quester amongst the flowers 5

 

Chapter 5

 

Had Kiliana not been getting used to the palaces of Araklion, she would have described the apartment as ‘palatial.’  As it was, she considered it adequate for Quester’s status. She looked into every room, and agreed, on the whole, with the dispositions Hunter had made of the occupants.

“I can’t find a kitchen,” she said.

“Oh! That’s in the servants’ quarters,” said Hunter. “The Justiciar won’t be needing it, will he?”

“Yes,” said Kiliana. “I like to cook, and the Lord Justiciar needs to have a constant stream of coffee the way Burdock makes it.   As you have assigned Purity and Burdock separate rooms, you can have her bed moved in next to his, and turn her room into a kitchen.”

“I don’t take orders from you!” flared Hunter.

“Yes, you do,” said Burdock. “I’ll move Purity’s stuff and you can see about ordering a stove and a table and having them installed.”

“But it’s not a designated cooking area according to the lease....”

“Then just write it in,” said Kiliana. “You’re supposed to be a trainee Justiciar; you should know how important it is for a Justiciar to have people he knows and trusts making his meals. How can you guarantee this servant couple don’t have relatives held to hostage to make them poison Leo? Are you really that naive?”

Hunter was outraged, and went in search of Quester.

“Do I have to take orders from that chit of a girl and from a... an Ogroid?” he demanded.

Quester regarded him.

“What was requested of you?” he asked.

“That the Unchosen be put in the Ogroid’s bedroom to sleep and to get kitchen equipment for her room!” he said.

“That seems a sensible away around the dilemma if there is no kitchen, and neither Kiliana nor Burdock would ask you to facilitate such a thing if there was a kitchen, would they?” asked Quester.

“But... but it’s not a designated cooking area, and... and I am not some servant to be ordered around by your servants, by rights, they should do as I say!” said Hunter.

“Oh, dear, I did think you were getting somewhere,” said Quester, disappointed.  “I leave my family to sort out things in their own sphere of capability. Burdock and Kiliana will be spending the evening choosing groceries for the new kitchen which you will be having installed. That requires a stove, cooking surfaces, a table to sit around, storage cupboards, and a refrigerator-freezer unit. That’s not too difficult for you, is it?”

“No, of course not!”

“Then I fail to see the problem.”

“I’m a Justiciar! They are only....”

Quester’s anger lashed across the younger man’s naked mind almost like a slap directly to his ego.

“They are my family. You are a semi-trained boy, not a Justiciar but a junior-Justiciar, which is a polite way of saying ‘trainee.’ You may be better versed in the law than they are, even better educated, but you do not know me, or my ways, or that having once been poisoned, I take it seriously to have my food prepared by someone I trust, should I fail to trust the servants who come with the apartment and are not people I know.  I may come to trust them.  I may come to trust you. But as things stand, yes, you take orders over my comfort and safety from my left hand and from my security specialist. Is that pellucidly clear?”

“I... I resent being treated less then a little girl and a biomonster.”

“You’re fired,” said Quester. “You are too full of yourself and too like that idiot, Aquila! I have been giving you the benefit of the doubt in permitting you to get on with the job, as a junior must be able to do, but I am not pleased that you failed to heed my warning when you first came to us that you must fit in with my team, which I have built for the increase of my efficacy. Having you sniping at Kiliana, who is about to take an extremely dangerous undercover role, is going to damage her efficacy, especially if she contacts the office and you are the one on duty and she cannot guarantee that you will jump to providing her with what she needs immediately and without question.  And I refuse to work with anyone who can refer to a semihuman by that disgusting epithet. As you refer to Purity as ‘the Unchosen,’ presumably you think of her by the same epithet, and possibly even the Highbred too; and I will be writing a report to Judiciary central recommending you for psychological evaluation, and examination for casual heresy of those who disparage the Blessed Abe’s design. I cannot have a semiphobic on my team. You may sleep here overnight, and make organising a kitchen fitting your final task; and you had better not skimp. Good night.”

 

oOoOo

 

Hunter was tight-lipped. He undertook the task of ordering a kitchen, however, and then took himself to bed. Being recommended for psychological evaluation was an almost certain bar on him becoming a full Justiciar; there could be no bad mark on the purity of a Justiciar’s psyche. He would be condemned to being a jurisprudentor, a lictor, or a family law expert.

