Princeps

3

Another storm had buffeted Tilbora beginning on Samedi, and Quaeryt and Vaelora had remained within the palace walls. While the snowfall stopped by early on Solayi, the rankers of the regiment were still clearing snow in midafternoon, and Quaeryt was in his official study struggling with the draft rules he had promised Nalakyn and Yullyd.

He glanced up as the study door opened wide.

“What are you working on, dearest?” Vaelora asked as she stepped from the anteroom into the study.

“Rules for young imagers at the scholarium.”

“Why didn’t you have Nalakyn or Yullyd write them up and then just review them?”

Quaeryt had told her why earlier, but he didn’t comment on that. Vaelora never asked a question, he’d discovered, without a purpose. “He’d write them, and they’d sound wonderful and mean nothing. Then Yullyd would rewrite them, and the poor youths would feel that they were in prison, and that would make their schooling worthless.” His breath did not quite steam in the cold air of the study. “I thought you were practicing with Eluisa. That’s why I came here. I’d already started work on this on Vendrei.”

Vaelora walked around the desk to stand at his shoulder and read down the document. Then she smiled. “From those rules, one might think you had lived among imagers for your entire life…” She did not quite finish the sentence, but left the words hanging.

“I did spend several years at the scholarium, with Voltyr and, for a time, with Uhlyn, you might recall.”

She looked down at the document and began to read, picking out a phrase from the middle of the sheet. “Imager scholars must not, under any circumstances, attempt to image metals. While there is always the temptation to image coins, the effort to image silvers and golds has often proved to cause great illness or death, even to older imagers.…”

Quaeryt nodded. “That’s true.”

“I don’t doubt it’s true, dearest.” She smiled again, warmly. “What I have some doubts about is how you might happen to know that.”

“I told you…”

“Dearest … I know that you would never tell me something that is not true or based in truth. I also know that, upon occasion, you have”-she paused-“been less than forthcoming about the details of certain events.”

Quaeryt repressed a sigh. He’d known that, sooner or later, Vaelora would learn enough to suspect his imaging abilities. Perhaps she had all along and had waited for what seemed the proper time to discuss the matter. Still … he wanted to know what she knew, because it was likely Bhayar also knew at least some of what she had learned … and might have even learned it from him. “Such as?”

“One of the reaver captives-before he was executed-kept talking about the man who walked out of the storm and survived enough poison to kill two men, and then left three corpses and a dog-and none bore a single mark.”

“I almost died from that poison. If it hadn’t have been for Rhodyn and his wife-”

“Then there was the fact of how often you ate at various tavernas in Solis. Not expensive tavernas, but even the least expensive meals totaled far more than the stipend that Bhayar gave you. You are most honest, and no one ever slipped you coin, but you never seemed to run out. You usually paid in coppers. Very dirty coppers, not shiny ones.”

Quaeryt could see that someone, most likely Bhayar, had been very thorough … and where she was headed, but he merely nodded. “Scholars seldom have more than coppers.”

“Then there was the report about how you removed a crossbow quarrel from your own chest. Alone. A man who weighed fifteen stone couldn’t do that. The captain surgeon couldn’t believe you did it from the depth of the wound, especially without ripping your flesh to shreds. You’re strong, dearest, but you’re not that strong.”

“Maybe I didn’t report it right.”

She shook her head. “One thing I do know is that what you say is close to the truth. Always.”

“I try.”

“Then there are all the reports about how you managed to save men and officers and how so many rebels seemed to strike at you and miss.”

“They didn’t miss enough,” Quaeryt pointed out. “You saw that.”

She moved behind the chair, reached down and massaged his shoulders, gently. “I didn’t tell my brother all of that.”

“But … how?”

“Nerya was always more than a duenna. She isn’t an aunt, either. She’s a distant cousin. She wanted to make sure that you weren’t playing with woman after woman. When she told Bhayar all the places you’d been, I was the one who did the figures.”

“Is there anything you don’t know?” he asked with a laugh.

“She was also very impressed by your taste. You always chose reasonable places with good food, and you never drank too much. None of the servers had anything ill to say of you. That meant you gave them extra, all of them.”

“What can I say? I was extravagant to the limit of my means.”

She shook her head. “You also have black eyes and white-blond hair.”

“And that means?”

“You know very well what it means.” She bent down and brushed his neck with her lips. “My imager dearest.” Then she straightened.

“You agreed to marry me, knowing that?” he said, easing the chair back and standing.

“Grandmere said I would wed a man with white-blond hair who was more than he seemed. That was one of her last visions. I was barely ten. It scared me.”

Did she seek you out for that reason? He didn’t ask that question. “Does it scare you now?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t tell Bhayar that, either. Aelina knows, though. She might have told him. When I first saw you at the palace, I didn’t even think about it.”

“You were what then? Twelve?”

“Thirteen.”

“What changed your mind?”

“You were respectful to Bhayar, but you never groveled or pled. You might have been the only one without position of whom that could be said.” She smiled. “I couldn’t imagine why. I know now.”

“Imagers aren’t invulnerable or invincible.” He lifted his left arm. “I’ve scars and barely healed bones to prove that.”

“What can you image?” she asked.

“It depends on what it’s made of. Generally, the more common the material, the easier it is. That’s not true of metals, though. They’re harder. I tried to image a gold coin once. I almost died. Ice is easy, more so in summer, for some reason. I tried copper jewelry once. The copper wasn’t too bad, but the shape was terrible. You really have to concentrate on the substance and the shape. It’s hard work.”

“You’ll have to tell me more … when no one else is near.” She glanced toward the open door to the anteroom, although no one else was there, not on Solayi. “I almost wish we didn’t have to go to services tonight.”

“As princeps, I should set an example. Besides, I like to hear what Phargos has to say. He usually does make me think.”

“It seems…” She paused. “I don’t know. Is there a Nameless? I know you don’t think so.”

Quaeryt shook his head. “I never said that.”

“Oh, I know. You say that you don’t know if there is or there isn’t. But what is the difference between not knowing and not believing? Either way, you don’t worship the Nameless.”

“Do you?”

“We were talking about you, dearest.”

Quaeryt waited.

“I feel that there’s something beyond us. Is that the Nameless? Or is it something else?”

Quaeryt forbore saying that the belief in something greater than human beings and not knowing what it might be was exactly why that power was called the Nameless. “I don’t know if such exists. I doubt that even if it does, it plays games with people, rewarding or punishing them for their belief or nonbelief, or for whether they attend services or believe exactly what the choristers say that they should-although I have to say that most choristers I’ve heard confine their homilies to what I’d call reasonable guidelines for living.”

“You’re very reasonable, dearest, even when you’re doing the most unreasonable things.”

Quaeryt wasn’t about to respond to that. “I can’t help but wonder if Rholan really happened to be a charlatan,” he mused.

“Why do you say that?” asked Vaelora.

“Because of the contradiction in terms he embodied. He talked endlessly about the sin of naming, and yet are not so many words spoken over so many years in themselves a form of naming?”

She laughed. “Greatness always includes great contradictions. It’s not possible otherwise.”

Quaeryt was afraid she was right about that. “We should get ready for dinner and services.”

“So we should.”

He slipped the sheet of draft imager rules into the desk drawer.