Princeps: A Novel in the Imager Portfolio

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

“Let us just hope they can get to Ayerne before the weather changes one way or another.”

  “Today looks promising.”

  “It does, so far. I wanted you to know that I changed the weekly report. In addition to informing Lord Bhayar that First Regiment is on its way, I also told him that we were working to dispatch Third Regiment as soon as we could. I didn’t tell him when that would be.”

  “You’re worried about supplies—or the weather?”

  “More about the weather. We could get a sudden thaw that turns the roads immediately south of Bhorael into impassable swamps. We could also get a storm so severe that sending men and mounts into it would be a death sentence.”

  “I’d bet more on the swamps,” said Quaeryt.

  “So would I, but you never can tell. Let me know if there’s any change in when Raurem will deliver the grain cakes.” Straesyr paused. “Is there anything else I should know?”

  “I haven’t heard any more about Chorister Cyrethyn, but he won’t last much longer, and it’s a good thing you and Commander Myskyl let Gauswn leave service early. He’s already another presence to keep the scholars in line, not that Nalakyn wants to do anything but be a scholar and teach others.”

  “That’s always good.” The governor nodded. “We’ll talk later.”

  Quaeryt nodded. Straesyr often used that phrase to indicate he had nothing more to discuss, rather than signifying something else to deal with later.

  After Straesyr left, Vhorym brought in another missive, this one from a wool factor in Midcote. From the date, the petition to reduce the factor’s tariffs had taken more than a month to reach Tilbora, not surprisingly. Quaeryt set that aside for the moment, although he knew he’d deal with it before the morning was over.

  Addressing all the items awaiting him occupied him into the early afternoon, and he was far from finished when Vhorym announced, “Chorister Phargos.”

  “Have him come in.”

  The regimental chorister walked into the study. Quaeryt gestured to the chairs, and Phargos seated himself before speaking, this time in Bovarian, a tongue in which he was fluent, but usually only employed for conducting services. “I thought that you should know. Cyrethyn died late last night. Gauswn sent me a message this morning. He wrote that you visited him yesterday.”

  “I did. Gauswn thought I should. I’m sorry to hear of his death. He tried to do his best, and that could not have been easy under the shadows of Zarxes and Phaeryn.”

  “Gauswn also wrote that he is more convinced than ever that the Nameless has chosen you for great deeds.”

  Quaeryt winced.

  “You know,” said the regimental chorister with a laugh, “that’s as good an indication as any.”

  “What is?”

  “Your reaction. But … do you want to tell me why he feels that way?”

  “He feels that I’ve escaped too many situations that should have killed me for them all to be a result of mere good fortune. I’ve tried to persuade him otherwise. I obviously haven’t been successful.” With the last sentence, Quaeryt’s tone turned wry.

  “Commander Skarpa doesn’t think so either. He also told me something interesting. He said that you told him he would be a regimental commander—long before the fight against the hill holders.”

  “I did. It seemed obvious to me that it would happen sooner or later.”

  “I’ve observed that more than a few things that seem obvious to you, master princeps, do not seem obvious to others, and yet they occur.”

  Quaeryt shrugged as if helplessly. “I cannot change what is.”

  “I suspect you have already changed what might have been.”

  “In some few things, such as re-forming the scholarium, improving its acceptance and gaining it more students, or getting Gauswn released from duty early to become a chorister, I have been of some help.”

  “In a few other tasks as well. Major Meinyt owes his life to you, as do a score or more rankers. Your presence here also brought Lord Bhayar to Tilbor, and that quieted many who wondered about his dedication to its people, as did your marriage.”

  “Vaelora did that, not me,” protested Quaeryt.

  “Your lady would not have wed anyone without outstanding qualities, master princeps. Nor would her brother have let her. That, we both know.” When Quaeryt offered a dubious expression, Phargos added, “Tell me that is not so … if you dare to do so honestly.”

  Quaeryt laughed. “She does know her own mind.”

  “As do you, my friend. Now … about that homily…”

  “What homily?”

