Imager's Intrigue: The Third Book of the Imager Portfolio (28 page)

“Thank you, Maitre Rhennthyl.” He paused, then added, “We all appreciate what you have done. You will always be welcome here in Third District.”

“Thank you…all of you.”

I wasn’t a believer in long farewells, and I’d never put any personal items in the captain’s study. So I didn’t have to take anything with me when I left a short time later.

Lebryn took South Middle out to the Midroad, then followed it around the Guild Square to where it became the Boulevard D’Imagers. Two blocks past the Guild Square, we passed another pile of gray rubble—where, weeks before, had stood an older three-story structure that had housed L’Excelsis Indemnity. That had to have been a deliberate target. I’d have to check the list Artois had promised, once it arrived, to see if there was a pattern to the buildings that had been damaged or destroyed.

With all the traveling, I didn’t get back to Imagisle until the first glass of the afternoon. Beleart caught me before I even reached my study with a request that I meet with Maitre Dyana as soon as I returned. I did hang my winter cloak in my study before I headed upstairs.

Gherard motioned for me to go into Maitre Dyana’s study even before I said a word. As always, I closed the door behind me. Dyana was writing something and nodded for me to sit down. I took one of the middle chairs and waited.

After several moments, she replaced the pen in its stand and looked up. “You left Imagisle. Are you up to that?”

“For short periods. I took a duty coach and met with Artois. He’s promoted Alsoran to captain to succeed me, and he’s promised a listing of the damaged buildings once it’s complete. I also met with Cydarth. Is he still pressing the Council to make him Commander?”

“Neither Rholyn nor I have heard anything along those lines.”

“He’s likely biding his time. He might be waiting for something to discredit Artois.”

“While Artois is hoping something will appear to discredit Cydarth,” she suggested.

“Will it?”

“That is what you should be telling me,” Maitre Dyana replied.

I thought for a moment. “Geuffryt wanted me to reveal the payments to Cydarth…and to Caartyl. He didn’t say that, but he did insist that his source was trusted and had never been wrong. What he said bothered me then, and the more I’ve thought about it, the more it bothers me. If the Collegium revealed something like that, even if it were true, the disclosure would create an impression we don’t need. Further…the funds have never been touched. The Navy wants more ships. Who controls the Civic Patrol shouldn’t matter to the Naval Command. Who controls building the ships—or keeping them from being built—does matter. That strongly suggests that the whole business was a ploy to get the Collegium to act in some way to further the Navy’s interests. Revealing that we know about fund transfers, even when we don’t, would reduce trust in our impartiality.”

“That part is clear enough,” Dyana replied. “But why would the Naval Bureau want to reduce our influence when we’ve supplied them with materials and new devices and when we’re more inclined to support modernizing the fleet?”

“I don’t have an answer to that, but I can’t see anything else that makes sense.”

“Neither can I. It might be best if you devoted time and thought to seeing what else you can discover that bears on that.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Have you found out any more about the Ferrans?”

“There were two more teams with explosives. They were found dead in Third District. The explosives are missing.”

She shook her head. “That’s somewhat better than losing people and buildings. You think it was your taudischefs?”

“They’re not mine, in that sense, but I’m certain it was. I haven’t had time to chase them down.” Nor did I want to spend extended times holding full shields when I had the feeling that I wouldn’t learn that much.

“Three hundred people died in the explosions here. The numbers are similar in Kherseilles, Solis, Estisle, and Westisle.”

I’d noted the numbers, already. They were surprisingly low. “There’s another concern. So far, I haven’t seen any attacks or explosions affecting large manufactories or shipworks, and there were only two affecting the ironway. Also, with the exception of the agents we’ve found in Third District, and those killed on the bombard barges, we haven’t found a single Ferran agent.”

“Every one who has been found is dead, and all the deaths are connected to you,” Maitre Dyana pointed out.

“I’ve thought of that. But some of those deaths occurred when I was in no shape to do anything.”

“Most people wouldn’t know that.” She rose. “That’s two concerns for which we need answers, Maitre Rhennthyl.”

I stood and inclined my head. There wasn’t much point in saying more.

Back in my study, I reviewed the reports, but didn’t find much there.

