Land of the Burning Sands (14 page)

“Gereint Pecheran,” Fareine reminded her.

Tehre blushed. “Of course!” she snapped. “Would you show our honored guest to the library? And get him anything he wants? Quills, paper, whatever? Thank you so much, Fareine; I don’t know where I’d be without you. Honored Gereint, would you join me later, after I’ve had time to sort out these equations about cracks that run or stay? I think the thing to do after that, really, is set up the right kind of situation with masonry under tension and then see what we can get cracks to do…” She trailed off in thought.

“This way, honored sir, if you please,” Fareine said to Gereint, and held a hand out to invite him to go before her.

“The honored lady doesn’t mean to sound… That is to say…” the woman began, earnestly, as she guided him through the halls of the great house.

“Yes, that’s plain.” Gereint let himself smile at last, and then laugh. “She’s not like anyone I have ever met. Not even like any maker I’ve ever met! She’s working out
equations
about crack propagation? I don’t recall even Terichsekiun explaining how to predict whether a particular crack will run instead of rest. That would be a very valuable contribution to the philosophy of materials and making, if she could do it.”

“She’ll do it. As you said, she might as well be an engineer as a maker: She thinks large-scale as often as small. And she really is a philosopher.” Fareine, too, was smiling, as she registered Gereint’s tone of amusement and approval. “Allow me to show you the library, honored sir, and then your suite. I hope you will be comfortable in this house. If you find any aspect of Amnachudran hospitality lacking, please bring the lack to my attention.”

Not Tehre’s, Gereint understood. He nodded.

The library was a good one, though very heavily biased toward natural philosophy and, to Gereint’s mind, severely lacking in poetry. He laid out the books Eben Amnachudran had sent; then, after a moment’s reflection, added the ones he’d stolen from Fellesteden to the library shelves. They went some little way toward remedying the basic lack of history and poetry—and they would be safe if anything happened to him. He tried not to imagine any of the things that phrase might encompass.

The household served the evening meal late, and more formally than Gereint had guessed from the sandwiches in the kitchen, though the dining room was at least not vastly oversized. Fareine attended with her mistress, of course, and so did one other young woman who Fareine introduced as Tehre’s companion. Gereint gathered that she was a chaperone, meant to attend Tehre while Fareine saw to the business of running the household. From her shy manner, he guessed she’d just been elevated to her new position because of Gereint’s arrival. Her name was Meierin. She was a little younger than Tehre, quiet voiced, pretty in an unassuming way. Gereint suspected that the girl was also stronger minded than she looked, if Fareine had chosen her for her mistress’ protection.

The dinner was elaborate, the new cook showing her skills to her mistress’ guest. Gereint made sure to comment on the dishes, which were all very good.

Tehre didn’t seem to notice what she ate, except that when Gereint commented, she would blink, focus on the food for a moment, and say something like, “Oh, yes, very pretty,” or “Why, this
is
a very nice way to have duck—do we have it this way often, Fareine?” Then she would go back to arguing with Gereint over the right way to define tensile strength. Gereint felt he was talking more during this one meal than he had in years, but neither Fareine nor Meierin could discuss makers’ philosophy and Tehre was hard to redirect to more common topics.

“They say the griffin’s desert is inimical to creatures of earth,” Fareine commented at last, making a valiant effort to drag the conversation by main force to subjects other than tensile strength. “I gather you met the honored Amnachudran in the desert—what is it truly like?”

“Oh, yes, can you tell us about the desert?” Meierin asked eagerly, leaning forward.

“I wonder what is meant by ‘inimical’ in this context,” Tehre said, diverted at last. “It would be interesting to visit the desert and examine its qualities.” Then she blinked and asked, “But what was my father doing in the desert?”

“Collecting books from a private estate,” Gereint explained.

“Oh, yes, that sounds like him.”