  “The only one I’ll ever insist on your giving here. I want a promise that before you leave, whenever that may be, you will deliver the homily at services in the anomen. Everyone has heard you deliver a homily … except me.”

  “Just one … one time?” asked Quaeryt warily.

  “One … once.”

  “For you … I will. But just once. I’m not a chorister.”

  “But you could have been … and an excellent one.”

  Not when I don’t even know if there is a Nameless, I couldn’t. But Quaeryt only shook his head.

  Phargos laughed. “We will see.” He stood. “I did want you to know about Cyrethyn.”

  “Thank you.” Quaeryt rose as well. “He was a good man in a difficult position, who feared he had not done as well as he should have. That is something all of us should keep in mind.”

  “I might point out that any chorister would be happy to have uttered the words you just did.”

  “Go back to your anomen…” But Quaeryt couldn’t help grinning.

  “For now, most honored master princeps. For now.” Phargos was smiling broadly as he left the study.

  11

  Samedi and Solayi passed without incident. The weather remained unchanging—cold under high clouds. Lundi brought snow flurries that briefly changed to rain, and then to ice that coated the snow and pavements that night, all of which melted by Mardi afternoon, just in time for another light snow. When Quaeryt and Vaelora rose on Meredi, the day was cold, but clear.

  As he walked with Vaelora to the dining chamber for breakfast, he hoped that all was well with Lankyt and First Regiment, although it was likely they wouldn’t reach Ayerne until that evening.

  After they seated themselves, and he poured tea into their mugs, Vaelora took a slow swallow and then set her mug down. “Quaeryt dearest … we are attending this ball held by High Holder Thurl. Can you tell me anything about those who will be there? Besides Straesyr and Emra, of course.”

  “Except in terms of their names and positions, I know little. I have met only two of them, and only one of their wives. I had a midday meal with Governor Rescalyn at the estate of High Holder Freunyt, and a visit by myself with High Holder Fhaedyrk and his wife. Freunyt has a large holding outside of Tilbora, not so near as that of Thurl. He is intelligent and most well off…” After describing Freunyt, he recounted what he could remember of the holding, which wasn’t that much. “As for High Holder Fhaedyrk … he is younger, and his holding is a ride of some four glasses to the north. In this weather…” He shrugged.

  “Tell me anyway … and what you recall of his wife.”

  “I asked to visit Fhaedyrk because he was the target of several assassination attempts by Zarxes…” He went on to explain the background and the events of the visit, and the fact that Fhaedyrk’s holding brewed excellent lager.

  “I don’t believe you mentioned his wife, dearest.”

  “Oh … she struck me as very intelligent, but much like you in that she reveals little to those she does not know—except when it suits her husband’s purposes and her wishes.”

  “What does she look like?” There was the slightest edge to Vaelora’s words.

  “She is blond, like many people here, somewhat stocky, and a bit shorter than you, I think. She is very much in love with her husband, it seemed, and he with her. They were most charming and hospitable … and they did reveal, if indirectly, t
heir concerns about the scholars … once I broached the matter. I was possibly more direct than another High Holder might have been.”

  “She did not flirt with you, then?”

  Quaeryt detected a hint of amusement in her voice, for which he was grateful. “No, not in the slightest. She did serve a most tasty berry custard, though.”

  “You do have a weakness for sweets, dearest.”

  There wasn’t anything he dared to say directly in reply to that. So he didn’t. “Do you think your brother will attack Antiago this spring?”

  “I doubt it. He is more likely to respond to what others do … and then turn their weaknesses against them. In that, you and he are much alike.”

  “Then he anticipates an attack by Kharst. Autarch Aliaro would not be so foolish as to attack either Telaryn or Bovaria.”

  “What one anticipates is not always what happens.”

  “Especially since matters sometimes do not go as planned.”

  “Were you thinking about Rescalyn when you said that?” she asked.

  “No. I was thinking about Zorlyn and the hill holders. They assumed that matters would continue as they always had. Rescalyn let them believe that would be the way it was, even while he was planning to destroy them.”

