Imager (23 page)

“I can see that. The gray looks good on you. I thought . . .”

“You thought what?” I looked at her. “Foretelling?”

She flushed, but kept her eyes on me. “I saw you in gray a long time ago. I didn’t know what it meant. Sometimes . . . it’s like that.”

I didn’t want to press her, and my smile turned wry. “It was either become a wool merchant or try to become an imager.”

She tilted her head, and her eyes sparkled, almost impishly. “I couldn’t see you as a wool merchant. I think you weren’t meant to be one. Are you an imager yet?”

“If they accept you, you’re an imager right away. You’re just a very low imager who’s restricted to the isle until you learn more.”

“I don’t imagine you’ll stay lowly that long.”

“I’ve been advanced since I’ve been there.” I could say that much without being boastful.

“I’m not surprised.” She smiled, tentatively. “Will you come to the dance with me?”

“I’d be pleased to . . . if you don’t mind being escorted by an imager.”

“Rhenn . . .” She shook her head.

“I’m sorry. I went in to Lapinina to talk to Rogaris and Sagaryn, and they barely said a dozen words. Staela kept calling me ‘sir,’ as if I’d never been in her bistro, and I’ve been coming there for almost five years.”

“I’m not them.” She smiled once more.

“I’m very glad.”

“Oh . . . Rhenn . . .” She turned and gestured to the tall redhead. “This is my big cousin Odelia.”

“I’m pleased to meet you.” I inclined my head to Odelia. She was definitely tall, within a few digits of me, not heavy, but muscular. Was everyone in Seliora’s family muscular?

Odelia smiled back politely. “I’ve never met an imager.”

“Three months ago,” I replied, “neither had I.”

Seliora looked at me, and I offered her my arm. “Shall we proceed?”

“You sound so formal.”

“It comes with the gray.”

She giggled—a sound so totally false that I knew she was jesting—and I laughed.

“That’s much better.”

Odelia stepped up on my left. I would have offered my other arm, but that didn’t feel right, and she didn’t seem to mind as we made our way across the pavement to the Guild Hall. In the west Artiema was about to set. I wondered if were just coincidence, or if the silvered moon happened to be a patroness of Seliora or Odelia. But that too was silly.

The guard who stood inside the hall looked at my grays, and then at Seliora and Odelia, then resolutely turned his head.

“You see,” I murmured.

“It doesn’t matter. You’re with us, and we’re still guild members.”

“I paid my fees for the first half of the year,” I added with a smile. “Doesn’t that still make me a guild member?” I didn’t think Guildmaster Reayalt would agree, but he wasn’t anywhere around, and, besides, Seliora was quite correct. She could bring anyone she pleased, although there were usually few outsiders.

The musicians were getting ready to play, and Odelia nodded to Seliora and slipped away.

“Kolasyn is over there with his friends,” Seliora said, “but he won’t be long.”

“Odelia gets her way?”

“We all do.” She offered that charming but mischievous smile. “You’ll see.”

By “all” I assumed she meant all the women in her family, but that wasn’t something I was going to ask. Maybe meeting her again under Artiema wasn’t exactly a coincidence, although that was just a superstition.

The music started, and I placed my right hand gently on the small of her back and took her right hand in my left. We began to dance. Seliora was a far better dancer than I was, even though Father had insisted that I learn the basics—even providing a dancing maitre, Madame D’Reingel—my last year in grammaire.

When the musicians paused, so did we.

“You dance better now,” she observed.

“I don’t know why. I haven’t danced since the last time we were here.”

“Did you think of me?”

“Yes. More than a few times.” That was certainly true.

She offered a false pout. “You tell all the girls that.”

“Only you,” I replied, immediately wishing I hadn’t phrased it quite that way.

“You only lie to me?” She flashed the mischievous smile.

“No. You’re just the only one I thought of—except women I’m related to, like Mother and Khethila.”

“I don’t know as I’d like to be considered a sister.”

I just groaned. “I can’t say anything right, can I?”

“At least you recognize that.” This time she laughed, softly, but not cruelly.

The music started up again, and I decided that silence was the better part of valor. We swirled out into the double handful of couples dancing.

“You’re stronger, too,” she said, after I twirled and lifted her, then set her back on the floor.

“That’s part of the training,” I admitted.

“It suits you.”

“What have you been doing, besides designing and embroidering and needlepointing chair fabric designs?”

“We don’t do the needlepoint by hand. We have several looms, including a small jacquard loom, but I have to punch out the cards once I work out the design. I’m also the one who keeps it running. Father isn’t all that mechanically inclined.”

“How tight can you get the weave?”

She looked up at with another smile. “How tight do you want it?”

