“Bhayar has to know better.”
“I’m certain he does,” replied Quaeryt. “There’s the phrase about most of the charges being false.”
“He won’t stand up for you…”
“He’s facing attacks by Kharst and the Bovarians. The last thing he wants is a bunch of unhappy factors and High Holders in his ancestral home. He replaces me, and it solves everything. This Markyl, if he’s smart, and I’m certain he is, will placate everyone and blame me. Things are getting back to normal, and no one will complain if the Civic Patrol is better, and if Markyl can find a justicer who does a better and more honest job than Tharyn and the other one did, the new governor will get the credit for it. He won’t have to take the blame for getting a governor’s residence-”
“That I found and negotiated for, had cleaned and furnished, and had little enough time to enjoy after months of travel and poor accommodations,” snapped Vaelora. “Bhayar didn’t even think of me, except to order me back to Solis like a discarded plaque in a game he’s playing with Kharst.”
Quaeryt couldn’t blame her for her anger as he added, “And replacing us will allow him to remove Third Regiment as well, which he needs immediately in Ferravyl.”
“How immediately?” demanded Vaelora.
“We leave on Samedi morning.”
“Samedi morning! One day to make arrangements and to pack! One day! And Shenna, poor Shenna … What will I do for her?”
“We could give her some golds…”
“Of course, but that’s little enough … and for all we’ve done…”
Quaeryt realized that he was not going to have much of a chance to say more. So he listened for almost two quints before he finally slipped in another sentence. “I have an errand to take care of…”
“Now?!! For what reason when you’re being rewarded like this?”
“If I don’t take care of it, I will regret it, and Extela will suffer.”
“What is all that important if we’re leaving on Samedi morning?”
“I’ll tell you when I return.” Quaeryt offered the sentence quietly.
“Is it that important?”
“It is to me. It’s something that needs to be done.”
Strangely, at least to Quaeryt, the anger seemed to vanish from Vaelora’s face, but she said nothing for several moments.
Quaeryt waited.
“You have to set something right, don’t you?”
“It’s the least I can do.”
“Please be careful, dearest.” After a moment, she added, “In every way.”
“This time, I intend exactly that.” Quaeryt took a deep breath. He wasn’t looking forward to what he planned, for more than a few reasons. Still …
He used a concealment shield to walk back to the stable, and he held it over both the mare and himself when he rode out from the villa, rather than try to explain to the rankers assigned to the villa why he needed no escorts. Since he’d had to make several trips to Hyleor’s dwelling before finally meeting the factor, Quaeryt had no difficulty finding his way there under his shield.
When he saw the house, and the brick wall topped with ironwork spikes that fronted the street and formed part of the enclosure around the garden between the house and street, he frowned again at the sheer ill chance that had befallen Versoryn.
Might have been better for all of us if they’d whipped Hyleor to death. Quaeryt shook his head. Then you’d have had to execute him and the others … and that would have been worse, especially given High Holder Cransyr. Except Hyleor’s caused at least five deaths you know of, and probably more that you don’t. Like so many things in life, there was no ideal resolution. But that’s why you’re here this afternoon.
As he rode closer, he could see that no one was outside in front, despite the open gates.
Holding a concealment shield over himself and the mare, Quaeryt rode slowly through the gates. He looked again at the drive. The last time he had seen Hyleor, the drive had been muddy and rutted. Now it was smooth and graveled. He slowed the mare, then almost a step at a time rode down the dirt on the side away from the graveled drive toward the dwelling and the small building behind it. He chose the dirt because the sound of hooves on the gravel would be noticed more than silent tracks appearing in the dirt … assuming anyone noticed at all.
He was halfway down the drive when two men stepped out of the small shedlike building behind the dwelling. One was the fleshy-faced and black-haired Hyleor, looking fatter and greasier than Quaeryt recalled. The other was wiry and dressed in faded gray, moving his head from side to side with a jerkiness that reminded Quaeryt of a wary rodent.
Quaeryt reined up and waited, listening.
“… do about Cauflyn?”
“… once he’s out of the patrol gaol … the same as the others … except I’ll carve my initials in his guts so big he doesn’t have guts…”
“Patrol chief or governor might have something to say about that.”
“Word is that the governor won’t last long…” The spice factor looked up and turned his head from side to side. “You hear something?”
“Just the wind.”
“Could have sworn I heard a horse whuffling.”
“Do you see a horse, sir?” asked the man in gray, his head moving rodent-like from side to side.
“I heard one.”
Quaeryt didn’t bother to wait longer. He imaged water into Hyleor’s lower throat and lungs.
The factor staggered, then tried to speak. No sound issued forth. An attempted cough spewed forth some liquid, but Quaeryt imaged more water into Hyleor’s lower throat.
The man in gray pounded on Hyleor’s back. Hyleor coughed out a small spurt of water, but his face was turning red.
“Elenda! Elenda!” yelled the man in gray.
Hyleor staggered, then bent forward, trying to clear his lungs and throat.
