Imager’s Intrigue

by L. E. Modesitt

  After he left, I closed my door and tried to think through what I hadn’t done. In addition to determining how many and which imagers needed to go where for transport to the northern fleet, and working out the associated logistics, I still needed to discover—one way or another—a few other unresolved matters, such as how accurate Geuffryt’s information about payoffs to Caartyl and Cydarth had been, and what had been involved with that. Also…I couldn’t help but wonder about the dead young woman who hadn’t been an elveweed suicide…and the role the freeholder–High Holder water conflicts played…or why L’Excelsis Indemnity had been destroyed…or…

  48

  The complexity of what I’d planned spiraled ever wider, and by Meredi morning, I realized that the evaluation of seconds and thirds was just the beginning of the detailed difficulties. We still had to get some twenty-odd junior imagers to a Naval port, most likely Westisle, but I needed to work that out with Valeun—something I wasn’t exactly looking forward to, but couldn’t avoid. I’d already sent a messenger to the Naval Command suggesting a meeting at the fourth glass of the afternoon, but hadn’t yet received a reply.

  In the meantime, some aspects of the travel had to be taken care of. The nearest port was Solis, two long days by ironway, while Westisle was more than four days by ironway. Either route required overnight travel…and far more sleeping cloths than Draffyd happened to have, not to mention the preparation of large quantities of sleeping draughts. Then there was the requirement for lead foil, because gunboats weren’t designed to carry imagers, and while that could be imaged, even for imagers, it was a slow and tedious process.

  On top of all those problems was an even larger one, and that was why I found myself once more in Maitre Dyana’s study before mid-morning.

  She just looked at me.

  So I launched into the problems at hand. “You’ve forbidden me to take charge of this in the field—or on the ocean—but there has to be a master in charge who understands what has to be done and who has strong shields and enough confidence to face down Navy Commanders.”

  She nodded. “Whom do you suggest?”

  I had thought about it. “Can I pick anyone?”

  “Anyone who’s not a Maitre D’Esprit or a Maitre D’Structure.”

  That didn’t surprise me, given how few senior masters there were. “Dartazn. He’s dealt with Councilors. He’s impressive in stature. He’s thoughtful and intelligent, and he’s close to being a Maitre D’Structure in imager abilities.”

  She nodded. “He’d be a good choice…if he’s willing to put all his effort into it. He can be rather stubborn in a quiet way when he’s forced to do things he’d prefer not to.”

  “I haven’t talked to him, but I have the feeling he might relish something like this.”

  “Dichartyn once said that about someone else, and he was right. I hope you are.”

  “If he’s not interested…then I’d suggest Ghaend.”

  “So would I, but Dartazn would be better.” She nodded. “Go talk to him. He has a great deal to learn in the next week. But don’t forget to tell Baratyn first.”

  “He won’t be happy, either.”

  “You expected otherwise?” She raised a single eyebrow.

  With a rueful smile, I left, heading back to my study to see if I’d gotten a reply from Sea-Marshal Valeun. As I walked down the steps to the main level, I was definitely getting the feeling that, by the time everything was resolved—if it even could be—no matter what happened, almost no one at the Collegium was likely to be pleased with me.

  Valeun had replied. The duty prime had an envelope, and in it was a curt note said that he would be available at half past fourth glass.

  My next task was to meet with Baratyn. So I donned my heavy winter cloak and ventured forth into a bitter wind to make my way to the duty coach stand.

  Once I reached the Council Chateau, I found the Council’s security master standing in the corridor on the main level, just outside the study where the messengers waited between duties.

  “Maitre Rhennthyl, what brings you here these days?”

  I offered a smile. “I came to talk to you and to get your thoughts on something.”

  “If it’s thinking, we’d best go to my study.”

  I followed him and closed the door. He didn’t sit down, and I didn’t suggest it, either. One way or another, the conversation would be short.