Later in the afternoon, I checked with Kahlasa, but she hadn’t found anyone who was missing barges in the L’Excelsis area, and it would take longer to find out from concerns downriver.

I spent the rest of the afternoon with the reports and with maps, trying to find some link that might make sense. My head was aching by the time I walked into the house close to fifth glass.

“Dada!” Diestrya threw both arms around my legs.

“Diestrya.” I picked her up and hugged her, although I wasn’t so sure that I didn’t need the hug more than she did.

Seliora appeared about the time I set our daughter down. “I sent off a note to your mother, like you told me. Are you sure you’ll be up to dinner on Vendrei?”

“Physically, I’d be up to it now.” My mother’s dinner invitation was her way of forcing me to tell her how I really was. “She’s never gotten over my evasions when I was severely injured before we were married.”

“Mothers do worry.”

“True enough.” I settled into the big chair in the family parlor, glad to be off my feet, even though I hadn’t stood all that much during the course of the day. But it had been a long day. “We didn’t have much of a chance to talk last night because Diestrya was so fussy, but something Ferlyn had said the other day struck me. I still can’t quite say why.”

“You might tell me what he said.” Seliora perched on the end of the settee.

“He was talking about the way lands are…I guess you’d say…structured. How, unless Solidar becomes more organized, Ferrum will supplant us as the leading land of Terahnar. I almost got the picture of a land filled with manufactories and little else, where even the crops are harvested by machines, perhaps by great steam monsters like the Ferran land-cruisers. Where would that leave places like NordEste Design?”

“We’d survive. We’re already a manufactory. We’re one that requires great skill, but we use machines for everything that we can. The ones who would suffer would be the carpenters and cabinet makers. It will happen sooner or later, because the same card techniques we use for the looms should be able to be adapted to wood-working, even metalwork.”

“Why hasn’t it happened already?”

“The guilds have opposed it. That’s another reason why we only belong to the guilds as individuals in different fields of artisanship.”

“Don’t they know?”

“I’m sure they do, but what we do is so costly that it’s clear we’d never take away jobs. Father and I already figured out how to design lathes to produce hundreds of simple table legs and tops, but to make it profitable, we’d have to produce hundreds, maybe thousands, every year.”

“If you can do it…”

“Someone will, sooner or later,” Seliora said. “But the laws limiting the number of crafters and artisans under a single guildmaster would have to be changed. So would the requirement for all products for dwellings or buildings to be made by the family or owner or by a guildmaster or his journeymen or apprentices.”

“Has anyone in your family heard about Glendyl or anyone on the Council trying to do something to grant more power to the factors? Or to reduce the power of the guilds?”

She shook her head.

“Still…it wouldn’t happen that way,” I mused. “They’d try to bring it about by saying that what ever it was would benefit everyone, and that the guilds were trying to line their own purses at the expense of everyone else.”

“Aren’t they?” asked Seliora. “We can make a plain chair for much less than the crafters charge. We don’t do it because there’s no point in it for us. Even the woodworks in Third District could charge far less than it does, if we weren’t spending so much on continually training workers. So could the paper mill, and that’s with a facility that’s too small to be as efficient as it could be. How much longer can the guilds keep the better machines out?”

I fingered my chin, thinking. Was that why Caartyl had often allied himself and the other guild counselors with the High Holders? Because both had a vested interest in keeping matters as they were and had been? I had another thought. If Cydarth in fact happened to be innocent of receiving the funds Geuffryt had directed Juniae D’Shendael to write about and Caartyl was not…what would be the political implications if both transactions were revealed?

“What would be the reaction if Caartyl were discovered receiving funds from a High Holder?”

“He’d be forced to resign…if something worse didn’t happen. Someone else would replace him—”

“Alucion, most likely, and he doesn’t care much for the High Holders.” Enough, I suspected, that he would rather support Glendyl than Ramsael and the other High Holder Councilors. It wouldn’t hurt the stonecutters because there weren’t any machines that could cut or sculpt stone effectively. Not so far, anyway. “I need to talk to Baratyn about some of this. I probably should have done so already.”

“You can’t do everything all at once, dearest,” Seliora pointed out, looking hard at Diestrya, who actually caught the look and retreated from the stove. “Especially after what you’ve been through.”

“I may not be able to, but I fear that’s what’s required.”

