Lord of the Changing Winds (30 page)

Whether or not, there was nothing he could do about it. Standing outside the town’s open gates, Bertaud gazed at the diverging rivers that ran past the walls. He wanted, suddenly and intensely, to walk away again and never turn his head to see what he was leaving. The water slid steadily past on its way south to the sea. He might follow it south to the coast. Or he might go west to his own estates in the Delta. That would certainly surprise his uncles and cousins there.

He turned back to the town instead, deliberately, and went through the gates, threading his way through its streets to the inn.

The inn was a brick edifice, three stories tall, with balconies outside the highest rooms and flowers on the balconies. Bertaud knew where the king would be: The best suite the inn offered was on that top floor, with rich furnishings and a private bath and rooms for servants the lord who guested there would bring. Iaor would have taken that whole floor for himself and his military advisors and senior officers, and for Meriemne if he had brought her with him, as seemed likely. Possibly the king’s entourage was ensconced all through the lower floors as well.

What Bertaud did not know was how best he might now approach the king. His own nervousness appalled him, but he couldn’t help it. The thought of Iaor’s face when Bertaud had defied him came back to him again, starkly. And if he had lost the king’s trust and regard, perhaps forever? What would be left for him then? His father’s house in the Delta? He grimaced.

Deliberately, he put that thought aside. If he’d lost the king’s esteem… at least, Bertaud thought, surely Iaor would listen to him before he sent him away, or had him arrested. And so the king would know that a Casmantian army was in the mountains behind the griffins’ desert, with Brechen Glansent Arobern at its head. That news would surely buy forgiveness. But, Bertaud thought, probably not a return of the easy trust, the certainty that he and Iaor had once had between them.

He sighed and stepped toward the inn’s main door, wanting now primarily to get this whole encounter behind him.

A soldier was posted there, not a guardsman whom Bertaud would have known, but a man in the colors of some western-border company whom Bertaud had not, to his knowledge, ever seen before. Bertaud began to speak to him, but the soldier unexpectedly laid a hand to his sword without waiting, moving quickly to block the door to the inn and raising his voice in a shout.

Startled, Bertaud began to protest, then paused. He might not know this young man, but surely there was no chance that the soldier did not know him. Had his captain set orders that Bertaud was to be arrested on sight? Had a general given such orders? Adries, perhaps?

Had Iaor given that command himself? Bertaud thought, heart cold, that after the way he had fled Tihannad with the griffin mage, this was all too possible. He wondered now why he had not expected it; why he had imagined to be able to walk straight into the king’s presence. Perhaps, indeed, Iaor would refuse to speak with him.

Or if this command had been given by some general or courtier who had been his rival in the court, perhaps Iaor would not even be told that he had come back.

It was this last thought that sent Bertaud’s hand to catch and hold the soldier’s before the young man could quite clear his sword from its scabbard. The soldier tried to break his grip, so Bertaud caught the man’s wrist in his other hand, even knowing how stupid this was, knowing that he had lost this encounter the moment he’d allowed it to become a physical contest. Other soldiers were coming… He saw no guardsmen, no one he could expect to listen to him over whatever order they’d been given. He could not fight the soldiers; he could not command them. What else was left? Bertaud let go of the soldier’s wrist and stepped back, hoping for inspiration. It did not come.

Another soldier, some lieutenant he didn’t know, as he did not know any of these men, grabbed Bertaud’s arm and stepped behind him to pinion him. For a moment there was quiet. Bertaud opened his mouth to speak, but found he did not know what to say.

A young guardsman, undoubtedly drawn by the commotion, came out of the inn. He looked curious and half alarmed. The young man was faintly familiar… Bertaud had thought he knew all his guardsmen well, but this one… He recognized him, then, and was all but overcome with a sudden unlikely desire to laugh. It was Enned son of Lakas, whom he had reluctantly accepted as a guardsman… what, seven days ago, eight? Enned recognized him, too. The young man’s eyes widened.

Bertaud started to call out, but the lieutenant jerked his arm sharply upward and he desisted, trying not to gasp in obvious pain. “If you please, my lord,” said the lieutenant, like an order. “You’ll come with me, quietly now, my lord.”

