Imager’s Intrigue Read online

  “We have reports of three more Pharsi deaths, all of them in Ruile, this time,” said Diestra.

  That didn’t surprise me, especially after my day. Still…

  “Does anyone know where the stronger weed is coming from?” I asked.

  “What would be your thought?” Mama Diestra looked at me intently.

  I couldn’t help but see the tiredness in her bloodshot eyes, a tiredness held in check by sheer force of will. “I don’t think that anyone could grow as much under glass as we’re seeing. That suggests it has to be coming from the Sud Swamp or the lands surrounding it.”

  “What else does that suggest?”

  I took a moment to consider because the implications weren’t exactly good. From what I recalled from my study of Solidaran jurisprudence, there weren’t any penalties for growing elveweed, only for providing it to smokers directly. I suspected that was because no one had ever grown it in Solidar. “You’re suggesting a High Holder, probably one who is either debt-ridden or greedy.” If not both.

  She nodded. “It’s being hidden in grain and other shipments on the ironway from what we can determine. The dealers pay off the loaders.”

  “But not with the weed,” I replied. “Otherwise, we’d have deaths of ironway loaders. Did the deaths in Ruile come after you started sending out inquiries?”

  Betara frowned. Mama Diestra nodded.

  “So it’s likely the weed is coming through the ironway from Ruile and being sent east and west from there. Do you have any proof of why it’s only going to the five cities?”

  “No. We’re only surmising it’s those five cities, but there aren’t any reports of the strong elveweed in other cities.”

  That made sense to me, except I couldn’t have explained why. It just did.

  Mama Diestra looked across the plaques table at me. She smiled, sadly. “Much as has been expected of you, Rhenn, even more will fall onto your shoulders.”

  As if I needed that…

  Seliora looked to her grandmother. “Is it anything you can tell him?”

  “Only that you must survive stone and fire…and that there will be times when no place is safe.”

  Seliora looked hard at Diestra.

  “I have seen you emerging from piled stones with fire in the distance. That is all I have seen.”

  I tried not to shudder.

  Seliora turned to me. “You’ve seen it, too, haven’t you? That night…”

  I nodded. “That was all I saw, too.”

  A long silence filled the plaques room.

  “Dinner is almost ready.” Betara looked at her mother inquiringly.

  “I’ll have the broth Aegina fixed and the plain noodles. That will be enough.”

  I could tell Betara wanted to insist that Mama Diestra eat more, but, good daughter as she was, she only smiled. “I’ll bring it right up.”

  Seliora and I followed Betara down to the main level. We did hold hands, and I knew dinner would be tasty and that no one would mention all the problems.

  15

  I woke up with the sun on Solayi, calm and peaceful, until I sat up and tried not to think too hard about all the scattered and seemingly unconnected things that I felt were somehow linked in a far larger pattern. The problem was that I didn’t have enough information to know whether I was correct or whether I was merely wishing that they were all connected.

  At breakfast, Seliora and I refrained from talking about Haerasyn. What was there to say?

  “Have you decided what to wear to the Autumn Ball?” I managed not to grin.

  Seliora raised her eyebrows. “Husbands have been shot for asking that question.” But she laughed. “Yes. It’s a surprise.” Her face turned serious. “What do you think will happen there?”

  “I’d be surprised if anything happened there. I’d also be surprised if we didn’t learn something that someone wished we wouldn’t.”

  “That’s why we were asked?”

  I shrugged, then scooped up Diestrya off the chair beside me just before she had managed to climb into position to grab a knife.

  “Did you ever find out what the banque explosion was all about?”

  “Someone used the death of the clerk to call my attention to a whole raft of things, and I can’t believe that transfers and possible payoffs to Cydarth and Caartyl and missing funds to the Portraiture Guild are related, especially given the small amount that was taken.”

  “A hundred golds? That’s not small.”

  “If you’re embezzling from a banque, that’s enough to put you in the work house for life. You’d be better off stealing a thousand and vanishing.” I thought again about the precise writing on the note that I’d placed in the hidden strongbox in my main floor study. That writing suggested something carefully planned…but I still couldn’t figure out what really had been intended.

  Seliora tilted her head. “Maybe they’re related in a different way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t say. It’s just a feeling.”

  “You’re probably right, but I wish I could figure it out.” I paused. “The dead girl who was supposed to be an elver and wasn’t bothers me, too. She didn’t die on that bench. She’d been moved from somewhere else. I wish I knew why.”

  “To get your attention. Because you’re the only Patrol Captain who could stand up to a High Holder.”

  That also made sense. “Someone else was watching the girl, and she was going to tell someone. She was killed, but before her body was found, they moved it?” I almost shook my head. “That’s not only far-fetched, but dangerous, if not really stupid.”

  “Not for another High Holder.”

  With more than a thousand High Holders, and a good hundred having estates around L’Excelsis, even if Seliora happened to be right, that didn’t help matters much, especially since neither the Collegium nor the Civic Patrol had jurisdiction on the lands of a High Holder, except with evidence of a capital crime definitely linking specific people or locations to that crime. I couldn’t very well visit every one of them, just on suspicion, even if I had a good idea…which I didn’t. And whoever moved the body had to know that as well.

