Gereint leaned back in his chair, trying not to laugh. He kept his expression sober with an effort.
“Well,” Beguchren said, a little nettled, “the roads north of Metichteran, as you have said, are not so good. And you know we will not be able to take horses into the desert. We will leave them, at the end, and go up on foot.”
“Well, I suppose I can carry you, if necessary.”
A flicker of offense in the pale eyes was followed almost at once by a glint of wry humor. “I suppose you could. If it became necessary. I don’t believe that’s likely.”
Gereint didn’t comment on this optimism. Beguchren had said he’d wanted a maker who was physically strong. Gereint had not asked why. He did not press the mage now, only split a sausage and laid it across a slice of bread. Then he asked instead, “You still wish to try to ride on to Metichteran today? It’s, what, twenty miles, a little more?” By himself, and given Beguchren’s tall black mare, Gereint was confident he could ride that far in five or six hours. He could walk it almost that fast, if he needed to. But Beguchren? He did not want to force the mage to admit to an incapacity he likely found shameful. But neither did he want to see him collapse halfway to Metichteran.
“I’ll be well enough in an hour,” Beguchren answered, mildly enough.
Gereint tried not to look doubtful.
Beguchren peeled and sliced an egg, layering the slices fastidiously across a piece of bread. He murmured, not looking up from this task, “I might ask the inn to wrap up some of this excellent breakfast.”
“Including plenty of sweet rolls,” Gereint surmised. “And cakes of sugar. Yes. I’ll arrange it, lord mage.”
The mage looked up at that, frowning. Not about the sugar. “Gereint—”
Gereint held up a hand. “Nobody here would understand it if I called you by name, lord mage.” Nor would he regardless, but he did not say so.
“Nor will you,” Beguchren said, echoing this unspoken thought. But he made a small, dismissive gesture with two fingers. “Never mind. Yes, Gereint, please acquire some more sugar. As I am sure you recall, I would like to reach not merely Metichteran by this afternoon, but Tashen by this evening.”
This seemed wildly optimistic to Gereint. He didn’t say this, either, but merely stood up and went to see about wrapping up a packet of food. With plenty of sugar.
The horses, happy with their rest and the sweetened grain the stable boys had given them, were inclined to stride out briskly. Gereint kept a wary eye on Beguchren, but the little mage showed no sign, now, of exhaustion or collapse. He was quiet, but then he was constitutionally quiet, so Gereint had long since concluded. Even if he had been surrounded by his own retainers or friends… did he have friends? Other than the Arobern, who could not be precisely a friend… It occurred to Gereint for the first time that he knew nothing at all about the mage: earth and iron, the man might even be married, though it was hard to imagine so reserved and inscrutable a man with a wife, or children or even parents or brothers of his own blood. Nor could he imagine invading that impenetrable reserve with questions.
But even if surrounded by friends, Gereint could not believe that Beguchren Teshrichten was ever precisely demonstrative. And Gereint himself, if not precisely an enemy—nor precisely a servant, nor precisely a prisoner—was certainly not a friend.
The country between Pamnarichtan and Metichteran was rougher than Gereint had remembered. Nor had he made sufficient allowance for the way the road climbed far more often than it ran level. Coming the other way, they had gone mostly downhill. Now, riding constantly uphill, they could not press the horses faster than an easy walk. There were more stones and snags, too. A fine carriage would have had a slow and difficult passage; even a farmer’s wagon would be prone to broken wheels and axles. Gereint guessed that most carters and such who regularly used this road were probably makers, the sort sufficiently gifted that they could coax a breaking wagon to last from one town to the next. Perhaps Beguchren’s leaving his carriage behind had been more reasonable than he’d first thought.
Gereint’s own mare began to cast a shoe; he felt two of the nails start to shear and the rest to bend, and caught the metal with his wish that it hold, hold, hold. The nails held. Gereint didn’t mention the problem. If he could coax the shoe to last to Metichteran, any smith could replace it; if it didn’t, there wouldn’t be anything to do but lead the mare and walk himself. He wondered what Tehre Amnachudran would think of shearing nails. Probably she would rather let them shear and watch how they broke. But probably she could brush a thumb over them and set them back into place without benefit of a smith, if it occurred to her to bother. He smiled, imagining the casual, distracted manner in which she would do such a small, difficult task.
