Imager

34

For the first time since I’d left my parents after the fire, I had more than a few coins, and that meant I could take a hack out to visit my parents on Samedi. Since Master Dichartyn was gone, I could also leave Imagisle earlier than on most Samedis. Even so, because I enjoyed taking my time, it was past the ninth glass when I walked across the Bridge of Hopes. The sun warmed the air, heralding late spring, and there was just enough of a breeze for comfort, and not enough to blow away the fragrances from the spring flowers blooming in the narrow gardens flanking the Boulevard D’Imagers. There weren’t many coaches for hire, but I found one and arrived at my parents’ house just before noon. I could only hope that someone happened to be there, because I hadn’t known I’d be able to come in time to dispatch a note and receive a reply.

Nellica’s eyes widened when she opened the door and beheld me in all my subdued imager glory.

“Is anyone here, Nellica?”

“Your sister and Madame Chenkyr, sir.” Her eyes avoided mine.

“If you’d tell them I’m here.”

“Yes, sir. If you’d come in, sir.” Nellica ushered me into the foyer and hurried off.

In moments Khethila appeared, wearing a severe green that made her face look far too pale. “Rhenn! You don’t have to wait in the foyer. You’re still family. Come into the parlor.”

“Are you still reading Madame D’Shendael?” I offered teasingly as I followed her.

“Father disapproves,” she said strongly, before glancing around and lowering her voice. “I have her treatise on Civic Virtue.”

“I wasn’t aware that there was such a thing.” I tried to keep the irony out of my voice.

“Neither is she. She claims those who profess a civic virtue are cloaking their self-interest in morality.”

“She doesn’t believe in virtue?” I kept my voice pleasantly curious.

“She espouses virtue as an individual value.”

“So we abandon virtue whenever we’re with others?”

“Rhenn!” Definite exasperation colored her voice. “That’s not it at all. Virtue or morality cannot be practiced by a group, but only by an individual. Each individual is different from every other individual, but a group pressures each individual to be the same. Otherwise, there is no group. The same is true of a society. The values of the strongest or most persuasive become the values of the group. The larger the group, the fewer the values those in the group share. In time, groups become mobs.”

“I think your logic is lacking there.”

“She says it better than I do.”

I hadn’t read Madame D’Shendael, but Khethila’s interpretation suggested that Master Dichartyn and Madame D’Shendael had considered the same questions and possibly shared some of the same views. Logically, that shouldn’t have surprised me . . . but it did.

At that moment, Mother bustled out of the kitchen. “Rhenn! What a pleasant surprise. We were about to have a small lunch in the breakfast room. You will join us, won’t you?”

“I hoped so.” I offered a grin.

Mother studied me. “You’ve lost weight.”

“A little.” I hadn’t, not really, but Clovyl’s exercises and running had turned any softness I’d once had into muscle.

“Aren’t they feeding you enough?”

“They’re feeding me very well, Mother.” I started in the direction of the breakfast room, hoping to forestall any more detailed interrogation.

“He looks stronger,” suggested Khethila.

“Laborers need to be strong, not imagers.”

“Imaging does require strength, more than one might think.” I stepped from the back hallway into the breakfast room, where Nellica had added another place to the table. Even with the two wall lamps lit, the breakfast room was gloomy, because the windows were on the east wall and allowed no sunlight past late morning. Lunch had been clearly informal, with the plates set on green place mats, rather than on one of the linen tablecloths used for guests-or family when one or more men were present. “Where’s Culthyn?”

“He’s with Father,” Kethilia replied. “Father says he needs to learn the business.”

“That’s why we’re having leftover fowl in pastry,” Mother added from behind me. “Neither your Father nor Culthyn cares much for it.”

Since I’d always liked fowl in crust and sauce, I had no objections. Then, as I turned, I saw my chess study, mounted in a far more ornate frame, on the always-shaded south wall. For a moment, I just looked. It was every bit as good as I remembered, if not better.

