Law of the Broken Earth: The Griffin Mage Trilogy: Book Three

by Neumeier, Rachel

  Mienthe arranged wood with numb fingers and struck a fire while Tan unsaddled the horses. He did not hobble the beasts, which were as tired and cold as their riders and very willing to be led into the nook. He was limping, Mienthe saw; he had been only very slightly lame in Kames, but he’d used himself hard on their flight and the limp was much worse now. She was immediately worried, and then resented the necessity of worry, which she knew very well was unfair. But there was nothing she could do if the half-healed knee had been reinjured—nothing either of them could do, this side of Ehre. So she worried. “Your leg?” she asked Tan.

  “It will do,” he said, and stopped limping, which made Mienthe feel guilty and more resentful still. Even worse, Tan did not seem to notice her bad temper.

  She got up and went herself to pour out handfuls of grain for the horses and check their feet. At least there were few other camp tasks, as simply as they were traveling. Tan settled by the fire and stretched his leg out carefully, with a saddle under his knee.

  Mienthe wrapped herself up in a blanket and tucked herself, not too close to Tan, between the cliff wall and the fire where the reflected warmth would, she hoped, eventually thaw her fingers and toes. She was acutely aware of his presence. And of the absence of the maid. And of the silence and solitude that surrounded them. She did not know what to say, but found herself suddenly unable to look at him.

  “Tomorrow should see us out of the pass and down at least to Ehre,” he said, throwing another branch on the fire. His tone was utterly prosaic.

  Mienthe nodded, staring fixedly into the fire.

  “I could bring you something to eat—”

  She shook her head and leaned her head back against the cliff. Then she lay down right where she was, closed her eyes, and opened them what seemed mere moments later to a spectacular dawn.

  Clouds had piled up in the east, rose-pink and deep carmine and gold. The sun, rising behind the clouds and among the teeth of the mountains, flooded the valleys between the peaks with a streaming pale light that seemed almost solid enough to touch. To either side of the road, the luminous faces of the mountains glowed gold and pink with reflected light; ice streaked the high jagged tips of the mountains with crystalline fire. Violet and indigo shadows stretched out below the mountains, and the iron bridge, a surprising distance below their campsite, gleamed like polished jet.

  “Good morning,” Tan said, smiling rather tentatively at Mienthe from beside the fire. He was heating pieces of last night’s roasted meat on sticks over the coals and folding them into flatbreads, and it was the savory smell of the dripping fat that had woken her.

  Mienthe found herself suddenly and unexpectedly happy. It might have been the clarity of the air and the brilliance of the light, or the deep warmth that had built up around her through the night from the fire, or the feeling of safety. She had not realized how frightened she had felt, or for how long, until she woke secure in this stony nook high above the world, with no company but Tan and the horses. Somehow, in the bright light of the morning, it no longer seemed nearly so strange or worrisome to be alone in the mountains with only Tan for a companion.

  She sat up, then got to her feet, shook out her traveling skirt and rubbed her face with her hands—Tan had put out a bowl of water and even a surprising bit of soap, so she could wash her face like a civilized person. Then she knelt down by the fire while Tan saddled the horses and rolled up the blankets. She didn’t even feel guilty about letting him do all the work. He looked wide awake and energetic, like he’d been up for hours, and he was hardly limping at all. Besides, there wasn’t a great deal of work involved in cleaning up their camp. So she peacefully ate the hot meat and exactly half of the honey cakes out of the packet. The honey was very good, spicier and somehow wilder than the honey from Delta wildflowers.

  “We’ll be out of the pass and in Casmantium by noon,” Tan said, leading her horse up to her and offering her the reins. “Shall we lay odds on it?”

  Mienthe couldn’t help but laugh. She laid Tan odds of three to one that they wouldn’t reach the far end of the great road before midafternoon, because that way she couldn’t lose—at least, she would rather lose than win.

  “Your knee is better?” she remembered to ask.

  “A night’s rest was all it required. It’ll be well enough as long as I leave the stirrups long,” he assured her.

