Nuvielle, Lady Treasurer, who has found my master’s couch.” Opir bowed hastily.
“And is this everyone, then?” Nuvielle asked. “Yes, my lady,” Kilisha said.
“You know, I would have assigned a few guardsmen to carry the couch for you, had you asked.”
“Oh.” Kilisha felt her cheeks grow warm. “I hadn’t thought of... I wouldn’t want to trouble you, my lady. The couch is my responsibility.”
Nuvielle turned up an empty palm. “In any case, you’re all here now,” she said. “Come inside, and I will show you the way.” She turned and strode into the dim interior.
Kilisha followed, mentally cursing herself. Of course Lady Nuvielle would have provided soldiers! She was the Lady Treasurer, the overlord’s aunt-she must have a hundred guards and servants ready to tend to her every whim. Just because she had come to a wizard’s shop unattended did not mean she could not summon a dozen strong men in an instant in her own home; it wouldn’t have cost her a thing.
And here Kilisha had brought three assorted strangers along uninvited, not just into the Fortress, but to the overlord’s own apartments. She had wanted to be prepared, and to plan everything out in advance for once, but that was no reason to forgo common courtesy. She needed to use common sense, as well as plan ahead! She was glad that the light in the stone passageway was dim and cool, so that her flushed cheeks would be less noticeable, and she could attribute their color to stepping in out of the bright sun. She marched on silently, not trusting herself to say anything more. After a slight hesitation, Kelder and Opir and Adagan followed the two women inside. The two guards who had accompanied the Lady Treasurer then brought up the rear, closing the doors behind them, leaving the outside guards to resume their vigil.
Kilisha’s upset at her own foolishness was sufficient that she had gone a dozen yards down the passage before she realized that she was inside the Fortress for the first time in her life, and she really ought to pay attention to her surroundings. She might never have another chance to see the interior of the overlord’s stronghold.
Nuvielle was leading the party down a stone corridor, broad enough for Kilisha’s three helpers to walk abreast without crowding, but still far taller than it was wide. Kilisha looked up to see an arched stone ceiling perhaps fifteen or twenty feet above her.
The stone was surprisingly plain. Kilisha knew that the Fortress had been built during the Great War as a bastion against the Northern Empire, and of course she had seen the unadorned exterior often enough, but she had still expected the interior of the overlord’s home to display at least some of the trappings of wealth and power. After all, the overlord and his family had had more than two centuries to make improvements.
This corridor, though, was bare-no carvings, no tapestries or other hangings, no carpets. The stone blocks in the walls were square and unpolished, the corners not even rounded, and the joints in the masonry clearly visible. The few doors they passed were heavy oak planking bound in black iron, dark with age but uncarved and unpainted. The only sign of wealth was the numerous oil lamps that lit the passage; these were large and bright, and wrought of brass and crystal. Kilisha assumed they were not the wartime originals, but a later addition-for one thing, they didn’t match the plain black iron brackets on which they hung.
Then Lady Nuvielle turned a corner and led them up a stone staircase, likewise straight and unadorned; sunlight trickled in faintly from an unseen window somewhere ahead and above.
They ascended two stories and emerged into another corridor, narrower than the previous one and with a ceiling no more than twelve feet high. Here, at last, the Fortress began to look less like a dungeon-the floor and walls were still plain gray stone, but a strip of lush red and brown carpet ran along the passage, and a few tapestries hung between doors that had been painted with bright floral designs.
Nuvielle led them down the passage, through a salon that was far more in keeping with Kilisha’s expectations, along a side passage, and around a corner into an anteroom.
There she stopped dead, evidently surprised by the presence of four guards. Kilisha almost walked into her. The others had left a little more space, and halted without crowding each other-but by the time Nuvielle’s own guards entered, the antechamber was rather full. The room was not especially large.
The four guards, standing two on either side of an elaborately carved pair of doors, had been chatting idly; at the sight of the treasurer they snapped to attention and thumped the butts of their spears on the stone floor. Kilisha blinked at them, noticing that their uniforms were much cleaner and better-made than Kelder’s, and that their spears and breastplates were wonderfully polished. Two of the four wore unfamiliar golden insignia on their right arms.
“Wulran is in?” Nuvielle asked.
“Yes, my lady,” the guard nearest the right-hand side of the doors replied. He was one of the two with the insignia.
“I thought that at this hour he would be conducting business downstairs.”
“The overlord found the discussions wearisome and decided to take a brief rest, my lady.”
“Ah.”
Kilisha thought that Nuvielle’s tone managed to convey an amazing amount of information in that single meaningless word; it was clearly a tone of unsurprised resigned disapproval.
For a moment no one spoke; the eleven people in the room simply stood there, considering the situation. Then Nuvielle said, “I suppose I’ll want to speak with him sooner or later in any case; could you tell him I’m here, please, and that I’ve brought guests?”
The guard bowed, but stayed where he was; it was the other insignia-bearing guard, to the left, who opened the door and stepped silently through.
The door closed, and the party waited.
Kilisha was uneasy, standing here surrounded by soldiers; even Kelder seemed slightly threatening now. She glanced at the others in her group, and saw Adagan studying the overlord’s guards with evident interest while Opir looked acutely uncomfortable.
That was hardly surprising. She had told him that they were going to the Fortress to retrieve the couch; she hadn’t said anything about meeting the overlord himself!
She hadn’t expected it herself; she had assumed, as Nuvielle apparently had, that the overlord would be busy elsewhere, allowing them to slip into his apartments and take the couch without his knowledge.
His presence did complicate matters, but after all, it really was Ithanalin’s couch, it wasn’t as if she had come to steal something.
Nuvielle and the others would all testify that it was Ithanalin’s couch. The overlord would surely have no objection to letting them take it back.
She might need to explain how it had come here, though. It wouldn’t do to lie to the overlord, or even to seem to lie; she started to plan out what she would say, if he asked.
And she needed to remember to curtsy, as deeply as she could-or would it be better to bow? He was the overlord, ruler of the city and master of one-third of the Hegemony, heir and direct descendant of General Gor, who had turned the Western Command into the peacetime city of Ethshar of the Rocks; she wanted to be as deferential as possible.
She could feel herself starting to tremble at the thought of speaking to him, and she tried to prevent it. She reminded herself that Wulran III was just a man, even if he was the overlord. He was only twenty-six, not so very much older than herself. He deserved respect and deference, but there was nothing to be frightened of...
Well, except that he could order the soldiers to kill or imprison or torture her on his slightest whim.
But he wouldn’t. He was said to be a generous and kind young man, and besides, even an overlord didn’t dare anger the Wizards’ Guild by abusing a wizard’s apprentice without cause. The Guild had never yet killed an overlord, but they had reportedly come close more than once-most recently Azrad VI, in Ethshar of the Spices, was said to have been given a very direct threat over his treatment of the early warlocks a quarter century ago.
She took a deep breath and stood up straight. She started to put her hand on the hilt of her athame-she always found the feel of the knife reassuring-but then noticed one of the guards watching her closely and shifting his spear slightly, and she stopped before her fingers touched the leather.
She hoped she would be permitted to carry the weapon into the overlord’s rooms; if she needed any magic to restrain the couch, she would need her athame.
Then the door opened and the guardsman reappeared. He bowed to Lady Nuvielle.
“My lady,” he said, “the overlord consents to see you, but says he would prefer not to deal with a horde of strangers just now.”
