Beside the tall man stood a small, delicate woman with lovely molasses-dark hair and great natural poise. By the way she rested her hand possessively on his arm, she was clearly his wife. There was no sign of warmth or friendliness from her, but there was no hostility, either. Her gaze was, Mienthe decided, professionally intent and curious. She did not seem to share her husband’s fascination with Tan, but gazed steadily and analytically at Mienthe. It was the sort of look Mienthe expected from a mage. Probably she was a mage, whether Lord Beguchren was or not. For all her cool dispassion, Mienthe was absurdly glad to see another woman in the room.
Mienthe wanted to look at Tan, but he was a step behind her. So after a moment, since there was plainly nothing else to do, she walked forward, offered the Arobern a very small bow—he was not her king, so although she longed to be able to ask someone, she thought it must be wrong for her to do more. Then, straightening, she waited for the king to address her.
The Arobern nodded back, very grave and regal. He said without preamble, in strongly accented but understandable Terheien, “You did not send me a wand, but I think you are a courier. From the Delta, I am informed. Also from the Safiad, yes?”
Mienthe stared at him for a moment. She remembered Tan saying, I suppose he must have the entire wretched story from top to toe. But she did not know how to begin.
Then Tan breathed in her ear, “Whose cousin are you? Well?”
Mienthe blinked. She took a deep breath and said, her voice only wavering a little, “Lord King”—she thought that was the correct Casmantian form of address—“Lord King, I am not precisely a courier. But it is true I carry a warning from the Delta. From my cousin. I’m—my name is Mienthe daughter of Beraod. Bertaud son of Boudan is my cousin. He—I—I know you are an honorable man and a strong king. So I came to you, because there is trouble in the Delta and I did not know where else to go.”
There was a pause, during which the King of Casmantium looked hard at Mienthe. He did not smile or nod, and for a moment she was afraid he did not believe her. Then he stood up and inclined his head to her, and she saw that though she had taken him by surprise, he did not doubt her. She supposed few people dared lie to him. Certainly not with the rather alarming Beguchren Teshrichten by his side.
“A chair for Lady Mienthe,” the Arobern commanded, and waited for one to be brought over before he dropped back into his own chair. He made a broad gesture that dismissed most of the guardsmen and nearly all of the servants. Then, once the room was more nearly private, he said, “I have had word from the Safiad. That is why I came to Ehre, so that couriers from Feierabiand could come to me more swiftly. Now you say you are come directly from the Delta, not from the Safiad but on your own account? Tell me your warning.”
It seemed an unbelievable tale when Mienthe laid it out, which she tried to do in order, from Tan’s appearance in Tiefenauer carrying secrets he’d stolen from the Linularinan spymaster, straight on through his kidnapping right out of a guarded house by that same spymaster and then the immediate invasion of the Delta by Linularinan soldiers. It sounded unbelievable even to her. She stumbled embarrassedly through an explanation of how she’d found Tan, of how she might be waking into the mage gift, though she didn’t feel like she was becoming a mage, but really she did not know what becoming a mage felt like—here, though no one interrupted, Beguchren Teshrichten and the tall man exchanged a significant look, and Mienthe stopped.
“Go on,” said the Arobern, with an impatient frown for his own people.
Mienthe hesitated for a moment, but when no one else said anything, she went on to describe the book, the one with the empty pages, that the Linularinan spymaster had brought with him from Teramondian. She looked again at Tan in case he should want to explain about the book. He only nodded at her again, so she explained how they thought Tan must have taken some powerful legistworking or law out of the book and how the Linularinan spymaster, or someone, seemed amazingly determined to get it back.
Mienthe looked from one to another of her audience, unable to gauge what anybody thought of any of this. She said uncertainly, “And then when we thought we might go north, Tan and I, we were afraid we might find Linularinan agents before us. They won’t stop. I don’t know if King Iaor knows all this yet, though some word must surely have got north by this time. But I don’t know whether he’s free to respond to Linularinum’s provocation, because of the griffins. You do know about that? That’s what was in the message you were sent, isn’t that right? A mage of theirs, named Kairaithin, I think, brought word that the Wall, the Great Wall my cousin helped build, that it was cracked through. But was there anything about Linularinum in that message?”