Charyn studied the small map. He could see advantages and disadvantages to each position, and that meant he’d need to talk to Ostraaw.
Less than a quint passed before Maertyl appeared in the study. “Chorister Saerlet has vanished, sir.”
“Did the True Believers take him?”
“His valet doesn’t think so.”
Saerlet has a valet? What else does he have? Charyn stood. “We’re going to the Anomen D’Rex. I need to look at Saerlet’s personal quarters.”
“Now, Your Grace?”
“Now. But not in the coach. I’ll just ride with the guards in a guard’s uniform. I haven’t done that before.”
“If that is what you wish, sir, I’d suggest that Undercaptain Faelln lead the men, to give the impression he’s acting in your stead.”
“That’s a good idea. When can we leave?”
“In about a quint. You have a guard’s jacket as I recall, do you not?”
“I do. I never returned those I obtained during and after the problems last winter. I’ll meet Faelln in the rear courtyard in half a quint or so.”
Once Maertyl left the study, Charyn walked to the window and looked down at the courtyard, thinking. What had Saerlet been hiding? Why had the chorister not wanted to tell him immediately whatever he’d thought he needed to impart to Charyn? Had Saerlet been threatened in some fashion by the True Believers?
He only hoped that there might be something in Saerlet’s quarters that shed some light on what had happened on Solayi.
Slightly more than a quint later, Charyn rode beside Ashkar, one of the regular guards, and behind Faelln as they headed around the Ring Road to the Boulevard D’Rex. Charyn could see that almost everyone on the roads or on the sidewalks gave the riders only the most cursory of glances.
Saerlet’s personal quarters consisted of a square dwelling set some thirty yards directly behind the southeast end of the anomen. As he dismounted, Charyn studied the two-story structure, constructed of solid gray stone blocks and roofed with split-slate tiles. The window trim and shutters were dark green, and there was a covered porch on the left side of the dwelling.
He and Faelln walked to the front door, where the undercaptain knocked firmly.
The two waited for some time before a graying man in a brown shirt and trousers opened the door and offered a puzzled look at Faelln.
“I’m Undercaptain Faelln of the Chateau Guard. This is Rex Charyn. He’s not in finery, given what happened last night. Who might you be?”
“Mhassyn. I’m the chorister’s personal assistant.”
Saerlet has both a personal assistant and a valet? Charyn frowned.
“Good,” said Faelln. “We need to look through the quarters.”
“Undercaptain … Your Grace … these are Chorister Saerlet’s private quarters.”
“Quarters that the Rexes of Solidar have provided for generations,” said Charyn. “Have you forgotten that?”
Mhassyn shrank back. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace.”
“Where is the chorister?” asked Charyn as he stepped into the entry hall, a space some three yards square.
Faelln closed the door and glanced around, his hand on the hilt of his sabre.
“I don’t know, sir. Ekillyt said he gathered several sets of garments for the chorister. The chorister left and said he’d be gone for a time. By the time I got back here, he’d already departed.”
“Did he say where?”
“No, sir. Ekillyt said he didn’t say.”
“Is Ekillyt the chorister’s valet?”
“Of course, Your Grace. With all the vestments and appearances … you know.”
Another thought struck Charyn. “What about Chorister Orlend? Wasn’t he staying here as well?”
“He left on Samedi, Your Grace. I don’t know where.”
“Thank you.” Charyn eased past the assistant and looked into the chamber to the left of the entry hall, a sitting room with several settees and chairs, elegantly upholstered. The window hangings were a lavender velvet, trimmed with cream silk. He turned to the room on the other side of the hall, a study with floor-to-ceiling dark wooden bookshelves on the rear wall, and a door out to the covered porch on the outside wall. The matching dark wooden furniture glistened, and all the brass fittings had been recently polished.
The formal dining room had a long table that could have seated ten people, with two sideboards. Again, the well-polished wood of table, chairs, and sideboards all matched.