“And Gereint met your father at the edge of the desert and helped your father when he met with an accident—it’s all in the letter your honored father sent, Lady Tehre. The honored Gereint saved his life when your father met with an accident on his way home.”

“Did you?” Tehre said, looking at Gereint in surprise. “Then we’re all very much in your debt. What kind of accident?”

“A fall. Crossing the river. Anybody would have done the same.” Gereint was uneasy at this close attention to his personal history.

Fareine shook his head. “That’s not what the letter says.” She turned to her mistress. “The honored Gereint dragged your father all the way home on a pole litter, collapsed as soon as the gates were opened, and raved in a delirium all that night and half the next day, for all Lady Emre could do.”

A
delirium
. That was how Eben Amnachudran had explained the screaming to his household, of course. Gereint tried to keep his expression blank. Tehre was gazing at him with surprise and, for once, focused attention; Fareine with warm approval; Meierin with shy appreciation. Gereint said uncomfortably to Tehre, “Your honored father has been very kind to me.”

“Apparently he had every reason to be,” Tehre responded tartly. “But sending you to me wasn’t kindness, I expect. Except maybe to me.”

“I’m grateful for a comfortable place to stay in Breidechboden while I conduct my own business here.” This was an open bid to change the subject, and Gereint expected an inquiry about what his business might be. He would then make something up or else evade answering, and with any luck they would be off this particular topic.

Instead, Tehre said, “Well, I shall certainly want to read that letter—but not now, if it makes you uncomfortable, Gereint. What have you found in the library? Sufficient?”

Gereint paused for a moment. Then he said, “Everything I could want, honored lady, except that I might like a copy of Teirenchoden’s epic about the war between Ceirinium and Feresdechadren. Your honored father has a copy, but your library lacks one. And, come to that, a copy of Sichan Meiregen’s epic about the later war between Meridanium and Casmantium. The one that describes the war in the fifth century, not the fourth. You have very little history in your library, and that
is
a lack because I’m sure the descriptions of the fortifications and the siege engines that breached them would interest you.”

Tehre made a little
Hmm!
sound and looked at Fareine, who made a note. Then she said to Gereint, “I would like to hear more about the desert and how it differs from ordinary countryside—if you wish to describe it.”

“That’s an interesting question,” Gereint answered at once. “The light, the air, even the dust is quite different in the desert.”

“Oh?” There was no sign, now, that Tehre was in the least interested in how he had come to meet her father. She looked around vaguely. Gereint realized she was looking for a quill just as Fareine put one in her hand and laid out a little booklet of paper for her to write in. Tehre took the quill without seeming to notice how it came to be in her hand and leaned forward intently. “Different how?”

Gereint easily discovered where the surgeon mage Reichteier Andlauban lived, and went to his house the day after he’d arrived in Breidechboden. But Andlauban was not at home.

“I fear the honored surgeon has gone to Weierachboden,” his doorkeeper said, his apologetic manner professionally sincere. “We anticipate his return within three or four days, honored sir. Surely no more than five days. Shall I give the honored surgeon your name? Have you a token to leave?”

Gereint shook his head and assured the doorkeeper that he’d return in a few days. Then he went back to Tehre’s house. He was disappointed, of course. It had never occurred to him that he would venture into Breidechboden and then find so trivial a problem in his way. What if Andlauban wasn’t back in three or four or five days? What if whatever business had taken him to Weierachboden took longer than that? Just how long was Gereint going to have linger in Breidechboden? And what were the odds that he’d happen across some old acquaintance, one of his old masters—more likely a servant from one of his masters’ houses—worst of all, a cousin? Someone, anyone, who would recognize him? He could just imagine turning around a corner and finding himself face to face with one of his cousins: Brachan or Feir or Gescheichan. Possibly Brachan or Feir might hesitate, might not believe they could actually have recognized him. But Gescheichan would not doubt himself for an instant.

