Imager’s Battalion ip-6

by L. E. Modesitt

  Quaeryt rose, trying to do so smoothly, despite his aches and stiffness. “That is why you need to set up matters so that the capable must be loyal.”

  “After … Variana, we will talk of such.” Bhayar smiled broadly. “We will leave Nordeau tomorrow, but let your commander tell you so.”

  “I will.” With a nod, Quaeryt followed Bhayar out through the door that the Lord of Telaryn opened for himself.

  67

  In leaving Nordeau on Solayi morning, Skarpa rode with Fifth Battalion, once more in the van, along the wide and well-paved river road that led from the southwest gate of the old southern section of the city westward and, according to the maps, to Variana. For one of the few times in months, there was a trace of coolness in the air, but the sky was clear.

  Are we going to get a foretaste of fall? Quaeryt had his doubts, especially as the day quickly warmed as mille after mille passed. As it did, Quaeryt began to sweat, if less than on previous days, and he thought more and more about the road. Why, after hundreds of milles of generally poor roads, except for the stretches created by the ancient Naedarans, had Kharst or his predecessors built such a superb road on the south side of the river?

  The roadbed itself was wide and solid, but he did notice that it rose and fell more than the Naedaran road, which had maintained more of a level path, and the Bovarian road was, for the most part, closer to the river.

  He asked Skarpa, riding beside him, “Why do you think they built this road so well?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea. Maybe they knew we were headed to Variana.” The commander offered a low laugh.

  “Or maybe there are more High Holdings on the south side from here to Variana,” countered Quaeryt, “and Kharst wanted to reach them more easily.”

  “Them or the holders’ ladies?”

  “Both, most likely.”

  The only problem with the idea of High Holdings was that Quaeryt didn’t see a trace of one for the first two glasses of the ride. He also realized, belatedly, that he really hadn’t talked to many of the undercaptains in days, except for Voltyr and Shaelyt, beyond instructing them or drilling them. So, when Skarpa rode back to check on Third Regiment, Quaeryt motioned for Baelthm to ride with him on his right, since the road was wide enough that Zhelan was already riding on his left.

  “Sir … have I done something…”

  “No. We have a long ride, and it’s been a while since I’ve really talked to any of you. You told me you’d agreed to be an imager undercaptain when Lord Bhayar’s men came for you. Was that forced … or was it a better choice?”

  “Some of both, sir, I suppose. It wasn’t like I had that much choice. Fewer and fewer of the local tradespeople wanted me to image things for them, except maybe the masons, and in that part of Cheva, none were building houses that needed scrollwork or metal trim. The gold for going to join you, excepting that I didn’t know it was you, sir, would pay for food and more, enough that Rashyl could feed and clothe the boys. With her lacework, that is.”

  “Have you sent script for coin back to her?”

  “Most of my pay, sir. One of the dispatch riders brought me a note, a mere scrap. He didn’t take her coin. He said that taking notes to tell a man his pay scripts made it to his wife would have been a crime against the Nameless.” Baelthm chuckled in his deep voice. “Long as I live, they’ll be doing fairly well, and if I don’t … well … there’s the death golds. What is it, four golds for an undercaptain?”

  Quaeryt knew the death gold payment was two golds for a ranker, if he had a wife, none otherwise, but for an officer, he’d never asked, but Baelthm’s comment reminded him that he needed to check to see that the proper payment request had been lodged for Akoryt. Rather than answer Baelthm directly, he only said, “It could happen, but it’s best not to dwell on it.”

  “You’d be right about that, sir.”

  “Have there been any other imagers in your family?”

  “None that I know of. I wonder at times if my youngest might not be growing in that direction.”

  “How old is he?”

  “He’s but four.” Baelthm added immediately, “I did not wed young. Few women in Cheva would willingly wed an imager, especially one with a Pharsi grandmother. But Rashyl … her sweetness was a boon and well worth waiting for.”

  “What sort of lacework does she do?”

