Law of the Broken Earth (7 page)

Bertaud silently passed him more paper and looked through the just-finished lists. His eyebrows rose, and he shook his head. He passed half the lists over to the clerk,
taking the other half to copy himself. He could at least work quietly, for he did not harass Tan with questions, but left him alone to try to bludgeon coherent phrases out of his exhausted mind and fair script out of his stiff fingers. The little sleep he’d gotten in the prison seemed days past… He finished at last, tossed down the quill, and blew on the ink to dry it.

Bertaud took the analysis without comment, read it through once quickly, then again more slowly. Then he gave Tan a long look.

“The ink isn’t smudged?” Tan asked blearily. “I didn’t transpose two phrases or lose half a paragraph?” His gift shouldn’t allow such mistakes, but he was so tired…

“No,” Bertaud said. He sat down again and began to copy out the document. He said absently, not pausing in his task, “You need rest, I know. I’ll send you to your bed shortly. Before I do, take a moment and think. Is there anything else I should tell Iaor when I bring him this?”

Tan rubbed his hands hard across his face. Then he poured himself some watered wine—well, he reached for the decanter, but Tenned was there before him and handed him a glass without a word. Tan nodded to the young guard and tried to collect his thoughts while he waited for Bertaud to finish the copy he was making and give the original to the clerk.

Then he said, “Tell His Majesty the whole lot could be false, deliberately put in my way to mislead us. One always has to remember that other men are also intelligent,” he added to Bertaud’s startled look. “But I don’t think that’s the case here, not from the way Istierinan stirred up all Linularinum and not from the feel of the information. Still, you might tell the king… remind him
that the politest smile still hides teeth, and that no Linularinan smiles without calculating which way fortune is tending. All the rest is”—he waved a hand—“contained there.”

“Yes,” said the lord. He rose with his set of papers. And, after a moment of thought, gathered up an equal pile of blank pages, which he made into an identical packet. Tan nodded his approval.

“Twelve more full copies, and hand them out as they’re finished,” Bertaud said to the clerk. He added to Tan, “I’ve sent half a dozen couriers out already, for Tihannad and Tiearanan, but four of those were carrying blanks and the other two only had partial copies. I’ll send some of these with couriers, mostly across country, and some with soldiers. And I’ve arranged to send a couple out in, hmm, less-conventional hands.”

Tan inclined his head again, satisfied with all these arrangements. “And I?”

“You’ll stay here in my house. You need time to rest and recover.”

Tan nodded.

“My steward here is Dessand. Eniad is captain of the king’s soldiers quartered in Tiefenauer. Geroen you have met—”

“What, he’s still a captain of the guard?” Tan said in mock astonishment. “You didn’t flog the hide off his back?”

The lord smiled. “I did worse than that. He’s no longer merely a captain—he’s
the
captain now. I made him captain of the whole city guard. I’d been looking for a replacement for the post. Geroen will do well, I believe.”

Tan believed it, too. He scrubbed his hands across his face again, then pushed himself to his feet, all his joints complaining, and looked at young Tenned.

“Bath and bed, says my lord,” the guard said earnestly, answering all of Tan’s hopes. “Or supper first, if you like. Whatever you like, esteemed sir.” He gave Tan an uncertain look. “Teras son of Toharas? Or is it, uh, Tan?”

Lord Bertaud lifted an amused eyebrow.

For once, Tan honestly could not think of a single reason to claim a false name. Istierinan’s men knew very well who he was and would not care what name he used. And to the people on this side of the river, it should matter even less. “Tan will do,” he told the young man. “A bath, bed, supper… I can’t think of anything better. You’ll attend me?”

“Yes…” Tenned did not quite seem to know whether he thought this was a better assignment than standing guard in the prison or not.

Tan smiled. “Well, you look strong enough to catch me if I collapse on the stairs rather than making it all the way to that promised bath. Good. Hold high the lamp, then, and light well the path!”

The young man nodded uncertainly, clearly missing the reference. Lord Bertaud, however, caught the allusion. He smiled, though a little grimly.

Tan grinned and declared, “Wishing no one any ill in the world, my lord! Or no one who ought properly to be on this side of the river. By now, Istierinan’s agents will have realized it’s far too late to stop all that”—he waved a vague hand at the growing stack of paper—“from getting out, and away home they’ll go, feathers well ruffled and plucked. Then all good little boys will sleep safe in
their beds, which is just as well.” He paused, suddenly realizing that he was speaking far too freely. “Bed,” he muttered. “Yes. Tenned—”

“Esteemed sir,” the young man said, baffled but polite, and held open the door for Tan.

He had, later, only the vaguest memories of the bath or of finding a wide bed swathed in linen and lamb’s wool, in a warm room lit by the ruddy glow of a banked fire and smelling, oddly enough, of honeysuckle. He must have felt himself safe, or else he was exhausted beyond caring, because he sank into the darkness behind the fire’s glow and let the scent of honeysuckle carry him away.

M
ienthe had been feeling odd for days: restless and somehow as though she ought to be doing something urgent. But she had no idea what that should be. Before King Iaor had brought his household to Tiefenauer, she had longed to travel north to meet them. She’d
longed
to leave the Delta, which was not a new feeling, but something was different about it this spring. It seemed both stronger and more urgent this year, and she didn’t know why. She’d expected the feeling to go away after the king arrived. Yet, even after the great house was filled to the roof tiles with Iaor and Niethe and the little princesses and all their attendants—and Erich—the restlessness had lingered. Mienthe didn’t understand it. Usually the best month of the year was the one in which the king and his family and Erich visited the Delta.