“Chorister Saerlet’s personal chambers are upstairs?”
“Yes, Your Grace,” replied Mhassyn glumly.
Once upstairs and as soon as he entered the dressing room, Charyn saw the two large armoires. Between them was an elaborately framed full-length mirror on a stand. Charyn frowned. He walked to the nearest armoire and opened it. It was filled with shirts, most of them gray or green or white, but shirts in all sorts of fabrics, cotton, linen, silk, possibly even bamboo cloth. Then he walked to the second armoire and opened the doors. It held jackets and trousers, and ten pairs of polished boots in a rack across the bottom—black, light and dark brown, gray, beige, and one pair trimmed in silver.
He has ten times the clothes I do, and those cottons, woolens, and silks must have cost hundreds, if not thousands, of golds.
Charyn turned to Faelln. “I’m through.”
“Yes, sir.” Faelln’s voice and expression were even.
While Charyn didn’t agree with the tactics or likely even the religious fervor of the True Believers, when it came to the personal finances of Chorister Saerlet, and the apparent mingling of the anomen’s coins and Saerlet’s personal funds, it would appear that the men in white had a certain point.
That still left the question of why they had shot at Charyn, rather than the chorister.
Just because you’re the Rex and presumed to be wealthy at the expense of the poor? Or because they believe you support corrupt choristers? Or perhaps both?
Charyn shook his head and turned toward the staircase. “We can go.” He looked at Mhassyn. “If and when Chorister Saerlet returns, inform him that I wish to see him. Immediately.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” Mhassyn swallowed. “Will that … I mean … is there anything else?”
“No. I’ve seen quite enough.” Quite enough.
Charyn said nothing until he and Faelln were outside the dwelling. “Rather an elaborate wardrobe, wouldn’t you say, Undercaptain?”
“I’d rather not say anything, sir.”
“You don’t have to, but I’ll have to do something about it. That’s if Saerlet ever shows up.”
“Do you think he will, sir?”
“If he finds out what I’ve seen, I wouldn’t.”
Faelln’s only comment was a short barked laugh.
Charyn remounted and rode back with the guard detachment. Once again, no one paid more than passing attention to the mounted guards.
As soon as he reached the Chateau, he dismounted and turned to Faelln. “I have another unpleasant duty. Craftmaster Argentyl was supposed to see me today. He has not shown up. I need him found and brought here. He just might be connected to what happened yesterday. If he cannot be found, I need to know as much as you or your men can find out about where he might be.” Charyn paused, thinking. “His shop is just a block north of the corner of where Fedre crosses Quierca, on the south side.”
“We’ll take care of it, sir.”
Charyn had no doubt Faelln would do what was necessary. He also doubted that Argentyl would be anywhere to be found.
In the meantime, he went back to consider the river problem that Fhaedyrk had brought to his attention, among other things, including the problem of unseen poachers and silent villages.
A glass later, he’d set aside Fhaedyrk’s question and was wondering if Alastar would be able to find someone suitable as a personal scrivener when Sturdyn, relieving Moencriff, announced, “Guard Captain Maertyl and Chorister Refaal.”
“Have t
hem come in.”
Maertyl walked slightly behind Refaal, expressionless.
Refaal wore a jacket and trousers of dark green, and a shirt and chorister’s scarf of light green. The look on his face was a combination of indignation and fear, but he stopped before the table desk and asked, “Why did you send guards for me without as much as a by-your-leave?”
“Your Grace,” prompted Maertyl, his voice like cold iron.
“Your Grace,” added Refaal, an edge to the words suggesting anger barely held in check.
“I summoned you because the True Believers stormed the Anomen D’Rex last night and attacked me and killed the guard driving my coach. Also because Chorister Saerlet has fled without a word of where he went, and I’m beginning to think that both of you know more than you told me, and I’m anything but happy about that.”
Refaal froze. “The True Believers attacked you?”
