L. E. Modesitt - Imager

743 A.L.

Commerce weighs value, yet such weight is but an
image, and, as

such, is an illusion.

The bell announcing dinner rang twice, just twice, and no more, for it never did. Rousel leapt up from his table desk in the sitting room that adjoined our bedchambers, disarraying the stack of papers that represented a composition doubtless due in the morning. Im starved.

Youre not. Youre merely hungry, I pointed out, carefully placing a paperweight over the work on my table desk. Starved means great physical deprivation and lack of nourishment. We dont suffer either.

I feel starved. Stop being such a pedant, Rhenn. The heels of his shoes clattered on the back stairs leading down to the pantry off the dining chamber.

Two weeks ago, Rousel couldnt even have pronounced pedant, but hed heard Master Sesiphus use it, and now he applied it to me as often as he could. Younger brothers were worse than vermin, because one could squash vermin and then bathe, something one could not do with younger brothers. With some fortune, since Father would really have preferred that I follow him as a factor but had acknowledged that I had little interest, Id be out of the house before Culthyn was old enough to leave the nursery and eat with us. As for Khethila, she was almost old enough, but she was quiet and thoughtful. She liked it when I read to her, even things like my history assignments about people like Rex Regis or Rex Defou. Rousel had never liked my reading to him, but then, hed never much cared for anything I did.

By the time I reached the dining chamber, Father was walking through the archway from the parlor where he always had a single goblet of red wineusually Dhuensabefore dinner. Mother was standing behind the chair at the other end of the oval table. I slipped behind my chair, on Fathers right. Rousel grinned at me, then cleared his face.

Promptness! Thats what I like. A time and a place for everything, and everything in its time and place. Father cleared his throat, then set his near-empty goblet on the table and placed his hands on the back of the armed chair that was his.

For the grace and warmth from above, for the bounty of the earth below, for all the grace of the world and beyond, for your justice, and for your manifold and great mercies, we offer our thanks and gratitude, both now and evermore, in the spirit of that which cannot be named or imaged.

In peace and harmony, we all chorused, although I had my doubts about the presence and viability of either, even in LExcelsis, crown city and capital of Solidar.

Father settled into his chair at the end of the table with a contented sigh, and a glance at Mother. Thank you, dear. Roast lamb, one of my favorites, and you had Riesela fix it just the way I prefer it.

If Mother had told the cook to fix lamb any other way, we all would have been treated to a long lecture on the glories of crisped roast lamb and the inadequacies of other preparations.

After pouring a heavier red wine into his goblet and then into Mothers, Father placed the carafe before me. I took about a third of a goblet, because that was what hed declared as appropriate for me, and poured a quarter for Rousel.

When Father finished carving and serving, Mother passed the rice casserole and the pickled beets. I took as little as I could of the beets.

How was your day, dear? asked Mother.

Oh... the same as any other, I suppose. The Phlanysh wool is softer than last year, and that means that Wurys will complain. Last year he said it was too stringy and tough, and that hed have to interweave with the Norinygan... and the finished Extelan gray is too light... But then hes half Pharsi, and they quibble about everything.

Mother nodded. Theyre different. They work hard. You cant complain about that, but theyre not our type.