Imager's Challenge (61 page)

Needless to say, I stayed late with Khethila, but did get a ride back to the Collegium with Charlsyn, only to sleep fitfully and wake up early on Jeudi. Because of the nightmares, most of which I didn’t remember, about all sorts of mayhem and violence being perpetrated on Khethila, one of the first things I did, after lighting the desk lamp, was to write a brief note to Seliora. I did take care to make it seem as harmless as possible.

Dearest,

Since I won’t see you until Samedi at the sitting for the portrait, I thought you should know that Rousel died over the weekend. Given the circumstances and the severity of his injuries, I had feared this might happen. There will be a memorial service here in L’Excelsis next week, but I do not know when yet.

I know that this might be an imposition for Grandmama Diestra, but Khethila will be all alone at the house until my parents return on Solayi, and you understand that, as an imager, I cannot stay there at night. If there is anything that can be done to see that she is not disturbed, I cannot tell you how greatly I would appreciate it.

I did sign it “With Love, Rhennthyl.”

After I sealed the letter, I sat at the desk for a time, recalling what Martyl or Dartazn had said about Master Dichartyn—that he never seemed to sleep and that it was no wonder, with what he had done. I also recalled what Maitre Poincaryt had said about Master Dichartyn not having had as few problems or enemies as I did in more than ten years.

But why? Why did it have to be that way?

Couldn’t the Collegium work matters out better with the Council and the factors and the guilds? Or had they, and what we lived under was the best they could do? That didn’t seem like the most satisfactory of answers, not to me, but it had been brought home forcefully that at times the best of compromises exacted a great burden on those caught between the millwheels of the compromisers.

Finally, I got into exercise clothes and headed out.

Both Master Dichartyn and Master Schorzat were there for the morning exercises and run, and I thought about telling them about Rousel. First, I dismissed it because saying anything would just leave more traces back to me. Then I realized that I could certainly say that he’d died of injuries in a wagon accident and that I would need part of a day to be at the memorial service. Not mentioning it would suggest more than being straightforward.

After the exercise routines, where I got thrown more than I should have in sparring, and the run, I cleaned up and hurried through breakfast. I did force myself to eat because I knew I needed to, and then headed to the administration building to find Master Dichartyn. It was early enough that he was there, and no one else was, when I rapped on his study door.

“Come in.” His voice was tired. “What is it, Rhennthyl?”

“Just one thing, sir. Last night I received word that my brother died of injuries he received in a wagon accident. I just wanted you to know that I’ll need part of a day next week to go to the memorial service. I trust that won’t be a problem.”

Dichartyn looked at me intently. “I wondered. You seemed distracted this morning.” He frowned. “You found out just last night? Last night?”

“Yes, sir. I got an urgent message from my sister. He died in Kherseilles over the weekend.”

Master Dichartyn looked at me. “I imagine you’re upset. Don’t do anything foolish. Foolishness won’t bring him back or help you.”

“No, sir. I understand that. I won’t do anything foolish.” In time, I’d do what was necessary, but not until that time.

He kept looking at me. I met his gaze.

Then he nodded. “Please let me know when the service is. There won’t be any problem.”

“Thank you, sir.”

I had the feeling Master Dichartyn knew about Alynat, and the timing puzzled him. That was fine with me.

After leaving Master Dichartyn and before leaving for Third District station, I did arrange with Beleart to send the letter to Seliora by private courier. That cost me a silver, but it was worth it. I hoped they could help . . . but Seliora and her family had offered.

I hurried off to the extra duty coach where, as the driver headed out over the Bridge of Hopes, I sat on the hard seat worrying about what Ryel might do next and hoping that Seliora’s family could and would help—and that I could repay them without compromising my position at the Collegium. Yet . . . the Collegium’s frigging unspoken and unbending rules and the frigging
unbending customs of the High Holders were what had gotten me—and my family—into the position where I found myself. And . . . for all that I knew Alynat’s death was necessary, the fact that it had been bothered me.

When the duty coach turned on Quierca and then on Fuosta, I thought I saw mounted riders ahead. The conscription team? That was all I needed.

I hurried into the station, where all the patrollers were drawn up, and joined Lyonyt and Fuast. “What’s happening?”

“The lieutenant just said that he needed to talk to everyone before they headed out,” replied Lyonyt.

“It has to be about the conscription teams.”

“He didn’t say.”

It wasn’t that long before the lieutenant walked from his study and stopped short of the assembled patrollers. He waited for the murmurings to die away before he spoke. “Some of you have already seen that the Navy conscription team has arrived. They’ve set up a cordon all along South Middle, up to Saelio and across to Quierca and back south to Goryn. . . .”

That mean the entire taudis was cordoned off.

“. . . If past practice is any guide, all they’ll do today is man their perimeter and grab anyone who’s the right age without an approved job or schooling who tries to sneak by them. They’ll start taking their teams door to door tomorrow. Just patrol the outside of your round and keep clear of their teams,” the lieutenant said. “Don’t try to cross the cordon lines, and don’t argue with them. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” came a response, mostly in unison.

“That’s all.”

We let some of the other patrollers—those whose patrols did not include the South Middle taudis—leave the station first, then followed.

“Could be a long day.” Lyonyt glanced up at the thin overcast that had turned the sky a bluish silver. “Good thing it’s not too hot.”

When we reached South Middle short of Dugalle, I could make out the pattern of the cordon. There were riders stationed every fifty yards or so and roughly three men armed with oak batons, longer than truncheons, set equidistant between the riders, who also carried batons. The riders had pistols, but the uniformed men in olive-green uniforms—I thought they were marines—did not. There was a larger group of marines opposite the Temple and another group, it appeared, farther up South Middle.

