Iorich (7 page)

I went back down the half-flight of stairs, down the hall, and stopped, trying to remember the name I’d been given.

“Delwick.”

“I knew that.”

“Right.”

“Okay, I was about to remember.”

“Right.”

“Shut up.”

I found my way back to where Harnwood still waited. He smiled as if he were glad to see me. I bowed as precisely as I could manage—not that he’d let me know if I missed my mark—and said, “Pardon me, do you know a Lord Delwick?”

“Of course, my lord. Shall I take you to where he is?”

“If you’d be so kind.”

He would, in fact, be so kind. He exchanged a few words with the guard stationed by the door, and gestured with his hand that I was to fall into step with him. I did so. Having known Lady Teldra so long—in the flesh, I mean—I wasn’t surprised that he made it seem effortless to shorten his strides to match my puny human ones.

I won’t try to describe the turnings we took, nor the stairs we went up only to go down another. I will mention one extremely wide hallway with what looked like gold trimming over ivory, and hung with the psiprints of some of the oddest-looking people I’ve ever seen, all of them looking enough like Daymar to convince me they were Hawklords, and all of them staring out with the same expression: as if they were saying, “Just what manner of beast
are
you, anyway, and do you mind of if I study you for a while?”

We walked into a perfectly square room around the size of my old flat off Lower Kieron Road—it was a pretty big flat. The room was empty. Harnwood said, “This is where the various representatives sometimes gather to speak informally.”

“Should I wait here?”

“No, we can find Lord Delwick’s offices.”

I was glad the room was empty. Meeting the Jhereg representative would have been awkward. We passed through it to a door at the other end, and stepped into a hallway. He nodded to the right. “That way, following it around to the right, you’ll come back to the Imperial Audience Chamber, on the other side. Unfortunately, this is the fastest way without going through the Chamber, which is inappropriate.”

“I understand,” I lied.

He pretended to believe me and we turned left. There were a few doors on the right, and farther up the hallway split, but before that point he stopped outside one of the doors and clapped. There was the symbol of the Iorich above it. By then I hadn’t eaten anything except a little dried fruit in about three years, and I was in a wretched mood. I resolved not to take it out on Lord Delwick.

“I can’t wait—”

“Don’t.”

Rocza gave a little shiver that I’m pretty sure was laughter.

The door opened, and an elderly Dragaeran with severe eyebrows and thin lips was looking at us, with the smile of the diplomatist—that is, a smile that means nothing.

“Well met, Delwick.”

“And you, Harnwood.” He looked an inquiry at me.

“This is Lord Taltos, of House Jhereg, and he wishes a few words with you.”

“Of course,” he said. “Please come in and sit down.” If he’d ever heard of me, he concealed it well.

Harnwood took his leave amid the usual polite noises and gestures all around, after which I accompanied Delwick into his room—or actually suite, because there were a couple of doors that presumably went to his private quarters or something. It was nice enough: a thick purple carpet of the sort that comes from Keresh or thereabouts, with complex interlocking patterns that took longer to make than a human usually lives. There was no desk, which somehow struck me as significant; there were just several stuffed chairs with tables next to them, as if to say, “We’re only having a little chat here, nothing to worry about.”

Heh.

He pointed to a chair, excused himself, and went through
one of the doors, returning in a moment with a plate of biscuits and cheese. I could have kissed him.

I said, “I hope you don’t mind if I feed a bit to my friends here.”

“Of course not, my lord.”

I fed them, and myself, trying not to appear greedy, but also not worrying about it too much; there are times when the Dragaeran prejudices about humans can work for us. I didn’t eat enough to be satisfied, but a few biscuits with even an excessively subtle (read: bland) cheese helped. He ate a few as well to keep company with me, as it were, while he waited for me to state my business.

I found the coin Perisil had given me, and showed it.

“Hmmm,” he said. “All right.” He looked up at me and nodded. “Very well.” He sat back. “Tell me about it.”

“Why is the prosecution of Aliera e’Kieron happening so quickly?”

He nodded a little. “I’ve wondered myself. So then, you have an advocate for her?”

“Perisil,” I said.

“Hmmm. I’m afraid I don’t recognize the name.”

“He has a basement office.”

“Where?”

“In the House.”

“Ah, I see.”

It seemed that the best advocates had quarters outside of the House. Maybe that should have shaken my confidence in Perisil, but I trusted his advice, and I’d liked him, and Loiosh hadn’t made any especially nasty comments on him.

“I asked Her Majesty, and—”

“Pardon?”

“I asked Her Majesty about it, and she wouldn’t answer.”

Delwick caught himself and stopped staring. “I see.”

“I hope my effort doesn’t make your task more difficult.”

He smiled politely. “We shall see,” he said.

“So, you’ll look into it?”

“Of course.” He seemed genuinely startled that I’d even ask. Those little coins must have some serious authority. In which case, why did an advocate with offices in the basement of the House have one to throw around, or choose to use it on me?

Later. Note it, and set it aside.

“How shall I reach you?”

“Either through Perisil, or at Castle Black.”

“Castle Black? Lord Mordran?”

“Morrolan.”

“Of course. All right. You’ll be hearing from me.”

“Thank you,” I said, standing. “Ah . . .”

“Yes?”

“Is there anywhere to eat here, in the Palace? I mean, for those of us who don’t work here?”

He smiled. “Scores. The nearest is just out my door to the right, follow the jog to the right, down the stairs, first left.”

“Thank you,” I said, meaning it.

He nodded as if he couldn’t tell the difference. I suppose if you hang around the Court long enough, you lose your ability to detect sincerity.

