Imager’s Intrigue

70

Just before eighth glass on Meredi, Maitre Dyana and I stepped from the duty coach and walked through the security entrance into the Council Chateau and up the east circular staircase to the second level and from there to the larger study of the Chief Councilor. All three members of the Executive Council were seated around the circular table. The chairs were arranged so that the three Councilors sat on the south side, with Ramsael in the center, Caartyl on his left, and Sebatyon on his right. Maitre Dyana took the leftmost of the two chairs on the north side, leaving the one to the right to me.

“Greetings, Councilors,” she offered. “I believe you all know Maitre Rhennthyl.”

“How could we not?” asked Ramsael genially. “Greetings.”

Sebatyon and Caartyl merely nodded.

“I trust you’ve all read the communique from Deputy Sea-Marshal Caellynd,” began Maitre Dyana.

“I thought he was acting Sea-Marshal,” said Sebatyon.

I managed not to wince.

“He is acting Sea-Marshal,” Ramsael agreed. “His official title is still Deputy Sea-Marshal. Once the Council votes tomorrow to confirm his position, he will be Sea-Marshal in name as well as fact.”

“A mere formality,” sniffed Sebatyon. “With the Ferrans under control, we won’t need to rush back into those tiresome discussions about new ships for the Navy. We should be able to reduce taxes on goods and return to more prosperous times.”

Ramsael glanced to Caartyl.

The guild Councilor cleared his throat. “There are other priorities to consider, Councilor.”

“Such as what? I can’t imagine anything more important than enhancing Solidaran prosperity. Why tax ourselves for ships that are now unnecessary?”

I glanced at Maitre Dyana. She continued to smile pleasantly.

Ramsael frowned, but appeared disinclined to speak.

So I did. “Councilors, I hate to be contrary, but if what Councilor Sebatyon is saying represents the view of the Council, what we’ve just endured will be nothing compared to what happens in twenty years.”

“Why, Maitre Rhennthyl? Ferrum will not be a danger for years, it would appear from Marshal Asarynt’s communique.” Sebatyon’s smile was ingratiatingly unpleasant.

I smiled as cold a smile as I could. “Perhaps I should put it in another way. We leveled more than half the cities in Ferrum. We may have killed millions. We destroyed most of their industry. Thousands more, perhaps tens of thousands, will die of lack of shelter and the inability to get or pay for food. What will motivate the Ferran people for a generation or more to come? They weren’t our friends to begin with. Do you think they’ve forgotten how to build good ships and weapons? Or to rebuild their manufactories? Their farmland is still untouched, as are their mines. As are manufactories away from the coast. What will happen to your children when our fleets are falling apart twenty years from now and the brand-new Ferran fleet masses for revenge? Or do you plan to spend millions of golds to raise an army we don’t have to occupy Ferrum so that doesn’t happen? Do you propose we continue the same taxing and licensing restrictions on new machinery that hamstrung us so much that Councilor Glendyl mortgaged his entire future in an attempt to avoid what he saw was coming? Do you think it was an accident that both Suyrien the Elder and Glendyl were targeted for assassination by the Ferrans?”

“Maitre Rhennthyl,” said Sebatyon pleasantly, “I would that you would spare us the lectures.”

I looked at him, and projected pure power at him, as well as anger, literally pinning him in his seat. “Councilor…do not patronize me…or the Collegium. We sacrificed close to a third of our most promising young imagers to stave off the Ferran threat. We lost our two most senior imagers to a bombardment. You sacrificed nothing. Neither did most High Holders. You are both interested in merely gilding your profits, rather than investing in the future. You will not do so on the bodies of dead imagers, dead sailors, and Solidarans who died from Ferran explosions, Stakanaran elveweed, and treachery. You will devote yourselves to reforming the tax structure, modernizing the fleet, and reforming the licensing laws so that an inventor of new processes must license them to others, for a fair royalty, after a brief period of exclusivity.”

