Princeps: A Novel in the Imager Portfolio

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  After the blessing, Quaeryt immediately poured the red wine into Vaelora’s goblet, then into his own. He waited until all the officers had wine, then raised his goblet. “A toast to the hospitality and grace of Cloisonyt Post.”

  “To the post,” seconded Skarpa.

  Then the servers appeared with platters of lamb and roasted potatoes.

  Once everyone was served, Major Duffryt turned to Quaeryt. “Princeps … I heard that you picked a spear aimed at your wife out of midair and hurled it back at the man who threw it with enough force to send it through his chest. You broke most of his ribs and killed him on the spot.”

  “I don’t know about the ribs,” demurred Quaeryt.

  “You have to be a strong man, but you’re only a trace larger than average. I don’t know how you could do that while mounted.”

  Quaeryt smiled, sheepishly. “Major … I wish I could answer that question. I just saw the man throwing the spear, and I reacted.”

  The major tried not to frown.

  “The princeps is too modest,” said Skarpa. “I have seen him in battle. With only a half-staff he unseated a rebel with enough force to break his neck. He took a crossbow bolt full in the chest, pulled it out, blocked the wound, recovered a stray mount, and rode back to the post. He was fighting again in a month. Another time, he broke a line of pikemen and cut down almost half a score from behind.”

  “Yet you wear brown…”

  Quaeryt could see why the older officer was still only a major and in charge of a reserve post. That was where his nit-picking would be most valuable. “I’m still a scholar. I was riding with Sixth Battalion because the former governor felt I needed the experience to be able to report back to Lord Bhayar. Now … the man who attacked the lady Vaelora was wearing a uniform I’ve never seen.” He looked at the major.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Tell me about the uniform. Commander Skarpa had you look at him.”

  “It’s similar—I doubt it’s identical—to the uniforms the Tellan troops wore when they lost the battle of Cloisonyt.”

  “How might you know that?” asked Vaelora sweetly.

  “There was a parade or a march … last Feuillyt. A whole company of men wore them. They claimed they were celebrating the founding of Tela. They weren’t carrying weapons … so there wasn’t much the civic council could do.

  “Might someone on the council know more about this?” Quaeryt smiled pleasantly.

  “Chief Counselor Ghanyst knows everything that is going on.”

  “We’ll have to pay him a visit tomorrow,” said Quaeryt. “Now … if you would tell us about the post…?”

  From that point on, Quaeryt and Vaelora kept the conversation to the post and to the recent history of Cloisonyt, although the major and his officers could shed little additional light on the group wearing the replicas of ancient uniforms.

  Much, much later, they retired to the master bedroom of their temporary quarters.

  “Would you like to come along to visit the chief counselor tomorrow?” asked Quaeryt as he hung his jacket in the armoire.

  “I would.”

  Quaeryt smiled. “Good.”

  “Dearest … was Skarpa telling the truth … about what you did?”

  “That was the way it looked,” Quaeryt admitted. “My shields weren’t that strong when the quarrel hit, and it went into my chest. I knew the tip was barbed, and as you deduced, I managed to image it away before I pulled out the rest of the bolt…” He went on, reluctantly, to explain the other incidents.

  “You were almost killed all those times … and you never even told my brother?”

  “I wrote him about the quarrel.”

  “I read what you wrote. It sounded like a modest wound. It was more than that … wasn’t it?”

  “Probably.”

  “Why don’t you admit to what you’ve done?”

  “Because the imaging gives me an advantage. That means that I’m not in as much danger and that those deeds are not so great as others think. Yet I cannot admit that, or I cannot do what I must for you and for Bhayar. Nor will I be able to do what else I’ve planned.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “I’ve told you about what happened to the scholars in Nacliano, and what almost happened in Tilbora. Scholars are cherished and revered compared to imagers. The first thing I want to do is to improve the conditions for scholars and get them to help and teach young imagers, the way the scholars in Solis did for me—even if they didn’t know I was an imager…” He went on to explain what else he had in mind.

