Imager (36 page)

Khethila opened the door before I even knocked. She rushed out and threw her arms around me. “Rhenn!”

At that moment, I realized I’d left the flowers behind, but I managed to grin as I disentangled myself. “I did see you last Samedi, you know?”

“It’s been a long week, a very long week. Come in!”

I glanced back and saw the coach pulling away.

Khethila followed my glance. “That’s no hack.”

“No. I was fortunate to get a ride in a Collegium coach.”

“I think I’ve seen one like that before,” mused Khethila, “but I don’t remember where.”

“That’s possible.” I closed the door behind us and managed not to sigh as I released full shields, leaving only the anti-imager trigger shields in place.

“The rear courtyard porch is cooler, and Father and Culthyn are already out there.”

Since it was sheltered and walled, that was fine with me, and I followed her through the house. Father was sitting in the most shaded corner, looking over what appeared to be a ledger.

Culthyn was sitting at the small table with a deck of plaques, playing at solitaire. He looked up after a moment.

“How did you like Kherseilles?” I asked Culthyn, taking the other corner chair.

“It was like any other place.” His tone conveyed boredom.

“Did you do anything interesting?”

“Not much.”

I paused as Nellica appeared and placed a cool glass of some sort of white wine on the side table beside my chair.

Father cleared his throat, loudly enough to catch Culthyn’s attention.

“Well, Rousel did arrange for me to do sailing a couple of times. It was cooler on the water, and once we saw a sea sprite.”

“They don’t usually get close to people.”

“We were pretty far away.”

“Not many people see them,” added Khethila. “You were fortunate.”

“Fortunate indeed,” snorted Father. “You threaten them, and they’re worse than a necrimager.”

“There haven’t been any necrimagers since the bad old times,” Culthyn asserted.

“Not any
known
ones,” I said.

Khethila glanced at me, surprised. “You aren’t saying there are some at the Collegium?”

“Of course not.” Not that I knew, anyway. “What I meant was that just because someone hasn’t seen something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, especially when you’re talking about something like imaging life force into a dead or dying person. You can’t do that, anyway, but I suppose other things . . . are possible.” I realized that I’d almost revealed something I shouldn’t have, and I kept talking to change the subject. “People see things that they don’t understand, and they claim it’s caused by something, usually what they want to believe. There are cases where people have fallen into such a deep trance everyone thought they were dead. Then they wake up. I suspect all the old legends about necrimaging are based on misunderstandings like that.”

Khethila raised her eyebrows, but did not question me.

“You make it sound so dull.” Culthyn gathered together the deck of plaques laid out on the table and shuffled them, then began to deal them out into the six piles for solitaire once more.

“Most things are,” Father offered dryly, “until you understand them even more fully.” He closed the ledger with a thump. “To an observant man, the figures in any business ledger can tell an interesting story.”

I wouldn’t have gone that far, but he did have a point. I also had a glimmer of an idea why Khethila had said it had been a long week. Like Father, she could read behind the figures, but unlike Father, she had no real authority in the factorage.

Mother appeared at the porch door. “Dinner is ready.”

“I’m famished!” Leaving the plaques half dealt on the table, Culthyn bounded up and into the house, past Mother, who had stepped back as if to avoid a charging goat.

“Famished?” I looked to Khethila.

“He heard about what you said to Rousel years ago when he said he was starved.”

“Famished is just as bad.” But I couldn’t stop smiling as we rose and followed, far more sedately.

Once in the dining room, we waited for Father, who finally entered and placed his hands on the back of his armed chair. He looked to me, standing to the right. “Since it is in celebration of your birthday, belated as it may be, you should offer the blessing.”

I nodded. “For the grace and warmth from above, for the bounty of the earth below. . . .”

“In peace and harmony,” came the reply.

“You still offer the artists’ blessing?” asked Culthyn. “You’re not an artist anymore.”

“Actually, I’m still painting. Besides, there isn’t an imagers’ blessing.” I poured Father’s wine, then Mother’s, then my own, before sitting and then handing the carafe to Khethila.

“You can’t paint, can you?” Culthyn looked surprised.

“I can paint. I just can’t get paid for it. I’m actually doing a portrait of one of the senior imagers. That’s when I have time.”

