Imager's challenge

18

Lundi morning was such a rush that even by taking a duty coach, doubtless stretching the rules, I barely reached the District Three station by seventh glass. The station was anything but impressive, a one-story building whose once-yellow bricks had turned a grayish tan under the impact of time and grime, an impression not helped by the narrow barred windows, or by the overcast and low clouds. I walked quickly through open double doors of the single entrance. They were battered and iron bound oak with equally ancient heavy iron inside hinges.

A young patroller with circles under his eyes looked up from the high and narrow desk set against the wall on the right, then stiffened. “Sir . . . you’re Master Rhennthyl? Captain Harraf is expecting you. The first door there.” He gestured.

“Thank you.”

Two other patrollers on the far side of the open space inside the doors that could have been called an anteroom made a show of checking their equipment, but I could feel their eyes on my back as I walked past the duty patroller, then pushed through the already half-open door and stepped into the small study, little more than three yards by four. Captain Harraf was a small man, not much more than to my shoulder, with bright black eyes that protruded slightly, and short jet-black hair. His pale blue uniform was spotless, as was the top of the desk he stood beside-with the exception of an oblong of folded heavy bluish gray cloth. “Master Rhennthyl.”

I inclined my head. “Captain Harraf.”

“I’m glad to see that you’re the kind who takes punctuality seriously.”

“I’m glad to be here.”

“We’ll see how you feel in a few weeks.”

A few weeks-with the implication of a longer time than that? That gave me a definitely uneasy feeling, because Third District was the most dangerous district in L’Excelsis.

“Before I offer you an assignment, I want to be clear on several points. You can’t arrest or detain anyone. Only the patroller with you can. You understand that?”

“Master Dichartyn and the commander and subcommander have made that clear.”

“Good. A few points about station rules. I’m obviously in command. When I’m not here, Lieutenant Warydt is in charge. Should neither of us be here, the senior patroller first takes command. You won’t see too much of the lieutenant in the next few weeks, because he’ll usually be here from the third glass of the afternoon until ninth glass, although it’s sometimes tenth glass. We switch off on the late shift.” He cleared his throat. “For your safety, but also for the safety of the patrollers you accompany, I’m also going to insist that you wear a standard patroller’s cloak over your grays. You’ll also learn more that way.” He picked up the folded gray-blue cloth that turned out to be a cloak, and a new one at that, and handed it to me. “Your cap is close enough that most people won’t notice it anyway.”

He was doubtless right. From a distance any imager’s visored cap didn’t look all that different from those worn by the patrollers, just a touch grayer, while theirs were more gray-blue. Both cap devices were pewter, but the patroller’s cap held a starburst, while mine held the circled four-pointed star.

“Your first patrol will be one of those less adventuresome. You’ll accompany Zellyn along the triangle-down South Middle to the Midroad, then back on Quierca and up Fuosta to the station. There’s usually not much happening, but there would be more if some patroller didn’t cover it.”

“I imagine that’s true everywhere in L’Excelsis, but more so in Third District.” I slipped on the patroller’s cloak.

“Very much more so.” Harraf turned toward the door. “Zellyn!”

A patroller hurried in and stopped. “Sir.” He was red-faced with a silvering brush mustache and bushy eyebrows above sad and pale brown eyes.

“This is Master Rhennthyl, and he’ll be accompanying you on your rounds for the week.”

“Yes, sir.” Zellyn turned to me. “Master Rhennthyl.”

I nodded. “Zellyn, I’m pleased to meet you.”

Captain Harraf cleared his throat. “You two had best be off.”

As I left the study with Zellyn, one thing was very clear. Captain Harraf didn’t want to spend much time with me.

“You ready for a long day on your feet, sir?”

“I think so, but the day will tell.”

Zellyn laughed. “That it will. That it will.”

We walked out of the station and headed right, up Fuosta toward South Middle, two and a half long blocks away.

“How long have you been with the Patrol?”

“Nearly fifteen years, sir, most of it right here in Third District.”

“Would you tell me about your round?”

“We rotate through two or three rounds a year, switch every three months, usually. Means we’re familiar with the areas, but that we don’t get too friendly, if you know what I mean. This round’s the best of the bunch I walk. Biggest problem is the taudis-kids near the shops on Quierca. They’ll lift anything that’s not chained down. The Pharsis and the Caenenans are the worse. Tiemprans aren’t much better.”

“How do you tell the difference between the Tiemprans and the Caenenans?”

“Doesn’t matter. The darker the tan, the more likely they’re trouble. Not all of ’em. Lot of good kids, but the bad ones are more likely to be dark.”

