Imager's Challenge (51 page)

I waited by the door to the witness box, knowing that the two obdurates were lifting the body. Before long, I could see through the narrow space between the door and the jamb as they walked past with Youdh’s still figure on their shoulders.

Then came the words from Master Jhulian. “The sentence of the Collegium has been enforced. Justice has been done. So be it.”

He would leave through the smaller archway at the rear of the dais, I knew, and I waited while Master Rholyn and Master Dichartyn turned and walked toward the archway closest to me.

Master Dichartyn opened the door and stepped into the witness chamber. For a moment, he just looked at me.

I looked back at him.

“You’ve made matters easier for the Collegium,” he said. “They won’t be any easier for you. Not after today.”

“That depends, sir.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”

“If the Collegium is more willing to accept my observations—not my judgment—just my observations, matters could be much easier.”

“You’ve made it clear that we don’t have much choice.” His face twisted into a wry and sour smile. “But you’re still going to be the Collegium liaison to the Civic Patrol, and every taudischef will be wary of you, as will all of the Patrol officers. The everyday patrollers will expect more out of you as well.”

“Your words suggest that most of the officers are corrupt. Otherwise, why would they worry?”

“Many of them are, if in minor ways. Some, as you have discovered, are more so. You’ll need to keep that in mind.” He paused, then added, “Meet me at the west duty carriage stop at half past seventh glass.”

“Yes, sir.”

He nodded and left the antechamber.

I took a deep breath, then walked out as well, heading back to my quarters through the blustery winds that suggested colder weather was on its way, although the start of winter was still a month away.

When I got to my rooms, I realized that it was only a quint until noon. So I headed back out and across the quadrangle to the dining hall.

Ferlyn and Chassendri cornered me even before I reached the masters’ table, and I ended up sitting between them. We were early enough that the servers had only brought out the carafes of wine and the teapots.

“How did you know he was an imager?” asked Ferlyn.

“I didn’t. As I said at the hearing, I only knew that there was an imager. He kept himself concealed as one of the toughs. I mean, he presented himself in public as one of the taudischef’s toughs, not as the taudischef, and he always used imaging, from what I could tell, when no one else was around or when no one else could see what he was doing.”

“That sounds rather clever,” observed Chassendri.

“Why was he gagged?” I asked, trying to avoid questions I didn’t want to answer. I wanted a glass of wine, or more, but I didn’t dare, not with the rest of the day to come, and I settled for a mug of tea. It wasn’t all that warm outside, anyway.

“Why? You were there . . . Oh . . . you weren’t, were you?” replied Ferlyn.

“I was in the witness chamber.”

“He called Master Dichartyn a ball-less bull and said that the Collegium was a creation of the Namer and worshipped Bius—”

“Bius?” questioned Chassendri.

“The black demon who opposes Puryon,” I explained. “That’s the god of the Tiemprans and some of the Gyarlese.” That also confirmed for me that Youdh had indeed been close to the priests of Puryon. Most taudis-toughs wouldn’t have known or cared who or what Bius was. “Then what?”

“Then Master Jhulian cautioned him, and he said that since they were going to kill him, what did it matter? They gagged him after that.”

“How did you think of using shields like that to escape the wagon?”

“I don’t know, except I knew that the wagon had to go someplace, and that we’d be squeezed too thin if I tried to use shields between the wagon and the side walls.”

“How did he learn to be an imager . . . ?”

I tried to answer or deflect the questions, either with careful words or by retreating into eating the gravied pork chops and rice fries, but I was more tired after lunch than I’d been before I’d eaten.

When I left the dining hall, I saw Shault waiting in the corridor outside. After a single quick glance at me, he didn’t look at me again, but he didn’t move, either.

I walked over to him. “Shault?”

“Yes, sir?” His eyes avoided mine.

“Horazt isn’t an imager, and he hasn’t done anything to upset the Collegium. The Collegium doesn’t have anything against taudischefs if they don’t create trouble for us. Horazt hasn’t done that, and he certainly hasn’t tried to attack any patrollers. He’s helped me several times.”

The boy looked up, finally.

“I know you worry, but you don’t have to worry about that.” I paused. “How is your mother?”

“She’s fine, sir.” He glanced to one side. “I need to meet Master Ghaend soon, sir.”

“I won’t keep you, then.”

“Yes, sir.” He swallowed, then murmured, “Thank you.” He hurried away without looking back.

I’d always wondered about Horazt and Shault, but now I knew.

Given what likely faced me that evening, when I finished eating lunch in the dining hall, I returned to my quarters to think and plan. After thinking and re-thinking for almost four glasses, and trying not to think about Rousel and what I feared was inevitable, and then hurrying over to the dining hall and eating dinner quickly, I returned to my rooms and dressed carefully in the black formal attire I’d received earlier. I was careful to slip some poison imaging detection strips inside my jacket and to place the silver imager’s pin on the left breast of the formal black jacket. As with the Harvest Ball, the Council’s Autumn Ball began officially at eighth glass, which was why I had to meet Master Dichartyn at half past seven.

I did arrive at the duty coach stop before he did, if only by a few moments. Already, the evening was promising to be chill and windy, but clear. There were two coaches waiting, and Master Dichartyn gestured to the first one. “Baratyn and the others can take the second.”

