Lord Bertaud was still holding the door, with an air of amusement as well as impatience. A hurried tread was audible, and then a stocky, broad-shouldered young man of perhaps eighteen entered hastily, escorting a girl about his own age, trim-figured and pretty in a straightforward way, wheaten hair caught back with a ribbon.
“I beg your pardon, cousin,” the young woman said hastily to Bertaud, then bit her lip and turned to the king. “It’s my fault Erich’s late—I asked him where he was off to in such a hurry and then I made him bring me. If you—that is, if you don’t mind? Please?” She glanced sidelong at Bertaud.
“Mienthe—” began Bertaud, in a tone of exasperated affection.
“The fault was entirely mine,” declared the young man, who must be, Tan realized, Erichstaben son of Brechen Glansent. Or, as the Casmantians would have it, Prince Erichstaben Taben Arobern, first and only son of Brechen Glansent Arobern,
the
Arobern, King of Casmantium, currently a hostage at the court of King Iaor. Though the Casmantian prince certainly did not seem to feel his status as a hostage. He said to Iaor, in a deep voice that carried a guttural, clipped accent, “Your Majesty, if you will pardon my forwardness—”
“
If
you please—” began Bertaud sternly.
King Iaor held up a hand and everyone stopped.
A reluctant smile crooked Bertaud’s mouth. “You won’t permit me to scold them?”
The king said drily, “If Erich is to attend us here, then I can imagine no possible reason your cousin should not.”
He gave the pair a long look and added, “Though if I send you away, I shall expect you to go without argument.”
Both Erich and Mienthe nodded earnestly.
The king returned a grave nod. Then he looked at Tan for a long moment, his expression impossible to read. Then he said, “Teras son of Toharas?” To Tan’s relief, his voice held recognition and a trace of amusement.
“I’ve gone by that name,” Tan said, a little defensively. “Not for some time, I admit.”
“No,” agreed the king. “Though I recall it. But it is your own name that brought me to hear you.” He sat down in the chair and raised his eyebrows. “Well? I understand you meant to come to me in Tihannad? You are far out of your way.”
“Fortunately, so is Your Majesty,” Tan said smoothly. He glanced around at the clutter of guardsmen. “You’ll want to speak to me privately. Or more privately than this, at least.” He thought he should ask the king to send away the Casmantian prince and Bertaud’s cousin, but he also thought Iaor would refuse. And at least he could be almost entirely certain that neither of them could possibly be a Linularinan agent.
King Iaor tilted his head to one side and glanced at Bertaud. Bertaud nodded to the captain. “You and your men may wait outside.” When the captain glowered in disapproval, he added, “If you would be so good, Captain Geroen.”
The disapproval became outright mulishness. “No, my lord. With His Majesty right here,
and
your lady cousin?”
“We know this man,” Lord Bertaud said patiently.
“You don’t, my lord, begging your pardon. You might
have done once, but now he’s been in Linularinum, hasn’t he? For years, isn’t that so? And this is a man my guardsmen took up for mayhem and murder! He had two bodies at his feet when they found him, and him unmarked!”
Bertaud’s eyebrows rose. The king sat back in the chair, crooking a finger across his mouth. Erich grinned outright, but Mienthe looked solemn and a little distressed. The guardsmen all stared at their captain in horror.
The guard captain said grimly, “My lord, neither you nor His Majesty nor Lady Mienthe will be left alone with a dangerous prisoner while I’m captain of the prison guard. Nor I won’t resign. You can dismiss me, if it please you. But if you do, if you’ve any sense, my lord, you’ll call for someone you trust before you talk to this man. Dessand, maybe, or Eniad. Or some of His Majesty’s men.” He glared at Bertaud.
“I think,” Bertaud said gently, after a brief pause, “that you had better stay with us yourself, Geroen.”
Captain Geroen nodded curtly.
“Then, if you will free the prisoner’s hands, and dismiss your men—”
“Nor you won’t loose those manacles, my lord, not without you keep more than one man by you! No, it won’t do him any harm to wear iron a bit longer.”
This time the pause stretched out. But at last the lord said, with deliberate patience, “Perhaps you will at least permit me to dismiss your men?”