The woods crowded close to the road here, and on their other side the river was narrower and swifter than below the confluence, and beyond the river the woods stretched out again, impenetrably dense and green. The woods might have hidden any number of brigands or wolves or mountain cats or dragons, but Gereint did not glimpse anything more dangerous than a squirrel. Occasionally a large animal thudded away into the woods, unseen. Each time, Gereint glanced at Beguchren. Each time, the mage, his expression unvaryingly bland, shook his head.
“How do you know?” Gereint asked him, the third time this happened.
Beguchren shrugged, a minimal gesture that barely lifted his shoulders. “I know.”
Gereint shook his head, not in disbelief, but in surprise. “We look so harmless. I’d accost us, if I were a brigand. They can’t all have been cleared out.”
“The cleverer ones may have headed west, as Meridanium has begun clearing these roads near its border. Or even south, to see if they can get honest work now that robbing travelers has become more dangerous. Or—” But Beguchren paused and then finished, “Or simple luck may be keeping them out of our way.”
Gereint wondered how he’d meant to finish that sentence. But he said only, “Luck for them.”
Beguchren only shrugged a second time, dismissing any possible concern about brigands. Or wolves or mountain cats, probably. Even he might have paused if a dragon had come out of the woods, though. Not that one would this close to the towns of men.
There were no boats at all on the river now. Even in the spring floods, the channel here was dangerous: changeable and filled with snags. Now, in late summer, the river had narrowed to a swift slender ribbon, barely more than a creek, that raced down only the deep center of its exposed, rocky bed. Gereint guessed, as the morning passed and the road grew rougher, that it would take a good deal longer than five or six hours to reach Metichteran.
They saw no more griffins. Though the way the woods closed off any decent view of the sky, fifty griffins might have flown past half a mile away and been completely invisible to travelers on the road. But then, probably, Beguchren would know they were there. Probably he would collapse if griffins came near. Gereint watched him warily. But the mage showed no sign of difficulty. During the occasional break for sweet wine or a bite of bread or a cup of hot tea, he dismounted and moved with only a little more than ordinary stiffness. So far as Gereint could tell.
They passed the occasional party heading south. No one was traveling in a really large company, but no one was traveling in a group of less than half a dozen, either, and everyone was armed at least with crossbows. None of them were men of rank, and no one ventured more than a respectful nod to Beguchren. Gereint might have stopped one or another to ask for news, but he kept an eye toward Beguchren, and when the mage did not pause, neither did he.
They rode into Metichteran in late afternoon, seven hours after leaving Pamnarichtan. It had been a market day, clearly: The streets were busy with farmers packing up their surplus to cart back to their farms, or bargaining with the most frugal of the townsfolk for the last bushels of bruised apples or spotty turnips. The famous bridge across the Teschanken was busy, too, though the water level was low enough that children were picking their way right acr
oss the river’s bed. Gereint gazed down at the fitted stones of the bridge’s arch as they crossed. It seemed to him that the hooves of the horses rang against history as much as against stone. Blood and battle and years mortared the stones. He wondered suddenly whether they might be riding into a tale themselves; perhaps some traveler in some distant year would look down at this bridge and think, Beguchren Teshrichten crossed the river here to do battle against the country of fire… He hoped not. He hoped, fervently, that nothing that happened would be exciting enough to remember in tale or poem.
The yard of the inn in East Metichteran was even busier than the streets had been. Surprisingly busy, indeed, as it could not yet be time for the supper crowd… Indeed, no one was yet ordering supper. The townsfolk and the lingering farmers were instead gathered around the inn’s tables, drinking ale and talking animatedly.
Gereint swung down from his mare and wordlessly moved to assist Beguchren down from his: abnormally weakened or not, that was a tall horse for a small man to ride, and mounting blocks were not really high enough for him.
Beguchren accepted his assistance equally wordlessly, allowed Gereint to take his reins, and stood for a moment, gazing with narrow interest at the gathering around the tables.
