Law of the Broken Earth(105)

But the mage accepted his hand, levered himself upright, touched his side tenderly where Tan had hit him, and cast a distinctly amused glance toward Lord Beguchren. He said to Tan, “How very gratifying that must have been. All men so provoked should have such recourse. Though I’m grateful you did not have a knife to hand.”

Tan did not know what to say.

Gereint glanced once again at Lord Beguchren, turned back to Tan, and added, in a far more formal tone that nevertheless still held that unexpected note of humor, “Though my actions were unpardonable, may I ask you nevertheless to pardon them?”

Tan managed a stiff, reluctant nod.

The tall mage inclined his head in formal gratitude. Then he sighed, limped back to the grouping of chairs, lowered himself into one with a grunt, and stared into the fire for a long moment without speaking, presumably ordering his thoughts. Or the images and impressions he’d taken from Tan’s heart and mind.

Tan closed his eyes for a moment against a powerful urge to hit him again, possibly after finding a knife. It was the urge of a fool. A hot-hearted, intemperate fool. He tried to put it aside, dismiss the anger, assert a more reasoned calm. In the event, unable to force calmness on his heart or nerves, he settled for what he hoped was a composed expression. But he did manage to give Mienthe a brief smile that he hoped was reassuringly natural, and walk with an assumption of calm across to take his place in one of the other chairs. Mienthe followed, though hesitantly, and Lord Beguchren came to lean on the back of the fourth chair, regarding them all with bland patience.

Gereint Enseichen looked up at last. He turned first to Tan. “I give you my promise,” the mage said formally, “that I shall not speak to any man, nor for any urging, of anything I glimpsed in your heart. Can you trust me for that?”

As a rule, Tan did not trust anyone for anything. But if he’d had to wager on the big mage’s essential honesty, he would have felt reasonably confident of collecting his winnings. This helped a little. He produced a second nod, not with great goodwill, but a trifle less stiffly, and looked at the fire so that he would not have to look at anyone else.

“Possibly an overbroad promise, under the circumstances,” Lord Beguchren observed. His tone was unruffled, but with an almost imperceptible bite behind the calm.

“No. The little that I glimpsed of the book is not, ah, does not—” He lifted a hand in frustration at the limits of language.

“Lacks emotional context,” Tan said tonelessly. He did not look around, but kept his gaze fixed on the fire. There was a pleasant smell in the room from the mountain cedar in the fire. He tried to fix his mind on that.

“Yes, well put. Exactly.” The mage paused.

“You only glimpsed a little?” That was Mienthe. She sounded disappointed and decidedly offended. “You did that, that—you did whatever that was to Tan, and you didn’t even see anything?”

“Even a fleeting glimpse may reveal a great truth,” Lord Beguchren said quietly.

“There was a book,” the big mage said slowly, and in a tone that suggested he was not certain even of this. “There was a book… or a working that looked like a book. Tan… the honored Tan…”

Tan said curtly, not lifting his gaze from the fire, “Now we are so well acquainted, I think we need not be overly concerned with formality.”

This produced an uncomfortable pause. Then Gereint Enseichen said, “Tan, then. Tan had, I think, something like an affinity for that book. I wonder whether any of the rest of us would have had that book fall into our hands, if we’d been in that room? I think not; I do think it unlikely.”

“I believe it is Andreikan Warichteier who discusses the various meanings of ‘affinity’ in magework and among the various natural gifts,” Lord Beguchren commented.

“Warichteier has one discussion of the subject,” Gereint agreed. “And I believe Entechsan Terichsekiun developed a theory of affinity and similarity, though not in exactly this context. I don’t know of any philosopher who described a marked affinity between a piece of legistwork and a legist—but I’m not as familiar with Linularinan philosophers as I should be.”

Tan shook his head. He asked after a moment, managing a more natural tone than he had expected, “We knew there was a book; that’s no great revelation. Did you manage to glimpse anything at all in the book?” He hesitated, almost believing he might remember—but no. There was nothing. He rubbed his forehead, frowning.

“A word. A line perhaps.” The Casmantian mage frowned as well. “I couldn’t read it.”