Princeps: A Novel in the Imager Portfolio

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “How … would they combat it?”

  “Image sand over it, I suspect. That usually damps most fires, even bitumen fires.” That was a guess on Quaeryt’s part, but he thought it would work, since stone and earthworks were impervious to Antiagon Fire. “I’ll have those draft rules to you within a week, sooner if I can. Tell the holder—what’s his name … his son’s name, too?”

  “His name is Kryedt. The boy’s name is Dettredt.”

  “Tell Holder Kryedt that the boy is accepted, under the usual provisions requiring good conduct and obedience to scholars.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied both scholars. While Nalakyn’s tone was not quite resigned, Yullyd’s was more enthusiastic.

  “Now … I’ll wait outside in the main hall while you draft that letter to Holder Rhodyn.”

  Quaeryt stepped out to rejoin Vaelora, noting several students hurrying away as he neared. One he knew—Lankyt.

  “What did young Lankyt have to say to you, dearest?” asked Quaeryt quietly, not wishing his voice to carry beyond Vaelora.

  “Which one was he? The slim brown-haired one with the shy smile?”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I didn’t, but you wouldn’t have known who he was unless he stood out in some way. He was the most respectful and well-spoken.”

  “His father is the holder in Ayerne.”

  “Rhodyn, is it?”

  “Yes. He was most kind when I escaped the ship reavers and was recovering.”

  “He spoke highly of you when we spent the night there.”

  “He’s a good man. I just hope…” Quaeryt went on to explain.

  Vaelora listened, then nodded. “You’re offering a strong suggestion, but not demanding.” She smiled mischievously. “You are suggesting, between the lines, that he’d be a fool not to agree.”

  “What else could I do?”

  “You could let him do as he pleases without saying a word … but that’s not who you are. You’ve proved that in dealing with my brother.”

  Quaeryt shrugged.

  “The chorister? Gauswn … he was most complimentary. Is he the one who was an undercaptain?”

  “He was.”

  “He said that it was almost a shame you hadn’t been a chorister, but that he’d seen you were destined for greater deeds.”

  Quaeryt winced. “I fear he thinks I’m another Rholan.”

  “Would that be so bad, dearest?”

  “For a man who doesn’t know whether there even is a Nameless, it would be.” Quaeryt shook his head.

  “You’re too hard on yourself.”

  “Not in that.”

  Vaelora shook her head.

  Shortly, Yullyd reappeared with the letter. “Sir?”

  “Thank you.” Quaeryt read it, then nodded, took the pen from the scholar princeps, and signed the missive. “Very good, Yullyd.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  After the ink dried, helped by Quaeryt’s holding the paper near the stove, he folded the sheet and slipped it into the inside pocket of his jacket.

  In less than a quint, they were on the road back to the Telaryn Palace, riding directly into the wind, which seemed to be slightly stronger than on the way to the scholarium.

  “Are you still glad to be accompanying me?” asked Quaeryt dryly.

  “Yes. It was good to get out.”

  “What did you think of the scholarium?”

  “Everyone was most polite,” observed Vaelora.

  “You might have noticed all the deference was to you, my dear lady. Quite manifestly obvious, I would say.”

  “That might have been, but the respect was for you. Master Scholar Nalakyn looked somewhat chastened when he bid us good day.”

  “He was reluctant to take on another paying student because the boy is an imager.” Quaeryt snorted. “As if the boy will not have enough problems. An education will help.”

  “It helps some, dearest. Others it is wasted on.”

  “True. But if he’s one of those, he goes back to his father. He deserves the chance. What he makes of it is up to him. Did Chaerila ever write or say anything about the Autarch’s imagers?”

  “Not to me.” Vaelora frowned in concentration. After a moment, she said, “I remember, though, something that Aelina said. Chaerila complained in a letter to her that she was almost a prisoner in the palace, but at least she wasn’t walled up in a compound with metal behind the walls, the way the Autarch’s imagers were.” She paused. “What are you going to do?”