  Baelthm beamed. “Any kind that needs doing.” The broad smile faded. “At times, the ladies wanted more from her than the masons did from me.”

  “Was your father an imager?”

  “Who could say? I don’t remember much of him. He was a boatman on the river. He died when I could barely walk. Drowned, my mother said. She never spoke much of him, and the way she didn’t, I didn’t ask much. Not after she said that he was a boatman and that was all I needed to know.”

  Quaeryt nodded and waited.

  “Not that it’d be good to dwell on it, sir, but you did say something about how things might be better for us after the campaign…”

  “After the war is settled, one way or another,” Quaeryt affirmed. “Lord Bhayar has agreed not to forget the imagers, and he has always kept his word on such matters.”

  “And you being an imager, then, and wed to his sister…” Baelthm raised his eyebrows.

  Quaeryt nodded.

  “What about families, sir?”

  “I’d like them to be able to join you.” You can’t promise that. Not now.

  “Be good to think that I might not have to return to Cheva. The whole province…” The oldest undercaptain shook his head.

  “The folk of Piedryn haven’t been as charitable as they might have been to imagers…”

  “Those words, sir, are all too charitable for the folk of Piedryn.”

  Quaeryt wasn’t about to point out that those words applied to all too many people in Lydar and that was one reason why he was risking so much for Bhayar. “That may be, but we do what we can do.”

  Quaeryt talked for another quint before he felt he’d spent enough time with the older imager and sent Baelthm back to the undercaptains. But before summoning another undercaptain to talk with, Quaeryt turned to Zhelan. “I know it’s late, and I should have realized it earlier, but the death payments for Akoryt?”

  “You had much to do, sir. I took care of it when we had time in Ralaes, then sent it off after we took Villerive. Be a few weeks before his wife receives those golds, and she’ll grieve again.” Zhelan added quietly, “It’s five golds for an undercaptain.”

  “Thank you.”

  Desyrk was the next undercaptain Quaeryt gestured to ride beside him.

  The blond undercaptain looked quizzically at Quaeryt. “Sir?”

  “You’d told me you were a potter before you became an undercaptain. You avoided talking much about it, and I didn’t press … then. Why didn’t you want to say more?”

  “Just didn’t.”

  “I need to know more now.” Quaeryt image-projected a hint of warmth and curiosity.

  “Might I ask why, sir?”

  “The more I know about you, now that your imaging has improved, the more I can try to put you where you’re the most effective,” replied Quaeryt. “Did you like being a potter?”

  “Well enough.”

  “How much imaging did you do to help in forming or throwing pots?”

  “Couldn’t have been any kind of potter without it.” Desyrk paused, then went on. “My pots’d sag. Didn’t have my brother’s touch. He was even better than our da.”

  “Your father was a master potter, then?”

  “Hardly! We made pots and jugs for the poorer folk north of Thuyl. They were strong and solid, and they didn’t leak. Other than that…” He shook his head.

  “Was anyone else in your family an imager?”

  “Not that I know. Until my brother caught me imaging a pot, even my folks didn’t know. He was the one who told Bhayar’s men. Even kept the gold, the miserable whelp.”

  “Why did he turn
you in?”

  “He didn’t know how come I could form pots as good as they were. He’d see ’em sagging and lumpy, and I’d image ’em better before we put them in the kiln … when no one was looking. But he kept watching closer and closer, and he caught me. Said I wasn’t doing it right. Said a potter had to work the clay, not just image it. I told him it was work one way or the other. He didn’t want to hear it. Da didn’t believe it, and Jorj went and told the local constable or whatever, and they put me on an old mule and sent me to Solis and then to Ferravyl.” Desyrk shrugged. “You know the rest.”

  “You never married.”

  “Couldn’t raise the bride price. Pots don’t bring a lot.”

  “What do you think about being an imager?”

  “It’s not great, sir. A lot better than being a potter in Thuyla, though.”

  Quaeryt continued to ask questions and listen as they rode westward along the well-paved road that led to Variana.