There was, indeed, food after a fashion; a room with space enough for a battalion held about four people, like a lonely jisweed on a rocky hill, and they were eating something dispensed by a tiny old Chreotha who seemed to be half asleep. I had unidentifiable soup that was too salty, yesterday’s bread, and something that had once been roast beef. I had water because I
didn’t trust her wine. She charged too much. I couldn’t figure why the place seemed so empty.

Loiosh didn’t much like the stuff either, but he and Rocza ate it happily enough. Well, so did I, come to think of it. To be fair, it was, by this time, mid-afternoon; I imagined around lunchtime the place would be busier, and maybe the food fresher.

I finished up and left with a glare at the merchant—I won’t call her a cook—that she missed entirely, and headed back to see my advocate. Aliera’s advocate. The advocate.

At this point, I wish to make the observation that I had been spending the last several years wearing my feet out walking about the countryside, and I’ve known villages separated by mountain, river, and forest that weren’t as far apart as a place within the Imperial Palace and another within the House of the Iorich located next to it. Loiosh says I’m speaking figuratively, and he may be right, but I wouldn’t bet against the house on it.

I did get there eventually, and, wonder of wonders, he was still there, the door open, looking like he never moved. Maybe he didn’t; maybe he had flunkies to do all his running around. I used to have flunkies to do all my running around. I liked it.

I walked in and before I could ask him anything he said, “It’s all set up. Would you like to visit Aliera?”

Now that, as it happened, wasn’t as easy a question as it might have sounded. But after hesitating only a moment I said, “Sure. The worst she can do is kill me.”

That earned me an inquiring look which I ignored. “Are you coming along?” I asked him.

“No, you have to convince her to see me.”

“Okay. How did you work it?”

“Her alleged refusal to see either a friend or an advocate could have indicated deliberate isolation on the part of the Empire with the cooperation of the Justicers.”

I stared. “You think so?”

“I said it could.”

“Oh. But you don’t really think so?”

“I am most certainly not going to answer that, and don’t ask it again.”

“Oh. All right. But they believed it?”

“They believed I had grounds for an investigation.”

“Ah. All right.”

He nodded. “Now, go and see her.”

“Um. Where? How?”

“Up one level, follow wrongwise until—here, I’ll write out the directions; they’re a bit involved.”

They were. His scripting was painfully neat and precise, though he’d been fast enough writing it out. And I must have looked like an idiot, walking down the hall with two jhereg on my shoulders repeatedly stopping and reading the note and looking around. But those I passed were either as polite as Issola or as oblivious as Athyra, and eventually I got there: a pair of marble pillars guarded a pair of tall, wide doors engraved so splendidly with cavorting iorich that you might not notice the doors were bound in iron. You should go see them someday; cavorting iorich aren’t something one sees depicted every day, and for good reason. Before them were four guards who looked like they had no sense of humor, and a corporal whose job it was to find out if you had good reason for wanting them open.

I convinced him by showing him that same coin I’d used
before, and there was a “clang” followed by invisible servants pulling invisible ropes and the doors opened for me. Morrolan worked things better.

It was a little odd to walk through those portals. For one thing, the other side was more what I was used to; I’d been there before, and a cold shiver went through me as I set foot on the plain stone floors. I’m not going to talk about the last time I was in the Iorich dungeons. And I’m certainly not going to talk about the time before that.

Just inside was a guard station, like a small hut with glass windows inside the wide corridor. There were a couple of couches there, I guess for them to sleep, and a table where the sergeant sat. There was a thick leather-bound book in front of him. He said, “Your business?”

“To see Aliera e’Kieron, by request of her advocate.”

“Name?”

“Mine, or the advocate’s?”

“Yours.”

“Szurke.”

“Seal?”

I dug it out and showed it to him. He nodded. “I was told you’d be by. You must either leave your weapons here, or sign and seal these documents and take an oath promising—”

“I know. I’ll sign the documents and take the oath.”

He nodded, and we went through the procedure that permitted me to keep Lady Teldra, whom I was not about to give up. When everything was finally done, he said, “Limper, show him to number eight.”

The woman who stood up and gestured to me was a bit short and had a pale complexion and showed no signs of limping; no doubt there was a story there.

One thing about the dungeons is that unlike the rest of the Iorich Wing, they were pretty simple: a big square of doors, guard stations at all four corners, stairways in the middle. It might involve a lot of walking, but you wouldn’t get lost.

We took a stairway up. I’d never gone up from the main level before. The first thing I noticed was that the cells, though still made of the same iron-bound wood, were much farther apart than the ones I’d had residence in. And they had clapper ropes, for all love.

Limper used the rope, then dug out a key and used that without waiting for a response. I guess they felt that the occupants of these elite cells deserved warning about visitors, but still didn’t get a choice about whether they were admitted. That made me feel a little better.

She opened the door and said, “You have an hour. If you want to leave sooner, pull the knob attached to the inside of the door.” I stepped inside and the door closed behind me with a thud. I heard the bolt slide into place while I looked around.

When I was growing up, the flat where my father and I lived was a great deal smaller than the “cell” Aliera was in, and considerably less luxurious. The floor was thick Serioli carpet, with wavy patterns and hard-angled lines all formed out of dots. The furnishings were all of the same blond hardwood, and the light was from a chandelier with enough candles to have illuminated about fifty of the kind of cells I’d stayed in. I refer, of course, only to the room I could see; there were at least two doors leading off to other rooms. Maybe one was a privy, and it was only a two-room suite.