Beguchren rose as quietly and smoothly as he could. He did not remount his horse, deliberately using his own slight size to further constrain the Safiad to a civilized restraint. He said, “The cousin of your lord Bertaud came to my lord king. Lady Mienthe daughter of Beraod. Through the pass she came, to Ehre, with a companion who gave his name first as Teras son of Toharas to the royal guardsmen and to my king only as Tan.”
He had captured the Safiad’s attention. Though the king did not speak, his curt gesture indicated that Beguchren should continue. So he outlined the alarming news the lady had brought them: Linularinum on the one side and griffins on the other and confusion throughout; the strange determination of Linularinan agents to reclaim the legist together with whatever mysterious working he had stolen. He drew, without allowing himself to flinch, on his understanding of mages and mageworking to describe the way events were bending wildly around Tan, and his own guess about the legist gift and what Tan had stolen, and what that theft might mean for them all.
He did not mention Lady Mienthe’s odd gift or power, for fear the king’s very familiarity with the young woman might lead him to discount her. But he gave an honest and almost complete account of the reasoning that had led the Arobern to come west, and their fear that the Safiad, though rightfully outraged, might perhaps err in his anger and prevent the recovery of the legist book. “If the Wall does not hold and griffins ride their burning winds across Feierabiand,” he said quietly, “then we may all wish most fervently we had bent our efforts toward this work of legist-magic that might subordinate them.”
The king lifted a skeptical eyebrow. “You think this is possible.”
Beguchren met his eyes. “I think it likely,” he said gently. “And who would know better than I?”
He had used that phrase many times in his long life, generally to good effect. Even here in this foreign country he saw the words go home and belief settle in the king’s eyes.
The Feierabianden king said in a low tone far removed from his earlier anger, “I have heard a good deal of you, to be sure,” and then paused.
Not for any reason would Beguchren have broken into that considering pause. He stood with his back straight and his hands open at his sides, his eyes steady on the king’s face, waiting.
Prince Erichstaben waited also, his hand still resting on the neck of the king’s horse. He did not look again up at the king, however, for pride forbade any faintest suggestion that he might ask for mercy, either for his father’s sake or on his own account. There was tension in the set of his broad shoulders; nothing to wonder at with the recent vivid demonstration of a king forced to a hard necessity he would never have chosen freely. From that tension, Beguchren saw that the prince thought it was possible that the Safiad might still reject everything Beguchren had said and every plea he had made. But he also saw trust and even affection in the placement of the prince’s hand on the neck of Iaor Safiad’s horse.
The Safiad glanced down at the Casmantian prince. His expression was closed and cold, but only a man with a heart of stone could have been unmoved by the young man’s quiet courage. Beguchren was not at all surprised when the king said, in the low tones of a man making an admission, “We should neither one of us forgive the other for such an act, nor for compelling it.”
Beguchren bowed his head in acknowledgment.
The Safiad eyed him without enthusiasm. “Your king has presumed on my good nature, Lord Beguchren. He has greatly presumed. I am not in the least amused by his presumption, nor by your own effrontery. Nor is my patience endless. Get your men out of my way.”
His head still bowed, Beguchren dropped again to one knee.
“Well you may beg,” the Safiad said sharply. “It is indeed effrontery! You do not have men enough there to hold me. Well?”
“Lord King,” Beguchren said, with a perfect humility that would surely have made the Arobern laugh out loud, “I am commanded in the strictest terms to see that the Arobern remains free to act, on your behalf and for us all. I beg you will forgive my effrontery and be so gracious as to permit me to obey my king. Only your generosity can redeem my honor. If you command me again, I shall have no choice but to comply, for, as you say, I have few men. I would never wish to compel a lady onto a field of battle, nor would the lady Tehre Amnachudran Tanshan wish to be so compelled. She would much prefer to ride north with all speed and see to her Wall; she was greatly distressed to hear of the damage that has come upon it.”
The Safiad looked momentarily taken aback by this combined threat and offer. Then he actually laughed—a grim laugh, but with something like real amusement. “Get up,” he said. “Get up, Lord Beguchren, and draw back your men. Set them in some less provocative order, and we shall discuss the matter. That is your pavilion down by the river? We shall retire to it and consider what we may do.”