Imager's challenge

33

Vendrei was misty, with intermittent rain, and a damp chill that suggested a bitter late autumn, although winter proper was a bit more than a month away. I slipped several times on the four-mille run, but Dartazn slipped more, and I managed to finish closer to him than usual. Master Dichartyn wasn’t there for either the exercises or the run, and I wondered when he would be returning to Imagisle . . . and where he had been.

After a cold shower and a shave that left my face blue, it took two full mugs of steaming tea at breakfast to lift the chill from my body, but I got to the duty coach early enough that I arrived on time for my last day of rounds with Alsoran. I even had to wait for him.

He was smiling when he walked into the station.

I couldn’t help smiling back. “Good morning. Ready to head out?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

I shrugged, and we left the station and started off up Fuosta.

“Will you miss any part of Third District, do you think?” I asked.

“I’ll miss some of the patrollers. Lyonyt was always good to do rounds with, and Zellyn’s a good fellow. Some of the others, too. But they say that Captain Telleryn runs a good station.” He smiled. “Jotenyr told me I’d eat a lot better out in Fifth District, and that he sees a lot more pretty women.”

“That sounds promising.”

“Have to admit I could stand better food than the bistros on this round.”

With that I could definitely agree.

As was usually the case in the earlier part of the morning, we didn’t see any taudis-toughs on the first two rounds, and only sniffed a hint of elveweed when we were two blocks or so past the Temple of Puryon on the first leg of the first round.

Youdh’s territory, I thought.

“Have you heard anything about the scripties, Master Rhennthyl?”

“All I know is that they’ve started somewhere in L’Excelsis, but I don’t know much more than that, except it’s west of the river.”

“They usually start in one of the taudis. That’d be Caniffe, most likely.”

“Then where?”

Alsoran shook his head. “Might do the nicer districts in the west or go straight for the hellhole. Can’t ever tell, and that’s the way they like it. They just move in and cordon off something like a ten-block square and move from house to house. We have to charge and send to gaol anyone who tries to attack them-if they don’t shoot ’em first.”

I hadn’t heard that aspect of the conscription teams. I’d only seen them twice, when they’d visited our house when I was something like eleven and then again when I’d been an apprentice for Master Caliostrus, just before I made journeyman. “I didn’t see a cordon when they’ve been through before.”

“They don’t use full force in some parts of the city, just in the trade and taudis quarters.”

We kept walking and watching, but the second round ended without incident. By the second round, we’d both removed our cloaks because the sun beat down more like summer, and the air was getting hotter and steamier by the moment.

“You never know what to expect this time of year.” Alsoran blotted his forehead. “You wear a summer uniform, and you freeze. You put on the heavier wool, and you roast.”

By the third round, the usual toughs were beginning to appear, but all of them either ignored us or provided Alsoran with a quick nod. Clearly Jadhyl and Deyalt didn’t want trouble with the Patrol, or with Alsoran. Somewhere near the end of that round, I realized that I’d never seen the tough who’d drawn a knife on me nearly two weeks earlier.

I insisted on buying Alsoran his lunch at Parmiens, one of the better bistros on the avenue section of the round, as a sort of promotion and transfer present. He tried to object.

“Promotions don’t come every day, or even every year,” I pointed out. “And, this way, if no one else says anything, you can tell your wife that someone noticed. Besides, it’s Vendrei, and we deserve a good meal.”

In the end, he capitulated.

Not only was Alsoran pleased, but I didn’t have gut-aches for the rest of the afternoon, something that had occurred more than I would have preferred when we had eaten in some of his “favorite” places.

When we walked up the walk to the station at the end of the last round of the day, I stopped just outside and clasped Alsoran’s hand. “I do wish you well in Fifth District.”

“I’d be wishing you well, too, Master Rhennthyl. If you don’t mind my saying so, with some more experience, you’d be a good Patrol captain. You settle things down, somehow. Zellyn said the same thing.”

Settle things down? It seemed to me that I was always being forced to stir things up.

Once we entered the station, Captain Harraf, whom I hadn’t seen in days, beckoned to Alsoran, then smiled at me before escorting Alsoran into his study and closing the door.

After I left Third District station, just after fourth glass, I took a hack to the Avenue D’Artisans and had the driver drop me off midway between the two points where Mardoyt had left the hack when I’d trailed him. Then I made my way westward to Saelio, moving in from the north under concealment shields. With the sun getting lower in the west, and the shadows from the old dwellings and oak trees, no one seemed to look in my direction as I took my time getting into position two houses away from Mardoyt’s duplex. His daughter was playing with dolls on the porch, then disappeared inside when someone called her as the shadows merged with twilight.

As I continued to wait, not exactly comfortably, I studied the old oaks, picking out several as possibilities, and testing them gently. The twilight deepened into night, past the time when other men, and some women, returned to their houses. Twice, I had to ease out of people’s way, but they either didn’t see me through my shields, or if they caught a hint of something, they really didn’t want to look in my direction.

In time, the lights on the lower level of the house were snuffed out, except for a single lamp that remained lit in the front hall, barely visible through the large window behind the porch. I kept waiting, until close to midnight, or perhaps past it.

It was a long, long walk back to Imagisle, since there were no hacks about, and my feet ached by the time I opened the door to my quarters. I almost stepped on the note that had been slipped under my door, but bent over and picked it up. Then I closed the door and imaged the desk lamp into flame before opening the envelope and reading the single line.

I’d like to see you.

Under the five words was the initial D.

I couldn’t say that I was surprised.