I turned to Ramsael. “You are a fair man, Chief Councilor. I trust I will not have to remind you that the needs of all Solidar come before the need for excess profits.” I inclined my head politely. “I am not a politician, and I am less than skilled in reasonable and gentle language. I lack the diplomacy of Maitre Poincaryt, or the patience and experience of Maitre Dyana. I would that I had her measured iron determination, but I think it best that I leave now that you have heard what I have to say. That does not mean I will not follow what you do, nor does it mean that I will not hold you personally accountable. For I will.”

Then I left, and walked downstairs to wait outside Baratyn’s study.

He immediately came out. “I thought you were with Maitre Dyana.”

“I was, but then Sebatyon started in with some nonsense about not needing new ships and returning to the old ways. I expressed my views on his idiocy, suggested that the time was overdue for change, and that I‘d hold them all accountable…personally. Then I departed and left Maitre Dyana to be politely unyielding.”

“You didn’t make things easy for her.” Baratyn shook his head.

Actually, I thought I had. I’d let them know that they really had no choices, and now they could work out how to do what needed to be done with Maitre Dyana. “With Sebatyon’s views, what else could I do?”

“Sebatyon wasn’t a good choice. They all knew that, but none of the others would spend the time, not when their factorages are so far from L’Excelsis. Sebatyon’s son really runs things. The factor representative on the Executive Council needs to be from L’Excelsis.”

“None of the other factors on the Council are from L’Excelsis, and the factors’ associations haven’t even agreed on a successor to Glendyl yet, have they?”

“That will be weeks away, at best.”

“There’s one other matter,” I offered, since it was my responsibility, and not Maitre Dyana’s. “Dartazn won’t be coming back to the Chateau.”

“I’d thought as much.” Baratyn nodded.

“I will be talking matters over with him to see if any of the imagers who were under him on the operation might have shown potential for security duties.”

“Do you know who’ll be coming back?”

“Not until they return with Dartazn. That’s likely to be several days yet.”

Baratyn and I must have talked for another quint before Dyana came down the circular east staircase. She smiled at Baratyn. “Greetings. You’re looking well, given all the extra work we’ve piled on you.”

“Thank you. Rhenn has said you’ll be looking for someone to replace Dartazn.”

“He will indeed.” She inclined her head politely, then looked to me.

We walked out together, but I didn’t say anything else until we were in the coach on the way back to Imagisle.

“Was there too large an outburst after I left?”

“A mixture of cautious indignation and self-pitying righteousness, clothed in protestations of honesty, fairness, and duty.” Dyana laughed. “I let them say all that they had to say, and then I spoke to them gently.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I simply pointed out that you had all the skills of a Maitre D’Image, which you do, and that you were my designated successor, and that you were only following what the previous Chief Councilor had already planned to undertake. Then I pointed out that no one had achieved much success in opposing you, from previous powerful High Holders, to Ferrum itself, to the former Sea-Marshal, to innumerable assassins, and even to large bombards on barges fired at point-blank range. I also pointed out that you had done a quiet and admirable job as a District Patrol Captain until the Ferrans dropped shells on your house and got you rather angry, and, if we wanted a quiet and uneventful future, that it would be best if they didn’t go out of their way to make you angry, the way Sebatyon had, and that we needed to put an end to the dithering and get on with working out the details.”

“And…?”

“The next sessions of the Council will discuss the points you raised, and everyone will complain and say how unfair and unreasonable it is that Solidar has been forced to act against the old and honorable traditions. Some will complain about the high-handedness of the Collegium, and Rholyn will be forced to defend our actions by pointing out that the Council’s failures had left little choice. Then, when the inevitable finally is forced upon them, Ramsael will point out that the least painful choice will be to address the more important matters, and he will ask each Councilor to provide his recommendations over the following weeks.” She smiled. “By the beginning of summer, there might even be a proposal for the necessary changes in taxation.”

It was a start.

After Maitre Dyana and I returned to Imagisle, I decided to follow her indirect suggestion and work on matters of a quieter nature, beginning with the design of the report format and the information I wanted conveyed by the Collegium regionals and by the Civic Patrol chiefs across Solidar. I’d been working about a glass when Kahlasa knocked on the door, and then slipped into my study.

