Elen waved a hand in acknowledgment and headed down the corridor at a jog. She had to reach the intendant before the prince-warden’s party arrived, or her news might get lost, with deadly consequences.

The walls of the corridor were lined with locked doors to the intendancy storerooms. The door at the end of the corridor let into the Residency offices. Voices were chattering frantically in the rooms beyond. She took the menials’ passage and clicked the door into the intendant’s private sanctum, rang the handbell, and entered. There were four people in the room: the intendant, his interlocutor, his valet, and a sentinel at the far door.

The intendant turned in the direction of the bell. He wore his formal festival robes, stiff and uncomfortable. He looked flushed, the contrast notable against his age-whitened hair. His valet pressed a handkerchief to his brow to dab away sweat.

Seeing her, he blinked as if confusion had overtaken his mind. “Elen? Why are you here?”

“Intendant.” She crossed her arms on her chest and bowed, reminding him they were not speaking in private and must adhere to the formalities of the occasion. “With apologies, I must speak.”

“Come on then, hurry, I can’t linger here,” he snapped, then winced and added, “Forgive my short temper. I’m all worked into a lather.”

Without waiting for her answer, he nodded to his interlocutor, who gestured to the sentinel to open the door. Elen hurried after them. The sentinel gave her a worried nod before closing the door at her back. She followed the intendant and his attendants across a council room with its big table, then through the informal receiving room, and finally past double doors into the main audience hall. Most of the household staff and many attendants and officials from the imperial quarter had gathered in their festival best, lining the walls, standing in restless silence.

The intendant mounted the dais and sank down on his chair of office. The intendant’s chair was stationed one step below a copy of the imperial throne, whose presence in every provincial hall reminded the empire’s subjects of the all-encompassing presence of the emperor in their lives. The intendant raised his hands as if to cover his face with nervous exhaustion, then recalled his audience and lowered his arms. Everyone stared but no one spoke. They were nervous too. No one wanted a visit from any member of the imperial palace, and especially not from the all-seeing eye. It was best to remain out of sight and thus out of mind.

Elen had wanted to do this in private, but the chance had never come. She knelt on one knee before the dais and addressed herself to the interlocutor. “With the intendant’s permission, I request permission to speak directly to the intendant.”