Free Scholar: A Novel in the Imager Portfolio by L. E. Modesitt

people.”
    Quaeryt could see the problems ahead. If he showed coin, then the patroller would mark him for a confederate not on the Patrol to deprive him of coin and possibly life. If he didn’t, he’d likely end up in gaol for some trumped-up reason. “I’m a scholar, patroller. All scholars wear brown, you might recall.”
    “Don’t get fancy with me, fellow. Scholars can’t afford ship passage unless they’re up to no good.”
    “Why don’t we walk back to the ship? You can ask the captain or the mate if what I said was true.” Quaeryt turned just slightly, noting that another, even larger patroller was moving toward him, also with a truncheon.
    “We don’t need to do that to deal with trash like you.”
    The loaders and the four vendors on the northern side of the pier edged away from the three. That told Quaeryt more than he wanted to know, but what to expect.
    “You’re going to come with us, scholar .” The patroller emphasized the already derogatory Tellan term for scholar.
    “Might I ask why?”
    “No. Your type doesn’t need answers.”
    “Where do you want me to go?” Too many people had seen him and probably noted the scholar’s browns. That meant he was limited in what he could do in public. Yet he certainly didn’t want to go with the pair of patrollers, not the way they were looking for an excuse to use their truncheons.
    “That’s for us to say. Pick up that duffel.”
    Quaeryt started to lean forward when he saw the second patroller’s truncheon slashing toward him. He jumped back and imaged pepper juice into the man’s eyes, and then into the first patroller’s eyes as well.
    “Sow-sucking bastard!”
    Both patrollers lurched, and the larger man stumbled and sprawled across the duffel.
    “Thief! Killer!” yelled one of them.
    Quaeryt looked beyond the end of the pier, but two more patrollers had appeared there. There was no help for it. He turned and ran back down the pier, dodging around two vendors and alongside a wagon whose wheels were blocked in place opposite an ancient brig.
    “Loaders! Stop him! A silver to anyone who catches him!”
    For a silver they well might hazard tackling him. Quaeryt saw an opening in between two groups of men who had turned at the patrollers’ calls and dashed between them, jumping off the pier in the space between the brig and the square-rigger, just hoping that the water was deep enough.
    He went under, and down perhaps three yards, then struggled underwater back toward the pier—except his hands encountered a rough stone wall. He concentrated, trying to move along the wall underwater until he could find a space between the sections of the pier built on solid stone and rock supports and the patches of water between them and the wooden supports sunk into the harbor bottom.
    His lungs were bursting when he finally surfaced under the pier, but he came up as quietly as he could, immediately creating a slight concealment shield that he hoped just showed water, if anyone tried to look down through the few narrow gaps in the heavy wood of the pier above.
    He’d been in dirtier water before, but not in years, and he had to use one hand to clamp his nose to keep from sneezing. The fingers of the other held to an edge in the rough stone.
    “He went in over there!”
    “More like by the square-rigger.”
    “Go after him, Walthar. It’s a silver.”
    “In that water? Patrollers can keep their silver. ’Sides, he hasn’t even come up. No sight of him. No sounds. You go in if you want.”
    “Where did he go?” demanded a harsh voice.
    “He jumped off the pier. Never came up.”
    “He might be right underneath you, for all you know.”
    “We looked. Don’t see anything.”
    “There’s a silver reward for whoever turns him in.”
    “We get it if we find his body?”
    “Only if he’s alive. He has to answer to the Patrol.”
    “What’d he do?”
    “Never mind that!”
    Quaeryt kept breathing easily and waiting, but it had to have been