Free Natural Ordermage by L. E. Modesitt Page B

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