Imager

67

Fortunately, Samedi morning was clear, cool, and with a light breeze that made the long run that followed Clovyl’s exercises and the session in physical self-defense seem almost pleasant. I finished somewhat closer to Dartazn, but not much. I hurried through cleaning up and eating, so that I could get to the studio and get some work done on some of the details of the portrait that didn’t require Master Poincaryt before he arrived.

He was as punctual as always, settling into the chair. “Good day, Rhennthyl.” He settled into the chair. “I apologize for my absence last week. There were some matters to deal with.”

“Beyond the infiltrators in the taudis, sir?”

A smile crossed his face. “You know, Rhennthyl, I find these sessions most useful. They provide a time when I am awake, relatively rested, and without people and details clamoring for actions and solutions.” He turned his head. “This way?”

“A touch away from me, just a little.” I paused. “Good.”

I had to admire the way he’d handled my question. Just a smile, and warm words on another subject, hinting that he wasn’t about to deal with my query. Before I lifted my brush, I just studied him again, looking from the canvas and back to him. Then I caught it. The way I’d painted his left temple was as though in a different light setting than the cheekbone below. I concentrated, trying to visualize it just so . . . and then it was just that way on the canvas. I had to smile. In a way, it was ironic.

I worked steadily for a good quarter glass before he spoke again.

“Master Dichartyn has briefed me on the situation in which you find yourself. How would you describe it? Honestly, but as dispassionately as possible.”

“The Collegium has been good to me, sir. That I cannot deny, and I’ve learned a great deal. At the moment, though, I do feel more like the lure for a large and unknown predator lurking somewhere out beyond the Collegium.”

“That’s a fair description of the situation. I would point out, however, as I am certain Master Dichartyn has already told you, that all imagers are in a sense lures. Our duty and responsibility is to draw such predators in order that they do not prey on Solidar itself.”

“He has said that, sir.”

“Good. I felt sure he had. You’ll be at the Council’s Harvest Ball next Vendrei, I trust?”

“Yes, sir. Won’t you?”

“No. On such social occasions, my presence would have, shall we say, a dampening effect on the atmosphere. The chief maitre of the Collegium must take care never to put himself in a position where he might be seen to challenge or dim the authority of the Council.”

I realized I’d already understood that without actually having thought it through. I just hadn’t applied it to the Ball.

“The Ball is one of those occasions when you have a chance to observe and learn without being observed that much yourself. If someone is observing you, of course, it is significant, and something to consider.” He paused. “How long before I might see the portrait?”

“You can look at it anytime, sir. I have your face mostly done, and the garments.”

“After we’re done today. I dislike surprises, especially those I can prevent.”

He said nothing more for the rest of the session, clearly lost in his own thoughts and concerns. When the first bell of ninth glass struck, he looked to me.

“Yes, sir. I have more than enough to work on before the next session.”

Master Poincaryt stood, stretched, and then walked toward the easel, circling it and then studying the unfinished work. After a moment, he nodded. “They were right. You’re as good as many of the master portraiturists.” A wry smile followed. “It’s accurate, and lifelike, but you’re an imager, and it’s not as flattering as those of Master Estafen. More accurate, but not so flattering.”

“Master Dichartyn has always stressed accuracy, sir.”

The chief maitre laughed. “Master Dichartyn also informed me that you have a certain . . . shall we say . . . way of reducing egos. I would suggest you not employ it at the Ball.” He stepped back from the unfinished portrait, looked at it once more, then turned. “Next week?”

“Yes, sir.”

He was almost at the door before he stopped and half-turned. “Rhennthyl?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Being a lure does not mean one is defenseless. Nor does it preclude action. Just make certain that such action is in your best interests and those of the Collegium.” With that, he smiled and left the studio.

I ended up painting for almost another glass, leaving just enough time to clean up and walk to the dining hall. With good fortune, I’d be able to finish the portrait in one or, at the most, two more sessions. It was a good work-perhaps not my very best, but better than that of many masters.

After lunch with Menyard, I stepped out into the foyer and walked to the main entrance. I glanced up at the plaques . . . and froze. Another name had been added: Claustyn, Maitre D’Aspect, 727-755 A.L.

Had he been the one to remove the old High Priest of Caenen . . . or had he just been killed as part of the operation?

Menyard stopped. “You didn’t know?”

“No. I don’t usually come this way, and I’m never here for lunch, except on Samedi and Solayi.”

