She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, but briefly, and with a certain stiffness. Then he helped her into the coach and followed. I couldn’t help but wonder not only who the imager was, but how he’d managed to have a lady friend so clearly wealthy. Perhaps there was more appeal to being an imager than I’d realized.
22
Those who do not understand imaging assume that
any rule of the world can be circumvented or changed
with enough skill; that is so erroneous that it cannot
even be termed wrong.
On Jeudi, the thirty-third of Maris, at the end of breakfast, when I’d been at the Collegium for over three weeks, Master Poincaryt stood and announced, “All members of the Collegium, except those with specific exceptions from me, will assemble in the gallery of the hearing room of the Justice Building at the eighth glass this morning.” Then he sat down.
“That’s trouble for someone,” murmured Etyen.
“More than trouble,” added Thenard.
According to the Manual, hearings were mandated only for serious offenses against the Council or the Collegium, but there was nothing written that indicated that the hearings were public and that all imagers were required to attend.
“Do you know who it is or what they did?” I asked.
“No,” said someone down the table. “We only find out at the hearing.”
If you did something against the Collegium, could someone just appear with guards or whatever and whisk you off to a cell and a hearing? Could they do that to me, for imaging the explosion that killed Master Caliostrus and Ostrius? I tried not to shiver, and instead looked down at the remnants of the egg-fried toast on my platter.
I slowly finished them, as well as my tea, then made my way to Master Dichartyn’s study, where I sat on the bench in the hall and began to leaf through the manual.
“Rhennthyl?” Gherard stood in the middle of the corridor. “Master Dichartyn is preparing for the hearing. He asked me to tell you to read the eighth section of Natural Science and the first section of Practical Philosophy. He will see you tomorrow morning.”
I went back to my room and struggled through five pages of the philosophy book before making my way out into the misty fog that covered the quadrangle and then to the Justice Building. The gallery consisted of wooden high-backed benches set on tiers that rose behind a low wall that separated the hearing area from the gallery. The benches flanked a central set of steps, coming down from the upper entry on the second level of the building. The lower level was very simple. At the east end was a dais a yard high, and from the middle rose a solid black desk with a high-backed chair behind it. The floor was of seamless stone, but a walkway of black stone, seemingly with no joins separating it from the gray stone around it, ran from the archway at the west end of the chamber to the foot of the dais. At the end of the dais, above where the black stone ended, was a black railing two yards long, supported at each end by black posts.
By the time all the imagers had filed in, the gallery was close to filled. From my best count, there were close to two hundred imagers there, ranging from primes just out of grammaire to graying masters.
“Is this most of the Collegium?” I looked toward Thenard, seated on my right.
He shrugged. “This is only the third hearing I’ve been to. That’s in two years. There have been about the same number at each hearing.”
Outside, the bells began to ring the glass.
“All rise.” The words came from a dark-haired master standing by the west-end archway facing the dais.
As we stood, the justice-or hearing officer-walked in and then settled himself behind the desk on the high dais. He wore a long gray robe, like the Council justices, except his was trimmed in both black and red, instead of just black.
“You may be seated,” announced the bailiff. “Floryn, Imager Tertius, step forward to the bar.”
Floryn didn’t have much choice about stepping forward. His hands were manacled behind him, and a thick black blindfold covered his eyes. Two large obdurates in black escorted him forward until he stood before the black railing. I wondered about the blindfold, but only for a moment. It would be hard to image anything if you couldn’t see, and the position of the manacles prevented him from lifting his hands to remove the blindfold.
“Who stands to defend the accused?” asked the justice.
“I do.” Master Dichartyn stepped forward and stood beside the small table on the right, facing the dais.
“Who presents the case for the Collegium against the accused?”
“I do.” The thin blond man who stepped up to the table on the left was a man I’d seen at meals, seated at the masters’ table, but whom I did not know.
“State the charges against the accused.”
“The accused faces three charges. The first charge is that of counterfeiting the coin of Solidar, to wit, by imaging a gold crown that was not pure gold and by attempting to use such to purchase goods. The second charge is that of employing imaging to obstruct a civic patroller in the course of his duties. The third charge is that of attempted murder in the use of imaging against a master of the Collegium.”
After the reading of the third charge, I could hear several indrawn breaths, particularly from a row of thirds seated below us.
“How does the accused plead? Guilty, Not Guilty, No Plea, or For Mercy?”
“For Mercy, Your Honor,” offered Master Dichartyn.
The justice looked directly at Floryn. “Floryn, your defender has offered a plea of For Mercy. Do you accept that plea?”
“Yes, sir.”
Even I could sense the defeat and resignation behind those two words.
“Seat the accused.”
The two guards led Floryn to the table on the right of the chamber, behind which were two chairs. After they seated him in the one away from the black stone walkway, they took position behind him, while Master Dichartyn seated himself in the other chair.
“Proceed, Advocate for the Collegium,” stated the justice.
The blond master nodded to the bailiff, who announced, “Sandyal, Imager Tertius, to the bar.”
A lanky and sandy-haired imager who looked to be close to my age walked from the west archway forward to the bar.
“Sandyal,” began the justice, “do you understand that you are required to tell the whole truth, and that your words must not deceive, either by elaboration or omission?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Proceed.”
“Sandyal,” began the Collegium advocate, “you had a conversation with Floryn on Solayi, the twenty-ninth of Maris. Would you please recount what Floryn said he was going to do?”
“Yes, sir. We had the afternoon off. We had to be back for chapel, but the afternoon was ours, and Floryn said that he wanted to have some spiced wine and pastries at Naranje. I told him that I didn’t have enough coin, and he said that he’d take care of whatever we bought. . . .”
Sandyal must have recounted every detail of the afternoon, and it took more than half a glass, but the gist was that Floryn didn’t have any coin and that he imaged a gold. The serving girl thought it felt wrong and put it in a water-tester. It came up false. She told the owner of the patisserie, and he summoned the patrollers. Because she had also said that it came from a young imager, they summoned the duty master. The summons didn’t reach the master before a patroller arrived. Floryn realized something was wrong and ran out of the patisserie. The patroller followed, and Floryn imaged something that tripped the patroller.”