Kiesela carried in a platter with three fowl upon it. Each was halved, and the scent of orange and spices filled the air.

“Naranje duck,” Mother announced. “Rhenn’s favorite, with cumin-cream rice.”

I smiled.

“Worth a small fortune now, cumin is,” Father announced.

“Why?” asked Culthyn.

“It comes from Caenen, mostly,” Father explained as he served half a duck to Mother and then to himself. “They still smuggle it in, but it costs more, and all the spice merchants raise the price even when they have large stocks.”

“Couldn’t you get it from Remaya’s father?”

Mother glared at Culthyn. “One does not take advantage of relatives, nor ask for special favors that will cost them. It’s unfair to impose. Besides, it’s ill-mannered.”

Culthyn squirmed in his chair.

I took a bite of the duck. It was excellent, the orange and the bitters and the apple reduction all turning the meat succulent. The crispy skin was good, too.

“This would be perfect,” Mother offered, “if Rousel and Remaya were here, and . . .” She deliberately left her sentence unfinished.

“But I don’t,” I said, managing a smile, “and I won’t for a while, it’s likely.” I wasn’t about to mention Seliora, not yet, although I suspected it wouldn’t be long.

“He’s still young, yet, Maelyna.”

“Not for that long.” She glanced toward Khethila, but said nothing.

Khethila flushed.

“So . . . what did the Council do this week?” asked Father.

I couldn’t help laughing.

“It’s that amusing?”

“No, sir. It’s just that my duties keep me from knowing, in most cases, what the Council is doing. What I find amusing is that I spend most of the day within twenty yards of the Council chamber, and I don’t know much more than when I spent the entire day at the Collegium.” I’d also laughed at Father’s valiant, but transparent, effort to get the subject away from whom Khethila and I might marry and when. But I did appreciate the attempt.

“Just what is it that you do, dear?” asked Mother quickly. “I don’t believe you’ve ever said or written anything about it.”

“We escort petitioners to see councilors. We help make sure people don’t intrude upon the councilors. Sometimes we carry messages from the councilors to other councilors or to their aides, and we do other things that I can’t mention.”

“Are those scary and dangerous?” asked Culthyn.

I laughed. “Usually they’re boring. Once or twice they could have been dangerous.”

“Do you see factors petitioning the councilors?” asked Father. “Anyone I might know?”

“It’s possible. I don’t know everyone you know. Councilor Etyenn is a cloth factor. I didn’t encounter him, but some of the regular messengers were jesting about the fact that he spends as little time as possible in L’Excelsis.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Father replied. “He has the largest cloth warehouses in Solidar. It’s a wonder that he has any time to devote to the Council.”

“Do you know him?”

“We’ve met a few times, and we’ve provided some special wools to him on a few occasions. He was never early with payment, but never late, either.”

“What is he like personally?”

“He seemed pleasant enough, if a bit preoccupied. Who else have you seen?”

“More than a few spice and essence factors and traders, and a factor named Alhazyr . . .”

“Oh, him. He’s the one who wants to change the Council and put more traders on it—and even two public councilors. Next, he’ll be advocating women councilors.” Father snorted.

“That might not be a bad idea,” suggested Khethila. “They couldn’t manage things any worse.”

“Solidar hasn’t done badly under the Council,” Father replied. “Would you want to live in Jariola or Caenen? Women are serfs in one and slaves in the other.”

“Father . . .” Khethila paused, then spoke slowly and deliberately. “I agree with you that Solidar is a far better place to live than almost anywhere else. It was a better place to live than Caenen was even when we were ruled by a rex, but it’s better now with a Council, and a more widely representative Council would be even better than that.”

“More widely representative? I suppose you’d want that Madame D’Shendael making laws, then?” Father’s tone was more than merely ironic.

“Why not? She’s intelligent and a High Holder. She has been known to think, unlike most of them. But then, I suppose that’s a flaw for a woman. Not thinking, but letting it be known that we can think, like that poor Madame D’Saillyt. Her High Holder husband beat her and confined her for contradicting him in public, and did who knows what else to her, but when she shot the beast, she was condemned and executed.”

“Likely story,” Father snorted. “You don’t think she couldn’t have gone to the patrol?”