We just stood there for a moment. I couldn’t say that Claustyn had been a close friend, but he’d been warm and welcoming when I’d first become a third and changed quarters, after the confrontation with Johanyr. He’d introduced me to other thirds with grace at a time when I’d needed and appreciated that kindness. It made me think. Had I been that way? No . . . but there hadn’t been any new thirds in the last few months, not near my quarters.

Still . . . that was something I needed to remember.

Menyard and I left the dining hall silently, and I walked along the west side of the quadrangle back to my quarters.

For a time, I just thought. Then I decided to go to the library to see what there might be on High Holder Ryel. Lures could learn, I supposed.

Once I reached the library and began to search the stacks, I began to realize how little written information there was. Oh, there was a listing of all the High Holder houses, but it was a century out of date. There was also a book on the limits of High Holder low justice, but after skimming that, I realized that it was just a simplification of what Master Jhulian had pounded into me-or forced me into pounding into myself. In the end, I spent almost two glasses learning that I wasn’t going to find that information in a book.

After that, I returned to my quarters, read a bit more of On Art and Society, then washed up once more, and headed out to pick up Seliora for our silent inquisition.

I took the Bridge of Desires and hailed a hack there-it couldn’t hurt to vary which bridges I used. Then, after we reached NordEste Design, I paid him to wait while I went inside to get Seliora. I supposed that he could have left, but I had the feeling that no hacker really wanted to stiff an imager.

The twins were the ones who opened the door, and this time it was Hestya who yelled up the stairs. “He’s here, Aunt Seliora!”

Hanahra just grinned.

“How was your birthday?”

“Good.” They both smiled shyly, looking away, then followed me up the stairs.

I only waited a moment, after the twins hurried away, before Seliora stepped through the archway from the staircase, wearing another dress I had never seen, this one with a black skirt emphasized by narrow panels of a brilliant but dark green silk. The bodice was also black, but the sleeves were of a filmy silk that matched the panels in the skirt, and her scarf was silver, trimmed in the same green. She also wore a jadeite pendant on a silver rope necklace with matching earrings.

“You look stunning!” And she did, more than stunning, in fact.

“I thought I had better.” She smiled. “Pharsi girls try harder.”

I winced at the out-of-context quote.

She bent forward and brushed my cheek with her lips. “I’m sorry. I know you don’t feel that way, but . . . let’s just say that it was a difficult week.”

“Some High Holder trying to be too familiar?”

“His son . . .”

“Do I know the name?”

“I don’t know.” She smiled, mischievously, and somehow sadly, all at once. “Alhyral D’Haestyr.”

“His father is on the Council.”

“Young Alhyral made that point . . . several times. I finally told him that his choice was between his father having no furniture and him not having me or his father having furniture and him not having me. Then he asked how I could possibly turn down the heir of a High Holder, especially one so supportive of merchants, crafters, and factors. I said that was the only option, because I was not raised to deal with High Holders, and he was not raised to deal with Pharsi women. He persisted, until I pointed out that Pharsi women don’t believe in sex without a binding commitment to marry, and that we also don’t believe in divorce, and that there are no unhappy Pharsi husbands. Some dead husbands and unfaithful fiances, but no unhappy ones.”

I whistled softly. “And that was the polite version.”

“I didn’t have to use the pistol.” She laughed, softly, warmly, then wrapped her arms around me. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

I kissed her, and she returned the favor with ardor-but only for a few moments. “I don’t think I’d better be too disheveled when I meet your family.”

She had a very good point, and I escorted her out to the waiting hack.

The driver smiled, as if to say that now he understood why I’d paid him to wait.

Once we were in the coach, I asked, “Have you heard about Madame D’Shendael?”

“Grandmama said that she had one last source to go with what she got from Ailphens yesterday.”

I didn’t press on that, because, if Seliora had known more, she would have told me.

We arrived just before fifth glass, and Khethila was the one to open the door. Her eyes widened, but she didn’t gape.

“Khethila, this is Seliora. Seliora, my sister Khethila.”

“I’m so pleased to meet to you,” Khethila said.

“And I, you,” replied Seliora warmly.

“Please do come in. The formal parlor is to the right.” Khethila stepped back to the left.

I let Seliora step through the open door first, then followed.

“She’s gorgeous, Rhenn,” Khethila leaned forward and murmured in my ear as I turned to escort Seliora into the formal parlor. “I’ll tell Mother and Father that you’re here,” she added in a louder voice.

Seliora and I barely stood in the parlor long enough for her to glance around the room before Mother and Father arrived, trailed by Khethila.

“Seliora, these are my parents. Father, Mother, this is Seliora.”