Enned ducked silently back into the inn.

“I must see the king,” Bertaud began.

“That’s for my captain to decide, my lord.”

“I’ll take him,” said a new voice, much deeper. Eles came out through the doorway of the inn, having to duck his head slightly to clear the lintel. The guard captain turned a grim stare on the lieutenant, who looked unhappy. There were a dozen soldiers in the yard of the inn, now, but three or four guardsmen pressed out of the inn after their captain. Though, with Eles present, the numbers would not matter: The captain would not likely allow this encounter to become a physical confrontation between soldiers and guardsmen…

The lieutenant tightened his grip. He looked as though he would have liked to countermand Eles’s order, but knew he did not have the authority to do so. He said, “His lordship is to be brought to my captain, sir, and smartly. That’s my orders.”

“I’ll take it up with your captain,” Eles said curtly, and the lieutenant hesitated. The man might not have served in Tihannad, but everyone knew Eles. Indeed, sometimes Eles’s reputation served him better than his actual presence. Although Bertaud was glad of his presence at this moment.

“You’d best come along with me, my lord, according to my orders,” the lieutenant said at last, and shoved. Bertaud set himself and resisted.

Eles shook his head and sighed, a slow exhalation that carried a startling menace. “Lieutenant. Mennad, is it?”

The lieutenant stopped again, looking uncomfortable.

“I,” said Eles, “will take this up with your captain, lieutenant. Sebes,” he said to one of his own aides, “if you would escort his lordship.”

Sebes, a dark, thin man with an even more dour look than the guard captain, came forward and laid a matter-of-fact hand on Bertaud’s arm. “If you will come with me, my lord?”

“My
orders
…” began the lieutenant, weakly.

“The responsibility is mine,” said Eles, without any special emphasis. Bertaud would have liked to be able to create that quality of grim certainty with so little effort, but it did not seem to be reproducible.

The lieutenant, yielding at last to the inevitable, opened his hands.

The second floor of the inn, it was evident, belonged to the guardsmen. At least they all came up the stairs with their captain and Bertaud, and none of the soldiers followed. No one laid a hand on Bertaud once they were clear of the soldiers. But once they were up the stairs, Eles himself turned back to face Bertaud, who perforce came to a halt. For a moment, the two men regarded one another in silence. Around them, the other guardsmen were uncomfortably silent.

“Lord Bertaud,” Eles said at last, with a hard look. “And have you brought… anyone… with you?”

“No.”

Eles studied him. Bertaud had never been confident of his own ability to read the guard captain’s face: When he had been a boy, he had thought there were no emotions behind the captain’s inexpressive face to be read. He did not know what he saw there now.

“You want to see the king?” Eles asked Bertaud at last.

“Yes,” said Bertaud. Neither demanding nor pleading. Just a neutral statement. “It’s urgent that I should, esteemed captain.”

“Urgent,” repeated the captain. “Is it?” He regarded Bertaud for another moment. “Are you armed?”

“No, esteemed captain.”

Eles gestured. One of his men—Sebes again—came forward, expression neutral, and with a murmur of apology proceeded to search Bertaud. Bertaud felt his face heat. But he lifted his arms and stood still, suffering the search without comment.

Finding nothing, Sebes took a step back and glanced at Eles.

“Wait there, if you please, my lord,” Eles said briefly, tilting his head to indicate the nearest room. “I will speak to his majesty and find out whether he will see you.”

“Thank you,” said Bertaud. And added after the slightest hesitation, “If he will not, Eles… esteemed captain… I ask you: Speak to me yourself. It is indeed extremely urgent information that I bring you. His majesty must hear it, from you if he will not hear it from me.”

The guard captain nodded briefly, and Bertaud relaxed a little.

“If you would care to sit, my lord,” said Sebes, once they had gone into the room to wait. Bertaud obediently sat down in the closest chair, folded his hands across his knee, and waited. Sebes stood behind him with two other guardsmen, including, Bertaud saw, Enned. They all waited, as patiently as was possible.

