “Good. I’ll be able to start binding it
on oneday, and you can take over the copying of the Philosophies of Candar.”
    Rahl thought that might be even worse
than Natural Arithmetics.
    “I need to finish the frontispiece,
though, and I’d like you to hurry down to Clyndal’s to pick up a book from him.
I’m not sure if it’s properly a book, but his nephew’s been apprenticing with
him, and Clyndal’s grown fond of the fellow, and he wants to give him a copy of
his formulae so that he can set up his own alchemy shop in Lydkler. ” There
isn’t one there, and it’s probably one of the few towns of any size in Reduce
that doesn’t have one.“
    Rahl stood. “I can do that.” It would
also give him a chance to see what had happened around the chandlery.
    He did slip the truncheon back into his
belt loops before he left the workroom, turning it so that the scarred side was
against his trousers, not that anyone was likely to notice or comment on a
scrape on a truncheon.
    The sky was a hazy greenish blue, and the
stillness of the air made the morning seem warmer than it probably was as he
headed down the street toward the center of Land’s End. The avenue seemed more
deserted than normal, and usually it was more crowded on sixday.
    As Rahl neared Clyndal’s shop, just south
of the chandlery, he could see two Council Guards standing post on the porch of
the chandlery. The shutters remained closed, and the front door was chained
shut. Rahl couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to Fahla and Faseyn,
although he wasn’t about to ask the Guards.
    He opened the door to the alchemy shop
and stepped inside. The air smelled of all sorts of odors that shifted as he
stepped toward the counter set directly facing the door, less than four cubits
back. Clyndal turned from the workbench and moved to the counter. His face was
lined, and his gray hair thin. His water green eyes smiled with his mouth.
“Young Rahl, I thought your father might send you. What I have here is in a
leather folder, but if he could copy it, and then bind both, I’d be much
obliged. I’d pay for the extra binding, you understand. He said a plain binding
would be a gold.”
    “I can’t offer a price, ser,” Rahl said
with a smile. “Not when he’s already talked with you.”
    “Smart son.” Clyndal handed the stained
thick leather folder to Rahl. “Be most careful.”
    “That I will, ser.” Rahl paused, then
asked, “I see that the