Law of the Broken Earth(117)

Beguchren was already well within arrow-shot. He came within an easy spear cast and then rode closer still, until he was very close; close enough to be easily heard without shouting. Then he drew up his mare and simply sat for a moment, meeting the furious stare of the King of Feierabianden.

“Beguchren Teshrichten,” the king said at last, bare acknowledgment with no courtesy to it. But he had reason to be angry.

“Iaor Daveien Behanad Safiad,” Beguchren answered, inclining his head in grave respect.

Iaor glared at him and lifted a hand, gesturing from left to right across all the field and the men arranged in their lines there. “What is this? Well? Brechen Glansent Arobern gave me his word he would be amicable, and now I find this in my way? What will he have of me?” He glared at Beguchren and then jerked a hand sideways to indicate Prince Erichstaben. He said, even more furiously, “I am aware he has a new young son; has he forgotten the one he gave to me? Does he believe my patience is without limit?”

Beguchren bowed his head in the face of the king’s anger. He said softly, “The Arobern indeed has hope of your patience, Iaor Safiad, but he does not believe it to be limitless. He asks, if you please—”

The Safiad slammed a fist down on his own thigh, reining his horse back sharply when it flung up its head and jolted forward a surprised step.

Prince Erichstaben, breaking into the moment with a sense of dramatic timing that might have been his father’s, moved suddenly. He had not appeared shocked or frightened at the Safiad’s threat, but had given Beguchren an involuntary glance that repeated the king’s question, only with real anxiety to it: Has my father forgotten me? But he did not ask that question aloud. He did not speak at all.

Instead, the prince stripped off his sword belt with quick movements, slung his sword over the pommel of his saddle, swung one leg over his horse’s shoulder, and slid down to the ground. Then, having collected all eyes, he walked forward to stand by the Safiad’s horse. He took the king’s reins and himself steadied the horse, absently patted its shoulder, and at last lifted his head to look up at the king. He did not speak, but his open, honest look spoke for him quite clearly and very well matched the courage and dignity of his gesture. Then he glanced at Beguchren and bowed his head, waiting.

The prince’s gesture could not have been better suited to Beguchren’s purposes if he had directed the boy through every instant. It changed everything about how Beguchren meant to proceed, for he had expected that he would need to slip every word he spoke past the Safiad’s outrage. But Prince Erichstaben had created a silence in which any word spoken would carry several times its normal weight, and in which any gesture, too, would carry more than usual weight and force.

Beguchren carried no sword of his own to give up, not even a knife, so he could not quite match the prince’s gesture. But he twisted his reins about the pommel of his saddle and swung down to the ground, came forward a measured few steps, and sank down to one knee. He said clearly and steadily, “Lord King, Brechen Glansent Arobern remembers every oath he swore to you and repudiates nothing. He sends me to beg you hold your hand and your temper and your men.” He deliberately touched his fingertips to the muddy ground and then to his lips in the gesture of eating dirt, met the king’s eyes, and said, “I do not know how to beg more abjectly.” He was satisfied to see that Iaor Safiad, taken aback, appeared at a loss for any answer.

Turning to the young prince, Beguchren added, with all the forceful sincerity at his command, “Your father has not forgotten you. However events fall, whatever these perilous days bring, he begs you believe that you have been always in his thoughts. He declares, with great passion, that no new babe can replace his firstborn son.”

Prince Erichstaben’s expression lightened. Though he still did not speak, he bent his head in an admirably dignified nod of acceptance and gratitude.

Beguchren shifted his gaze back to the Safiad. He said, “My king acknowledges that you hold the life of his son in your hand, but entreats you to hold.” And then, once more directing his words to the prince, “I beg you will believe that only the hard necessity of a king could have driven him to risk you.”

Iaor Safiad found himself constrained by Beguchren’s meek humility on the one hand and by Prince Erichstaben’s honest bravery on the other. He opened his mouth to speak or perhaps curse, but then only drew a hard breath. He said at last, still harshly but without the bright-lit fury of those early moments, “Get up, then—up, I say!—and tell me why the Arobern has committed this offense against my borders—for the second time!—and why I should hold.”