“I recognized your name.”
“Oh. I’m famous.”
“If you wish.”
“Can you tell me where to start looking?”
“You could ask the Empress.”
“Okay.”
His eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. “I wasn’t serious.”
“Oh?”
“You know the Empress?”
“We’ve spoken.”
“Well, if you think you can get her tell you anything, I won’t stop you.”
“All right,” I said. “If that doesn’t work?”
“Lord Delwick, of my House, might be able to tell you some things, if he’s willing to talk to you. He’s our Imperial Representative.”
“Okay,” I said. “A word of advice: Don’t do anything to mess up his relationship with the Empire. The House hates that.”
“So I’ve heard,” he said.
“All right, I’ll get started, then.”
He opened up a desk drawer, dug around for a while, and then handed me what looked like a copper coin with the Iorich insignia. “Show him this, and tell him I sent you.”
I accepted it, put it in my pouch, and said, “I’ll check back with you from time to time.”
“Of course.”
I stood and gave him a bow, which he acknowledged with gesture of his head, then I let myself out.
I made my way back to the entryway of the House without too much effort, assisted by Loiosh, who has a pretty good memory for twists and turns.
I sent him and Rocza out ahead of me to spot any assassins lurking in the area, was told there weren’t any, and made a brisk walk across the way to the entrance of the Palace. I went as straight through as the twists of the Wing would permit, and out into the Imperial Wing.
Wherever you are in the Imperial Wing (all right, wherever I’ve been) you’ll see pages and messengers scurrying around, all with the Phoenix badge, usually carrying a green folder, though sometimes it will be a gold one, and occasionally something other than a folder. I always resent them, because they give the impression they know their way around the place, which is obviously impossible. Doors, corridors, stairways are everywhere, and going off at absurd angles as if designed by a madman. You have no choice but to ask directions of someone, usually a guardsman, who will of course let you know exactly what they think of Easterners who can’t find their way around.
It’s annoying.
To the left, however, finding one of the rooms where the Empress is available to courtiers is one of the easier tasks, and after only a couple of minor humiliations I arrived outside that wide, open, chairless room called the Imperial Audience Chamber or something like that, but informally known among the Jhereg as Asskiss Alley.
There were big double doors there, with a pair of guards outside of them, and a well-dressed man who could have been a relative of Lady Teldra—when she was alive—standing at his ease with a half smile on his face. I wanted to touch Lady Teldra’s hilt, but restrained myself. Instead, I placed myself before this worthy and bowed like I meant it.
“Vladimir Taltos, House Jhereg, and Count of Szurke, at your service.”
He returned my bow exactly. “Harnwood,” he said, “House of the Issola, at yours, my lord.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know the procedure”—he gave me an encouraging smile—“but I would have words with Her Majesty, who may wish to see me.”
If the request was surprising, he gave no indication. “Of course, my lord. If you will come with me into the waiting room, I will inquire.”
He led me to an empty room painted yellow, with half a dozen comfortable chairs, also yellow. They probably called it the “yellow room.” They’re creative that way. He gave me another smile, a bow, and closed the door behind him.
I sat and waited, thinking about how long it had been since I’d eaten.
I hate waiting.
I hate being hungry.
I shifted in the chair and chatted with Loiosh about our previous encounter with Her Majesty—she had granted me an Imperial title because of accidental services rendered. I suspect she knew they were accidental, but felt like rewarding me for her own reasons. I happened to know she had an Easterner as a lover, maybe that had something to do with it. Loiosh made a few other suggestions for reasons, some of which were probably treasonous.
Or maybe not. I’ve heard that in some Eastern kingdoms it is a capital crime to fail to treat the king with proper respect, but I had no idea if that was true in the Empire. I imagined that I could ask Perisil, and get an answer much longer than I wanted that would come out to: sometimes. Imperial law seems to work like that.
This close to the Orb, I could easily feel my link to it, and knew when an hour had passed.
A little later, Harnwood returned with profuse apologies, a bottle of wine, some dried fruit, and word that Her Majesty begged me to be patient, because she did wish to speak with me. My heart quickened a bit when I heard that; isn’t that odd? I’d known Morrolan e’Drien, and Sethra Lavode, and had even been face-to-face with Verra, the Demon Goddess, and yet I still felt a thrill go through me that this woman wanted to talk to me. Strange. I guess it shows what conditioning can do.
Harnwood left, and I drank the wine because I was thirsty and ate the fruit because it gave me something to do and because I was feeling half-starved. Loiosh ate some for the same reasons (dried fruit not being a favorite of his); Rocza seemed to have no problems with dried fruit.
Then I waited some more.
It was most of another hour before Harnwood came back, looking even more apologetic and saying, “She will see you now, Lord Szurke.”
That was interesting. She would see Lord Szurke, not Lord Taltos. I didn’t know what the significance of that was, but I was pretty sure there was significance. That’s the trouble with the Court, you know: Everything is significant but they don’t tell you exactly why, or how, or what it means until you’re swimming in it. Maybe in my next life I’ll be a Lyorn and be taught all that stuff or an Issola and know it instinctively. More likely not, though.
I stood up, discovering that sitting there for most of two hours had made my body stiff. I wondered if I was getting old.
I followed Harnwood out and down the hall, where we went past the door he’d been stationed outside of, then turned left, through a doorway, and into a much smaller hallway that ended in a flight of eight stairs—two few for it to be a stairway up to the next floor. I don’t know; I never did figure that out. But at the top was a door that was standing open, and past it was a long, narrow room with a few stuffed chairs set haphazardly about. At the far end was Her Majesty, speaking quietly with a man in the colors of the Iorich and a woman in the colors of the Dragon. As I entered, all three glanced up at me, with uniform lacks of expression.
The Orb as it circled the Empress’s head was a light green, which should have told me something about her mood, but it didn’t. She turned to the two she’d been speaking with and said, “Leave us now. I wish to speak to this gentleman.”
They gave her a deep bow, me a rather shallower one, backed up, and left by a door at the far end.
The Empress sat in a chair and motioned me to stand in front of her. I made an obeisance and waited, not entirely sure of the etiquette, and wishing I had Lady Teldra in the flesh, as it were, to tell me what I was supposed to do. Zerika didn’t look as if I’d violated any sort of protocol. I reflected that the Empire did things rather more simply than these things were done in the East.