Law of the Broken Earth(103)
“Well, I… I don’t…” Mienthe frowned. She opened her hands in a gesture of bafflement. “I don’t… I don’t really know why. Only…” She shook her head and looked back at Tan, her brows drawing together in puzzlement.
“You were drawn to find the honored Tan in Linularinum, after Istierinan Hamoddian had taken him; you found him without difficulty; and then again you were drawn after him to Kames. Gereint? You do not believe the lady is a mage?”
The tall man sat forward, turning so he could study Mienthe without looking also at Tan. He tilted his head in polite curiosity. “Perhaps you may have a very weak mage power, Lady Mienthe. That might explain why you have found yourself drawn toward the honored Tan without being exactly aware of what draws you, and also why you were able to endure the presence of a griffin mage without distress.”
Mienthe nodded uncertainly.
Tan said sharply, not uncertain at all on this point, “Whatever gift or power the lady holds, I can assure you, it is hardly weak.”
“Thus the world insists on defying our expectations,” Lord Beguchren murmured. He steepled his hands, regarding both Mienthe and Tan over the tips of his fingers. “The lady holds a powerful gift, but nothing a mage can recognize. Though your presence, honored Tan, distorts the world, we are told that you are not yourself a mage.” He paused, his expression becoming even more bland and unreadable. “Mages do not ordinarily devote great attention to the work of ordinary gifts. Possibly this has constituted an oversight.”
“So, now?” Tan challenged him.
“I, too, have directed only scant attention to the gift of law,” the elegant lord said softly. “A regrettable neglect.” He paused, but then went on, speaking directly to Tan, “While the lady’s gift is interesting, it is yours that appears to require urgent attention. Your current condition has clearly come about not because of the working of any actual magecraft, but because of the great influence of the legistwork you have taken into yourself. The conclusion to which we are guided by events is that very influential factions within Linularinum are so distressed by the fact that they have lost this work that they are willing to provoke Iaor Safiad to war to regain it.” He paused.
Tan said quietly—he could manage a quiet, civil tone if he concentrated—“I suspect Istierinan—or, yes, I know, possibly some faceless, nameless Linularinan faction—knew that your Great Wall had cracked through. So they wagered that King Iaor would be compelled to commit his strength in the north, giving them a relatively free hand to act in the south.”
“And yet,” murmured Lord Beguchren, “if I were a clever Linularinan spymaster, I should have assumed that the goodwill established six years past between Feierabiand and the griffins might possibly hold. That Wall was not built because the griffins intended to strike against Feierabiand. Why would any Linularinan faction, no matter how prescient, have guessed that the breaking of the Wall would draw peril down across Feierabiand rather than Casmantium?”
Tan had no answer to this.
“I think,” Lord Beguchren said quietly, “that we have perhaps gone as far as ignorance can carry us. I think perhaps it is time to seek a clearer understanding of this book and the work it contained. I think it will after all be necessary to, as you so neatly put it, open your mind and heart and discover what is written there.”
Mienthe said uncertainly, “If you’ll permit it, Tan?”
And if he would not, Tan had no doubt that Lord Beguchren would compel him. That would horrify Mienthe. And to what point, when the Casmantian lord was so clearly correct? But he still could not make himself speak.
Lord Beguchren, though undoubtedly aware of Tan’s sharp terror, said mildly to Mienthe, “He is aware there is no other reasonable course open to any of us. He was aware of it from the first.”
Mienthe was, Tan regretted to see, indeed beginning to look horrified. He reached out toward her and managed to say with a quite creditable imitation of calm, “That’s true. That’s true, Mie.”
Mienthe, unmollified, jumped to her feet and came over to stand behind him. Placing her hands on his shoulders, she glared at the Casmantian lord, looking young, small, unkempt with hard travel and, Tan thought, also quite courageous and resolute. He was distantly amused at his own appreciation of the young woman, grown more and more acute through the recent days. How foolish to allow himself to feel any attraction whatsoever toward Lord Bertaud’s cousin under these circumstances! Or, to be sure, under any circumstances.
“Of course you must stay with him, Lady Mienthe,” conceded Lord Beguchren, so gracefully that one was hardly aware he was making a concession. He gave Gereint Enseichen a glance that combined inquiry and command.