Law of the Broken Earth (37 page)

“Earth and stone.” Bertaud rubbed his face again, then looked up and nodded. “Very well. I accept your word and your promise.
Keep
it, man. You may. In the end, if I must, I’ll reveal it myself.”

Of course he would. So long as…“Kairaithin cannot find a way to slip sideways around this… affinity of yours and kill you himself?” Jos tried not to sound too diffident. “To him, that must surely seem an acceptable solution, lord?”

Bertaud laughed, without much humor. “I’m confident he wishes he had when he had the chance. No. It’s too late now for him to reach after
that
wind. He can’t approach me without my awareness, and I’m alert to the possibility, I assure you.” He gazed down toward Tihannad for some time in silence.

Jos supposed the Feierabianden lord knew the measure and limits of his own gift. Nevertheless, he resolved to stay near him if he could, so he might at least cry a warning if Lord Bertaud was mistaken.

Bertaud nodded to Jos at last and led the way that last little distance down to the lake and then along the lakeshore road to the gates of Tihannad and, with some difficulty, through the crowd that pressed forward. But once at the gate, the men there recognized him, of course.

“Begging your pardon, but it’s the king’s orders, my lord, because of the trouble in the south,” an officer of the guardsmen told Bertaud. “Everyone to be let in, but we’re
to direct them as best we may. Everyone’s taking in one or two families, and the king’s ordered temporary shelter set up for the rest—”

“Trouble in the
south
,” Bertaud said. He and Jos exchanged a baffled look.

“So they say, my lord,” said the officer. “Couriers have been riding in and out all today and yesterday, until one would expect them to wear out their wands as well as their horses. His Majesty is in his house, so far as we’ve had word here, and I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you, my lord, if you’ll go up. I’m sure we can find horses for you and your companion—”

“Thank you,” said Lord Bertaud, with a shake of his head that suggested, not that he was rejecting the offer, but that he had no more idea than Jos what might have happened in the south. “Yes, we would be glad if you could find an extra beast or two.
Where
in the south, do you know?”

The officer gave Bertaud a close look and lowered his voice. “Ah, my lord, I’m sorry if I’m the first to tell you so, but what we hear is those sly Linularinan bastards have crossed the river into the Delta, taking advantage of what they hope will be trouble here. I don’t know as whether that’s true, my lord. You should ask at the king’s house—”

“Yes,” Bertaud said, in a blank tone.

King Iaor received them without formality, in a large, plain room with five tables, where at the moment maps were spread out on all but one of the tables and pinned up on three of the walls. The king was attended by two of his generals and by the captain of his personal guard,
and by another man for whom Bertaud spared a sharp look.

“Yes, my queen is returned, and my daughters, thankfully all safe,” said the king, evidently in explanation of that man’s presence. He opened one hand in a curt gesture, signaling that they need not bow or stand otherwise on ceremony. “They are come weary and bedraggled, but safe. Earth and iron, if I had known we rode on
campaign
, I would hardly have invited them to accompany me! Tell me that they will be safe here.” He cocked his head at Bertaud, who wordlessly shook his head.

“No?” said the king, and gestured for two of his attendants to unroll another map on the only clear table. He said, “One may possibly expect Tihannad itself to be protected by the intrinsic magic of the lake… we do expect so. Nevertheless, I think I will send the queen and my little girls north to Tiearanan. If there is trouble from any direction, it will surely come there last.”

“And from what direction do we expect trouble? From what other direction,” Bertaud amended. “From the south, is it? What is this I hear about Linularinum coming across the river into the Delta?”

The king nodded sharply. “Would I was able to deny that word! But I fear it is true enough. Niethe herself tells me she fled only just in time. Bertaud, I regret that I must inform you that your cousin Mienthe insisted on remaining in Tiefenauer.”

Lord Bertaud stood very still, as though he had received a blow and was waiting to feel the extent of the damage.

“Likely she is perfectly safe. Kohorrian will surely not allow his men to pillage, least of all your own house in
your own town. He will not wish to offend the Delta so seriously—”

“He has offended me,” Bertaud said. His voice had gone quiet and hard, with an undertone of ferocity nearly as dangerous as a griffin’s.

“Well, he has assuredly offended me!” snapped the king, and slammed a fist down without warning onto the nearest table. “My Niethe,
my little girls
, riding night and day through dangerous sloughs and along animal trails, because Kohorrian thinks if we are sufficiently distracted in the north, then he may make as free as he likes with the south! We shall find a way to sort out this trouble with the griffins, I trust we shall, and then we shall assuredly ride south and explain clearly to Kohorrian the depths of our offense.”

“May we find it so,” said Bertaud grimly.

Iaor nodded. “There is word that Linularinan forces are active west of the Delta as well, over toward Minas Ford and Minas Spring. Nevertheless, we believe that the greatest part of his ambition, whatever ill-conceived notion informs it, concerns the Delta itself. I should send you south—”

Bertaud opened his mouth, but then closed it again without speaking. Clearly he longed to take a fast horse and as many men as the king would give him and ride south as fast as he could go. But, thought Jos, even more clearly he knew that if the Wall above Niambe Lake shattered, he would need to be right here, right
here
, where the griffins must come through the narrow pass and pass by the lake. He could not possibly ride south, not on any account, not even if his pride were scored beyond bearing at this extraordinary Linularinan insult, not even if he had
a wife and a dozen children in Tiefenauer and far less if his greatest hostage to the exigencies of war were a mere cousin, with which in any case the Lord of the Delta was reputedly well-endowed.

“So I am to gather you have no good word to bring me?” Iaor asked, regarding Bertaud narrowly. “Advise me, my old friend, and we shall consider what we may best do.”