Quaeryt waited.
Abruptly, the factor pitched forward into the gravel of the drive. The other man pushed on his back and kept pressing intermittently. Water gushed from Hyleor’s mouth, but Quaeryt imaged more into the factor’s throat.
In time, Quaeryt could see that the factor’s chest was moving slower and slower … until it wasn’t rising and falling at all.
The man in gray rolled Hyleor over so that he faced skyward in the late afternoon. “Elenda!”
No one appeared.
The gray man ran for the rear of the house.
Once he was out of sight, Quaeryt turned the mare and rode slowly back up along the far side of the drive until he was outside the gates. He reined up and waited. Still … no one appeared.
After half a quint, he turned the mare.
He was just glad Hyleor had been there. He would have come back later that evening, or on Vendrei evening, had it been necessary. He just couldn’t have left Hyleor to create more trouble for Pharyl and for the people of Extela.
But won’t someone else just step into his boots? And what right did you have to act as justicer and executioner?
His laugh was silent and bitter. No right at all, only the responsibility not to let a man who caused death after death keep doing it when no one else could or would stop it.
Quaeryt didn’t have any better answers to his own questions. He kept riding, back toward the villa that he and Vaelora had occupied for such a short time with such high hopes for a future that had not come to pass.
He’d been able to do nothing about improving matters in Extela or in any other part of Montagne for either scholars and imagers. He hadn’t finished resolving many of the problems facing the city, and he’d already been dismissed and replaced.
57
Quaeryt’s head was aching, and little flashes of light sparkled in front of his eyes by the time he returned to the villa, unseen beneath the concealment shield. Once in the stable, he released the shield, and took a deep breath. The imaging he’d done hadn’t been that strenuous, but he was out of practice in holding both personal and conc
ealment shields simultaneously … and for such a long period of time. After several moments he unsaddled and groomed the mare. Since none of the rankers were waiting or looking for him, his absence from the villa had apparently gone unnoticed.
He walked up from the stable to the villa, his thoughts on what might await him in Ferravyl. His boots had barely hit the floor inside the entry hall, echoing unevenly, when Vaelora hurried out of the main level study. She stopped a yard short of him.
“How did … your errand … go?” Her voice was soft.
“I took care of it,” replied Quaeryt tiredly.
“Not Grelyana? She’s a bitch, but…”
At the worried expression on his wife’s face, Quaeryt shook his head. “Hyleor. He ordered one of his guards to kill another, deceived him, and got the man sentenced to be beheaded. The man who was killed was a patroller recruit. He was murdered because he knew too much about Hyleor, not that I’d ever be able to prove it. That’s what I know directly. Then there are all the girls Hyleor drugged for his pleasure houses, not to mention all the elveweed and other drugs he’s carted into Extela. Oh … and he was also the one who set up the attack on the flour wagon, where two men and a pleasure girl got killed.” Quaeryt sighed. “Someone will replace him. There’s always someone, but they won’t know as much, and they’ll have to go on the assumption that bad things happen if they get too far out of hand. That’s the best I can do for Pharyl and the city … so far as that’s concerned.”
“They don’t deserve your help,” retorted Vaelora.
“Pharyl does. I’m the one who made him chief. So does Hrehn. Besides, the ones who caused all the trouble for me aren’t really the productive part of the city. For the most part, they’re parasites on the city.”
“More of them deserve what Hyleor got.”
“They probably do,” Quaeryt admitted, “but I’m not sure I’d want to meet the sort of man I’d become if I took on that task for all those who deserve it.” He paused. “I’m not even sure I’d want to meet the man I’ve become in trying to put Extela back together.”
“What choice did you have?”
“We all have choices. I chose to go outside the law three times. I did it because the law failed … but the law fails so much…” He shook his head. “Bhayar’s right. I’m better not being a governor.”
Vaelora frowned. “No. You’ve been a good governor in a bad time. And those three … that’s why they get away with it. If a governor or a patrol chief can’t show publicly the evil someone has done … or if that evil isn’t widely known to almost everyone, any punishment delivered is seen as unjustified and tyrannical.”
“That’s exactly what happened to me, in a way,” Quaeryt pointed out. “It takes time to make people aware of things, especially if they don’t want to know.”
“Sometimes, they never want to know.” Vaelora’s words held a sour tone. “They’d rather ignore the problems.”
“Especially if they’re guilty of the same sorts of acts, even on a lesser scale.”
“The ones like Grelyana.”
Quaeryt nodded.
“Is there … anything else?”
“Besides the fact that I need to write a list of items for the new governor?”
“Why?”
“So that he’ll do what needs to be done, knowing that Bhayar will have been informed as well.”
“It might work.” She shook her head. “What else for us?”
“Well … you still have to pack,” he observed quietly, with a slight lilt in his voice.
“We still have to pack, you mean. You don’t have that much, and it won’t take me that long. I never had a chance to get any more dresses or gowns sewn, and half my clothes aren’t worth packing.”
