Imager's challenge

9

The rain and drizzle lifted on Meredi night, and the weather cooled so much that there was frost everywhere early on Jeudi. The grass and walkways were so slick that no one ran all that fast, and we finished in a ragged pack. I did wear my cold-weather cloak and gloves for the walk to Patrol headquarters, and with the wind, I was more than glad that I had. The building seemed empty when I hurried in off Fedre and made my way to the charging desk-also vacant, since I’d clearly arrived before Gulyart.

The glass was just ringing as Gulyart hurried in. He wasn’t wearing a cloak, but a heavier blue wool uniform. “Good morning, Master Rhennthyl.”

“Good morning, Gulyart. There’s no one here.”

“That’s because there was trouble in the South Middle taudis last night, and the subcommander called in everyone he could, even some who had morning duty. We’re going to be busy. We won’t get a break for lunch, and we’ll probably be working till sunset or beyond.”

“What happened?”

Gulyart shrugged. “I don’t know, except someone started street preaching one of those southern religions-”

“Not Caenen duology?”

“No. The Tiempran equality stuff.”

I stiffened inside. Master Dichartyn had said something about the Tiempran First Speaker rewarding those who struck near the heart of their enemies. Was that the reason for the riot . . . or part of it? A year earlier, I wouldn’t have known much more than the words he used, but the Collegium had been good for my education, if at the cost of a certain naive tolerance.

The main faith in Tiempre was monotheistic, but the key tenet of their single powerful god was that all good qualities were present in all human beings. That in itself wasn’t all that bad, to my way of thinking, but some of the corollaries were anything but good. If a trait wasn’t present in all people, then it was suspect or evil. Because something like only one in a hundred thousand people had the talent for imaging, imagers were agents of the evil one. So were people who were excessively tall or short, and those who were what might be called village idiots were imprisoned in work plantations lest they contaminate others. Very intelligent people were looked on with skepticism, as were the deformed.

“It got out of hand,” I suggested.

“Someone started preaching that the Council was following evil because it gave special privileges to the most evil of all-you imagers. He started in on the High Holders after that, screaming that they denied the goodness of equality and made it impossible for the people in the taudis ever to get good jobs, and then he finished up by inciting them to strike out against the Civic Patrol, because we’re the agents of the evil oppressors of equality . . . something like that.”

“And that started a riot?”

“It wasn’t too bad.” Gulyart snorted. “They’ve got almost a hundred waiting to be charged.”

“Disturbing the peace and damaging property?”

“Mostly. Maybe twenty or so got caught assaulting someone, and a few attacked patrollers. They didn’t get the street preacher, though. He’d better be hiding. Street preaching’s a straight shot to life in a penal manufactory.”

I could understand that. Any religion in Solidar had the right to assemble and worship-but only on private property and under a roof. It could be in a hovel or a barn or any structure, but street preaching or soliciting was banned. Soliciting was a misdemeanor the first time, but not street preaching. The possible connection to the Tiempran government was also disturbing, but how could one prove it?

“First Patroller Gulyart! The first prisoners are coming in.”

A gaol patroller appeared with two men. “These two were part of the mob, disorderly. Nothing much else.”

“What is your name?” Gulyart looked at a short, swarthy young man about my age.

After the slightest hesitation, the man looked blank.

“Appelio? Niomen? Habynah?” asked Gulyart.

“Adyon Khurnish.”

“Adyon, son of Khurn,” Gulyart murmured, “but put it down as he said it.”

I checked the files for both versions of the name. “There’s nothing here.”

“If I hear him right, he’s speaking what sounds like accented Tiempran. That means he’s probably from Gyarl.”

The prisoner had said nothing, but there had been a flicker of something when Gulyart had mentioned Gyarl-a comparatively small land, landlocked and sandwiched between Caenen and Tiempre with about half the people of Caenenan background and half of Tiempran. “He’s from Gyarl, I’d wager,” I offered, “but he doesn’t want to let us know it.” I had to wonder at that, because Solidar let in anyone who wanted to work as a laborer. It cost too much to post guards everywhere along something like eight thousand milles of coast-that was the area ships could approach enough to let down boats, anyway. Besides, unless someone spoke decent Solidaran, except it really was Bovarian, as it had adapted since Rex Regis had unified all of Solidar, he wasn’t going to go anywhere but the fields or day labor. That wasn’t exactly a threat to our peace and prosperity. Besides, how many could afford ocean passage?

“That’s his problem, not ours,” Gulyart said, hurriedly writing out the charging slip and filling out the line on the charging ledger, then looking at the other prisoner. “You? Habynah?”

“Isoloh Solonish.”

I checked his name as well, but there was nothing. So I slipped back beside Gulyart and wrote out the ledger entry while he finished the charging slip.