  Had she been moved all the way from somewhere near Ruile? It was cold enough to use the ironway, and no one would ever open a High Holder’s crate or trunk. That possibility gave me a very chill feeling, especially since the stronger elveweed had to come from there. I’d have to talk to Dichartyn about that, since I certainly had no legal authority that far from L’Excelsis.

  At that point, Diestrya indicated that certain functions needed to be catered to, and we left the breakfast room.

  The morning was sunny, but the clouds swept in from the northwest, and by mid-afternoon a chill drizzle had settled over Imagisle. I fired up the stove in the family parlor, and, after Diestrya’s afternoon nap, Seliora and I alternated reading, while whoever wasn’t reading was playing with a very cheerful, but very active daughter.

  After an early supper, I didn’t really want to go to services, but Seliora and I exchanged glances, and our looks told each other that we needed to. We both were hoping for something inspiring from Isola’s homily. Leaving Diestrya in Klysia’s care, we made our way southward along the stone walk above the west river wall.

  “Rhenn…I’ve been thinking. What do you think the point was for the elveweed dealers to attack the Pharsi families in those port cities? The families don’t like elveweed, but they’ve never gone out of their way to stop others, except close to their establishments. Why five cities?”

  “It could be the beginning,” I offered. “To see if it increases their take.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “No. But I don’t know what it is, except that it can’t be just for the elveweed. The dealers can get more coin for the stronger weed, but I have to believe it’s harder to grow here in Solidar. If it weren’t, we’d have seen it earlier, and we’d be seeing it all over the place.”

  “Could
it be a High Holder who needs coin to keep his lands?”

  “It could be a freeholder.” I didn’t think so, given the wool jacket the girl had worn, but a wealthy freeholder could have had it made.

  We didn’t reach any solid conclusions by the time we walked into the anomen.

  As usual, I suffered through the singing, but Isola’s homily wasn’t bad, and part of it intrigued me.

  “…the name is not the object nor the action. That is a basic tenet of the Nameless. But there is a corollary to that simple tenet. Mistaking the name for what it represents is the first step toward theft, deception, lying, and intrigue. Theft is the easiest to explain, especially theft of coins. Although coins have value in themselves, if they’re silver or gold, they’re also a representation of a small part of life. How can that be? Because we work to earn those coins. We spend a portion of life to obtain them. So…when one says that something ‘is only coin,’ they’re devaluing the life it took to obtain that coin. Deception, lying, and intrigue all rest on the use and manipulation of names to misrepresent the reality for which the names stand as symbols…

  “Let us say two councilors are debating the need to raise tariffs, and one states that he only proposes an increase of one copper on a gold’s worth of cargo, a mere increase of one part in a hundred. The other councilor immediately replies that merchants will have to pay twice as much. Could they both be accurate? Indeed they could, and yet both deceive, and both can deceive because the cargo does not stand before them, nor the amount of tariff to be paid in either case…”

  Isola went on to point out that the farther names are removed from that which they represented, the easier deception becomes.

  By the time services were over, the drizzle had changed to sleet, and our return to the house was far swifter…and colder.

  16

  Because I really didn’t want to try to catch Master Dichartyn after breakfast, as soon as I finished the four mille run in the dimness of Lundi morning, I stopped and waited for him to finish eating. He just looked at me.

  “Are you headed back to your house, sir?” I asked.

  “Yes. What is it?” He shook his head and started walking.

  “I’d mentioned the stronger elveweed. There have been some other strange developments…” I quickly filled him in on the young woman, as well as the probability of the stronger elveweed coming from around Ruile. “I can’t prove any of this, and there’s nothing that I can do about it, but I felt you should know.”

  Dichartyn didn’t speak or look at me, but kept walking. Finally, he said, “I’ve learned to my regret that when you suggest connections among seemingly unrelated events, improbable as those connections may sound, I ignore them at my own risk. However…” He drew out the word. “Could you enlighten me as to what you think they all mean?”

  “In specific terms, sir…no. I do think that they’re all part of something much, much larger, and I feel that it involves at least one High Holder, the freeholders of the southeast, and some Ferran agents. It might be a way of causing unrest in Solidar or increasing the costs of food for the Army and Navy—”

  “Are you suggesting that things like that would distract the Council from pursuing action against Ferrum if the Ferrans actually invade Jariola?” Dichartyn shook his head. “Something like that would be counter-productive. If the Council discovers that the Ferrans are trying that kind of sabotage, even those who sympathize with the Ferrans would turn against them.”

  “Would they, sir? All of them?” Based on what I’d seen, I wasn’t so sure. More than a few well-off artisans and factors were less than pleased with the policies and actions supported by the High-Holder-influenced Council.

  “Not all of them, but even the greatest Ferran sympathizers certainly wouldn’t say anything.”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  As we neared our houses, Master Dichartyn turned to me again. “I won’t say that all this isn’t linked, but I think we’re both missing something, and I’d like you to think it over.”

  “Yes, sir. I can do that.”