  17

  Just before eighth glass on Samedi morning, a squad of troopers from third company in Third Battalion—Meinyt’s battalion—escorted Quaeryt, Vaelora, and Duffryt to the ancient graystone council building of Cloisonyt, an oblong two-story structure with windows almost as narrow as those common in Tilbora. The walls held no ornamentation, and except for the number of windows and the lack of a gold-colored dome, the severity of the structure could have identified it as an anomen of the Nameless.

  The young clerk outside the chief councilor’s study looked up as the major, Quaeryt, and Vaelora approached. “Sir … he requested—”

  “Nonsense!” snapped Duffyt. “This is the new governor of Montagne, Choryn. Don’t bother. I’ll do the introductions.”

  Choryn swallowed. “Ah … yes, sirs, Lady…”

  Major Duffryt was the first into the councilor’s study, but he stepped aside quickly, waiting until Vaelora and Quaeryr entered before he spoke. “Councilor Ghanyst, I’d like to present you to Princeps Quaeryt. He’s the regional princeps of Tilbor, and he’s on his way to Extela to take over as governor of Montagne. His wife is Lady Vaelora, the sister of Lord Bhayar.” Duffryt paused, then added, “Did I mention that he also brought an entire regiment with him?”

  As Duffryt finished the introduction, and Choryn quietly closed the door, Ghanyst’s expression changed from a polite impassiveness, concealing irritation at being interrupted, Quaeryt suspected, to a broad and equally false smile. “Lady … Princeps … how kind of you to call. Please…” He gestured to the chairs before his desk. “How might I be of service?”

  After he seated Vaelora and then himself, Quaeryt smiled pleasantly. “I understand that you are the chief councilor of Cloisonyt, and that you have an expansive knowledge of the city, based on long and diligent experience.”

  “You are too kind, or perhaps the major has been far too charitable.” Ghanyst offered a warm smile of the political kind—one whose warmth his eyes did not fully reflect. “I can lay claim to some knowledge and experience. It is far from expansive, for Cloisonyt is an old city with much history.” He laughed gently and warmly. “That history is not dead. It lives in many inhabitants.”

  Quaeryt nodded. “Sometimes, what has happened long ago is not even past. When we rode into Cloisonyt, we saw a man in a strange uniform. When I asked Major Duffryt about it, he said that it was a reproduction of those worn by soldiers in the time of Hengyst … and that many wore such uniforms at times.” He raised his eyebrows in inquiry.

  “Oh … them. They’re a bunch of small crafters and shopkeepers who believe that the old times were better. They want Tellan independence … or things as they were, maybe even before Hengyst. Some folks call them the Army of Tela and laugh about it when they’re not around.”

  “When they’re not around?” pressed Quaeryt.

  “They’re a mite touchy about it. Some people call them the Red Hands.” Ghanyst shrugged. “They don’t carry weapons. None of them have done anything to offend the patrollers.”

  “Until yesterday,” said Quaeryt.

  Ghanyst frowned. “Yesterday?”

  “One of them wearing that uniform hurled a spear at my wife. He was yelling, ‘Death to the Yarans!’ I was too accurate in flinging the spear back. He didn’t live long enough for us to learn what he meant.”

  “The patrollers didn’t report that.” There was a slight hint of accusation
in the councilor’s tone.

  “That’s why we’re here,” replied Quaeryt. “To let you know. They can pick up the body anytime—and the spear. At least an entire squad of troopers heard or saw the attack. Now … what else can you tell us about this Army of Tela?”

  Ghanyst frowned again.

  Quaeryt waited, smiling pleasantly.

  After the silence dragged out, Ghanyst cleared his throat. “Well … I can’t say I know all that much about them.”

  “If you know enough to say that they’re small shopkeepers and crafters, you must know who some of them are,” suggested Quaeryt politely. “You might even be able to introduce us personally.”

  “Ah … I would be more than pleased to provide the names and addresses of those whom I do know.”

  “That would be most helpful,” said Vaelora sweetly.

  “We’ll wait while you write those down,” added Quaeryt. “And you can send your assistant with us so that we can find the addresses.”

