Empire of Night Ch32

Iiandere waited in the grand marble foyer of the great guildhall. The heraldic order was an ancient and powerful edifice of public life.
They held the sole authority to grant heraldry, working closely with the crown, and nearly equal in prestige. Usually, a woman so lowly as herself would never be allowed to stand even here in the entryway.
She was landed, but it was a purchased title. A petty barony, beneath the notice of so lofty an institution. But that day, she was engaged in official imperial business and so was allowed to sully the halls of greatness with her vulgar presence.
That didn’t keep them from making her wait, though. It had been some forty-five minutes since she’d been instructed to await her host, and her legs were beginning to ache.
Finally, she was joined by an older, portly woman of eastern extraction, bright red skin flushed with drink and the thick rough fur on the back of her arms peeking out from beneath her gown’s long sleeves.
“Lady Inquisitor,” she said, bowing deeply. “Please, forgive the delay. My women failed to promptly inform me of your coming. Rest assured, they will be disciplined.”
Iiandere nodded, not sure she quite believed the contrition but happy for it nonetheless. “Think nothing of it,” she said, “and don’t let me delay you any longer than I must. You must have a great deal of work to attend.”
“Too true,” the woman said, “please, come with me.”
“Of course, madam….”
The woman waved her away. “None of that,” she said, “you are, after all, here on behalf of my niece.”
Iiandere blinked. “Your-”
“Yes,” the woman said, “the late Empress Jezimi was my paternal sister. So please, just Ritieia will be fine.”
“I see,” Iiandere said, “I wasn’t aware.”
The woman turned and started back into the building. “It’s to be expected, non-inheriting lineage, you know, political marriage, not that anyone had any complaints, mind.”
“Of course not.” Iiandere followed the woman from the anteroom. “Did you receive my letter?”
“Yes,” the woman said, guiding Iiandere up a flight of stairs. “A round shield clutched in the talons of a bird of prey. I had my women look into it for you.”
“And?”
“I think we ought to sit down first,” the red-skinned woman said. “You must need to refresh yourself after so long a wait.”
They walked on through richly appointed halls, plush carpet soft beneath their bare feet until her guide stopped, opening a door for her. “Please, this way.”
Iiandere preceded her, taking a chair before a fireplace and waiting for her host to join her.
The woman brought cups and put a pitcher of mulled wine down on the table before the hearth. “May I offer you a drink?”
Iiandere examined the pitcher a moment. “That would be lovely.”
The woman poured the drinks and raised her glass, taking a deep pull from her own.
The woman sighed, setting her glass aside. “Very well, to business.”
Iiandere nodded. “You received my letter.”
“Yes,” the woman said, “and read it too. In short, no, that iconography is not in use.”
Iiandere sighed a dead end. 
“However,” Ritieia said, “that doesn’t mean I have nothing for you.”
Iiandere’s brow winged up, and she leaned forward in her seat.
The woman refilled their cups and sat back in her plush, oversized chair. “We maintain a record of every icon we issue and their status.”
“What do you mean by status?”
“Whether the heraldry is in use or not, of course; they can be passed down from mother to daughter, but say a woman dies with no heir, her heraldic device would need retiring. Place it in the archive, never to be used again.”
Iiandere nodded slowly. “You have something in your archive?”
“Indeed,” the woman stood, going to a desk and retrieving a thick volume bound in red leather. “The image of a bird of prey with its wings outstretched is, of course, not uncommon. But a round shield, divided into eight sections of green and blue, that’s something specific. Something we can work with.”
She returned, setting the tome down on the table. “Now,” she said, “round shields are quite the anachronism, so we were able to begin our search with old crests.”
Iiandere nodded, mostly out of politeness; she wished this old dotard would get to the point but suspected there were few enough opportunities for deep conversations on the topic. 
“Now,” the woman carried on, “this narrows the scope of our search considerably. But there are still many thousands of devices featuring round shields in our inventory.” She paused. “Though I suppose, catalog might be more apt here, heraldry was not always so regulated a thing.”
The woman paused, drinking. “In any case, we started, of course, with those devices still in use. Which, obviously, proved futile. This left us with the whole history of extinct seals.”
“That sounds like a challenge,” Iiandere said.
“My, but don’t you have sharp ears,” the woman said, nodding, “indeed, it is. However, there were certain strategies we could employ.”
“Your description, while rough, if accurate, tells us much.”
“For instance?”
“For instance,” the woman said, “it’s a pain device, without much in the way of flourishes. Which means either a young device or quite an old one.”
“How do you know?”
The woman pursed her lips. “Say her Magnificence declares you a duchess tomorrow, and, given the nature of your investigation, she may yet. You would need a heraldic device to set yourself aside from the petty nobility.”
Iiandere nodded, and the woman continued. “Then, sometime later, you die, as all women must, and pass your heraldry down to your daughter. But she wouldn’t inherit your exact heraldry; she would add some aspect of herself to make it clear you no longer hold the device. Say she then marries into another noble family, traditionally, she would merge her heraldry with theirs, and so on, down the years and centuries.”