“They’re both charged with disorderly and disturbance.”

As the two were marched out, I had the feeling that both had understood at least some of what we had said, but I didn’t have time to say anything, because they were followed by another gaol patroller with three men, all in manacles.

“Hydrat, here,” announced the burly patroller, “he was in for disorderly maybe a year back, far as I recall. Be under Hydrat D’Taudis. No father . . . half-Pharsi scum.”

Hydrat’s name was there, but the note was that the charges had been dropped.

“Charges were dropped against him,” I told Gulyart.

“You’re the fortunate one,” Gulyart said.

“They’ll drop these, too . . . officer. I wasn’t doing anything.”

“No, just being disorderly,” added the gaol patroller, “throwing buckets of piss at the riot squad.”

“I never touched a bucket.”

Gulyart didn’t say a thing, and I copied what he’d written on the charging slip, including the charges of disturbance, disorderly, and assault on a patroller.

“This one looks like all-Pharsi scum. Says his name is Chelam D’Whayan. He was one of the others throwing buckets of piss.”

“That’s not assault,” claimed the scrawny and small black-haired figure, barely a man, if that. “Disorderly, not assault.”

“You can tell the justice that. Is Chelam D’Whayan the right name?” asked Gulyart.

“Yeah. . . .”

The patroller yanked the manacles. “He’s ‘sir’ or ‘officer’ to the likes of you.”

“Yes . . . sir.” The words were quiet, but Chelam’s eyes flared.

There was no record on him, either.

The third was taller, with black hair and an olive skin. Pharsi-Caenenan heritage, I would have guessed. He gave only his name-Chardyn D’Steinyn.

The following prisoner was manacled and gagged. Welts covered the left side of his face, and a wound below his ear had been bandaged. Blood had soaked through part of the dressing.

“This one’s major. Name is Fhalyn D’Sourkos. Disorderly, disturbance, and assault with a weapon. He used a pair of dirks against a mounted riot patroller. Horse had to be put down. He’s gagged because he spits.”

Gulyart didn’t have the gag removed, but that name didn’t have any record, either. Fhalyn did try to kick the gaol patroller on his way out. That type used the riot as an excuse, hoping he wouldn’t get caught in all the chaos. I’d have wagered that as many as we’d end up charging, even more had escaped.

We must have charged close to twenty people before a woman patroller, wiry and tough-looking, appeared with two women who looked to be in their late twenties, but then . . . they might have been younger under all the smudged makeup.

“These two are charged with disturbance and street soliciting. They left their premises during the riot and solicited on the street.”

Like street preaching, soliciting on public grounds and streets was an offense, a misdemeanor, but still a crime. Sexual favors could be solicited, but only if the solicitor stood inside a doorway or a window of property with the consent of the owner. Most of the time, I’d heard, patrollers allowed a little leeway.

“We didn’t,” said the brunette. “Aloust would have beaten us.”

“Enough to bruise us where it really hurts,” added the other, a thin, black-haired girl, who, upon closer inspection, probably wasn’t any older than Khethila. “One of the rioters dragged me from the window. Then two patrollers grabbed me!”

“Your name?” asked Gulyart firmly.

“Alizara. That’s it.”

There were no Alizaras listed in the records, nor did the records show anything for the older woman, who had given her name as Beustila.

“Likely as not, neither name is real,” muttered Gulyart.

“Aren’t many of them false?”

“Not so many as you’d think, not when we can check for a hip brand, but there are plenty of false names. The girls change their names, or they use false ones for their work.”

As Gulyart had predicted, we didn’t finish until well after sixth glass. Because I knew I’d already missed dinner, I stopped and ate a sausage blanket and noodles at Fiendyl’s. I only got a few glances, probably because everyone there had seen me more than a few times.

One man kept looking toward me until one of the servers stopped and murmured a few words to him, something like “. . . works over at the Civic Patrol . . . eats here a lot . . .”

I had a long walk back to Imagisle, and one that required carrying full imager shields the entire two milles plus. As I walked through the cool evening, glad for my winter cloak, with a brisk wind blowing out of the northeast, carrying a chill that must have come all the way from the Mountains D’Glace, I couldn’t help thinking about all the people who had been charged and how almost none of them had any past record. There were never many, because the Patrol didn’t like repeat offenders, but there had been one or two, sometimes three, out of every ten on the other days. Today, I only recalled two out of close to sixty. Maybe there had been three.

I was more than tired when I reached the quadrangle at close to eighth glass. Given the day, how late it was, and especially given Master Dichartyn’s condescension of the afternoon before, I didn’t see any necessity to report on what had happened at the charging desk. He would have been briefed on the riot, and a report was bound to be in both Veritum and Tableta as well.

I just washed up, undressed, and went to bed.