Chapter 51: I Questioned Four Men and All Four Told Me About the Forty First

"I brought them separately and none of them knows the other three are in this building."

The Chancellery supply office had four posts and four men, and I summoned all four at the same hour into four different rooms.

The first was called Corven Ilm and had nine years in.

"Majesty, I only handle the cloth and grain lists."

"Who handles iron?"

"The forty first."

He said it without thinking. The way you say a job title.

"The what?"

Corven Ilm went pale in two seconds.

"The auditor, Majesty. The crown’s man."

"There is no crown auditor in this house."

"He’s been here twelve years, Majesty."

"Who told you that?"

"Nobody told me." Corven Ilm gripped the chair. "He was here when I started. The man I replaced explained it to me in the first week."

"Explained it how?"

"That the forty first’s orders get signed and not questioned, because they come from above everyone." He swallowed. "I’ve spent nine years signing iron out of that warehouse without knowing where it goes, Majesty."

"And you never asked?"

"I asked once. My second year." He looked down. "They answered in writing, under the chancellor’s seal, thanking me for my diligence and reminding me that my post is reviewed every spring."

"Do you still have that letter?"

"I burned it." He raised his head. "That was the year I learned how this house works."

The second was Halda Prest, the only woman of the four, and she didn’t go pale.

"I’ve never seen his face," she said. "He leaves the orders in the night tray. Writes fast and ugly. We sign the release."

"Without seeing him?"

"With the chancellor’s seal on top, Majesty. I don’t argue with that seal if I want to keep the job."

"And why do you call him the forty first?"

"Because the payroll has forty one lines and there are forty of us." She shrugged. "It started as a joke."

"And now?"

Halda Prest thought about it.

"Now he’s the one who approves leave," she said.

"Has he approved any of yours?"

"Four in eleven years." She straightened in the chair. "And the year my mother died he sent me nine days I hadn’t asked for."

"With a note?"

"With a note. Two lines." She lowered her voice. "It said the office can manage nine days and to come back when I’m whole."

"Do you still have it?"

"Yes." She didn’t look away. "And that’s why I’m about to tell you the truth and also tell you I don’t enjoy telling it."

"Say it."

"That man treats me better than any superior I’ve had, Majesty." She folded her hands on the table. "And I’ve spent four days working out what that cost me without noticing."

"What did it cost you?"

"Eleven years of never asking a question." She said it flatly, the way you read out a total. "I’ve signed iron out to addresses I couldn’t find on a map, and every time I thought about it I remembered the nine days."

"Would you know his hand if you saw it elsewhere?"

"Anywhere. I’ve read it every working day for eleven years." She sat forward. "Majesty, may I say the part you haven’t asked?"

"Say it."

"He’ll know what I’ve told you before I’m home." Halda Prest smoothed the front of her sleeve. "And I’d like it recorded somewhere that I said it anyway, because if I turn up dead I want the reason written down properly."

"It’s recorded."

"Then that’s the first useful thing anyone in that building has done with a record since I started."

The third was old and no use to me, except for one sentence.

"The day they took the chancellor, were you here?"

"I was, Majesty. I opened the office at six."

"And?"

"And the chancellor was already inside." He scratched his beard. "With the other one. Talking low. They’d been at it for hours."

"Arguing?"

"No, Majesty. That’s what stayed with me." He looked down. "The chancellor was laughing."

"At what?"

"I only caught the end of it." The old man rubbed his thumb along the table edge. "The chancellor said something about twelve days on a horse."

"And the other one?"

"The other one said six."

Twelve years, and the joke between them was the transport.

"Was the chancellor frightened?"

"Majesty, I’ve carried that man’s post since before your coronation." He looked up at last. "I’ve seen him frightened twice. Neither time was this week."

Halda Prest’s leave note. A laugh in a locked office. A man who runs a supply desk for twelve years and never once signs his name.

That is how a power gets built that appears in no record. You don’t steal it. You occupy the gap nobody is watching.

The fourth was called Ansel, twenty six years old, and the moment he came in I knew this one was different, because he hadn’t brought fear. He’d brought hurry.

"Majesty, I have very little time."

"You have the time I say."

"With respect, no." He sat without being invited. "He knows I’m here. We all know where everyone is. That’s how it works."

"What’s his name?"

"I don’t know. Nobody knows."

"Then why are you afraid of him?"

"I’m not afraid of him." Ansel met my eyes. "I’m afraid of what he does with the people who are."

I ran the Appraiser’s Eye over him.

[True value: telling the truth.]

[And here to trade something for it.]

"What do you want?"

"My sister out of the house she lives in."

"Where does your sister live?"

"In the house he uses." He swallowed. "She’s cooked there three years. They pay her well and they don’t let her out on Mondays."

"And you know where the house is?"

"I know the street. Not the number." Ansel leaned forward. "But I know what he buys. Forty two pounds of ice a week, Majesty. All year."

"How do you know?"

"Because my sister signs for the delivery and told me about it laughing." He closed his hands. "She said the gentleman must be mad, that he spends more on ice than on meat."

"Has she seen his face?"

"Every day. She serves him supper."

I went still.

"Then your sister can describe him."

"My sister can describe him." Ansel held my eyes. "And that’s why I came and not her, Majesty. If you ask me what that man looks like, I don’t know, and that’s the only reason I’m still breathing."

"I can give you an escort tonight."

"If you give me an escort, tomorrow my sister is cooking for a dead man." He stood. "Take her out on a Monday. They don’t let her out on Mondays, and that’s the one day he isn’t in the house."

"How do you know that?"

"Because it’s the day she cleans the cellar and they forbid her to go down."

"How long has the cellar been forbidden?"

"Since March." Ansel picked up his hat. "Before March she cleaned it every week and complained about the cold."

"What was down there before March?"

"Wine and a broken loom." He turned the hat once in his hands. "She said it was the coldest room she’d ever worked in and nobody could tell her why."

"Ansel."

"Majesty."

"Your sister’s name."

He didn’t answer for a moment.

"If I say it out loud in this building, it exists in this building." He put the hat on. "Take her out on a Monday and I’ll tell you then."

Forty two pounds of ice a week is not what a kitchen for four people burns through.

It’s what somebody burns keeping a thing from spoiling.

Or keeping a man in a cellar and wanting him to last.