  68

  Over the remainder of Solayi and all of Lundi, there were absolutely no signs of any Bovarian forces, reinforcing Quaeryt’s-and Skarpa’s-belief that Rex Kharst was amassing forces near Variana. Yet Quaeryt couldn’t dismiss the possibility that the Bovarians might attack at any point. While he rode and waited for that possibility, he spent time talking to each of the imager undercaptains. From some of them, such as Threkhyl and Horan, he learned little unexpected, only more detail about what they had initially told him. Quaeryt had already known that Threkhyl had been a small holder outside a small village northeast of Piedryn, far enough from the larger towns that no one noticed that he almost never bought tools or plows or saws or spades or that in even the worst of times his family somehow had enough to eat-until a local cooper tried to woo and marry his daughter. Threkhyl had turned the fellow down, and in weeks, Threkhyl had been rounded up by Bhayar’s men, with a pair of golds going to the cooper and the daughter who was likely now his wife.

  Quaeryt could see how that had happened, or that a trapping rival had turned in Horan, since neither undercaptain was versed in subtlety.

  Smaethyl was the essential loner, in some ways the closest to Quaeryt and in others totally foreign, as when he had observed, “I’d say that the Nameless doesn’t want anyone to have any glory, and most lords and High Holders don’t want anyone else to have many golds. That doesn’t leave much for most folks.”

  It wasn’t that Quaeryt disagreed with Smaethyl’s observation, but the almost fatalistic attitude behind the words chilled him.

  The three Pharsi undercaptains came from different towns, yet shared many similarities, all from their Pharsi heritage, the most notable being their quiet pragmatism.

  Shaelyt, his words capturing the spirit of that practicality, had simply said, “Erion and the Nameless watch, but do not interfere often enough for any man to count on it. Stupid men end up dead. Dead men do not see the next dawn, and with the next dawn there is always hope.”

  Quaeryt hadn’t been able to refrain from asking, “Doesn’t that open a man up to seizing the opportunities of the moment?”

  “My mother told me that a man who cannot see beyond tomorrow is also a stupid man. I have not seen that she was wrong.”

  Quaeryt had laughed.

  As he rode beside Zhelan on Mardi morning, under high gray clouds that made the day both cooler and the air a bit damper, a quint before ninth glass, he couldn’t help reflecting on what more he’d learned-or hadn’t-about the imager undercaptains over the previous two days.

  Shouldn’t you have done more of that earlier? Except that he’d been far too absorbed in teaching them what they needed to know. And to further your goals for them, perhaps? He couldn’t deny that, but there was also the problem that he didn’t have the experience to be a subcommander and that he’d been trying to learn how to be more effective as both an imager commander and a troop subcommander. There are always excuses. And there were, he acknowledged, and all he could do was learn from the experience of being sidetracked by excuses and move on as best he could. His ruminations were cut short as a scout rode back eastward along the road toward Fifth Battalion, once more in the van.

  Quaeryt waited as the scout eased in beside him.

  “Sir … there’s a High Holding two milles ahead, sir. The gates are chained, but it looks deserted. There are tracks on the road and on the shoulder heading west.”

  “Go and let the commander know. He’ll decide who will look into it.” The scout would anyway, but reinforcing Skarpa’s precedence never hurt.

  “Yes, sir.”

  While he was waiting for Skarpa to receive the report, Quaeryt studied the road ahead, as well as the small shuttered cots and dwellings they passed, as well as the absence of livestock, noting what the scouts had kept reporting-that there were no signs of any Bovarian forces.

  In less than half a quint, Skarpa was riding up the shoulder of the road. By then, Quaeryt had sent a ranker to notify Major Zhael that third company might be required to accompany him and several undercaptains on a reconnaissance mission.

  “You have a company ready to ride out and see?” Skarpa was wasting no time.

  “Third company, with Desyrk and Lhandor.”

  Skarpa nodded. “Make it quick. If there are supplies, let me know as soon as you can. If not, just leave the place … unless you think there are weapons or other useful items.”