“You can only do what you can do.” Seliora stood. “If you would watch your daughter, I’d like to check on dinner.”

“I
can
do that.” I scooped up Diestrya and set her in my lap, still thinking about Ferlyn. There was something else…not anything he’d said, but an implication of what he’d said. Things had to change, for the guilds, for the factors, for the High Holders…but they also had to change for the Collegium…and I hadn’t even thought about that.

For the first two glasses on Jeudi morning, from seventh glass to ninth glass, I met with three of the four remaining junior imagers for whom I had become preceptor—Haugyl, Marteon, and Shault. I didn’t have to spend quite so much time with Shault, because I’d been more involved with him from the time Horazt had brought him to Imagisle.

Before he left, though, he did ask, “Will you still watch out for Third District, sir?”

“As I can, but Captain Alsoran also knows the district, and he will do well.”

“Yes, sir.”

I could tell that didn’t totally convince him, and I understood his concern, since Horazt was his “uncle” and his mother still lived in Third District and likely always would, at least until and if Shault attained the rank of Maitre. That was likely years away, since I’d been one of the youngest Maitres when I’d become a Maitre D’Aspect at twenty-six.

Once I’d ushered Shault out, I went looking for Ferlyn, but he wasn’t in his study. Asomyd, the duty second in the administration building, couldn’t say where he might be, other than he’d left with Quaelyn, the not-quite-ancient pattern-master of the Collegium and Ferlyn’s mentor.

After that, I checked with Kahlasa and Schorzat, but neither had any new information, either about events in Cloisera or about leased, sold, or missing barges. As I thought about the afternoon, and the memorial service, where Iryela was certain to be, I realized that I’d never followed up on what might have happened to her brother. He hadn’t been mentioned in any of the recent reports from the Collegium at Mont D’Glace, only in the older report that Dichartyn had received. So I drafted a quick inquiry and sent Beleart to post it.

By then it was noon. Since I knew Baratyn would be at the Council Chateau, after a quiet mid-day meal at the dining hall, I took one of the duty coaches and, again, had the driver—Desalyt, this time—wait so that I’d have a ride down to the Council Anomen for Suyrien’s public memorial service at second glass.

I did enter the Chateau through the narrow gate at the rear, the one reserved for the security force. Although I hadn’t been to the Council Chateau recently, the obdurate guards had clearly been briefed, because the duty sentry outside greeted me by name.

The Council wasn’t in session, and the corridors were quiet, but Baratyn was in his study, seated at his desk and looking down at several sheets of paper. The chamber was without decoration except for the two wall hangings. The large hanging on the wall to the right depicted the four-pointed star of the Collegium Imago. The one on the left depicted the Council emblem, a sheaf of grain crossed by a hammer and a sword. The hangings also concealed, I knew from my time in Council security, listening tubes connected to a number of public places in the Council Chateau, although I doubted anyone but Baratyn could have overheard that much from some of the tubes.

“Good afternoon,” I offered.

“Maitre Rhennthyl…you surprised me. No one visits when the Council is out.”

“That’s why I’m here.” I slipped closed the study door and took one of the chairs opposite him, gesturing for him to sit down. “I need your information and insight.’

“That’s why I’m here.”

“Among a few other things,” I replied dryly.

“There are a few.”

“You do follow the Council deliberations and debates, don’t you?” I was fairly certain he did, but Dichartyn had never actually gone into that with me.

“As I can. I listen more to what is said outside the Council chambers.”

That wasn’t surprising, given all the listening tubes that fed into his study, and the fact that Baratyn doubtless used personal concealment shields. “Which is more valuable, I suspect.”

“Often.” Baratyn smiled faintly.

“I have the impression that Caartyl, for all that he may say publicly, tends to ally himself far more with the High Holders than with the factors. Is this so, or am I missing something?”

Baratyn tilted his head slightly, then frowned before he spoke. “I don’t know that it’s that simple. He’s opposed to anything that might give the factors more power. I even overheard him arguing with Alucion several months ago. He told the old stonecutter that having Glendyl in charge of the Executive Council would be even worse than having Haestyr succeed Suyrien. He also said that, for now, Suyrien was the best to head the Council.” He laughed softly. “Not that there’s much choice now.”

