Imager's challenge

52

Lundi was the coldest morning of autumn so far, with frost everywhere and a biting wind out of the northeast that rattled my windows and seeped into my quarters. Even so, I was in the duty coach before a quint past sixth glass, wearing the blue-gray patroller’s cloak that wasn’t as warm as my imager’s cloak. I walked into Third District station just after half past the glass. Lieutenant Warydt was waiting.

“Major Trowyn has suggested that your presence would be appreciated on the conscription team that will begin at the northwest corner of Mando and South Middle at seventh glass.” Warydt did not smile, for once, and for which I was grateful.

“I’ll join them now.”

Warydt nodded, saying nothing. I turned and headed for the station doors.

As I walked up Fuosta and then eastward on South Middle, I tried to remember what Maitre Jhulian had taught me about the laws concerning conscription. The five rights of citizens did not preclude searches of private property, but they did preclude seizure of property without cause. Conscription was not a seizure and was allowed for those older than fourteen who were not in school, not artisan apprentices or journeymen or higher, or otherwise engaged in trade or commerce as a proprietor or holder-or those who could show a worth of a hundred golds or more. In short, the Navy could conscript the jobless, day laborers, young idlers, and the like-and taudis-toughs . . . if they could find them. I doubted that many of the taudis-toughs would be found.

Three large stake wagons with bench seats were lined up on South Middle, opposite the ruins of the Temple. Did the marines expect to fill all those wagons with conscriptees? I certainly hadn’t seen that many young men or men who weren’t mindless elvers.

As I approached the marines gathered at the corner of Mando and South Middle, I did a quick count. Ten men-a chief, eight marines armed with truncheons of a length between a patroller’s truncheon and a riot stick, but with pistols at their belts, and a ninth marine with a bound folder. Did they need that many?

The chief kept surveying South Middle in both directions, until he saw me. Then he just waited until I stepped up to the marines.

“You’re the master imager working with the Civic Patrol?” he asked.

“Rhennthyl, Maitre D’Aspect, and liaison to the Civic Patrol.”

“You’re the one that captured those Tiempran friggers?”

“I worked with the Patrol and some of the local dwellers to bring them in. The locals didn’t want to be blamed for something they had no part in.”

The chief shook his head. “Smartest thing I ever saw in a taudis. Like as not, I’ll never see it again.” He looked to me. “You’re coming with us?”

I nodded. “That was the agreement with the major.”

“Then we’d better get started.” The chief gestured. “We’ll start on this side, go down as far as the alley, then come back and do the other side that far.”

I walked beside the chief to the first house on the corner, half of a duplex, with soot-smeared bricks and the windows and front door boarded up. Two of the marines produced pry bars, and in moments had the boards away from the door.

Three other marines slipped into the house.

In what seemed like moments, they returned with a bearded man, perhaps thirty, clad in a tattered leather jacket and trousers with ragged ends. His shoes were held together with rags, and his mouth worked silently for a moment before he spoke.

“I work! Over on the avenue.”

“Name the place and the owner.”

“Gosmyn’s. Hetyr owns it.”

I thought for a moment. I hated to say anything, but the fellow would probably live longer as a conscript. “Gosmyn’s place has been gone for two or three years.”

“Friggin’ trolie . . . frig you.”

“Take him to the wagons.” The chief’s voice held the resigned boredom of a man who’d heard all too many stories.

Two of the marines marched him off, but he turned and looked in my direction and spat.

We waited on the sidewalk while one of the remaining marines used a hammer to replace the boards over the door. Then we walked the few yards to the next stoop, where the chief rapped loudly.

A graying woman opened the door to the adjoining duplex. She might have once been pretty, but the gray in her reddish hair was less than flattering, and her eyes were a flat brown, not quite uncaring.

“Navy conscription team,” the chief announced.

She said nothing.

“Did you live here in the year 750?”

“Yes.” The resignation in the single word and the lines worn into the woman’s face suggested she was too tired to have moved anywhere in the past six years.

“The last enumeration states that eight people lived here, and two were boys aged eight and eleven,” the chief stated. “Where are they?”

“Doylen’s thirteen. He’s at the grammaire. Smart boy, he is.” The momentary smile removed the sullen dullness from her face.

“Which grammaire?”

“Number thirty-one. That’s the one at the corner of Weigand and Alseyo. You want to go there, he’ll be there.”

“What about his brother?”

She shrugged. “Left here last Juyn. Said he wouldn’t be staying till the scripties came back.”

“You mind if we look?”

With a resigned expression, she stepped back.

The chief nodded. “We won’t need to. Thank you very much.”

The woman moved forward, but waited to close the door until the chief and the two marines and I stepped off the stoop.

“You decided not to look because she agreed?” I asked.

