L. E.Modesitt - Imager’s Intrigue

He turned. “Eamyn…we’ll have to cut this short. Read the next section of the anatomy text and the next chapter in the history.”

Eamyn rose quickly and scooped up his books. He was around seventeen and had just made tertius. I recalled that, because Dichartyn had asked me to spend several glasses with the young man in the spring, telling him about how the Civic Patrol worked.

“Sirs,” he said as he left, inclining his head.

I closed the door and launched into briefing the Collegium’s head of security, a position listed nowhere. When I finished, I waited for the inevitable set of questions.

Instead, Dichartyn nodded and simply asked, “What do you think?”

“All I can surmise is that the explosion and the alteration of the ledger were set purposely to establish the credibility of the note I received…and to create enough of a crime to allow me the legal ability to question the branch director.”

“You didn’t ask about Caartyl or Cydarth?”

“No. It struck me that a tip about missing funds could have a legal tie to an explosion, enough to warrant questions, but that wouldn’t allow me to look for perfectly legal fund transfers.” I paused. “I mean that the mechanism of the transfer was legal.”

“I understood what you meant.” Dichartyn nodded. “There are two possibilities. First, someone wanted you to overreach and to embarrass the Collegium and the Patrol. I doubt it, but that is a possibility to be considered. The second is that the plotter wanted to call the Collegium’s attention to Caartyl and yours to Cydarth. Did you enter the note as evidence?”

“I haven’t yet.” I knew that withholding it was scarcely legal, and that not turning it in represented another possible trap, but so did turning it in, under the circumstances.

“There’s some danger in that, but I’d agree. Just keep it safe.”

I nodded. “Could it be an attempt to remove Caartyl from the Council for misfeasance or malfeasance?”

“Whether it is either would depend on the source of the funds. What if it’s simply an inheritance or the payment of an old debt that someone is trying to characterize as something untoward by linking it to an actual embezzlement?”

“And what if someone, knowing that Cydarth is not among my most favorite of superiors, is trying to get me to act against him?”

“Or…both could be true…and that is the most disturbing of possibilities.”

“Because only the Collegium could discover such and that would drag us into it all?” I asked.

“Precisely. Still, as I told you earlier, Caartyl pushed through the cartage reform bill. I wouldn’t be surprised if he received some reward.”

“From Broussard? Or from the Ferrans? Or both?”

“Broussard’s too smart to pay anything even remotely close to a reward.”

“Is he getting support from the Ferrans?” I knew the Ferrans had a long-standing agenda to undermine the High Holders, for philosophical, political, and practical reasons.

“Not a chance. Caartyl hates them as much as the Jariolans and the High Holders.”

“That sounds like someone wants to cause trouble for Caartyl.”

“Who doesn’t?” Dichartyn’s laugh was soft and dry.

“We’ll never be able to discover who’s really trying to do that, let alone prove it.”

“That’s very true. That’s why you’re in the Civic Patrol, and why I’m doing what I do in the ways open to us.”

There wasn’t much else that I could say to that.

Dichartyn shook his head. “There’s one aspect of this that bothers Schorzat immensely, and that’s the fact that the Ferrans haven’t attacked the Jariolans yet.”

“They’re waiting for something, reinforcements from somewhere? Who would see an advantage in joining them?”

“I was thinking about hostilities elsewhere, as in Otelyrn, so that the Council will be reluctant to get more involved in Cloisera.”

“Didn’t Schorzat take care of the Caenenan situation already?”

“That doesn’t mean that something couldn’t erupt in Stakanar or Tiempre or Gyarl. Schorzat doesn’t have enough field operatives to cover everything. We’ve had word that Tiempre has moved troops toward the border with Gyarl. They’re claiming that the followers of Puryon are persecuting the Duodeusans in Gyarl. Stakanar is also calling up troops.”

That wasn’t good, and it certainly would make the Council leery of committing more ships to the northern ocean.

“What do you suggest I do?” I asked.

“What you’ve been doing. Watch for signs of anything else unusual…and be alert for anything that affects either Artois or Cydarth.”

“What exactly is going on there?”

Dichartyn paused, then finally said, “Councilor Reyner is pressing to have Artois replaced on the grounds that he has been Commander for too long.”

“Fifteen years is a long time.”

“You’d want Cydarth as commander?” His voice was wry.

“Does anyone on the Council besides Reyner want Cydarth?”

“Most factor councilors, except they won’t admit it.”

“Why?”

“Because the Civic Patrol also runs the piers and the river patrol, and Artois enforces things like wagon weight limits and safety rules.”

“Any wagon accident, and we have to check for any weight and safety violations.” I paused. “The factoring associations are really upset about that?”

“They don’t like the Council interfering in trade, and they see that as the first step toward a return of High Holder control, where the High Holders don’t get cited because so many of them have ironway stations on their lands, and those stations aren’t subject to the local patrols.”

“So their right of low justice effectively exempts them.”

Dichartyn nodded.

As I walked back across the quadrangle and north to the house, I wondered if Solidar would ever escape from the abusive remnants of the times of the Rex and High Holders.

When I reached Third District on Vendrei, I checked the duty logs immediately. There were two more deaths-one a homeless beggar found in an alleyway off Elsyor and another elver. The old beggar died from “natural” causes, such as neglect and poor health. Then I began to assemble the information that had come in on the banque clerk.

According to the reports, Kearyk was older than I’d assumed, four years younger than I was. His father was a baker who had a shop on Sage Lane, right off North Middle to the east of Martradon, and Kearyk had lived there with his parents. If I’d gone by the procedures, I should have informed Bolyet, but the parents weren’t perpetrators or suspects, and I just wanted information. So I took a hack out to Sage Lane. The shop wasn’t hard to find, since it was near the corner-not quite classy enough to qualify as a patisserie, nor pedestrian enough to be the corner bakery. The name over the window was Bakery D’Rykker. The air around the shop carried the odor of baking, of fresh loaves more than pastries.

I stepped inside.

A short but rotund woman looked at me with wide eyes that darted from the grays to the imager emblem on my visored cap. “Sir…?”

“I’m Civic Patrol Captain Rhennthyl.”

Her eyes went back to the imager pin, questioningly.

“I’m also a master imager. Are you Madame D’Rykker?”

“Giseylle D’Rykker.”

“Kearyk D’Cleris was your son, then.”

“He was. Why are you here, Captain?”

“Did you hear about the explosion at the Banque D’Excelsis? When we looked into it, we discovered some interesting things that might have involved your son, and I wanted to talk to you about him.”

A man who appeared too angular to be a baker stepped through the archway that led to the rear of the shop and the ovens. He brushed his hands on his smudged whites, then looked up as if he hadn’t seen me before. He started to glare, then recognized the uniform and glanced at his wife. “What have you done now?”