Lord of the Changing Winds

by Rachel Neumeier

  Bertaud started to call out, but the lieutenant jerked his arm sharply upward and he desisted, trying not to gasp in obvious pain. “If you please, my lord,” said the lieutenant, like an order. “You’ll come with me, quietly now, my lord.”

  Enned ducked silently back into the inn.

  “I must see the king,” Bertaud began.

  “That’s for my captain to decide, my lord.”

  “I’ll take him,” said a new voice, much deeper. Eles came out through the doorway of the inn, having to duck his head slightly to clear the lintel. The guard captain turned a grim stare on the lieutenant, who looked unhappy. There were a dozen soldiers in the yard of the inn, now, but three or four guardsmen pressed out of the inn after their captain. Though, with Eles present, the numbers would not matter: The captain would not likely allow this encounter to become a physical confrontation between soldiers and guardsmen…

  The lieutenant tightened his grip. He looked as though he would have liked to countermand Eles’s order, but knew he did not have the authority to do so. He said, “His lordship is to be brought to my captain, sir, and smartly. That’s my orders.”

  “I’ll take it up with your captain,” Eles said curtly, and the lieutenant hesitated. The man might not have served in Tihannad, but everyone knew Eles. Indeed, sometimes Eles’s reputation served him better than his actual presence. Although Bertaud was glad of his presence at this moment.

  “You’d best come along with me, my lord, according to my orders,” the lieutenant said at last, and shoved. Bertaud set himself and resisted.

  Eles shook his head and sighed, a slow exhalation that carried a startling menace. “Lieutenant. Mennad, is it?”

  The lieutenant stopped again, looking uncomfortable.

  “I,” said Eles, “will take this up with your captain, lieutenant. Sebes,” he said to one of his own aides, “if you would escort his lordship.”

  Sebes, a dark, thin man with an even more dour look than the guard captain, came forward and laid a matter-of-fact hand on Bertaud’s arm. “If you will come with me, my lord?”

  “My orders…” began the lieutenant, weakly.

  “The responsibility is mine,” said Eles, without any special emphasis. Bertaud would have liked to be able to create that quality of grim certainty with so little effort, but it did not seem to be reproducible.

  The lieutenant, yielding at last to the inevitable, opened his hands.

  The second floor of the inn, it was evident, belonged to the guardsmen. At least they all came up the stairs with their captain and Bertaud, and none of the soldiers followed. No one laid a hand on Bertaud once they were clear of the soldiers. But once they were up the stairs, Eles himself turned back to face Bertaud, who perforce came to a halt. For a moment, the two men regarded one another in silence. Around them, the other guardsmen were uncomfortably silent.

  “Lord Bertaud,” Eles said at last, with a hard look. “And have you brought… anyone… with you?”

  “No.”

  Eles studied him. Bertaud had never been confident of his own ability to read the guard captain’s face: When he had been a boy, he had thought there were no emotions behind the captain’s inexpressive face to be read. He did not know what he saw there now.

  “You want to see the king?” Eles asked Bertaud at last.

  “Yes,” said Bertaud. Neither demanding nor pleading. Just a neutral statement. “It’s urgent that I should, esteemed captain.”

  “Urgent,” repeated the captain. “Is it?” He regarded Bertaud for another moment. “Are you armed?”

  “No, esteemed captain.”

  Eles gestured. One of his men—Sebes again—came forward, expression neutral, and with a murmur of apology proceeded to search Bertaud. Bertaud felt his face heat. But he lifted his arms and stood still, suffering the search without comment.

  Finding nothing, Sebes took a step back and glanced at Eles.

  “Wait there, if you please, my lord,” Eles said briefly, tilting his head to indicate the nearest room. “I will speak to his majesty and find out whether he will see you.”

  “Thank you,” said Bertaud. And added after the slightest hesitation, “If he will not, Eles… esteemed captain… I ask you: Speak to me yourself. It is indeed extremely urgent information that I bring you. His majesty must hear it, from you if he will not hear it from me.”