  He sounded so very sincere that Mienthe wondered if he was actually concealing a good deal of pain, but so far as she could see he looked calm and relaxed, without any of the visible tension of pain. So in the end she simply nodded and guided her horse out of the sheltered nook and up the long curve of the road that led east.

  There was room to ride abreast, and for a while they did. But neither of them spoke, and after a little while, Tan fell back behind Mienthe. She did not mind. She liked the illusion that she was riding alone between stone and sky, the morning light pouring through the cold air around her, the granite glittering in the sun and the clean wind against her face. She could imagine she was the only living creature within a hundred miles—and her horse, of course. The horse also seemed cheerful this bright morning, moving willingly along with a long stride, its head up and its ears pricked forward.

  This road truly was wonderful, Mienthe decided. She enjoyed its long spiral climb around the curve of a mountain and the artful way it doglegged up a narrow pass between two broken crags, with the sky an amazingly dark blue above and the mountains luminous with reflected light. She enjoyed the sharp thrill of crossing a graceful bridge spanning a gulf between two narrow spires. The chasm must have been at least four hundred feet long—she counted her horse’s strides to make that estimate and, turning at the end to look back at the bridge’s graceful, narrow length, wondered whether it was the longest bridge in the world and what magic of making kept it from collapsing down into the gulf.

  The road climbed and climbed, and then they came up and around a particularly steep and awkward turn around a dramatic cliff that raked against the sky. Mienthe immediately understood exactly why the engineers had designed the curve as they had, despite its awkwardness. As they came around the last sharp turn, they found the whole world spread out unexpectedly before them in one long eastward sweep of stone and sky, down and down and dizzyingly down, until they could see the green of trees far below, and the town of Ehre, its high wall and wide streets and granite houses faintly blurred by a haze of smoke and distance.

  Mienthe had checked her horse without noticing, and now she turned to Tan and smiled.

  He gazed back at her, not smiling himself. Indeed, he looked rather pale and serious. Mienthe had not realized until that moment how nervous Tan was about entering Casmantium, about delivering himself into the Arobern’s hands. But he only said after a moment, lightly, “Casmantium before noon, as I said. No doubt it shall tremble at our coming. What were those odds?”

  As it would not be kind to notice his anxiety, Mienthe laughed and said, “It’s farther than it looks, I believe, and noon’s not so far away. I think I’ll win our wager yet—which is good, as you know perfectly well it was three to one!”

  She patted her horse on the neck and nudged it forward, in no particular hurry—not that she would mind losing the wager, but because she found herself oddly reluctant to arrive at Ehre, and thus in Casmantium, with the freedom and peace of the mountains behind them.

  * * *

  They came down out of the mountain pass and rode through the great iron gates, the gates that marked the border of Casmantium, exactly at noon, when the sun stood precisely overhead and all shadows were as small and unobtrusive as they ever could be. On the mountain side of the gates, the paving stones of the mountain road ran broad and smooth up into the pass behind them. Before them, on the other side of the iron gates, the road was narrower and made simply of pounded earth, with plain timbers to keep it from washing too badly when streams fed by melting snow came down from the mountains in the spring. Ehre, westernmost town of Casmantium, st
ood with its imposing square stone towers rising up behind its high stone walls, less than half a mile farther on down this ordinary road.

  They had actually come to the iron gates a scant few minutes before noon, but Tan caught Mienthe’s reins and held her back until they could tell by the shadows of the gates that the sun stood precisely at noon. Then he led her horse through the gates onto Casmantian soil and solemnly offered Mienthe three coins. It was absurd, of course, but she nevertheless gave him one back. Then they traded again, so that both of them were back where they’d begun. She tried not to laugh, but it was impossible not to smile. It was hard to remember the fear that had dogged their steps for those last days. Mienthe did not know what they would find in Ehre, but she was at least confident it would not be Linularinan agents.