  “Write up a set of rules. Then you’ll read them and tell me what to change and improve?”

  “You aren’t asking me.” A mischievous smile appeared. “Isn’t that a form of disrespect?”

  “I respect your judgment and intelligence so much that I know you’d want these rules to be as good as we can make them.”

  Vaelora laughed.

  Quaeryt smiled happily—until the next gust of bitter wind whipped around and through him, and he shivered almost uncontrollably.

  And this is a warm day for winter.

  3

  Another storm had buffeted Tilbora beginning on Samedi, and Quaeryt and Vaelora had remained within the palace walls. While the snowfall stopped by early on Solayi, the rankers of the regiment were still clearing snow in midafternoon, and Quaeryt was in his official study struggling with the draft rules he had promised Nalakyn and Yullyd.

  He glanced up as the study door opened wide.

  “What are you working on, dearest?” Vaelora asked as she stepped from the anteroom into the study.

  “Rules for young imagers at the scholarium.”

  “Why didn’t you have Nalakyn or Yullyd write them up and then just review them?”

  Quaeryt had told her why earlier, but he didn’t comment on that. Vaelora never asked a question, he’d discovered, without a purpose. “He’d write them, and they’d sound wonderful and mean nothing. Then Yullyd would rewrite them, and the poor youths would feel that they were in prison, and that would make their schooling worthless.” His breath did not quite steam in the cold air of the study. “I thought you were practicing with Eluisa. That’s why I came here. I’d already started work on this on Vendrei.”

  Vaelora walked around the desk to stand at his shoulder and read down the document. Then she smiled. “From those rules, one might think you had lived among imagers for your entire life…” She did not quite finish the sentence, but left the words hanging.

  “I did spend several years at the scholarium, with Voltyr and, for a time, with Uhlyn, you might recall.”

  She looked down at the document and began to read, picking out a phrase from the middle of the sheet. “Imager scholars must not, under any circumstances, attempt to image metals. While there is always the temptation to image coins, the effort to image silvers and golds has often proved to cause great illness or death, even to older imagers.…”

  Quaeryt nodded. “That’s true.”

  “I don’t doubt it’s true, dearest.” She smiled again, warmly. “What I have some doubts about is how you might happen to know that.”

  “I told you…”

  “Dearest … I know that you would never tell me something that is not true or based in truth. I also know that, upon occasion, you have”—she paused—“been less than forthcoming about the details of certain events.”

  Quaeryt repressed a sigh. He’d known that, sooner or later, Vaelora would learn enough to suspect his imaging abilities. Perhaps she had all along and had waited for what seemed the proper time to discuss the matter. Still … he wanted to know what she knew, because it was likely Bhayar also knew at least some of what she had learned … and might have even learned it from him. “Such as?”

  “One of the reaver captives—before he was executed—kept talking about the man who walked out of the storm and survived enough poison to kill two men, and then left three corpses and a dog—and none bore a single mark.”

  “I almost died from that poison. If it hadn
’t have been for Rhodyn and his wife—”

  “Then there was the fact of how often you ate at various tavernas in Solis. Not expensive tavernas, but even the least expensive meals totaled far more than the stipend that Bhayar gave you. You are most honest, and no one ever slipped you coin, but you never seemed to run out. You usually paid in coppers. Very dirty coppers, not shiny ones.”

  Quaeryt could see that someone, most likely Bhayar, had been very thorough … and where she was headed, but he merely nodded. “Scholars seldom have more than coppers.”

  “Then there was the report about how you removed a crossbow quarrel from your own chest. Alone. A man who weighed fifteen stone couldn’t do that. The captain surgeon couldn’t believe you did it from the depth of the wound, especially without ripping your flesh to shreds. You’re strong, dearest, but you’re not that strong.”

  “Maybe I didn’t report it right.”

  She shook her head. “One thing I do know is that what you say is close to the truth. Always.”

