Princeps

side. “You hear something?”

“Just the wind.”

“Could have sworn I heard a horse whuffling.”

“Do you see a horse, sir?” asked the man in gray, his head moving rodent-like from side to side.

“I heard one.”

Quaeryt didn’t bother to wait longer. He imaged water into Hyleor’s lower throat and lungs.

The factor staggered, then tried to speak. No sound issued forth. An attempted cough spewed forth some liquid, but Quaeryt imaged more water into Hyleor’s lower throat.

The man in gray pounded on Hyleor’s back. Hyleor coughed out a small spurt of water, but his face was turning red.

“Elenda! Elenda!” yelled the man in gray.

Hyleor staggered, then bent forward, trying to clear his lungs and throat.

Quaeryt waited.

Abruptly, the factor pitched forward into the gravel of the drive. The other man pushed on his back and kept pressing intermittently. Water gushed from Hyleor’s mouth, but Quaeryt imaged more into the factor’s throat.

In time, Quaeryt could see that the factor’s chest was moving slower and slower … until it wasn’t rising and falling at all.

The man in gray rolled Hyleor over so that he faced skyward in the late afternoon. “Elenda!”

No one appeared.

The gray man ran for the rear of the house.

Once he was out of sight, Quaeryt turned the mare and rode slowly back up along the far side of the drive until he was outside the gates. He reined up and waited. Still … no one appeared.

After half a quint, he turned the mare.

He was just glad Hyleor had been there. He would have come back later that evening, or on Vendrei evening, had it been necessary. He just couldn’t have left Hyleor to create more trouble for Pharyl and for the people of Extela.

But won’t someone else just step into his boots? And what right did you have to act as justicer and executioner?

His laugh was silent and bitter. No right at all, only the responsibility not to let a man who caused death after death keep doing it when no one else could or would stop it.

Quaeryt didn’t have any better answers to his own questions. He kept riding, back toward the villa that he and Vaelora had occupied for such a short time with such high hopes for a future that had not come to pass.

He’d been able to do nothing about improving matters in Extela or in any other part of Montagne for either scholars and imagers. He hadn’t finished resolving many of the problems facing the city, and he’d already been dismissed and replaced.

57

Quaeryt’s head was aching, and little flashes of light sparkled in front of his eyes by the time he returned to the villa, unseen beneath the concealment shield. Once in the stable, he released the shield, and took a deep breath. The imaging he’d done hadn’t been that strenuous, but he was out of practice in holding both personal and concealment shields simultaneously … and for such a long period of time. After several moments he unsaddled and groomed the mare. Since none of the rankers were waiting or looking for him, his absence from the villa had apparently gone unnoticed.

He walked up from the stable to the villa, his thoughts on what might await him in Ferravyl. His boots had barely hit the floor inside the entry hall, echoing unevenly, when Vaelora hurried out of the main level study. She stopped a yard short of him.

“How did … your errand … go?” Her voice was soft.

“I took care of it,” replied Quaeryt tiredly.

“Not Grelyana? She’s a bitch, but…”

At the worried expression on his wife’s face, Quaeryt shook his head. “Hyleor. He ordered one of his guards to kill another, deceived him, and got the man sentenced to be beheaded. The man who was killed was a patroller recruit. He was murdered because he knew too much about Hyleor, not that I’d ever be able to prove it. That’s what I know directly. Then there are all the girls Hyleor drugged for his pleasure houses, not to mention all the elveweed and other drugs he’s carted into Extela. Oh … and he was also the one who set up the attack on the flour wagon, where two men and a pleasure girl got killed.” Quaeryt sighed. “Someone will replace him. There’s always someone, but they won’t know as much, and they’ll have to go on the assumption that bad things happen if they get too far out of hand. That’s the best I can do for Pharyl and the city … so far as that’s concerned.”

“They don’t deserve your help,” retorted Vaelora.

“Pharyl does. I’m the one who made him chief. So does Hrehn. Besides, the ones who caused all the trouble for me aren’t really the productive part of the city. For the most part, they’re parasites on the city.”

“More of them deserve what Hyleor got.”

“They probably do,” Quaeryt admitted, “but I’m not sure I’d want to meet the sort of man I’d become if I took on that task for all those who deserve it.” He paused. “I’m not even sure I’d want to meet the man I’ve become in trying to put Extela back together.”

“What choice did you have?”

“We all have choices. I chose to go outside the law three times. I did it because the law failed … but the law fails so much…” He shook his head. “Bhayar’s right. I’m better not being a governor.”

Vaelora frowned. “No. You’ve been a good governor in a bad time. And those three … that’s why they get away with it. If a governor or a patrol chief can’t show publicly the evil someone has done … or if that evil isn’t widely known to almost everyone, any punishment delivered is seen as unjustified and tyrannical.”

“That’s exactly what happened to me, in a way,” Quaeryt pointed out. “It takes time to make people aware of things, especially if they don’t want to know.”

“Sometimes, they never want to know.” Vaelora’s words held a sour tone. “They’d rather ignore the problems.”

“Especially if they’re guilty of the same sorts of acts, even on a lesser scale.”

“The ones like Grelyana.”

Quaeryt nodded.

“Is there … anything else?”

“Besides the fact that I need to write a list of items for the new governor?”

“Why?”

“So that he’ll do what needs to be done, knowing that Bhayar will have been informed as well.”

“It might work.” She shook her head. “What else for us?”

“Well … you still have to pack,” he observed quietly, with a slight lilt in his voice.

“We still have to pack, you mean. You don’t have that much, and it won’t take me that long. I never had a chance to get any more dresses or gowns sewn, and half my clothes aren’t worth packing.”

Quaeryt nodded. “But you still look good in them.”

“I couldn’t wear some of them a day without the seams splitting and leaving me riding in undergarments.” She gave him a mock glare. “And don’t say a word about where that would be appropriate.”

He offered a grin.

“I said not a word.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to.”

But she smiled back, Quaeryt saw, if only for a moment.

He felt so tired …