  The guard captain nodded briefly, and Bertaud relaxed a little.

  “If you would care to sit, my lord,” said Sebes, once they had gone into the room to wait. Bertaud obediently sat down in the closest chair, folded his hands across his knee, and waited. Sebes stood behind him with two other guardsmen, including, Bertaud saw, Enned. They all waited, as patiently as was possible.

  Bertaud said, after a moment, to Enned, “Well done, to go for the captain. Thank you.”

  Enned looked uncomfortable. “I…” he glanced at Sebes, hesitating. The older man lifted an eyebrow but did not rebuke the young man for speaking to Bertaud. So Enned continued. “It was my duty, my lord, but also my pleasure. I think… I did not thank you, my lord, that day. I never… and then, later, I thought I would be glad of the chance to do so.”

  “You have well repaid me,” Bertaud assured him. He was again half inclined to laugh. Then the thought of Iaor made the inclination die a quick death. For all he feared what the king’s reception of him might be, he could hardly bear to wait.

  But, in fact, the wait was not very long at all. Eles returned mere moments after he had left, and, Bertaud saw, discomfited, Iaor himself accompanied the captain.

  Bertaud first stood, startled, then quickly dropped to one knee and bowed his head. He glanced up covertly from beneath lowered lashes, trying to discern Iaor’s mind behind the mask of his face, but found that he could not.

  “Bertaud,” the king said. Bare acknowledgment.

  That coolness was hard to face; as hard as Bertaud had feared, surely. A dozen apologies and justifications, explanations, and excuses battled suddenly for primacy within him. He set his teeth, fixed his mind on the needs of the moment, and said, as crisply and cleanly and briefly as he knew how, “Brechen Glansent Arobern has five thousand men in the mountains above the griffins’ desert, poised to come down upon you like a hammer against the griffins’ anvil. The Arobern has been heard to say he wants Terabiand as the cornerstone of a new province, but I doubt he expects to get it without taking a certain amount of trouble.”

  The king stood very still. He said at last, “Valuable word. Well done, to bring it to me.” He hesitated, then asked in a warmer tone, “Was it for this purpose… was it to get from the griffins the word they would not give me that you went with their mage?”

  Yes! Bertaud wanted to cry. It would have been the best possible explanation, indeed: a noble risk, undertaken for loyalty and duty. But… it would be a lie. And where would loyalty and duty be then? He gave Iaor the truth instead, painfully. “I did not know why I did anything I did that night. I still don’t know.” He looked up to meet the king’s eyes, afraid of what he would see there… Doubt? Mistrust?

  What he saw was… both of those, he estimated, and bowed his head again in pain.

  “You told me you did not trust your own judgment,” the king said quietly. “I did not understand then what you were trying to tell me. Perhaps I understand it better now.”

  Bertaud looked at him helplessly.

  The king came forward, laid a hand on Bertaud’s shoulder with unexpected sympathy, urging him to stand. “Up,” he said softly. “Up. All aside… I am glad you have come back to me. I confess I did not know whether to expect it. Up, I say. I am grateful for the warning you have brought me. But are you well?”

  Unable to find an answer to that question, Bertaud only shook his head. He got to his feet rather shakily, finding Iaor’s hand under his elbow in swift support.

  “Sit,” said the king, indicating the nearest chair. “Sebes… wine. Eles.”

  The guard captain came forward a st
ep. “Your majesty.”

  “Go confer with Adries and Uol. Begin to develop alternate plans we might use in this exigency. Frontal attacks up into the teeth of the mountains are probably not the tactic of choice. Do think of some alternatives.”

  Eles bowed and went out. The king waved the other guardsmen out after him and dropped into a chair of his own. He picked up his cup of wine, though he did not drink. He looked instead at Bertaud. “Well? Tell me everything. Begin… try to begin with why you freed the griffin in my hall, if you can. And then go on from there.”

