Law of the Broken Earth(49)

However, even the most interminable evening must end at last, and to Mienthe’s great relief the queen professed herself weary before the sweet wine was poured. That allowed Mienthe to declare her own exhaustion and retire, if not altogether in good order, at least not in an obvious rout.

Breakfast would be better. Not only would Tan be there—probably—but also the queen would rise early and breakfast while most of her ladies-in-waiting yet drowsed. Even if Iriene didn’t permit Tan to come, Mienthe could ask the queen about her daughters. Niethe could chatter on endlessly about her daughters, so that would work well, and Mienthe would not be required to do anything more demanding than nod occasionally.

Also, perhaps by then this truly ferocious headache would have cleared away.

Mienthe was very tired. She missed Bertaud suddenly and fiercely; she wanted to be able to run up to his suite right now and find him there. Oddly, she also wanted to visit Tan once more. That was odd and a little embarrassing—what if he thought she was flinging herself at him?—but it was true. She wanted to go up and see that he was still safe and well. She found she had turned, without consciously deciding she would, toward his room.

The headache pounded. Mienthe lifted a hand to press against her eyes and walked blindly down the hall and around a corner, down a short flight of steps and around another corner, and at last out a side door into the garden, where a shortcut might take her to the house’s east wing by a shorter path. But then she lingered. The breeze tonight had much less of a chill to it; though it was not exactly warm, one could feel the promise of the coming summer in the air. She could hear, out in the darkness where the lamps did not cast their glow, the urgent piping of the little green frogs. Somewhere a night heron made its harsh croak and after a moment its distant mate answered. The headache eased at last, and Mienthe sighed and straightened her shoulders. She was very tired. But she still wanted to see Tan—at least to glance in on him and see that the maids hadn’t forgotten him in the midst of this royal visit.

The headache returned between one step and the next, pressing ferociously down upon Mienthe as though it came from something outside her, something in the air or in the very darkness. Half blinded by it, Mienthe sat down right where she was, on the raked gravel of the path, and bent over, pressing both hands hard against her temples. She had never had such a headache in her life.

Mienthe reached out with one hand and, with her fingers, scraped a spiral in the gravel of the path. Something in the air or the darkness twisted about, echoing the shape she’d drawn; she felt its movement as it followed the spiral pattern. Her headache eased suddenly, then pounded with renewed intensity. She found herself on her feet, walking in a spiral, from the inside out. Something walked with her and behind her like a shadow. That was how it felt. It was her headache, or she thought it was. It wasn’t part of her at all, but followed her as closely as her own shadow. Her actual shadow flickered out madly in all directions because of the house lanterns and the moon high above, but the thing that followed her stayed right at her heels. She drew a spiral in the gravel and the earth and the air, a spiral that opened out and out and out. The thing that followed her followed the spiral, followed it farther than she had drawn it or could draw it, ran in a spiral out into the night and dissipated like mist.

In the house, someone shouted. Then someone else. Someone was speaking. His voice echoed all through the house and the grounds, but Mienthe could not understand the words. No, not speaking, exactly, there was no actual voice. But someone was doing something like speaking, and the whole house seemed to bend around to listen to that person. Only that person’s voice, or whatever, twisted around in a spiral that opened up and out, its power dissipating. The house seemed to shudder and settle firmly back upon its foundations.

There was more shouting. Someone ran out of the house, past Mienthe, too far away for her to see anything about him; his shadow trailed at his heel, strangely constant in its direction despite the multitude of lanterns. He vanished into the lamplit city below the hill, his shadow tucked up close behind him. Someone else followed the first man. Several more people, pelting through the garden in different directions. Mienthe stepped back out of the way, pressing close to the wall of the house. It stood solidly at her back, a warm, strangely solid presence—why strangely solid? How should a house be but solid? Mienthe rubbed her hands across her face, trying to think. Her mind felt sluggish as mud. Within the house was an uproar that reminded her of the wild tumult that had swept through the house one autumn when a hurricane had come off the sea and lifted the roof off half a wing.