  “What do you think of Dartazn as a possibility for a position where we need a thoughtful, but enthusiastic and commanding Maitre D’Aspect?”

  “It sounds like something dealing with seconds and thirds. Is it?”

  “It is.”

  “He’s been good with them.” Baratyn smiled. “He’s good with everyone. I figured he might not stay here…after all that’s happened.”

  “We’re short of masters everywhere. But I wanted to talk to you before I talked to him.”

  “I do appreciate that.” He paused. “We’ll be short-handed here.”

  “With what we’re doing,” I replied, “the entire Collegium is likely to be short-handed, possibly for several months. Once this is over, it’s possible that we may be able to start training some replacements.”

  “When will you need him…if he agrees?”

  “The moment he does. I have a coach waiting.”

  Baratyn’s face sobered. Then he nodded slowly. “Is it true that the Ferrans detonated Glendyl’s engine works right around you?”

  “Unhappily…yes.”

  “And you’re planning something to take the war more to them?”

  “Let’s just say that we’re planning something.” I smiled. “Do you happen to know where Dartazn might be at the moment?”

  “He was escorting a visitor to see acting Chief Councilor Caartyl. I don’t imagine he’ll be that long.”

  “Has Caartyl had that many visitors?”

  “Very few. Just a handful of guildmasters. Word is out that Glendyl is likely to recover, and he can be vindictive.”

  “He may be preoccupied with rebuilding his engine works.” Then, he might not, if I found any hard evidence to link him to the Ferrans and the shooting of Suyrien. I had the feeling that some of my surmises would remain only that, at least from what I’d learned so far.

  “That was a bad business.”

  “More than I can say.”

  At that moment, Dartazn came down the steps to the north of where we stood and walked toward us.

  “Maitre Rhennthyl needs to talk to you.” Baratyn nodded to me.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I need a few moments of your time.” The messenger study was empty, and I gestured for Dartazn to follow me in there. I couldn’t close the door, because there wasn’t one, only an archway onto the main corridor.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Maitre Dyana and I need someone for a special assignment. Both of us thought you’d be good in it, and I’ve already talked to Baratyn. He agrees.”

  “What sort of assignment?”

  “Taking charge of a group of younger imagers involved in a larger task.”

  Dartazn nodded slowly. “The way you put that, sir, suggests there is a certain amount of danger involved.”

  “Yes, although part of that will depend on the skill of whoever takes the assignment.”

  “Can you tell me more?”

  “I’d prefer not to, not outside the Collegium. If you’re interested, we can go back to the Collegium. I can tell you more there.”

  He nodded. “Am I the first or the last junior master you’ve approached?”

  “The only one. I’d rather not have to approach any others.”

  At that, he smiled wryly, an expression that also held a certain boyish charm, for all that he was slightly older than I. “I think I’d like to try.”

  “Then we should depart. I have a duty coach waiting.”

  He gathered his cloak, and we left the Council Chateau.

  Once we were in the duty coach, I began to explain, beginn
ing with the Ferran and Stakanaran efforts to undermine Solidar itself and then telling him about the problems with the Solidaran fleet. That was as far as I got by the time we got out of the coach, but that was enough for Dartazn to commit to the position. For the next four glasses, with one glass out for the midday meal, I went over the plan, what I expected of him, and answered his questions as well as I could. The one question he didn’t ask was why I wasn’t doing what I was asking him to do.

  That alone suggested he was the right imager for the task.

  Then we found another duty coach, and on the trip northward, I filled him in on what he needed to know about the Naval Command. The only thing I told him about Geuffryt was that the Assistant Sea-Marshal was the intelligence head and to be politely avoided where possible and treated with great civility otherwise, and that any request for information was to be handled by saying, “You’ll have to ask Marshal Valeun or Maitre Rhennthytl about that, sir.”

  Dartazn smiled at those instructions.

