The study door opened, and a secondus stepped out. I stood, and his eyes flashed to me and then away.
“Good day, sir.” He fled as much as walked away.
I knocked.
“Come in, Rhenn.”
Once inside, I shut the door and sat down, waiting to see what else Master Dichartyn had scheduled for me.
“Clovyl says that you’re doing well, and that, if you keep at it, you’ll be close to where you should be by the time the Council reconvenes . . . where you should be in terms of physical training and conditioning. You’re still lacking in finesse in your imagery, but we need to get you some experience. On Jeudi morning, you’re to meet me here in the morning at half before fifth bell. We’ll be going to the prison for an execution.”
“Practice, sir?”
“Two kinds of practice. Subtlety and effectiveness. That night, you’ll have to work with Master Draffyd. Mostly, you’ll just be watching him do a dissection. Too much of your knowledge is text knowledge. That’s not your fault, but it’s something we need to remedy.” He stood. “You have to excuse me, but matters are pressing.”
“Caenen and Jariola, sir?”
“Partly. That’s mostly Master Schorzat ’s headache. It doesn’t help much that imaging is banned in Tiempre, and that its practice, if discovered, is punished by execution. Ferrum doesn’t ban it, but known imagers face great difficulties. That makes working in either land even more difficult, the Nameless knows, although neither Ferrum nor Jariola is a place we’d normally want to be. You’d think that we were the disciples of Bilbryn.” He shook his head.
Bilbryn? It took me a moment to recall the name. When Solidar had been warring states using bronze weapons, he’d been the imager champion of Rex Caldor, and his enemies called him the great disciple of the Namer, declaring him evil incarnate.
“I’ll see you on Jeudi,” Master Dichartyn said.
Our meeting had been short enough that I had a good glass left before dinner, and I hurried back to my quarters. Once there, I recovered the letters, opening Mother’s first, knowing full well what awaited me. I forced myself to read the words carefully.
Dear Rhennthyl,
I had hoped that we would be able to host a birthday dinner for you this Samedi and perhaps invite Zerlenya or another suitable young lady, if you did not find Zerlenya to your liking. I do hope that you are feeling better, but I cannot help but worry, since we have not heard from you since your last letter. I do hope that we have not done anything to offend you. I had only invited Zerlenya because she is a beautiful and intelligent young woman, and you had mentioned that there were few women at all on Imagisle. . .
I paused in reading, then shook my head.
. . . and you are now reaching the age where it will become more and more difficult to find someone suitable, as the most attractive ones from a suitable background will already have been spoken for. . . .
A suitable background was a polite way of saying someone who was at least from the factoring or full merchant class and most preferably not Pharsi.
. . . That is, of course, a matter with which you must deal, but we were only trying to be helpful.
That was doubtless true, but I didn’t need to be reminded of it.
We would still very much like to have a belated celebration of your twenty-fifth birthday. I do hope that this finds you in good health and that you will let us know when we may expect you or when I may visit you.
The last thing I wanted to do was write a reply, but doing so quickly would reduce the amount of guilt Mother would attempt to lay at my feet. I set aside the still-unopened letter from Seliora and wrote a quick reply to Mother, based on the truth, stating that while I had recovered physically, I was still restricted to Imagisle until certain aspects of my training were completed, but that, if she wished to visit, she was now more than welcome on either Samedi or Solayi afternoons, and should drop me a note to let me know when to expect her, and that I looked forward to seeing her.
Then I finally sat back in my study chair and opened the letter from Seliora.
Dear Rhenn,
At last, we have arrived in Pointe Neimon. The trip was hard for Grandmama, but she is in good spirits. She sends her best to you. So does Shomyr.
We have already toured four textile manufactories, and we have improved arrangements with two. Their fabric is excellent. One other is satisfactory. The other we will not use, but it is good to see what each can do.
I trust that you are well and will be fully recovered and able to leave Imagisle by the time we return. We have tickets on the Express for the fourth of Agostos. Grandmama says that we should invite you to dinner on the fourteenth. If you know that you can come then and let me know, I can write Mother and tell her to plan for it. If you do not know, then we can work out a time once we return to L’Excelsis.
You would find Pointe Neimon refreshing and beautiful. I do wish you could be here, but you must do what you must. I only ask that you take care in your duties, great care.
At the bottom was an address in Pointe Neimon, and, again, the signature was just her name, but the last two words before her signature, and the kiss when we had last parted, suggested far more than friendship.
I smiled. I did have time to write a response.
49
Death always leaves some stories incomplete; and
some are better left so.
Getting up well before dawn on Jeudi was not exactly to my liking, especially with what lay ahead, as much as I knew the necessity. I struggled to Master Dichartyn’s study, early enough that I sat slumped on the bench for a time before he appeared.
“Buck up, Rhennthyl. You’re not the one being executed.”
I jumped to my feet. “It’s early, sir.”
“Every morning’s early.” His voice was dry.
I walked quietly beside him as we made our way to the duty coach, which had drawn up outside the administration building. He said nothing to the black-clad obdurate driver.
Mist rose from the river as we crossed the Bridge of Stones, the hoofs of the two horses clattering on the pavement. The route to the prison was fairly direct-south on the West River Road to the intersection with the Avenue D’Artisans just after it crossed the Sud Bridge, and then more than a mille on the avenue and across the bridge over the ironway tracks, after which the coach turned onto a short street that ended at a gatehouse. Behind the gatehouse rose the gray flint walls of the Poignard Prison.
The duty coach halted by the gatehouse. No sooner had we stepped out onto the ancient cobblestones, damp from the light rain of the evening before, than two men in blue and black uniforms emerged. The one with the four-pointed star on his collars bowed to Master Dichartyn.
“Maitre D’Esprit.”
“Warden . . .”
The warden’s eyes flicked to me, just for a moment, before he and the guard escorted us through the gate and along a windowless stone-walled corridor until we reached an iron door, where another guard turned a black wheel to unlock it. We stepped into a small courtyard. I glanced up. The sky was beginning to lighten, just slightly, but I could still see clearly the reddish crescent that was Erion. At the far side of the courtyard was a scaffold. There were three nooses rigged from an overhead beam.
The warden stepped away, and the guard remained, a pace to one side.
Master Dichartyn leaned toward me and spoke softly. “The man to be executed will be led onto the platform on to one of the traps where there is a noose. He will be hooded and blindfolded. The executioner will put the noose over his head and adjust it properly. Then the executioner will step back. His next move will be to pull the lever to release that trap. As soon as he steps back and puts his hand on the lever, you are to act. If you image properly, the man will die and start to slump, and the executioner will pull the lever. The guilty man will be dead or dying before the noose breaks his neck.