  After they passed through the iron gates, she turned once more to look wistfully back up the long sweep of the road behind them. The achingly brilliant blue of the sky stretched infinitely far, above gray and silver mountains that shaded away to violet as they rose to meet the sky. Mienthe could make out the narrow thread of the road, snaking its way up and up until the narrow thread of it tipped at last over a curve high above. She sighed and began to turn away for the final time, toward Ehre and the last long stretch of their journey. But then she paused, her attention caught by the movement of tiny black figures high above, coming slowly over that last high curve. They were so far away and so tiny that she probably would not have seen these other travelers at all except they paused, gazing down from the crest of the road as she and Tan had done, and as they paused there they were clearly silhouetted against the brilliant sky.

  Though she knew other travelers must use the great road, though she knew there was no reason to suspect those barely visible flecks were anything sinister or anything to do with them at all, she nevertheless found her pleasure in the day instantly quenched, as swiftly as a smothered candle flame. “Tan,” she said.

  He turned, following her gaze up to the high curve of the road, and stilled. He said at last, deliberately calm, “The road is open to anyone, after all.”

  “Yes,” said Mienthe, and heard her own voice come out small and tight.

  “There’s no reason to think they’re anything to do with us.”

  “No,” Mienthe agreed.

  Tan gave her a level glance and added, still in that calm tone, “But we might ride on, even so. We might ride straight through Ehre and be well out in the countryside by dusk, do you think?”

  “Yes,” said Mienthe. She had hoped to rest in some pleasant public house in Ehre. She didn’t say so, but only pressed her horse into a swinging trot toward the walls of the town, so near at hand.

  But she could not believe, now, that those walls would offer anything but an illusion of safety.

  Mienthe had thought Ehre a small mountain town, larger than Minas Ford, no doubt, for all the building that had been done at Minas Ford and Minas Spring in the past years, but still far smaller than Tiefenauer. Certainly Ehre had not seemed very large from above, but it was intensely busy; busier and far more crowded than she had expected. She thought it was probably a market day, for farmers with empty carts were passing in and out of the stone gates that pierced Ehre’s walls. Well, mostly out, for they’d clearly disposed of their produce earlier in the day. But plenty of other people were going in or coming out. Not merely ordinary folk, either, but an astonishing number of fancy carriages and riders dressed not for the practical necessities of travel, but in finely dyed linen with lace at their wrists and delicate embroidery, and fancy rings for the men or bangles for the ladies. Mienthe thought she wouldn’t have been able to wear so fine an outfit for an hour on the road without snagging a thread or ripping the lace.

  “Do you suppose there’s a spring fair?” Mienthe asked Tan. “Or perhaps the lord here is celebrating the birth of an heir?”

  Tan had a thoughtful, wary look on his face, but it fell away almost before Mienthe had noticed it, and he smiled and shrugged with every evidence of good humor. “Perhaps a fair,” he agreed. “It’s useful. I much doubt anyone will look twice at strangers passing through.” He touched his reins to direct his horse toward the gates that led into the town.

  At first Tan’s prediction seemed accurate. There were guardsmen at those stone gates, but they seemed unconcerned about travelers and simply waved everyone through after a brief exchange of words. Mienthe knew that they would do the same for herself and Tan, but she could not help feeling as though the hunted, anxious days just past must show somehow. She felt very strongly that the guards would stop them and demand knowingly, And just what brings you to Ehre, eh, esteemed lady? Bringing trouble at your heel, are you? Linularinan agents, is it? And while she wanted to explain about all of that to the Arobern, she certainly did not want to be taken for a hysteric or a madwoman by provincial guards here in Ehre.

  She wished that Bertaud was here with her—visiting Casmantium wouldn’t be frightening at all if her cousin were with her—even if he’d come bearing news of trouble and disorder in Feierabiand, everyone here would respect him and believe everything he said. She had been desperately eager to arrive in Ehre, but now she looked anxiously sideways at Tan, riding beside her on the road. He did not look in the least concerned about the guardsmen. Mienthe did not for a moment believe his confident pose. She wished she did.

  But they could hardly go back through the pass.

