Imager

63

Vendrei was without incident, excepting for another long evening session with Maitre Dyana. So was early Samedi morning, except that we had to run through a heavy rain, and my exercise clothes were sodden by the time I returned to my quarters. Even so, I managed to get to breakfast, eat, and arrive at my makeshift studio with enough time to get my paints set up and even get in a little work on the background of the portrait before Master Poincaryt arrived punctually at the first bell of eighth glass.

Recalling his “homily” about observation, I watched as he entered the studio, noting how, without seeming to, he surveyed me and the entire space of the converted workroom before taking his seat. I could see that might also be a good habit to form.

As he sat down, he smiled. “Yes . . . I do. Most covert imagers learn that early, if they survive.”

“I’m still working on what you suggested, sir.”

“You’re still young enough that such intensity can be taken for interest. As you get older, you will have to learn observation with circumspection, but by then, you should be able to pick up on what you see and sense almost without thinking about it.” He laughed. “Among the High Holders, observation is played as a game, if one with very high stakes. The one who can learn the most while revealing the least is usually the winner.”

In that sense, I’d just lost . . . but I’d learned in doing so. “If you would turn your head to the left, just a touch, sir?”

I painted for a solid glass, a little tentatively at first, because I hadn’t been working with the brushes all that much, but I could feel the touch come back before long. I managed to get most of the area around his forehead and eyes, as well as finish the nose, and get the shape of the jaw set with the underlying base.

As the first of the nine bells rang, Master Poincaryt rose. “I hope you will pardon me, Rhennthyl, but I do have a meeting with High Councilor Suyrien and Councilor Rholyn.”

“Yes, sir. I trust it will go well.”

“One never has a meeting without knowing exactly how it will go and how to assure that it does.” He smiled warmly. “Otherwise, what is the point?”

After he left, I thought about his parting words. He’d as much as said that he would be controlling the meeting between Rholyn, the councilor who represented the Collegium on the Council, and High Councilor Suyrien, the High Holder who chaired the executive committee of the Council, and who, in effect, spoke for the Council and all of Solidar. That also suggested that such a meeting was necessary, and that, at the least, there was not total agreement between Suyrien and the Collegium. I had no doubts there would be agreement when the meeting ended.

I spent almost another full glass working on the portrait, because I felt I needed to do so, but as I cleaned up, I realized another aspect of the Collegium. Master Poincaryt had come from the covert branch now headed by Master Dichartyn, and that suggested to me that Master Dichartyn might well be being prepared to become Master Poincaryt’s successor.

The Collegium was almost completely deserted by noon, and I ate with Reynol, who complained about having to deal with “great complexities” in the Collegium accounts, making things balance so that everything appeared in its proper place when the accounts were presented to the Council.

“To the Council?” I took a mouthful of saoras, thin strips of goose fried in spice oil, then covered with cheese and baked in a puff pastry.

“Absolutely. We provide services to the Council, for which we are paid. The armory has contracts with the Navy, that sort of thing. Even the . . . well . . . let us just say that almost every part of the Collegium provides goods or services to someone, and we receive an annual payment from the Council for resolution.”

“Does that mean resolution of the imager problem, by training them, and keeping them from being a problem, so to speak?”

“It’s not spelled out anywhere, and it dates back centuries. That’s all I know. Some things account clerks don’t ask about.” Reynol did smile.

I sipped the wine, a slightly bitter white plonk I couldn’t identify. “Why do you think other lands don’t have something like the Collegium?”

“Why would they want them? Half of them don’t want imagers because their religion or faith or what have you says we’re evil and unnatural. The others either tolerate them with restrictions or quietly force them out or kill them because they don’t fit.”

I had to think about that. “You mean because absolute rule, like in Caenen, can be turned upside down with imagers who can kill tyrants without ever being detected?”

“Right. But even outside influence worries those in power. In Jariola, there are really only forty-five members of the oligarchy. That’s hereditary. What if an imager went around killing, over time, those members with a given view? That could change things, and they don’t want change. In Ferrum, they believe in using machines and foreign contract workers to keep wages and costs low. That reduces the power of the guilds-they really don’t have them the way we do-and increases the power of the factors. They don’t even have anything like High Holders, only the wealthiest of merchants. A Collegium in Ferrum would certainly reduce the power of the merchanters.”

“So, for different reasons, neither Ferrum nor Jariola cares for imagers. What about Tiempre?”