  And was this, then, forgiveness? It was not, Bertaud judged reluctantly. Not quite forgiveness and not quite absolution, though it might perhaps grow into either. It was better, even so, than he had had any right to expect.

  He drank off his own wine in one quick draught and set the cup down on the arm of his chair with a small decisive click. And groped slowly after impressions he had been trying for a long night and a day to pull into some coherent order. He found, with some surprise, that stumble though he might, it did not actually take all that long to lay out the events of the prior hours. Not days. Only hours, though that seemed unbelievable. So little time to go from knowing your own place in the world to… knowing very little with certainty, it seemed.

  Iaor was silent, thinking. Of many things, probably: deserts and fire, Casmantium and cold…

  “I think… that Kairaithin sincerely does not want battle with you. With us. And that if he is not with his people, his opinion is not likely to carry the moment. I think that without strong leadership, the griffins will take all courses of action instead of just one, and become very dangerous. Kairaithin told me… that he came to Tihannad to warn you of Casmantium.”

  “But he changed his mind.”

  Bertaud spread his hands. He was baffled by the griffin mage’s behavior himself, and had no idea how to explain it to Iaor. He said tentatively, “You hurt his pride, I think. I don’t know! I don’t know. He seemed… I believe he was honestly distressed to leave you uninformed. For his own purposes, if not for your sake… I think he meant to use Feierabiand to try to get his little fire mage back from the Arobern.”

  Iaor put his cup down again, still untasted. He shook his head, incredulous perhaps at the shape of the world, so different than it had seemed so few days earlier.

  Bertaud found himself tapping his fingers nervously on the arm of his chair and folded his hands firmly in his lap. He glanced at the king, and away. And, reluctantly, back, gathering his courage. “Iaor?”

  The king glanced up.

  Bertaud met his eyes, with an effort. “Iaor… I’m sorry.”

  “I am not certain you have reason to be. The news you have brought me has great value.”

  Bertaud shook his head. “All else aside… I asked protection from another lord, against you. That was… I don’t know what I was thinking. At the time, I don’t suppose I was thinking; not clearly. I… well. I am sorry, Iaor. My king. I most earnestly beg your pardon.”

  Iaor was still for a moment. Then he nodded. He said nothing, but… Bertaud thought some of the edge had gone from the king’s manner. The king said, “I was also at fault. Another time I will listen more closely to what you try to tell me. As I have tried to listen tonight. I ask for your advice. If I go south, can I depend on your Kairaithin to hold back his people? It should be Casmantium against which the griffins rage, not Feierabiand. What say you? Is there a way to speak to the griffins, to win their quiescence, if not their aid? Or if they should aid us, they may have their desert, and welcome. Would they be amenable to this suggestion? Can I find this Kes, could she perhaps make my desire clear to them?”

  “Kes would be the one who might well go between you and the desert,” Bertaud agreed slowly. “I have told her so, and told her to seek you out, though… I don’t know that she would have the nerve. She is a timid creature, and herself half fire, now. Or, failing the girl, you might try to speak to Kairaithin yourself. If he will speak to you. I do not know what to advise you, my king. Except, do not send a mage to speak to the griffins. I don’t think earth mages understand how strong the antipathy will be until they experience it. I am the last person who should speak, I know, but… I truly, truly do not think you should trust the opinions of a mage when it comes to dealing with griffins.”

  “I might send you,” Iaor suggested. “If you thought you might trust yourself.”

  That question, not quite asked, was hard to face. Bertaud thought of Kairaithin saying, I could send you as my agent… He had instantly rejected that idea. But neither was he confident that he could act as Iaor’s agent against the griffins.

  “Shall I trust you?” Iaor asked him. He asked as a friend. And as a king. “You chose the griffin over me in Tihannad. If it came to that a second time, whom would you choose? If your Kairaithin bids you against me… are you certain what choice you would make? Can I be certain?”

  Bertaud knew, to his dismay, that he could not answer this question.

