Law of the Broken Earth (35 page)

But Lord Beguchren
looked
like a mage. Despite his white hair, at first she did not think he was very old. Then she looked again and was not sure, because his opaque pewter-gray eyes somehow seemed ancient. He was a very small man, no taller than Mienthe herself—if anything, he was a little shorter than she was. Despite his small size, the impenetrable calm in his pewter-dark eyes made Lord Beguchren rather intimidating, especially because he was also thoroughly elegant. There was delicate white embroidery on his white shirt, which had buttons of pearl and just a little lace at the wrists—Mienthe, who was not ordinarily much interested in fine clothing, instantly longed for a gown made by his tailor—and there were very fine sapphires set in the silver rings on three fingers of his left hand.

Behind this man and a little to the side stood a man who was so much taller that he made Beguchren Teshrichten look as small as a child. He had broad shoulders and big hands and a strong, bony face that was not exactly handsome. Yet he owned, Mienthe could not help noticing, a lanky, raw-boned masculinity that was, in its way, more striking than ordinary handsomeness.

The tall man was also particularly perceptive: For all Tan was working to stay quietly in the background, the greater part of his attention was definitely fixed on Tan and not on Mienthe. She wondered how Tan had caught his interest so quickly and definitively. The tall man did
not seem to wish to stare, but he looked again and again at Tan with quick, covert glances, each time looking away at once. Mienthe frowned at him. He noticed it after a moment, took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment, and then gave Mienthe a carefully attentive look and a smile. She did not find his gaze aggressive like the Arobern’s nor unfathomable like Beguchren’s, but curious and even friendly. If not for his strange reaction to Tan, she would have thought it the look of a warmhearted man who wished to believe the best of every stranger. But there
was
that reaction, so she did not know what to think.

Beside the tall man stood a small, delicate woman with lovely molasses-dark hair and great natural poise. By the way she rested her hand possessively on his arm, she was clearly his wife. There was no sign of warmth or friendliness from her, but there was no hostility, either. Her gaze was, Mienthe decided, professionally intent and curious. She did not seem to share her husband’s fascination with Tan, but gazed steadily and analytically at Mienthe. It was the sort of look Mienthe expected from a mage. Probably she
was
a mage, whether Lord Beguchren was or not. For all her cool dispassion, Mienthe was absurdly glad to see another woman in the room.

Mienthe wanted to look at Tan, but he was a step behind her. So after a moment, since there was plainly nothing else to do, she walked forward, offered the Arobern a very small bow—he was not her king, so although she longed to be able to ask someone, she thought it must be wrong for her to do more. Then, straightening, she waited for the king to address her.

The Arobern nodded back, very grave and regal. He
said without preamble, in strongly accented but understandable Terheien, “You did not send me a wand, but I think you are a courier. From the Delta, I am informed. Also from the Safiad, yes?”

Mienthe stared at him for a moment. She remembered Tan saying,
I suppose he must have the entire wretched story from top to toe.
But she did not know how to begin.

Then Tan breathed in her ear, “Whose cousin are you? Well?”

Mienthe blinked. She took a deep breath and said, her voice only wavering a little, “Lord King”—she thought that was the correct Casmantian form of address—“Lord King, I am not precisely a courier. But it is true I carry a warning from the Delta. From my cousin. I’m—my name is Mienthe daughter of Beraod. Bertaud son of Boudan is my cousin. He—I—I know you are an honorable man and a strong king. So I came to you, because there is trouble in the Delta and I did not know where else to go.”

There was a pause, during which the King of Casmantium looked hard at Mienthe. He did not smile or nod, and for a moment she was afraid he did not believe her. Then he stood up and inclined his head to her, and she saw that though she had taken him by surprise, he did not doubt her. She supposed few people dared lie to him. Certainly not with the rather alarming Beguchren Teshrichten by his side.

“A chair for Lady Mienthe,” the Arobern commanded, and waited for one to be brought over before he dropped back into his own chair. He made a broad gesture that dismissed most of the guardsmen and nearly all of the servants. Then, once the room was more nearly private,
he said, “I have had word from the Safiad. That is why I came to Ehre, so that couriers from Feierabiand could come to me more swiftly. Now you say you are come directly from the Delta, not from the Safiad but on your own account? Tell me your warning.”

It seemed an unbelievable tale when Mienthe laid it out, which she tried to do in order, from Tan’s appearance in Tiefenauer carrying secrets he’d stolen from the Linularinan spymaster, straight on through his kidnapping right out of a guarded house by that same spymaster and then the immediate invasion of the Delta by Linularinan soldiers. It sounded unbelievable even to her. She stumbled embarrassedly through an explanation of how she’d found Tan, of how she might be waking into the mage gift, though she didn’t feel like she was becoming a mage, but really she did not know what becoming a mage felt like—here, though no one interrupted, Beguchren Teshrichten and the tall man exchanged a significant look, and Mienthe stopped.

“Go on,” said the Arobern, with an impatient frown for his own people.

Mienthe hesitated for a moment, but when no one else said anything, she went on to describe the book, the one with the empty pages, that the Linularinan spymaster had brought with him from Teramondian. She looked again at Tan in case he should want to explain about the book. He only nodded at her again, so she explained how they thought Tan must have taken some powerful legistworking or law out of the book and how the Linularinan spymaster, or someone, seemed amazingly determined to get it back.

Mienthe looked from one to another of her audience,
unable to gauge what anybody thought of any of this. She said uncertainly, “And then when we thought we might go north, Tan and I, we were afraid we might find Linularinan agents before us. They won’t
stop
. I don’t know if King Iaor knows all this yet, though some word must surely have got north by this time. But I don’t know whether he’s free to respond to Linularinum’s provocation, because of the griffins. You do know about that? That’s what was in the message you were sent, isn’t that right? A mage of theirs, named Kairaithin, I think, brought word that the Wall, the Great Wall my cousin helped build, that it was cracked through. But was there anything about Linularinum in that message?”

