L. E.Modesitt - Imager’s Intrigue

Gherard motioned for me to go into Maitre Dyana’s study even before I said a word. As always, I closed the door behind me. Dyana was writing something and nodded for me to sit down. I took one of the middle chairs and waited.

After several moments, she replaced the pen in its stand and looked up. “You left Imagisle. Are you up to that?”

“For short periods. I took a duty coach and met with Artois. He’s promoted Alsoran to captain to succeed me, and he’s promised a listing of the damaged buildings once it’s complete. I also met with Cydarth. Is he still pressing the Council to make him Commander?”

“Neither Rholyn nor I have heard anything along those lines.”

“He’s likely biding his time. He might be waiting for something to discredit Artois.”

“While Artois is hoping something will appear to discredit Cydarth,” she suggested.

“Will it?”

“That is what you should be telling me,” Maitre Dyana replied.

I thought for a moment. “Geuffryt wanted me to reveal the payments to Cydarth…and to Caartyl. He didn’t say that, but he did insist that his source was trusted and had never been wrong. What he said bothered me then, and the more I’ve thought about it, the more it bothers me. If the Collegium revealed something like that, even if it were true, the disclosure would create an impression we don’t need. Further…the funds have never been touched. The Navy wants more ships. Who controls the Civic Patrol shouldn’t matter to the Naval Command. Who controls building the ships-or keeping them from being built-does matter. That strongly suggests that the whole business was a ploy to get the Collegium to act in some way to further the Navy’s interests. Revealing that we know about fund transfers, even when we don’t, would reduce trust in our impartiality.”

“That part is clear enough,” Dyana replied. “But why would the Naval Bureau want to reduce our influence when we’ve supplied them with materials and new devices and when we’re more inclined to support modernizing the fleet?”

“I don’t have an answer to that, but I can’t see anything else that makes sense.”

“Neither can I. It might be best if you devoted time and thought to seeing what else you can discover that bears on that.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Have you found out any more about the Ferrans?”

“There were two more teams with explosives. They were found dead in Third District. The explosives are missing.”

She shook her head. “That’s somewhat better than losing people and buildings. You think it was your taudischefs?”

“They’re not mine, in that sense, but I’m certain it was. I haven’t had time to chase them down.” Nor did I want to spend extended times holding full shields when I had the feeling that I wouldn’t learn that much.

“Three hundred people died in the explosions here. The numbers are similar in Kherseilles, Solis, Estisle, and Westisle.”

I’d noted the numbers, already. They were surprisingly low. “There’s another concern. So far, I haven’t seen any attacks or explosions affecting large manufactories or shipworks, and there were only two affecting the ironway. Also, with the exception of the agents we’ve found in Third District, and those killed on the bombard barges, we haven’t found a single Ferran agent.”

“Every one who has been found is dead, and all the deaths are connected to you,” Maitre Dyana pointed out.

“I’ve thought of that. But some of those deaths occurred when I was in no shape to do anything.”

“Most people wouldn’t know that.” She rose. “That’s two concerns for which we need answers, Maitre Rhennthyl.”

I stood and inclined my head. There wasn’t much point in saying more.

Back in my study, I reviewed the reports, but didn’t find much there.

Later in the afternoon, I checked with Kahlasa, but she hadn’t found anyone who was missing barges in the L’Excelsis area, and it would take longer to find out from concerns downriver.

I spent the rest of the afternoon with the reports and with maps, trying to find some link that might make sense. My head was aching by the time I walked into the house close to fifth glass.

“Dada!” Diestrya threw both arms around my legs.

“Diestrya.” I picked her up and hugged her, although I wasn’t so sure that I didn’t need the hug more than she did.

Seliora appeared about the time I set our daughter down. “I sent off a note to your mother, like you told me. Are you sure you’ll be up to dinner on Vendrei?”

“Physically, I’d be up to it now.” My mother’s dinner invitation was her way of forcing me to tell her how I really was. “She’s never gotten over my evasions when I was severely injured before we were married.”

“Mothers do worry.”

“True enough.” I settled into the big chair in the family parlor, glad to be off my feet, even though I hadn’t stood all that much during the course of the day. But it had been a long day. “We didn’t have much of a chance to talk last night because Diestrya was so fussy, but something Ferlyn had said the other day struck me. I still can’t quite say why.”

“You might tell me what he said.” Seliora perched on the end of the settee.

“He was talking about the way lands are…I guess you’d say…structured. How, unless Solidar becomes more organized, Ferrum will supplant us as the leading land of Terahnar. I almost got the picture of a land filled with manufactories and little else, where even the crops are harvested by machines, perhaps by great steam monsters like the Ferran land-cruisers. Where would that leave places like NordEste Design?”

“We’d survive. We’re already a manufactory. We’re one that requires great skill, but we use machines for everything that we can. The ones who would suffer would be the carpenters and cabinet makers. It will happen sooner or later, because the same card techniques we use for the looms should be able to be adapted to wood-working, even metalwork.”

“Why hasn’t it happened already?”

“The guilds have opposed it. That’s another reason why we only belong to the guilds as individuals in different fields of artisanship.”

“Don’t they know?”

“I’m sure they do, but what we do is so costly that it’s clear we’d never take away jobs. Father and I already figured out how to design lathes to produce hundreds of simple table legs and tops, but to make it profitable, we’d have to produce hundreds, maybe thousands, every year.”

“If you can do it…”

“Someone will, sooner or later,” Seliora said. “But the laws limiting the number of crafters and artisans under a single guildmaster would have to be changed. So would the requirement for all products for dwellings or buildings to be made by the family or owner or by a guildmaster or his journeymen or apprentices.”

“Has anyone in your family heard about Glendyl or anyone on the Council trying to do something to grant more power to the factors? Or to reduce the power of the guilds?”

She shook her head.

“Still…it wouldn’t happen that way,” I mused. “They’d try to bring it about by saying that what ever it was would benefit everyone, and that the guilds were trying to line their own purses at the expense of everyone else.”

“Aren’t they?” asked Seliora. “We can make a plain chair for much less than the crafters charge. We don’t do it because there’s no point in it for us. Even the woodworks in Third District could charge far less than it does, if we weren’t spending so much on continually training workers. So could the paper mill, and that’s with a facility that’s too small to be as efficient as it could be. How much longer can the guilds keep the better machines out?”