Law of the Broken Earth(26)

“She is yours. I shall not harm her. I have no inclination to harm her. Do you understand me, man?”

“Yes,” Bertaud said.

Mienthe wondered what he’d understood that she had missed. This did not seem the moment to ask.

“What will you do?” asked Kairaithin.

“I don’t know. Warn Iaor. Go north. Wait to see what happens to the Wall. What will you do?”

“I?” There was a slight pause. “I will seek an alternative wind, though I do not yet perceive any faintest whisper of any breeze I should wish to call up. And I will wait for you to call me. Call me, man, before you call any other. Shall I trust you so far?”

“Just so far,” Bertaud said, rather more grimly than seemed reasonable for such an answer.

The griffin mage inclined his proud head. His black eyes blazed with fire and something else less identifiable; even the black eyes of his fiery shadow burned. Then he was gone.

Mienthe took a step away from Bertaud and looked at him incredulously.

“Mienthe—” her cousin began, then dropped into a chair, bowed his head against his hand, and laughed. There was little humor in the sound. He laughed as though he did not know whether he should weep.

Mienthe went to him, put her hand on his shoulder, and bent to rest her cheek against the top of his head. She did not speak.

After a while, Bertaud stopped laughing. He put a hand up to cover hers, where it still rested on his shoulder, and said, “It will be… everything will come right, in the end.” He did not say it as though reassuring a young child, nor did he say it with the foolish confidence of a man who believes that a peril must surely be averted simply because he wishes it will be. He said it like a hope. Like an entreaty to the future.

“Yes,” said Mienthe, because that was what he needed her to say. She took his hand in hers, tucked her legs up under her skirts, and sat on the floor beside his chair as she had used to do when she was a child. She leaned her cheek against his knee, saying nothing more.

For a long time they sat like that, while the last glimmers of fire-tinged light faded in the west. The lamplight in the solar turned the window glass into an opaque mirror and showed Mienthe her face and her cousin’s. She thought she looked shocked, but that Bertaud looked desolate.

“You seem… very calm,” Bertaud said at last, his eyes meeting hers in the glass.

Mienthe did not know what to say. She was surprised he thought so.

“Do you know… did you understand…” But her cousin did not seem to know how to finish either sentence.

“He was a griffin,” Mienthe said in a small voice. “You knew his name… you knew him. He came to warn you about danger. About a fire mage who is your enemy. About danger to the Wall—the Wall in Casmantium, the one you helped to build.”

“Tehre’s Wall. Yes. But I didn’t help build it. I was only there when it was built.” Bertaud paused. He added, reluctantly, Mienthe thought, “Maybe my presence convinced Kairaithin to help build it.”

“He is a griffin and a mage,” Mienthe said, trying to get this all straight in her mind. “He helped you six years ago when the griffins came into Feierabiand. You stopped us battling them and made them our allies. And then he helped you again when you—when the Casmantian Wall was built. Between fire and earth, he said. Between the… the griffins’ desert and the country of men? He is your friend…” She hesitated, feeling strongly that the word did not exactly apply. But she did not know what other word to use. She repeated, “He is your friend, and he has suffered for it.”

“I think he has,” Bertaud said. He sounded tired and disheartened.

“And now the Wall is going to break? And there will be a… a war between fire and earth? I thought… I never heard anyone say that the griffins were dangerous to us. Only maybe to the northern towns of Casmantium, up close to where the desert lies.”

“Yes,” said Bertaud. “No. It’s a little more complicated than that.”

He clearly did not want to explain. Mienthe said cautiously, looking up at him, “And the griffin mage, he thinks you might do something again. As you did six years ago? What was it you did?” The lamplight sent golden light and uncertain shadows across her cousin’s face, so that his shape seemed to change as she gazed at him: First he seemed wholly a creature of ordinary earth, and then, as the light shifted, half a creature of fire.

“Nothing I ever want to do again,” he said succinctly, and got to his feet. Then he just stood for a moment, looking down at her. He asked, “What did you think of Kairaithin?”