“The scar?”
“The second one will be across his throat . . . not that anyone would find his body.” Seliora’s words were absolutely matter-of-fact.
“Pharsi treatment of infidelity?”
She shook her head. “Stealing of funds. You don’t steal from family, ever. Infidelity can happen. It’s frowned on, but people are people. Theft is deliberate. You have to think it out, and that’s betrayal.”
Put that way, I definitely understood. I also realized that I didn’t understand Seliora’s family quite so well as I’d thought I did. I smiled wryly.
“Why the smile?” Curiosity and worry lay behind her question.
“I was thinking of Rousel, and how it’s a good thing he’s operating a factorage for my family, rather than a spice brokerage for Remaya’s family.”
“They don’t hold the Pharsi traditions as strongly,” she said.
“I wouldn’t know.”
She smiled, slightly possessively, I thought. “I’m glad.”
I thought about saying something about how she was so much more than Remaya, but decided against it, because the words would have implied the comparison, and comparisons are always odious, especially to a beautiful woman who loved me.
“You should stop by Staelia’s. It’s called Chaelia.”
We talked a bit more, and I could see her yawning. “I should go.”
Abruptly she straightened. “There’s someone outside.”
“We should go down and look.”
Arm in arm, we did, and I looked through the small window to the left of the door casement. “I don’t see anyone, but there’s a hack there.”
“Mother paid him to wait for you.”
“I shouldn’t keep him waiting, then. I’ll be very careful.” I raised my shields even before Seliora opened the door.
The muffled crack of a weapon and the impact against my shields were almost simultaneous, and I couldn’t help but stagger back into Seliora.
“Namer-damned . . .” Who could have been shooting at me? Straight assassination wasn’t what High Holder Ryel would have done. At least, I didn’t think so.
In the distance, I could hear footsteps. Much as I was tempted to give chase, the shooter had too much of a head start, and it could also have been a trap.
“They’ve gone,” Seliora said.
The hacker was looking around.
“I’ll be right there!” I called.
I wasn’t right there, because Seliora and I did need a little time to say good night and good-bye, but the hacker did wait. Betara had obviously paid him well, for which I was glad.
On the drive back to the Bridge of Hopes, I couldn’t help but wonder if High Holder Ryel had changed his mind . . . or if I’d become someone else’s enemy. But whose? I hadn’t done anything to anyone at the Civic Patrol, and all the Ferrans had been taken care of . . . hadn’t they?
Yet whoever it had been had known exactly where I’d be. I frowned. It couldn’t be Ryel. He would have known I had shields. But who?
7
Tired as I was, I woke up on Solayi early enough to see both Artiema and Erion in a semidark sky before I trudged down to shower and shave. I took my time before heading off to the dining hall for breakfast. Even so, the only master there was Heisbyl, another senior and graying Maitre D’Aspect. Caliostrus had done a portrait of his daughter, and from what I recalled, the daughter did not look much like her father, except for the hazel eyes. Caliostrus had painted her eyes as warm, but Heisbyl’s were flat. Given the tendency of my late portraiturist master to flatter his subjects, I would have wagered that her eyes were like her father’s.
“Good morning, Rhenn.” He shook his head. “To be young again, like you, and able to greet gray mornings early and cheerfully.”
“Early,” I replied. “Not always cheerfully.”
“When you get to be my age, you’ll look back on them and think they were cheerful.”
That was a truly frightening thought, but I didn’t say so. Instead, I just smiled and passed the teapot to him. “You have the duty today.”
“Why else would I be here? And you?”
“I discovered I had a few things on my mind.”
“Most of you who report to Dichartyn seem to. It’s not something I’d wish to do. Running the armory workshops is far more to my taste.”
“To each his own.” I took a swallow of the tea before I started eating, but I couldn’t see why supervising the armory production was any less disturbing than covert operations, except that we occasionally had to kill people directly, and what he did resulted in killing far greater numbers of people-just far less directly.
After breakfast I went to the library once more. I had another set of ideas I wanted to try out. Rather than look directly for High Holder Ryel or for books on High Holders, I decided to see what there was on laws dealing with land transfers, or anything on land holdings, or material on the original compact.
All in all, I spent more than two glasses tracking down one piece of information and then another. I did discover that a High Holder had to pass a minimum of four-fifths of his holdings on to his heir-unless the total of the lands to be received were greater in size than the average of all High Holdings, in which case the inheritance merely had to exceed the average. I supposed that meant a truly massive High Holding could actually be split among two or three heirs. The heir was first the oldest son, then other sons in birth order-but could be a nephew or a grandson. The only way a woman could inherit was if there were no male descendants, and no blood nephews, and her husband had to take the family name. That did create some interesting speculation about Junaie D’Shendael. If the four-fifths requirement could not be met from the estate itself, unless the putative heir could purchase or otherwise provide evidence of lands and assets sufficient to add to the inherited holding to meet that requirement, the High Holding was registered as dissolved.
The last point was that any High Holder had the right to override a purchase agreement for lands sold to a non-High Holder by registering such an override, but the High Holder undertaking the override had to pay fifteen percent above the original purchase price, and one-third of the fifteen percent went to whoever had contracted to buy the lands, and ten percent went to the seller, usually to the heirs who were no longer High Holders.
I did find out, through some obscure footnotes, the general location and extent of the holdings of the Ryel family-and the name passed with the lands to the heir, so that Dulyk would become High Holder Ryel with the death of his father. The Ryel familial lands lay some hundred odd milles almost due north of L’Excelsis and ran from the edge of Rivages to well beyond Cleville to the east. The holding had to be more than fifty milles east to west, but I couldn’t determine how far north and south it ran. Ryel’s colors were black and silver, and I knew I’d seen them somewhere, but couldn’t remember when or where. Certainly, Iryela hadn’t worn black, though I did recall silver.
As a result of my absorption in the library, I missed lunch, but that was not a burden, since I wasn’t that hungry. Close to the first glass of the afternoon, I crossed the Bridge of Desires and hired a hack to take me to see Seliora. I hadn’t said I was coming, but she was usually there on Solayi, and I wanted to see if she had any thoughts on who had shot at me on Samedi night.
Seliora was home. In fact, she was the one who answered the door. Once I was in the foyer, she did kiss me warmly before she escorted me up to the main entry hall. She wore simple dark blue trousers, a wide leather belt, a severe tan shirt, and a soft leather jacket.
“I’m glad you came now, rather than later. I wouldn’t have been here.”
“You have to go somewhere? Now?”
“In a half glass or so.” She shook her head. “We don’t usually work on Solayi, but one of our longtime clients has decided that his salon needs to be redone before his daughter’s wedding at the end of Feuillyt. That’s only eight weeks from now, and we have to meet with him and his wife today because they’re leaving for Nacliano on Lundi.”