After holding the door for him, I climbed up into the coach and closed the door.

Once we had pulled away, he looked at me. “You know that High Holder Ryel will be there tonight?”

“I’d thought he would be.”

“Nothing must happen to him this evening.”

“I had not planned on anything, sir, except dancing with his daughter, should she be here.”

“She is on the guest list, as is Madame D’Shendael. Madame D’Shendael has requested that you invite her to dance with you, for some reason.”

“I expressed sympathy at the loss of her father, without ever overtly connecting them.” I didn’t ask how Master Dichartyn had come to receive that request. He would have told me if he’d wanted me to know, and I was tired of begging for scraps of information and being refused.

“If you would be so discreet with other matters . . .”

“I intend to be the soul of discretion this evening, sir, but I will continue to keep my eyes and abilities ready for any other troublemakers.”

He laughed. “Was that intentional?”

“Me, sir?” I smiled innocently. “I’m merely the son of a factor who has much to learn about High Holders and their society and comings and goings.” That was totally true, in more ways than the words conveyed.

“Rhennthyl . . . when you talk like that, I must confess to a certain concern.”

He should have a concern, I thought, but not tonight, at least not on my account. “I understand my position with regard to High Holder Ryel and the Collegium, sir.”

He nodded, but I could sense a certain skepticism.

Once the coach arrived at the curb of the ring road around Council Hill, opposite the side door used by imagers, I followed Master Dichartyn through the side gate and past the guard and up the narrow steps, inside the Council Chateau and past a second guard.

“Good evening, maitres.”

“Good evening,” replied Master Dichartyn.

I echoed his salutation.

We walked along the lower corridor that led to the foot of the grand staircase. When we reached the ceremonial guards, standing just forward of the two statues of winged angelicas rising from the pedestals that formed the bottom of the rose marble balustrade, I smiled. I couldn’t help but recall my comments to my father the first time I’d seen the winged figures with their impossibly small wings and equally impossibly large individual feathers.

Master Dichartyn didn’t pause but began to climb the stairs. I walked beside him.

“You don’t have any fixed station tonight, not that such has hindered you before,” he said dryly. “If you see trouble, try to handle it quietly . . . please.”

“Yes, sir.”

We stood by the archway into the great receiving hall, waiting.

The first carriage arrived in the drive usually restricted to councilors at a quint before eighth glass, followed within moments by another, for almost none wanted to be the first to arrive. Another quint passed before figures appeared in the main floor grand foyer and began to pass the ceremonial guards and ascend the grand staircase, slowly and deliberately, taking far more time than necessary on the grand staircase.

Master Dichartyn nodded to me, and we retreated into the hall proper.

“Councilor Alucion D’Artisan and Madame D’Alucion!” The deep voice announcing the first arrival boomed from the same small balding man who had announced arrivals at the last Ball and whose name I still did not know. He stood at the left side of the center archway into the great receiving hall.
Behind him, inside the hall, were the three councilors on the Executive Council, who formed a receiving line of sorts.

Baratyn stood against the east wall of the hall, past the councilors, while Dartazn and Martyl were along the west wall.

“Councilor Sabatyon D’Factorius and Madame D’Sabatyon!”

“Commander Artois D’Patrol and Madame D’Artois!”

That surprised me, because Commander Artois hadn’t been at the previous Ball, or if he had, I’d missed his name, which was possible since I’d had no idea then that I’d become the Collegium liaison to the Civic Patrol.

“Councilor Ramon D’Artisan and Madame D’Ramon.”

Once more, it didn’t take long before I began to lose track of all the names, although I did remember and recognize more than at the previous Ball, but I doubted that I had any real idea of all who were present. I kept waiting for a particular set of names. Finally, they came.

“Ryel D’Alte and Madame D’Ryel.”

“Alynat D’Ryel-Alte and Mistress Iryela D’Ryel-Alte . . .”

Alynat? That had to be Ryel’s nephew. Where was Dulyk?

I watched as the Ryels made their way into the hall and over to the three councilors.

Madame D’Ryel could indeed have been the sister or cousin of Factor Veblynt’s wife, although Madame D’Ryel was slightly more angular than Madame D’Veblynt, it seemed to me. Also, compared to her mother, Iryela seemed more petite, and her hair was more white-blond. Iryela wore a gown of shimmering black and silver—the High Holder’s colors—which did not suit her as well as the blue and silver I recalled from the last time we had met. Her scarf was of the same glittering silver, however, trimmed in black. It could have been the same scarf, for all I knew.

Alynat was more muscular than either Johanyr or Dulyk, and rounder of face, but his mien carried with it the same sense of smallness and pettiness, although he was close to my height.

As Iryela and Alynat stepped away from Councilor Caartyl, the last of the three on the High Council, her eyes crossed mine—and held them, if but for an instant—before she let them pass as if nothing had occurred. The two moved toward the smaller group of younger people on the east side of the hall, coincidentally just a few yards from the sideboards that held various vintages, with uniformed servers already providing goblets to those who wished them.

“Shendael D’Alte and Madame D’Shendael.”

I watched as Juniae D’Shendael smiled graciously at each of the High
Councilors, her short-cut mahogany hair not even moving as she nodded to each.

“The Honorable Dharios Harnen, Envoy of the Abierto Isles, and Mistress Dhenica Harnen.”