What was left unsaid was that a High Holder who did not dispose of an underling who needed it was considered weak, as was one who actually had to attempt to kill an equal, rather than ruining him and his family. But it also suggested that High Holder Ryel might well have worse in mind for me than assassination . . . and over a long time.
Her face changed again. Now, behind the smile lay contemptuous pity.
“That’s disposal of inferiors?”
“Good.”
That was my introduction to the conversational patterns of the High Holders, but Maitre Dyana was just beginning. At the end of our session, she handed me a book. “This is a novel. Read it. Part of it is accurate. Part is not. We will discuss it on Mardi.”
That was on top of Master Dichartyn’s latest assignment-to describe with a supporting proof the easiest ways to enter the Council Chateau and reach the private studies of the councilors without being detected. I had the feeling that the weekend would be long, both because of the work I had to do . . . and because I would not be seeing Seliora.
Messenger/Guard
47
Silence is not golden; it is only a tool like any other.
At the end of the following week, Master Draffyd examined me and said that I could go back to a stronger conditioning regime, and whatever imaging Master Dichartyn had in mind. I had not received a letter from Seliora, but I couldn’t say I was totally surprised, not when she and Shomyr were still traveling. I did receive a letter from my mother, expressing concern and wanting to know if and when she could visit. I wrote back that because of the nature of my training it would be several weeks yet. I just didn’t want to have to explain. Some of what had happened I knew shouldn’t leave the Collegium, and Mother didn’t respond well to my refusing to say much. I also didn’t want to mention Seliora, not yet. Not until after she returned from her trip. It had taken Mother years to accept Remaya, and I wasn’t about to raise that issue until I was absolutely certain that Seliora and I belonged together.
The next Lundi-Juyn sixteenth-I had barely settled into the chair in Master Dichartyn’s study when he said, “Your messenger uniforms arrived, did they not?”
“Yes, sir. They fit comfortably.”
“They should. It’s time for you to go to work. You’ll be going to the Chateau every morning for the next three weeks. In the afternoons, Clovyl will still work with you, and I’ll occasionally give you instruction and exercises. When the Council resumes meeting officially on the second of Agostos, you’ll be there all day, every day, and some evenings.” He paused. “But you will be expected to continue the physical conditioning. After you begin full-time at the Chateau, you’ll be joining the group that exercises at fifth bell every morning but Solayi.”
What could I say to that but “Yes, sir.” Then I asked, “With everything going on between Caenen and Ferrum and Tiempre, the Council’s not meeting?”
“The Executive Council is still there. Effectively, they control the government. The full sessions deal more with laws and problems.” He cleared his throat. “At the Chateau, Baratyn will brief you on your duties. He’s in charge of the messengers, both the imagers and the non-imagers who handle most of the messages. All of the imagers are listed as part-time messengers and security aides. The regular messengers aren’t supposed to know that you’re imagers, but they all know you’ve been trained to deal with weapons and attackers. Now for Baratyn- he’s a Maitre D’Aspect, but he’s listed on the official public Collegium records as a tertius.”
“Yes, sir. Am I supposed to know who the other imagers are?”
“You are, and they’re supposed to know you. Baratyn will introduce you. You wear the messenger uniform here at the Collegium only when you’re on your way to and from the Chateau. All of you travel using a duty coach that’s generally indistinguishable from a hack. If necessary, you can take a hack back, but only so far as West River Road. The Council members know that some of the messengers are imagers, and, soon enough, most of the sharper ones will be able to pick you out, but they don’t say anything because their safety rests on you.”
“What about the High Holders?” I knew that there were five High Holders on the Council, and I was glad that Ryel was not one of them. He had been, years earlier, but councilors were limited to two consecutive five-year terms. If they wished and their appointing body agreed, they could return after standing down for a full term.
“Even if Ryel were a councilor, you’d be quite safe for now, and always in the Chateau. Your situation isn’t the first time that sort of thing has occurred. High Holders never act precipitously. Often they wait months or even years.”
That didn’t reassure me.
“There’s one other matter. Usually some new messenger, or occasionally a relative of one of the councilors, generally a young woman, will ask if you’re an imager or insist that you must be. You are to say you are assigned to serve the Council. If they get very insistent, you may say that they can believe what they wish, but the truth is that you are assigned to the Council. That is what you are to say, and all you are to say. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
Master Dichartyn stood. “Go put on your messenger uniform. I’ll meet you at the west duty-coach station behind the dining hall in half a glass.”
I walked quickly back to my quarters and changed. The messenger uniform was made of a fine lightweight black wool, trimmed with a gray piping so faint in color that it was almost white. Fine as the wool was, and thin as the pale gray shirt that went under the short-waisted jacket was, I did hope that I didn’t have to spend much time in the sun, not in the summer.
My changing was swift enough that I was walking up to the duty coach at almost the same moment as Master Dichartyn. He said nothing, but gestured for me to enter the coach.
Because he had not spoken, I waited until the coach began to move before I asked, “Do you know what is happening with our fleets and the Caenenans, sir?”
“No more than is in the newsheets, Rhennthyl.”
That was little help because neither
“The Caenenans and their High Priest will do something foolish out of pride, and, hopefully, we will do something less foolish to keep open warfare from flaring up.” He fingered his chin, then lowered his hand.
I waited. Sometimes silence was a better way to get a response.
“Life is always about power. When men or nations talk about honor, what they mean is how others perceive their power. When a man claims his honor has been affronted, what he is saying is that another’s actions, if unchallenged, may diminish his power in the eyes of others. The same is true of nations. The Collegium does not care about the popular perceptions of power, unless those perceptions actually diminish Solidar’s power. Often our duties require redressing the balance of power without any overt use of military or economic force. That is all I will say for now, but I trust you will consider my words carefully as you watch the Council and those who move around it, prating of honor when they are in reality merely seeking to have the Council increase their power or diminish that of another.”
I already understood that. A wool importer benefited when import tariffs were lowered, and I had heard my father rail on about the lack of honor in the Council in not tariffing certain finished fabrics, but that was because those fabrics went to other factors.
My eyes strayed outside as the coach carried us over the Bridge of Desires, not the other bridge on the west side of Imagisle, which was the Bridge of Stones, because that was used almost entirely for heavy wagons and the like. We rode west past the modest spires of Council Anomen, so named because it was the anomen closest to the Council Chateau, not because the councilors necessarily attended services there, and then down the Boulevard
