Dilrap hitched his errant robe on to his shoulders and nodded. ‘It might be possible, Majesty,’ he said. ‘At least to find out which servants are in the Westerclave. The Keeper of the Rooms is a bit peculiar about his schedules, but I’m known to be close enough to Dan-Tor now to say it’s a spot check ordered personally by the Lord.’ He nodded to himself. ‘I can always smooth any furrows with a little high praise and a promise that a good report would be made. But as for putting one of our own in there…?’ Dilrap puffed out his cheeks.
Sylvriss stared at the door for a little while when he had left. He was proving to be a staunch and capable ally, ferreting out information for her and spending hours preparing long and opaque legal arguments to litter Dan-Tor’s path while ostensibly clearing it.
But if Dan-Tor began to suspect, what then? Dilrap would be no match for the man and her own part in the proceedings would surely come to light. Then she too would be assailed in some way, and the effort she was now able to put into thwarting her enemy would almost certainly be taken up fully in protecting herself and her treatment of the King. She must not overburden Dilrap.
She sighed, and, eyes closed, allowed herself a brief indulgence, taking her mind back to quieter, simpler times.
Once, such an action would have distressed and torn her with longing, but she had come to accept that, whatever the present and future held, the past was inviolate. It could not be relived, but equally it could not be destroyed. It would remain a solid and sure founda-tion to support her at all times, and its rich memories would continue to sustain the slow recovery of her husband.
Rested, she opened her eyes to the harsher present. The Westerclave, she thought. Dilrap’s findings confirmed what her other informants had told her. But no one could tell her further. She fidgeted restlessly on the soft upholstered seat as if it had been made of stone. These same informants had also been bringing strange and worrying rumours: the Lords had attempted to escape; they were being poisoned; they were being starved; they had confessed their guilt; and many others, but all too vague and insubstantial. Bubbles from the depths of a dark pool.
She had tried approaching Dan-Tor directly, casu-ally asking after the welfare of the Lords during a lull in a public function they were obliged to attend, but he had merely given her an uninformative answer and then deftly changed the subject. The incident reminded her clearly that she could not hope to lure careless admis-sions from such a man, and that to attempt to do so might well prove dangerous.
Abruptly, she made a decision. Her informants could obtain little more, if anything. She could not ask more of Dilrap. Now, perhaps a little blundering might not go amiss, she thought.
Within minutes she was mounted on her favourite horse and trotting around the Palace grounds. It was her normal habit to ride almost daily and was unlikely to attract any special comment. On the way to one of the side gates that would lead her into the City and thence to one of the great parks, she passed the wide stone-arched maw of the Westerclave.
The weather was overcast, a mottled grey sky prom-ising no sign of sun that day. But even in the brightest sunshine,, the Westerclave had a gloomy aspect. A strange jumbled building joining two of the Palace towers, it was backed by a huge earth mound and looked as if it had once been built into the side of a hill. Situated where it was, it lay in almost permanent shadow.
That it was older than the rest of the Palace was obvious even to an untutored eye. Its stonework was weathered and crumbling, and lichen and ivy disfigured where they should have enhanced. Also its style of construction was markedly different, harsher and more brutal in its demands of the stone that formed it. Sylvriss always thought it like a rotten tooth wedged into a healthy jaw, an image in which its gaping entrance became a manifestation of decay.
Legend had it that the Westerclave had been built during the First Coming; that it was the handiwork of the corrupted humans who served Sumeral; that it had been fought over many times and had been many times won and lost. Over the years it had served various purposes-workshops and storerooms, servants’ quarters, temporary barracks for High Guards briefly posted to the City, and now, Headquarters for the Mathidrin.
Sylvriss reined in her horse and looked at the ugly facade. It suited these cockroaches, she thought, using the term of abuse that the locals had discovered for the Mathidrin. Then, following her earlier impulse, she took a deep breath and, swinging down from her horse, walked briskly towards the arch.
Two Mathidrin guards standing stiffly either side of the entrance saluted but looked decidedly uncomfort-able as she strode past them into the gloom. They had quite specific orders about allowing anyone into Westerclave, but this was the Queen and their Com-mander-in-Chief, albeit honorary. Their orders did not cover such a contingency.
She noted with some amusement the frantic foot-steps behind her as she headed for a flight of stairs at the end of the broad entrance tunnel, her own footsteps echoing purposefully around the curved stonework. Clattering down the stairs, she tried to recall the layout of the building, but it was a long time since she had been in it and its maze of corridors and stairways were even more convoluted than those in the main Palace.
The stairs led directly into a broad corridor along which, as she recalled, used to be administrative offices. The only difference between her memory and its present appearance was that now it was brilliantly lit by two rows of globes. Strangely, she found that this was an improvement.
Less of an improvement, however, was the figure seated at a desk which blocked her further progress. He was the most unlikely clerk that Sylvriss had ever seen. His uniform was immaculate, but it could not begin to disguise the bulge of his arm and shoulder muscles. He sat motionless except for his powerful, hairy hands which guided a quailing pen painstakingly but unerr-ingly across a report form. Topped with short-cropped black hair and fronted by a battered and scarred face, an oval head sported the remains of a nose, a full-lipped and vicious mouth, and dark jowls through which beard was fighting a powerful counter-attack after the morning’s onslaught.
Sylvriss stood in front of the desk but the head, though clearly aware of a presence, did not stir. The hand moved steadily on. How sweet, she thought maliciously. He wants to play a game.
She cleared her throat discreetly and very deeply. The head, rapt in spurious concentration, slowly looked across to another document and then, satisfied with what it had seen, equally slowly returned to its work.
Time’s up, thought Sylvriss. Coming ready or not. And she brought her riding crop smartly down on the desk between the carefully placed hands. With some satisfaction, she saw the eyes widen with disbelief, and the whole frame swell with rage. Then, with calculated anticipation, the eyes followed the riding crop slowly upwards until they met her own steady gaze. Very professional, she thought, a second later. The man had almost totally recovered his composure by the time he had stood up and saluted.
‘My apologies, sir… ma’am,’ he barked. ‘We weren’t expecting you.’
Sylvriss nodded. ‘Yes. I noticed,’ she said signifi-cantly. ‘At ease, Sirshiant. Perhaps you’d take me to the duty officer.’
‘Ma’am.’ He saluted again and stiffly bent forward to open a small gate to allow the Queen to pass by his desk. ‘If you’d follow me.’
Sylvriss made a wilfully stately progress with her bulky escort, pausing frequently to examine a notice board here, or to peer down a staircase there, or to run a very female finger along a ridge and examine it knowingly. The Sirshiant struggled with this gait, so different from his normal martial stride. Obviously he couldn’t march and, equally obviously, he couldn’t stroll casually by her side like some courtier. In the end he oscillated between the two, and developed a peculiar twitch of the hands in so doing.