  The duty coach arrived at the Naval Command building almost exactly at two quints past four. By the time we’d been escorted up to Marshal Valeun’s study, it was half past the glass.

  The senior ranker in the anteroom stood and opened the door to Valeun’s study, without a word, although his eyes lingered on Dartazn for a moment. The door closed behind us.

  Valeun stood behind his desk. “Maitres.”

  “Sea-Marshall Valeun, I’d like to present Maitre Dartazn. He is the master who will be directly in charge of the imagers and who will be with the fleet to coordinate our part of the operation.”

  “I had thought you might be undertaking that task, Maitre Rhennthyl.”

  “Alas, like you, Marshal, I’ve been tasked with overseeing a number of Collegium efforts, and the Maitre of the Collegium felt the master imager on the fleet level should be devoted to the operation and to nothing else.”

  Valeun studied Dartazn, then nodded. “Welcome aboard, Master Dartazn.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “We have much to discuss.” Valeun gestured toward the chairs before his expansive desk, then seated himself.

  I took the seat to the side, letting Dartazn sit directly facing Valeun.

  “We will have a fast frigate waiting at Westisle by Jeudi, the thirty-third of Finitas, suitable for transport, but she does not have sufficient lead-lined spaces.”

  I glanced to Dartazn.

  “We will supply lead foil—both for the frigate, and for a number of the fast gunboats,” replied Dartazn.

  “The frigate will join a replacement flotilla that will be leaving shortly from Solis…”

  From there we got into detail after detail, and it was more than a glass later before we finally left the Naval Bureau. I’d had to talk more than I’d hoped to, but less than might have been. With Valeun, it was hard to tell, but I got the sense that he’d be more than happy to deal with Dartazn, rather than me. He also didn’t mention Geuffryt, and that was just fine with me.

  I still wanted to resolve the issues dealing with the Civic Patrol, and the possible involvement of the Banque D’Ouestan with the Ferrans, not to mention the very loose ends dealing with Caartyl and Cydarth; but those would have to wait until we had the imagers packed up and on their way to Westisle.

  49

  When I woke early on Jeudi, four digits of snow covered the ground, and it was falling so thickly and quickly that I couldn’t see the wall that surrounded our courtyard. I went downstairs in my nightclothes and loaded more coal in the stoves, then washed my hands in the kitchen and slipped into bed next to Seliora.

  “You’re not going to NordEste today…”

  “I’m not?” she said sleepily.

  “Not unless you want to walk four milles though snow…”

  Not that we had that long together before Diestrya joined us and I finally got up.

  After breakfast, I still trudged through the snow to the infirmary to check with Draffyd on Glendyl. I had to wait a bit.

  “Have you been here long?” he asked as he stepped out of one the surgical rooms.

  “Not really long.”

  He gestured toward the room he just left. “One of the dining hall workers slipped on the snow and fell. She hit her arm on one of the stone walls outside the hall and broke it.” He paused. “What can I do for you?”

  “Is Glendyl still here?”

  “I’d thought to let him leave today, but with this weather…”

  “That makes it easier for me to talk to him.”

  “He’s not happy with you, or the Collegium.”

  “He’d have lost even more if I hadn’t gone to Ferravyl when I did.”

  “He doesn’t think so.”

  “Has he said anything to you?”

  “Besides complain about everything here in the infirmary? Not much. He hasn’t said a word about you or Maitre Dyana, or the Ferrans, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  I grinned. “I was.”

  “He’s in the same chamber.”

  “Thank you.” I nodded and walked down the corridor and into the Councilor’s room. The walls were the same gray, but Glendyl had obviously sent for items to make his stay more comfortable. He was seated in an armchair that certainly wasn’t from the Collegium, and he wore a silken dressing gown. He set down a file of papers and looked at me, but did not speak.

  “Good morning, Councilor.”

  “What’s good about it? It’s snowing, and I can’t leave. My works are falling apart as we speak, and there’s nothing I can do about it while I’m stuck here.”

