Law of the Broken Earth(11)

The young guard looked morosely at Tan. “Thank you so much. I ought to beat you bloody.”

“Your captain may yet send my name up the hill,” Tan said softly. “That chance is worth any beating. So is your watchful presence here. Did you think I did not mean my warning to you? You may well have saved my life tonight.” He bowed his head, adding formally, “I am in your debt, and you may call upon me.” He looked up again, smiling, and added, “For all you may not find such a promise very impressive just at this moment. What is your name, if I may be so bold as to inquire?”

The guard seemed warily impressed, and not very inclined to carry out his threat. He hesitated for a moment and then said, “Tenned. Son of Tenned.”

“Tenned son of Tenned. I thank you.” Tan bowed. Then, as the young man did not seem likely to carry out his threat, Tan sat down in the straw, wrapped his arms around his body, and tried not to shiver the last of his strength away. Tenned’s presence was indeed a comfort and a safeguard. Tan might even dare to rest, if he were not so cold.

Tenned regarded him for a long moment. Then he set his jaw, hooked his lantern to a hook high up in the wall, and left the room.

But he came back in mere moments with a threadbare blanket and a hard roll stuffed with sausage, both of which he tossed wordlessly through the bars to Tan.

Despite his surprise, Tan caught the food and the blanket. A flush crept up the guard’s face when Tan stared at him, making him seem younger still. Tan shook his head. “Truly, you need a place in some other company. You are too kind to be”—he gestured at the walls of his cell and, by extension, at the prison entire—“here.”

The guard crossed his arms uneasily across his chest and glanced away. But he said in a low voice, “Maybe, if the captain doesn’t send word up the hill… maybe I’ll go after all. At noon.” He gave Tan a hard look. “If the captain lets me off duty at noon. That’s a double watch. He’ll set up to three extra, if he’s angry enough. He did that to a new guard last week, when he let a prisoner get his keys.”

Tan might have wished Tenned to be careless enough to let Tan get his keys, but this seemed most unlikely. He contented himself with nodding sympathetically.

But at two hours past dawn, the guard captain came back himself, with a pair of extra guards and a set of slender keys. The stamp of their boots woke Tan, who sat up and then got to his feet, laying aside the blanket with a nod of thanks to Tenned.

“I don’t know as anyone recalls your name, mind,” the captain told Tan. “Maybe they’re only interested. But you’re to go up and they’ll take a look at you, at least. I wouldn’t care to miss it. I’m taking you up myself.”

Tan looked over the two guards the captain had brought with him and shook his head. “You should have more men.”

The captain lifted his eyebrows. “What? That tough, are you?”

“Not for me. Six men, at least. Ten would be better. You should detail half to keep their attention outward.”

For a long moment, the captain was silent. Tan wondered whether he had at last succeeded in impressing the man with his sincerity, if nothing else. Or, given the captain’s harsh, expressionless stare, whether he had at last succeeded in offending the man beyond bearing. The man had shoulders like an ox; he could undoubtedly deliver a ferocious beating if he decided a prisoner was being deliberately insolent. “Not that I’d try to instruct you in your business, esteemed Captain,” Tan added, trying his best to look respectful.

But the captain only said at last, to one of his men, “Beras, go round up everyone who’s free and tell ’em meet us at the front gate. Tenned. Unlock that cell.” He shot Tan an ironic look and threw the young guard a set of manacles. “Chain the prisoner.”

Tan put his hands out cooperatively, hoping to get Tenned to chain his hands in front of his body rather than behind. From the deepening irony of the captain’s expression, the man recognized that old trick. But he said nothing, and Tenned did indeed allow Tan to keep his hands in front.

The great house stood, in fact, on a long, low hill—low, but the only hill for half a day’s travel in any direction, the Delta not being renowned for hills of any kind. The house was itself essentially long and low, though one wing had two stories and one round tower at the edge of the adjoining wing stood two stories higher than that. The tower was windowless. Tan wasn’t quite certain what that said about the character of the man who had commanded it built.

The house had been built by a succession of Delta lords, each adding to it primarily by building out into its grounds rather than upward. One wing of the house had originally been stables—but very fine stables—and another had once probably been a mews, from the look of the extremely broad windows. The current stables and mews and kennels were just visible, far around the side of the house. If Tan had seen them earlier, he might have guessed that the king was in residence, both from the general busy atmosphere and from the fineness of the horses. The guard captain appeared to be heading for a door over in that general area.