Princeps: A Novel in the Imager Portfolio

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Except that these orders to recruit and train another regiment will increase expenses.” The governor’s voice was dry.

  “Creating a Fourth Regiment might not be bad. Some of the younger men who followed the hill holders might not mind food, clothing, and coppers, and sending them west would keep things quieter here. We might do a little planning along those lines.…”

  “I already have,” replied the governor. “Rather, I’ve adapted the plans Rescalyn had already made.”

  “Did he plan to split the old regiment into three regiments?”

  “He planned for four, the way Bhayar just ordered.” Straesyr smiled sadly. “He was a brilliant man. He just didn’t anticipate that Bhayar would send an equally brilliant scholar to observe—and one who proved to be rather … durable.”

  “Fortunate,” corrected Quaeryt.

  “I’ve noted that fortune often tends to follow the most observant and best prepared in ways that reward them far more than mere chance, my dear princeps.” Straesyr offered a smile both warm and ironic. “In any instance, we’d best prepare for recruiting and staffing another regiment. Who would you suggest as commander?”

  “Would Commander Zirkyl prefer to leave Rescalyt for a more active command? If you gave him a choice … a real choice … so that he doesn’t feel that he’s being pushed … Or would Myskyl prefer to leave First Regiment? They’re both good at training and discipline without overdoing it.”

  “Since Myskyl’s senior, I’ll ask him. I’d wager he’d prefer to head south with First Regiment, but he’d like the chance to have a choice, and I’d like to give that option to him.”

  Neither mentioned that the older commander had not been all that enthusiastic about the events surrounding Rescalyn’s death in the last moments of the battle against Zorlyn … or that he might prefer greater distance between himself and Quaeryt.

  Quaeryt nodded, wondering, again, what exactly might be happening to the west … and if Straesyr would happen to be right in suggesting that Quaeryt might find himself leaving Tilbor before that long.

  5

  After Quaeryt left the princeps’s study on Vendrei and walked up to the private apartments, he looked first into the salon, then into the study where he thought Vaelora might still be writing. Both were empty. He found her in the dressing chamber, studying herself in the full-length mirror.

  “What do you think of this?”

  Quaeryt looked at what she wore, wide-legged purple trousers that, if she stood straight, looked like a skirt, above which were a yellow blouse and a tight-fitting jacket that matched the trousers.

  “You don’t like it. I can tell,” she said when he did not immediately speak.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  “The trousers and jacket are good. The yellow doesn’t go with your skin.”

  “You could have said that first.”

  “I … should have.”

  She took off the jacket, looking at the blouse in the mirror. “I knew it.”

  Quaeryt opened his mouth to ask why, if she knew it, she’d even asked him. Instead, he closed his mouth.

  “The gray goes better … but it’s dull.”

  “Do you have a pink or rose blouse?”

  “If I had one, why would I be wearing the yellow? I didn’t bring a trousseau, dearest.”

  The word “dearest” was not quite edged in acid, and Quaeryt kept still.

  “And that’s not something my dear brother has bothered with sending.”

  “And the seamstresses here are limited,” he offered. They’d been married with him in his browns with the one formal jacket—retailored temporarily to accommodate the splint—and she’d worn the best of the riding outfits she had brought.

  “Are there any? With any great talent?”

  Quaeryt stood, thinking. He knew he’d run across one. Then he winced. Why didn’t you think of that earlier?

  “You have that look. What is it?”

  “I just remembered. There is a seamstress in the harbor area. She used to create … tailor dresses for Tyrena.”

  “And you didn’t tell me?”

  “I didn’t think of her until now.”

  “Oh?”

  That word spoke volumes, but Quaeryt wasn’t about to address the implications. “She was … is one of the Sisters. She was the one who first told me about Chardyn’s link to the Khanar’s Guard and the pretender. I went into her shop by accident.…”

  Vaelora sighed. After a moment, she smiled. “I’m sorry. I know it’s just a small dinner with Emra and Straesyr. But I did want to wear something different, and Eluisa offered me the yellow blouse. It doesn’t suit her either, and she never wore it.”

