“You’re almost convincing, Commander.”
“Lady … I am not trying to convince. I am telling you what we did … and did not do. You can ask anyone, and if they are honest, they will tell you what I have told you. Whether you believe me or not depends not upon the truth of what I have said, but upon whether you wish to consider what I have said based upon facts or whether you wish to believe what you will based upon what you wish.”
“You sound more like a scholar than the commander with the bloodiest hands in the history of Lydar.”
“In fact, I’m both. I was a scholar until Bhayar’s commanders made me an officer.”
“Father always said that scholars were the most ruthless of men.”
“He was likely correct.”
Rhella shook her head. “How can you be so matter-of-fact? Tens of thousands of men died.”
“As I said earlier … tens of thousands of men were doomed to die once Rex Kharst ordered the attacks on Ferravyl. That was not the question. The question was only which men and under what circumstances.”
“But you … you executed them.”
“I’ve seen men maimed. I’ve seen a young imager with his body so bruised and crushed that he died in agony. I’ve been wounded as well. The men I killed died quickly, and they did not suffer, and I have to believe that far fewer died than if I had not acted.”
“I imagine you do have to believe that. How else could you live with yourself?”
“That doesn’t make it less true, Lady.” Quaeryt image-projected a gentle sense of truth and assurance, as well as a hint of the agony he had felt when trapped in his own mind after the battle.
Rhella paled, then swallowed. “You … can project that … and you feel it?”
“More than that,” he replied. “I am not without feelings, no matter what you may think.” He offered a rueful smile, then rose. “I will not take more of your time. You know your sister is well. You can certainly write her in care of the governor at the Telaryn Palace in Tilbora.”
Rhella stood, slowly. “This has been a … a most interesting visit.”
“If you would convey what I told you to your father.”
“Where could he find you?”
“The Ministry of Administration at the Chateau Regis … unless I’ve been dispatched elsewhere by Lord Bhayar, but if I am gone, Lady Vaelora will be there as minister. I do serve at his pleasure.” He inclined his head. “Good day, Lady.”
“Good day, Commander.”
Quaeryt thought her voice was less imperious and icy. But is that just what you want to think? As he walked from the study toward the entry hall, and his mount outside, he couldn’t help but wonder.
31
By the time Quaeryt returned to the Chateau Regis and stabled the gelding, then walked up to his and Vaelora’s chambers, it was slightly past second glass. He found Vaelora in the sitting room reading.
“What are you reading?”
“The most recent history of Bovaria that I could find.” She closed the book and set it on the side table. “Was Taelmyn there? How did matters go?”
“He wasn’t there, but Lady Rhella was. She was less than enthusiastic about my presence or my past actions.…” Quaeryt went on to recount the conversation, word for word, as well as he could recall it. “She seemed slightly less imperious, just slightly, when I left.”
“Few who have not been in your boots, dearest, will ever understand. They will only look at the numbers slain in a single battle and ask why it could not have been different. Most will fail to understand that a long war has a far greater toll, both on those who fight and on those on whose lands battle after battle are fought. Little you or I can say will change that. Those who advocate restraint or mercy against a ruler who has attacked without provocation and who has terrorized his own people understand neither rulers nor war.”
“That may be. It was almost as though my telling her that her sister was alive happened to be some sort of imposition.”
“It may be. Perhaps the ‘honorable’ thing for Eluisa to do was to slash her wrists in her bath or throw herself in the Aluse and drown. Or perhaps Eluisa’s flight in some way disgraced Rhella … or she feels that it did.”
“I hadn’t thought of that, but I did give her the address where she could write Eluisa, if she chooses.”
“You did what you could. She didn’t know any more about Kharst’s imagers?”
“She said she didn’t, and I don’t think she does.”
“The three evil ones … That almost sounds like Kharst never had any more than three dedicated to his personal … uses. Not recently, anyway.”
“That may be, but I don’t like the idea of three imagers that powerful remaining hidden in Bovaria … or anywhere in Lydar, for that matter.”
“They wouldn’t have fled to Khel,” Vaelora pointed out.
“No. I’d guess that they’re somewhere in Bovaria, likely in the north or northeast, and most likely as guests of a High Holder, who may not even want them as guests. I’d wager that the three are together for mutual protection.”
“The same idea you have for the Collegium, but with a less worthy end.”
“That bothers me. We might have to visit hundreds of High Holders…” Quaeryt paused, then asked, “Have you and the clerks been able to come up with any listing of High Holders? Do you have any idea how many there are in Bovaria?”
“We have a partial list and there are almost four hundred, but some of those may have run afoul of Kharst for all we know.”
“Do you know how many there are in Telaryn?”
“Father once said that there were more than six hundred in Telaryn, but some were barely that. Why?”
“I was just wondering how many the imagers might have to deal with … assuming we can make the Collegium work.”
“Too many,” said Vaelora with a laugh.
Quaeryt nodded. “The other thing she mentioned was the use of lead to protect senior officers against imaging. They must have worried that Kharst would use imagers against them.”
“I’m surprised that Kharst’s imagers survived, if he used them as assassins and destroyers.”
“I wonder if all of them did. Rhella said no one knew their names. He could have had more than three so that if one of them were killed-”
“Or failed.”
“With no one knowing their names … they could be anywhere, even somewhere here in Variana.”
“That’s why you need to hold your shields at all times, dearest.”
“At almost all times,” Quaeryt quipped back.
“All times when you’re out of the chateau and even those times when you’re in groups here in the chateau.”
“Almost like a prisoner.”
“That’s why you need Imagisle. Why I need Imagisle. I want you around for a long time.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” Quaeryt glanced toward the window. “I wonder if we should line the bedchambers of the imagers with lead … at Imagisle, I mean.”
“Because other imagers might image in their sleep?”
“That was my thought.”
“Wouldn’t lead be hard to image in place?”
“It might be possible, so long as they were imaging from outside, but we’d have to be very careful. We might even have to have lead ore carted to Imagisle.” He shook his head. “That part of things will have to wait for a time. Bhayar still doesn’t have full control over Bovaria. Rather, we don’t know if he does, and we won’t until we know more about what’s happening with Myskyl.”
“Do you honestly think that Myskyl and Deucalon are planning to overthrow Bhayar?”
“I worry that they’re trying to set up matters so that they could, if everything goes well for them, but that there will be no traces of what they plan if matters don’t. That way, they can always be the perfect obedient marshal and submarshal, just carrying out orders.”
“What about the dispatches-the ones Bhayar hasn’t received?”
“I’d wager that Bhayar never directly ordered them to report. There is also a faint possibility that the couriers are being waylaid and killed by Bovarians.”