  It was Iaor, his friend, who looked at him with sympathy. But it was the Safiad, King of Feierabiand, who said, “I will consult with Meriemne. I will take counsel of my generals and my advisors. But, my friend, I think we will be riding south tomorrow, and I think that you will stay here, under guard. I beg you will not think less of me.”

  “No,” Bertaud whispered.

  The top floor of the inn held five rooms. The best of these was actually a suite, containing a sitting room and servants’ quarters as well as a bed chamber. Soft rugs covered the wooden floors, chairs with scrolled arms stood by small decorative tables, and a rather good painting of the town hung opposite the curtained bed. The walls were white, the wood bleached pale, the rugs and curtains the color of pale ivory; the effect was one of spacious light, though none of the rooms was large.

  Wide windows, shutters thrown open, offered an impressive view over Riamne’s low walls to the river. The afternoon sun struck the water to gold, as though it were molten fire that flowed there. Bertaud shifted uneasily and tried to see the river as simply water. On the road that ran alongside that river, a long column of two thousand men was slowly passing away to the south.

  The king, with his banners and his retinue, was already out of sight. It would take an hour, probably, for the tail end of the column to pass out of view. Bertaud, his hands resting on the broad sill, watched their slow movement. For a very little, he would have gone out the window, found a horse, and followed them.

  He knew what he wanted: to ride after the king, ask for a different decision, for leave to ride with the army. He understood there was no point. He had not remonstrated with the king’s decision. He had not allowed a whisper of resentment, of bitterness, to inform his manner or his leave-taking with his king. If that leave-taking had been strained… that was nothing for which Iaor could be faulted. He believed that.

  And now there was this window, with guards below—Bertaud did not have to look for them to know they were there—and the slow procession, of which he was not part. He paced unhappily from the window to the door and back to the window: Both would be guarded. By men who kept him here by order of the king they all served, whom he did not wish to defy.

  He paced again, from window to door, from sitting room to bed chamber, back to the window. The column of soldiers was still in sight, and still moving so slowly a brisk stride might well carry a man to its head before the last of its baggage tail was well in motion.

  Which, of course, he could not prove himself. In disgust, Bertaud flung himself into one of the fine chairs and stared sightlessly at the wall, refusing to look again out the window.

  The quality of the light flooding the room changed slowly, so that the plaster of the walls turned from white to cream to the palest gold and then to a more luminescent gold, tinged with the red of the lowering sun. Shadows crept slowly into the room, dimming its light, and the breeze that wandered through the window became uncomfortably cool… time passing, carrying them all forward with it, he f
eared: The king riding endlessly through this suspended moment into the south and the new desert; and the Arobern, hidden with his army in the stillness of the mountains above that desert; and the griffins contained within it, building it out of themselves. All, all of them, separated by distance, but all contained in the identical moment. Until the moment should break, and they all crash together into disaster… He could all but see it, a fast-approaching moment toward which the inexorable wind of time carried them all…

  A hand was set firmly on his shoulder, so that Bertaud jerked upright and spun sharply. Yet he was somehow not surprised to find it was Kairaithin who stood over him, in the form of a man, with his shadow the shadow of a griffin. “Earth and iron,” he breathed, and dropped back into the chair.

  “You called me,” Kairaithin said, rather harshly. His face was not clearly visible in the dim light, but his eyes blazed with fire that made their blackness somehow only the more absolute.

  “I?” Bertaud said blankly.

  “You.” Kairaithin gave him a long stare. “Well? Will you tell me you had no intention to call?”

  Ignoring this baffling question, Bertaud instead leaned forward and said urgently, “Kairaithin, when Feierabiand comes into your desert, you must pretend to do battle. Tell Iaor what you will do. Go to him—or take me to him and I will speak for you. We can arrange it all. Then you and he can both turn against the Arobern when he comes down out of the mountains, and all will be well!” And the disaster toward which the wind carried them all would fail, and Feierabiand remain as it should be: Peaceful and green and in no way broken by griffin fire or Casmantian ambition.

  The griffin mage turned his fierce, proud face toward the window and the sky beyond.