Recluce 07 - Chaos Balance by L.E Modesitt Page A

watched Nylan haggle.
       Ayrlyn's eyes took in both the traders and the Marshal, and her eyes went to Skiodra's hand again. Quietly, she dismounted and passed the two sets of reins to Saryn.
       Skiodra frowned as the healer stepped up, and he paused in his description of the anvil in the cart.
       “A token of good faith,” Ayrlyn said, and her fingers brushed his wrist, settling there-lightly.
       Perspiration beaded on the trader's forehead.
       Nylan wanted to laugh at the man's fear, but instead he only let his own senses follow Ayrlyn as she eased the forces of order around the infected hand and pressed out the chaos and infection.
       “Now,” she said. “It will heal properly.”
       Skiodra swallowed, and began to sweat even more as the healer remounted, sending a faint smile to the big trader. The faintest of frowns crossed Ryba's countenance, then vanished.
       In the end, a half-dozen blades paid for not quite two dozen barrels of wheat flour, a barrel of maize flour, two barrels of kerneled corn for the chickens, the second true anvil that Nylan had wanted, two large wedges of cheese, and a keg of nails.
       “Do you have to go through all those charades?” Ryba asked as the guards rode back up the ridge, the cart creaking behind them, while Skiodra and his entourage headed slowly westward along the road that wound toward Lornth.
       “They seem to expect it,” Saryn said, looking back over her shoulder at both the departing traders, and at the darkening clouds that foretold a possible late afternoon storm. “Ayrlyn's little effort knocked something off the prices, too, I'd bet.” Ayrlyn brushed her hair off her forehead, but said nothing. “What do you think, Ayrlyn?” asked Ryba.
       “Skiodra's heart wasn't in it. He's afraid of us.”
       “You certainly added to that,” pointed out Ryba.
       “If he died from that infection, and with the lack of medical knowledge here, he could have, then we'd have to break in another traveling trader.”
       “I'd rather not,” said Nylan, recalling how long it had taken to convince Skiodra.
       “So why is he here now?” asked Saryn. “Westwind isn't exactly the crossroads of Candar, and he's afraid of us.”
       “Business is bad elsewhere,” hazarded Nylan.
       “The war ... it couldn't have bankrupted Gallos or Lornth-not over a few thousand armsmen.”
       “Something else, then,” said Nylan. “The floods in Cyador.”
       “Are you sure he wasn't inventing that?” asked Ryba.
       “I don't think so.” Nylan shrugged. “I don't know. We'll have to keep our ears open.”
       “With all the travelers flocking through the Westhorns?” Ryba snorted.
       Behind her, Nylan and Ayrlyn exchanged glances.
       “This is the first time Skiodra hasn't tried something,” Saryn pointed out.
       “It's also the first time since we wiped out two armies,” replied Ryba, unsheathing one of her blades and running through an exercise with it.
       Behind them, Effama flicked the leads to the cart horse, and the cart creaked slowly through the damp ground uphill toward the top of the ridge and the stone road that would make the descent easier.
       “I'd like to have gotten more flour,” Nylan said to Ayrlyn. “But he didn't have any, and he knows we'll buy it. That's why I think he was telling the truth about the floods.”
       “Cyador again. Why haven't we heard about this place before?”
       “They could be isolationists, like the Rats.”
       “In a low-tech culture?” asked Saryn from in front of them, turning in her saddle for a moment.
       “It's easier in a low-tech culture,” the engineer pointed out.
       Ayrlyn shivered and fastened her jacket as they reached the top of the ridge where the wind was stronger.
       Nylan rode the mare all the way back past the tower and up to the stables, unlike Ryba, who dismounted at the causeway and let one of the guards in Llyselle's