Imager’s Battalion

6

On Samedi evening, when Quaeryt reached Nordruil, Vaelora was waiting at the front entrance for him, dressed in a flattering, and clinging, green cotton dress that somehow made her light brown eyes look almost luminously amber. Even before he dismounted, he wanted to wrap his arms around her, to lose himself in her. Instead, he permitted himself a long embrace and a tender, but passionate kiss, far more than was proper in public, he knew.

As he lifted his lips from hers, she said, “You’re only here for tonight and tomorrow, aren’t you?”

He nodded. “We leave before dawn on Lundi.”

“Then we should make the most of the time. Dinner will be ready in less than a glass.” She smiled. “You need your uniform washed, and you need to bathe.” After a moment she added, blushing, “Just bathe. Be patient. The evening will be long enough.”

Quaeryt looked at her again.

“That is not a scholarly look.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.” He grinned. “I take it you have already made preparations for my bath?”

“Of course. I don’t want to waste time … either.”

Quaeryt laughed.

Then they walked into the hold house and up the stairs.

Quaeryt had to admit that he felt better after bathing, but he didn’t luxuriate in the porcelain tub, because Vaelora had left him there to make certain dinner would be ready. He had his doubts that her absence was totally for that reason, but, he reminded himself, you’re far more fortunate in having her than you ever thought, and there are times when it’s best to let things be as she wishes.

He dressed quickly, and as he was pulling on a clean shirt, not a uniform, she entered the dressing chamber.

“They’re washing all your uniforms so they’ll have enough time to dry. Are you hungry?”

“Yes.” In more ways than one. But dinner would come first.

They walked down the narrow stairs together. Quaeryt did hold her hand, firmly, but not too lightly.

She looked at him. “I’m glad you miss me.”

“I wish I didn’t have to.”

Vaelora shook her head. “If you don’t do what you must, then you’d come to blame me. I would not have that.” She smiled faintly. “Do not tell me you wish it were otherwise. I would not love you so much were you not striving to change things for the better. I have not told you this, but I would not change one thing you did as governor now that I have thought about it. I told Bhayar that also.”

“Thank you.” Quaeryt squeezed her hand again. “What did he say? Or did he just look at you with those dark blue eyes?”

“That doesn’t work with me. He tried it too often when we were young. He laughed. Then he said that I was getting to be as dangerous as you, and that he would have to watch both of us.” She shook her head, then smiled. “I told him I’d learned it all from him and Aelina. He said that he was surrounded by dangerous people, and that was the price of using those who were most able.”

“He’s right about that. Anyone who can carry out tasks well can turn that ability against one.”

“So a ruler has the choice between faithful incompetence or dangerous competence?”

“All too often, don’t you think?”

“I do.”

“Still…” mused Quaeryt, “there is one aspect that many overlook. Often those who are most able can see that they can accomplish more by working with a ruler than against him. It is usually to their interests to do so.”

“Unless the ruler is not trustworthy.”

“A ruler should always keep his word … that is, if he wishes to remain a ruler.”

“Has my brother?”

“So far as I know. Do you know otherwise?”

“He did not as a youth. Our father whipped him once for breaking his word.”

That was something Quaeryt had not heard.

“Father told him that lesser men could break their word, but not rulers. He also said that treachery and lying was a shortcut to ruin.” Vaelora smiled ironically. “He also said that there was little need to deceive men, because most men would deceive themselves.” She stopped as they reached the table on the terrace, placed so that the trees beyond the terrace shaded it from the last rays of the sun.

Once they were seated, Vaelora looked across at him. “You are tired.”

“I’m not that tired … but the last two days have been long.”

“How did it go with the Pharsi officers?”

“They will obey and follow my orders.” He laughed softly, not quite bitterly. “At least until I prove I’m not one of the lost ones.”

“And what if you are?”

“They may find that they do not want what they have wished for.”

“Oh … dearest…” Vaelora reached across the table and took his hands in hers for a moment, then released them as the serving woman approached, setting a pale lager in a beaker before each of them.

Quaeryt took a long swallow. He hadn’t realized just how thirsty he still was. “I do like good lager.”

“You like most things that are good.”

“So do you,” he said with a smile.

“Don’t most people?” She took a sip from her beaker, then set it down and waited as the serving woman placed a small platter of sliced peaches and cherries before her, and then another before Quaeryt. “I thought fruit, and then fowl, would be good.”

“It all sounds good.” He ate one of the cherries, careful not to bite on the pit, then another, before going on. “I’m not sure that most people like what is truly good. I think most of us want to think that what we like or what we wish to do is good. Just think about what happened in Extela. The grain and flour merchants wanted higher prices for flour, even though the price they wanted would have beggared many people. When I kept the price from going too high for just a few weeks, while restoring order, they all condemned me and complained to your brother. When I questioned High Holder Wystgahl about his motives and about the fact that he’d supplied weevil-ridden flour to the post, he got so upset that he died, and his son and everyone condemned me. No one said a word about the nature of the flour, or that his actions were a theft of so many golds that a poor man would have been beheaded for taking that much. Yet all of them believed that they represented what was good.” Quaeryt doubted he’d ever forget what he’d learned from his short time as governor of Montagne.

“You’re very right, dearest, and we can correspond about it. We should enjoy dinner … and the little time we have left together at present.”

Quaeryt was glad for the last two words she spoke, even as he knew she was right. He would have more than enough time without her to think over how people defined what was good and what was not. He smiled and lifted his beaker. “To your wisdom, to us, and to the evening.”

Vaelora raised her beaker as well, extending it so that it touched his with the faintest clink. “To us.”

They drank, eyes locked.