  The guardsmen asked, without much interest, what business had brought them to Ehre. Tan, with a discretion Mienthe thoroughly approved, did not go into any details. He gave his name as Teras son of Toharas and did not give hers at all; he merely said that they were on their way to Breidechboden—he pronounced the name quite creditably—with an important message from Lord Bertaud of the Delta to King Brechen Glansent Arobern.

  They had agreed he would say so much, because Tan said that complicated lies were difficult to put over properly and Mienthe had suggested that she might well pass for a courier; that, indeed, after their recent hasty days of travel across country with never a decent chance to pause at any civilized house or inn, she would be hard put to look like a respectable lady. She had flatly refused, this time, to allow Tan to imply they were fleeing together from an outraged husband.

  But after that nothing in the encounter followed any outline either of them had envisioned.

  “You plan to go to Breidechboden?” one of the men said, in accented but quite accomplished Terheien. His gaze, from bored, had become intent. “You wish to speak to the Arobern for the Lord of the Delta?” He did not sound, as Mienthe would have expected, doubtful. He simply gave Tan a long look and Mienthe a polite nod and said, “I am glad to save you many miles. The Arobern is not in Breidechboden. He is here.”

  “Here? In Ehre?” Mienthe said blankly, before she could stop herself. She had meant to leave all the speaking to Tan, but in her startlement she had forgotten.

  “In Ehre. Yes,” said the guardsman. “This is good news, yes? Because you bring an important message. You do not have a wand?”

  He meant the white wand Feierabianden couriers carried. Mienthe shook her head mutely, mindful of what Tan had said about complicated lies. She said, trying to sound confident but finding her voice coming out small and nervous, “But I do carry an urgent message, esteemed sir.”

  The guardsman gave a little nod. “I will escort you to the king myself, honored courier, and bring him word you have come. From the Delta, as you say you are sent by the honored Lord of the Delta.” He was watching them closely, Mienthe realized, in case they had lied and the news he gave them was actually very bad news indeed.

  But when she met the man’s eyes, he smiled deferentially and ducked his head, and she saw he did not think they had lied at all. He thought she was probably a true courier, that she did bring word of some kind to his king, and that Tan was her proper escort. Though Mienthe did carry an important warning and did urgently want an audience with the King of Casmantium, she felt oddly like an impostor
under the regard of the guardsman. She tried not to let this show.

  “It’s good news indeed, esteemed sir,” Tan said with smooth sincerity. He drew his horse aside with hardly a hesitation, nodding to Mienthe to precede him. He, too, had understood the conclusion the guardsman had drawn and now played precisely to that conclusion. Mienthe thought probably Tan would be best pleased to step out of view, play the role of servant and protector. He would tuck himself in her shadow so that everyone would see and remember only her. She understood why he wanted to do that, so even though she found the attention of the guardsmen uncomfortable, she nodded and rode ahead of both men into the town.

  It occurred to her before they had gone very far that they were going to see the King of Casmantium and that, much worse, he was actually going to see them. She wondered what her hair looked like—she had not managed to wash it since Kames—and might there be visible dirt on her face? Though the mountains had been clean stone and ice, mostly. But her traveling skirt was terribly crumpled, and once she discarded her coat, she was almost certain she would find a grease mark on her blouse from the previous night’s dinner. She wondered whether they might really need to go straight to the Arobern. Might the guardsmen let them stop at some inn or public house, first? One with decent bathing facilities and a laundry?

  But a sidelong glance at their escort told her how little hope there was of such a stop. They were accompanied by several guardsmen, not merely the one who had said he would escort them, though that one was clearly in charge. He looked very serious and determined. If Mienthe and Tan had wanted to break away and lose themselves in Ehre, this would have been inconvenient. As it was, except that her sudden burst of self-consciousness made her wish for a little less efficiency, the presence of the guardsmen was very convenient indeed. The streets were terribly crowded and Mienthe had no idea in the world where she was going. But the guardsmen cleared a way for them, guiding them around in a confusingly circular path that seemed to lead them strangely out of the way if they meant to go, as Mienthe had assumed, toward the center of the town.