  “Of course … of course.” Ghanyst’s cheerfulness was less than enthusiastic.

  A quint later, Choryn was riding Ghanyst’s mount, awkwardly, and leading them down to Third Street where it intersected River Way. Two shops from the corner was the cobbler shop of one Chelgyst Antensyn. Most of the squad waited outside. Two rankers accompanied Quaeryt, Vaelora, and Duffryt into the shop.

  The cobbler looked up from the bench where he appeared to be measuring or trimming leather. Even from the door, Quaeryt could see his eyes widen.

  “Ah … sirs … Lady … what … are you interested in boots, perhaps?” the cobbler finally stammered, clear puzzlement in his eyes in seeing a major, a lady, and a scholar, followed by two armed men.

  “You’re Chelgyst?” asked Quaeryt.

  “Yes, scholar.”

  “One of those who is a member of the Army of Tela?”

  “No longer, sir. Not for more than a year.” The cobbler’s voice was tired. “Not since they started to carry spears. Spears are against the laws.”

  “Then perhaps you could tell us who was the one who decided that they should carry spears.”

  “There were several, but they were shouting from the back. I left right then. I wish I’d never gone to the first meetings. They were talking about marching in parades and reminding folks about the great deeds of the past. My great-grandfather had a knife that came from the fall of Noveault. We still have it.”

  Quaeryt asked a few more questions, but the cobbler avoided giving names, and Quaeryt didn’t feel like pressing him, and they left the shop after less than a quint.

  The second name on Ghanyst’s listing was Aelphar, a cooper, but there was a tailor’s shop at the address, and the tailor told Duffryt that Aelphar had died the fall before, and that he was renting half the space from the widow.

  The third name was that of Shubatar, a fuller, five blocks to the west.

  He was a stocky graying man, but voluble in his replies.

  “… went to some of the meetings. I really didn’t care about all their parades. I figured that all those uniforms, the way they talked about them, they’d need fullering now and again … and some of them might come to me, rather than to Casseon.”

  “Who seemed to be the most outspoken?” asked Quaeryt.

  “Chausyn was pretty loud. So was Dymeyt … and sometimes another fellow with him Shar-something or other…”

  Once they left the fuller’s shop, Quaeryt checked the names they’d obtained from Shubatar against those on Ghanyst’s list. All three names were on the list, but near the bottom. Since Dymeyt was listed as a tinker, with a stall in the hill market, and that was the closest to where they were, according to Choryn, that was where Quaeryt directed the clerk to lead them.

  Choryn swallowed.

  Quaeryt noted his reaction and appeared to ignore it.

  Another quint passed by the time they were riding up the rough cobblestones of the side lane that held the hill market.

  “His stall … should be up there, past the poulterer…”

  Quaeryt squinted. Did he see a man in grays easing away? He urged the mare forward at a faster walk. The man began to walk faster, then to run.

  Quaeryt imaged goose grease—or what he thought of as goose grease—onto the bottom of the man’s boots. The fugitive went down hard, then tried to scramble to his feet. By then Quaeryt was less than ten yards away, but the man staggered up and took two steps, before falling hard again—helped not only by the slipperiness of his boots, but by the momentary hardening of the air—similar to the composition of Quaeryt’s shields—that the scholar had imaged in front of his shins.

  “I wouldn’t try to flee any farther, if I were you, Dymeyt!” snapped Quaeryt as he reined up.

  Heads had turned from all around the market, but the onlookers backed away from all the riders.

  “I didn’t do nothing … I didn’t.” The man, still on his knees, looked up at the riders who surrounded him, including the rankers with unsheathed blades.

  “Then why did you run? Might it have something to do with what happened yesterday?”

  “I didn’t think Sharmyt’d do something like that, sir … I didn’t. I just thought he’d say something from the alleyway.”

  “How did he know we were coming?”

  “He didn’t, sir. Leastwise, he didn’t say he did. He was headed over to Shubatar the fuller’s place when we saw all the riders coming up the avenue. Then he saw the lady—begging your pardon, mistress—and he ran out. I saw his spear come back and go through him, and I ran back down the alley, fearing for my life.”