Iiandere nodded, “so, either an early device or a newly minted one.”
“Just so,” the woman said, beaming, apparently happy Iiandere had picked up her analogy so readily. “We knew that an old device was the more likely, as no currently used heraldry happened to match your description, so I instructed my ladies to dive into the oldest records.”
The woman picked the leatherbound volume and waived it at Iiandere. “A project which bore fruit.”
“An impressive feat,” Iiandere said, “in so short a time.”
The woman pursed her lips. “It would have been, only, we weren’t limited to the information you provided.”
“How do you mean?” Iiandere asked though she got the feeling she might know the answer, though she dearly wished her suspicion wouldn’t be confirmed.
“Would you believe,” the woman said, “that you weren’t the first to come here asking after the iconography of extinct noble lineages?”
Iiandere gripped the cap of her armrest. “Someone else came seeking this information?”
“Oh yes,” the woman said, leaning back in her chair, “quite a curious case. Knew exactly what they were looking for, too.”
“Who?” Iiandere demanded, “you must know.”
“Yes,” the woman said, “I remember it distinctly because of the strangeness of it. Would you believe our intrepid scholar was a man?”
Iiandere swallowed. “A man of the interior?”
“Yes indeed,” she said, “all dark-skinned and with hair on the backs of his hands, you know the sort. Gave the name Machala.”
“You allowed him access? Why?”
“For much the same reason you were allowed, he had an introduction.”
“From whom?”
The woman stood, returning to her desk and retrieving a roll of parchment. “No whom,” she said, returning and handing the roll to Iiandere.
She untied the string that bound it and swiftly read the contents. The letter itself was nothing interesting. But in lieu of a signature, there was only an intricate seal.
She set the letter aside, frowning. “This is real?”
“Oh yes,” the woman said, nodding, “there can be no doubt the order’s experts confirmed its authenticity.”
Iiandere sighed, glancing at the letter. “The institution of the military sent some southern barbarian, a man no less, to come here, to the heart of noble authority, for reasons unknown and unknowable?”
“So you see why it stuck in my mind, then.”
Iiandere scowled. “Tell me about this family.”
The woman flicked her ears dismissively. “Not much to say. Old family, but dead. Dissolved during unification and the women put to the sword.”
“Could he have been related to this family?”
“No,” the woman said, “it seems unlikely. Rather too young to have been a survivor of that incident, but probably too old to be descended from a survivor. Not to mention, the wrong race.”
“I beg your pardon?”
The woman tapped the leatherbound volume. “An eastern family, like mine, and even today marrying someone of- western extraction is something of a faux pas in that country. My family forgave me, eventually, though my fellow wives are still today not welcome in my parent’s home.”
“In any case,” Ritieia said, waving the subject away. “Unlikely to be a product of this family.”
Iiandere frowned, nodded. “I’ll take your word for it. Is there any chance you can find this man?”
The woman pursed her lips. “I shouldn’t think so, we could look into the name, but probably an alias, all considered.”
Iiandere sighed. “Typical.”
Ritieia examined Iiandere closely. “It’s things like this that reveal you to be of the petty nobility, you know.”
Iiandere frowned. “How do you mean?”
“You’re so rigid in your thinking; you have resources now, people, use them. Your investigation doesn’t have to be done as the swaggering inquisitor, kicking in a door and taking captives or paying informants for what scraps of rumor happen to surface.”
She paused, drank. “You have access to the street and to the halls of the powerful. Start a rumor, circulate it through all of society, it’ll reach this man eventually, and perhaps pressure him into making a mistake.”
Iiandere sucked on her lip. It could work, and hell, she hadn’t come up with anything solid on this mysterious and well-traveled man anyway. “Perhaps I will,” she said, at last, laying her hand on the volume still sitting on the table. “May I keep this?”
“No,” the woman said, “you may not. You may request a copy of the relevant information, though it will take some time.
Iiandere sighed; no use arguing over it. “Very well, please have a copy made for me, and I’ll take a look at this before I leave.”
“As you please.” The woman picked up their pitcher and gave it a shake. While you read, I think I’ll refresh our drink. Please, excuse me.”
Ritieia stood, slipping out of the room and leaving Iiandere alone with the volume.”
She took it, thumbing through the pages. Each one a branch in a genealogy as represented by increasingly indecipherable images.
She set the book aside; what she really cared about was the first page, and admittedly it did seem to comport to the descriptions she’d heard. Still, she would have to get it in front of her witnesses.
Ritieia returned and set about pouring fresh cups. 
“Forgive me,” Iiandere said, standing, “but I must take my leave.”
“No,” the woman said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“No,” she said again, “sit, there’s more we need to speak about.”
Iiandere licked her teeth, ultimately, this woman couldn’t detain her, not legally, but she would be a bad enemy to make, so she sat. “Yes?”
Ritieia handed her a cup and resumed her seat. “I understand my niece is taken with our visitor from Earth. Tell me about him.”

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