“No,” she couldn’t,” I interjected. “Not if it happened on his lands. The High Holders retain the right of absolute low justice on their own lands. He could beat her and confine her on the grounds that she assaulted him. She could only have avoided that if she had managed to flee his lands, and that might have been difficult if he kept confining her. Even so, she’d probably have lost everything, because he could cite her for desertion.”

“No honorable man would do that,” Father huffed.

“Chenkyr, dear,” Mother said sweetly, “few men are as honorable as you are.”

I managed to keep from breaking out in laughter at the way Mother had cornered Father.

In that moment, she stood. “Who would like the fresh peach cobbler and who would like the almond cake?”

“I’d like the cobbler, but with a small slice of the cake.” I offered the words with a grin.

“I will follow Rhenn’s example, with a slight modification, dear,” said Father. “I would prefer a small slice of each.”

“Me, too,” said Culthyn, “except could mine be bigger?”

Khethila shook her head. “Just a small slice of the cake.”

After that, I listened, saying as little as possible as Mother rhapsodized about their visit with Remaya and Rousel and how beautiful young Rheityr was and already how bright he seemed.

A little after eighth glass, I excused myself.

Mother had arranged for Charlsyn to take me back to the Bridge of Hopes. I did take the precaution of raising full shields on the walk from the coach to the quadrangle. As I walked, I couldn’t help but think about Madame D’Saillyt. Had she been the one I’d executed? Or had the woman who had died at my imaging been another woman condemned for something similar? The second possibility, I realized, was worse than the first.

Love never presents a true image.

After breakfast on Solayi, I did take some time to write a thank-you note to my parents for the dinner and their thoughtfulness. It was long, at least for me, and I tried to make it warm. I set it on the writing table so that I’d remember to post it on Lundi. Then I took my time in getting ready to call on Seliora.

It was still before one when the hack pulled up outside the private entrance to the NordEste Design building. I didn’t want to stand in the hot sunlight holding full shields, waiting until one, although I was wearing the lighter-weight summer imager’s waistcoat and a thin gray cotton shirt. So I stepped up to the door and lifted and dropped that ancient and well-polished bronze knocker, shaped much like a stylized upholsterer’s hammer, I realized for the first time.

Young Bhenyt opened the door. “Master Rhennthyl, sir. Please come in.”

“Bhenyt . . . did Seliora send you down to act as greeter? Or your sister?” I was curious and couldn’t help wondering.

He grinned at me. “Odelia ordered me to, but Seliora paid me.” Then, abruptly, he gulped. “I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone.”

“I won’t let anyone know.” I concealed my own swallow, wondering if he were slightly mal. “Lead on.” I stepped inside and let him close the door, then followed him up the stairs to the second level.

Fortunately, Seliora stood alone in the upstairs entry foyer, wearing flowing black trousers and a cream blouse with a short but filmy red vest. Her entire face lit up as she saw me. Mine probably did as well. I took her hands, and then found my arms going around her.

Hers were around me, but only for a moment, as she whispered in my ear, half laughingly, “These walls have both eyes and ears.”

I did let go of her, if after a brief kiss. She was still smiling. “I have so much to tell you, but it’s warm here, and . . .” Her eyes flicked to one side, then the other.

“I see.” I didn’t see anyone peering into the foyer, but that didn’t mean anything.

“There’s a bit of a breeze on the third-level east terrace . . . and it’s more private. Everyone else is on the north terrace.” She smiled. “I will have to take you there before we slip away.”

I sighed, more for effect than because I had expected anything different.

“It won’t be that bad. Everyone will be glad to see you.” She led me to the side of the foyer and through the archway that led to a narrow staircase.

From the landing at the top of the stairs, we emerged from another archway into a narrower hall or foyer.

“Everyone’s sleeping and personal chambers are up here,” Seliora explained as she turned and led me though an open set of double doors onto the terrace, a tile-floored and covered expanse that ran the entire width of the building, close to twenty-five yards, and extended northward from the doors a good ten yards. Heavy iron grillwork, waist-high, enclosed the terrace, whose roof was supported by square masonry pillars. Exposed as it was to the air on three sides, the terrace was far cooler than the interior foyer or the streets below.