  “I try.”

  “Then there are all the reports about how you managed to save men and officers and how so many rebels seemed to strike at you and miss.”

  “They didn’t miss enough,” Quaeryt pointed out. “You saw that.”

  She moved behind the chair, reached down and massaged his shoulders, gently. “I didn’t tell my brother all of that.”

  “But … how?”

  “Nerya was always more than a duenna. She isn’t an aunt, either. She’s a distant cousin. She wanted to make sure that you weren’t playing with woman after woman. When she told Bhayar all the places you’d been, I was the one who did the figures.”

  “Is there anything you don’t know?” he asked with a laugh.

  “She was also very impressed by your taste. You always chose reasonable places with good food, and you never drank too much. None of the servers had anything ill to say of you. That meant you gave them extra, all of them.”

  “What can I say? I was extravagant to the limit of my means.”

  She shook her head. “You also have black eyes and white-blond hair.”

  “And that means?”

  “You know very well what it means.” She bent down and brushed his neck with her lips. “My imager dearest.” Then she straightened.

  “You agreed to marry me, knowing that?” he said, easing the chair back and standing.

  “Grandmere said I would wed a man with white-blond hair who was more than he seemed. That was one of her last visions. I was barely ten. It scared me.”

  Did she seek you out for that reason? He didn’t ask that question. “Does it scare you now?”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t tell Bhayar that, either. Aelina knows, though. She might have told him. When I first saw you at the palace, I didn’t even think about it.”

  “You were what then? Twelve?”

  “Thirteen.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “You were respectful to Bhayar, but you never groveled or pled. You might have been the only one without position of whom that could be said.” She smiled. “I couldn’t imagine why. I know now.”

  “Imagers aren’t invulnerable or invincible.” He lifted his left arm. “I’ve scars and barely healed bones to prove that.”

  “What can you image?” she asked.

  “It depends on what it’s made of. Generally, the more common the material, the easier it is. That’s not true of metals, though. They’re harder. I tried to image a gold coin once. I almost died. Ice is easy, more so in summer, for some reason. I tried copper jewelry once. The copper wasn’t too bad, but the shape was terrible. You really have to concentrate on the substance and the shape. It’s hard work.”

  “You’ll have to tell me more … when no one else is near.” She glanced toward the open door to the anteroom, although no one else was there, not on Solayi. “I almost wish we didn’t have to go to services tonight.”

  “As princeps, I should set an example. Besides, I like to hear what Phargos has to say. He usually does make me think.”

  “It seems…” She paused. “I don’t know. Is there a Nameless? I know you don’t think so.”

  Quaeryt shook his head. “I never said that.”

  “Oh, I know. You say that you don’t know if there is or there isn’t. But what is the difference between not knowing and not believing? Either way, you don’t worship the Nameless.”

  “Do you?”

  “We were talking about you, dearest.”

  Quaeryt waited.

  “I feel that there’s something beyond us. Is that the Nameless? Or is it something else?”

  Quaeryt forbore saying that the belief in something greater than human beings and not knowing what it might be was exactly why that power was called the Nameless. “I don’t know if such exists. I doubt that even if it does, it plays games with people, rewarding or punishing them for their belief or nonbelief, or for whether they attend services or believe exactly what the choristers say that they should—although I have to say that most choristers I’ve heard confine their homilies to what I’d call reasonable guidelines for living.”

  “You’re very reasonable, dearest, even when you’re doing the most unreasonable things.”

  Quaeryt wasn’t about to respond to that. “I can’t help but wonder if Rholan really happened to be a charlatan,” he mused.

  “Why do you say that?” asked Vaelora.

  “Because of the contradiction in terms he embodied. He talked endlessly about the sin of naming, and yet are not so many words spoken over so many years in themselves a form of naming?”

  She laughed. “Greatness always includes great contradictions. It’s not possible otherwise.”

  Quaeryt was afraid she was right about that. “We should get ready for dinner and services.”