“No,” said the Arobern, looking at her.

“Well, then I bring you that word,” Mienthe said simply. “We don’t know why they are so horribly determined, but we think—that is, I think—”

“We,” said Tan quietly, the first time he had spoken.

Mienthe nodded, grateful for his support. “Maybe it’s not so, but we think it’s something to do with the book and the magic of law it held, and we think there were Linularinan agents still behind us in the pass. Maybe three hours behind? Just at the crest of the mountain when we had reached the iron gates. Though it might not have been—that is, honest travelers might also have come behind us by chance.”

The Arobern looked at Mienthe for a moment. Then he studied Tan for a much longer moment. At last he said to Beguchren Teshrichten, “What do
you
say, hah?”

The small man gave his king an impenetrable look and then glanced up at the tall man with the quirk of one frost-white eyebrow. He asked, “Gereint?”

The tall man looked carefully at Mienthe and then glanced at Tan, though he looked away again at once with a slight wince. He took a deep breath, shrugged, and said to Beguchren, his voice exactly as deep and gravelly as Mienthe had expected, but somehow not harsh, “I don’t know whether the honored lady is a mage. I’m looking right at her and still I can’t tell. I told you how oddly magecraft has been behaving of late. That may be interfering with my perception. I look at the honored lady and sometimes I think she’s a mage and sometimes I think she’s nothing like a mage.” He glanced at Tan once more and away.

“But the man?” Beguchren Teshrichten said patiently.

“Oh, well… the man. I don’t think
he’s
a mage; that’s not what I’m seeing. But forces are not simply bending around him as they bend around a mage.” Gereint pointed one powerful finger at Tan, who flinched just perceptibly. “Forces—events—every chance in the whole world is twisting, distorting, and folding right
there
. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve never heard of anything like it. I can’t think of a single passage in Warichteier’s
Principia
or any other book that refers to anything remotely like it. I certainly can’t do the phenomenon justice, not being a poet, but if you’ll forgive a poor attempt, I’d say it’s as though this man here is the hinge around which the whole age is trying to turn.”

This time Beguchren lifted both eyebrows. Then, while everyone else, including Tan, stared at his tall friend who had come out with such astonishing statements, he gave the Arobern a significant look.

The Arobern said to Mienthe, “Three hours behind you, hah?” Then he turned to one of the guardsmen, the
one who had escorted Mienthe and Tan through Ehre, and commanded, “Set a guard on the iron gates. At once, do you hear? I wish to see anyone who comes through those gates. I wish to see these travelers personally, you understand, whoever they might be. And set a stronger guard on all the gates into Ehre—be quick to do that. Anyone who seems perhaps a little out of the ordinary, you understand? Men who are neither merchants nor farmers nor of any trade you can name. Look at these people for me, and send me word if you have any doubt what you have caught in your net.”

The guardsman bowed without a word and went out quickly.

The Arobern got to his feet. Mienthe jumped up immediately, not to stay seated while the king stood, and looked anxiously at Tan. Practiced as he was at showing only what he wished to show, he looked faintly stunned. Mienthe thought his expression was sincere. She certainly thought he had every reason to look stunned.

To Mienthe, the king said, “Honored lady, I will ask Lady Tehre Amnachudran Tanshan to grant you the hospitality of her household, if this is agreeable to you and if Lady Tehre will permit me the liberty.”

The tiny woman had been staring, with everyone else, at Tan. Now she transferred her interested gaze from Tan to Mienthe and said, in nearly accentless Terheien, “Yes, I am pleased to make such an offer. That will do very well.” She smiled, a sharp expression but not unkind, and added, directly to Mienthe, “I’m sure you wish to wash and shift your clothing. If I haven’t anything to suit you, I’ve got some cloth we can easily run up into a nice gown—I’ve been considering cloth lately. Working
with cloth is more complicated and interesting than you’d think. Of course everything is fine if you apply any tension straight along the threads, and cloth distorts symmetrically if you apply tension at forty-five degrees to the angle of the warp and weft threads, but what I can’t make out is the equations that allow you to predict the degree and kind of deformation if the tension is applied at some intermediate angle—”

Gereint broke into this discourse without the least surprise or fuss, “Tehre, if you please, I imagine Lady Mienthe would like to have something to eat at a civilized table while you find appropriate clothing for her.” He added to Mienthe, “I think I am able to assure you, Lady Mienthe, that no Linularinan agent, mage or otherwise, will trouble your rest in
my
household.”

Mienthe nodded, trying not to laugh.
Tehre’s Wall
, the griffin had said to her cousin. So Lady Tehre had made that Wall. Mienthe found she was not at all surprised. She wondered what sort of protections might surround a household that included Lady Tehre and her husband. Very secure ones, probably.

Then she realized the king had not said he would send
Tan
with Lady Tehre, and hesitated, wondering whether she should say something, or ask, or protest.

Before she could speak, the Arobern said to Tan, “You, I wish to give into the hands of my friend Beguchren Teshrichten and my mage Gereint Enseichen. Will you permit this?”

For once, Tan did not seem to have any smooth response to hand.

T
he king’s house in Tihannad, where he held his winter court, was tucked close by the shore of Niambe Lake. It was a comfortable, rambling house built out of the native granite, with shingles of mountain cedar, nestled in the center of a comfortable, rambling town also built out of stone and cedar. A low wall ran about the king’s house, as a greater wall encircled the town, but neither wall had been called upon to defend against enemies for hundreds of years and the gates of both generally stood wide and welcoming, with neither guard nor even a clerk to count who came and went.