L. E.Modesitt - Imager’s Intrigue

“You want something, don’t you? You wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

“Oh…we’re not done, Marshal. There’s another aspect to this. It’s the golds involved.”

His frown showed a certain questioning.

“The lease wasn’t paid on a promise. The lessor received five thousand golds before the tug and barges were released. We’ve spent considerable time checking with the banques involved. The funds came from your secondary banque…”

“The Banque D’Rivages? That’s preposterous. If five thousand golds vanished from the Naval accounts there, I’d have known it.”

“Exactly. I’m certain that you would. You didn’t. However…the funds were transferred from a numbered High Holder account. Shortly before this happened, a former heir to the previous holder of that account vanished from an imager collegium. Now…what makes this intriguing is that the only friend remaining to this heir was a certain Assistant Sea-Marshal. What makes that even more interesting is that that Sea-Marshal also revealed certain details of banking information to me, well before that fund transfer. Now…of course, the former heir is missing…and I have grave doubts he will ever be found. There’s little doubt that this Sea-Marshal also has little love for the Collegium.”

“That’s all speculation, the last part,” Valeun observed mildly, almost cheerfully.

“No. Not all of it. The fund transfers are not. The relationships are not. The missing and nearly totally blind heir is not. Nor is the written note I received from Marshal Geuffryt. Nor is the fact that disclosure of this information would destroy your career instantly. Now,” I said politely, “I am certain that you will find a way to deal with your subordinate in a fashion that does not embarrass the Naval Command nor require the Collegium to act. You do understand that your failure to deal with the matter will result in your being considered an accomplice in treachery after the fact, Marshal? By the Collegium, as well as by the Council, should we be forced to bring the matter up. Obviously, given the dismal Naval situation with regard to Ferrum, we would prefer not to bring it up; but to have you resolve it, quietly but permanently.”

“You are rather insistent, Maitre Rhennthyl.”

“I know. It’s one of my faults. I also have the habit of resolving matters on my own if others don’t. That’s one reason why Maitre Dyana felt that I should speak to you first. Now…let us leave that rather disgusting matter for the moment…and your discretion…and turn to the problem at hand. The problem of Ferrum.”

For just a moment, Valeun’s eyes widened, as if he had no idea why I’d changed the subject. That was fine with me.

“You are struggling to hold the blockade of Ferrum, even by transferring more and more ships from the waters off Otelyrn to the northern fleet. You’ve suffered more losses than have been made public.”

“We would not be in this situation if the Council had agreed to our requests…”

“That may be, but we need to win this war. Even if the Council had funded all thirty capital ships last year, and even if Glendyl’s works had not been destroyed, it would be two years or more before the first ones were ready. We need to look at a different approach.” I paused, then asked, “How many high-speed gunboats do you have in the northern fleet? How many more could you get there in the next few weeks?”

Valeun frowned. “Gunboats? They won’t stand up to even a Ferran frigate.”

“That’s not the point. We’re not interested in destroying the Ferran fleet. We’re interested in winning the war and teaching them a lesson.”

“How will you do that without a larger and faster fleet?”

“By using the one thing that the Ferrans do not have.” I went on to explain. “…But to give the gunboats the best chance of getting close to the ports, they’ll need a diversion…something like a massed fleet attack on their fleet or main naval base.”

“That would undo…” He smiled. “You mean for us to mass the fleet in a way that they’ll bring in everything they can?”

“Exactly…and then you can disperse.”

“It might work,” Valeun finally conceded. “If it doesn’t, then the fleet is no worse off. If it is successful, we will lose some of those gunboats and those aboard. You realize that, I trust.”

“I know, but we’ll lose more men, and your fleets will suffer much more than that, if the war drags on. And it will, because it will be years before you can get the more modern vessels.”

“Also,” said Dyana quietly, “using Rhenn’s plan will show the Council that you’re willing to try other strategies besides spending more and more golds on more and more ships.”

“It will take several weeks…”

“The fewer, the better,” I said. “We don’t want to give the Ferrans time enough to change their tactics to try to pick off your mid-sized warships one by one.”

Valeun’s eyes narrowed for a moment, but he offered a smile. “We wouldn’t want that. Not now.”

Maitre Dyana stood. She smiled politely. “It was so good of you to see us, Marshal Valeun. We do appreciate your desire to resolve troublesome matters, so that we can concentrate on the real problems facing Solidar, and I’m certain that you and Rhenn will be able to work everything out, without my assistance, from here on in. He’ll be in touch with you after you’ve thought about how to bring your gunboats into position. For me, dealing with the new Council and keeping them focused on the real concerns is likely to take some doing.”

I stood as well, inclining my head to Valeun.

“I’m sure you can manage that, Maitre,” he said after a moment.

Neither of us spoke until we were in Maitre Dyana’s coach and headed back to Imagisle.

“You realize what you’ve done, you know?” she said quietly.

“I do. It’s better than Geuffryt deserves.”

“That wasn’t what I meant.”

“You mean, about Valeun looking for every opportunity to do me in, either directly or politically or any other way? Yes, but I didn’t see any other option that would work and be timely. I assume that’s why you told him he’d have to work with me.”

“That…and to let him see, if he will, that crossing you would be unwise. If he can’t see that, then we’ll need a new Sea-Marshal.”

There wasn’t much I could say to that, and I needed to think about how to assemble the imagers I needed and what additional training we might be able to provide on a quick basis.

According to the old saying, “the Namer’s fingers knot the details.” As soon as I returned to my study after returning from the Naval Command, I started to become far more aware of how long and how clutching those fingers were…and how the details might well come back to bite one. Just to start implementing my plan, Schorzat, Kahlasa, and I would have to compile the list of all the junior imagers at Imagisle who had the necessary ability and strength to image flame at a distance. The Collegium had a listing of all junior imagers, with their birth date and where they were born. What it didn’t have was any sort of written or recorded assessment of the abilities of each of those imagers. Only the preceptor of each imager knew that, and not in all cases. With the exception of Shault, I certainly didn’t know any of the abilities of those imagers for whom I was preceptor, and not all of Shault’s capabilities. I’d been so occupied in other matters that I hadn’t had a chance to spend more than a portion of a glass with each one.

So I immediately sent off notes to all five of “my” imagers, telling them to meet me at the Collegium’s steamer pier at a quint past fourth glass that afternoon. After that, to deal with that part of the problem for the entire Collegium and not just the imagers for whom I was preceptor, and to try to obtain some sort of roughly equivalent standards for evaluation, I immediately drafted an “abilities form,” obtained Maitre Dyana’s corrections and approval, and had the duty primes begin to set up the letterpress to make enough copies of the form so that we could then provide a copy with each junior imager’s name on it to his or her preceptor with the notation that the completed form was to be returned to Maitre Dyana no later than noon on Vendrei.