Seliora inclined her head demurely. “I’m honored to meet you both. Rhenn has said so much about you.”

“Not too much, I trust,” replied Father.

“Enough to know that you’re both exceptional. Anyone who has the understanding to let their son pursue art shows great perception.” Her words could have been artificial or glib, but Seliora offered them in full honesty and directness, in a way that could not be denied.

“Please, do sit down,” Mother said, her eyes barely leaving Seliora for a moment. “Would you like Dhuensa, or red or white Cambrisio?”

I glanced to Seliora.

“The Dhuensa, if you please.”

“For me, too,” I added.

“I’d like the white Cambrisio, and your father would like the Dhuensa.” Mother looked to Khethila, and I understood that unspoken command. Mother wasn’t about to miss anything.

“I’ll be right back,” Khethila said. “Don’t say anything too exciting.”

I understood that as well, but I didn’t say a word until Seliora and I were seated on the formal loveseat. “Where’s Culthyn?”

“Oh, he’s over at a friend’s for the evening,” Mother replied. “We didn’t want to inflict him on Seliora for her first dinner here.”

That wording was either accepting or encouraging. The latter, I hoped.

“He hasn’t gotten into too much trouble this week, has he?”

“No more than normal.” Father’s words were dry. “He is learning how to handle accounts and seems to like it.”

“That’s because Khethila’s the one teaching him, dear.” Mother smiled. “Seliora. That’s a beautiful name. Is it a family name?”

“I was named after my grandmother’s grandmother. I’m told that was because she had black hair and black eyes, also. It means ‘daughter of the moon’ in old Pharsi.”

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“Two brothers, one older, one younger.”

At that moment, Khethila returned with a tray, quickly offering the goblets to each of us, and then taking the corner straight-backed chair.

“Rhenn hasn’t said much about your family or what they do,” Father injected.

Seliora glanced at me. “Rhenn can be very protective, I’ve already discovered. It’s an endearing quality. There’s no secret about what we do. My grandmother was the one who created the family business, and we’re all involved in it in some way or another. It’s NordEste Design.”

For the most fleeting of moments, there was a deep silence.

“The NordEste Design, on Nordroad?” Father asked.

Seliora nodded.

“Dear . . . I’m afraid I don’t know as much about this as the men. What is it exactly that you do?” Mother ventured.

Seliora tilted her head, as if at a loss to describe her work. “I’m the one who picks the fabrics for all the upholstered pieces, and I sometimes negotiate with the mills. For custom fabrics, we have several powered looms, and I’m the one who oversees them. I also maintain and repair them. And I do the custom embroidery and fabric designs, and work them out and punch the jacquard cards.”

“You don’t actually embroider?” asked Khethila.

“No. We handle too many pieces to do it by hand. Well . . . there are some individual pieces we might have to have repaired by hand, when it wouldn’t make sense to set up the looms for such a small section of fabric. Then I’d hire that out to one of the seamstresses we can trust.”

Khethila was working hard to conceal a broad smile.

“How did you come to meet?”

Seliora flashed a smile. “We have individual guild memberships, because of the way we’re set up. I met Rhenn at one of the Samedi dances, and one thing led to another. There were interruptions. He couldn’t leave Imagisle for a time, and I was gone for a month this past summer. We had to visit a number of textile manufactories.”

“You must tell us a little about your family. . . .”

“It is a rather large family. . . .” Seliora continued, gently, sometimes humorously, beginning with Grandmama Diestra and continuing down toward the youngest. “. . . and the twins, they’re Odelia’s younger sisters. Because I seemed so much older, they decided that I had to be their aunt, not their cousin . . .”

The bell signifying dinner was ready rang.

“This is most interesting, but we should repair to table.” Mother rose, moving to make sure she was the one guiding Seliora to the dining chamber, through the direct door from the formal parlor, the one that was so seldom used. “This way, dear.”

Father followed, and Khethila lagged. So did I, knowing she had something to say.

She did, although her words were barely a whisper. “Pharsi . . . and from a very wealthy family. Father won’t be able to say a word. How did you ever find her?”

“I didn’t. She found me. Pharsi foresight, the same way Remaya found Rousel.”

For a moment, that stopped her. “She really has it?”

I nodded, adding in a lower voice, “Far more than Remaya or anyone I’ve heard of.”

As soon as we had gathered around the table with Seliora at Father’s left and me at his right, and Mother on Seliora’s right, Mother spoke up.

“Would you like to offer the blessing, Seliora, or would you prefer to have Rhenn do it?”

“If you wouldn’t mind one from my family.”

“That would be lovely.”