Lord Bertaud took a slow breath. Another.

Jos wanted to say,
You cannot possibly go south
, only Bertaud would not likely welcome advice he knew already, nor Jos’s temerity in offering it. He said nothing.

“As you permit me,” Bertaud said at last. “Yes, send Niethe and the girls to Tiearanan. Then, my king, take what force you have gathered and ride south yourself. See to the Delta. Reprimand Kohorrian. Leave me a small force here. If the Wall breaks and the griffins come through the pass—and I think it likely will, and so they may well—in this exigency, my king, trust me to turn them, with such allies as I am able to persuade. Or if I cannot turn them, then nothing can, and as that is so, your armies will be better occupied elsewhere.”

From the king’s blank expression, this was not the advice he had anticipated. He met Bertaud’s eyes in silence. There was something between them, Jos guessed; something difficult of which this moment reminded them both. But neither man spoke of it. The king only asked at last, “Shall I trust your judgment in this? Do you trust your own judgment in this?”

“Yes,” said Bertaud, his tone flat. “As I beg you will, my king.”

“Ah.” The king glanced around at his maps, down at the nearest. Up again. He glanced questioningly at Jos.

“He does well enough with me,” Bertaud said. He offered no explanation, as he had offered none in all this tangled implication and half-truth.

However, the king asked for none. He only nodded and glanced again down at the map. Then he looked up again. “My generals”—he nodded right and left at the sober, quiet men who attended him—“have been gathering men this past day. They will be able to ride the day after tomorrow, or possibly the day after that. Perhaps with me, perhaps with you, perhaps with neither of us. I will wish to hear in more detail of what you have discovered regarding the Wall and the griffins; we will both wait for further news from the south. Then we will decide, in all good order, what we shall do.”

“My king, I can desire nothing but what you desire,” Lord Bertaud said formally, and bowed.

Jos was already certain that, whatever the king wanted and whatever he thought was important, the final decision would place Bertaud firmly in the path of any incursion of griffins through the northern pass. It was absolutely essential that the decision fall out that way, and so Lord Bertaud would say whatever he must, do whatever he must, to be certain it did.

But he was also certain that unless Kairaithin said and did whatever
he
had to, in order to ensure a private meeting between Lord Bertaud and Tastairiane, and quickly, quickly—before the Wall shattered—no good outcome was even vaguely possible, whatever men and the kings of men might arrange among themselves.

I
n his life as a confidential agent, and even before that, Tan had lived through his share of terrifying moments. Yet, oddly, he could not recall ever being so frightened in his life as he was when the door shut behind him and closed him into a small, private, comfortable room with the small, elegant Casmantian lord Beguchren Teshrichten and the tall mage Gereint Enseichen.

It was perfectly reasonable for the confidential agent of one country to be afraid if he fell into the power of a different country. Certain obvious events were likely to unfold from that point. But an awareness of that fact did not explain Tan’s fear, and he knew it did not.

Mienthe had insisted on staying close by him, which Tan considered very nearly heroism as it meant she must postpone her bath. He had considered prompting her to go with the Casmantian lady, as the Arobern clearly wished. Compliance with the Arobern’s wishes might well have been tactically the wiser course. But, though
he was ashamed of the depth of his own need for her support, he was too grateful for her presence to make any effort to send her away.

Because he was ashamed and angry as well as frightened, Tan said sharply, “Well, Lord Beguchren, as there is no great need to dissemble, shall we be plain? You mean to pry open my mind and heart and discover what is written there. Is that not true?”

Mienthe, shocked and distressed, took half a step forward, but Lord Beguchren only gave Tan a slight, imperturbable smile, tipped his head toward a chair drawn up near a wide fireplace, and said mildly, in smooth, unaccented Terheien, “If you will sit, we will make an effort to discover whether or not that will be necessary.”

Tan did not move.

“He is frightened,” said the tall man. Gereint Enseichen. His tone was matter-of-fact, utterly lacking in censure. He added wryly, “You have this effect on ordinary men, my lord. I well remember our own first meeting.” As he spoke, he rearranged the chairs in the room so that four of them formed a neat rectangle in front of the fire, a porcelain lamp hanging behind each. Then he settled in one of the chairs, folding up his long limbs with every sign of satisfaction. “Honored lady, if you will?” he said to Mienthe, indicating one of the remaining chairs, and, “My lord? Honored sir?” he added, nodding toward the others.

The white-haired Casmantian lord was not quite smiling, but nevertheless he looked amused. He said mildly, “Well, but I was constrained by a royal command to terrify you, Gereint,” but he also moved to take the indicated chair.

“You terrified me for a great long time after that,” the
mage said. “You still do.” He did not sound in the least terrified, but rather warmly affectionate.

Tan saw very clearly that the two men, however different they might seem, were close friends. For some inexplicable reason, he found this reassuring. And he did not want to frighten Mienthe by letting her see his own fear.

She laid a tentative hand on his arm. “You probably should sit, do you think?”

Tan’s knee
was
making itself a trifle obvious: A long, slow ache had spread from the knee all the way up and down his leg. He gazed for a moment at Mienthe’s anxious, earnest face and then found himself able to walk forward, almost without limping, and take his place in the appointed chair. The stiffness of his movements owed nothing to his bad knee. He did not understand why he could not mime relaxation, amiability, dense stupidity… He had drawn one mask or another across his own manner for so long that he would have thought the exercise had become effortless. But all masks seemed far out of reach today. He said sharply, to the mage, “What is it you see in me? What do you mean by saying that, what, events turn around me?”