  “I’d be surprised if there were either.”

  “So would I,” replied Skarpa. “Do what you can. I’ll call a halt by the gates.”

  Quaeryt and third company moved out from the vanguard, and little more than a quint later, they reined up in front of the gates on the north side of the road. Quaeryt could scarcely miss the hold house, situated as it was on a rise overlooking the river, and so large that even from the chained gates, the structure still loomed impressively above the extensive formal gardens and forest park that surrounded it.

  Yet, once they opened the gates and went through the buildings, that inspection revealed that the entire hold house and outbuildings had been recently and completely emptied.

  But who could have done that so quickly? Kharst? The holding was certainly large enough and well appointed enough to be his. Still, there was little point in spending time there, not when there were neither supplies nor weapons, and Quaeryt had the gates rechained.

  For the rest of Mardi and for the first glasses on Meredi, Skarpa and his forces saw only traces of the withdrawing Bovarians, or perhaps they were tracks of retainers hurrying Kharst’s goods from the holding back to Variana, mused Quaeryt-if the hold had been Kharst’s at all.

  A quint or two after ninth glass on Meredi, the scouts came riding back with the report that the span over the fair-sized river three milles ahead had been destroyed, most likely with explosives. Once more, Fifth Battalion was in the van, as it had been for most of the ride west from Nordeau.

  Skarpa didn’t have to glance at his map, but responded immediately. “That has to be the River Sommeil.”

  “Whatever it is, Commander,” replied the squad leader of the scouts, “it looks to be too wide and too deep to ford.”

  Of course it is. They wouldn’t destroy it if it weren’t. Quaeryt merely smiled.

  Skarpa turned in the saddle and looked at Quaeryt without saying a word.

  “We’ll see what we can do. I’ll take first company and the undercaptains.”

  “Take the entire battalion, Subcommander.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Shortly, Fifth Battalion moved ahead of the main column at a moderately quick trot. After riding about two milles Quaeryt glanced to the north and noted that the paving stones of the river road were only perhaps ten or fifteen yards higher than the River Aluse, if that. Ahead was a slight rise, and when Quaeryt came to the crest and looked ahead, he could see that the Bovarians had indeed chosen well.

  The River Sommeil meandered through a swampy flood plain a good three milles wide, and the only raised ground was a tongue of land that led
to the bridge. The structure itself had been a solid-looking stone span connecting two tongues of more solid land, although for a good hundred yards on each side of the bridge the road had been constructed on a causeway that was more like a levee. What the scouts had not mentioned was that, some hundred yards short of the east end of the bridge was a large gap in the road … and the causeway that had supported it.

  While the terrain suggested it was unlikely that Fifth Battalion would face Bovarian forces, at least on the east side of the bridge, the gap in the road and the missing spans of the bridge indicated more work for the imagers. Since the bridge itself blocked a clear view of the road on the far side, there might also be other gaps.

  Quaeryt kept studying the causeway and the terrain on the far side of the bridge, but could see no sign of Bovarians. If they waited, they were concealed in the trees that flanked the open ground on each side of the road.

  Once he had reached the missing section of the causeway, he reined up and studied the damage in the road. While the gap wasn’t that wide, no more than five or six yards, the material that comprised the levee and roadbed had been blasted away to the point that whatever base remained was below the water level of the swamp surrounding the levee. He turned the mare sideways. “Undercaptain Horan, forward!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’re to start imaging rock into that gap. Not dirt because the water will turn it to mud.”

  “Any kind of rock, sir?”

  “Any kind that’s solid. Not sandstone or pumice. Do it in smaller amounts at a time, rather than trying it all at once.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Quaeryt watched as the slightly grizzled imager concentrated. The water in the gap swelled as though a current pushed it upward, but Quaeryt did not see anything but more muddy water. A second swell of water followed, and when the current subsided, he could see grayish stones being washed by the swamp water. He glanced to Horan, whose forehead was glistening with sweat. “Wait a moment. Take a swallow of ale or whatever’s in your bottle.”