Imager’s Intrigue

by L. E. Modesitt

  I left my study a bit early so that I could ride out with the duty coach to pick up Seliora and have the driver drop all three of us at my parents’ house for a dinner that was more obligation than anything else.

  Seliora looked tired when I collected them. So I carried Diestrya to the coach and played with her. Seliora closed her eyes. She might have been dozing, or just resting.

  Mother was the one who opened the door, and her eyes went straight to me. “Your face—what happened to you?” she demanded.

  “A few stones,” I replied.

  My mother immediately looked to Seliora. “A few?”

  “Quite a few. He got bruised protecting us. He couldn’t leave Imagisle until a few days ago.”

  “Let them get in the house, Maelyna,” groused Father from the rear of the foyer.

  Once we were in the family parlor, where Culthyn waited, Father looked at me. “That was a Collegium coach, and the word is that some senior imagers were killed in the attack on the Collegium.”

  “I have a new position at the Collegium,” I admitted. “I’m no longer a Civic Patrol captain.”

  “Did you get promoted?” interjected Culthyn.

  “Yes. I’m a Maitre D’Esprit now.”

  “Do you get paid more?”

  “I do. Enough.” I managed a laugh. “We’re here for dinner, not an interrogation.”

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” asked Mother.

  “I’m fine,” I insisted. Thankfully, Seliora didn’t comment on my slight exaggeration.

  While I answered Father’s and Culthyn’s questions about the state of L’Excelsis, Solidar, and the Collegium, Mother slipped away. She returned shortly with a tray of beverages. I was given hot spiced wine—apparently my bruises removed my choice.

  Rather than keep answering, or avoiding answering, I took a sip of the wine, then looked at Father and said, “I’ve been hearing that some of the factors aren’t exactly pleased with the High Holders after what’s happened here in Solidar and in the war with Ferrum.”

  My father laughed. “There’s no such thing as a happy factor. If times are bad, he worries that they’ll get worse. If they’re good, he worries that they won’t last.”

  “What do you think about Councilor Glendyl?”

  Father snorted. “He just thinks he’s a factor. He’s wealthier than most High Holders, and he acts worse than they do. The High Holders provide lodging to their tenants and workers. Glendyl pays his workers but a pittance more and provides nothing, and complains about that.”

  “Councilor Caartyl has hinted at that,” I offered.

  “He’s almost as bad,” Father went on after a swallow of his Dhuensa. “To hear him talk, you’d think that everything produced by hand was a work of high art. The artisans just want to keep things comfortable for themselves, like the spinners and the carders did in my father’s time. There’s a place for solid goods everyone can buy, and a place for art, but most people don’t want to pay for art when they buy work-day garments or potatoes. Caartyl thinks the factors should pay higher taxes so everyone can have art…the Navy isn’t much better…some of those Sea-Marshals aren’t beyond scuttling their own ships if it would get them a new battlecruiser, and Glendyl would probably sell them the tools to do it….”

  I just sipped and listened.

  37

  On Samedi morning, I did do nearly the full version of Clovyl’s exercises, as well as the run, which I hadn’t done before, and the resultant tiredness convinced me, more than Seliora’s insistence, that I had a ways to go before I was fully recovered. I didn’t tell her that. Then, the way she looked at me when I returned to the house, I didn’t have to.

  So I was careful over the weekend, although I did spend more than a few glasses in my Collegium study going over reports—and maps—and older reports buried in the bottom drawers of the two cases. I also spent time taking care of Diestrya so that my very tired wife got some rest as well, and during the one time when they both were sleeping, I checked over the repairs that the imagers had made to the rest of the furniture—adequate, but I wouldn’t have wanted Shomyr or Shelim to have seen it.

  On Solayi, we attended services at the anomen, and one part of Isola’s homily had Seliora quietly nodding. I agreed as well, even if I didn’t nod.