“The inn staff must be over there, too,” Gereint commented. He considered, briefly, taking the horses into the stables himself. Then, looking thoughtfully at the tables and the chairs and the jugs of ale, he reconsidered. He whistled instead, loud and sharp.
A startled silence fell across the inn yard. Beguchren gave him a dry look. Gereint only shrugged. “What’s the point of traveling with a court noble if one doesn’t put rank to use?” he murmured, and lifted an eyebrow pointedly at the cluster of youngsters he guessed were the stable boys. He’d guessed correctly, from the way they jumped up and hurried forward.
“Sorry, sorry, honored lord,” muttered a fat, balding man, clearly the innkeeper, assessing Lord Mage Beguchren Teshrichten’s horse and clothing and manner with an expert eye. “We’re all distracted just now, honored lord, but just let me show you and your man to our best table—we do set the best table in Metichteran, I promise you—just this way, if you will permit me—”
“Distracted?” Beguchren inquired, in his most neutral tone.
“From the sightings! Griffins, honored lord, all this afternoon!” The fat man’s broad gesture sketched their path, from west and south to the northeast. “Four or five at a time, honored lord, and we’ve never seen griffins down this far south before, not even before, well, I mean to say, not even when there were a gracious plenty over yonder.” This time his vague gesture toward the northwest indicated, by implication, the original sweep of the griffins’ desert prior to their claiming of Melentser.
“I see,” said Beguchren, still at his most neutral. He allowed the innkeeper to evict a crowd from a table under a big oak near the inn’s door and pull the chair at its head out for him. “How many altogether, would you say?”
“Forty, fifty all told! Not that we could say whether they were forty different griffins, you know, honored lord, or the same ones circling about. Penach, he’s my oldest boy, he said he thought it was the same ones each time, but how even young eyes could see so clearly I don’t know. You won’t want ale, honored lord: let me send for wine—our best—local, of course, but it’s accounted fair enough by our guests—” He turned and waved sharply to a hovering girl, who darted away into the inn.
“And tea,” Gereint said firmly. He pulled a chair out for himself and sank into it with a sigh. It wasn’t a particularly well-made chair, unfortunately. Not very comfortable for a man who’d been in a saddle all day. Maybe Beguchren’s chair was better. He glanced at the mage, trying to assess his general condition.
“I’m quite well,” Beguchren assured him, in a mild tone that Gereint did not trust at all.
Gereint raised his eyebrows at the mage. He said to the innkeeper, “And something to eat. Bread with butter and honey. Or berry preserves.”
“Of course, of course, honored sir,” said the innkeeper hurriedly, and waved again to the girl, who’d hurried back with the wine, a pitcher of water, and—no doubt—the inn’s best silver goblets. The man himself, perspiring in the late-summer heat, seemed disinclined to dash back and forth himself. He glanced nervously at Beguchren, who poured a little wine into his goblet, topped it up with water, and sipped. There was no way to tell from the mage’s manner or expression what he thought of the inn’s best local wine.
It actually wasn’t bad, was Gereint’s own estimation, when he tried it. For a locally produced northern wine. Not up to the quality one expected in the south, of course. Perech Fellesteden would probably have dumped it out of his goblet onto the inn’s yard and might have made the innkeeper lick it up from the dirt, but Fellesteden had been much inclined to dramatic gestures, and why was Gereint thinking of his old master at all? Ah. Because he was thinking of Melentser, and the griffins flying among the red sharp-edged spires they had raised among the ruined buildings of the town. He closed his eyes for a breath, opened them, and looked deliberately at Beguchren.
“Perfectly acceptable,” the lord mage told the innkeeper gravely. And to Gereint, “There is no need to hover. I have taken precautions.”
“Precautions, is it? Here comes the bread. I trust you’ll do me the favor of eating a slice or two, with plenty of honey. My lord.”
“Yes, an additional precaution is perhaps not out of order,” Beguchren said, with a barely perceptible glint of humor. He added to the innkeeper, who was looking baffled and worried, “When did the griffins last pass over the town? Can you estimate?”