At a glance, I could see the extended family had gathered in groups—Seliora’s parents and aunt around a table near the iron railing on the east; the young adults in wooden chairs around a table holding arrangements of plaques that suggested a game of Regian in progress, and the younger children listening to a story being told by a graying woman too old to be an aunt or cousin, and too young to be Seliora’s grandmother. “I don’t see your grandmama.”

Seliora frowned. “She was here. She might be taking a nap. She did want to meet you.” She shook her head. “Grandmama always does things her way.” There was a mixture of ruefulness and respect in her tone, as she gently guided me to the table where her parents sat.

“Madame,” I began, inclining my head to her mother.

“Betara, please. You make me feel like my mother.”

I offered a smile. “My own mother would give me a very long lecture on being too informal and not showing respect if she ever found out that I used your given name.”

Betara smiled in return. “Then we will make certain she never finds out.”

“She is quite capable of that,” Shelim added, with a fond look at his wife.

“I understand all the women in this family are most formidable.”

Both Betara and Aegina laughed. Shelim offered a wry grin, but his eyes crinkled in amusement.

“I understand you are learning your way around the Council Chateau,” offered Shelim.

“Around is a very good description. There’s a great deal to learn.”

Betara had been studying me. Then she nodded. She wasn’t agreeing with her husband, and I would have liked to know exactly what I’d somehow confirmed for her.

“His eyes are older,” she said abruptly, looking to Aegina.

“He has seen what most never will.”

I hadn’t thought of it quite that way, but it was true. Not many men of any age have looked into the barrel of a gun that will almost kill them, and that was only part of what had happened since they had last seen me.

“You understand, I see,” observed Betara.

I inclined my head. “I suspect so, madame.” I could not make the statement without the honor of the formality.

A faint smile crossed her lips, but not an unpleasant one. I thought there might have been a hint of sadness behind it.

“We’ll be on the east terrace,” Seliora said.

“I’ll bring you something to drink in a while.” Betara looked to me, the somberness gone as if it had never been. “What would you like? We have some cool Sanietra, most wines, or Alusan gold lager, or some naranje juice.”

“The Sanietra sounds very good.”

“I’d like that, too,” said Seliora, “but I could get it . . .”

“Nonsense. You young people have a summer to catch up on.”

“You’re most kind.” I understood the unstated but informal chaperoning involved. “Thank you.”

Seliora turned, and I moved with her.

As we passed the game table, Odelia looked up from the plaques of the game and grinned. “Enjoy yourselves.”

“Concentrate on the game,” returned Seliora, “or Shomyr will take every coin you have.”

Once we left the north terrace, Seliora took my arm, much more possessively, and guided me along the wide hallway until we came to a doorway that looked like all the others. She pressed the door lever, pushed the door back, then used a brass catch to hold it open. A very short hall—less than four yards—ended in another door, which she also opened. The east terrace was much smaller, no more than five yards by four, almost as if it had once been a room and someone had replaced the outer wall with the iron railing and grillwork.

Seliora bent and moved a stone pony to prop the door between the short hallway and the terrace open, then stepped to one side of the door. “It gets too hot and still here if we don’t leave the door open.” I could see that, because there was no other way for the air to flow.

Then, she was in my arms, and there was no hesitation with the embrace and the kiss.

After a long time, she looked up at me. “I missed you. I worried.”

I kissed her again, gently. “I missed you . . . and I’m here.”

After a time longer than I had hoped and shorter than I wished, she eased out of my arms, and we settled in on each side of the circular table on the right side of the terrace, since the terrace had no settees that might accommodate two. Looking eastward, I could see the incline, filled with buildings and houses, that formed the southwest part of Martradon. I thought I could pick out where Master Caliostrus’s studio had been.

“You’ve had a long summer, haven’t you, Rhenn?”

“So have you,” I replied lightly. “How was Pointe Neimon?”

“Quiet . . . pleasant in a dull way. It was much cooler than here. One whole week it rained almost all day every day. We played plaques until I didn’t want to look at another plaque again.”

“What about all the textile manufactories?”

Seliora tilted her head slightly. “Grandmama was right. We did need to visit them.” She laughed, softly, throatily. “At every one, she entered dressed like the wealthiest of factorians.”

“Isn’t she?” I accompanied the gentle question with a smile.

Seliora paused. “We don’t think of it quite that way because we’ve avoided the factoring associations. We’ve kept ourselves as part of the woodcrafters’ and cabinetmakers’ guild.”