  Quaeryt smiled ruefully. “At least, I remembered in time for something else.” He handed her the oblong envelope with the card inside.

  She extracted it quickly and gracefully, her eyes scanning the elegant script. “A ball? A real ball? Who is High Holder Thurl?”

  “One of the High Holders whose estate is nearby … comparatively. We may have to ride.” Quaeryt had never seen the carriages that remained at the Telaryn Palace in use, and he didn’t even know if there happened to be a sleigh. Probably somewhere, but why would anyone have used one in the last ten years?

  “Ride? In a gown?”

  That did sound ridiculous, Quaeryt had to admit. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

  “I doubt Emra would even attend if she had to ride…”

  “I will see.” Quaeryt held up a hand. “I doubt that we would be invited, except that as the sister of Lord Bhayar, you could not be overlooked, and so … I, as a mere lowly princeps, must also be included.”

  “Quaeryt…” She grinned. “That is almost disrespect.”

  “But … I did remember the seamstress.”

  “This is only two weeks away.”

  Two weeks and a day. He didn’t voice that thought either.

  “Can we see this seamstress tomorrow?”

  “If it doesn’t snow.” He fervently hoped it would not be snowing on Samedi.

  In the end, Vaelora wore the pale gray blouse with a rose scarf, conceding that it was “acceptable.”

  Quaeryt thought she looked far more than acceptable as they left their quarters.

  The governor’s apartments—those formerly belonging to the Khanar—were also on the third level of the palace, but to get there, Quaeryt and Vaelora had to descend to the second level, using the staircase on the east side of the second-level gallery, then walk to the west end of the palace, where a separate staircase, which could be closed off by two sets of iron doors, if decorated and gilded, afforded the only entry.

  A single ranker stood by the staircase doors. “Good evening, sir, madame. The governor is expecting you.” He gave two quick jerks to a bell-pull.

  By the time Vaelora and Quaeryt reached the top of the pale gray marble steps, covered largely by a green carpet runner, Straesyr was waiting.

  “Greetings! We’ll join Emra in the private sitting room.” The governor smiled cheerfully. “The salon would be overly spacious for the four of us. Also, it would take a great deal of wood or coal to heat it to be comfortable.”

  If the private sitting room happened to be the smaller chamber, Quaeryt definitely understood what Straesyr meant, because the sitting room was larger than his official study as princeps.

  “Do join me,” offered Emra, rising from where she had been sitting.

  Quaeryt was still struck by the fact that Emra’s hair was a striking silver-gray, in contrast to her husband’s largely blond thatch.

  The four of them settled into leather upholstered armchairs set in a semicircle around a low table, placed in turn before a ceramic stove that radiated a comfortable heat.

  “Hot mulled wine … or red or white?” asked the governor.

  “The mulled, please,” rejoined Vaelora immediately.

  Straesyr left the sitting room briefly, then ret
urned and reseated himself. Shortly, a ranker in uniform appeared with a tray on which were four mugs from each of which rose thin wisps of steam. Vaelora took her mug and immediately clasped her hands around it. Quaeryt took a small sip and almost burned his mouth. He set the mug on the table.

  “I spend much of my time here,” said Emra. “It’s the most comfortable chamber. Would you believe that the master bedchamber doesn’t have a stove—just a fireplace that you have to keep fired up all the time if you want to keep the chill out?”

  “It’s not quite that bad,” murmured Straesyr.

  Emra raised a single eyebrow, but said nothing.

  “The most comfortable room we have,” offered Quaeryt, “is the private dining chamber. The fireplace in the bedchamber smokes so much that we ended up sealing it up. Temporarily, with some timbers and rags, behind a most ornate—and useless—fire screen.”

  “That works for you two. You’re young and newly wed,” replied Emra.

  “How long before we stop getting snow?” asked Quaeryt, looking to Straesyr.

  “Never,” said Emra quickly.