  “…the Nameless is neither young nor old, but eternal and everlasting. The Nameless is neither finite nor infinite, but stands beyond our measurements. Nor is the Nameless man or woman…These descriptions of the attributes of the Nameless have been set forth for centuries. Then, why is it that people think of the Nameless as a powerful male figure? Could not the Nameless be powerful and female? Or powerful and both male and female? Or powerful without gender?

  “For all that is said, we bring our own concepts to the anomen, and because the Nameless is powerful and because in our world men are powerful, all too many assume that the Nameless must, in some fashion, resemble a powerful man. Why? Is not a lightning bolt powerful? Are not the storms of the ocean powerful? Are not the rays of the summer sun filled with power and heat? But who of sound mind and common sense would assert that lightning, storms, or the sun are a man of power?”

  Isola went on to assert that the Nameless, by definition, was beyond mere human labels and descriptions. That might well have been true, but it didn’t stop people from labeling and describing what they had never seen or never might—or describing badly what they had seen.

  As we walked back to the house, under the pale reddish light of a full Erion, an image flashed in front of me…or in my mind, but it was so vivid I knew it was another Pharsi farsight flash. Yet, in some ways, it was anything but vivid, because all I could see were what looked to be a mille of large stone buildings, and over them to the right, huge hulking cranes rising on the far side of the structures. Nothing flashed. Nothing flared. Stones didn’t fall around me. Then the flash was gone.

  I had to stop for a moment and check where I was, but I was still on Imagisle, with the River Aluse to my left, and the stone walk leading north to our house before me.

  “Rhenn? Are you all right?” asked Seliora.

  “I had a flash…but it was just a scene, some sort of endless manufactory. Nothing happened. No explosions, no fires, nothing like that.”

  “Then…you saw it just before something could happen. Was it familiar?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I’ve never been there.”

  “Maybe you need to go there.”

  Seliora was probably right—except I had no idea where “there” might be.

  Later that evening, after Seliora had sung Diestrya to sleep, we sat side by side on the settee in front of the stove in the family parlor.

  “Rhenn…?”

  I smiled and put my arm around her, but she sat up straight.

  “I’ve been thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “Odelia and Kolasyn. It’s more than that.” She paused. “We were so close for so long. Even now, she’s so wary when we talk.”

  “I know how close you were.” I laughed softly. “I couldn’t ever get to be alone with you except on the small terrace at NordEste Design.”

  “It hurts. I didn’t do anything at all.”

  “She knows that I couldn’t do more than I did. But what we know and what we feel aren’t always the same. I wouldn’t be surprised if she still feels that, if I’d done something more, Haerasyn would still be alive. She may believe that if you’d pressed me I might have changed things.”

  “You’ve done more than anyone else. She knows that. She even said so.”

  “That’s not the question, really, is it?” I asked gently.

  “No. You’re right. What we know and what we feel, deep inside, aren’t the same. People are like that. Sometimes it’s the ones closest to you—especially the close friends and family—who hurt you the most. But…it’s so sad. It shouldn’t be that way.”

  “No…it shouldn’t. But it is. It always is.”

  �
��You’re thinking of your brother, aren’t you?”

  “I did what I thought was right…and he paid for it, and he never even knew why.”

  “It was all Johanyr’s fault…and everyone in his family paid. He got off the easiest.”

  “And now no one even knows where he is, except that he’s likely stolen thousands of golds from his sister.”

  “Why did he wait so long…if he could have done it all along?” asked Seliora.

  “Maybe he couldn’t have. He can’t see well enough even to write a cheque or a fund transfer request, and no one else is missing from Mont D’Glace.”

  “Will anyone ever find him?”

  “Not unless whoever helped him betrays him, and if he managed it alone, he won’t be found if he doesn’t want to be.”

  “That seems wrong.”

  I didn’t say anything. I only knew I wouldn’t want to be almost blind and in hiding, even with two thousand in golds.