Was that because they were poorer? Or because they and their families had less respect for those who didn’t follow their beliefs? Or because the patrollers just watched them more closely? Or something else? Whatever the reason, I could tell there wasn’t any point in asking.

Small shops clustered on each side of the station, and then eating places-most so small and mean that I wouldn’t even have called them bistros, but perhaps taudiscafes. Only the small cafes were open. For a moment, I wondered why they were so close to the station, until I realized that there was a far smaller chance of robbery and theft.

When we turned onto South Middle, walking toward the Midroad, there were few people on the sidewalks, but more than a handful of coaches and wagons passing by, although the wagons were more prevalent, but then, South Middle was a thoroughfare.

“You ever have trouble with the wagons?”

“Only when they’re loading or unloading. Those times, it’s still not that often because most places have at least two fellows working the wagon. Not much that’s small and light, and that’s what quick-thieves are looking for.” Zellyn waved to a graying and trim man wearing a leather apron outside a shoemaker’s shop that could not have been more than five yards wide.

The cobbler smiled and returned the wave.

After we’d walked just a single block west, the buildings on both sides changed from low brick structures, with modest shops, to stone and brick or stone-faced edifices two and three stories high, with larger shops and lace-curtained windows gracing the living quarters above.

Zellyn pointed to one of the iron grates set at the base of the curb and the side of the road pavement. It covered the opening to the storm sewers below. “We’re supposed to report any time a grate’s been broken or blocked with crap. Sometimes, the penal crews even get them fixed the same week.” He snorted. “Usually not.”

Another hundred yards on stood an iron pole topped with a blue globe. A heavy iron bar circled the pole at eye height. “That’s a pickup point for the Patrol.”

I had to think for a moment before I realized what it was-a place where an offender could be cuffed to the railing, if necessary, if a patroller could not march him or her back to the station. “How often do the pickup wagons run by?”

“Supposed to be once a glass.” Zellyn laughed.

Walking the first part of the round, back to the station, took about a glass. The second part, patrolling up and down the side streets between Quierca and South Middle, from Fuosta west to the Midroad, took about twice as long, mostly because Zellyn passed pleasantries to various people he recognized. Then we did the first round in reverse, and went back the other way. After that came a bite to eat at Kleonya’s, a bistro on Quierca, but a half block off the Midroad. After eating, we continued variations on the round.

Along the way, we helped an older woman who had tripped on a curbing and gotten her scarf caught in a wagon tailgate, listened to a grocer complain about a young thief who had stolen a melon the afternoon before when there weren’t any patrollers around, and warned a pair of youths who lounged in an alleyway, clearly eyeing some older and frailer women who made their way to the produce stand on Quierca halfway between the Midroad and Fuosta.

That was my day with Zellyn, and I paid for a hack to drive me back to Imagisle. My feet were definitely sore, and then some. Even after running down Grandisyn and arranging for him to install a small coal heater with a flue, I was at the dining hall a bit early. It had been a few days since I’d talked to Shault, and I hoped to catch him before dinner, but he was already seated with the other primes and seconds. So I walked over. He looked up.

“After dinner by the doors.”

“Yes, sir.”

I nodded and headed back toward the masters’ table, if deliberately.

“What did you do now?” asked someone in a murmur.

“. . .probably something from Master Ghaend . . . all the masters stick together . . .”

The masters’ table had more than a few there, but rather than sit next to Master Rholyn, I took the place beside Chassendri. Maitre Dyana sat to her right, this time with a thinner pink scarf, but still shimmering and brilliant.

“What are you doing now with the Patrol?” asked Chassendri, passing the wine carafe.

“Accompanying patrollers on their rounds. Last week, I watched justice proceedings, the week before I helped with the charging desk.” I poured the wine-a red, but not a Cambrisio-then handed the carafe back.

“Has it changed your view of the Patrol?”

I thought for a moment. “I don’t think so. I never saw patrollers much. So I didn’t have a good opinion or a bad one.”

“That’s probably fortunate for the commander,” added Maitre Dyana.

“Can you tell what they think of imagers?” Chassendri handed me the platter of fried river trout, not exactly my most favorite of meals.

“They’re careful to be respectful, but for most of them that respect comes from fear, I’d guess, and the respect isn’t all that deep.”

“That makes sense,” Chassendri replied.

The faintest smile crossed Maitre Dyana’s lips, but she said nothing.

“Maitre Dyana,” I asked, “do you recall if Master Dichartyn had any comments on his time as a Patrol liaison?”

“If he hasn’t mentioned it, then he has his reasons.” After a moment, she added, “Commander Artois was a district captain at that time, as I recall, but he became subcommander shortly after Dichartyn became head of security.”

“The previous subcommander was stipended off?”