  “It should start tapering off in the next week or so, but we’ve had snow as late as in Avryl, and once even in Mayas.”

  “Like I said,” added Emra, “never.” Abruptly, she smiled. “I do tend to give Straesyr a great deal of grief about the chill, but I do prefer it to the heat of someplace like Thuyl. That’s where I grew up, you know. Solis is dry and cool compared to Thuyl.”

  Quaeryt let himself wince.

  “It’s worse than that,” Emra continued as she took in his expression. “I never worried about where we were posted because I knew it would be better than where I grew up.”

  “What is your family like?” asked Vaelora quickly, still cupping her hands around the warm mug of wine.

  “I suppose they’re still there, but they aren’t the kind to write. They could certainly afford the silvers for it.”

  “They’re into cotton factoring,” added Straesyr. “They used to own all the warehouses in the delta. Emra married me against their wishes.” He looked to Vaelora.

  “It wasn’t quite against my brother’s wishes,” she replied. “I just refused to marry anyone else.”

  “She didn’t bother to inform me, either,” Quaeryt said dryly, before his voice warmed. “It was, shall we say, the greatest Year-Turn gift I’ve ever received … or ever expect to.”

  “You’re very fortunate he understands that, dear,” said Emra.

  “I am indeed … and for other graces that he possesses.”

  “Were we ever like that?” Emra looked to Straesyr.

  “In our own way, yes.”

  “I suppose we were. Time does pass…” Emra paused. “I did persuade the kitchen to provide us with specially roasted game fowl. I do hope you like game fowl.…”

  “Indeed,” said Quaeryt, almost simultaneously with Vaelora’s “Of course.”

  Their eyes met, momentarily, and they smiled.

  Quaeryt understood both the warmth and the sadness in his wife’s brown eyes, and resolved to make the evening as cheerful as possible.

  6

  Quaeryt felt as though he might be exceeding the bounds of his office in using a squad to escort him and Vaelora to Tilbora early on Samedi morning … but the half-staff he had obtained as a replacement for the one lost in the last battle against the hill holders was scarcely adequate by itself against brigands, and explaining imaging would have also created problems and questions better left unraised. Besides, she was Bhayar’s sister, and had she not been married, or had she been married to someone else, and had she come to Tilbor, Straesyr certainly would have provided an escort.

  Quaeryt was glad that the sun was out, and that there was no wind, so that the morning was almost pleasant, at least for winter in Tilbor. It was well before eighth glass, and both Artiema and Erion were still in the sky, although neither moon was close to being full, when they rode down the cold stone lane from the palace, with two rankers before them and the rest of the squad following, all of them riding far enough away from the couple so that they could talk privately—if they kept their voices low.

  He turned in the saddle. “You were wonderful at dinner last night.”

  “So were you.” She paused, then added, “It’s so sad. They love each other, but…”

  “Even when they talk about the very same things, they’re not talking about the same things.”

  “They know it, and he still loves her, and she still loves him.” Vaelora paused, and then looked straight at Quaeryt. “If I don’t understand … talk to me until I do.”

  “I will.”

  “Promise me.”

  Quaeryt almost recoiled at the intensity behind those quietly spoken words. “I promise. I will. But you must do the same.”

  “I already do.” She flashed a warm smile.

  “I have a question. One I should have asked earlier.”

  “Oh?”

  “You take after your grandmere—”

  “Yes, dearest.”

  “I meant … about whether you see things as she did … visions?”

  “I knew what you meant. I do … not often. She didn’t, either.”

  “Did you see me?”

  “Not exactly. But you looked familiar the very first time I saw you, in a strange way, and it wasn’t because of what Grandmere had told me. There was one … farsight … that later proved to be about us. I didn’t know that at the time. Years ago, I saw an image, as if I were there, and Bhayar and I were riding up a stone lane to a wall with gates. I didn’t know what it meant—until I saw it again.”

  “The gates to the Telaryn Palace.”

  She nodded. “There have been a few others, but none that have not already come to pass.”

