“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.