“They shot at me and my sister and my guards. I don’t think they were aiming at Aloryana or the guards. Also, Saerlet was upset before the service and said he’d tell me afterwards. Obviously, that didn’t happen. Instead, he left right after the unfinished service. So … what did you and Saerlet fail to tell me?”
“Sir … when we were here, we told you everything we knew.”
“What did you find out later that you didn’t tell me?”
Refaal did not reply.
“Guard Captain…” began Charyn, his voice ominous.
“I got … a message … more of a note, really. It wasn’t signed. It said that if I didn’t start preaching homilies based on the true teachings of Rholan, I wouldn’t be a chorister for long.”
“When did you receive this note? Do you still have it?”
“Yes, Your Grace.” Refaal lifted his hand rapidly. “Here—”
“Slowly!” snapped Maertyl. “Very slowly. There’s a pistol at your back.”
Refaal paled. His hand was trembling as he slowly extracted an envelope from his jacket and laid it on the table desk. “That’s all I know. Oh … it was under the door to my quarters on Vendrei morning. I went to see Saerlet on Samedi. He said that he thought you were coming to services on Solayi and that he’d talk to you about it. He also said that I should preach a homily about Rholan, one that concentrated on his well-known sayings, and that I should say something to the effect that these have been passed down for so long that they’ve been accepted as fact, but are they, and do they mean what they meant then? He said I didn’t have to answer those questions, but leave it up to the congregation to think about them for the week. He said that would buy time and that we could come and talk to you this week.”
“If you were going to come to talk to me, why did you have to be forced to come?”
“I was afraid. When all the Chateau guards appeared and insisted on my coming with them, why wouldn’t I have been afraid?”
“That’s a fair question. I have one for you. Did you preach the kind of homily Saerlet suggested?”
“I’m afraid I did.”
“Was there any reaction after the service?”
“None that I could tell.”
Charyn turned to Maertyl. “Captain, is there anything the chorister hasn’t said or that you think I should know?”
“He told his assistant to tell anyone who asked that he’d been called to the Chateau D’Rex.” Maertyl offered a grimly amused smile.
“Do you have a valet?” asked Charyn.
Refaal looked totally bewildered. “A valet, sir? Why would I need a valet? I only have a few sets of clothes, and three sets of vestments.”
Charyn turned in his chair and took a sheet of paper from the cabinet, laying it on the side of the desk facing the standing chorister. Then he stood. “Sit down. Take the pen and inkwell. You’re going to write a sentence and sign it.” At the horrified look on Refaal’s face, he added, “It’s not a confession or anything like it.” Not if you’re as innocent as I suspect.
Refaal sat in the chair farthest from the window, on the front edge, looking at Charyn warily.
“Just write these words. ‘Preach a good homily about Rholan and his sayings.’ Then sign it.”
As Refaal began to write, Charyn picked up the envelope. While it had been slit, there was no sign of a seal, and the paper was the type, as he’d learned earlier, used by merchants and artisans, but not usually by wealthy factors and High Holders. As he suspected, however, the words on the single sheet of paper were written in standard merchant hand.
Preach your homilies about the real Rholan. Don’t keep preaching about the false Rholan. If you go back to the True Beliefs, you’ll stay a chorister.
That was all that was on the paper.
Charyn nodded. “Were you ever a clerk for a factor or merchant?”
“No, Your Grace. I was trained as a boy at the old scholarium in Solis. That’s where most choristers learn.”
From a cursory look at what Refaal had written, Charyn doubted the chorister could have written the note, but then, he wouldn’t have believed what his late aunt Doryana had written. He looked back at Refaal. “You can go, but I want to know immediately anything you find out about the True Believers or where Chorister Saerlet may be. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Charyn looked to Maertyl. “Thank you. If you’d have someone ride back with the chorister so that he can bring back the mount.”
“Yes, sir.”
When the two had left, Charyn just shook his head, not quite certain what to make of all that seemed to be happening at once.
At the fourth glass of the afternoon, Faelln stepped into the Rex’s study … alone.
