The Arobern flung himself back down in his chair and scowled around at them all. “I could send that girl back to Iaor Safiad, yes, and ask him politely if he would permit me to bring a few thousand men marching through southern Feierabiand. Except there is no time! Who knows whether the griffins have already come through the high pass and down against Tihannad? Nor will Safiad trust me or what I might do! Later, when he sees I kept faith with him, that will be too late!”
“You have another son now,” Lord Beguchren said very quietly.
“A babe in arms does not replace my first son!”
Mienthe stared at both men, utterly horrified. She exclaimed, “But King Iaor would never harm Erich! I don’t care if—if Erich is supposed to be a hostage against you, it doesn’t matter what you do, he would never touch him!”
“He is a king!” shouted the Arobern, lunging back to his feet. “He will do what he must!”
Mienthe jumped to her feet to face the King of Casmantium and shouted back, “He won’t!” She found she was glaring as fiercely as the Arobern. “Who knows King Iaor better, you or I? He’s spent a month out of every year in the Delta, in my cousin’s house, and every year he’s brought your son with him. He treats him like his own son! When little Anlin fell off her pony last spring and broke her wrist, it was Erich who carried her back to the house and sat up with her all night and told her stories so she wouldn’t cry! He told her about the time he broke his arm falling off the roof of your palace in Breidechboden, and she made him promise that someday when she visited Casmantium he’d show her just where. He made her promise she wouldn’t climb out and fall from the same place!” Mienthe stopped. Then she finished with dignity, “It doesn’t matter what you think. King Iaor is honorable and kind and he might have taken your son as his hostage, but when it comes to the moment, he won’t touch him.”
The Arobern was gazing at her now with a very strange expression. “My son has stayed in your house for a month out of every year?”
Mienthe nodded uncertainly.
“You must know him now better than I do.”
Mienthe opened her mouth and shut it again. She said at last, “He’s a great deal like you, I think. Only not so hot-hearted. He loves you and Casmantium, but…”
“But he has learned to love Feierabiand and the Safiad as well,” the Arobern said heavily. “Yes. That is what the Safiad meant to teach him, and better that than…” His voice trailed off. “It is true that I have gathered a small army here. It is also true that I have thought of taking this army of mine through the pass. I would be glad to keep any war on the west side of the mountains, away from my own country. But…”
“You are a king,” Lord Beguchren said quietly. “You will do what you must.”
CHAPTER 13
An hour before dusk, the Arobern and all his people came out of the western mouth of the pass and found themselves slowly descending the lower slopes of the foothills and approaching the soft new green of the spring pastures spread out below.
Beguchren found the long rolling view of Feierabiand’s gentle countryside… troubling. He knew those foothills and pastures, for this was the identical view that had greeted that other Casmantian army six years ago, when the Arobern had come for the first time into Feierabiand. Then, his ambition had been conquest. He had intended to use the griffins as unwilling, ignorant weapons against Feierabiand. The cold mages of Casmantium… Beguchren and all his brethren… had hardly cared whether the king’s plan succeeded. They had intended the ultimate destruction of all the griffins.
If the Arobern had not been so ambitious… if the cold mages of Casmantium had not encouraged him in his ambition… then, very likely, the griffins would have kept, within reason, to their desert isolation. The slow battle between fire and earth would have continued as it had from the beginning of the age: inconclusive and wearying, but never ruinous.
Casmantium would still have its cold mages. Beguchren would not have been required to consign each of his long companions to the cold earth. The Great Wall would have been neither built nor broken.
Beguchren himself would still have his mage-sense and his power.
This was not a new thought. Only the regret and grief had become suddenly more piercing in the face of the green Feierabianden spring, with its soft breeze and gentle warmth.
