The proprietor turned… and froze, looking at the mage-guard uniform. After a long moment, Kysant looked from Deybri to Rahl and back to Deybri.
"He's from Recluce, Kysant," Deybri said softly. "He's eaten here with Thorl, and he was exiled for a time. So they sent him back as an envoy to the magisters."
"Would it help if I spoke Temple?" Rahl asked in that language, accompanied by a sheepish grin.
"You… startled me, ser. You…"
"Could we just have a table?" Rahl asked. "The last meal I had here was so good…"
"Oh… of course…" Kysant escorted them to a corner table, one with no one seated nearby, not that there were many in the place, not when it was still late afternoon and not an end-day. He seated Deybri.
Rahl sat across from her.
"Can I get you something to drink?" asked Kysant.
Rahl looked to Deybri. "Leshak?"
She nodded.
"Two, please."
After the proprietor hurried away, Deybri looked to Rahl. "You scared Kysant. He saw you in that uniform, and it terrified him."
"I think his parents must have told terrible stories about the mage-guards," reflected Rahl. "He didn't grow up in Hamor, from what your uncle said."
"That's true." She paused, as if uncertain what to say next.
Rahl could see Kysant preparing a pitcher and two tall goblets. "Kysant will be back with our drinks before long. Why don't you order for us both?"
"You trust me with that?" The words were accompanied with a smile.
"I'd trust you with far more than that, and you know it."
"You do make things difficult, you know?"
Rahl wasn't quite sure how to respond to that. So he just shrugged
… helplessly.
Kysant returned with a tray that held the glass pitcher of leshak and two crystal goblets, then set a goblet before each and half-filled both goblets.
"Kysant," said Rahl with a smile, "you can tell people that your place is so good that a Hamorian mage-guard traveled all the way here to eat."
"Ah… yes, ser. Have you decided… a light lunch… or more?"
Rahl nodded to Deybri.
"The pashtaki and kasnya for appetizers, and the cumin fowl with sweet rice, with a side of biastras…"
Rahl watched and listened. Once Kysant had left, he lifted his goblet. "To the loveliest healer in Recluce."
Deybri actually blushed. Then she shook her head. "You're impossible."
"You already knew that."
She sipped the leshak, and so did Rahl. It was better than he recalled, smooth and cool, bearing hints of pearapple, greenberries, honey, and an even tinier trace of pine.
"How did you know that I was an envoy?" he asked after several moments. "I hadn't gotten around to telling you."
She smiled. "You've changed. Once that would have been one of the first things you said."
"It didn't seem so important. Not now." Rahl waited for her to go on.
"Tamryn told everyone that the Emperor had sent two envoys to Nylan, and that they were both black mage-guards. Everyone was cautioned to be most courteous." Deybri laughed. "I had no idea you were one of them."
"They sent me because I'm the only one who knew about the smuggling and the theft in the Nylan Merchant Association in Swartheld. That was how I ended up in the ironworks at Luba. Director Shyret dosed me with nemysa because he didn't know I was a sort of mage…" Rahl went on to outline quickly his progression from loader to clerk to mage-clerk and finally to mage-guard. "… couldn't have done it if Taryl had not found ways to help me regain some of my abilities, and to train some of the others."
At that point, he stopped because Kysant arrived with a large circular platter bearing the deep-fried pashtakis and what looked to be small pastry crescents.
"Uncle Thorl doesn't like kasnya." Deybri picked up one of the crescents. "He thinks they're bland, but their taste is just more subtle."
Rahl took one and nibbled it. After a moment, he nodded. The taste was a combination of almond and other spices that he could not identify, but he enjoyed the flavor. "It's good. I like it."
"You're not just saying that?"
"No. Especially with you, I wouldn't do that."
Rahl enjoyed the appetizers, but not so much as just looking at Deybri.
At that moment, Kysant escorted three men into the room, seating them at a round table in the corner farthest from Rahl and Deybri. One was clearly a trader, and he kept looking at Rahl, finally murmuring something to the others.
"You'll have everyone in Nylan talking for eightdays after you've left," said Deybri in a low voice.
"It might help Kysant." Rahl didn't really want to think about leaving.
Before he could say more, Kysant arrived with the main course-the cumin fowl and the biastras.
The fowl breasts had been cut into thin strips, then braised and laid on a bed of sticky rice. Deybri served them each several strips and rice.
Rahl found the meat tender, moist, and piquant-as well as slightly smoky and pearapple sweet. The rice carried the same flavors, with a hint of crunchiness. "I like this."
"I'm glad."
While Rahl was careful to wrap the spicy biastra in the thin flat bread, after a mouthful he realized that it was nowhere near as hot and spicy as he had recalled. Then he glanced across at Deybri, who had taken a cloth and was blotting her forehead.
"These are spicier," she said, "and you're not even noticing." She laughed softly. "That's another way you've changed. I still remember the expression on your face when you took the first bite of a biastra."
"I've had to eat hot food for more than a year. Some of it wouldn't have been edible if I'd been able to taste it."
"Luba? That must have been awful."
"I wouldn't recommend it to anyone," Rahl said slowly, "but it wasn't as bad as people say. The guards and overseers were more patient than you'd think. I once watched a mage-guard tell an overseer that if he didn't take better care of his men, he'd be one of them."
"I wouldn't be surprised if it was every bit as bad as they say," Deybri replied. "You just learned how to handle it."
"I suppose I did, but I only saw one or two cases where the overseers were cruel, and I wasn't the only loader who got promoted to checker."
"Checker?"
"A low-level clerk who keeps track of the iron shipments. That was how Taryl found me." Rahl went on to explain, concluding, "… and I was reading about Recluce and the magisters when the rest of my memories came back, and I sent word to Taryl, and I became a clerk at the mage-guard station. As soon as I had enough coins, I wrote you."
Deybri just nodded.
After several long moments of silence, Rahl said, "Thank you again for letting my parents know." He managed a smile.
"You could have sent a letter to them… rather than me."
"I could have, but I could only afford one letter," Rahl said slowly, looking across the table into her gold-flecked brown eyes. "You told me that the past had no hold on me. That might have been true once. It's not any longer. It hasn't been for a long time, now."
Deybri met his eyes without looking away. "I know."
"And?"
"Rahl… you have come back to Nylan, and you may again… but already, you are not truly of Recluce… or even of Nylan."
"You might be right, but why do you say that?"
"You're different. Stronger within. I don't mean in order, although that is also true, and it may come that you will become even more powerful in time." She paused as Kysant arrived to take the empty plates and platters.
Rahl realized that the light had dimmed in the room because it was twilight outside. He hadn't really paid any attention.
"Any sweets?" asked the proprietor.
"The orange cake, if you have it. Two slices," replied Deybri.
"An excellent choice, lady." Kysant bowed, but his eyes avoided Rahl.
Once Kysant had left, Deybri added, "I like it because it's sweet, but not cloying."