  “Why was that necessary? If he really wanted to become Lord of Telaryn, why did he bother with the hill holders?”

  “I can think of several reasons.” Quaeryt served her the cheesed eggs and mutton strips, and then himself before continuing. “First, keeping the hill holders as a threat allowed him to build up the regiment to three times what it had been. Second, it allowed him to give all of the officers and rankers experience in fighting. Third, by taking over the holdings of Zorlyn and the others with silver mines, he would have obtained that silver to pay for the war against your brother. And fourth, he couldn’t afford to have a dangerous enemy behind him while setting out to fight another war. He planned on using the winter and the spring to rebuild his forces, and he would have diverted all the tariffs from Tilbor—” Quaeryt stopped abruptly.

  “What is it?”

  He laughed. “I just realized something. Well … I knew it … but I never put the pieces together. I read all those dispatches … years’ worth … and never did Rescalyn ever mention the silver mines of the hill holders.”

  “How many golds worth of silver would they produce?”

  “I’ve looked at the records for last year … well, for four out of five seasons. They don’t mine in the winter. Zorlyn’s mine produced something like two thousand golds worth last year, but it could do more. They didn’t want to flood the east with silver. That would only drive its worth down.”

  “But … if Rescalyn had been successful…”

  “He could have produced more and sold it or coined it and used it all over Telaryn. Zorlyn was minting coins, though. There were molds and stamps—close to identical copies of Telaryn silvers.”

  “That’s counterfeiting … or is it?”

  “I don’t know that it is.” Quaeryt shrugged. “He was using real silver, and now it doesn’t matter. The mines all belong to your brother.”

  “I doubt he even knows it.”

  With all that Bhayar held, that was likely true, but it was yet another reminder of the vast difference between the life Quaeryt had led and the one Bhayar had.

  Quaeryt was still thinking about Rescalyn’s omission of the silver from the dispatches when he reached his study … and all the ledgers and records he needed to peruse … and all the time he would spend trying to persuade factors and others to do what was in their own best interests.

  12

  Warmer weather on Jeudi and Vendrei was followed by a blustery wind on Samedi, and a return to freezing temperatures just before sunset when the sleigh sent by High Holder Thurl arrived at the lower gates of the Telaryn Palace where Quaeryt, Vaelora, Straesyr, and Emra waited in the gatehouse. Quaeryt had barely seen the gown Vaelora was wearing because she’d shooed him away from the dressing area until she was dressed, and then had immediately donned a long fur coat he had not seen before that afternoon. He was wearing his finest browns with his formal brown coat, over which he wore a heavy winter jacket.

  “Look how gloriously red the sky is to the west!” exclaimed Emra as the four left the gatehouse to walk to the sleigh.

  “There was a bit of that last night,” observed Straesyr. “Just a touch.”

  Quaeryt looked, turning to face into the light wind, coming out of the west. Indeed the entire western sky was red, a glorious golden red, if with an undertone of a darker red, like that of drying blood … of which he’d seen far too much in the campaign against the hill holders. The brilliance of the color almost totally obscured the crescent of Erion, whose slightly sullen reddish white seemed pale by comparison. He glanced at Vaelora, walking beside him, her coat wrapped tightly around her. Her face expressed more puzzlement than wonder, and he asked, “What is it?”

  “That looks familiar. I couldn’t say why.”

  “The sunset?”

  “The colors.”

  “Then you must have seen them somewhere…”

  Vaelora nodded. “But I don’t remember.” She turned, and Quaeryt helped her into the sleigh.

  As the driver eased the sleigh away from the gates and onto the packed snow and ice of the road, two squads of troopers followed them.

  Quaeryt continued to study the western sky, and it seemed to him that the golden red and the darker red took longer to fade than was usual for sunsets, but colors or not, the air was chill. Although heavy fur wraps had been spread across trousers and gowns, after only a quint in the horse-drawn sleigh, Quaeryt’s legs were colder than if he’d been riding. But then, you haven’t been riding at night … or even late in the afternoon.