Beguchren looked for signs of the stark desert the griffins had made here among the gentle hills and farms of Feierabiand. Looking down from this height, those signs were not obvious even to his experienced eye. But below and over to the south, the grasses were different: longer and harsher and strangely wiry. And there was a faint reddish cast to the land underlying those grasses. There were no trees in that area, except someone had apparently planted some young oaks and elms; the saplings stood in rows much too neat for trees that had sprouted naturally. Farther away, almost at the edges of visibility, stood a twisted, jagged tower of stone. The sunlight caught on it oddly, with a bloodred glimmer that turned its sharp edges almost translucent. Beguchren bowed his head, fixing his gaze instead on the mane of his horse, on his own fingers gripping the reins.
“My friend,” said the Arobern, and Beguchren drew a hard breath and looked up again.
The king had drawn up his horse, so that Beguchren had come up beside him. Their eyes met in a perfect understanding of shared guilt and regret. But neither of them would speak of the past, the Arobern because he was determinedly focused on the present and Beguchren because he was far too intensely private a man.
Leaning on his pommel, the Arobern gestured down the slope, west and a little south. “The ford is there, with its good bridge. The bridge is still there, I think. It was repaired when the rebuilding of the town began.”
Beguchren nodded. Of course the king would know for certain about the bridge—he would have had reports from his agents about every bridge and ford that would allow men to cross all the rivers in Feierabiand.
“So,” the Arobern said gravely. Lady Mienthe, her legist companion at her heel, had come up on the king’s other side and was looking at him questioningly; he turned toward her and went on, “We will assume the Wall yet holds. Perhaps it does.” It had been seven days since the griffin mage had brought his warning to Lord Bertaud. Perhaps the Wall held, and if it did not, still there was little they could do other than ride for the Delta and try an unexpected sideways blow against the griffins.
“We will cross the Nejeied,” continued the Arobern. “We will go across the country, straight toward Tiefenauer, at least until we are closer.” He had been practicing, as he managed the difficult Feierabianden names with only a little clumsiness.
“Yes?” Lady Mienthe said uncertainly.
The Arobern glanced sidelong at Beguchren and said, “If the Wall is broken, then Iaor Safiad will stay in the north. But if it still holds, then he may come south. If he comes, what will be his road? Will he ride down along the Sierhanan, straight for the Delta but always risking that he may find Linularinan soldiers have crossed the river and gotten in front of him? Or that he may find an attack coming from any direction, if Linularinum has crossed in force and laid a trap for him?”
“No,” said Beguchren, as the Arobern clearly wished to have all these tactical considerations laid out for the lady. “If the Safiad moves south, he will come down along the Nejeied this far. His options are wide, once he is here. He could cross west toward the Delta if he finds the Linularinan assault his greatest concern, as I imagine he hopes; or continue down the Nejeied toward Terabiand if for some reason he thought that wise; or if his hopes fail him and he suddenly discovers Linularinum to be the least of his concerns, he might go south along the Sepes River to Talend and have the forest at his back when he faces the griffins. He might even, in extremity, retreat with his men into the pass. I imagine that the griffins would care for that even less than they would like the forest.”
“That is also what I think,” said the Arobern, and paused. From the king’s grim expression, and from the way h
is gaze rested for a long moment on Lady Mienthe’s face, he was probably trying to imagine what he might say to King Iaor, if they happened to find him on the road down there, on the other side of the bridge.
“We will go down to the bridge,” the Arobern decided. “Lady Mienthe—” He frowned at her, though not unkindly. “You must speak to the people there and bid them to be calm.”
“They will know they cannot fight us,” Lord Beguchren said, watching her face. The lady was clearly thinking of how frightened her folk would be when they saw thousands of Casmantian spears flashing through the dust raised by thousands of Casmantian boots. He said, “They may scatter up- and downriver, however, with the most disturbing tales of Casmantian invasion. You might persuade them to send a second lot of messengers after the first, in the hope that we may not encounter too much difficulty as we move farther into Feierabiand.”
“We will move too swiftly to encounter difficulty,” the Arobern declared. “If Iaor Safiad comes upon us, we will hope he will listen to us with both his ears. I will send that little courier north today, this very hour, explaining what we are about and asking his pardon for our boldness. Lord Beguchren, I will ask you to stay here, athwart the likely road, so that if the honored courier does not reach the Safiad, you may meet him here.”
