"Is someone asking for me?"
Rahl turned at the sound of her voice.
As Deybri walked toward him, Rahl just watched, taking in the brown hair, the gold-flecked brown eyes, and the warmth within.
She stopped two cubits from him, then laughed, abruptly, but warmly.
Rahl could sense that she was pleased, but not exactly why, and he found himself smiling, if quizzically.
"Oh, Rahl… that look was the greatest compliment I've ever had."
He found himself flushing. "You deserve it."
"That's a Hamorian mage-guard uniform, isn't it? You didn't mention that in your letter." Her eyes did not quite meet his.
"I wasn't a mage-guard then. I was working to be one, but I didn't know if I'd make it, and I wrote as soon as I could… after… everything happened."
"Everything?"
"Is it possible that I could take you to dinner somewhere? I only have tonight. Then I could tell you…"
"I…" Deybri turned and looked at Kelyssa. "Would you?"
"How could I not?" The younger healer grinned. "It'll make a great story."
"Kelyssa…"
"Someday, anyway," added Kelyssa.
Deybri looked hard at the other healer.
"In a few years?"
Deybri nodded.
Rahl managed not to grin as he turned and accompanied Deybri. Outside the infirmary, he glanced sideways at her once more. If anything, she was more beautiful than he recalled.
"Before I forget," Deybri said, "I did send a letter to your parents-"
"Oh… can I post one from here, if I pay for it? I wrote one to them on the ship."
"We could stop by the bursar's study," Deybri said. "It might cost a copper or two more, but it would be easier than going down to the Merchant Association."
"That might be best, for several reasons."
"Oh?"
"That's part of the everything I'm going to tell you."
Deybri led the way back to the main building and down a side corridor off the main corridor and on the east side-well away from where Rahl and Taryl had met with the magisters.
The bursar, an older woman in dark gray, looked up with a clearly startled expression on her face as Rahl and Deybri appeared in the door to her study.
"Elyssa?" Deybri said with a smile. "This is Rahl. He was trained here, and he's now a mage-guard in Hamor, but his ship is in port here. He wanted to send a letter to his parents in Land's End. He can just pay you, can't he?"
"Oh… that won't be a problem." The graying bursar tilted her head. "From what I heard, he's not just an ordinary mage-guard."
Rahl found himself flushing as he extended the envelope. "How much will it be?"
"Oh… not that much. Four coppers. We'll just put it in with everything to the portmaster at Land's End." Elyssa took the envelope and the coppers from Rahl. "Good hand, best I've seen in years."
"I was once a scrivener," Rahl admitted.
"It shows."
"Thank you." Rahl inclined his head.
"That's what we're here for… among other things."
Deybri was smiling and shaking her head as they walked back outside into the late-midafternoon sunlight filtering intermittently through scattered clouds to the west.
Rather than ask what Deybri was thinking, Rahl took a half silver from his wallet. "Thank you for letting my parents know. I said I'd repay you when I could. Will this do?"
"It's more than enough. It's-"
"It's not," Rahl said. "I can't thank you enough." He pressed the small coin on her.
Deybri finally took it. They walked on the west sidewalk of the stone-paved road that led down to the harbor, leaving the training center behind.
"You don't mind walking, do you?" Rahl asked, after they passed an older large stone dwelling he did not remember. "I'd thought we could get an early meal at the place where your uncle took us…"
"If you let me pay for myself."
Rahl shook his head. "I was given coins for a meal here. There's enough for both of us."
"So long as you're not paying. Mage-guards aren't wealthy. I do know that."
"The pay's not bad, better than what I would have gotten as a journeyman scrivener in Land's End." And far better than he'd gotten as a clerk at the Merchant Association or as checker at the ironworks. "How have you been?" He really wanted to tell her that the past did have a hold on him, but something told him not to rush that, and not to blurt it out-much as he wanted to do just that.
"I'm fine. Nothing much has changed here. Thankfully, we haven't had anything like that boiler explosion since you left. I understand that the harbormaster has refused landing to several older ships. They've had to moor offshore."
"Did they ever fix the black wall?"
Deybri laughed. "About a season after you left. Tamryn and Kadara were muttering about it for weeks after that."
Across the road from them, a patroller stopped and stared, clearly startled by a couple where the woman was in the green of a healer and the man in a Hamorian dress uniform.
"You still do manage to startle people, I see," Deybri said.
"They're just not used to seeing Hamorian mage-guards. We might be the first ever actually to walk through Nylan."
"That's possible. Where is your ship?"
"At the naval piers. The engineers moved out all the black ships. We came on a frigate-the Ascadya. I think the idea was to get us here quickly on a warship to convey the presence and concerns of the Emperor, but on one that wouldn't be seen as a threat."
Rahl glanced to his right, toward the small park he had often passed on his way to the harbor. He had thought he might see children playing hoop tag, but the only person in the park was an elderly man feeding bread crumbs to the traitor birds.
"You've been through a lot, haven't you?" she asked softly.
"It has been a long year," he admitted. "The hardest part was finding out that Shyret was betraying Recluce and not being able to do anything about it."
"Oh?"
"The Hamorian Codex doesn't look at things in the same way. There are great penalties for selling shoddy goods or spoiled ones, or for misrepresenting them. But there are no penalties for things like what Shyret was doing. He was telling the Association here that a portion of the goods had spoiled, and then selling them on the side. So the Association had to take the losses…" Rahl tried to explain what had happened and why it wasn't against Hamorian law, and how he had had no real proof of what Shyret was doing. "… and it would only have been my word against his. That was why I'd decided to see the mage-guards on oneday." He shook his head wryly. "You'd think I'd have learned not to wait on something like that. That was how I ended up in Nylan, you know. I waited till oneday to see Magister Puvort in Land's End."
"There's a fine line between when to wait and when not to," Deybri said quietly.
That, Rahl had learned, but he wasn't sure he could always discern when to wait and when not to. He gestured toward the lane on the east side of the road. "Your house is down there, isn't it?"
"It is. Well… it's not really mine. It's Uncle Thorl's, and I pay him rent. Healers at the training center don't make that many coins, either."
"Oh… I didn't know."
"You wouldn't have, Rahl. I never told you."
There was so much about her that he really didn't know, Rahl reflected, and yet… beyond all that, there was something beyond her warmth and beauty that drew him to her. But, to say that would be so presumptuous… but would he ever have another chance to utter such words in person?
As they entered the restaurant, Rahl saw a slender graying man with his back to the entrance talking to a server. Even so, Rahl recognized him. As before, the proprietor was dressed in spotless khaki trousers and shirt, but this time his vest was chartreuse edged in silver thread.
"Kysant, I know you may not have a table," began Rahl in Hamorian, with an apologetic smile, "but I would be most grateful…"