Mienthe thought about this. Then she asked, “But why did he send for me?” and waited confidently for the answer. It never occurred to her that Tef might not know.
Nor was she disappointed. Tef said briskly, “Well, that’s simple enough, I expect. You know the old lord, Lord Berdoen that was your grandfather, you know he was a terror, I suppose, and rode his twelve sons with a hard hand on the rein and whip, as they say.”
Everyone knew that. Mienthe nodded.
“Well, Lord Boudan, your cousin’s father, he had just the same cold heart and heavy hand as the old lord, so they say. Anyway, Lord Boudan, he sent his son to serve at court—that was while the old king was alive, but by all accounts, Prince Iaor liked Bertaud well and kept him close. So even after Lord Boudan and then the old king died, Lord Bertaud didn’t come home—not but for flying visits, do you see. He’d hated his father so much he couldn’t stand any part of the Delta, is what I’d guess, and so he stayed on at court. And he still is close to the king, from what they say about this past summer: They say Iaor sent your cousin as his envoy to Casmantium after that trouble this summer, did you hear about that?”
Mienthe shook her head uncertainly, meaning that if her uncle had said anything about it at the time, either he hadn’t said it to her or she hadn’t been paying attention.
“Well, I don’t know much about it, either, but there’s been talk about it around and about the Delta because of your cousin’s being our right lord, do you see? And some folk say one thing and some another, but I guess there was some kind of problem with griffins coming over the mountains into Feierabiand early in the summer, but it all had to do with Casmantium somehow, which that part makes sense, I guess, since everybody knows that’s where griffins live, up there north of Casmantium. And Lord Bertaud was important in getting it all to come out right, somehow, and then the king sent him to Casmantium after it was all over, to escort the young Casmantian prince to our court as a hostage—”
“Oh!” said Mienthe, startled, and then put a hand over her mouth to show she was sorry for interrupting.
“Well, that’s what they say, though how our king made Casmantium’s king send him, I’m sure I don’t know. He must be about your age, I guess. The young prince, I mean.”
“Oh,” Mienthe said again, feeling intensely sorry for the displaced Casmantian prince. “I suppose he was sad to leave his home and go somewhere to live with strangers?” She supposed he might even have been sorry to leave his father, too, though that required some imagination.
Tef patted her hands. “Oh, well, Mie, a boy that age might be ready for an adventure, maybe. And you know, our Safiad king’s a decent sort by all accounts. Anyway, I’ve barely seen your cousin to speak to, you know, but somehow I don’t think he’d be the sort to lend himself to anything that wasn’t right and proper.”
“He seems kind,” Mienthe whispered.
“He does that. Anyway, besides about the young prince, I heard tell of something about a wall in Casmantium, but I can’t rightly say I know what that was about, except it was about the griffins again and likely needed some kind of mageworking to build. They say the Wall is a hundred miles long and was built in a single night, but I don’t know as I believe even the greatest Casmantian makers and builders could do that. Not even with mages to help.”
Mienthe nodded.
“Well, your cousin’s no mage, but I guess he built that Wall, or maybe had it built, somehow. Whatever he did, he came out of it with honors from both the Casmantian king and our king, which you can maybe guess or else our king wouldn’t hardly have sent his own men to serve Lord Bertaud here in the Delta, would he?”
Mienthe wondered again why her cousin had come back.
“Oh, well,” said Tef, when she asked him. He paused, picking up a clump of dark earth and crumbling it thoughtfully in his fingers. “You know, Mie, I think maybe Lord Bertaud was hurt somehow in all that mess this summer, and don’t fool yourself, if there was any kind of battle, I’m sure it was a right mess. They always are. Or maybe he was just tired out. I wonder if maybe he… well. What I think is, when it came right to it, when he found he needed a place to shut himself away from everything and just rest, somehow he found himself thinking of the Delta. It’s in his blood, after all, however hard a man his father was.”
Mienthe nodded doubtfully. “But—” she began, and then exclaimed, “Oh!” as she suddenly understood something else. “That’s why he dismissed all the staff here—because he’d hated his father’s house so much and didn’t want anyone here who’d been here when he was a boy! Is that why?”