Lord Beguchren, unsurprised, inclined his head in acceptance of this command. “I am honored by your trust,” he said quietly, and to Lady Mienthe, who was looking openly surprised, “It is a mage you will need with you in the west.”
“And it’s a smooth tongue the lord king will need here in the east,” said Tan, unexpectedly, for he had rarely spoken to any of them on this ride, and had assiduously avoided both Beguchren and Gereint. His tone now was stiff. But he went on, glancing from one of them to the next and ending with an earnest nod toward the Arobern, “King Iaor may even believe that you deliberately act together with Mariddeier Kohorrian, and that you have some plan for dealing with the griffins after you’ve finished partitioning Feierabiand between you.”
Beguchren gave the legist a considering nod and agreed, “Indeed. I shall hope that in such exigency, I will be able to clarify matters.”
The Arobern grimaced and then looked keenly at Mienthe. “The Safiad knows you well, hah? Your cousin is his friend as well as his adviser and a lord of his court. Maybe I should leave you here also. Then you would be safe and also you could speak for me to your king. Maybe that would be clever, yes?”
“No—no, it wouldn’t!” said Mienthe, plainly horrified. “I have to go west! I need to be in Tiefenauer! Or,” she amended, “at least, I need to be with Tan.” She said this as she might have said The sky is blue or Water runs downhill. As though it were a flat statement of such obvious truth that no one could possibly dispute it.
Tan said, a snap of temper in his voice, “I should hate to go west without Mienthe. It isn’t your mage who’s so far turned away three Linularinan attacks against me.”
Lady Mienthe looked at Tan with surprise and pleasure, as though she hadn’t expected his support. But, when the Arobern began stubbornly to speak again of her safety, it was to Beguchren she turned for help. Though Beguchren had to acknowledge, without modesty, that if the young woman was not confident of her ability to carry her own point, she could not have chosen better in looking for one who both could and would argue for her.
He said, “Your feelings have been remarkable of late, have they not, Lady Mienthe? Both in their strength and then in their direction. We are assured that you are not a mage. However, even so, I think it very likely that you perceive the turn and tilt of the world.” He paused.
Mienthe stared at him blankly. She clearly had no idea what it would be like to perceive forces, balances and events pivoting, and just as clearly doubted that she felt any such thing.
But Beguchren was confident of it.
He turned gravely toward the Arobern. “Lord King,” he said formally, “I must advise against your suggestion, reasonable and wise as it seems. I believe the honored Lady Mienthe should return to Tiefenauer with the honored Tan, with all reasonable alacrity.”
“Huh. I thought only to keep you safe—” the Arobern said to Mienthe. He glanced at Beguchren and shrugged. “But very well! You will assuredly go west, honored lady.”
Beguchren said to his king, “I will speak for you to Iaor Safiad. I swear to you, I will not permit any harm to come to your son.”
“I depend upon it,” the Arobern growled. “I cannot give you many men, nor can I give you Gereint Enseichen. I will leave you—hah!—I will leave you Lady Tehre. She will make the Safiad listen to your voice. You must make him understand he must not press carelessly forward, that I have not set myself against him, that he must not interfere with me.” The king paused.
“I understand you very well,” Lord Beguchren said gently.
“Of course you do,” agreed the Arobern, and swung around, waving for his officers to come hear his commands.
* * *
Iaor Safiad, if he left Lord Bertaud in Tihannad to find such accommodation with the griffins as he might—and Beguchren wished the Feierabianden lord joy of the effort—would very likely race south to meet the Linularinan offense. Beguchren remained convinced that the Safiad would come down the Nejeied. From Minas Ford, he could angle west toward Kames and from there strike directly toward Tiefenauer, exactly the route the Arobern had taken. True, there were poor roads and farmer’s tracks all the way. But going that way, whatever Linularinan troops one might meet would lack support from across the river. This was what Beguchren thought the Safiad would do, thus driving straight against the rear of the Casmantian army, quite possibly leading to a very unfortunate outcome. Thus the urgent necessity of preventing him from pursuing any such course.