Geroen set his jaw. His heavy features were not suited to apology, but he said harshly, “I’d flog a man of mine for defiance, my lord, of course I would. I’ll willingly take a flogging on your order, just so as you’re alive to
give
the order! I beg your pardon, my lord, and beg you again not to take risks that, earth and
iron
, my lord,
are not necessary
.”
Tan was impressed. He rather thought the guardsmen had all stopped breathing. He knew they had all gone beyond horror to terror. If he’d meant to try some move of his own, this would surely have been the moment for it, with all attention riveted on the captain. Alas, he had no occasion to profit from the distraction.
“Captain Geroen, you must assuredly dismiss your men, if you are going to corrupt their innocence with so appalling an example,” Bertaud said at last, after a fraught pause. “You may do so now.”
The captain made a curt gesture. His men fled.
“I think,” Bertaud said drily to the king, “that this is all the privacy we will be afforded.”
The king was very clearly trying not to smile. “Your captain’s loyalty does you credit, my friend.” He transferred his gaze from Bertaud to Captain Geroen. “Of course, without discretion, loyalty is strictly limited in value.”
There was nothing Geroen could say to that. He set his heavy jaw and bowed his head.
“So,” Iaor said to Tan, his tone rather dry, “perhaps you will now tell us the news you’ve brought out of Linularinum.”
Tan glanced deliberately at Prince Erichstaben, at Lady Mienthe.
“I think we need not be concerned with Erich’s discretion,” King Iaor said.
“Certainly not with Mienthe’s,” Bertaud said crisply.
Tan sighed, bowed his head, and said, “I’m one of
Moutres’s confidential agents, as you no doubt recall, Your Majesty. I don’t know whether you knew that I’ve been in Linularinum, in Teramondian, at the old Fox’s court? Been there for years, doing deep work, do you understand? And I won something for it. I got Istierinan’s private papers.”
“Istierinan Hamoddian?” King Iaor asked sharply.
Tan tried to look modest. “Why, yes. Himself. He was a little upset, as you might imagine. I got out of Teramondian two steps in front of his men. I’d intended to run for Tihannad, but they clung too close to my heel. By the time I got to Falle, they were only half a step behind, and less than that by Desamion.” Tan stopped, lifted his chained hands to rub his mouth. After a moment, he went on in a lower voice, “Earth and stone, I thought they had me twice before I made it across the river—” He stopped again. Then he took a hard breath, met the king’s eyes, and said, “They came across the river after me.”
“
Did
they?” King Iaor leaned forward, gripping the arms of the chair. “How did they
dare
?”
“I don’t know, Your Majesty. That surprised me, too, the more as they must have known you were here. Not a mark on me, Captain Geroen says. Earth and stone, every hair I own should be white after the past days. They pressed me hard enough I was barely able to keep upright by the time a brace of earnest guardsmen caught me standing flat over a couple of bodies in an alley. Caught in the street by the city guard! Moutres wouldn’t be the only one to laugh himself insensible, if he knew. But,” and Tan gave Geroen a little nod, “if they hadn’t picked me up, I don’t know that I’d have lasted the night. And if Captain Geroen hadn’t set an extra guard on me last night, and put
half his men around me to bring me up here, the whole effort might have been wasted.”
The king slowly leaned back in the chair again. “Well, no surprise that the city had a restless night. What were these papers you stole?”
“Oh, everything,” Tan said briskly. “Lists of Istierinan’s agents, and lists of men he suspects are ours. Lists of men who aren’t agents, but dupes and useful fools, and of men who have been bribed. Comments about Linularinum’s own nobility and men of substance, which ones Istierinan is watching and which ones he thinks susceptible to bribes, and which ones are susceptible to blackmail—the notations there made fascinating reading, but the list of
our
people is even better.”
The king blinked. The Casmantian prince, young Erichstaben, looked, for the first time, as though he wondered whether he should be present to hear this. Mienthe’s gaze was wide and fascinated. Bertaud asked, “He had all that out in plain sight?”
“Locked in a hidden drawer, my lord, and all in cipher, of course. Three different ciphers, in fact. I broke them. Well, two of them. I already had the key for one.”
“I see. And where are these papers now?”
“He didn’t have them when he was picked up last night,” Geroen declared.
“I destroyed them, of course. After I memorized them.”
“You memorized them,” Bertaud repeated.
“I have a good memory.”
“I see.”