Quaeryt nodded. “But you still look good in them.”
“I couldn’t wear some of them a day without the seams splitting and leaving me riding in undergarments.” She gave him a mock glare. “And don’t say a word about where that would be appropriate.”
He offered a grin.
“I said not a word.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.”
But she smiled back, Quaeryt saw, if only for a moment.
He felt so tired …
58
Vaelora and Quaeryt rose early on Samedi morning and were at the post a good two quints before seventh glass, when Skarpa gave Third Regiment the orders to head out. The initial route was simple-southward on the road that led to-and past-the chateau of High Holder Wystgahl and continuing to the southern bridge over the Telexan River, a narrow stone span that had withstood the river floods, but was barely wide enough for a single wagon or two horses abreast. On the southern and eastern side of the river, the stone-paved road extended through various towns and hamlets, past two cataracts, and the portage stations used by the traders, hugging the banks of the Telexan for over 330 odd milles to Tresrives, where the Ruil River and the Telexan joined the mighty Aluse.
Just before sunset on the fifteenth of Mayas, Quaeryt and Vaelora rode past a millestone reading TRESRIVES-2M. To Vaelora’s right rode Captain Taenyd, and to her left was Quaeryt.
They had just passed the stone bridge over the Telexan, its three arches aligned almost due west, a bridge that Quaeryt would be taking with Third Regiment before long on the way to Ferravyl to join up with the bulk of the Telaryn forces-and with Bhayar.
“We’re almost there.” Quaeryt again shifted his weight in the saddle and tried to ease the soreness in more muscles than he recalled having.
“We’re not anywhere,” replied Vaelora tartly, “except closer to being separated.”
“You’ll be better off in Solis than if you’d stayed-”
“Dearest…” she interjected, drawing out the endearment in a fashion that sounded anything but endearing, “you have said that every day for the entire journey. Even if I agreed with you, and I’m less inclined to be agreeable with each passing glass, I do not need to hear that piece of dubious wisdom again.”
Quaeryt winced inside, trying to keep a smile on his face.
“And don’t smile that condescending smile, either.”
Quaeryt let himself wince.
“That’s not much better.”
Quaeryt laughed, if ruefully.
As Vaelora looked to Quaeryt, behind her Taenyd gave the smallest of head shakes, as if to say that nothing Quaeryt could do would placate Vaelora, before he quickly looked forward at the road that turned eastward toward Tresrives itself, just downstream from the junction of the Telexan and the River Aluse. Ahead of them rode the first company of Third Battalion, acting as vanguard and commanded by Jusaph, with Skarpa beside the captain. Behind them were the remaining companies of the battalion, and then the other three battalions, and the engineers, a column stretching more than a mille to the rear to the supply wagons and the rear guard.
“How much farther to the post?” asked Quaeryt.
“It’s just upstream of the piers. It’s really not a post, just staging barracks built in the old days when Lhayar wanted loyal armsmen closer to Solis.”
“And it’s still a staging barracks, except it’s now for troopers headed west,” said Quaeryt dryly. “Or a barracks to rest men and mounts before they move on.”
“How long do you think Commander Skarpa will rest the mounts?” asked Taenyd.
“You’d know that better than I, Captain,” replied Quaeryt. “I’d judge at least a day. What do you think?”
“He hasn’t pushed us as much as he could have,” mused Taenyd.
Quaeryt considered that. They’d moved at a good pace all the way, but then Skarpa hadn’t pressed. He just hadn’t allowed any dallying or wasted time, but he hadn’t had the regiment start out until there was good light each day, and except for the present day, he’d called a halt a good glass before sunset.
“Two days, I’d judge,” Taenyd finally said.
“That’s at least another day before we have
to leave for Solis,” said Vaelora.
“You’ll be safe there long before we get to Ferravyl,” noted Quaeryt.
“In Solis, yes…” murmured Vaelora. “But back in confinement.”
“Aelina will be there.”
“That’s about the only good thing about being back in the palace,” she continued in a low voice.
“You can’t very well accompany the regiment into battle,” he pointed out.
Vaelora did not respond.
Rather than press her, Quaeryt looked past her to his right as they rode around the curve that followed the river. Absently, he wondered just how many of the “suggestions” he had left for the new governor would be implemented.
More than if you had left none. Not that the thought was much comfort.
Before long, they passed the point where the bluish gray waters of the Telexan flowed into the Aluse. Quaeryt could see plumes of blue extending into the larger river before being swirled away and mixed into the brownish gray of the Aluse, as if the smaller river had never been.
Is that how uniqueness gets swallowed, mixed into a swirling mass so much larger?
“I know…” said Vaelora quietly, easing her gelding closer to his mare.
“Know what?”
“You were looking at the river. I remember the first time I rode back from Extela and saw the Telexan’s blue waters swallowed and vanish. Usually, the water is even bluer, but I think it’s grayer now because of the eruption and the ash.”
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