  But I didn’t have time even to discuss it with Seliora over breakfast because Diestrya was cranky and stubborn, and that wasn’t like her. Neither Seliora nor I could find anything wrong with her, and she didn’t seem to be cutting teeth. Besides, fussiness over teething had never been a problem for Diestrya.

  In the end, we all managed to get dressed, fed, and to where we needed to be by approximately when we were supposed to be there. I even read both Veritum and Tableta. I was vaguely surprised that hostilities still hadn’t broken out in Cloisera, and not at all astounded to learn that both newsheets had stories on both the continuing increase in elver deaths and on grain-field fires southeast of Solis, but neither newsheet mentioned to whom the fields belonged…or the extent of lands ravaged.

  I had just begun to have a chance to mull over Dichartyn’s words when I entered Third District station. I didn’t have a chance to consider them for long, because I’d barely reached the duty desk when Lyonyt addressed me.

  “Sir…did you hear about Captain Bolyet?”

  I had a sinking feeling with those words. “No. What happened?”

  “There was an accident—some wagons got tangled at the intersection of North Middle and Bakers’ Lane…one woman hurt and so was a teamster. One of those work wagons with a crane, the kind they use to lift things, was one of them. He was trying to get the wagons untangled and the crane or the hoist broke loose and smashed his head. He never knew what hit him.” Lyonyt shook his head.

  Bolyet was a good captain…or he had been, and I’d liked him. Had his death been an accident? Even though I had no other information, I had my doubts. But was that just because after nearly six years in the Civic Patrol, I doubted any coincidence? Was I becoming suspicious of everything, and for no reason? Was I seeing conspiracies and patterns that really didn’t exist?

  “Thank you,” I finally said. “He was a good captain.”

  After that, the day didn’t get any better at all. Since I’d left the station on Samedi evening, the patrollers had discovered three more elver deaths, and had two others reported from outside the taudis. It couldn’t just have been Third District, either, because in mid-afternoon a courier delivered a message from Commander Artois, calling a meeting of all District captains for eighth glass on Meredi morning. The subject was elveweed deaths.

  Then there was a fire at the tinsmith’s off Sudroad, not a block from where I was grabbing a hasty bite to eat at Arnuel’s, and in the confusion, three smash-and-grabs went down in other shops nearby. I was just getting ready to leave the station when Helorran and Sonot returned with a swarthy man bound in cuffs. Sonot had a long slash from his ear to his chin—thin, but bleeding—and that required me to sign off on the charges, because they involved an assault on a Civic Patroller.

  On more personal matters, none of the goldsmiths in Third District reported finding the gold brooch that Haerasyn had stolen, and none of the districts had found Haerasyn—not that most would have actively looked for him, since they had higher priorities than seeking a low-level elver thief. I was beginning to think Haerasyn had pawned everything within glasses of taking it. But then, maybe he still had the jewelry and was using the stolen golds for elveweed. In that case, there was a chance of recovering the brooch. Not much of one, but a chance.

  I finally left the station a good half-glass late, but Seliora just looked relieved when I appeared at NordEste Design.

  Once we were in the duty coach headed back to Imagisle, I turned to Seliora. “There’s no word in the patrol about Haerasyn, and none of the goldsmiths in my district have come forward. Has anyone in the family heard anything?”

  “No.” Seliora paused. “Some of Aegina’s personal jewelry is missing…older pieces she hasn’t worn in years. She thinks Haerasyn might have taken them when he was here for the party at the turn of summer.”

  I almost missed the last of her words, because Diestrya twisted in my arms.<
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  “She’s been restless all day, and she’s a little warm.”

  “That’s all you need…her getting sick, especially with both the Fhernon and Haestyr commissions…”

  “If Alhyral would just let his bride-to-be deal with it, everything would be fine.”

  “Is he still trying to proposition you?” I wouldn’t have put it past the slime-snake, High Holder or not.

  “No…except he’s always undressing me with his eyes when Dhelora’s not looking.”

  “She has to know.”

  “What can she do? Even Iryela…” Seliora shook her head.

  Neither of us needed to say more about the gilded prisons that held the wives of High Holders.

  Between Diestrya’s squirming and my own concerns about the way the day had gone, I was more than glad when the duty coach came to a halt on Imagisle and we could start to walk back to the house. The cool air felt welcome after the closeness of the coach, and Seliora held Diestrya by one hand, and I held her other. The sky was so clear that even Erion’s thin waning reddish disk was sharp, hanging above the Council Chateau.

  On the river I saw a steam tug moving steadily upstream, even with the houses of the senior maitres, including ours. The tug towed three barges, and, as with the string of barges I’d seen a week or so earlier, two of the three were riding higher. But there was also a bargeman standing on the rear barge, the one riding the highest, and he looked to have a spyglass, one trained in the direction of Imagisle.

  I could imagine that a bargeman might well wonder about Imagisle, but would a bargeman have a spyglass?

  “My tummy hurts. It hurts.” Diestrya halted, looking up. “Make it stop, Mama.”

  Seliora knelt, then frowned. “Her stomach is rumbling.”

  At that moment, Diestrya bent forward and vomited all over the stones of the path.

  I turned from the barges and the bargeman with the spyglass to the immediate problem, the one facing all parents with small children at one time or another.