  “Earlier this week, I wondered if we’d be using the carriage,” said Emra. “The snow was melting so fast.”

  “That’s the way it is at the end of winter and the beginning of spring,” said Straesyr. “Warm, then cold, then warm. Each time the cold is usually a little less chill, the warm a trace more springlike.”

  After another three quints, the sleigh swung through a pair of gilded iron gates flanked by polished marble gateposts set against graystone walls. Torches lit both the entry gates and the way up the snow-packed lane to the estate house, a structure more like a Bovarian chateau, thought Quaeryt. The sleigh stopped just short of the covered entry portico, where the four disembarked and then walked across the stone pavement that had been swept clean of snow and the ice removed, before climbing the three wide marble steps to the entry.

  The outer double doors were open, although Quaeryt could see that the decorative ironwork was gilded on both sides, and a doorman opened the inner goldenwood door for them as they approached. “Governor … Lady Straesyr … most honored Lady Vaelora … Princeps.”

  Quaeryt noted the difference in address between Emra, whose position was determined by that of her husband, and that offered Vaelora, who clearly outranked him.

  Once inside the chateau, they stood in a hexagonal vestibule with a high vaulted ceiling. The walls above the goldenwood wainscoting were smooth plaster tinted to resemble golden-streaked marble, with deep blue velvet hangings.

  “The robing room for the ladies…” murmured another functionary, gesturing to the left. “And for … you…” That gesture was to the right.

  Two valets stood waiting in the narrow chamber to take Quaeryt’s and Straesyr’s outer coats. From there, Quaeryt followed Straesyr back into the main entry hall, where they waited for a good half quint for their ladies.

  Vaelora’s hair was swept back with black and silver combs, and her gown was of black velvet in a cut that accentuated her waist, and with a neckline that was a diamond cut just large enough to allow the silver pendant that held a modest emerald. The sleeves tapered to almost skintight at her wrists. Completing the ensemble was a silvered green sleeveless vest, held in place in front by a silver chain.

 
Quaeryt found himself staring in admiration.

  “I see you like it, dearest.”

  “I like you in it.” He dared not think what else he thought.

  “You picked a very good seamstress,” Vaelora added.

  If by accident. “Thank you.”

  “The ballroom is at the end of the main hallway…” murmured yet another functionary, in what was clearly a reminder to move along.

  Quaeryt and Vaelora walked quickly until they caught up with the governor and his wife. Then they waited, but for moments, to enter the ballroom.

  “Governor, Lady Straesyr … welcome to Thurlhold.” High Holder Thurl was an angular older man with thinning blond hair, who spoke in Tellan, which would not have been the case with a High Holder nearer Solis.

  “We’re pleased to be here, and I deeply appreciate the use of your sleigh,” replied Straesyr. “Even more so does my wife.”

  “I thought it might be so.” Thurl smiled, before turning to Quaeryt and Vaelora. “Lady Vaelora, Princeps … I bid you welcome. It is not often we entertain a couple who are both of position.” Thurl turned his eyes back to Quaeryt. “The muted finery of a scholar suits you, Princeps, although it does not do justice to your reputation in the field, I understand.”

  “That was by necessity,” replied Quaeryt. “We do appreciate your grace and hospitality.” Glancing beyond Thurl, where but a handful of couples stood, generally near the sideboards offering wine, Quaeryt could see that his browns represented the most severe attire of anyone present.

  “We can do no less.” With a smile, Thurl turned to those following Quaeryt and Vaelora.

  Quaeryt understood that Thurl had meant those words literally, no matter how graciously uttered.

  “You would not be here … except…” murmured Vaelora.

  “Except for you,” he agreed. “They look down on the princeps as a functionary who deals with factors and low holders and others of less stature.”

  “They do not know you.”

  “As you suggested, my lady, in your correspondence, even before you knew all you now know about me, you recommended that it was better that people not see one as a threat if one wished to accomplish one’s ends.”