  “Why did he have a spear?”

  “He said…” The man swallowed.

  “Go on…”

  “He said Shubatar wasn’t no true Ryntaran … just a fat fuller wanting to make coppers off us all. He was going to talk to him. That was what he said … he really did, sir.”

  “Where did Sharmyt live … or work?”

  “His brother’s a tinsmith, down off the river road, Crafters’ Way.”

  “What’s Sharmyt’s full name?”

  “Sharmyt Frydersyn…”

  “And his brother?”

  “Sheam.”

  Quaeryt shook his head, then turned to the squad leader. “Bind his hands, and bring him along. The major’s men can turn him over to the Civic Patrol when we’re done.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Getting to the tinsmith’s shop required retracing their path back over the ridge and almost down to the River Acliano. Crafters’ Way was all of a hundred yards long, and the tinsmith was at the end of the narrow street, distinguished by missing almost as many cobblestones as it had for what passed as paving.

  Quaeryt had barely stepped inside the small shop when he faced a wiry man with a lined face—and two women, one a redhead nearly as young as Vaelora, and another who looked to be closer to Quaeryt’s age.

  “Sirs … Lady…” offered the man. “What can I do for you?”

  “You’re Sheam Frydersyn?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You have a brother named Sharmyt, and he was seen yesterday wearing the uniform of the so-called Army of Tela?”

  “He’s my brother,” admitted the tinsmith, warily. “What of him?”

  “He tried to kill someone,” replied Quaeryt, giving Duffryt a sharp glance.

  “I told you!” hissed the younger red-haired woman. “I said he’d lead us all to no good with that foolishness.”

  For a time, Sheam said nothing. Then he shook his head slowly.

  Quaeryt could see his eyes brighten, most likely with barely unshed tears.

  “I told him…” The tinsmith shook his head again. “He didn’t listen.”

  “He never did,” added the redhead.

  “Where is he?” asked the tinsmith. “In the patrol gaol?”

  “He’s dead,” replied Quaeryt. “One of the people he tried to kill turned his spear on him.”

  The older woman sniffled. Tears rolled down he
r cheeks.

  “I’m sorry, sirs … I’m sorry…” Sheam looked helplessly at Quaeryt. “His body…?”

  Quaeryt looked to Duffryt.

  “It will be at the main patrol station,” said the major.

  After a few more questions that revealed nothing new, Quaeryt led the others out of the shop, and they remounted.

  “We’ll head back to the post now,” he announced.

  Duffryt looked puzzled, but said nothing.

  “What are you going to do, Governor?” asked Choryn.

  “I don’t see the need to do anything more right now. If people want to wear old uniforms and praise the old times, they can do that. The one man who used a weapon is dead. Punishing others for doing that will just cause more of them to be unhappy.” And we don’t need to waste men on something like that now. “If there’s more trouble, of course, we might send a company here to conscript the troublemakers and put them where they can wear new uniforms and fight for a live Lord of Telaryn, rather than for one long dead.” Quaeryt smiled pleasantly.

  Choryn shivered in the saddle.

  Major Duffryt looked from Choryn to Quaeryt, but said nothing.

  After dismissing Choryn to make his way back to the council building, Quaeryt eased the mare closer to Vaelora and her gelding. “I have the feeling that Ghanyst put the least likely names at the top of his list, including those no longer among the living. He obviously hoped that we would lose interest and would only make token inquiries.”

  “It would seem that way,” she replied.

  He nodded.

  “You were serious about conscription,” Vaelora observed.

  “I was. People who have time to create replicas of old uniforms and weapons and who go to great lengths to stir up trouble have too much time on their hands and not enough useful work to do. Conscription would stop much of the trouble, put them to work, and pay them for it. Not that I think I’ll have to resort to it.” He laughed. “Besides, I don’t even know that Cloisonyt is part of the Montagne regional governor’s ambit. I’ve never seen a map.”

  “It isn’t,” replied Vaelora. “Your territory ends about halfway between Cloisonyt and Montagne.”