Law of the Broken Earth(32)

He tried again to break loose the bolts that held him chained—he’d already decided the chains themselves were hopeless. Nothing. He then tried, briefly, to work his hands out of their shackles. His hands were long, his wrists not overthick. But the steel shackles were too tight. Even if Tan broke the bones of his hands and fingers, there would still be the shackles on his ankles. Hard to deal with those if his fingers were broken. Though if he could only get the slip-chain off, he might count that a net gain. If he was sufficiently desperate. Not yet.

He could try shouting. He knew very well no decent, uninvolved person would be near enough to hear him. On the other hand, if enemies were nearby, they would hear him. They might even come. That was an uncomfortable uncertainty. So not yet for shouting, either, then. Though possibly soon…

Then, somewhere out of sight, a door creaked open and thudded closed. Enemies were coming, after all. It was a mark of Istierinan’s cleverness that Tan was almost glad to hear them. He straightened his shoulders and turned his head. Boots thumped hollowly across the floor, more than one pair. Dust rose into the air. Someone coughed. Torchlight wavered, red as death.

The Istierinan whom Tan had known, Istierinan Hamoddian, son of Lord Iskiriadde Hamoddian, had passed himself off as a careless court dandy, a man with wit and wealth, but no interest in or connection with serious matters. Dissolute and reckless, though undoubtedly clever. The sort of man admired by younger sons who admired profligacy for its own sake and were likely to die young in some foolish stunt or quarrel.

But Istierinan Hamoddian was showing Tan a very different face now. Not only was he dressed as plainly as any ordinary traveler, but his long, bony face, usually expressive, was blank and still. Very little remained to suggest the self-indulgent courtier Tan remembered. Here, for this role he was playing now, he had not troubled to color the gray out of his hair. No wonder, Tan thought, that he had customarily done so, for the silver at his temples made him look not only older but far more serious. Istierinan’s mouth, always ready to crook in ironic humor, was set in a thin line. His wit wasn’t hidden, but altered out of all recognition to a kind of grim acuity. His deep-set eyes, though shadowed with weariness, held a cold resolution. Tan wondered, distantly, how many of Istierinan’s young admirers would even recognize him now.

Istierinan was carrying nothing. But the two burly men he’d brought with him held cudgels as well as torches, and one of them carried a leather satchel that might contain anything. Tan tried, unsuccessfully, not to imagine the sort of tools it probably held.

Istierinan stopped perhaps six feet from Tan, looking at him without speaking.

Tan stared back, equally wordless. He considered, briefly, pretending innocence and demanding what Istierinan meant by this abduction. But the spymaster did not look in the mood for such pretense, thoroughly ruined in any case by Tan’s convoluted flight out of Linularinum to the Delta. No innocent man could have made it, or would have known how to even try, and no clever repartee could possibly disguise the fact.

Nor did Istierinan seem inclined toward any sort of game or indirection. He simply looked at Tan for a moment longer and then asked abruptly, “Where is it? Do you still have it yourself? If you’ve passed it on, to whom?”

These all seemed odd questions, when Tan had stolen information rather than any object. He said cautiously, “What, it?” Not altogether to his surprise, Istierinan merely glanced impatiently at one of his thugs. The man lifted a muscled arm. Tan kept his gaze on Istierinan, not the thug. He said quickly and sharply, “Well, here we are, very like Redrierre and Moddrisian, and just as unlikely to come to a satisfactory conclusion, do you think? Be sensible, man! I’ll answer any question you ask, but if you want answers, you’ll have to ask clearly! I swear I don’t know what you mean.”

The spymaster didn’t even blink. The thug stepped forward, walked around behind Tan, and hit him: a hard, twisting blow to the kidney. Gasping, Tan stumbled and sagged—then found the slip-chain cutting off his air. He tried to straighten and the thug kicked his feet out from under him. Then all of them just stood and waited while Tan struggled, strangling, to get back to his feet. He made it at last, tossing his head hard to loosen the chain and sucking in great lungfuls of precious air.

“Where is it?” Istierinan repeated in a level voice. “Do you still hold it yourself? If you do, then return it, and this can be over swiftly. Or otherwise, if you will not. Or have you given it away? To whom? The Lord of the Delta, likely not.” He made a small movement, dismissing this possibility as though he and Tan both knew it was foolish. “But perhaps one of his people might have been able to take it? Well?”