  “Well…you are alive, and you might not be.”

  “And I may be ruined because of you.”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t have anything to do with your business decisions. I also didn’t have anything to do with the decision of the Ferrans to target your engine works.”

  “I’m sorry, Maitre Rhennthyl, but I have trouble believing that.”

  “Why would I want your engine works, especially the turbine buildings, destroyed? There’s been far too much destruction already.”

  “They wouldn’t have set off the explosions if you hadn’t visited the works.”

  “Oh? That almost sounds like you were in collusion with them.”

  “That’s not what I said. It’s not what I meant. If you’d just told me that you suspected that, I could have had my people look quietly, and none of that would have happened.”

  His answer tended to confirm some of my suspicions. “That’s possible. You have to remember that I don’t happen to have all the information that Master Dichartyn had.”

  “I had not thought of it that way.” He smiled politely and slightly knowingly.

  “Besides Suyrien and Haebyn, how much did you get advanced through the Banque D’Ouestan?”

  His eyes narrowed. “That’s…I don’t believe I ever mentioned the Banque D’Ouestan.”

  He’d been about to tell me that advances from the banque were none of my business, although that one word and subsequent denial scarcely amounted to proof. “I thought it had to be an outland banque.”

  “You’re inventing things, Maitre Rhennthyl.”

  “Perhaps, but I didn’t invent the bombardment of Imagisle or the destruction of your works, or explosions all across Solidar, or a number of funds transfers of a questionable nature, or your debts to High Holder Suyrien.”

  “Indebtedness, if repaid under the terms agreed upon, isn’t a crime.”

  “I also didn’t invent Ferran agents infiltrating your works, and one of them shooting you, and probably Suyrien the Elder.”

  “I suggest, Maitre Rhennthyl, that the Collegium should work to deal with those problems, and not waste time interrogating those of us who have already suffered enough.”

  “The Collegium has also suffered, honored Councilor, and it appears as though the problems we and you have suffered are linked to many other people and problems. I’m just a poor imager trying to figure out what is linked to
what, because it appears all too many people do not wish to have others know what they have done or what they owe to whom for what. Yet debts and obligations, and struggles over them, can lead to consequences just as deadly as explosions and murders.” I inclined my head. “I will not trouble you more at present, and I hope that you will be able to return to your own estate as safely as possible once the snow clears.”

  He barely nodded in return.

  When I left the infirmary, I walked through the still-falling powdery snow to the administration building and my study. When I had time, if I ever did, I wanted to create a standardized form for those reports and a set of guidelines for filling them in. But, like many things, that was going to have to wait.

  I found Kahlasa, and we went into Schorzat’s study.

  He looked up from his desk with an expression of what I could only have termed watchful wariness. “Yes, sir?”

  “The Naval Command will have a fast frigate in Westisle by next Jeudi. We’ll need to get the imagers we pick on the ironway late on Solayi. Oh…and the master in charge of the operation is Dartazn.”

  That brought another wary look.

  “Maitre Dyana refused to let anyone besides a Maitre D’Aspect be considered, and I doubted that it would be a good idea to have Kahlasa go.” I smiled. “Given that, and the fact that there’s really no one to replace Baratyn, who would you pick?”

  “Dartazn’s probably the best choice.”

  “He’s a good choice,” added Kahlasa. “He’s the kind that all the juniors look up to.”

  Unfortunately, I understood that all too well. Dartazn radiated almost a boyish enthusiasm, along with quiet confidence. That was one reason why I’d thought of him.

  “You’re asking them to do dangerous duty, aren’t you?” asked Schorzat. “Do you think that’s a fair thing to do for junior imagers?”

  “It’s far more fair than letting them be shot by assassins as was the case when I was a second. It’s far more fair than eventually letting the Ferrans dominate the world and attempt to destroy us all. But is it fair? No. It’s just the only practical alternative now that the Council has managed to put us all in this position.”