“Yes, well, yes, that is to say, I suppose it was an hour or so ago, honored lord. Doesn’t that seem right to you?” the innkeeper appealed to the girl, who was laying out plates of sliced bread and crocks of honey and blackberry preserves. The girl looked startled at being addressed, but agreed that this was about right.
“I do believe,” Beguchren said to Gereint, “that it would be wisest to go on to Tashen today.”
Gereint made no comment until the innkeeper and the girl had both bustled away. Then he said, “That wasn’t an easy ride we’ve already had today. It’s so important to travel another fifteen miles or so?”
“The road from East Metichteran to Tashen is better, I believe.”
“It is. Even so… What does it mean, my lord mage, that the griffins are flying over Metichteran? Does it matter whether it’s the same ones over and over, or different ones each time?”
“Gereint—”
“Don’t trouble yourself, my lord. Pretend I never asked.” But Gereint kept his tone mild. He spread a piece of bread with the berry preserves and ate it thoughtfully. “Fifteen miles. However good the road, the horses are tired. That’s four, five, six hours? We won’t manage it before nightfall.”
“I can make a light.”
“Ah. Will it continue to light our way after you’ve collapsed?”
Beguchren put down the slice of bread he’d been holding and regarded Gereint for a moment. “You know, you used to be afraid of me.”
“I’ve given up reminding myself I ought to be afraid of you. My lord.”
Beguchren gave him an unreadable smile. “Good.”
“I suppose I can tie you to your horse, if you fall off.”
“I suppose you can. I think we will arrange for fresh horses here. And perhaps we will leave the packs here. We will not need them in Tashen.”
“I think we should take them. In case we stop a mile short of Tashen. You should eat that, my lord. And you should rest while I arrange for a change of horses.”
Beguchren gave a little wave of his hand, conceding all these points with a casual air Gereint did not trust at all. But the mage only smiled blandly even when Gereint gave him a look of pointed suspicion. Giving up, Gereint, got to his feet and looked around to find the innkeeper. He would inquire about horses that might be for sale, and about the cost to board the black ma
res… Maybe he should ask Beguchren to let him show the token; that should guarantee the horses would be well cared for… He turned back to ask about the token. Thus, he was looking straight at Beguchren when the little mage suddenly folded bonelessly forward across the table.
Gereint took one long stride back toward the table. Then a horse, not one of Beguchren’s, suddenly reared, screaming. Gereint spun on his heel, startled, as boys flung themselves at its head. They grabbed for its bridle, but the horse reared again, tore itself loose, and raced out of the inn’s yard, hooves thudding dully on the packed earth. Gereint stared after it. But a flurry of exclamations all across the inn’s yard made him look sharply around, and then at last, following the direction of others’ gazes, up. He stopped, transfixed.
Three griffins cut across the cloud-streaked sky, glittering like bronze spear points in the late afternoon sun. They flew barely high enough to clear the trees and the taller buildings of the town. A great silence had fallen. Gereint could actually hear the rustle of the wind through the griffins’ wings. The sound was more like stiff cloth flapping in a hard wind than like the gentler rustling he would have imagined.
He could see every long feather of those wings, even pick out the smaller individual feathers of the griffins’ chests and forelegs. Each feather looked like it had been beaten out by a metalsmith and then separately traced with gold by a jeweler; the griffin’s lion pelts blazed like pure gold. The light flashed across their beaks and talons as across metal. Gereint guessed those talons were nearly as long as a man’s fingers, curved and wickedly sharp; he was struck by a distressingly vivid image of what talons like those might do to a man if a griffin struck him.
Something about the afternoon light had become strange. It took a moment for Gereint’s mind to catch up to his eyes, but at last he understood that the light seemed fiercer and more brilliant around the griffins; each one was limned with it, every feather outlined by it. The sunlight itself seemed to radiate from the griffins as much as from the low sun. And the light that fell across Metichteran was suddenly heavier, deeper, hotter than any light should be, even in late summer. Not quite like the brutal sunlight of the desert, but close, closer than anything Gereint had ever wanted to experience again. The sky beyond the griffins had gone strange, pale, harsh… The very sky seemed to glint like metal. The wind carried the scents of dry stone and hot brass.
Land of the Burning Sands: The Griffin Mage Trilogy: Book Two Page 23