But if Iaor Safiad chose to ride south along the Nejeied at all, he would certainly have in mind the broad, open countryside west of Minas Spring, where the little Sepes divided from the larger Nejeied. This was the ideal place to rest his men and the fine Feierabianden horses.
Thus, this was where Beguchren set his own men, just past dawn on the day following their arrival in Feierabiand. He arranged them right across the middle of the open land, where the last of the precipitous hills leveled out to gentle pasturelands before reaching the river. It was a stupid position if he had meant to offer serious battle, especially with so few men. If he had actually intended to fight the Safiad, he would have wanted to arrange his men a fraction more northerly, where the narrow road lay between woodlands on the east and the river on the west. He would have set archers in the woods, so that Iaor Safiad would have been forced to bring his men through withering fire in order to come at his lines of spearmen. So his officers—two captains, each with a half-strength company—earnestly told him, unnecessarily. They and Lady Tehre had joined Beguchren under the awning of his tent, to look over the lines once more and review the plan.
“The point is not to fight,” Beguchren said gently, “but to hold Iaor Safiad from pursuing the Arobern in error. Or committing other acts in error.” Lady Tehre looked blank, which probably indicated that she was considering something entirely unrelated to what Beguchren had just said. But both the captains nodded, even more earnestly than they had explained how their men should be arranged. They were not stupid men. They knew very well the possible error to which Beguchren referred.
“But how are we to hold the Safiad if we cannot fight him?” the senior captain asked. “And should we not prepare to fight wholeheartedly, in case all else fails? Or, if all else fails, are we to prepare to yield this ground and our men and allow the Safiad through?” He plainly did not much care for this idea.
“We would much prefer not to yield,” Beguchren conceded. “One fears that events in the Delta may become altogether too delicate to allow even the best-intentioned interference from without. Possibly Iaor Safiad will give me his word to allow our king a free hand, but I think that unlikely.”
Both captains nodded; one of them laughed
grimly.
Beguchren barely smiled. “Just so. So we shall prefer to delay Iaor Safiad past the likelihood of any great interference. We should prefer to hold him entirely. But we will first show him a face that may make him pause to reflect, rather than merely gather his forces for an assault. We shall assuredly not draw the first bow.” He glanced from one man to the other and added without emphasis, “Indeed, you may warn your men that I will personally see to it that any man who shoots without the command is bound under the geas.”
Lady Tehre looked up at that, suddenly attentive, frowning. Both captains paled. “No one will draw without leave,” the senior said earnestly. “We assure you, my lord.”
“Indeed, I am certain of it,” murmured Beguchren. “Now, if we should be compelled to fight, we shall hope Lady Tehre may compensate for our poor disposition of forces.”
The captains glanced at each other and then, with the greatest respect, at Lady Tehre. They were northern men; that was one reason the Arobern had left them with Beguchren. They had seen the Great Wall.
“Well, but,” said Lady Tehre, worried, “there is no stone here to break; the mountains are a great distance away. I think too far.”
The lady was perched on a camp chair, her hands folded demurely in her lap, a few strands of her dark hair curling down beside her face. She looked fragile and feminine and markedly more beautiful than she had six years ago. Marriage to Gereint had suited her very well.
She said now, “I can tear up the road under their horses, to be sure, my lord, but that wouldn’t be enough to stop them, do you think, if they are determined? This soft black soil is very deep here along the river. I don’t know what I could do with it.” A tiny crease appeared between her fine eyebrows as she slipped into a maker’s reverie. “Soft earth might actually flow, in a sense, rather like very thick molasses,” she murmured. “I wonder…”
Law of the Broken Earth: The Griffin Mage Trilogy: Book Three Page 30