Bertaud said, after a moment, to Enned, “Well done, to go for the captain. Thank you.”

Enned looked uncomfortable. “I…” he glanced at Sebes, hesitating. The older man lifted an eyebrow but did not rebuke the young man for speaking to Bertaud. So Enned continued. “It was my duty, my lord, but also my pleasure. I think… I did not thank you, my lord, that day. I never… and then, later, I thought I would be glad of the chance to do so.”

“You have well repaid me,” Bertaud assured him. He was again half inclined to laugh. Then the thought of Iaor made the inclination die a quick death. For all he feared what the king’s reception of him might be, he could hardly bear to wait.

But, in fact, the wait was not very long at all. Eles returned mere moments after he had left, and, Bertaud saw, discomfited, Iaor himself accompanied the captain.

Bertaud first stood, startled, then quickly dropped to one knee and bowed his head. He glanced up covertly from beneath lowered lashes, trying to discern Iaor’s mind behind the mask of his face, but found that he could not.

“Bertaud,” the king said. Bare acknowledgment.

That coolness was hard to face; as hard as Bertaud had feared, surely. A dozen apologies and justifications, explanations, and excuses battled suddenly for primacy within him. He set his teeth, fixed his mind on the needs of the moment, and said, as crisply and cleanly and briefly as he knew how, “Brechen Glansent Arobern has five thousand men in the mountains above the griffins’ desert, poised to come down upon you like a hammer against the griffins’ anvil. The Arobern has been heard to say he wants Terabiand as the cornerstone of a new province, but I doubt he expects to get it without taking a certain amount of trouble.”

The king stood very still. He said at last, “Valuable word. Well done, to bring it to me.” He hesitated, then asked in a warmer tone, “Was it for this purpose… was it to get from the griffins the word they would not give me that you went with their mage?”

Yes!
Bertaud wanted to cry. It would have been the best possible explanation, indeed: a noble risk, undertaken for loyalty and duty. But… it would be a lie. And where would loyalty and duty be then? He gave Iaor the truth instead, painfully. “I did not know why I did anything I did that night. I still don’t know.” He looked up to meet the king’s eyes, afraid of what he would see there… Doubt? Mistrust?

What he saw was… both of those, he estimated, and bowed his head again in pain.

“You told me you did not trust your own judgment,” the king said quietly. “I did not understand then what you were trying to tell me. Perhaps I understand it better now.”

Bertaud looked at him helplessly.

The king came forward, laid a hand on Bertaud’s shoulder with unexpected sympathy, urging him to stand. “Up,” he said softly. “Up. All aside… I am glad you have come back to me. I confess I did not know whether to expect it. Up, I say. I am grateful for the warning you have brought me. But are
you
well?”

Unable to find an answer to that question, Bertaud only shook his head. He got to his feet rather shakily, finding Iaor’s hand under his elbow in swift support.

“Sit,” said the king, indicating the nearest chair. “Sebes… wine. Eles.”

The guard captain came forward a step. “Your majesty.”

“Go confer with Adries and Uol. Begin to develop alternate plans we might use in this exigency. Frontal attacks up into the teeth of the mountains are probably not the tactic of choice. Do think of some alternatives.”

Eles bowed and went out. The king waved the other guardsmen out after him and dropped into a chair of his own. He picked up his cup of wine, though he did not drink. He looked instead at Bertaud. “Well? Tell me everything. Begin… try to begin with why you freed the griffin in my hall, if you can. And then go on from there.”

And was this, then, forgiveness? It was not, Bertaud judged reluctantly. Not quite forgiveness and not quite absolution, though it might perhaps grow into either. It was better, even so, than he had had any right to expect.

He drank off his own wine in one quick draught and set the cup down on the arm of his chair with a small decisive click. And groped slowly after impressions he had been trying for a long night and a day to pull into some coherent order. He found, with some surprise, that stumble though he might, it did not actually take all that long to lay out the events of the prior hours. Not days. Only hours, though that seemed unbelievable. So little time to go from knowing your own place in the world to… knowing very little with certainty, it seemed.