“But?” I paused before adding, “You said it wasn’t that simple.”

“Caartyl’s also fought for better working conditions for those on High Holder lands, and he’s sided with Glendyl on measures to reduce the scope of punishments allowed under High Holder low justice.”

“Did those measures succeed?”

“They finally passed at the end of Erntyn, but they won’t take effect until the beginning of the new year. All the factor Councilors and all the guild Councilors voted for them. In the end, Suyrien brought the measure up for a vote and supported them, against the other High Holders, but I think that was to get some concessions.”

“What concessions?”

“There were some changes before the final vote by the Council. How many were trade-offs or concessions and how many were technical improvements might be a matter of opinion. One change dealt with justiciary review. Under the original proposal, any complaint of abuse of low justice required witnesses and proof before it could be reviewed by a regional justicer. The change added one more requirement. If a complaint is brought by anyone in the immediate family of the High Holder, it must also be co-signed by an individual who is neither employed by the High Holder nor a member of his immediate family.”

“How did they define immediate family?”

“Mother, wife, children, grandchildren, or sibling.”

“I can understand why the High Holders might want that. Did anyone speak against the provision?”

“How could they? No one but the Council even knew about the change. I doubt if any factors or guild Councilors really care about what happens in a High Holder’s family.”

“Would any other change have made a bigger effect than was obvious?”

“There was one…” mused Baratyn. “Under the final law, any low justice sentence that results in permanent injury to the malefactor may be appealed to the Solidaran regional justicer for damages. Suyrien insisted that, when appeals were denied, the malefactor be held responsible for a minimum of one third of the costs of the appeal.”

“Those living on High Holder lands couldn’t afford anything like even a tenth of those costs,” I pointed out. “That would greatly reduce the number of appeals, especially for those with families. It might even effectively stop them altogether. And no one in the Council said anything?”

“Councilor Hemwyt objected, and Suyrien pointed out that without some cost-sharing, every case where a malefactor could prove any sort of injury of the most minor sort would end up being appealed. In the end, Suyrien agreed to reduce the cost-share to one fifth, and the measure was passed that way.”

“Were there any other ‘minor’ changes?”

“Some were technical corrections, changes in terms, but there was one other. It required, for purposes of evaluations and levies, that all property be assessed in value at market value on the thirty-fifth of Finitas each year. There was some considerable debate on that, but the factors and the guilds all agreed with Suyrien. Once they saw the language they immediately wanted it adopted.”

“The last day of the year has always been the traditional date for assessments and valuations for everyone else,” I pointed out. “I imagine that’s why they liked the idea.”

“Some of the High Holders—as I recall, Haestyr and Regial—protested that it didn’t take into account that agricultural goods are valued at harvest prices, and that lands are valued off of crop yields.”

There was definitely something there, but I’d have to look into that. Ferlyn might be able to help me. “Who would have been affected by that? Besides Haestyr and Regial?”

“In practice, it would have hurt all the High Holders who only have lands and herds, such as those north of Cloisonyt or in the prairies and woods of the northwest. It might affect those around Asseroiles, like Haestyr.”

Certainly every High Holder would have favored the first two changes, but would the third one have angered another High Holder enough to have him break the traditional practice of never using direct violence against another High Holder? Or would one of the wealthier factors or one of the guild representatives have wanted Suyrien dead because he was effective in subtly undermining reforms of the worst abuses by High Holders?

“Do you know why Suyrien wanted the valuation change?”

“He only said that he felt a uniform system of valuation was necessary, one that treated factors, crafters, shop keepers, and High Holders in the same fashion, and one that didn’t include speculation in valuation.”

That sounded like Suyrien. “Do you have any ideas about what he really had in mind?”

Baratyn shook his head. “He must have had something in mind, but what ever it was, I never knew.”

I could believe that. “I have a duty coach. Would you like to ride with me to the anomen for Suyrien’s memorial service?”

“I’d appreciate that, sir.”

I stood, and we walked out through the security doors and gate to the coach.

Baratyn said nothing, even after we were moving away from the Chateau.

“Do you have any idea who might have arranged for Suyrien’s shooting?” I finally asked.

He shook his head. “It took place at his L’Excelsis estate, not here. I was told that he was walking down to the boat house on the river.”