  38

  On Lundi, I compromised, doing the exercises and only running a bit more than a mille, and I returned to the house, feeling only reasonably uncomfortable. Once I got to my study at the Collegium, after reading the morning newsheets, which both reported the loss of more ships from the northern fleet, given my conversation with Frydryk on Vendrei and more research and thought over the weekend, I decided that a conversation with the good Councilor Glendyl was definitely in order. While Maitre Dyana had suggested that she and Rholyn would brief me, she hadn’t exactly forbidden me to meet with the Councilors. Implied, but not forbidden. So just before eighth glass on Lundi morning, I took a duty coach to the Council Chateau.

  While all the obdurate guards were polite and apparently pleased to see me, Baratyn hurried out of his main floor study before I could make my way to the upper level.

  “Maitre Rhennthyl…I didn’t expect you.”

  I ignored the various implications. “I assume Glendyl is here.”

  “Why…yes. Here’s been here since before seventh glass.”

  “Good. I thought he and I might have a few things to talk over.”

  “He met with Maitre Rholyn just yesterday.”

  That didn’t make me any happier. But I smiled. “Then Glendyl shouldn’t be all that surprised to see me.”

  “He isn’t expecting you?”

  “He should be. Whether he is or not remains to be seen.”

  “I’d best escort you, then,” Baratyn said. “Otherwise, he might think you’re not who you say you are and bolt the door or shoot at you.”

  “He carries a pistol?”

  “Two of them. He’s reputedly a very good shot. That wouldn’t hurt you, but the Collegium could look foolish.”

  “He would look even more foolish,” I pointed out, “and that would be far worse for the Collegium.”

  For a moment, Baratyn was silent. Then he nodded and turned toward the Grand Foyer. Since Glendyl’s study was on the southwest corner, taking the formal staircase was actually the fastest way there.

  “Has anyone from the Naval Command been here to talk to Caartyl or Glendyl?” I asked as I walked alongside Baratyn.

  “No. I have the feeling they’re waiting for Ramsael to take over the Executive Council.”

  That Sea-Marshal Valeun would avoid Glendyl in the middle of an undeclared war with Ferrum said something, but what…that was another question. It also didn’t make sense, and that meant I didn’t know something. “Is that because they’re afraid that the full Council will undo anything Glendyl does right now?”

  “I couldn’t say, Maitre Rhennthyl.”

  “Or is it that Glendyl now has the power to ask penetrating questions if they press him?”

  “That’s more likely.”

  “About the conduct of the war or about the organization and structure of the Naval Command?”

  “Glendyl wouldn’t second-guess fleet commanders.”

  “So it’s likely that he thinks the Naval Command is overstaffed and inefficient.”

  “There are more than a few high-paid marshals and senior commanders north of here, and, from the point of view of a factor who has to watch every copper, there might be some questions about their necessity.”

  “Glendyl knows that summoning them to ask such questions would be perceived as too high-handed and would likely backfire because he won’t be in charge for that long, and they won’t come asking for anything because then he could ask those questions.”

  “That would be my guess.”

  I laughed. “It’s likely a very good guess.” I also suspected that Dichartyn had probably felt the same way, but those sorts of calculations weren’t something that anyone committed to paper, even in the Collegium. The problem was that assessments not committed to paper tended to get lost if the assessor died or vanished. And that was another bit of circumstantial evidence, not the kind I could ever bring before the Justiciary or the Council, but real enough.

  When we reached the dark wooden door on the southwest corner, Baratyn rapped on it smartly. “Councilor, it’s Baratyn. Maitre Rhennthyl is here from the Collegium to see you.”

  There was a long silence from the other side of the door before Glendyl replied, “Do have him come in.”

  I opened the door and stepped into the corner study, with windows on both the south and west outside walls. At first glance, standing beside the wide writing desk, Glendyl was totally unremarkable. He was of medium height, with thinning black hair and pale green eyes. A second glance revealed the hardness of the eyes and the set to a more than rugged jaw.

  As I stepped forward, for a moment, I felt cooler air, as if Glendyl had opened one of his study windows for a moment, then closed it. Behind me, Baratyn shut the door quietly as he left.