I almost flushed at her words. “I guess I recall more of wool than I thought, or enough for you to pull it right over my eyes.”

She squeezed my fingers, just slightly.

We danced and talked until the musicians stopped playing for the evening. Then, I let go of her hand, reluctantly, I realized.

“Do you think I could persuade you to come next month?” she murmured.

“You could. I have Samedi afternoons and nights and Solayi afternoons off.” I realized I didn’t want to wait a month to see her again. “I’ve heard there’s a new bistro called Felters . . .”

“It’s quite good, Kaelyn said. I haven’t been there.”

“Next Samedi?” After I asked, I realized I was supposed to go to my parents’ for their dinner, but I knew I’d far rather spend the evening with Seliora.

“I’d love to, but Father is taking us to see his sister.”

“The seventh, then?”

“I’d like that very much . . . .”

“At fifth glass at your place?”

“That would be good.” A twinkle in her eyes accompanied the next words. “My parents will expect to meet you.”

“I’d be pleased.” I wondered if they would be, though. I didn’t know if all Pharsi families were as accepting as Remaya’s family had been of Rousel.

I did end up spending silvers—on a hack to drive her and Odelia back to the large building on the corner of Hagahl Lane and Nordroad that was clearly home and business to her and her family, and then to take me back to the east side of the Bridge of Hopes.

I was still smiling when I walked into my quarters.

Law is necessary because, without it, no one willingly
reins in self-interest.

Throughout the day on Solayi, as I struggled through the pages of
Jurisprudence
, my thoughts kept drifting back to Samedi. Why had Sagaryn and Rogaris been so distant? We’d been friendly for years, and I certainly hadn’t changed that much. Yet they’d been edgy and uncomfortable, as if they were suddenly afraid. Was their reaction one of the reasons why Master Dichartyn had said that I needed to see L’Excelsis again? But . . . Master Dichartyn had said that I projected what I felt, and I’d only felt friendly to them. Did that mean that they were so afraid that it didn’t matter that I was friendly? Yet Seliora had seemed happy for me, and Odelia had been more than pleasant.

The dining hall was nearly deserted at the noon meal, but I did see Reynol, and we ate together and talked pleasantly before I headed back to my room and the heavy pages of
Jurisprudence
.

By the time I rubbed my eyes and collapsed into bed on Solayi night, I thought I understood most of what I’d read, but I wasn’t so certain when I woke after a night filled with dreams of advocates and jurists uttering phrases that had no meaning at all to me.

On Lundi, after breakfast, and after half a glass spent reviewing the assignments in
Jurisprudence
, I left my quarters and headed across the quadrangle, wondering what Master Jhulian would be like in person.

Two seconds—Whaltar and one I didn’t know—were walking toward me.

“Good morning,” I offered.

“Good morning, sir,” returned Whaltar. The other secondus murmured the same.

I could hear a few low words after they passed.

“He’s the one . . . took Diazt down . . .”

“ . . . was always friendly to me,” said Whaltar. “Never pushed his way around.”

“ . . . good to know . . . helps to have friends like that . . .”

Friends like what?

I only waited something less than a quint of a glass before Master Jhulian opened his study door and beckoned for me to enter. His study was almost identical to that of Master Dichartyn, save that he had two chairs set before his desk. I took the one closer to the window.

Master Jhulian was more slender than I had thought, and his hair was almost white-blond, but I had only seen him from a distance, either in the dining hall or at the hearing for Floryn.

“Rhennthyl,” he began after closing the study door, walking to the window, gazing out, and then settling himself behind his desk on a chair covered by a wide and worn gray cushion, “Master Dichartyn has told me about you. He states that you are relatively direct and generally honest. I will attempt to be both with you.” He cleared his throat before continuing. “I would prefer that you ask me about those things you do not understand. Otherwise, you will waste my time and yours because I will assume that, if you have no questions, you will know the material.” He smiled politely, waiting for me to reply.

“Yes, sir. I will try to ask such questions, but some of what is in the text is so complex that . . . well . . . even though I’ve read all of it several times, I’m not sure that I understand enough to ask a question.”

“That is a fair statement, Rhennthyl, and if . . . if you tell me where you had trouble, even if you cannot articulate exactly what you do not understand, that is acceptable. Please begin by explaining what jurisprudence is and why it is of particular import to Solidar and the Collegium.”

“Jurisprudence is the study of the law itself, in terms of both its precedents in case law and in terms of the philosophical basis behind both laws enacted by the Council and those derived through the example of case law.”

“Close enough. What roots of traditional jurisprudence, indeed of law itself, did the establishment of the Juristic Courts of Solidar deny?”

