L. Modesitt - Imager's challenge

The chief shook his head. “Smartest thing I ever saw in a taudis. Like as not, I’ll never see it again.” He looked to me. “You’re coming with us?”

I nodded. “That was the agreement with the major.”

“Then we’d better get started.” The chief gestured. “We’ll start on this side, go down as far as the alley, then come back and do the other side that far.”

I walked beside the chief to the first house on the corner, half of a duplex, with soot-smeared bricks and the windows and front door boarded up. Two of the marines produced pry bars, and in moments had the boards away from the door.

Three other marines slipped into the house.

In what seemed like moments, they returned with a bearded man, perhaps thirty, clad in a tattered leather jacket and trousers with ragged ends. His shoes were held together with rags, and his mouth worked silently for a moment before he spoke.

“I work! Over on the avenue.”

“Name the place and the owner.”

“Gosmyn’s. Hetyr owns it.”

I thought for a moment. I hated to say anything, but the fellow would probably live longer as a conscript. “Gosmyn’s place has been gone for two or three years.”

“Friggin’ trolie . . . frig you.”

“Take him to the wagons.” The chief’s voice held the resigned boredom of a man who’d heard all too many stories.

Two of the marines marched him off, but he turned and looked in my direction and spat.

We waited on the sidewalk while one of the remaining marines used a hammer to replace the boards over the door. Then we walked the few yards to the next stoop, where the chief rapped loudly.

A graying woman opened the door to the adjoining duplex. She might have once been pretty, but the gray in her reddish hair was less than flattering, and her eyes were a flat brown, not quite uncaring.

“Navy conscription team,” the chief announced.

She said nothing.

“Did you live here in the year 750?”

“Yes.” The resignation in the single word and the lines worn into the woman’s face suggested she was too tired to have moved anywhere in the past six years.

“The last enumeration states that eight people lived here, and two were boys aged eight and eleven,” the chief stated. “Where are they?”

“Doylen’s thirteen. He’s at the grammaire. Smart boy, he is.” The momentary smile removed the sullen dullness from her face.

“Which grammaire?”

“Number thirty-one. That’s the one at the corner of Weigand and Alseyo. You want to go there, he’ll be there.”

“What about his brother?”

She shrugged. “Left here last Juyn. Said he wouldn’t be staying till the scripties came back.”

“You mind if we look?”

With a resigned expression, she stepped back.

The chief nodded. “We won’t need to. Thank you very much.”

The woman moved forward, but waited to close the door until the chief and the two marines and I stepped off the stoop.

“You decided not to look because she agreed?” I asked.

“Not just because she agreed, but the way she did. No hesitation.”

At the next three houses, there were children, but they were either too young or had left, except for the one who was at work as a tile setters’ apprentice, which exempted him from conscription. The marines on the cordon would have let him pass so long as he showed his apprentice’s card. The fourth house was boarded up, but no one was there. Absently, I noted that all were in what had been Youdh’s territory. I had no idea who, if anyone, had succeeded Saelyhd.

When we reached the fifth house, the door opened but a crack.

“Navy conscription team,” the chief declared.

“Don’t need nothing from no one.” The voice was that of a woman.

“You are required to open your door for the purpose of allowing us to determine whether anyone of conscription age is present.”

“Don’t have to.”

“I will warn you that if you do not open the door we are required to force it open.” The chief paused, then said, “Open up, or we’ll break in.”

The door slammed.

In moments, the marines with the pry bars had the door open, the bolts ripped out of the casement and wall and the edges of the door splintered. Then five marines charged inside as a woman screamed.

Close to half a quint passed before the five returned. They had two young men, one about fifteen and the other eighteen. The woman, presumably the one who had slammed the door, stood impassively at the back of the tiny front foyer. She was stout and black-haired.

“Does either of you work?” asked the chief.

The younger one shook his head, his eyes darting from one marine to another to the chief.

“Work’s for fools,” offered the elder contemptuously.

“You’re about to become a greater fool,” replied the chief. “Take them both to the wagons. Put the younger one in for boot training.”

As we walked away from the house, he added in a lower voice to me, “The older one will end up as coal loader or some such. The other’s young enough he might be able to make something of his life.”

The next dwelling held an older couple, and an even older bedridden woman.

Then we retraced our steps back to South Middle and crossed to the east side of Mando where we started with the corner dwelling.

The woman there had three children. The oldest was something like seven.

When we came to the second dwelling, the chief made his announcement once more.

The door opened, and a woman stood there. Her skirt and blouse were grayish and close to shapeless, but clean, and her light brown hair was pulled back into a bun. Her face was narrow.

“Is there any man or boy living here who is over age fourteen?”

“I got two.”

The marine with the folder murmured to the chief.

“Those are Aillyn and Dhewn? What do they do?”

“Aillyn just made journeyman roofer. Dhewn’s an apprentice at the foundry.”

“Are you sure they’re the only ones here?”

I stood back, but the woman looked past them to me. “Master Rhennthyl . . . I got no other sons, but you want to look, they can.”

The chief’s eyes flickered, but he only nodded. “Thank you.”

The next two houses produced neither resistance nor conscripts.

At the fourth house, the white-haired man with the wooden peg leg looked past the chief, even before the chief could say anything. “Master Rhennthyl, Alsoran told you my son’s already in the Navy. All’s here is my daughters . . .”

That was the way the next glass or so went, when we finished almost four complete blocks on both sides of Mando.

We were at the second house on the fifth block, in Youdh’s old territory, when, after someone opened the door, a bearded man charged the marines.

“Friggin’ scripties, worthless scum . . . !”

The marines had him down and trussed in moments. The odor of elveweed was overpowering.

The chief looked down on him. “He’s young enough. We’ll take him, but like as not, he’ll end up dead or on a road gang.”

When we went back to the east side of Mando, the first woman to open the door, again, looked past the chief to me. “My oldest is just twelve. Please, Master Rhennthyl, don’t let them take him.”

“He’ll be thirteen in Ianus,” the chief said, “but we don’t take them that young. If he doesn’t want to be conscripted, have him get a job . . . or an apprenticeship.” He nodded and added, “Thank you.”

Once the door closed, the chief glanced back at me. “You know all of them, imager?”

“No, chief. I only know a handful, but I’ve been patrolling the taudis for a month, and they watch patrollers very closely.”

That was the pattern of the day, but I did understand why they needed so many marines on a team, because some were always escorting conscriptees back to the wagons, and there were some who were violent. One good thing was that I didn’t have to use any imaging, but I didn’t get back to the Collegium until almost fifth glass.