Imager

“Someone has been following me, and they did shoot at me again,” I admitted. “I’m fine. They didn’t come close to hitting me.” In a way, that was deceptive, but I didn’t feel I could explain. “Master Dichartyn thought I should ask everyone I knew, and my family, if they’d seen anything strange.”

Khethila shook her head. “I haven’t seen anything like that, but I will keep an eye out, just in case.” She glanced past me, toward an older man who had entered and was walking toward Eilthyr. “You’re sure you’re all right?”

“I’m fine.” I glanced down at the book on the corner of the desk. It didn’t look familiar. “What’s that?”

She flushed. “It’s my guide . . . sort of. Madame D’Shendael wrote a volume on the basics of commerce and finance for the wives of High Holders and factors. She said it was a treatise for women who lost their husbands through illness and accident, to help them understand matters so that they were not helpless.”

“It’s much more than that, isn’t it?”

That brought a grin.

“How did you find it?”

“I finished her Poetic Discourse and her Civic Virtue, and I went to the bookshop near the square. The only book of hers I could find was this one.” She held it up. The name on the spine was A Widow’s Guide. “I almost put it down, but since there wasn’t anything else there, I started to read. I almost burst out laughing, right in the bookshop, by the third page. There are things in there that Father never even thought of, but I didn’t tell him where I got them.”

“How many books has she written?”

“Not that many. There’s one other one, and I ordered it, but I don’t remember the title. It’s about the role of women in fostering culture, I think.”

“She’s quite the writer.”

“She is, and she writes well.”

“I know. You’ve quoted her at me a few times.”

“She’s worth quoting.”

I just smiled. “How long will you be in charge here?”

“Father hopes to be back by next weekend. I gave him a set of guidelines for Rousel. I told him to tell our dear brother that they came from an old treatise on commerce.”

“But they came from that?” I gestured toward A Widow’s Guide.

She nodded. “Can you join me for dinner?”

I shook my head. “I have an engagement.”

“Who is she?”

“Someone . . .” I grinned.

“Rhenn!”

“If it turns into something really serious, you’ll be the first to know. Come to think of it, you are the first to know that there is a someone.”

“She’s part Pharsi and dark-haired, isn’t she?”

“Why do you say that?”

“You’ve never looked at any other kind.”

“Yes . . . and that’s all I’ll say.”

She grinned once more. “And she’s as poor as . . . as a bookkeeping clerk?”

“I answer your questions, and you’ll figure it out. Besides, I have to talk to a few other people, hopefully before they start shooting at me again.”

Her grin vanished. “You will be careful? Promise?”

“I will.”

She gave me an embrace, and I headed for the door.

Outside, I only had to wait a bit to hail a hack, and before long we were headed north on the West River Road, then over the Nord Bridge and east on the Boulevard D’Este.

When I finally reached Master Kocteault’s studio and knocked on the door, Aurelean was the one to open it. His eyes widened. “Rhenn? You’re an imager? I had heard something of that. I do suppose that is natural for one with artistic pretensions . . . I mean abilities.”

“That’s true. You always have been outstanding at determining pretensions . . . I mean abilities, Aurelean. But enough of the trivial. I’m here on imager business. Might I come in?”

“Oh, of course. Imager business, how droll.” He stepped back and let me enter and close the door. “What can I do for you? Master Kocteault is not here.”

Was he ever there? “You’re the one I came to see, and it’s rather simple. Has anyone asked you about me, or where I might be found? Or for that matter, have any strangers showed up at the hall who have asked questions . . . any time that you can recall since last spring?”

“That sounds more personal than imager.”

“It’s not. Several imagers have been shot at. I’m only one of them, and other imagers are tracking down the others, but the Collegium thought I might know best whom to talk to among the artists.”

“Shooting at imagers,” mused Aurelean, the superciliousness gone for a moment, “that’s not good.” He frowned. “I don’t remember when it was, except it was a cold Samedi in spring, I think. I did see two people talking to one of the apprentices-it might have been the one who drowned last month, now that I think of it. I remembered it because one of them had the square-cut beard that all the poseurs who think they might be artists used to affect.”

“That was the only time you saw anything like that?”

“Nameless, no. I’m sure there were other strange things. There are always strange occurrences if one only looks, but that is the sole occasion that I can recall.”

I nodded. “Thank you. If you do see anything, or recall anything, you could drop me a note at the Collegium.”

“I could, I suppose.”

I smiled. “By the way, even if you did it to flatter Master Kocteault, it was a very good portrait of his daughter.”

He actually flushed. “Why, thank you.”

After I left Aurelean, I found another hack and had him drop me off at Elphens’s new dwelling and studio. No one was there, although it was clear he had moved in. I wished that I’d had the hack wait, because I had to walk to the end of Bakers’ Lane and wait more than a quarter glass to find another to take me down to the square. By then it was well past noon, and I was more than a little warm.

I slipped into Lapinina, but I didn’t seen anyone I knew, not surprisingly, because most artists would not have been there that early. I took the smaller of the two vacant tables.

Staela approached. “Sir?”

I looked up at her. “Whether I’m an imager or not, Staela, I’m still Rhenn. What do you have that’s cool to drink and light to eat?”

She was silent for just a moment. “There’s a Kienyn white we brought up from the cellar, and the chopped fowl salad is good.”

“I’ll have both.”

“Yes, sir.” She slipped away before I could say anything . . . or even sigh.

Within moments she returned with a tall fluted glass of a slightly bubbly amberish wine. “The Kienyn. That’s three.”

I put a silver on the table. “For the wine and the salad.”

She scooped the coin up and left two coppers before nearly fleeing.

I sipped the Kienyn and listened. No one was talking. The only sound for that moment was the buzz of a fly that circled somewhere above my head. I continued to sip and wait. Still, no one said anything.

Only when Staela reappeared with the greens and chopped fowl and I began to eat did a few words began to flow around the small bistro.

“. . . be hot like this for another two weeks . . .”

“More like three . . .”

“. . . think this is hot . . . ought be in Caena . . .”