  “So we should.”

  He slipped the sheet of draft imager rules into the desk drawer.

  4

  Yet another snowstorm blew in on Mardi afternoon and evening, but by midday on Meredi, bright sun and southern breezes were so much in evidence that wherever the stone pavement had been largely cleared, the remaining snow and ice had melted, leaving the stone dry. Even so, with the dray-horse plows and more than a company shoveling away the snow, it was close to late afternoon before the laboring rankers cleared the long paved lane down the hill on which the Telaryn Palace was situated.

  As he stood before the window in the princeps’s study, looking beyond the walls to the snow-covered hills to the north, Quaeryt reflected on the events of the first month and a half of the new year—beginning with Bhayar’s arrival in Tilbora and the greater surprise of Vaelora’s appearance … and their wedding. At the same time, being princeps was … well … close to demandingly tedious, and it certainly would have been depressing to some extent without Vaelora’s presence. The position was one of keeping track of detail after detail, listening to unhappy and sometimes greedy factors, and managing supplies and expenses for the three regiments. Still … tedious or not, he had learned a great deal about finances, logistics, and what was required. He’d also learned that keeping everyone even close to happy took an inordinate amount of time. Then there were the odd duties, such as overseeing the reformation of the scholarium. He was just happy that he’d dispatched the draft imager rules to the scholarium early on Lundi, somewhat revised by suggestions from Vaelora.

  He had to admit that he was relieved, not so much by her admitting she knew he was an imager, but by her almost matter-of-fact acceptance of his talent. He’d almost blurted out asking her if she had visions, as her grandmere had, but he’d decided to wait before posing that question. He suspected that she did and that was one reason why his imaging talent didn’t seem to bother her.

  He turned at the rap on his study door, opened immediately by Vhorym to admit Straesyr.

  “Sir?” Quaeryt rose from his chair.

  The governor closed the door behind him. He carried several sheets of paper, which he
extended to Quaeryt. “I think you should read these.”

  Quaeryt took them and immediately began to read. The sheets were a dispatch from Bhayar, ordering the departure of First Regiment as soon as possible and practical, using the more southern route, if necessary because “events require the presence of additional forces in the west of Telaryn immediately.” The next paragraph “requested” that Third Regiment be readied for departure as soon as practicable, but no later than the third week of Maris, while Second Regiment be split into two regiments, the bulk remaining with Second Regiment, and a new Fourth Regiment be created and reinforced with recruits and standing complement from Telaryn Palace.

  Quaeryt looked up. “It would be good to know what those events might be. The way he wrote that could mean anything.”

  “He’s concerned that someone besides us might read it,” the governor pointed out.

  “That suggests trouble with Kharst.” Quaeryt paused. “Or that Lord Bhayar is planning some action to forestall even greater trouble with Bovaria.”

  “Either way…” mused Straesyr, “it points toward war before too long.”

  “Unless he thinks bringing two more regiments to the west might give Kharst second thoughts.”

  “From what I’ve heard, Rex Kharst is impulsive enough that he sometimes doesn’t even have first thoughts.”

  “Impulsive, but effective. Or his marshals are good enough to make his impulses effective.”

  “That doesn’t lessen the effectiveness,” pointed out Straesyr.

  Quaeryt noted that the governor didn’t point out that those less charitable to Bhayar could have said the same thing about the Lord of Telaryn.

  “Myskyl could have First Regiment on the road in less than a week,” said Straesyr. “What about supplies?”

  “Raurem is supposed to deliver a wagonload of those grain cakes on Jeudi, if we don’t get another storm. The rest of the stores are ready to go.”

  Straesyr nodded. “The grain cakes will help, especially for the ride beyond Ayerne. There won’t be any forage at all.”

  “I’ll see about getting more of them for Third Regiment. We have the golds for them, and even if it’s tight, we won’t have the expenses for victuals and fodder later in the year with two regiments gone earlier than planned.”