I actually knew that. “Many scholars outside of Solidar claimed that the law historically had four basic roots—eternal, natural, human, and divine. Because the Nameless does not distinguish by appellation”—those words were not mine, but from the text—“but by function, the first judges of the Juristic Courts divided all legal precedents and existing codes into two basic categories, those of human and natural . . .” I went on explaining.

“What is the problem with the idea that laws are to promote good and restrain evil?”

I didn’t see a problem with that idea, and yet Master Jhulian was suggesting that there was. I had to think. “The idea isn’t bad, sir, but it seems to me that one could have problems in defining what is good.”

“Oh?”

“Each person . . . well, most people . . . would tend to see good as what benefits them and evil as what does not. What benefits the High Holders most might not benefit the common folk nearly so much, and what benefits the factors—”

“All of that is true, without a doubt . . .
but
. . . what is the specific problem that this conflict engenders with the formal fundamentals of law itself?”

The term “formal fundamentals of law” jogged my memory. “Oh . . . one of the formal requirements of law is that the laws of the land must be impartial and apply equally to all, and if laws define good to benefit one group at the expense of another, they can’t be impartial.”

“
Jurisprudence
doesn’t discuss this, taking it as a given, but why must laws be impartial?”

I took a chance with my answer. “They don’t have to be, sir. That’s the ideal, but there are other countries that have lasted without impartial laws.”

Master Jhulian nodded and gave me a wry smile. “Master Dichartyn said that you might offer some . . . insights. Let me rephrase the question. Why must the laws in Solidar be as impartial as we can make them?”

“Because people are happier when the laws are fair and will obey them more readily?”

He just laughed. “People are probably less happy with impartial laws, but they will obey them because they see that others do not gain what they know are unfair advantages. Remember that each man perceives an advantage to himself as fair and deserved and any advantage to another as unfair and undeserved.” He smiled.

I didn’t like the expression because I suspected a difficult question was about to follow.

“With all the emphasis on fairness, why did the Council allow the High Holders to retain the right to low justice on their holdings outside any city or large town?”

I’d read about low justice, which basically referred to the process of dealing with petty theft, assault without weapons, criminal trespass when no other offense was involved—crimes like that—and I’d wondered why the High Holders had retained those rights and the ability to confine offenders for less than half a year or to apply corporal punishment within limits. Until I’d read the text, I hadn’t even realized that such rights existed. “I don’t know, sir.”

“Then guess.”

“Ah . . . because who else could enforce that on large holdings?”

“That’s partly true, but there is another reason. On whose side were the High Holders in the transition from rule by rex to the rule by the Council?”

“They supported the guilds and factors, didn’t they?” I paused. “Was that their price?”

“Whether it was their price, or whether the guilds and factors felt that that they could only push so far, it had to be something along those lines. Also, the guilds and the factors have always been more concerned about what happens in the cities and larger towns.”

That also made sense.

“Back to the essential questions of fairness, since we do operate largely in the cities. There is another reason why we as imagers have a great interest in assuring that the laws are fair and impartial. In point of fact, the penalties for imagers who break either the laws of Solidar or the rules of the Collegium are far stricter than any received by others. Why is this unfairness to our advantage? Or less to our disadvantage?”

I had no idea.

“When times are bad and things are going badly, people do not seek the causes. They seek someone to blame. Who do they blame? The first target is almost always the group that appears to be favored, that has more than they do, and whose numbers are small. Only if those in that group are powerful do they seek another group to blame, but even so their resentment and anger remain.” He looked to me.

“By subjecting ourselves to stricter rules and by not displaying overtly our prosperity and power, we attempt to avoid being a target?”

“As you will discover, anyone who attacks an imager is an enemy of the Collegium, and yet, as you will discover, while measures are taken to assure that such attackers or those who hired them do not survive, the Collegium seldom acts in a way so as to create an impression of might as an institution. Even so, while we occasionally are not successful in finding the attackers, we seldom fail in discovering those who hired them, although it may occasionally take years. Consequently, most attacks are not planned by those in L’Excelsis. But there are some.” He paused. “What does this mean in the context of the question I asked you?”

By the time I left Master Jhulian, there were so many thoughts flying through my head that nothing seemed quite as it had been. Equally disturbing were the two short papers he’d assigned, along with the reading. How was I going to prove or disprove that natural law was a contradiction in terms? Or that the second formal requirement of law—that laws must be knowable and understandable to all who are capable of understanding them—was in conflict with the first requirement?

And why did I need to know all that? Just to be a silent guard for the Council? That didn’t seem likely, but it also didn’t seem likely that I was being groomed to be a jurist or advocate for the Collegium either.