Law of the Broken Earth: The Griffin Mage Trilogy: Book Three

by Neumeier, Rachel

  The captain had, in the end, surrounded Tan with nine guards and had ordered five of them to forget the prisoner and watch the streets. Half a dozen crows flew overhead, cawing harshly. They flew ahead of the little procession and over the rooftops to either side. Another crow perched on the captain’s shoulder, tilting its head this way and that, its bright black eyes intelligent and alert. It seemed the captain had an affinity for crows. At the moment, Tan could hardly imagine a more useful affinity, though he’d have preferred to have a larger flock looking for trouble. Though, even so, it didn’t seem likely anyone with a bow could stay hidden on a roof with even a few crows flying watchfully near. Even a man who could whisper to his arrows and make them turn to strike their target had to aim somewhere near where he wanted them to strike.

  The captain followed the flight of his crows with a frowning look, then turned his attention back to his prisoner. Perhaps he suspected some ruse on Tan’s part. Tan would have been happy to have a ruse in mind, but he did not. Perhaps it was better so. As his trouble last night had so clearly demonstrated, he might in fact be safer in chains and surrounded by guards than he would have been slipping quietly through the city on his own. Especially with royal guardsmen set all about the great house.

  “Here we are,” the guard captain said to Tan as they came up to a narrow, plain door set in the side of a plain, windowless building. “I see we had enough crows after all—and two or three guards would have been sufficient, after all.”

  “Unless the force you displayed deterred my enemies,” Tan suggested blandly. “Esteemed Captain.”

  The captain looked at him fixedly for a moment. But then he merely put out one massive hand and shoved the door open. It was not locked. They shed half the guards and all the crows as they went through it, and through a barren entryway, and at last into an unadorned reception room that contained nothing but a small table and one chair.

  The chair was occupied. Bertaud son of Boudan—so Tan supposed—looked up. His gaze was intent and mistrustful, but not, Tan thought, actually hostile. At least, not yet. The young man Tan remembered from the court at Tihannad had grown into a solid, self-assured lord. He’d come to look a good deal like his father, which must surely gall him. But there was an interesting depth in his eyes, and lines around his mouth that Tan did not remember. Tan wondered how he had come by that compelling intensity.

  Tan went to one knee before Bertaud’s chair, rested his bound hands on his other knee, and bowed his head for a moment. Then he lifted his head and looked Bertaud in the face. Their eyes met. Bertaud’s look became searching, then questioning. He drew breath to speak.

  Before he could, Tan said quickly, “Hair darker than yours. Longer than yours, tied back with a plain cord. Ten fewer years, forty extra pounds, and no sense of style. A ring on my left hand—”

  “A beryl,” Bertaud said. He straightened in his chair, frowning. “Set in a heavy iron ring. You were before my time.” He meant, before Iaor had made him lord of the king’s own guard. “I remember you with Moutres.” Lord Moutres had held that post of trust for Iaor’s father and then, for some years, for Iaor.

  Rising, Bertaud came forward to examine Tan more closely. “How do you come here?”

  “Ah…” Tan hesitated. He asked cautiously, “Do you know… what I did for, um, Moutres?”

  Bertaud frowned again. “Not in detail.”

  “The king knows—”

  “His Majesty is otherwise occupied.”

  There wasn’t a lot of give in that flat statement. Tan paused. Then he said, “I’ve just come across the bridge. From Teramondian. I was too closely pursued to get across the river farther north; I was forced to run south and even so I hardly made it out of Linularinum. But now I understand that His Majesty is here after all, so that’s well enough. If he’ll see me. Or if you will, my lord, but privately, I beg you.”

  Bertaud simply looked at him for a long moment. Tan tried to look like an earnest servant of the king rather than a desperate fool who’d put a foot wrong in the Linularinan court and run home for rescue. After a moment, Bertaud said, “Teras son of Toharas, is it? Is that the name I should give to the king?”

  Tan hesitated. Then he surprised himself by saying, “Tan. You may tell His Majesty it is Tan who has brought him a difficult gift.”

  “Son of?”

  Tan shook his head. “Just Tan.” He was prepared for either suspicion or scorn, depending on whether the lord took him for insolently reticent or the son of a careless father. He certainly did not intend to lay out any explanations. Especially as both answers obtained.

  But he saw neither suspicion nor scorn. Lord Bertaud only inclined his head gravely. “So I shall inform the king,” he said, gave the guard captain a raised-eyebrow look, and left the room.

  The captain stared down at Tan and shook his head. “Huh.”

  Tan bowed his head meekly and composed himself to wait.

  After a surprisingly short time, however, the door swung open once more. Bertaud came in first, but stepped aside at once and personally held the door.

  Iaor Daveien Behanad Safiad, King of Feierabiand and, more or less, of the Delta, clearly did not keep any great state when he visited Tiefenauer. He had brought no attendants nor guardsmen of his own; he wore no crown and no jewels save for a ruby of moderate size set in a heavy gold ring. But nevertheless, even if Tan had never seen him before, he would have known he was looking at the king.

  King Iaor was broad, stocky, not overtall. But he held himself with more than mere assurance, with a presumption of authority that was unquestionably royal. Tan took a breath and waited for the king to speak first. But the king glanced impatiently toward the door, so Tan gathered they were in fact still waiting for someone—perhaps the king was not without attendants after all.

  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?”