He rose out of that trance of silence and speed much later to find Bertaud himself sitting at the table beside the clerk, writing out a copy in his own hand. He blinked, surprised—and then groaned, aware all at once of his aching hand and wrist. And back. And neck. In fact, he ached all over, far worse than usual. Pain lanced through his head, so sharp that for a moment he was blind. How long had he been working? Even his eyes felt gritty and hot. Tan laid the quill aside and pressed his hands over his eyes.
“That’s everything?” Bertaud asked.
Tan had very little idea what he’d just flung onto paper. But he shouldn’t have stopped unless it was. He opened his eyes and peered blearily down at the stack of pages. “I think so. It should be.” He shuffled rapidly through the papers. Everything seemed to be in order. Except—“I need to write a covering analysis. Broken stone and black iron! I don’t think I have the wit of a crow left at the moment.” He leaned back in his chair, stretching. Every bone and ligament in his body seemed to creak. Well, he’d had the bare bones of an analysis in his head since he’d left Teramondian. And the quill was still flowing with ink. Better still, with ink that resisted smudging. Sighing, he picked up the quill once more. The headache stabbed behind his eyes, and he couldn’t keep from flinching. But the analysis still needed to be written. After that he might be able to finally put the quill down and sleep.
Bertaud silently passed him more paper and looked through the just-finished lists. His eyebrows rose, and he shook his head. He passed half the lists over to the clerk, taking the other half to copy himself. He could at least work quietly, for he did not harass Tan with questions, but left him alone to try to bludgeon coherent phrases out of his exhausted mind and fair script out of his stiff fingers. The little sleep he’d gotten in the prison seemed days past… He finished at last, tossed down the quill, and blew on the ink to dry it.
Bertaud took the analysis without comment, read it through once quickly, then again more slowly. Then he gave Tan a long look.
“The ink isn’t smudged?” Tan asked blearily. “I didn’t transpose two phrases or lose half a paragraph?” His gift shouldn’t allow such mistakes, but he was so tired…
“No,” Bertaud said. He sat down again and began to copy out the document. He said absently, not pausing in his task, “You need rest, I know. I’ll send you to your bed shortly. Before I do, take a moment and think. Is there anything else I should tell Iaor when I bring him this?”
Tan rubbed his hands hard across his face. Then he poured himself some watered wine—well, he reached for the decanter, but Tenned was there before him and handed him a glass without a word. Tan nodded to the young guard and tried to collect his thoughts while he waited for Bertaud to finish the copy he was making and give the original to the clerk.
Then he said, “Tell His Majesty the whole lot could be false, deliberately put in my way to mislead us. One always has to remember that other men are also intelligent,” he added to Bertaud’s startled look. “But I don’t think that’s the case here, not from the way Istierinan stirred up all Linularinum and not from the feel of the information. Still, you might tell the king… remind him that the politest smile still hides teeth, and that no Linularinan smiles without calculating which way fortune is tending. All the rest is”—he waved a hand—“contained there.”
“Yes,” said the lord. He rose with his set of papers. And, after a moment of thought, gathered up an equal pile of blank pages, which he made into an identical packet. Tan nodded his approval.
“Twelve more full copies, and hand them out as they’re finished,” Bertaud said to the clerk. He added to Tan, “I’ve sent half a dozen couriers out already, for Tihannad and Tiearanan, but four of those were carrying blanks and the other two only had partial copies. I’ll send some of these with couriers, mostly across country, and some with soldiers. And I’ve arranged to send a couple out in, hmm, less-conventional hands.”
Tan inclined his head again, satisfied with all these arrangements. “And I?”
“You’ll stay here in my house. You need time to rest and recover.”
Tan nodded.
“My steward here is Dessand. Eniad is captain of the king’s soldiers quartered in Tiefenauer. Geroen you have met—”
“What, he’s still a captain of the guard?” Tan said in mock astonishment. “You didn’t flog the hide off his back?”
The lord smiled. “I did worse than that. He’s no longer merely a captain—he’s the captain now. I made him captain of the whole city guard. I’d been looking for a replacement for the post. Geroen will do well, I believe.”