“It goes well there,” Mother said.

What I realized as well, and what she had not said, was that it was placed so that she could see it from her customary place at the table. It was behind where my father sat.

“It does,” I finally said. “Thank you for reframing it.”

Mother looked puzzled. “That was the way it arrived.”

“Oh.” Who had had reframed it, and why? It had been in a simple black frame for the competition, as was required, so that no painting had an advantage. “I must have forgotten.”

Khethila gave me a sideways glance, as if to suggest that wasn’t something I’d forget. She was right, but what else could I have said?

Once she was seated, Mother looked at me. “You could have sent a note, saying you would be coming.”

“I honestly didn’t know that I would have this afternoon free until it was too late.”

Mother just raised her eyebrows.

“I was given more training, and while it was going on, I couldn’t leave Imagisle. I finished it more quickly than I’d been told it would take. This is the first time I’ve left the Collegium since I had dinner with you the last time.”

“Even if you didn’t let us know, it was good of you to come here first. You’ll stay for dinner, won’t you?” asked Mother.

“Not tonight.” I could have, but it was the fourth Samedi of the month. I hadn’t seen any of my friends since I’d become an imager, and it was a certainty that some of them would either be at Lapinina or at the Guild Hall later in the afternoon. “I’ll be more free from now on, since I won’t be spending quite so much time in training.”

“Your father will be disappointed.”

“I can stay for a while after we eat.”

“He said he’d be later today.”

“Does the extra time off mean that you got advanced again?” asked Khethila.

I smiled. “I did get nicer quarters-two rooms to myself, a sitting room or study, and a sleeping chamber.”

“Perhaps everything is turning out for the best,” said Mother brightly. “But your father will be sorry to have missed you.”

“I think you’ve mentioned that before,” I said dryly.

“Rhenn . . . I know you two do not see the world in the same way, but that does not mean that he doesn’t care for you.”

“I know.” I still had the feeling he’d care for me more had I chosen to become a wool factor, but I wasn’t about to say that. I turned to Khethila. “What are you going to do now?”

“I’m learning to be an assistant clerk for Father, the one who makes all the daily ledger entries.”

There was a hint of a frown from Mother. “Until she finds a proper young man, anyway.”

“What happened to Armynd?”

Khethila laughed. “He discovered I was reading Madame D’Shendael. He didn’t put it quite that way, but when he said that it was clear we had interests too different for harmony, that was what he meant.”

Mother frowned, if briefly, and I knew she’d hoped for the match, as much for Khethila’s comfort as anything.

I managed a pleasant smile, although what had already happened confirmed that anyone Khethila felt interested in would not be someone for whom my parents would care much. “Do you find working at the factorage interesting?”

“You just have to be careful and thorough,” my sister replied. “What’s interesting is the way in which certain number patterns show up in the accounts. I’m studying Astrarth’s Theory of Numbers on my own, and seeing if any of what he postulates shows up.”

“Has it?”

“Not yet, but I’ve only been working on the ledgers for the last two weeks. Rousel thinks it’s a good idea that I know more about business.”

“So does your Father,” added Mother.

“How are things going with Rousel?” I asked quickly.

“He and Remaya are doing well.” Mother smiled briefly. “He writes occasionally.”

Khethila shifted her weight in her chair, ever so slightly.

“And how is the wool factoring going in Kherseilles?” I looked to Khethila.

“I couldn’t say, because so far I’m only doing the ledgers for the factorage here, and not the master ledger that merges both accounts.”

Mother looked sharply at Khethila, who smiled pleasantly.

In short, matters weren’t going quite so well in Kherseilles, but Khethila wasn’t about to say or was guessing from what she’d seen so far, and Mother wasn’t about to say anything negative about Rousel . . . or allow anyone else to.

“Do you know what you’ll be doing as an imager?” Mother asked. “Can you tell us?”