“They’re crazy. They have this idea that any talent that only a few people have is the mark of Bius, the black demon, because Puryon, their oh-so-just god, bestows the potential for every true believer to have the same abilities as any other, if in differing levels, if they only believe. So all imagers are demons.”

“How can they believe that? People are different.”

Reynol just laughed. I had to as well.

After lunch, I found a shaded bench on the eastern side of Imagisle on the north end where there was a slight breeze off the water and sat down to try to think.

What had I discovered about those trying to kill me, and how had I discovered what I had? In the simplest sense, I had observed and talked to people. The problem now was that I had few enough people left with whom I could talk that I had not already contacted. But it could be that I’d been looking at the problem in the wrong way. A number of junior imagers had been killed over the past half year, and none of them had angered High Holder Ryel or taudischef Artazt. Some had been killed even before I’d entered the Collegium, and there were killings still happening, if intermittently. Why? Just because someone didn’t like imagers?

For a time, I just sat there, looking at the river, but I didn’t come up with any sort of answer. Yet . . . there was something. I just couldn’t see what it was.

Because I had a very strong feeling that trying to run down Elphens or other portraiturists wasn’t going to tell me any more, I finally returned to my quarters and read, mostly from On Art and Society. I didn’t know that I agreed with much of what I read. Juniae D’Shendael’s commentary did spark speculation, particularly her assertion that the reason there were virtually no women artists was because, historically, no one wanted to invest in training a woman when she had a fifty percent chance of dying in childbirth, and being surrounded by males, she would likely have a hundred percent chance of becoming pregnant. After having a child, she’d be able to devote less time to art and would require more food, especially if nursing.

I’d have to caution Khethila about not quoting too liberally from that volume.

At half past four, I was in a hack headed for Nordroad and Hagahl Lane. I had slipped a set of poison testing strips inside my waistcoat, not that I expected to be poisoned, but for practice. A very light drizzle had begun to fall, and I wished that I had an umbrella, not for me, but for Seliora.

I arrived almost a quarter glass early, but, seemingly as always, Bhenyt opened the door.

“Master Rhennthyl, please come in.”

“Are you the permanent doorman?” I asked jokingly.

“I like to see who’s coming, and, besides, Mother says it’s a way to meet people.” He smiled. “Aunt Seliora gives me things, too.”

Bhenyt carefully slid the lock and the bolt in place, and then we walked up the steps, where he took his leave.

I waited for a time in the main-level entry hall, taking in the paintings set at intervals, as well as the hangings. I had the feeling about one of them, an elaborate geometric design of silver and dark gray on a rich green. It was far newer than the others. I didn’t recognize any of the paintings, all of them landscapes or city scenes, although I thought one of the scenes looked like it might have been painted by Elphens or his former master-except it was signed by someone called Arhenyt, who from the style might have been Rhenius’s father.

Although I heard no steps, I sensed someone and turned to see Seliora entering the main hall from the archway leading to the stairs. She wore a black dress with a brilliant filmy green vest, trimmed in silver, with a silvery scarf.

“Do you all move so quietly?” I grinned.

“No. Shomyr and Father shake the stairs and the floor.” Seliora gave me a warm embrace and a gentle but quick kiss before stepping back. “Have your parents returned?”

“I received a reply from Mother late on Jeudi, and a letter to you wouldn’t have gotten here much before I did.”

Seliora raised her eyebrows. “And?”

“Because we’re being honest, you can read her response.” I handed her the envelope.

She extracted the letter, slowly reading it. Then she looked up and smiled, enigmatically.

I wasn’t about to ask what lay behind the expression. I knew. I also knew that Mother was in for something she had never encountered, not even with Remaya, who was a house cat compared to Seliora’s mountain cougar.

“You’re smiling,” Seliora said.

“I think I’ll enjoy observing next weekend.”

“You can be evil, Rhenn. I’ll be as charming as I know how.”

“And you say I’m evil?”

That got me another enigmatic sidelong glance. “Where might we be going to dine?”

“I’d thought that the Promenade might be good.”

“Could we try Terraza?”

“It’s better, I take it?” I’d never heard of it.

“It is. You also don’t pay for what you don’t get.”

“Odelia and Kolasyn?”

“I thought we could meet them there.”

I just offered a shrug and a grin.

As we headed down the steps to the door, Seliora gestured. “In the closet at the bottom of the stairs, there are several umbrellas.”