“This building, with all the shops and quarters and everything—it’s larger than most factors’ warehouses.” Also, remaining as crafters avoided the prejudice against Pharsis who tried to join the factoring associations.

“It’s all family. Almost, anyway.”

“That may be true, but the number of people who work here, from what I can tell, is larger than those employed by most factors.” I grinned. “When she walked into those manufactories, I imagine your grandmama put them all in their place without saying a word.”

Seliora nodded. “They all know her. She didn’t say so, but part of the trip was to get them to know who Shomyr and I are. She said we’d do another trip in the late fall, if she felt up to it.”

“Where did you stay?”

“At not very good hotels, except at Pointe Neimon. There, Grandmama has friends—or acquaintances. They have a cottage on the west side of the point. It overlooks the water. It’s very rocky, and the water’s rough, even in summer. It is beautiful, though, and very pleasant. There’s only one small cove where it’s safe to swim, and the water isn’t that warm. We could walk to a market. There aren’t many hacks, but you can rent a carriage if you need one . . .”

I listened and offered questions, just enjoying being with her and looking at her.

Then there were footsteps on the hardwood floor of the hallway from the main corridor.

“Seliora . . .?”

Betara’s words were as much a warning as an announcement.

“We’re here,” Seliora said. “We’ve just been talking.”

Betara stepped onto the terrace carrying a small tray. On it were two glasses of sparkling crystal-clear Sanietra, one of my summer wines of choice, although I hadn’t had any for a while, and a small platter holding thin slices of apple and peach, along with two napkins.

“I thought you might like a little light refreshment.”

“Thank you,” I offered.

“Oh . . . Grandmama sends her apologies. She says that, in this heat, she’s not feeling her best, but she promises she’ll meet Rhenn next week.” Betara looked to me. “You are coming?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

She laughed. “With all that has happened to you, let us hope that it doesn’t come to that.” In moments, she was gone.

I took a sip of the Sanietra. It was as cool and dry as it looked and slipped down my throat easily, leaving a faint hint of sweet lime and lilac behind. “This is good.”

“It is.” After a moment, she said, “You haven’t said what you’ve been doing.”

“Until a little more than a week ago, all I did was work on learning everything the Collegium thought I needed to know for my duties at the Chateau.” I smiled. “Then I went to work and discovered that most of it was very routine, escorting petitioners to see councilors, standing corridor watches, taking a message or two . . .”

She raised her eyebrows. “What else?”

I didn’t want to answer that directly. “You said that your family had ways of finding out things. Can you or your mother or grandmama find out about a bravo called the Ferran?”

“Was he the one who shot you?”

“No . . . and yes.”

She frowned, then asked, “They hired someone else to go after you? You didn’t tell me?”

“I couldn’t have written you, and . . . well . . . I didn’t want to come here and announce that people were still shooting at me. At least, it seems that way. Last week he—that’s the Ferran—followed me when I was trying to find out who hired the first killer. I avoided him, but I’d found out that Master Caliostrus’s brother might have been involved. So, I suspect, did he, because Thelal—that was the brother—ended up knifed dead in a tavern brawl two days later.”

“Master Caliostrus? What did he have to do with this? He’s been dead for months.”

“Some people think that the explosion that killed Master Caliostrus wasn’t an accident. I’ve heard guesses that it was intended for Ostrius, or at Master Caliostrus because Madame Caliostrus was trying to stop Caliostrus from giving coins to Thelal. She sold the ruined house and the land to Elphens. Did you know that he made master?”

“I didn’t. I’m not surprised. He always had more coins than a journeyman should.”

“His father is a High Holder, I was told.”

“Since he is not one, Elphens must be the son of a mistress . . . or less.”

“A mistress, I would guess, because High Holder Tillak wouldn’t shell out so many golds for a bastard son unless he felt something special about him or his mother.”

Seliora nodded. “What else? You still haven’t told me why people are shooting at you. When did all this happen?”

“I don’t know why. No one else seems to know, either. Yesterday, when I was on my way to my parents for that belated birthday dinner—”

“You didn’t tell me it was your birthday.”

“It happened while you were gone. It would have sounded wrong . . . to write and mention my birthday, especially after you’ve been so good to me.” I smiled apologetically.