That made sense, because getting close to a High Holder on his own estate would have been difficult, while the river was open to anyone with a boat. Still…someone had to have reconnoitered the estate in order to know from where on the river what part of the estate could be vulnerable to a sniper.

Although we arrived almost a quint before the service was to begin, over a hundred people were already standing in the anomen, and murmurs filled the hall. I eased over to the left, almost against the wall some three yards back from the first line of those who were already there. I didn’t see Maitre Dyana, but I hadn’t expected her. Maitre Rholyn was in the second rough row back, but on the far side of the anomen from us. I didn’t see anyone else from the Collegium, although I did see Glendyl and Caartyl, on opposite sides of the hall. There was no one in military uniform, either.

As the bells struck the glass, the family walked in from the left side and stood in a line facing the front of the anomen.

I didn’t know the chorister who stepped up to the pulpit. That wasn’t surprising, since I’d never attended services at the Council Anomen. He was tall and thin, with silvering hair. “We are gathered here together this afternoon in the spirit of the Nameless, in affirmation of the quest for goodness and mercy in all that we do, and in celebration of the life of Suyrien D’Alte, High Holder and Councilor of Solidar, a man distinguished in all that he did.”

The opening hymn was “The Glory of the Nameless.” I sang, but as quietly as possible. Beside me, Baratyn sang even more softly, if that were indeed possible.

Then came the confession.

“We do not name You, for naming is a presumption, and we would not presume upon the creator of all that was, is, and will be….” As the words of the confession echoed through the anomen, I glanced around, my eyes coming to rest on Suyrien’s family at the front, a silver-haired woman flanked by Frydryk and Alynkya on one side and by Kandryl and Iryela on the other, with a younger woman, who was probably a sister, beside Iryela.

“In peace and harmony,” came the response.

After that came the charge from the chorister. “Life is a gift from the Nameless, for from the glory of the Nameless do we come; through the glory of the Nameless do we live, and to that glory do we return. Our lives can only reflect and enhance that glory, as did that of Suyrien, whom we honor, whom we remember, and who will live forever in our hearts and in the glory of the Nameless.”

Another hymn followed—“Honor Has No Name.”

I agreed with the sentiments and words of the hymn, but both the music and the words were strained, as often was the case when philosophy or religion mixed with music.

Then the chorister said, “Now we will hear from Frydryk D’Suyrien, speaking for the family.”

The memorial service would be the last time Frydryk would be called that publicly. After the service, he would be Suyrien D’Alte, probably called “Young Suyrien” for a time. As was the custom, Frydryk did not take the pulpit, but the topmost step of the sacristy dais. He faced the more than two hundred people who had come to pay their respects to the family, or more accurately, I suspected, to sign the registry to ensure that their presences were known to the family.

Frydryk had to clear his throat several times before he finally began. “My father, above all, was an honorable man. He believed in honor in word and deed above all else. From the time we were children, he stressed the importance of honor. He believed that even true love was not possible if a man and woman did not enter into it with honor…”

I listened carefully as Frydryk catalogued in more than moderate length all the ways in which his sire had been honorable and managed not to sigh in relief when he had finished. I was sure he believed all he had said, and I was equally sure that Suyrien had believed it and that he was more honorable than the vast majority of High Holders. Unhappily, given the way most of them construed “honor” and the fashion in which all too many of them ignored it in practice, Frydryk wasn’t saying as much as he thought he had said.

Once Frydryk rejoined his family, the chorister moved to the pulpit again. “At this time, we wear gray and green, gray for the uncertainties of life, and green for its triumph, manifested every year in the coming of spring. So is it that, like nature, we come from the grayness of winter and uncertainty into life which unfolds in uncertainty, alternating between gray and green, and in the end return to the life and glory of the Nameless. In that spirit, let us offer thanks for the spirit and the life of Suyrien D’Alte. Let us remember him as a child, a youth, a man, a husband, and a father, as not just a Councilor, but as a man devoted to Solidar and to the spirit of serving to the best of his considerable abilities, not merely a name, but as a living breathing person whose spirit touched many. Let us set aside the gloom of mourning, and from this day forth, recall the glory of Suyrien D’Alte’s life and the warmth and joy he has left with us…”