He cried himself to sleep, still resentful that someone who had been through the academy should be valued less than a little girl and a monster, still unaware that his perceptions were what troubled the man he had idolised.

Quester prayed long to the god-hero, and constructed a careful report in which he praised Hunter’s use of initiative, but noted that someone had missed his tendency to semiphobia, and suggested that therapy was needed and re-evaluation by a high-grade Psion to determine if he should continue as a Justiciar.

Kiliana slipped in to pray with Quester, her increasing Psion senses having ‘heard’ much of what Quester had said to Hunter, as he had not shielded.

“You’re going to have to shield more, now Eusebius has helped you open up your powers,” said Kiliana. “You got loud.”

“Void, ether, and darkness!” swore Quester. “I apologise.”

“I wasn’t on the receiving end, only getting it second-hand,” said Kiliana, dryly. “Hunter must be sore for getting that excoriation deep in his mind. But I can’t work with him if he won’t recognise that I’m more than one of the idiot girls my age of his own class that he’s used to; the ones who are dying.”

“And I won’t ask you to do so,” said Quester. “Even if you were not going undercover, I can’t have my retinue, my family, disparaged and sneered at. And better to find out now than later when his jealousy and pride gets one of you killed.”

“It crossed my mind that he might fail to back me up out of sheer spite, and cause my death,” said Kiliana.

“And that is what I put in the report,” said Quester. “He needs to grow up to be older than you before he can consider being a justiciar.” He grimaced. “I said as much, too,” he added.

 

oOoOo

 

Hunter left in the morning, before anyone else had breakfast, aware that the Senior Justiciar’s report had preceded him.

Quester was not to know, but Hunter was to destroy his own chances to return to the fold of trainee justiciar; for Quester had written that the young man was more lacking in maturity than might be expected of one of his age, possibly owing to a sheltered childhood; and that a little life experience might teach him much, working in a rehabilitation centre for those of minor heresy owing to misunderstanding or having been given improper teaching. Together with psychotherapy sessions, Quester opined that Hunter might yet have an active future with the Judiciary.

That Hunter tried to get his retaliation in first in declaring Quester placed too much reliance on animals, and was plainly led around by his privates by a red-haired strumpet did not do him any favours.

Quester had described his fears that Hunter was not sufficiently mature to handle having a teen-aged girl ready to place herself in deadly danger, and might cost her life if he was unable to take her seriously; and as Zadok, the head of the Academy, knew how austere Quester was, he questioned that Quester even saw his underling as a girl.

In this, he was mistaken; but was correct in realising that Quester would not permit any partiality to colour his judgement. And if he was ready to send the girl into peril, it made a mockery of the stern Justiciar having any partiality in the first place. Here, Zadok underestimated Quester, who would take risks himself, and saw the few people to whom he was close as extensions of himself, and trustworthy to take risks. But then, few Justiciars were as complex as Quester.

Zadok permitted Hunter to pour out his anger, his bitterness, and his skewed view of how things were, until he ran out of power and fell silent, as he realised he was repeating himself.

Zadok sighed.

“I have a report from Justiciar Quester here,” he said. “And I had been considering following his recommendations.  However, you have changed my mind.”

Hunter looked pleased, and expectant.  Zadok sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“You are young for your age, he’s right there,” said Zadok. “But I don’t think you want to grow up. So, I’m afraid I am going to refuse Quester’s request for clemency assuming you accepted further training in the program; and I’m going to strip your rank as junior justiciar, and send you home. You’ve wasted a lot of expensive training, for the want of being able to button your mouth just once.”

“M... my lord? I don’t understand,” said Hunter.

Zadok glared at him.

“Quester said you might have the makings of a good justiciar if you could get over your phobia of semi-humans, and your belief that having a dick and being more than twenty years old put you on a par with one of the blessed saints!” he roared. “Not that he put it so crudely, but you don’t appear capable of handling anything but the bluntest Angelic! You’re a spoilt little boy, and you threw up the chance to learn with one of the best for a fit of pique and jealousy! Abe’s bollocks, if you’d shown proper humility when you came into my office, and listened to my words, you might yet have had the opportunity to stay in the program, but no, you have to shoot off your mouth like an addlebrained kid of eleven with a bad case of hormones and spiritual acne! You’re out; don’t bother coming back here again!”