“Not just because she agreed, but the way she did. No hesitation.”

At the next three houses, there were children, but they were either too young or had left, except for the one who was at work as a tile setters’ apprentice, which exempted him from conscription. The marines on the cordon would have let him pass so long as he showed his apprentice’s card. The fourth house was boarded up, but no one was there. Absently, I noted that all were in what had been Youdh’s territory. I had no idea who, if anyone, had succeeded Saelyhd.

When we reached the fifth house, the door opened but a crack.

“Navy conscription team,” the chief declared.

“Don’t need nothing from no one.” The voice was that of a woman.

“You are required to open your door for the purpose of allowing us to determine whether anyone of conscription age is present.”

“Don’t have to.”

“I will warn you that if you do not open the door we are required to force it open.” The chief paused, then said, “Open up, or we’ll break in.”

The door slammed.

In moments, the marines with the pry bars had the door open, the bolts ripped out of the casement and wall and the edges of the door splintered. Then five marines charged inside as a woman screamed.

Close to half a quint passed before the five returned. They had two young men, one about fifteen and the other eighteen. The woman, presumably the one who had slammed the door, stood impassively at the back of the tiny front foyer. She was stout and black-haired.

“Does either of you work?” asked the chief.

The younger one shook his head, his eyes darting from one marine to another to the chief.

“Work’s for fools,” offered the elder contemptuously.

“You’re about to become a greater fool,” replied the chief. “Take them both to the wagons. Put the younger one in for boot training.”

As we walked away from the house, he added in a lower voice to me, “The older one will end up as coal loader or some such. The other’s young enough he might be able to make something of his life.”

The next dwelling held an older couple, and an even older bedridden woman.

Then we retraced our steps back to South Middle and crossed to the east side of Mando where we started with the corner dwelling.

The woman there had three children. The oldest was something like seven.

When we came to the second dwelling, the chief made his announcement once more.

The door opened, and a woman stood there. Her skirt and blouse were grayish and close to shapeless, but clean, and her light brown hair was pulled back into a bun. Her face was narrow.

“Is there any man or boy living here who is over age fourteen?”

“I got two.”

The marine with the folder murmured to the chief.

“Those are Aillyn and Dhewn? What do they do?”

“Aillyn just made journeyman roofer. Dhewn’s an apprentice at the foundry.”

“Are you sure they’re the only ones here?”

I stood back, but the woman looked past them to me. “Master Rhennthyl . . . I got no other sons, but you want to look, they can.”

The chief’s eyes flickered, but he only nodded. “Thank you.”

The next two houses produced neither resistance nor conscripts.

At the fourth house, the white-haired man with the wooden peg leg looked past the chief, even before the chief could say anything. “Master Rhennthyl, Alsoran told you my son’s already in the Navy. All’s here is my daughters . . .”

That was the way the next glass or so went, when we finished almost four complete blocks on both sides of Mando.

We were at the second house on the fifth block, in Youdh’s old territory, when, after someone opened the door, a bearded man charged the marines.

“Friggin’ scripties, worthless scum . . . !”

The marines had him down and trussed in moments. The odor of elveweed was overpowering.

The chief looked down on him. “He’s young enough. We’ll take him, but like as not, he’ll end up dead or on a road gang.”

When we went back to the east side of Mando, the first woman to open the door, again, looked past the chief to me. “My oldest is just twelve. Please, Master Rhennthyl, don’t let them take him.”

“He’ll be thirteen in Ianus,” the chief said, “but we don’t take them that young. If he doesn’t want to be conscripted, have him get a job . . . or an apprenticeship.” He nodded and added, “Thank you.”

Once the door closed, the chief glanced back at me. “You know all of them, imager?”

“No, chief. I only know a handful, but I’ve been patrolling the taudis for a month, and they watch patrollers very closely.”

That was the pattern of the day, but I did understand why they needed so many marines on a team, because some were always escorting conscriptees back to the wagons, and there were some who were violent. One good thing was that I didn’t have to use any imaging, but I didn’t get back to the Collegium until almost fifth glass.

There was a note waiting for me, asking me to report to Master Dichartyn. So I turned around, went back down the stairs and across the quadrangle to his study.

He was waiting, his door open, standing by the window.

“Come in, Rhenn. How was your day with the conscription team?”

“Uneventful, sir, as those things go. They didn’t get any of the taudis-toughs, but I didn’t expect they would. They did sweep up a bunch of idlers and able-bodied elvers-that was on the team I accompanied, anyway.”

“You sound as cynical as you think I am. What I wanted to tell you was that the hearing for the Tiempran priests is on Meredi. They pushed it ahead of some other hearings to get it over and done with. It begins at eighth glass. We had thought about sending Master Jhulian with you, but that would have given the wrong impression.” He paused. “Now . . . is there any aspect of imaging that might come up?”

