Law of the Broken Earth(41)
Mienthe started to explain that she wasn’t cold, exactly, only shocked in retrospect by how… well, how thoughtless and, really, she had to admit, how foolish she’d been. But then she didn’t try to explain after all. She just accepted the scarf and swirled it around her neck, took a deep breath, and went to find the queen and breakfast.
Breakfast was soft-scrambled eggs and sweet rolls and cold thin-sliced beef and ham and plenty of last fall’s cider, hot and spiced and served in enormous earthenware mugs. Mienthe was glad to see all of it, but especially happy to see the cider, which warmed the last of the chill from her bones. Already the long night seemed to have happened a long time ago, or maybe to be the fragile echo of a dream. But the queen was waiting for her to explain what she’d done, and why, and how. The how seemed particularly obscure, now.
“Just begin somewhere and tell it in any order,” Niethe advised her, smiling. The queen must have allowed her ladies to breakfast earlier and then sent them away, because she was the only person present at breakfast aside from Mienthe and the captain of her royal guard, whose name, Mienthe knew, was Temnan. He was not smiling. He was a stodgy man in his fifties, not at all the sort of person who would agree to make a spontaneous raid across the river on the spur of the moment.
Mienthe was grateful that at least the queen’s ladies weren’t present. She knew she would become tongue-tied and clumsy in that graceful company. The ladies would exclaim in horror and assure Mienthe that she’d been foolish and she wouldn’t know how to answer. Maybe the queen had guessed that and sent them away to allow Mienthe to speak freely—though it was hard to imagine Niethe understanding the shyness that afflicted Mienthe in that company.
“How did you come to lose that spy, and how did you get him back?” the queen asked in a kind tone. “You’ve taught Linularinum to be a little more respectful, perhaps. Iaor will be glad of that, at least! But how ever did they get, ah, Tan out of this house in the first place?”
That was as good a starting place as any, though Mienthe had to admit she had no idea. Captain Geroen entered the small breakfast room while she was saying so, but before she had to try to explain her strange but definite knowledge of Tan’s position. This was good, because she didn’t know how to explain that, either.
Geroen had cleaned up and no doubt snatched a bite to eat in the kitchens, but he looked tired. Though he didn’t exactly droop where he stood, he somehow gave the impression he would have liked to. He gave a little dip of his head and said, “First off, Your Majesty, my lady—Iriene sends down word that our Tan will get back on his feet again soon enough, though he’ll likely walk with a cane for a day or two. She says she thinks lately her own strength hasn’t been just everything it should be, but the knee’s not as bad as it could have been and she thinks he’ll recover completely.”
Mienthe only just kept from clapping her hands like a child. “Wonderful!”
Geroen’s mouth crooked. He gave Mienthe the merest shiver of a wink. “Eh, and the esteemed Iriene said quite a bit more about the stupidity of putting a man with that kind of injury up on horseback, and it was a wonder he didn’t fall off and break his other leg, or his neck, which she said would have saved her a lot of bother and we might keep that close in mind next time.”
Mienthe hid a smile behind her hand. She hadn’t realized Geroen knew Iriene, but even the acerbic healer would surely not say that to someone she didn’t know at all.
Geroen had turned back to address the queen. “It was magecraft, Your Majesty. We know that right enough. Some Linularinan mage got their agents into the great house and stole the wits right out of my men’s heads and wrapped Tan up in some kind of magecrafting so’s he couldn’t even yell out a warning and took him off. Only the lady, she knew all about it. I guess she’s maybe going to develop mage-skill herself.”
“Is she?” Niethe said, as astonished as if the captain had suggested Mienthe might change into a crow and fly away. She gazed at Mienthe with fascination, as though wondering whether she might suddenly turn the plates into crumbling loam or the polished glassware into budding flowers.
Mienthe blushed and said hastily, “I’m sure I’m not! We’ve never once had a mage in our family. Hardly any of my cousins are even gifted! I don’t see how I could be a—a mage. I don’t know anything about mages or mageworking or—or anything. I just knew… I knew what had happened, more or less, when I went back into Tan’s room. I don’t know. I just…”