“They say I may have some duties working for the Council, but very minor ones at first. No one’s given me any details, but I have had to learn all the Council procedures.”

“Your father would be very pleased if you became a Council advisor.”

“That’s not going to happen any time soon,” I replied with a laugh. “How is Aunt Ilena?”

“As stubborn as ever. I’m thinking of visiting her in Juyn, on the way to Kherseilles . . .”

From that point on, I just asked questions and listened. Although I stayed almost to the fourth glass of the afternoon, neither Father nor Culthyn appeared, and I took my leave. The late afternoon remained pleasant, and while it was more than two milles, I walked the entire distance to the Guild Square, taking my time.

Because I didn’t see anyone I knew around the square, I made my way to Lapinina. When I stepped into the bistro, the couple at the table nearest the door looked away. Rogaris and Sagaryn sat at a round table for four, and I stepped toward it.

“How are you two coming?”

Sagaryn’s eyes widened as they took in the gray waistcoat, shirt, and trousers. “Is that you, Rhenn?”

“The same.”

“You’re . . . an imager?”

I nodded. “Might I join you?”

“Oh . . . yes . . .” Rogaris said hastily.

Sagaryn nodded, a trace reluctantly, but I eased into the seat across from them.

Staela appeared. “What would you like, sir?”

I looked up at her. “I’m still Rhenn, Staela.”

Her expression didn’t change at all. “Yes, sir.”

“Just a glass of the Cambrisio white, if you have it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We don’t see imagers up here very often,” Rogaris offered.

“You’re the first,” added Sagaryn, taking a swallow of dark beer.

“I’m probably the only portraiturist who’s ended up an imager.”

“That well could be.”

“How are you two doing?”

Rogaris glanced at Sagaryn, who remained stone-faced. “The same as always.”

“Have you heard anything about Madame Caliostrus?”

“She’s all right. He had some sort of assurance annuity or something . . . some patron paid for it, and the masons’ guild is rebuilding the place.”

“Lucky at that,” added Sagaryn. “You know anything about it?”

“No.” I shook my head. “He never talked coins with me-except to explain why he’d docked my pay”

Staela reappeared with a glass of amber-white wine, which she placed before me with far greater care than she ever had when I’d been a journeyman. “Your Cambrisio, sir. It’s four.”

Almost as soon as I’d put a silver on the table she scooped it up and had six coppers back before me. Then she was gone. I took a sip of the wine. It was cool, and not that bad, but I realized that what I’d been drinking at dinner at the dining hall was just as good.

“How is Master Jacquerl treating you?” I asked Rogaris.

“Nothing’s changed.” He sipped the dark red wine.

“And you?” I turned to Sagaryn.

“The same as always.”

Neither spoke for a time. Nor did I. Then I looked to Rogaris. “How is Aemalye?”

“She’s fine.”

“Are you still planning to get married a year from this Agostos?”

“Something like that.”

After a few more questions, I smiled and stood, leaving most of the Cambrisio. “It was good to see you both. Take care of yourselves.”

“You, too,” replied Rogaris.

Sagaryn only nodded.

It was just past the fifth glass as I stepped out of Lapinina, wondering why I had come at all, when a voice called from behind me.

“Rhenn!”

I turned.

There stood Seliora, beside a taller, red-haired woman. This time Seliora was wearing a rich green skirt with a black blouse and a matching green jacket. She smiled at me.

“Seliora.” I couldn’t help but smile back, especially after the coolness of Sagaryn and Rogaris.

She took another step toward me, and another, stopping almost close enough that I could have reached out to embrace her. I thought about it, but didn’t.

“I’m glad to see you,” she began, her words warm. “You just disappeared, and no one heard anything. I heard that you couldn’t find a position. I worried about you.”

I was glad someone worried, but I didn’t want to say that. “I couldn’t leave Imagisle for quite some time,” I explained, adding, “You know that’s where I went?”

“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.