We all bowed our heads.

“For the grace that we all owe each other, for the bounty of the earth of which we are about to partake, for good faith among all, and mercies great and small. For all these we offer thanks and gratitude, both now and ever more, in the spirit of that which cannot be named or imaged . . .”

“In peace and harmony,” we replied.

“That was lovely. Thank you,” Mother said. “I thought a cool soup might be best for harvest, although it is rather late in harvest.”

The cool soup was limed vichyssoise, and served as a backdrop while Seliora finished the Shelim family history, although in the Pharsi tradition, I knew, it really should have been called the Mama Diestra family history.

After the vichyssoise, Nellica appeared with serving dishes . . . and more serving dishes, as well as two bread trays, but the main course was a veal regis, where the veal filets were split, filled with thin spicy ham and a pungent cheese, then quick-fried, slow-heated, and covered with a naranje cream sauce. Rich as it was, I knew I couldn’t eat that much of it.

Seliora had small helpings of everything. I took only what appealed to me.

“Rhenn, you didn’t try the glazed rice fritters . . . or the twice-baked yellow squash.”

“That’s because I don’t have an interior large enough for everything here,” I protested.

Mother turned to Seliora. “What do you think of the veal?”

“It’s excellent. It’s your recipe?”

“My mother’s, actually . . .”

I listened, mostly.

After we had finished eating the main course, Khethila rose from the table and nodded to Seliora. “Might I ask your assistance, Seliora?”

Seliora smiled and eased from her chair. “I’d be pleased.”

Once the two had left, Mother looked to me. “She is beautiful, Rhenn, truly beautiful in that way that only Pharsi women can be.”

“She is.” I almost replied that she had saved my life, but decided that was information better left for later. “She’s also very modest, and very careful. I knew her for months before she ever revealed who she was.”

“How did she manage that?” Father demanded.

“Very simply. Because of the nature of what NordEste Design does, as she pointed out, they have to have guild members. Seliora is a member of the Woodworkers’ Guild, although she is actually a textile engineer and designer. Officially, on the guild rolls, she is an upholsterer. She came to the Guild Hall on Samedis, always with her older cousin. Odelia is most formidable.” I laughed. “In six months, I’ve had one dinner with her alone, and that was in a public place. Otherwise, there’s always been a member of her family within ten yards . . .”

“As there should have been,” Mother replied. “I do approve of that, and of parents who care so for such a beautiful daughter.” She paused, as if to ask a question, then smiled. “You are fortunate.”

“That she and her family would accept an imager calling on her? I am.” I wasn’t about to explain the reasons. It was far better to let her think what she did.

Shortly, Seliora and Khethila returned, and dessert arrived.

Small talk dominated dessert, apple tartlets, with a lemon glaze, followed by tea. After we finished, and a silence persisted for just a few moments, the kind of silence that everyone should recognize as a signal for farewells, and that too many do not, Mother cleared her throat, gently.

“You must let Charlsyn take you two back to NordEste . . . or . . .” Mother stopped.

“Everything is at NordEste,” Seliora replied. “The manufactory is on the street and lower level, and our family quarters are on the second and third levels.”

“We’d be pleased to accept that offer.” I would have been stupid not to, for many reasons, including the fact that Mother and Father had to have paid Charlsyn extra to stay to take us, and not doing so would have merely wasted their coin and cost me.

Once we were in the family coach on the way back to NordEste, I turned to Seliora. “You were magnificent.”

She smiled ruefully. “I’m glad you think so. With all that food, I won’t be able to fit into anything I own. How did you manage growing up?”

“You saw. I just didn’t eat everything. But I did miss it when I was with Master Caliostrus.” I didn’t say more, thinking of both of them . . . dead, even if it now appeared as though much of it wasn’t totally my fault. Instead, I asked, “What did Khethila want to know?”

“Girl things.” Seliora smiled, mischievously. “She wanted to know if you were good to me. She also said that she’d never seen you so protective of anyone.”

I let it drop at that. Seliora would have said more if I’d needed to know, and I didn’t want to waste my few moments alone with her.

The embraces were in the coach . . . because even I realized that discretion was the better part of valor-at least so long as I was being forced to act as a lure for who knew what. But I did walk her to the door, and I extended my full shields to cover us both. I also obtained her permission to call on her on Solayi.

After that, I had Charlsyn take me to Imagisle the long way, to the Bridge of Desires. I didn’t see anyone strange, and no one shot at me, but when I reached my quarters, I wasn’t sure whether not being shot at or having weathered the family inquisition was the greater relief.