Law of the Broken Earth(58)
“None of us can believe it, but there it is.” Geroen didn’t sound panicky, or even excited. He sounded, Tan decided, rather more morose than anything else. There was a scrape across one cheek and his shoulders were slumped with weariness, but he met Mienthe’s wide-eyed gaze with commendable straightness. He said, “Now, that lot trying to cross on the bridge—they’ll have a hard time getting the job done, too hard a job if you take my meaning, and it’s my opinion they’re just meant to draw the eye.”
“What?” Mienthe did not, in fact, quite seem to take captain’s meaning.
“Ah, well,” he said, more plainly. “I can’t see as any sensible man would start up a war over some fool magic book, but it looks a great lot like maybe someone over there’s maybe not sensible. If it was me and I meant to do a right job of it, then I’d be sliding around through the marshes and never mind the bridge until I could get control of both ends of it, do you see?”
Mienthe nodded. “Go on.”
“Well, so I’ve got men watching, but not enough, my lady. I want to rouse out anybody as ever’s been in the militia and send them out to watch, if you’ll give me leave. And south, right down at the river mouth, because if it was me over there, I’d be thinking about loading up a few ships and tucking around that way—”
“You’ve sent a strong mage down to the sea to wake the wild magic, I suppose,” Tan said quietly.
“I did that, for which I hope you’ll give me leave, Lady Mienthe, because I ought by rights to have asked before I did any such thing, but—”
“You sent for Eniad of Saum,” Mienthe guessed.
Geroen looked a little embarrassed, as well he might, having made the broad decision to involve other Delta cities in Tiefenauer’s trouble. “You did say as I should do as I saw fit, my lady.”
“No, you were right to send to Saum,” Mienthe said quickly. “I’d have told you to, if I’d thought of it. Eniad of Saum is just who we’ll want to send the sea wild and close our harbor—all the harbors, I suppose, just in case—well, in case. How long ago did you send your man?”
“Oh… right after you said I might, Lady Mienthe. And I sent over to Kames with word that maybe there could be some trouble, and up along the Sierhanan, thinking it would be best to have the whole Delta alert, just in case.”
“Just what you should do,” Tan said quietly, as Mienthe was starting to look doubtful about just how broad the captain’s actions had been.
Mienthe glanced at him, then looked back at the captain and nodded. “All right. And what else?”
“Oh, well… that royal—” Geroen visibly edited what he’d first intended to say, continuing only after a perceptible pause, “The esteemed captain of Her Majesty’s guard, he’s sent men of his north as fast as they can ride, after His Majesty, and that’s all very well, but he’s not proved willing to let any man of his stand duty more than half a stone’s throw from Her Majesty, which is all very well, but I’m not having him stand like a stone statue with his—anyway, begging your pardon, my lady, but I’m not having it. I want those men of his used for something better than house ornaments, and I thought maybe you might see your way to asking Her Majesty about that, my lady.”
“Yes,” said Mienthe, nodding. “I can do that.” She was clearly relieved to be given a task that she understood, one within her proper bounds. “Very well. I’ll speak to Temnan, but I’m not sure you’ll get any of his men, because I’m going to wake the queen. I think Her Majesty should leave the Delta—tonight, at once.” She hesitated. “That is, if you think…”
“Yes, my lady,” Geroen said stolidly. “I think that’s well advised.”
Mienthe nodded quickly, relieved. “But maybe she’ll spare at least a few of her guardsmen to help us here.” She turned to Tan and went on, her tone a mix of justifiable incredulity and wonder, “All of this for you?”
“I don’t see that it can be,” Tan said hastily. “Truly, Mienthe—esteemed lady, I mean; forgive me. But whatever was in that book, it cannot possibly have been sufficiently important to justify, well, all this.”
“It must be,” Geroen disagreed. “If Linularinum’s willing to start a war over you, then they obviously think you’re important enough to justify it, eh, or they wouldn’t, would they? And they have, and what else do you think could have brought them to it?”