Hunter stumbled out, wondering what was wrong with the Judiciary that they put inferiors over him.  Well, he would enter politics, and see if he could not manage to limit their power, as apparently they were quite ineffectual!

 

oOoOo

 

Kiliana put Hunter from her mind as she directed the fitters in fitting the kitchen.  The apartment below had no servants and a kitchen available so everyone had moved down for breakfast. Having a kitchen would merely be more convenient. There were internal communications for ordering meals, and once Villnew had discovered all he could about the convenient servants, they might use that; in the meantime, Burdock and Kiliana were in charge.

And Villnew must be the secretary to enrol Kiliana in school, and bring her the syllabus.

Kiliana decided she might as well seek out the syllabus online.

She discovered that the principal was a woman named Katrinna Jema Rubia, who also taught art.  Kiliana enjoyed drawing now she had the leisure for it, and secretly hoped to be able to learn enough to draw portraits of suspects from descriptions of witnesses, so hopefully this would be a useful class. Music, well, Kiliana enjoyed singing hymns with Quester, but had had no other training, and did not feel drawn to it.  Dancing and Deportment was a different class to Etiquette; practical and theoretical aspects of social graces, Kiliana supposed, glad she had learned to dance in Araklion. Botanical Drawing and Flower Arrangement was different to art? Oh, well, it might add to techniques. Household Accounts should prove no problem, Kiliana already did Quester’s accounts for him; Current Affairs might be more of a problem as she had no knowledge of, or interest in, politics. Oh, well. History and Faith would either be fascinating, the way Quester taught it, or turgid and limiting. Though it seemed unlikely that a girls’ school would employ a frothing madman as a spiritual guide, like the unspeakable Eliezer Cringe or Torquilan, who doubted the faith of the Highbred.

Well, any heresy she could pass back to Quester; he would know what to do.

 

Quester was coming to the realisation that if he wanted information about plebian girls being killed, he was going to have to search for it himself.

Then he put a call through to Cayban, who would have better resources at his immediate disposal.

“Lictor! Did I catch you before you left for the office?” asked Quester.

“Yes, I was on my way out. What can I do for you?”

“I wondered if any plebian girls with flower names had been killed,” said Quester.

There was a long silence.

“I... I will check,” said Cayban. “My daughter’s name is Daisy.”

“My dear fellow! You must have your wife and daughter, and any other children, of course, pack up and come and stay with me, in a high security area until we have this fellow by the heels,” said Quester, in sudden horror. “I can’t have your family at risk if he thinks us getting close to him.”

“That... that’s uncommonly good of you, my lord,” said Cayban.

“If you go and get any files on other girls, I’ll send the rotodyne... no, actually, if you and your family pack and you take them into your office, I’ll have the rotodyne pick them up from the helipad and take them to our office in about an hour.  If they’ve delivered Forrest, you can bring him up too.”

“Yes, my lord,” said Cayban.

Quester called for the pilot, and ordered him to go on to pick up Cayban from Lictor headquarters. It was not far from the building he was occupying, but it saved Cayban having to go through the security below with his family. A senior lictor like Cayban would have no trouble escorting his family through the Lictorium, but the Jurisprudentors got a little jumpy at times.

He smiled a wry smile.

That was an understatement. Well, there was plenty to work on, and he would look over Forrest’s case whilst waiting for information about other girls, if any; and he could send a message to the Nantsia Daviona Regina Academy requesting to enrol his supposed daughter. Absently he opened the alternate identity he had set up on his datapad to do so. Flattery about how an academy named after one of the Blessed Abe’s pantheon of saints had to be good, Saint Nantsia, a Patrician, obviously, by her name, worked to fight the evils of so-called recreational chemicals and sponsored the aid of the mentally infirm, personally aiding her husband, whose name he could not bring to mind... Ronnis something Rex, he presumed, when he had been driven mad by visions of the void, when fighting the Commutants.

Meanwhile, Kiliana was to go out and purchase what he termed ‘sundries’ whilst Purity stayed with the pilot for a few tips on what machines there might be available. He had begged her not to get an autogyro; he hated the feeling of dropping off a height to get the rotor started.