After finding the closet, I took a large navy blue umbrella and then held it over Seliora as she used a brass key to lock the door behind us. We had to wait a bit to hail a hack, and for that I was glad for the umbrella, not so much for me as for Seliora.

If it had not have been for the misting rain-and the exposure-Terraza would have been almost close enough to walk, only about a mille, just around the corner on a narrow lane off the Boulevard D’Este, not all that far from Master Kocteault’s, I realized, when we got out of the coach-for-hire.

Not only that, but Odelia and Kolasyn already had a table, a circular one in the far corner, perhaps the best in the restaurant. The woman who guided us there only glanced at me perfunctorily, after admiring, if most covertly, what Seliora wore.

Terraza itself was a good three times the size of Lapinina, but only half that of Felters. The walls were a simple and clean white plaster, with brick pillars showing, and the floor was a clean dark gray tile. All the tables had white cloths, and the wall lamps were of antique brass, frequent enough so that it wasn’t gloomy, but warm in feeling.

Odelia smiled as I seated Seliora, then murmured just loud enough for us to hear. “That was quite an entrance. Everyone kept looking at you two.”

“They were looking at Seliora,” I pointed out, “not me.”

“Any time a beautiful woman appears, escorted by a tall, muscular, and impressive-looking imager, people will look,” Kolasyn replied.

“That’s no reason,” I said with a laugh.

“For some people, it is,” replied Odelia.

A serving girl appeared with two bottles of wine, one red and one white.

“I ordered their house wines,” Odelia explained. “They’re good.”

I managed not to laugh. Odelia and Seliora were definitely better off not being High Holders, not from what I’d heard about the way High Holders treated their wives and daughters.

I decided on the red wine, although I couldn’t have said why. It was light, like a Dhuensa, but had a stronger and fruitier taste, yet I liked it. I lifted the glass to Odelia. “You were right. This is good.”

She smiled, and her eyes flicked to Seliora.

This time, I did laugh as I turned to my partner. “You told her what to order?”

“I just suggested.” Her voice was low and demure, and I could see the mischievous grin struggling to appear.

“Have you ordered everyone’s dinner as well?” My tone was light because I was actually enjoying the banter, and I could barely keep from laughing again.

“You’re right,” interjected Odelia. “He does have a sense of humor.”

The serving girl appeared. “The special tonight is lamb tournedos, with mint yogurt, blue glacian potatoes, and spice-steamed summer beans. . . .” She went on to list more entrees than I could remember fully, which was fine, because I wanted the lamb.

Once she was finished, I nodded to Seliora.

“The greens and fowl with the Cambrisan reduction.”

“The roast mushrooms and the duck confit,” added Odelia.

“The same for me,” said Kolasyn.

“Greens and the lamb special . . . pink, not red,” I said.

After she left, there was a moment of silence. I looked to Kolasyn, perhaps because he had said so little and I so much. “You were talking about reasons why people do things. Do people really have reasons?” As I talked, I slipped out one of the testing strips, holding it well below the edge of the table, and concentrated on imaging the tiniest drop of wine from Seliora’s narrow goblet.

He smiled, then shrugged. “I think so. With people, there’s a reason for everything. The trick is to figure out the reason. Sometimes, they don’t even know it themselves, but if you can discover it, then you have an advantage.”

“Are you sure that everyone has a reason?” asked Seliora, her voice carrying genuine interest. “Besides just having to act?”

I imaged another drop of wine, this time from my goblet.

“If they didn’t have some reason,” Kolasyn replied, “no one would do anything. Maybe they’re hungry, or tired . . . or just don’t want to leave a decision to their wife . . .”

I did grin at that.

I also got a very gentle elbow in the ribs.

The testing strip showed nothing abnormal in either Seliora’s wine or mine.

At that point the first course arrived.

Between the food and the conversation, light as it was, everyone seemed to enjoy the dinner. I also tested the wine and the sparkling water that Odelia had asked for.

Then, just as the server set the lemon tart that was my dessert before me, Seliora glanced toward the frosted-glass door of Terraza. That was the second time she’d done that, I realized. I leaned toward her and asked in a murmur, “Someone out there?”

“Rhenn . . .”

“If I know what’s there,” I replied in a low voice, “I’ll be fine. I don’t want anyone else around.” I slipped from my chair. “If you all will excuse me for a moment . . . I need to stretch. Some of the exercises and running may be catching up with me. I should only be a moment.”

Seliora’s glance all but screamed “Take care!”