“I didn’t use much imaging, except to shield Captain Harraf and me from the blast, and some concealment shields in the taudis after the explosion, but there was only one patroller who saw them, and they already know I have shields.”

“That might not even come up. Please don’t bring it up yourself, unless it’s in answer to a question.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How did you know where to find the priests?”

“I didn’t. I asked Horazt.”

“The west quarter taudischef? You didn’t use any imaging otherwise?”

“I imaged smoke into their hiding place until they came out. The priests wouldn’t know that, only that they were smoked out. I can just say that I had help in smoking them out. That’s true enough.”

Dichartyn turned and looked out the window. Finally, he turned back.

“Rhenn . . . no matter what you do, you seem to end up making the Collegium more visible. Why do you think that’s so?”

I’d thought about that, and I had a very good idea why. All the alternatives that would make the Collegium less visible or not call attention to the Collegium happened to be ones that would have resulted in my death or even greater numbers of deaths for others. I wasn’t interested in being a martyr, and I didn’t like the idea of making others involuntary martyrs, either. I wasn’t about to tell Dichartyn that. “I don’t think that it’s necessarily so. The newsheets didn’t even mention me.”

“They will after the hearing on Meredi.”

“What will they mention? That I was worried about explosives because of what the Tiempran First Speaker said and that I helped the Civic Patrol capture the priests? Those aren’t things that will get people upset about the Collegium.”

“What about the Harvest Ball? You think that was low visibility?”

“Sir . . . there was an explosion, and Ferran spies were revealed. No one even mentioned the Collegium. Even when Dartazn and Martyl managed to deflect another wagon filled with explosives near the Council Chateau, very little appeared in the newsheets, and none of it mentioned the Collegium.”

“More influential people know,” he countered.

“Haven’t they always known? Mistress Alynkya D’Ramsael-Alte had no trouble discovering who I was by name even though I never told her who I was. So did Madame D’Shendael.”

Master Dichartyn laughed humorlessly. “Someday, you won’t have such easy answers. I’d also like to point out that master imagers have no private lives to speak of, even if their names never appear in the newsheets. Someone always knows what you’ve done, even if there’s no evidence and no proof. Part of the success in being covert is handling matters in a way in which it is to everyone’s advantage for them not to become public.”

I didn’t care for that at all.

“You’re young, and you are still somewhat idealistic, less than you should be, I fear, and you don’t like my words. I’m not saying that all actions should be covert in that way, but most should be, and there should be a great and compelling reason for undertaking acts that cannot help but become public knowledge. In that light, I sincerely hope you don’t get yourself and the rest of us into great difficulties.”

“Sir, I would be the first to say that I am well aware that I cannot keep doing what I have been doing, and I am working very hard so that I will not have to.” If I couldn’t deal with Ryel, and soon, I’d end up with no family and far too exposed in dealing with the High Holder, and then indeed, publicly every finger would point at me. “When I rounded up the priests, I was careful to work through the Civic Patrol, and they were not captured by imaging, but by taudis-dwellers with ropes.”

“You didn’t make any under-the-table deals with that taudischef?”

“No, sir.” Even if I had, I wouldn’t have told Dichartyn. “Well, except for the promise to keep an eye on Shault and try to keep him out of trouble.”

He laughed. “Master Ghaend has discovered a powerful tool in dealing with young Shault.”

“Oh?”

“He just asks Shault, ‘Do you want me to tell Master Rhennthyll you haven’t studied hard enough?’ That’s more than enough.” He paused. “What exactly did you do?”

I shrugged helplessly. “You know everything that I’ve done.”

“He acts as though you were the taudischef and not this Horazt.”

“I don’t know why. The only thing I’ve done out of the ordinary is carry a letter of his to his mother because there was no other way.”

“That’s dangerous. How could you know-”

I laughed. “The letter had all the silvers he’d earned in his first month here, and I had to read it to his mother because she can’t read.”

For a moment he was silent. “Shault must have known that.”

“I’m sure he did, but he wanted his mother to get the coins, and I’m certain he felt someone would read it to her.”

Master Dichartyn didn’t look entirely convinced, but he only said, “That’s all I have. The duty coach will be ready for you on Meredi at half past seven. Try not to stir up anything else controversial.”

“There is one thing, sir. I’ll be going to my brother’s memorial service on Jeudi.”

“I thought he died over a week ago.”

“He did, but that was in Kherseilles. My parents returned yesterday.”

“I’m sorry. Take whatever time you need on Jeudi.”

“Thank you.” I nodded and left.

There were no messages in my letter box, for which I was grateful, because anything there wouldn’t have been the best of news. I just hoped dinner was good.