Whatever the source of his distaste for the subject, she had never asked her cousin any questions about that time. Even as a child, she had very well understood how someone might wish to forget the past. Or, if the past could not be forgotten, at least to keep from dragging through unpleasant memories. She had been wordlessly determined that, with her, Bertaud might speak or keep silent, exactly as he wished.
But that had not stopped her deep curiosity to know everything about her cousin and what he had done. After he had brought her to live with him in the great house, she had admired him enormously and had longed to know all the details about every admirable thing he had ever done. She had asked his guardsmen, and the servants, and she had once found the nerve to ask King Iaor, and although no one knew everything, she had learned by heart the bits they all knew and had made up stories to tell herself that explained the parts they did not know.
But she would have known the King of Casmantium anyway, because he looked so much like his son, Erich. When she saw Brechen Glansent Arobern, she almost felt as though she recognized him. It was odd to think that he could have no idea who she was.
The Arobern was a big man, burly as well as tall, who looked more like a professional soldier than a king, except for the sapphire and amethyst buttons on his shirt and the heavy gold chain around his throat. He wore unornamented black and had a black-hilted sword slung at his side, and as his close-cropped hair and heavy beard were also black, he made rather a grim, aggressive impression, which Mienthe supposed was purposeful. Certainly it was effective. His jaw was heavy, but his deep-set eyes, glinting with wit as well as forceful energy, prevented him from looking dull or brutish. She would have been afraid of him, except she saw him through Erich’s memory as well as her own eyes, so she saw kindness and generosity in his face, as well as aggressive energy.
The king sat in a plain chair of polished granite, in a room that was not large and yet managed, with its violet-draped walls and thick indigo rugs and the sapphire-blue glass of its lanterns, to seem ostentatious. Though there were other chairs in the room—plain wood—everyone else in the room was standing.
There were several guardsmen and servants, but there were also some few people who were clearly more important than these attendants. Close by the king’s side, leaning casually against the back of the stone chair, stood a slight, fine-boned man with perfectly white hair. Mienthe immediately recognized this man. Bertaud might not like to speak of Casmantium, but both King Iaor and Erich had described him to her. Though King Iaor had disliked him, Erich had told her that while he was impossible to deceive, he was also wise and kind. He’s the only man in Casmantium who isn’t a little afraid of my father, Erich had said. When he’s kind to you, it isn’t because you’re a prince.
This was Beguchren Teshrichten, who, Erich said, had been a mage but who, so King Iaor had said, had somehow lost his magecraft—used it up or burned it out, or the griffins had burned it out when they defeated him. Something had happened to him, but King Iaor had not been clear about exactly what that was.
But Lord Beguchren looked like a mage. Despite his white hair, at first she did not think he was very old. Then she looked again and was not sure, because his opaque pewter-gray eyes somehow seemed ancient. He was a very small man, no taller than Mienthe herself—if anything, he was a little shorter than she was. Despite his small size, the impenetrable calm in his pewter-dark eyes made Lord Beguchren rather intimidating, especially because he was also thoroughly elegant. There was delicate white embroidery on his white shirt, which had buttons of pearl and just a little lace at the wrists—Mienthe, who was not ordinarily much interested in fine clothing, instantly longed for a gown made by his tailor—and there were very fine sapphires set in the silver rings on three fingers of his left hand.
Behind this man and a little to the side stood a man who was so much taller that he made Beguchren Teshrichten look as small as a child. He had broad shoulders and big hands and a strong, bony face that was not exactly handsome. Yet he owned, Mienthe could not help noticing, a lanky, raw-boned masculinity that was, in its way, more striking than ordinary handsomeness.
The tall man was also particularly perceptive: For all Tan was working to stay quietly in the background, the greater part of his attention was definitely fixed on Tan and not on Mienthe. She wondered how Tan had caught his interest so quickly and definitively. The tall man did not seem to wish to stare, but he looked again and again at Tan with quick, covert glances, each time looking away at once. Mienthe frowned at him. He noticed it after a moment, took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment, and then gave Mienthe a carefully attentive look and a smile. She did not find his gaze aggressive like the Arobern’s nor unfathomable like Beguchren’s, but curious and even friendly. If not for his strange reaction to Tan, she would have thought it the look of a warmhearted man who wished to believe the best of every stranger. But there was that reaction, so she did not know what to think.