“That tells me that you have the best interests of Cyador at heart. You and the fourth magus.” Rynst’s words are low, careful.
“Is that why you watch the overcaptain in Biehl?” asks Chyenfel. “Do you think the son shares the honesty of the father?”
“He is more honest than most. Perhaps more honest than his peer Rustyl.” Rynst smiles, watching for a reaction he does not get. “The overcaptain has begun to rebuild the garrison and the compound, without a word from me.”
“He will face difficulties with the enumerators Bluoyal has suborned,” suggests Chyenfel. “And with the golds our Merchanter Advisor does not receive.”
“The senior enumerator has vanished, as I am certain you already know,” Rynst points out. “And the overcaptain trains new lancers with his full payroll-or so I have heard.”
“Bluoyal and the Emperor will not question such a ‘disappearance’?”
“The Emperor may not discover such for a time, unless Bluoyal tells him or his consort, and that would lead to questions Bluoyal would best wish to avoid,” replies Rynst.
“Yet you would let the overcaptain train his own Mirror Lancers? Would he dream of being…?”
“He is young.”
“That did not halt Alyiakal, as I recall.”
“I think the overcaptain is not cast from that mold, but we shall see. Biehl provides a safe…distance for observation.”
“And from Cyad,” suggests Chyenfel.
“Have you not done the same with Rustyl?” asks Rynst.
“Like a good lancer officer, a good adept must see and do much throughout Cyador,” replies Chyenfel. “Your overcaptain has seen little but fighting, and there is more to Cyador than fighting outlanders.”
“And more than manipulating chaos,” Rynst says smoothly. “He will learn trade in Biehl, as you well know.”
“You’d best find him a consort,” suggests Chyenfel.
“Although little has been said,” says Rynst with a smile, “you know, as do I, that he has already found one. Not that he will he have much leisure to enjoy such, with what he attempts.”
“He is young,” observes the First Magus, his eyes flicking to the harbor. “Very young, even for his years.”
“You worry about his consort, though he is but a lancer?” Rynst watches the First Magus.
“Since he is a lancer, the worries are yours.” Chyenfel’s voice is firm and certain. He smiles. “You are rather fickle, are you not, Rynst? I thought that your favorite was the majer in Assyadt, the one your Captain-Commander has cultivated and placed so carefully.”
“In the Mirror Lancers, an officer faces far more dangers. One must develop many successors. Then…one may survive who has the training and the talents. As you pointed out, not all of those possible successors have the same patrons or goals.” Rynst closes his mouth as the rear doors of the chamber open and as Bluoyal hurries toward them to wait for the arrival of the Emperor and his consort.
XXII
Lorn sits at the desk in his personal quarters, looking down at the glass as he has done so many evenings before. It has been nearly an eightday since the Sligan vessel ported and departed, and but a single coaster has shown up since-and no larger vessels.
Still…it will take time for the word to spread, and longer yet for masters and traders to take risks, for they tend to trust little that is not certain. Lorn frowns, thinking about trust. In the end, is trade based as much upon trust as the value of the goods? He laughs. Another simple question with a simple answer. Of course it is, for no trader can verify in advance the true value of all goods. They may be poorly made within; or good grain may surround poor, good cotton be wrapped over that of lesser quality.
With a deeper breath, Lorn looks back down at the glass, concentrating and seeking Baryat yet again.
When the silver mists swirl and part, the image shows the grower talking to a tall and thin man wearing gray and a black leather vest, who holds a bow. Lorn frowns. Archers-good archers-can kill without being visible.
Lorn understands the grower’s concern or anger, but he wonders again how much is grief over a missing daughter and how much is anger and fear over the loss of golds and possible discovery of past bribes. While Lorn remains troubled over the woman’s death, he has seen enough to know that all too many in Cyador do not value daughters over golds. Even that observation troubles him, true as he knows it to be.
Lorn’s eyes drop as he considers the trade laws of Cyador that Baryat has already violated. It has taken Lorn almost the entire eightday to read the copy of the tariffs and laws he has borrowed from Neabyl and to find the sections which apply to Baryat. Those laws are most clear. One who bribes an enumerator can lose all his lands, and his life. Lorn’s problem is simple, however. He cannot prove such bribery, nor who bribed whom. The reaction of the Sligan ship master, however, was yet another confirmation of Flutak’s corruption.
As for the grower Baryat, Lorn may be able to prove that Baryat has hired a mercenary to kill him-a different offense, and also punished by death.
Finally, he shrugs. Tomorrow, he will act. There is little he can do at the moment that would further what he intends.
He takes a sip of the water in the mug, then shifts the larger sheets of paper so they are beside his right hand before he refocuses his concentration upon the chaos-glass once more.
When the image-that of a farm valley with a road along the ridge to the west-appears, Lorn looks from the image in the glass to the paper beside him on the quarters’ desk, slowly drawing in the course of the stream, and the position of the hamlet that lies a good hundred kays west of Jera, nearly on the edge of the Hills of Endless Grass.
In nearly five eightdays of working with the glass daily-mainly in the evenings, he has developed both a series of maps, and a growing concern about the barbarian depredations. There are no Mirror Lancer outposts along the northwest coast of Cyador-not west of Biehl, in any case. Inividra is the closest main outpost to Biehl, and it lies a good two hundred kays east-southeast of Lorn’s compound.
In the recent past, the Jeranyi barbarian attacks have been directed more at those sections of Cyador where the Grass Hills are narrow and more passable. The very ruggedness of that part of the Grass Hills that lies east of Biehl has been protection enough-that, and the fact that there is even less for raiders to seize that is close to the Grass Hills.
Lorn pushes away those thoughts for the moment, and concentrates on transferring what he is seeing to the map he is creating.
When the knives begin to jab into his eyes once more, he sets aside the glass, and stands, pacing around the small study of his quarters. As time has passed, he has become more adept, and can use the glass longer, but the end result is always the same. Or is that because he pushes until he reaches that point?
He pauses in his pacing to take yet another sip from the mug.
XXIII
In the early morning light that fills the commander’s study, as he waits for Helkyt to appear, Lorn reads through the Emperor’s Code once more-the lines of the tariff and administrative laws. He shakes his head in wonderment. While he had known that Juist had acted as a justicer for the communities north of the Accursed Forest, he had not realized that the Emperor’s Code bestowed that right upon the senior Mirror Lancer officer in any district. And Lorn is the senior-and only officer-within two hundred kays.
Could he have used the Code against Flutak? Hardly, because he would have needed hard evidence of the kind he didn’t have, and wouldn’t have had, assuming he had survived Flutak’s attempts to kill him, since Lorn had no doubts that Flutak would have stopped with one attempt.