“Why do they do it this way?” asked Fuast.

I’d had the same question.

“They don’t say, and they don’t like us asking. If you ask me, I’d guess
they figure that if they just hold their position for a while, everyone inside will calm down.”

I had my doubts about that, particularly since the conscription teams cordoned the taudis areas of cities only before going house to house. It was almost as though they wanted to provoke resistance so that they could use force.

We kept back from the riders and marines, actually walking on the north side of East Middle until we passed Saelio where the cordon ended. Then we resumed our normal patrol round. After we patrolled the avenue and up to Saelio on Quierca, we crossed the street and walked past Dugalle to the end, before turning and retracing the same pattern.

We were nearing Mando on South Middle when a white-haired and bent old woman, accompanied by a boy, walked across South Middle. One of the riders was closest, and he yelled out, “You there! Halt!”

The woman either did not hear or did not understand, and while the boy tugged at her sleeve, she shifted the bundles in her arms and kept walking.

“Halt!” yelled the rider, turning his mount and lifting the long baton.

“Stay here,” I hissed at Lyonyt, moving forward toward what I saw as an unnecessary use of force.

The mounted officer urged his mount into a quick trot toward the woman, bringing the baton into position for a vicious cut.

“Grandmere!” cried the youth, a boy not that much older than Shault.

I managed to throw a partial shield, at an angle, just as the officer struck, and the horse staggered sideways, nearly unhorsing the officer. I didn’t know Navy rank insignia but the silver bars indicated an officer. His position suggested a junior one.

He wheeled the horse back toward the pair, raising the baton to strike again, even as the boy tried to help the old woman pick up her scattered parcels and groceries.

I stepped forward. “You don’t ride down old women, Lieutenant, conscription team or no conscription team.”

“What?” He reined up and turned in the saddle, looking down at me. He was older, probably a junior officer who’d come up through the ranks. His eyes narrowed as he caught sight of the grays and the insignia on my visor cap. “You don’t tell a conscription team what to do. Not even an imager does. No one breaks a cordon, and no one carries in food for those taudis-types. No one, and don’t tell us what to do.”

“I’m just asking you not to ride down helpless old women,” I said mildly.

“Get out of the way, or your Collegium will hear that you interfered.”

I was getting very tired of arrogance, everywhere. Namer-tired, and there
was no one close to us, not close enough to hear, not yet. “Do you prove your manhood by abusing women and boys? Are you that type?”

I could see him flush.

“Or do you just like abusing everyone? No . . . I can see it, you like women and boys . . . You’re not really a man . . . just someone who pretends he is.” While I’d kept my voice low, I’d tried to project total scorn and contempt toward him.

He lifted the long baton and urged the horse forward, toward me.

I imaged a barrier in front of the horse’s knees and jumped aside. The mount stumbled and went to its knees. With a little imaging help from me, the lieutenant went from the saddle into the pavement, headfirst.

I could see he was still breathing. I tightened my lips and did another quick imaging into his brain, then yelled, “Officer down! Help!”

I gestured for the boy and woman to move. This time, they hurried away, leaving some of the groceries on the sidewalk. The old woman looked back at me, then scurried more quickly.

After they were beyond the taudis wall, I turned and waited as another rider trotted toward me, followed by several men on foot.

“What happened?” The Navy type who rode up wasn’t an officer—no silver or braids—but he was even older than the lieutenant. “What happened here, patroller?”

“There was an old woman with a boy. She didn’t listen to the lieutenant when he told her to halt. Maybe she was Tiempran or Caenen and didn’t understand. I told him that. He didn’t listen and rode over me—or he would have, if I hadn’t jumped aside—and toward them. The horse stumbled, and he went right over.”

One of the men on foot ran to the fallen officer and knelt down beside him, then looked up. “The lieutenant’s dead, chief. He must have hit his head real hard.”

“Frig! That’s all we need.” The chief turned back to me.

There were a few more questions, but no one had seen anything but the horse stumble and the officer pitch forward. In time I managed to slip back to where Lyonyt and Fuast were waiting. “We need to walk farther along the round.”

“Be a good idea. Lieutenant said we weren’t to get in their way.” Lyonyt looked at me, then murmured, “Friggin’ scripties . . . don’t have to live with the mess they leave behind.”

Fuast looked from Lyonyt to me and back again, opened his mouth, and then shut it.

Lyonyt looked to the junior patroller. “Really a shame those scripties can’t ride as well as they think. If he hadn’t been trying to hurt an old woman, nothing would have happened.” He paused and looked at Fuast. “Would it?”

“Ah, no. No, sir.”

“Terrible accident,” Lyonyt went on. “Sometimes they happen, but like the lieutenant said, we leave ’em alone, and they make their own mistakes.”

That might be, but I had to hope that no one took out the death on the taudis-dwellers, although it was clear that no one but me, and perhaps Lyonyt or Fuast, had seen anything of what had really happened, and even they hadn’t seen much.

Dichartyn would have said that I shouldn’t have interfered, but the way the lieutenant had been swinging that baton, the old woman would have been dead, or crippled for the rest of a short and miserable life. And for what? The old woman had been trying to get out of his way, and the boy was far too young to have been a conscription evader.

For the next two glasses, we just kept walking, circling one way around our section of the taudis and then back the other. Although a section of the Avenue D’Artisans was part of the round, it hadn’t been cordoned off. Even so, word had gotten around, and there were far fewer people there, as well. Several of the shopkeepers and bistro owners couldn’t be happy with fewer customers, either.

For a time, I dropped back behind the other two, scanning the taudis closely, trying to get a sense of what might be happening inside the cordon.