Free Colors of Chaos by L. E. Modesitt Page B

hand.
    “… only a dream…” Except it wasn’t, not exactly. The forest and the clinging vines had been a dream, but Anya had definitely been outside his door on her way to visit Faltar. He’d sensed her chaos aura before-on all the times when she’d visited Faltar when he and Cerryl had been only student mages. Now that Faltar was a full mage, albeit junior like Cerryl, there was no reason they couldn’t sleep together, but Anya was still sneaking to see Faltar. That meant she didn’t want it known she was seeing Faltar. Was she fearful of Sterol’s jealousy? Cerryl shook his head slowly.
    Lyasa had mentioned Anya and Jeslek-so how many mages was Anya bedding? Cerryl frowned, recalling the words of Benthann-the mistress of the scrivener Tellis, for whom he’d apprenticed before the Guild had found him. What had Benthann said? Something like…
    “Sex is the only power a woman has in Fairhaven. Remember that. Even if she has a strong room full of coins or, light forbid, she’s a mage, sex is the only real power a woman has… The only thing a man offers a woman, really, is power. Coins are power. Don’t forget that. Sex for power, power for sex, that’s the way the world works.”
    So… Anya, powerful a mage as she was, was trading sex for power? Or a future obligation or… something? Cerryl took a deep breath.
    Darkness, he hoped it didn’t turn out that way between him and Leyladin. It seemed different… but how would he know?
    You know… you have to trust yourself… His lips tightened. That was easy enough to think, but he’d already seen how easy it was for people, even for himself, to deceive themselves.
    Will you be able to avoid deceiving yourself? Still shivering under the blanket, he massaged his aching forehead, knowing that the morning would come all too early. Far, far, far too early.
     
     
    XI
     
    Cerryl wiped his forehead. Even in the shaded part of the rampart area of the guardhouse he was hot, and summer had yet to come. The afternoons were getting warmer and warmer, and it would be at least another eight-day, from what he’d heard, before Kinowin split gate-guard duty into two rotations. With his luck, he’d probably get the hot late-afternoon duty.
    Creeaaakkkk… He glanced out along the White highway to the north. A single cart rolled toward the gates. The gray donkey pulling it was led by a white-haired woman who plodded down the road almost as methodically as the beast.
    Cerryl couldn’t sense any medallion on the cart, and he leaned over the rampart. “Gyral?”
    “Yes, ser?” The lanky detail leader glanced up.
    “Do us both a favor and yell to that woman. Tell her that if she doesn’t have a medallion and she gets close to the gates, I’ll have to destroy her cart and take her donkey. Just tell her to turn around and take one of the farm roads-or something. Or that she’ll need to get a medallion right now.”
    The White Guard frowned, then grinned. “You know her?”
    “No. I just don’t like taking things from old women. Maybe she doesn’t know the laws.”
    “I don’t know, ser. Some of them are pretty stubborn. I’ll try.” Gyral marched away from the two other guards toward the approaching peasant.
    Creaaakkk… The cart carried several stacks of woven grass baskets and some of reeds. The woman made her way toward the gates, aided by a long wooden staff half again her height.
    Gyral squared his shoulders. “Woman! You can’t use the White roads without a medallion. If you come to the gates and you don’t have the coppers for a medallion, then we’ll have to take your cart and donkey.”
    The roads be for all. That be what you White ninnies are always saying. I be one of the all, and I need to sell my baskets so that my family can live till harvest. And no spare coppers are you a-getting.“
    “You can’t bring the cart in on the highway,” Gyral answered. “Not without a medallion.”
    “There be no other way. Like as you know