Erich had been a stocky, rather small boy of twelve when King Iaor had compelled the King of Casmantium to send him to Feierabiand. As a guarantee of civility
between the two countries, Iaor had said. Erich was supposed to stay in Feierabiand for eight years. Mienthe supposed King Iaor thought that was long enough to make his point.

Erich had come to the Delta with Iaor every year since the king had begun making his annual progress through the south of his country, so he and Mienthe had met when they were children. Mienthe had been new to the great house, uncertain of her cousin, shy of strangers, frightened of King Iaor and all his retinue. Erich had been new to Feierabiand, awkward with the language, excruciatingly conscious that he was supposed to honorably represent his father and country, and glad to find one person in the great house he didn’t need to be wary of. They’d become friends at once.

The year after that, during the awful period of Tef’s illness, Bertaud had asked Iaor to send Erich to the Delta, and the king had permitted him to come. Mienthe had been so grateful. Erich had not been at all shocked at Mienthe’s grief for a man who had not even been kin, a man who had been only a servant; indeed, it had been Erich who had persuaded Bertaud to let Mienthe help dig Tef’s grave, even when her hands blistered and bled. She had been so grateful.

Now the eight years of Erich’s residence in Feierabiand were almost past. He was eighteen now. He’d changed a great deal since last year’s visit. Last year, he’d suddenly become taller than Mienthe. But though he’d come into his height, he’d been as angular and ungainly as one of the storks that nested on the rooftops of the town. His hands had seemed too big for his bony wrists and his elbows had stuck out and he banged into the furniture and
dropped plates. But this year he seemed to have turned all his growth into brawn. He’d filled out and got some weight on his bones, and he now looked very much the young man and not a boy at all.

He would be nineteen in midsummer, three weeks before Mienthe’s birthday, and the year after that he would turn twenty, and then he would go home. Mienthe didn’t like to think about that. She was almost certain his father would never let Erich come back to Feierabiand, and almost as certain that her cousin Bertaud, reluctant as he was to leave the Delta, would never again find it necessary to visit Casmantium.

She could ask Bertaud whether she might accompany the king’s household when King Iaor left Tiefenauer. Erich would like that—
she
would like that. Or she thought she would. She ought to. Bertaud might let her go, even if he refused to leave the Delta himself. She wanted to ask him for permission—or at least, she felt as though she
ought
to want to ask him. But somehow the idea of joining the king’s progress didn’t exactly feel right. Mienthe had wanted so badly to go north just a day or so ago, but now she just didn’t. Neither feeling made any sense!

Probably it was just the spring making her so restless. Probably it was watching the swallows dip and whirl through the sky and fly north, toward the higher country where they nested.

She found that she welcomed the distraction that her cousin’s astonishing new guest had brought. She even found herself at once disposed to like him—even though she’d seen him only during that first strained interview, and even though he had clearly not wanted her there.
She’d liked him and been glad he’d made it safely to the great house, for all he’d seemed to bring an echo of violence and fear with him. And of course, it had been fortunate he’d come to the Delta, since he’d found the king so much faster than if he’d gone to Tihannad.

Tan had an air of having
lived
, of having been out in the world. She liked that, even given just the little glimpse she’d had of him. She’d liked the slightly mocking quirk to his mouth when he’d said,
I have a good memory
. She had admired the way he’d spoken with such confidence to the king and to her cousin, even though he was clearly exhausted and maybe even a little frightened.

She would never have guessed, if she’d seen him in town, that he was actually Feierabianden. He looked pure Linularinan. No doubt that had been very helpful to him in his… profession. One expected Casmantian people to be broad-boned and clever with their hands; some of the artisans in town were Casmantian and one could spot them a mile away and by torchlight, as the saying went. The folk of Linularinum weren’t quite so distinctive, but they were born with contract law and an inclination for poetry in their blood to go along with their straight brown hair and their prim expressions. That was what people said. There were plenty of people with mixed blood along the river, especially in the Delta, but Tan didn’t look like he’d been born of mixed blood. In fact, he looked
exactly
like Mienthe’s idea of a Linularinan legist, except not as old and stiff as most legists. And friendlier. And, oddly, less secretive.

Well, again, that was probably because he was a spy. He could probably look friendly and openhearted and honest no matter what he was thinking or feeling.
Probably seeming sincere was part of being a confidential agent. You seemed ordinary and normal and people told you things. That wasn’t very nice. Probably Mienthe should be cautious of trusting him. But she didn’t feel cautious. She felt concerned. They said Tan had written out all the information he’d brought and then collapsed in exhaustion. He’d been either asleep or unconscious for two days now, which could happen when somebody overused his gift. Nevertheless, Mienthe felt strongly that she should go look in on him, make sure he was well. That was foolish. She’d already looked in several times this very day, once this very afternoon. Of course he was perfectly well.

Nevertheless, she found herself wandering restlessly toward his room, even though she had no real business to take her in that direction.

“Mie!” said Erich as she passed the kitchens—of course he had been in the kitchens—and swung out the door to stride along beside her. He handed her a sweet roll, wrapped in paper to keep the honey and butter from dripping onto the floor. “Where are you going?”

Mienthe hesitated.

“To see if the spy is awake,” Erich said cheerfully. “Yes, I thought so. You should let me come.”

“I ought to ask one of my maids to come,” Mienthe muttered. “I meant to, Erich, truly, but Karin wasn’t handy just now.”