The rest of the ride to the palace takes them past more modest dwellings, except for the last few hundred yards, which are crowded with small shops and a number of cafés. At that moment, Lerial realizes that he has not seen anything resembling an inn—anywhere. He turns to Jhacub again. “I haven’t seen any inns. Are there any?”
“Yes, sir. There’s plenty, just not where we’ve been. Law says that no inn can be on the shore road or any main avenue, like the palace road or the old merchants’ way.”
“Don’t tell me. Another whim of a former duke?”
“Couldn’t say, ser. Just know that’s the law. Always been that way.”
Because of the duke … or the merchanters? Another question for which he would like an answer, and there are getting to be far too many of those, Lerial feels.
Before all that long, Lerial is reining up outside the palace stable—the one assigned to him and his men. Before dismounting he turns to the Afritan squad leader. “Thank you for the tour, Jhacub. I appreciate all for the information, and if you would, please convey my thanks and appreciation to your men as well.”
“Yes, ser.” Jhacub pauses meaningfully.
“Yes? You have a question? Ask. After all those I’ve asked you…”
“I was just thinking, ser. You speak Hamorian. You speak better than most officers, the way the arms-commander does. But you’re from Cigoerne.”
“My grandmere and my father insisted that all his children would speak perfect Hamorian as well as Cyadoran. That’s why. It’s necessary. Many”—most—“people in Cigoerne don’t speak Cyadoran.”
“Hadn’t thought of that, ser. Thank you, ser.”
“Thank you, again, Jhacub.”
“My pleasure, ser.”
Lerial dismounts, then watches the half squad of Afritan Guards ride back toward the outer courtyard. By half past third glass, Lerial is back in his quarters—if after refreshing his shields before entering and checking the room for errant chaos, of which he finds no sign. Once there he removes the road dust from his uniform and washes up. Then he steps out into the corridor to find Polidaar waiting.
“Ser … will you…”
“No escort. I won’t be leaving the palace. But I would appreciate someone watching my door. I wouldn’t want to return to any surprises.”
“We can do that, ser.”
As he leaves his rooms, Lerial has a specific initial destination in mind: the duke’s library, also on the third level but on the north end of the west wing of the palace. He would like to see if there is a code of laws or something similar there. Once more, as he walks the seemingly endless hallways, he sees servants and palace guards here and there, but far fewer than he would expect in an edifice the size of the palace.
A palace guard is seated at a table desk outside the library. He looks at Lerial warily for a moment, then nods abruptly. “Lord Lerial?”
“The same. I just wanted to look at the library, if I might.”
“Yes, ser.”
“Thank you.” Lerial nods politely, then steps past the table and opens the door, stepping into the library and closing the door behind himself. For a moment, he just stands there, surveying the room.
The duke’s library is an oblong chamber some ten yards by seven, with an alcove at one end that holds a table desk. Comfortable-looking leather armchairs are located here and there, sometimes alone, and in one place with a low table separating a pair. Two walls are filled with wooden shelves from a third of a yard off the floor almost to the ceiling, some three yards up. Lerial counts the volumes on one section of shelving, then estimates how many similar lengths there are in the library and mentally calculates. Some twenty-five hundred volumes. That’s certainly the largest collection of books he has ever seen in one place, although Emerya has assured him that there had been more than ten thousand in the great library in the Palace of Light.
Are they in any order? He begins to inspect the volumes on the shelves, discovering that while the area on the shelves in front of the books has been dusted, as have the tops of the pages, there is considerable dust behind each of the first score of books he removes from the shelves to inspect and see the subject, since most of the spines do not have a title. After a time, more than a glass, he does discover that one area holds histories, and another observations on nature, a third books on philosophy, and a rather larger section dealing with maps and map folios, with some that must be several hundred years old. While there are some volumes on practical healing, there is nothing on the use of order to heal. Nor can he find any section that deals with law, or even a single volume that does. But then, it would take him several more glasses, if not longer, just to take a quick look inside every volume in the library.
Abruptly, he hears voices, and he quickly raises a concealment, then moves toward the alcove.
Two figures step into the library.
“I don’t see anyone…” murmurs the woman, Kyedra, Lerial belatedly identifies from her voice, since his order-senses are not nearly so sharp as his vision.
“The guard said he was somewhere here…”
“… what can he do but look … besides, he seems pleasant enough … and good-looking.”