“I take it that Craftmaster Argentyl was nowhere to be found?”
“Yes, Your Grace. His shop was closed, and no one was in the family quarters above the shop. It appeared that no one had been there for several days. Neighbors had not seen Argentyl since sometime on Vendrei. One neighbor said Argentyl helped load a wagon late that afternoon. His family has not been seen for more than a week.”
“You think he sent his family off first?”
“It seems likely.”
“Did you find out anything else?”
“Several of the crafters wanted to know why you weren’t doing anything about the factors who are making cheap goods that take away the artisans’ customers.”
“Were they violent?”
“No, sir.”
Faelln’s tone suggested he wasn’t saying something.
“But they weren’t happy, and some of them could have been?”
“Several of them said that some of the factors who had large manufactorages were hiring boys for a copper a day and treating them worse than any High Holder ever did.”
“They’re probably right,” said Charyn tiredly.
Faelln’s tone softened. “Can you do anything about it, sir? It doesn’t seem right that they’re hiring boys cheap and putting grown men out of work.”
“It’s not right. What I can do is another question. Some of the factors will oppose any change, but the High Holders might stand behind me.” If for different reasons. Charyn’s voice turned wry as he went on. “Minister Sanafryt always makes the point that I have to be able to enforce any new law I make. He’s right, and that’s what makes changing things hard. That’s why I’m working on ways to use the laws so that others help enforce them.” He laughed. “Not that you need to hear that. Your job is hard enough without listening to me.” A smile followed. “Thank you for finding out about Argentyl.”
Once Faelln left, Charyn walked to the window, not really even looking out into the late afternoon. He wasn’t so sure that Faelln hadn’t understood what he’d said more than Bhayrn ever would. And that was sad, in another way.
22
After his morning routine on Mardi, but before he made his way up to his study, Charyn stopped to talk to Maertyl.
“I wanted to thank you for the way in which you dealt with Chorister Refaal, and for all the time you spent on So
layi evening. I do appreciate it.”
“It is my duty, Your Grace, but thank you.”
“Also, if you’d convey my appreciation to the guards who had to pull extra duty.”
“I’ll do that.”
Charyn caught a hint of a smile and said, with a smile of his own, “If you haven’t already.”
“I did take that liberty, Your Grace. You were concerned about more immediate matters.”
“Even so, I should have conveyed that earlier. Thank you for taking care of it.” Feeling somewhat embarrassed, Charyn quickly asked, “What is your opinion of Chorister Refaal?”
“I only spent a glass or so with him, Your Grace.”
“That’s more time than I have. Does he strike you as honest, or mostly so?”
“Mostly so, sir. I don’t see him in a white hood.”
“I don’t, either. Or Chorister Saerlet, either.” Charyn paused. “I do see Saerlet as one of the reasons for the True Believers. Did Faelln tell you about his armoires?”
“Yes, sir.” Maertyl shook his head. “That doesn’t become a chorister.”
“If I had garments like that, it wouldn’t become a Rex, either. With what he spent on clothes, I could have paid for river wall repairs … well, some repairs…”
“I understand, Your Grace.”
“Have you heard anything more about the True Believers?”
“I asked some friends in the Civic Patrol. They don’t know any more than we do.”
“Do they think that some of the True Believers might be behind the fires and destruction of factorages and warehouses?”
Maertyl frowned. “Might be more that some of those setting the fires are also True Believers, rather than the other way around.”
Charyn could see that.
When he reached his study, the first thing he did was read the newssheets. Both Veritum and Tableta had stories about Solayi’s events. Charyn began with Veritum.
An unknown assassin attempted to kill Rex Charyn as he was leaving the Anomen D’Rex on Solayi evening. The Rex departed before the conclusion of services when more than two-score white gowned and hooded protesters rushed into the anomen as Chorister Saerlet began his homily. The protesters chanted phrases such as, “Free Rholan from false faith! Drive out the cowardly choristers!”
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