This thought brought the sweat out on Gereint’s forehead and stretched all his nerves tight; he felt now that every step he made outside the Amnachudran townhouse was dangerous, and looked over his shoulder until he was back within its protection. But, though he kept his head down in the city and tried to be as inconspicuous as possible, he also made himself detour into an open-air market long enough to buy the appropriate materials, and that evening he made Tehre a scale model of a bow-style catapult. He used cypress and tendon and wire, and he used his own money—or, at least, some of the money Amnachudran had given him.

He met, so far as he could tell, no one he’d ever known.

Gereint demonstrated the model for Tehre the next morning. “But if you scale it directly up, the dimensions might not be quite right,” he cautioned her.

“Yes, I know,” Tehre answered absently, examining the mechanism with delight. “Masonry’s the only type of structure you can almost always scale up directly.” She paused to think about this. “I think when you direct loads through a mechanism like this,” she concluded, touching the model catapult, “it probably matters how strong the tensions are, because how the materials take the loads probably changes with the scale. With masonry, it matters less—as long as you keep everything in your building or bridge under compression. Because you never reach the compressive load that could actually break the stone.”

“Stone breaks,” Gereint objected.

“Buildings break,” Tehre corrected absently. “But not because of too much compression on the stone. Generally somebody made the wall too thin or not heavy enough and the line of compression gets outside the wall and the wall tips up and falls over. Hmm. You’ve made a strong draw, here.” She wound back the catapult string and loaded a stone ball in the cup. Then she touched the trigger. The stone flew true, striking with a satisfyingly solid
thud
the target Gereint had set up in the garden.

Tehre crowed with glee like a child. “Wonderful!
Wonderful!
Oh, I ought to have been looking at siege engines all along! Would you mind if I broke this? I’d like to fire it unloaded and see how it fails. Not today!” she added at once, suddenly realizing how this might sound. “It’s a splendid mechanism and I want to play with it for a few days first, but later—”

“I know you’re interested in how structures fail,” Gereint assured her. “I can make you another one—as many as you like.”

“Oh, could you? Please do start another one, would you? Just tell Fareine what materials you need, if you don’t want to go out into the city to order them yourself.” Tehre loaded another stone and asked shyly, “Would you like to fire this one?” as though she didn’t think Gereint’s reluctance to leave the house, or the fact that she’d noticed it, was worth the least comment.

It was typical, Gereint thought, that Tehre both noticed something odd about him, something he was in fact trying to conceal, and at the same time didn’t notice that it was odd. He suspected she simply thought most people were odd and didn’t notice when someone was odd in an unusual way.

He thought no one else had noticed his fear of going into the city. Well, possibly Fareine; she was an observant woman. But by the household as a whole, Gereint found himself accepted as a normal and valued man for the first time in nineteen years.

Perhaps for this reason, Gereint liked everything about the house and household. He enjoyed the liveliness of the primarily female staff, enjoyed the friendly warmth of the kitchen and the staff—and they
were
friendly, right from the first, and only became more so. But Gereint didn’t dare take any of the offers that came his way from several of the young women. Even if he would risk insulting Lady Tehre, he could hardly go to any woman while
geas
bound. But surely Andlauban would return soon… He touched the stiff leather envelope that contained Amnachudran’s letter to the surgeon, drawing assurance from it.

The surgeon mage would soon return, and he’d agree to take out the
geas
rings, and then at last Gereint would be truly free to find a different course for his life… though he found, to his own surprise, that he would be sorry to leave Breidechboden if leaving meant losing the chance to see what odd bridges and complex mathematical philosophy Tehre Amnachudran might come up with.

But he
would
leave. The risk of being recognized by someone he’d once known was just too great.

But in the morning, Tehre found him before the sun was even properly up. Gereint had risen early. He was in the kitchen, cadging pastries stuffed with apples and golden raisins from the cook and letting the kitchen girls tease him about his early morning and what did that imply about his early nights and was he quite sure he was sleeping well? But they scattered, startled, when the mistress of the house came in.