“Rhenn…” She slid a single sheet onto the desk. “You should see this immediately.”

I didn’t ask why. If she said so, she had more than enough reason. I began to read the Civic Patrol report from Laaryn…about a body found frozen in the ice of a canal. The dead man had been wearing imager grays. He had short curly brown hair and broad shoulders. He’d been shot once in the back of the head. The only item in his wallet, tucked inside a hidden inside oilskin pocket, was a duplicate banque fund transfer slip for five thousand golds drawn on the Banque D’Rivages. The body was being kept on ice pending instructions from the Collegium.

I looked up and nodded.

“It’s Johanyr, isn’t it? Geuffryt shot him, didn’t he?”

“There’s no one else it could be, but there’s no way to prove it. Not now.”

“He got Johanyr to withdraw the golds by telling him that the gunners would take you out…or something like that.”

“Most likely.” It was also clear that Johanyr had known the sealed codes. He might even have imaged them out and memorized them while he was still at Imagisle and visiting his family. Maitre Draffyd had indicated he’d had considerable raw ability.

I rose and walked to the peg holding my winter cloak, still holding the report. “I need to deliver this to the family.”

Kahlasa nodded.

The wind had picked up and was gusting all around me as I crossed the quadrangle to the coach station, although the sky remained clear. The ride out to Iryela’s seemed longer than the slightly more than two quints that it actually took, and the gate guards didn’t hesitate to let me in.

I only had to wait a few moments in the front foyer before Iryela appeared, dressed as informally as I’d ever seen her, in dark green woolen trousers and a matching sweater, with her white-blonde hair pulled back away from her face, giving her a more severe look.

“Rhenn…what are you doing here?”

“Is there somewhere we can talk unheard?”

“The private drawing room is empty. Would you like tea?”

“Just tea…if you’ll join me.”

Iryela gestured and a serving woman appeared.

“Tea in the drawing room.”

The woman inclined her head and turned down the left-hand corridor, then descended the service steps. I walked with Iryela down the same corridor past the steps. Our boots echoed in the empty hallway. The drawing room door was open, and there was heat from the stove. I did close the door behind us, escorted her to the table, seated her, and took the chair across from her.

“You look very serious, Maitre Rhennthyl.”

“I am. Unhappily. I have a report you need to read.”

“It’s about Johanyr, isn’t it?”

“I think so.” I eased the report across the pale green linen cloth. I waited while she read.

She looked up. Her eyes were clear, although there was a slight mistiness there, I thought. Then, I might have been imagining it.

She cleared her throat. “I feared something like this. Do you know who did it?”

“I don’t know, but I have a strong suspicion.”

“You asked me about Marshal Geuffryt. Is he the one?”

“He might well have been, but we’ll never know…” I went on to give the official explanation of what happened, except I never finished.

“That’s the official explanation, isn’t it?” she said, interrupting me.

“Yes.”

“Thank you.” She gave the slightest shiver. “Can we take care…of him?”

“Of course. I’ll send an official release from the Collegium to the Civic Patrol in Laaryn, and a copy to you.”

“It seems so strange…it’s almost as if I’ve known for years that something like this would happen…but…”

“It’s still a shock when you find out.” I could remember exactly how I’d felt when I’d gotten the letter from Khethila about Rousel.

“You would know,” she said softly.

And I did, because we’d each lost brothers, all because Johanyr had tried to destroy me when I’d first become an imager.

In the silence, there was a knock on the door.

“You may bring in the tea,” said Iryela.

The server slipped into the drawing room with the silver tray holding a tall green and white porcelain teapot with two matching cups and saucers. She set it on the end of the table closest to the windows and departed as silently as she had come.

“You will join me?”

“Of course.”

She poured two cups, then raised hers and took a sip, before asking, “Would you tell me about Diestrya?”

“If you’ll tell me about the twins.”

She did smile, for a moment.

We talked for a quint, only about the children.

Once I returned to the Collegium, the rest of Meredi went by quietly, and there were few interruptions.