Tan threw an exaggerated glance around. “Anybody might be out here,” he said in a low, urgent voice. And then, speaking in a normal tone, “Unfortunately, that’s even true.” He hesitated and then looked at Mienthe. “Esteemed lady—”
“Yes,” Mienthe said, meeting his eyes. “You should leave, of course. Tenned and Keier can go with you.” She gave the two young guardsmen a stern look. Neither of them objected.
“Not north,” said Tan.
“No,” Mienthe said distractedly, and might have gone on, but a distant ringing, clashing sound cut her off. For a long moment, everyone in the stableyard stood perfectly still, listening.
“There’s fighting to the south,” Tan said, which they all knew. “And the west, of course. I’ll go east.”
Mienthe hesitated an instant and then came unexpectedly to take Tan’s hands and look seriously into his face. “Be careful, Tan. Be careful, don’t take chances, be quick, be safe! Go to my father’s house, it’s just north of Kames. Use my name—Keier, they’ll know you in Kames, won’t they? Tan—” She pressed his hands in hers and then let go. “You’ll be well. See to it that you are. You still need to write out some Linularinan court epics for me, eventually. I’ll expect it, do you hear?”
“I’ll look forward to it,” Tan said, bemused and oddly pleased. “And you, don’t take foolish risks, esteemed Mienthe. I need someone who will properly appreciate Linularinan court poetry.”
Mienthe managed a smile and then turned to run inside. Tan would not have laid odds on what Mienthe might do. Too brave for her own good, and then a deep sense of personal responsibility… He discovered that he was personally concerned for her safety, a good deal more so than he’d have expected, and blinked in surprise.
But the young woman, and the great house, and the city entire, would likely be safer after Tan was safely away. He looked at Tenned and Keier.
“We’ll get on the road at once, esteemed sir,” said Tenned, indicating a waiting horse. “East should be safe enough, but if you’ll pardon me, I think we should hurry—”
The distant sounds of battle underscored his words.
“I suspect you’re right,” Tan agreed, and limped rapidly toward the horse one of the grooms held. He even allowed Tenned to help him mount, when ordinarily he would not lightly have let anyone see such evidence of his weakness.
But as they rode out of the stableyard, he could not help but glance back over his shoulder at the great house, defiantly lit with lanterns beside each door and lamps in each window. He wondered at which window Mienthe was standing, watching everyone ride away. She would have guardsmen all around her, and perhaps one or another servant too loyal or elderly to flee the house. Tan knew that. But somehow he pictured her standing alone, with the lamplight catching in her eyes and glowing through her wheaten hair, and the dark violent night pressing against the glass before her.
CHAPTER 7
Two rivers ran out of Niambe Lake: the little Sef, which fed into the great Sierhanan, whose width divided Feierabiand from Linularinum; and the larger and more southerly Nejeied, which ran right down the middle of Feierabiand all the way to Terabiand on the coast.
Two rivers likewise fed the lake. One, the upper Nejeied, had its source in the high, distant mountains of the far north, beyond Tiearanan. But the other river, the one that came down to the eastern tip of the lake, had no name. That river came down out of the wicked teeth of the mountains where men seldom ventured. There was no reason to brave that place, for if a man did, with enormous difficulty, crest the difficult pass where the river ran, he would look down only into the savage desert where griffins flew on a fiery wind and no man could live.
There, at the top of the world, among the high, jagged peaks where the nameless river had its source, stood a cottage. It had been built below the sky and above the world, in a small, level place surrounded by tilting planes of stone and ice. It was solidly made of rough stone, chunks of pale granite mottled with dark hornblende and darker iron ore; the chinks and cracks between the stones were sealed with packed moss and ice. Within, the cottage was plain but surprisingly comfortable, not least because of a fire that burned continually, with neither fuel nor smoke, in a ring of stones in the middle of the floor. This had been a gift from the desert, a contained fragment of fire that would probably continue to burn even when time had long since reduced the cottage to a heap of tumbled and broken stones.
Above the cottage, the polished, ice-streaked granite faces of the mountains raked up into the sky, so that on bright days light was thrown back and forth above the thatched roof. On those days, with sunlight striking at every angle through the clear air, mist rose from the ice to wreathe around the cottage.