L. E.Modesitt - Imager’s Intrigue

“There are five here, and Dhelyn. I don’t know if the heads of the two other Collegia besides Westisle-I know they’re all really part of the Collegium, but I think of them that way-are all Maitres D’Structure.”

“There are only eight, and you are one of those eight. You also are the one who, when Baratyn saw and sensed nothing, stopped the Ferran envoy from poisoning High Councilor Suyrien, managed to create the fortunately fatal accident for the envoy, and survived an explosion that would have killed anyone else. You cannot afford to have your words misunderstood. Neither can the Collegium.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now…let’s join the ladies and enjoy dinner.”

Dinner on Vendrei night was warm, friendly, and notable and pleasant for the very fact that we discussed nothing of great worldly import, and nothing involving the Collegium or the Civic Patrol.

I didn’t get up before dawn on Samedi to join Clovyl’s exercise group, and that allowed us to have a comparatively more leisurely morning before I had to leave for Third District. I did stop by the dining hall to pick up Shault’s essay before I took the duty coach. Once I was inside the coach, I glanced from the newsheets to the essay, then decided I’d best read the newsheets first, just in case there was a story that might affect the Civic Patrol.

Neither newsheet carried anything directly affecting Third District, but there was a story in Tableta about the failure of an irrigation storage dam southwest of Montagne. The cause was unknown, and the dam was supposedly owned by a freeholders’ cooperative. I recalled something about water law, about being first in time being first in line…and if the dam weren’t there, then in the drier seasons, those with the older water rights would have priority. That meant High Holders disenfranchising the freeholders who had established their water rights later, at least until the dam was rebuilt.

Then I turned to Shault’s essay, not without trepidation, although I laughed as I realized that Master Dichartyn had probably often felt the same way about my essays. The first lines were straightforward enough.

The law sets rules for the people of Solidar. That is so that all of them know what to do. The Civic Patrol is required to enforce that law. Patrol Captains must make sure that their patrollers carry out the law. The law is not flexible, and there are times when applying the law would not be just. When a Patrol Captain comes across a case like this, he must find a way to apply the law without punishing too much the person who breaks the law. If possible, he should warn the person, but not charge them if they have not broken any laws before…

In essence, what young Shault was suggesting was letting the offender know that he’d broken the law and not charging him when possible, and then asking the courts for mercy when there was no way to avoid the charging the offender. Where he was weak in logic was explaining why, and we’d have to discuss that, because imagers needed both to understand and to able to explain the reasons for their actions.

Once I got to the station, I went over the logs with Huensyn, who had the duty desk, then checked the holding cells, which held two disorderlies, whom we’d forget to charge once they sobered up, since they hadn’t done much besides sing far too loudly in far too public a place, and a theft and assault case. He’d tried to take a knife to the patroller who’d arrested him, and had suffered broken fingers and a lump on the head from a Patrol truncheon as a result. The brand on his hip marked him as a previous offender, and that meant he’d be spending the rest of his life in the work house or on a penal road crew, and that life wasn’t likely to be all that long.

I was debating which patrollers I should accompany on their rounds when a patroller first hurried through the station doors. “Captain! We’ve got a problem over on Sleago!” The patroller was Yherlyt, a dark-skinned and seasoned veteran of nearly fifteen years, who was the son of Tiempran immigrants.

“Do we need reinforcements?”

“It’s not that kind of problem, sir.”

Translated loosely, they needed me, and Yherlyt didn’t want to explain in the station.

I grabbed my cloak and visored hat and hurried to join him. Outside the wind was brisk and chill. Occasional white puffy clouds scudded across a sky that might have been clear and crisp, except too many people in L’Excelsis had lit fires or stoves, and a low smoky haze hung over the city. I didn’t speak until we were headed down Fuosta toward Quierca and well away from anyone else.

“What is it?”

“A pair of elveweed runners, sir. One’s dead, and the other’s wounded. He’ll probably make it. There’s a young elver. He’s dead. There’s a woman, too. The mother of the dead elver. Her name is Ismelda. She’s cut up a bit. Maybe more than that.”

I had an idea, but I just said, “I’d like a little more detail, Yherlyt.”

“The runners came to deliver to the dead elver…or to collect. They didn’t know he was dead. The mother killed the collector with a big iron fry pan. She didn’t know he had a partner. The partner took a knife to her, but she broke his nose and jaw with the pan. He tried to run and came out of the house and dropped unconscious on the sidewalk. A pair of kids tried to drag the partner off the sidewalk, but Mhort has good eyes, and we caught them.”

“Do you know why all this happened?”

“The dead taudis-kid, the elver, couldn’t have been more than fourteen. He was still in school. I’m guessing he was a runner, too.”

“So he either stole or bought the elveweed, and smoked too much of the new stuff.”

“Yes, sir.”

When we reached the dingy narrow house, the fourth up from Quierca on Sleago, two other patrollers waited on the front porch that was barely more than a stoop under wide and sagging eaves. They had cuffed the surviving runner. His entire face was bruised and bloody, and his jaw on the left side was crooked and turning purple.

“Sir?” asked Mhort.

“Take him in. Book him for elveweed running and attempted murder. Oh…and tell Huensyn to send a wagon here for the other bodies.”

“Yes, sir.”

The runner mumbled words through his ruined face. “…Attacked us…didn’t do…nothing…tried…knife…keep her…off me….”

That was doubtless true. It didn’t make any difference. There might not be much I could do about elveweed, but I wasn’t about to have school-age boys as runners. Besides, the injured runner would live far longer as a coal loader for the Navy or as a quarry apprentice or the like.

“Off with you, sow-scum,” ordered Mhort.

He and Deksyn marched the runner down the three crumbling brick steps and then toward Quierca.

I followed Yherlyt into the small front hall where two bodies lay on their backs. One’s face was contorted in agony. That had to be the elver boy. The other figure wore a black shirt and trousers, both washed so many times that their color was closer to dark gray than to true black. His face was burned by streaks of something, and the burns hadn’t even started to heal.

In the parlor sat a dark-haired and painfully thin woman. Someone had bandaged her arms with strips of cloth, but in places, some blood had soaked through the crude dressings. She looked at me, not questioningly, but not blankly.

“I’m Patrol Captain Rhennthyl.”

She nodded.

“Why did you kill the one runner?” I asked.

“Why?” Her voice rose. “He killed my son. He gave him that weed, and Nygeo smoked it, and he died. He died horribly. You saw his face. Then that scum runner came and demanded silvers for the elveweed. He said that terrible things would happen to me and Foyneo if I didn’t pay. I have few silvers, just what I earn from helping Ielsa. She is a seamstress on the other side of Quierca. We would not eat…and he killed my boy. He took out a knife, and I threw the grease in the pan in his face and then hit him with it…”