“As I recall, he developed a lingering illness and died shortly after accepting his stipend.”

Lingering illness? Lead imaged into his system? Or something else? Maitre Dyana wouldn’t have said anything, let alone have phrased it that way, had matters been natural. I nodded.

Chassendri shook her head. “You covert types are chilling behind those pleasant facades.”

“I’m just a junior master trying to learn enough to keep out of trouble,” I protested.

“Maitre Dichartyn wouldn’t have sent you to the Civic Patrol without a very good reason, and it isn’t just for experience,” countered Chassendri.

That was doubtless true, but what was also true was that part of the testing and training involved was that I had to figure out the problems to solve and the ways to do so without telling anyone or revealing that I had. That much, I had begun to figure out. If a problem vanished before anyone recognized it was a problem in a way that seemed coincidental or accidental, then far fewer questions were likely to arise. The difficulty, of course, was making sure that it was indeed a problem. And some problems were obvious-like Mardoyt and possibly Harraf-and it was far harder to find an unobvious solution to an obvious problem because everyone was watching all the time.

“Would you really want to know everything that Maitre Dichartyn does . . . or even what Rhenn here does?” Maitre Dyana’s voice remained level and almost sweet as she addressed Chassendri.

Chassendri frowned.

“Would you want the world, or the Council, to know?” pressed Maitre Dyana. “Too many people prattle on about openness and the need for the Collegium and the Council to reveal everything.” Her eyes didn’t quite roll. “All that means is that they want to know for their own advantage. All ruling and government requires compromise, yet most people only want the other person to do the compromising, and when everything is known, no one will compromise, and ruling then becomes a question of force. Force leads to more force, and eventually to strife, sometimes to rebellion.”

“But too much secrecy leads to a land where no one trusts anyone. That leads to rebellion,” replied Chassendri.

“That suggests,” I interjected, “that an appearance of openness is required, and that some matters be disclosed, but not all.”

“You’re suggesting effective government is hypocritical.” Chassendri’s voice was cool.

“Isn’t it?” asked Maitre Dyana. “Aren’t many effective aspects of society just accepted hypocrisy, such as good manners toward those one detests, being courteous to someone whose treatment of others leaves much to be desired?”

A sour smile appeared on Chassendri’s lips. “I may be better suited to research and chemical development. Reagents and reactions don’t rely on deception.”

“That is true, Chassendri,” replied Maitre Dyana, “but people do.”

No one said anything immediately following that, but we finally did talk about whether there might be an “official” war between Ferrum and Solidar, but in the end we all agreed that the only way that would occur would be if the Ferrans declared it.

After I finished the lime tart-the best part of the dinner-I excused myself and headed to the corridor outside the dining hall to wait for Shault. I didn’t wait long before he appeared.

“Sir? What is it?”

“I met with Horazt the other day. He’s glad to know that you’re doing well here, and he wants you to work as hard as you can.”

“I know, sir. My mere wrote me. Well, he wrote for her. She doesn’t know her letters. She said that, too.”

“How is your reading coming?”

“It’s better, Master Ghaend says. Lieryns and Mayra have helped.”

“And your imaging?”

Shault smiled. “I can image good coppers now-but only one a week, Master Ghaend says. I’m really not supposed to image them.” The smile vanished.

“Do you want to send coins or a letter to your mother?”

“Can I?”

“I think we can manage something. You have her address, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir.” Shault paused. “She can’t read, and messengers won’t go there. I have to post to Horazt, and . . .”

“When he’s short of coin . . . you’re afraid what you send won’t get there?”

The boy nodded.

“For now, until she can come visit you, if you want anything taken to her, I’ll make sure it gets there. I’m working not that far away. If you give me her address, the one where she lives, and tell me what she looks like,” I added with a smile.

“If you would, sir. Can I give it to you tomorrow? She’s not much taller than me, sir. Her hair, it’s black. She always wears a chain with the crescent.”

“I can remember that.” I paused. “No imaged coins, Shault, and don’t image coppers and trade them for a half silver, either.”

“Yes, sir.”

I noted the slightly resigned tone behind the pleasant acquiescence. “Shault . . . don’t go against the rules. Every taudis-kid who tried that is dead-not because of the Collegium, either. They either broke laws and got caught or killed themselves because they didn’t understand the rules were to protect them as well as other imagers.”

I could tell that either my words or tone had reached him, because his eyes widened, but his body didn’t stiffen into resistance. So I added, “I want you to succeed. I wouldn’t watch you and tell you all this if I didn’t. I’m not your preceptor, remember?”

“Yes, sir. I’ll find you tomorrow night.”

“Good.” I smiled and watched as he hurried away. I could only do what I could and hope he didn’t end up like Diazt.