  “You’ll tell me if there are others?”

  “I will. Now you tell me more about this seamstress.”

  “I don’t know much more about her skill, except that she’d mentioned doing clothes for Tyrena. I only recall her first name. Syen. I was trying to talk to people in Tilbora about what happened just before and after your grandfather defeated the pretender. Most people wouldn’t talk to me, because I wore scholar browns. She was the one who told me why they wouldn’t. That was likely because her husband—I think it was her husband—tried to kill me…” He went on to explain about the link between Chardyn and the scholars who had run the scholarium and how they’d been tied to the rebels, including how Chardyn had tried to kill him.

  “You used imaging to kill this Chardyn?”

  “I had to. He would have killed me otherwise. That was what got me to thinking about doing other things with imaging, like the shields I told you about.”

  “Do other imagers know how to do that?”

  “Voltyr and Uhlyn didn’t. I don’t know any other imagers.”

  “Few can do that, or all would know.”

  Quaeryt had no doubts that Vaelora was right about that. “I wouldn’t, either, except I feared that if I didn’t try it, I wouldn’t survive what Rescalyn had in mind for me.”

  “That is also farsight.”

  “A different kind,” he replied with a laugh.

  She smiled, but he had the feeling that she didn’t totally agree.

  When they neared the harbor, Quaeryt was careful to direct the squad to approach the shop from the south to avoid the brothel on the street to the north. While the brothel doubtless had its windows closed and shuttered against the cold, there was no point in going that way, especially since they would not be using the stable situated beside the pleasure establishment.

  Once outside the shop, in the row of buildings fronting the harbor, Quaeryt dismounted and handed the mare’s reins to the nearest ranker, then turned to offer help to Vaelora, but she already stood on the dirty snow beside her mount. He looked back to the squad leader. “Hernyn … we’ll try not to be long.”

  “That’s not a problem, sir. It’s warm as winter days go.”

&nbs
p; Unlike the last time he had been in the harbor area, all the doors were unshuttered, although most shop windows were at least partly shuttered against the cold, and the air held the acridness of burning wood … and perhaps coal. As when he had come the first time to Syen’s tiny shop, the single narrow window beside the door was shuttered, but the door was not, and it opened to his touch. He stepped through, holding his shields, recalling his last visit, when the seamstress’s husband had tried to kill him because he’d mistaken Quaeryt for a colleague of Chardyn. Vaelora followed him and closed the door.

  Syen looked toward them from where she stood beside the frame shaped like a woman’s figure.

  “This time, I definitely don’t have the wrong shop,” Quaeryt said.

  “Greetings, Lady,” said Syen, looking to Vaelora, before turning to Quaeryt. “I thought I might see you again, scholar … or is it Princeps these days?”

  “Both, I suppose. Syen, this is my wife, Vaelora. I don’t remember your surname.”

  “Syen … Syen Yendradyr.” A faint smile crossed the lips of the trimly muscular woman who likely was not that much older than Quaeryt, despite the lines from the corners of her eyes and the streaks of gray in her short-cut hair.

  “I’m pleased to meet you.” Vaelora’s husky voice was warm.

  “And I, you.” Syen inclined her head, as she had not done with Quaeryt.

  “Quaeryt has told me how helpful you were to him,” Vaelora added.

  “As he was … later.”

  “She needs a ball gown rather quickly,” said Quaeryt, not wishing to dwell on where that might lead.

  Both women looked at Quaeryt.

  He took a half step back, almost inadvertently.

  “By two weeks from yesterday, if it is possible,” added Vaelora. “If not, I do understand.”

  “Times are slow now.” A smile and what seemed a twinkle in her eyes followed. “And we do owe your husband for several matters.”

  “I did what I thought was right,” Quaeryt said.

  “So you did. Would that more did.” Syen turned her eyes back to Vaelora. “The sewing and the fitting can be done in the time you wish, even sooner, but the gown will have to be made from the fabrics that I can find here in Tilbora.”