Natural Ordermage by L. E. Modesitt Read Free Book Online

needs to be kept moist,” Khorlya added. “So tell her what it is immediately.”
    “Yes, Mother.”
    “You’re going to court a girl, not to exile.” Exasperation colored Khorlya’s words.
    He was being told to court a girl he didn’t want to consort who lived on lands four kays from anywhere, and it wasn’t exile?
    “Now… you take the High Road south, until you get to the base of the long rise that leads to the Black Holding. There’s a lane that heads east, with two stone pillars there, and a set of horns on the right pillar. You take the lane almost a kay until you get to the fork…”
    Rahl listened carefully. The last thing he wanted was to get lost—and then have to admit it and ask someone for directions.
    “I hope you have a pleasant day, and if you run into trouble, try to talk before you use that truncheon.” Kian opened the door, a clear sign that Rahl was to be on his way.
    “And make sure her day is pleasant, too,” added Khorlya.
    “I’ll do what I can.”
    “Do better than that,” suggested Kian.
    “Yes, ser.” Rahl inclined his head, then stepped out into the sunlight.
    Once he began to walk southward, he felt better. The breeze was just brisk enough to be cooling. At the corner, he saw Quelerya and Alamat sitting on the weaver’s porch. He grinned and waved with the hand that wasn’t carrying the basket. “Good day!”
    “Good day, Rahl,” Alamat called.
    Quelerya said nothing, but Rahl could sense curiosity from the old biddy. He kept walking. As he passed the short lane to Sevien’s dwelling, he glanced down it, but he didn’t see anyone there. He walked almost half a kay before his sandals were on the smooth stone-paved surface of the High Road.
    He looked southward. He had at least another two kays before he reached the lane. His eyes strayed to the low black-stone buildings at the distant crest of the rise. Were his parents doing the same thing to him that Creslin’s mother had done to him? He shook his head but kept walking.
    Behind him, he heard hoofs, and then a voice called out, “‘Ware on the left!”
    He eased to the right side and glanced up as a rider in the black of a Council Guard went by. The woman didn’t even really look at him as she hurried past. She could have offered a greeting, but some of the Guards thought they were so important. He snorted. They were all errand runners for the Council. From what he’d heard and seen, the black engineers in Nylan were the ones who did the real fighting and protected Reduce, not that he was about to say that to either his parents, or Kacet.
    And why were they suddenly so intent on his courting Shahyla? While Rahl had seen and talked to Shahyla more than a few times growing up, he’d never walked all the way to her father’s holding. Why was he doing it? Why were his parents so insistent? Was there something to what his mother had said about machines being used to make books?
    But wasn’t there something he could do besides learn to become a herder? Or a Guard? He’d much rather be a factor, even, and working with Fahla, he suspected, wouldn’t always be easy. But it wouldn’t be boring. He grinned at that thought.
    He looked up and watched as a cart approached. A gray-haired woman walked beside a mare, holding the mare’s leads loosely. The cart held potatoes. They had to be from the previous fall and probably had been stored all winter in a root cellar.
    “Good day,” Rahl said politely as he neared her. “Potatoes for the Guard keep?”
    “Indeed, young ser. How did you know?”
    “It’s end-day, and the markets aren’t open. It would have to be one of the inns or the keep. That’s a lot of potatoes for an inn.” Rahl grinned.
    The woman smiled back as she passed.
    Rahl continued on his way, occasionally passing, and being passed by riders and wagons. None of the teamsters going his way offered him a ride, and he found that irked him, especially when he thought about the man who had an empty