“You’re limping,” Ferlyn observed as I sat down at the masters’ table.
Chassendri slipped into the chair to my left before I replied. “That’s what comes of all those exercises and running on wet stone.”
I managed to look sheepish. “I do have a large bruise from falling.” That was true. I just didn’t say when or where.
“He’s sitting lopsided,” Chassendri affirmed.
“I wouldn’t be in security for anything.” Ferlyn poured some tea and handed me the pot. “Bad things happen to all of you, and there’s never any rest from problems.”
I filled Chassendri’s mug, and then mine. “Is there any rest from problems for any imager? Isn’t it just a choice of which problems we prefer and are suited to handle?”
Chassendri smiled, but only for a moment. “That may be true for us, but what about imagers whose talents don’t match what they prefer?”
“I don’t know that I have that much sympathy.” My words came out more sardonically than I’d intended.
“Oh?” asked Ferlyn.
“I could have been a master portaiturist,” I pointed out. “I didn’t exactly get that choice. We sometimes don’t. We only get to choose among some alternatives.”
Chassendri tilted her head. “That’s true . . . in a way.”
“In what way?” asked Ferlyn.
“Some choices no one gets. We don’t choose where and to whom we’re born. We don’t choose our physical characteristics. But that’s true of everyone. We do get to choose what we do with what we have. Didn’t you have to choose to work with Master Dichartyn, Rhenn?”
“Yes. I’ve already admitted that, but what does that have to do with sympathy?”
“Would you really prefer to work, say, imaging machine parts?”
“No.” That was an easy and obvious admission.
“You had the choice. What about someone like Shannyr, or Sannifyr? They don’t have your abilities and choices.”
I inclined my head. “Your point is well taken and gently made.” At least, she hadn’t out-and-out called me spoiled because I had the ability to be good in two fields and was complaining I hadn’t had much choice when others had none.
“Gently?” Ferlyn raised his eyebrows. “I’d hate to see what she’d do roughly, if that happened to be gentle.”
I laughed softly. “We’d best keep that in mind, then, hadn’t we?” I grinned at Chassendri.
She did smile back.
As I finished breakfast, I couldn’t help asking myself if I were becoming too much like Master Dichartyn, or at least in those characteristics I disliked. Yet . . . there was so much I could tell no one-except Seliora-and I probably wasn’t supposed to tell her. But she and her family could keep secrets. In my family, Khethila was the only one who could, and I didn’t want to burden her.
I had to hurry to the duty coach, but the streets were relatively clear, and I arrived outside the station as the bells were chiming seventh glass. When I stepped inside, both Lyonyt and a fresh-faced patroller who looked to be a good five years younger than I was walked toward me immediately. I didn’t see either Harraf or Warydt. I wasn’t about to go looking for them.
“Good morning, Master Rhennthyl,” offered Lyonyt. “This is Fuast.”
“I’m pleased to meet you, Fuast.” I inclined my head politely.
“I’m happy to meet you, sir.” His voice was young and enthusiastic. I found that bothered me, and at the same time, it disturbed me that it did.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” I offered. “We probably need to be headed out.”
“We should.” Lyonyt’s head bobbed up and down, even as his eyes flicked toward the doors and then back to me.
I ended up leading the way, at least until we were headed east on South Middle, when I dropped back and let Lyonyt explain.
“Best thing to do is circle the round before you start going up and down the cross streets . . . gives you a feel for what might be happening. If there’s trouble, you want to know about it before you get too deep in the taudis, goes for any round you do, but it’s worse here if you don’t know . . .”
When we neared the Temple, unchanged from when we had passed it last on Vendrei, I took a long and careful look. One of the priests was standing on the front steps, and he looked toward us and then away. Had I just imagined the explosion? Except . . . the last flash vision had been the fire at the factorage. We were nearly to the Avenue D’Artisans before Lyonyt stopped to take a breather from his nonstop briefing.
“They said that Third District’s one of the toughest.” Fuast looked sideways to Lyonyt.
“Has some of the tougher rounds, those going through the taudis, anyway. Every district’s got tough rounds, even Fifth District. Just doesn’t have so many.”
I didn’t know, but I suspected that Lyonyt had that correct.
“How many imagers accompany patrollers, Master Rhennthyl?” Fuast asked as we turned southwest on the avenue.
“Not many,” I replied. “At the moment, I’m the only one. I’m the imager liaison to the Civic Patrol, and this is part of my getting to know how the Patrol operates. I’ve spent time in headquarters and watching justice hearings.”
“Ah . . . sir . . .”
I had a good idea what he was thinking. “I’ve had duties like a patroller as an imager, and I’ve been trained in handling weapons and in taking them away from other people.”
Fuast looked to Lyonyt.
“He’s already taken down a taudischef and something like five toughs in less than a month, most of ’em with his bare hands.”
“Oh . . . I’m . . .”
“People think imagers just image. We don’t. There are imagers who are bookkeepers and sailors and machinists and advocates and justices . . . all sorts of jobs. We just do them on Imagisle. I also paint. I was a portraiturist before I was an imager.”
“I didn’t know that, sir,” said Lyonyt.
“I don’t believe I mentioned it.”
Before long, Lyonyt was back to explaining about the round, and where to watch carefully, and about sewer grates and refuse and a hundred odd details. I just listened. Some of it was new to me, probably because Alsoran hadn’t wanted to say much.
The rest of the day was uneventful, too quiet, really.
On the last section of the round as we headed back along South Middle, Lyonyt’s eyes kept surveying the wall on the left as we crossed Mando, then the Temple of Puryon up ahead. He frowned. “Something . . .”
I studied the Temple as well. Then it struck me. “All the shutters are closed. Every last one. They weren’t earlier.”
“I’ve never seen that before . . . except once. Wager that means the scripties are coming. Frig!” Lyonyt shook his head.
“Scripties?” asked Fuast.
“The Navy conscription teams,” I said. “They’re not popular in the taudis.”
“But they go everywhere,” Fuast said.
“There are exemptions for youngsters and young men who are apprentices, or journeymen, or in school,” I replied. “A far greater proportion of the young men in the taudis are day laborers or don’t qualify for exemptions.”
“Most of them don’t,” added Lyonyt. “They don’t like working hard, either. The scripties get pissed when they do a taudis because there’s always trouble. After they leave, there’s more trouble, and a year or two later, when things get settled down, the scripties do it all over again.”
“That’s . . . do they really do that?”
Lyonyt nodded. He didn’t say anything for a block, and that was the longest time he’d gone without speaking on any of the rounds I’d patrolled with him. After we’d passed the Temple, he glanced back, once, then twice. Finally, he shook his head. “Today’s been the quietest I’ve seen it.”
Captain Harraf was nowhere around when we returned to the station. Since he wasn’t, I stepped partway into the lieutenant’s small study. “Lieutenant? Have you heard anything about the conscription teams?”