I was holding full shields as I stepped out into the continuing light drizzle, and I had them angled, in a way that even Maitre Dyana might have actually approved.

The first bullet barely shook me. I turned, looking through the misty evening, then saw the muzzle flash from beside the trunk of a tree less than twenty yards to my left, across the narrow lane. The jolt staggered me, but only for an instant.

I imaged oil across the stones of the sidewalk behind the tree, since I couldn’t make out any figures. Rather I tried, because the oil just formed a momentary tent in midair before slipping to the ground as two men sprinted from the tree and up an alley. One of them had used an imager’s shield. An imager’s shield?

I started after them, then slowed as I heard hoofs on pavement, but I went far enough to see down the alley and make sure that they had indeed left and that the alley was empty. Then I walked back to the restaurant, realizing that the shield I had encountered hadn’t really been so much strong as different, and that if I’d had a moment longer, I might have gotten through it. Had that been why the two had fled?

One had to be an imager, the other probably the Ferran. What chilled me as much as the presence of an unknown imager was the fact that someone knew where I’d be and when. The imager’s presence also confirmed that Emanus’s death was not accidental and had a part in matters, even if inadvertent, but it still made no sense to me, except that it did suggest that Emanus had known something that the imager believed I now knew. But what could that be?

Before reentering the restaurant, I glanced around again, but the street was empty, not surprisingly, given the rain.

“Do you feel better?” asked Seliora as I returned, after wending my way around several tables.

“The cooler air helped.” I smiled, then sat down again, murmuring to her, “Everything’s fine. They’ve gone.”

Odelia raised an eyebrow, but I just smiled, before taking a bite of the lemon tart. It was every bit as good as the rest of the meal had been. Seliora had a thin slice of almond cake, drizzled with chocolate.

Surprisingly, at least to me, the total for all four of us was only a bit over six silvers, a healthy sum, but not what it could have been.

When we left Terraza, Odelia gave Kolasyn a hug and a kiss, and then joined us for the hack ride back to NordEste Design. I thought Kolasyn looked a bit dejected as he started to walk down the Boulevard D’Este.

Once we were back at Seliora’s, Odelia vanished, and Seliora and I made our way up to the east terrace. Through the mist and the rain, we could barely see three blocks, and certainly not even a fraction of the distance to Martradon. In the darkness, the terrace was cool, but not uncomfortable, especially not after the long embrace that Seliora bestowed upon me as soon as we were clearly alone. We did move the chairs so that we sat side by side, with no table between us.

“I was worried when you went outside at Terraza. What happened?”

“There were two of them. One fired. I tried to image oil so that they’d slip, but I couldn’t see them, and it didn’t quite work. They had a coach or trap or something around the corner and were gone before I could get close.”

“Someone with golds, then.”

“Someone who knows imagers, too. They never let me get a moment’s look at them.” That was as much as I wanted to say about that, at least until I talked to Master Dichartyn.

“They’re watching you, aren’t they? What can you do?”

“Be careful, and try to learn more. I don’t know what else I can do. Do you?”

Her fingers tightened around mine. “No. I wish I did.”

“Has your solicitor found out anything about Madame D’Shendael? I still think there’s a connection.”

“I had to go through Grandmama on that. Yesterday, she said it was taking longer than Ailphens thought, but there might be something.”

“Did she say what?”

Seliora shook her head.

“Since we can’t solve any of those problems, not now anyway,” I said, “tell me what your best memory is of when you were little.”

“Little or really little?”

“Let’s start with really little.”

“That was the time that Grandmama and Mother took me to Extela one winter. I don’t remember why they went, but they took me, and I got to play in the snow, real snow, and there was this fuzzy black puppy . . .”

We talked for more than a glass, before I thought I heard steps, quiet ones. I turned in the dimness to look directly at Seliora.

She smiled, and nodded, and we got up.

After a time, we stepped apart.

“I’d like to see you tomorrow . . .”

“I’d like to see you, but it is the twins’ birthday, and it should be their special day. Also, perhaps you should see your parents. It might not hurt.”

She was right about that, much as I hated to admit it.

In the hack on the way back to the Bridge of Hopes, something Kolasyn said came back to me. “With people, there’s a reason for everything . . . the trick is to figure out the reason.”

What were the simplest reasons to kill junior imagers? Because it was harder to kill senior imagers? Because if someone killed junior imagers . . .

I swallowed. Could it be that simple? That cold? And if so, why hadn’t Master Dichartyn mentioned it? Or was I supposed to tell him-again?