“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you.”
Before we left, I talked to Khallyn, but he hadn’t discovered that much more than we’d heard when we’d first gotten to the bank. So I left the two patrollers and hailed a hack.
When I returned to the station, I stopped at the duty desk. “Lyonyt, send an inquiry to the other districts. See if they have any information on a bank clerk by the name of Kearyk D’Cleris. He drowned recently. Send whoever’s on unattached duty to the Grammaire D’Martradon to find out what they can on him. He left school there maybe eight or nine years ago, but they might have records, or someone might remember him.”
“Yes, sir.”
I headed to find Alsoran and to brief him. I wouldn’t write up a report for the commander until I got the rounds report from Kallyn and Zylpher and the report from Chenoyt. I’d also decided that I wouldn’t be able to accompany any patrollers.
By the end of the day shift, I had a written report on the banque explosion and some information on the drowned clerk. The drowning had been reported in District One, because it had taken place in the River Aluse a mille south of the Bridge of Hopes. That was where Kearyk’s body had been found. I decided against talking to the clerk’s family until I had checked with Dichartyn.
When I picked up Seliora, she looked concerned, but I didn’t ask about what, just helped her and Diestrya to the duty coach and boosted my daughter inside.
As the coach began the trip to Imagisle, Seliora asked, “What was your day like?”
“Another elveweed death and another explosion. This one was at the Banque D’Excelsis near Plaza D’Este. We’ll need to talk about that later, and I’ll need to tell Master Dichartyn when we get to Imagisle. What about your day?”
Seliora’s eyes widened slightly, but she nodded and said, “Odelia didn’t come to work today.”
“Do you know why?”
“Even Aunt Aegina doesn’t know. She left to go over to Kolasyn and Odelia’s place just before you came.”
I did know that, after Kolasyn and Odelia had gotten married, less than six months after Seliora and I had, Odelia had moved to the quarters over the small metal-working shop Kolasyn had inherited from his uncle, for whom he’d been an apprentice. “I hope everything’s all right.”
“It’s my fault. Yesterday, she was complaining about Haerasyn again. I said that, if he wanted to destroy his life, she and Kolasyn couldn’t do much to stop him. She said that I was cold and hard-hearted, and that she didn’t see how you could stand me.”
I managed not to swallow. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“It hurt too much. I wanted to think about it.”
I put my arm around her. “You were right about Haerasyn. It’s not as though he doesn’t know the dangers. He’s ignoring them, and he’s using Kolasyn’s coins to buy elveweed.”
“I think Haerasyn’s pilfered coins from Odelia’s wallet, too. That’s from what she’s sort of said at times.”
“Pilfer…pilfer…” contributed Diestrya.
“Pilfer means to take from someone,” Seliora said. “You shouldn’t pilfer. It’s not good.”
Diestrya nodded. “Not good.”
Once we reached Imagisle, I left Seliora and Diestrya and walked swiftly to and across the quadrangle to the administration building. Dichartyn’s door was closed. I knocked. “Rhennthyl here.”
Master Dichartyn opened the door.
I saw a young imager seated before his desk, as I once had been.
“It’s urgent?” He raised his eyebrows.
“Relatively. It’s about an explosion at the Banque D’Excelsis.”
He turned. “Eamyn…we’ll have to cut this short. Read the next section of the anatomy text and the next chapter in the history.”
Eamyn rose quickly and scooped up his books. He was around seventeen and had just made tertius. I recalled that, because Dichartyn had asked me to spend several glasses with the young man in the spring, telling him about how the Civic Patrol worked.
“Sirs,” he said as he left, inclining his head.
I closed the door and launched into briefing the Collegium’s head of security, a position listed nowhere. When I finished, I waited for the inevitable set of questions.
Instead, Dichartyn nodded and simply asked, “What do you think?”
“All I can surmise is that the explosion and the alteration of the ledger were set purposely to establish the credibility of the note I received…and to create enough of a crime to allow me the legal ability to question the branch director.”
“You didn’t ask about Caartyl or Cydarth?”
“No. It struck me that a tip about missing funds could have a legal tie to an explosion, enough to warrant questions, but that wouldn’t allow me to look for perfectly legal fund transfers.” I paused. “I mean that the mechanism of the transfer was legal.”
“I understood what you meant.” Dichartyn nodded. “There are two possibilities. First, someone wanted you to overreach and to embarrass the Collegium and the Patrol. I doubt it, but that is a possibility to be considered. The second is that the plotter wanted to call the Collegium’s attention to Caartyl and yours to Cydarth. Did you enter the note as evidence?”
“I haven’t yet.” I knew that withholding it was scarcely legal, and that not turning it in represented another possible trap, but so did turning it in, under the circumstances.
“There’s some danger in that, but I’d agree. Just keep it safe.”
I nodded. “Could it be an attempt to remove Caartyl from the Council for misfeasance or malfeasance?”
“Whether it is either would depend on the source of the funds. What if it’s simply an inheritance or the payment of an old debt that someone is trying to characterize as something untoward by linking it to an actual embezzlement?”
“And what if someone, knowing that Cydarth is not among my most favorite of superiors, is trying to get me to act against him?”
“Or…both could be true…and that is the most disturbing of possibilities.”
“Because only the Collegium could discover such and that would drag us into it all?” I asked.
“Precisely. Still, as I told you earlier, Caartyl pushed through the cartage reform bill. I wouldn’t be surprised if he received some reward.”
“From Broussard? Or from the Ferrans? Or both?”
“Broussard’s too smart to pay anything even remotely close to a reward.”
“Is he getting support from the Ferrans?” I knew the Ferrans had a long-standing agenda to undermine the High Holders, for philosophical, political, and practical reasons.
“Not a chance. Caartyl hates them as much as the Jariolans and the High Holders.”
“That sounds like someone wants to cause trouble for Caartyl.”
“Who doesn’t?” Dichartyn’s laugh was soft and dry.
“We’ll never be able to discover who’s really trying to do that, let alone prove it.”
“That’s very true. That’s why you’re in the Civic Patrol, and why I’m doing what I do in the ways open to us.”
There wasn’t much else that I could say to that.
Dichartyn shook his head. “There’s one aspect of this that bothers Schorzat immensely, and that’s the fact that the Ferrans haven’t attacked the Jariolans yet.”
“They’re waiting for something, reinforcements from somewhere? Who would see an advantage in joining them?”
“I was thinking about hostilities elsewhere, as in Otelyrn, so that the Council will be reluctant to get more involved in Cloisera.”
“Didn’t Schorzat take care of the Caenenan situation already?”