  “Good morning, Councilor,” I offered pleasantly.

  “Good morning. I understand you’ve taken over Maitre Dichartyn’s position. I always thought you’d go far, Maitre Rhennthyl, even when you were first here. Something about you, I suppose. If you hadn’t turned out to be an imager…” He shook his head. “Guildmaster Reayalt said you could have been one of the great portraiturists, and your sister may well become the most noted factoria of our time.” He smiled, but did not sit or gesture toward the chairs before his desk. “What can I do for you today?”

  “I thought it might be a good idea for us to talk, Councilor. There are several matters at hand. I’d like your observations about the Naval Command’s use of Council funds for its operations and administration…”

  “The way you phrased that, Maitre Rhennthyl, suggests that you already know my concerns about the administrative structure of the Naval Command. The purpose of a navy is to control the oceans and to make them safe for our merchanters. That doesn’t require that every new vessel be bigger than its predecessor. It does require determining how many of what kind of vessels are necessary and building and operating those. Golds spent for purposes other than building, equipping, and operating those ships should be kept to an absolute minimum. Every factor knows that. That’s why there are few studies for supervisors in my manufactories. Supervisors should be supervising, or checking accounts, or making certain that materials are ordered and used in a timely fashion. None of those activities require large or luxurious studies or conference rooms. Nor elaborate dining facilities. Nor assistants to the assistants of senior supervisors.” He raised his thick trimmed eyebrows. “I note that the Collegium has operated effectively for centuries without separate dining facilities for masters and without coaches and transport reserved for specific masters.”

  I smiled. “That’s very true.”

  “Need I say more?”

  “Do you think matters have gotten worse…recently?”

  “I would scarce say that they’re better.”

  I nodded.

  “What else did you wish to discuss?”

  “The more I’ve looked into Ferran activities here in Solidar, the more I seem to be finding all too many…shall we say…oddities.”

  “Every
thing associated with the Ferrans is odd to people in Solidar. Most here don’t think in the same way they do.”

  “You’ve obviously thought about it, Councilor.”

  “It’s time for a brisk walk, Maitre Rhennthyl.” His right eye twitched, more than I recalled from my time in security at the Council Chateau. “Just around the Chateau grounds. Would you care to join me?”

  “I’d be pleased.” What ever Glendyl wanted to say, he didn’t want anyone overhearing. While the listening tubes did not go to any Councilor’s study, it was clear Glendyl wasn’t counting on that.

  He pulled on a heavy black wool cloak and moved toward the door. I opened it and stepped out into the corridor, leaving it for him to close.

  I said nothing until we neared the steps, when I asked, “How did you get started in the business of making engines and locomotives?”

  “My father made pumps for the mines, but the engines were terrible. There was this artisan who made a different engine. It worked well, but it was too expensive and took too long to build. I worked with him to build a better and cheaper steam engine. Since I had the rights, I applied the same idea to everything that I could.” He chuckled.

  “You make it sound very easy and simple,” I replied. “I doubt that it was either.” My eyes passed over the twin statues of angelias at the base of the steps, and I couldn’t help thinking of Father.

  “Good ideas are always simple. Making them work is the hard part. That’s like the Council. More than a few Councilors have ideas they think are good, but half the time they don’t think about the implications and effects for everyone else.” He paused, resting his hand on the curve of the balustrade, before marching toward the main foyer and the outer doors on the south side of the Chateau. “Your sister is hard-working and very practical. I’d rather have her on the Council than half the Councilors now serving, who think that everything should stay the way it’s always been. Things never stay the same. If Rex Charyn hadn’t had enough sense to see that the time of single hereditary rulers was past, why, we’d be in the same pickle as the Jariolans. He saw that trade was what counted, not lands and who could raise an army with bows and blades. Now and in the years ahead, engines and machines will count more than artisans and craft or trade in raw materials. Too many in Solidar don’t see that.”