“Wizards?” Sistrin laughed heartily. “That’d be unnatural science, then would it?”
Did I feel an unusual disapproval chill the air at the mention of wizards? Den Hefeken’s face was a well-bred blank but Palbere was scowling
Camarl continued, unconcerned. “I’d prefer my cousins learned their lessons alongside your nephews, Sistrin, rather than see schools divided by rank or trade. They’ll pick up some understanding of your glass trade, and shared knowledge is always a road to common prosperity.”
Palbere sipped at a steaming tisane. “Talking of roads, is it true D’Olbriot plans on digging a canal to cut the loop of the Nyme around Feverad? Will you be bringing wizards in to do the work of honest labourers there?”
“Feverad merchants first mooted the plan,” said Camarl cautiously. “They’ve suggested D’Olbriot might care to back the project and magical assistance makes such tasks considerably faster and safer.”
“So you’ll be taking the revenues off the rest of us when it’s built?” Den Hefeken asked with careful neutrality.
“If it’s built, and surely we’d be entitled to recoup our outlay?” Camarl looked at each man in turn. “Of course, those costs would be considerably reduced by employing wizards’ skills.”
Sistrin drew breath on some further argument but Camarl raised an apologetic hand. “Forgive me gentlemen, I have a guest with me today. May I make known Ryshad Tathel, stone mason of Zyoutessela.”
Several nearby heads turned away from their conversations to note my name and I smiled as benignly as I could.
“Are you sponsoring him to the society?” Sistrin asked belligerently.
“If he decides it’s for him,” smiled Camarl before drawing me politely away.
“That’s one man won’t leave you wondering about his opinions,” I commented in a low voice.
“Which makes him very useful, because what he says ten men more discreet are thinking,” agreed Camarl. “And he’s usually first with any hint of scandal, while Palbere has a nose for business second to none.”
“Do you do anything even vaguely connected to art here?” I grinned.
“Over here.” Camarl kept pausing to greet people but we finally edged our way through to the far end of the room, where tables in the better light under the windows were covered with books of engravings and single sheets of inked and coloured paper. “Boudoir art is over there,” indicated Camarl with a smile, “next to the satires and lampoons. We pride ourselves on being an open-minded society.”
Both artwork and model would doubtless be a considerable improvement on the grubby woodcuts that circulated round the barracks but neither interested me when all I had to do was shut my eyes and think of Livak. I picked up a small portfolio. “Plants of the Dalasor Grasslands?” I opened it on a beautifully detailed painting of a yellow heather.
“Several of our members are natural philosophers,” nodded Camarl. “And as a mason, you might be interested in the architectural drawings over there.”
“Esquire, might I have a word?” A long-faced elder with depressed dewlaps framing a downturned mouth appeared at Camarl’s shoulder. “Master Ganalt, of course.”
I noted the old man wore the silver-leaf collar of a shrine fraternity, something you don’t see so often these days.
“It’s the shrine to Talagrin on the Solland road,” Ganalt began after a hesitant glance at me. “It’s on Den Bradile land and the priesthood’s in their family, naturally, but the local people have always been faithful to the Hunter—” The old man fell silent.
“Is there some problem?” prompted Camarl.
“There’s rumour Den Bradile intend making it a private cinerarium, even planning to removing urns already consecrated there unless they’re linked to the Name in some way.” He lifted an unconscious hand to his silver rowan leaves, emblem of the Lord of the Forest. “We might use our funds to build another shrine, but we’re pledged to helping the poor…” He broke off with another dubious look at me.
“Excuse me, Esquire, I’d like to look at some of those plans you mentioned.” I nodded as much of a bow as I could in the confined space and slid past two men chuckling over a vivid satire. The architectural drawings included a series of maze designs, something increasingly fashionable in recent years, and I studied them with interest.
“The trick is matching suitable mathematical complexity with the tenets of Rationalism,” commented a man coming to stand next to me.
“And finding shrubs that grow fast enough to make a maze worth having before the whole thing goes out of fashion?” I suggested.
“There’s that,” he agreed. “Which is why this year’s innovation is patterns laid out in bricks between little raised banks. I believe a Den Haurient gardener suggested it but the Rationalists will tell you it’s so the logic of the whole can be better appreciated by seeing the whole design.”
I laughed, picking up an interesting perspective on new alterations to an old frontage.
“I hear you’re a mason?” remarked my new companion. “From the south?”
“Zyoutessela,” I kept my tone as casual as his.
“Is there plenty of work?” he asked with interest.
“The city’s thrice the size it was in my grandsire’s day,” I nodded. “He hired himself from site to site with little more than a bag of tools and rock-hard determination to better himself. When he died, he left my father a sizeable yard and me and now my brothers work three sites.”
“They say a good block of stone rings like a bell,” remarked my would-be acquaintance with studied idleness.
“If you strike it right, and there’s a tang to fine stone, like rotten eggs.” Hansey and Ridner were welcome to all the smells, the dust, the noise and headaches that went with the trade.
“Redvar Harl, Master Carpenter.” He bowed and I returned the courtesy. “I saw you arrive with Esquire Camarl? Are you D’Olbriot tenants?”
He was very interested in me for a complete stranger but I didn’t think he was about to stab me in an entire room of witnesses. “We are.”
“There must be all manner of opportunities in the south, what with D’Olbriot sponsoring this colony overseas,” my new friend mused.
“It offers some intriguing possibilities,” I said in neutral tones.
My companion stared out of the window. “D’Olbriot will want to do the best for their tenants, but if this land’s as big as rumour has it Esquire Camarl might do well to think in rather broader terms.”
I nodded silent encouragement.
“I’m from Solland. I take it you’ve heard about the fighting in Parnilesse, after the old Duke’s death?”
It wasn’t hard to see my next step in this dance. “Down in the south, we don’t hear that much about border matters.”
“D’Olbriot has holdings around Solland, so the Sieur will be fully aware of the Lescari land question.” Master Harl turned to look intently at me. “The Lescari still cling to their foolish system of all land going to the eldest born. Then they breed like the rabbits that infest their hills, whelping useless younger sons left landless and looking for a quarrel. Poldrion knows how much grief could be saved if those surplus spawn could be shipped across the ocean, to make their way in a new land by their own efforts.”
“That’s an interesting notion,” I said slowly. “I’d be interested to know what Esquire Camarl might make of it.” I could guess Temar’s reaction.
Master Harl’s eyes shifted to a point behind my shoulder.
“Excuse me, there’s someone I must wish a Fair Festival.”
I turned to see whom he meant but Camarl stepped into my line of sight, a carefully constructed expression of amusement on his face. “Now, Ryshad, what do you make of this?”
He handed me a crisp sheet of paper printed with a hand-coloured satire. A wedding carriage was being drawn through the streets of Toremal by the D’Olbriot lynx on the one hand and the Tor Tadriol bull on the other. This wasn’t the robust “ animal of the Emperor’s badge but a sickly calf with a foolish expression and comical spotted hide. The high-stepping lynx topped it by a head, looking down with avid eyes and sharp teeth exposed in a hungry smile. The Emperor himself was in the carriage, an unexceptional portrait but plainly recognisable. I tapped the face of the girl beside him, a vapid beauty with an unfeasibly large bosom. “Is this anyone I should know?”