“I’ll give it all to you, now.” Tan glanced from Bertaud to the king and back. “Today. Right now, if you’ll permit
me. I’d suggest at least a dozen copies to be sent north as well, to both the winter court in Tihannad and the summer court in Tiearanan. Any couriers who go openly by the road had better have fast horses and plenty of nerve, but Linularinum must
not
imagine they’ve stopped that information getting out. It’s very good His Majesty is here. Now that I’m in your hands, that should stop Istierinan’s agents flat where they stand, no matter their orders.”
“Yes,” said Bertaud. “I see that.” He hesitated, glancing at the king. Iaor made a little gesture inviting him to proceed. Bertaud turned back to Tan, regarding him with narrow intensity. “A secure room,” he said aloud. “With a desk and plenty of paper. And at least one clerk to assist you. You will permit a clerk to assist you?”
“Of course, my lord.” Though Tan didn’t much care for the idea. Nevertheless, he knew he would not have the strength to write out all the copies as swiftly as it had to be done. He said smoothly, “Anyone you see fit to assign the duty.”
“We’ll want guards,” Geroen put in grimly. “All around the house, not just the spy and his clerks. And in the stables. And around the couriers. And the couriers’ equipment.” He glanced at King Iaor. “I’ll ask His Majesty to set his own guardsmen all about his household.”
“And I shall see they coordinate with yours,” the king said to Bertaud, who nodded thanks.
“I’d ask for Tenned son of Tenned as a guard. And food,” Tan put in with prudent emphasis. “And wine. Well watered,” he added regretfully. He would have liked to add,
and a bath
, only truly he did not want to take that much time. He was intensely grateful that both Bertaud
and Iaor seemed able to grasp the concept of urgency. If not of perfect discretion.
“All of that, yes. Very well. Free his hands, Geroen.” The lord’s tone brooked no argument. “I want you back with your men and on the job. You may leave this man to me. That
is
an order.”
The captain’s shoulders straightened. “Yes, my lord.”
The paper was crisp and fresh, the quills well-made, and the clerk glum but quick and with a fair hand—no surprise, as he looked to have Linularinan blood. There were no windows in this room. Three guards were posted outside each of its two doors, and Tenned son of Tenned inside the room, looking alert and nervous. Bread and soft cheese occupied a separate table, and wine cut half-and-half with water.
The clerk was horrified at what Tan wrote out for him to copy. “I shouldn’t know any of this,” he protested. “Earth and stone, I don’t
want
to know any of this!”
Tan looked him up and down. “Are you trustworthy? Discreet? You don’t babble when you’re in your cups, do you? You’re loyal to Feierabiand?”
“Yes!” said the clerk hotly. “No! I mean, yes! But—”
“Then you’ll do, man. Would you tell Lord Bertaud he should have selected a different man? Did you make these quills?”
“Yes…”
“Good quills. Now be quiet and let me work.” Tan let himself fall into the cold legist’s stillness that let him bring forth perfect memories. That stillness didn’t come quite so easily as he’d expected—well, he was already tired. And distracted—he’d need to write an analysis to
accompany these lists—later, later. No thought, no fretting, just memory. He let the quill fly across the paper.
He rose out of that trance of silence and speed much later to find Bertaud himself sitting at the table beside the clerk, writing out a copy in his own hand. He blinked, surprised—and then groaned, aware all at once of his aching hand and wrist. And back. And neck. In fact, he ached all over, far worse than usual. Pain lanced through his head, so sharp that for a moment he was blind. How long
had
he been working? Even his eyes felt gritty and hot. Tan laid the quill aside and pressed his hands over his eyes.
“That’s everything?” Bertaud asked.
Tan had very little idea what he’d just flung onto paper. But he shouldn’t have stopped unless it was. He opened his eyes and peered blearily down at the stack of pages. “I think so. It should be.” He shuffled rapidly through the papers. Everything seemed to be in order. Except—“I need to write a covering analysis. Broken stone and black iron! I don’t think I have the wit of a crow left at the moment.” He leaned back in his chair, stretching. Every bone and ligament in his body seemed to creak. Well, he’d had the bare bones of an analysis in his head since he’d left Teramondian. And the quill was still flowing with ink. Better still, with ink that resisted smudging. Sighing, he picked up the quill once more. The headache stabbed behind his eyes, and he couldn’t keep from flinching. But the analysis still needed to be written. After that he might be able to finally put the quill down and
sleep
.