Law of the Broken Earth(12)

The captain had, in the end, surrounded Tan with nine guards and had ordered five of them to forget the prisoner and watch the streets. Half a dozen crows flew overhead, cawing harshly. They flew ahead of the little procession and over the rooftops to either side. Another crow perched on the captain’s shoulder, tilting its head this way and that, its bright black eyes intelligent and alert. It seemed the captain had an affinity for crows. At the moment, Tan could hardly imagine a more useful affinity, though he’d have preferred to have a larger flock looking for trouble. Though, even so, it didn’t seem likely anyone with a bow could stay hidden on a roof with even a few crows flying watchfully near. Even a man who could whisper to his arrows and make them turn to strike their target had to aim somewhere near where he wanted them to strike.

The captain followed the flight of his crows with a frowning look, then turned his attention back to his prisoner. Perhaps he suspected some ruse on Tan’s part. Tan would have been happy to have a ruse in mind, but he did not. Perhaps it was better so. As his trouble last night had so clearly demonstrated, he might in fact be safer in chains and surrounded by guards than he would have been slipping quietly through the city on his own. Especially with royal guardsmen set all about the great house.

“Here we are,” the guard captain said to Tan as they came up to a narrow, plain door set in the side of a plain, windowless building. “I see we had enough crows after all—and two or three guards would have been sufficient, after all.”

“Unless the force you displayed deterred my enemies,” Tan suggested blandly. “Esteemed Captain.”

The captain looked at him fixedly for a moment. But then he merely put out one massive hand and shoved the door open. It was not locked. They shed half the guards and all the crows as they went through it, and through a barren entryway, and at last into an unadorned reception room that contained nothing but a small table and one chair.

The chair was occupied. Bertaud son of Boudan—so Tan supposed—looked up. His gaze was intent and mistrustful, but not, Tan thought, actually hostile. At least, not yet. The young man Tan remembered from the court at Tihannad had grown into a solid, self-assured lord. He’d come to look a good deal like his father, which must surely gall him. But there was an interesting depth in his eyes, and lines around his mouth that Tan did not remember. Tan wondered how he had come by that compelling intensity.

Tan went to one knee before Bertaud’s chair, rested his bound hands on his other knee, and bowed his head for a moment. Then he lifted his head and looked Bertaud in the face. Their eyes met. Bertaud’s look became searching, then questioning. He drew breath to speak.

Before he could, Tan said quickly, “Hair darker than yours. Longer than yours, tied back with a plain cord. Ten fewer years, forty extra pounds, and no sense of style. A ring on my left hand—”

“A beryl,” Bertaud said. He straightened in his chair, frowning. “Set in a heavy iron ring. You were before my time.” He meant, before Iaor had made him lord of the king’s own guard. “I remember you with Moutres.” Lord Moutres had held that post of trust for Iaor’s father and then, for some years, for Iaor.

Rising, Bertaud came forward to examine Tan more closely. “How do you come here?”

“Ah…” Tan hesitated. He asked cautiously, “Do you know… what I did for, um, Moutres?”

Bertaud frowned again. “Not in detail.”

“The king knows—”

“His Majesty is otherwise occupied.”

There wasn’t a lot of give in that flat statement. Tan paused. Then he said, “I’ve just come across the bridge. From Teramondian. I was too closely pursued to get across the river farther north; I was forced to run south and even so I hardly made it out of Linularinum. But now I understand that His Majesty is here after all, so that’s well enough. If he’ll see me. Or if you will, my lord, but privately, I beg you.”

Bertaud simply looked at him for a long moment. Tan tried to look like an earnest servant of the king rather than a desperate fool who’d put a foot wrong in the Linularinan court and run home for rescue. After a moment, Bertaud said, “Teras son of Toharas, is it? Is that the name I should give to the king?”

Tan hesitated. Then he surprised himself by saying, “Tan. You may tell His Majesty it is Tan who has brought him a difficult gift.”

“Son of?”

Tan shook his head. “Just Tan.” He was prepared for either suspicion or scorn, depending on whether the lord took him for insolently reticent or the son of a careless father. He certainly did not intend to lay out any explanations. Especially as both answers obtained.