Land of the Burning Sands (9 page)

He went quickly through the pack. A change of clothing, a blanket, a belt knife, cord. Travel food. A small bag of meal. A little oil. Flints. Candles. He laid a fingertip against one of the arrowheads and nodded. Squirrel and rabbit.

At the bottom of the pack, he found the two books he’d brought away from Fellesteden’s house. Gereint looked at those for a long moment. Then he put everything back in the pack except the knife. He slid the knife’s sheath onto his belt, drew the knife, looked at it. Ran the tip of one finger down its length. Turned it over in his hand, trying the hilt. Touched its blade briefly to his lips.

It was a good knife. Meant for nothing more dramatic than cutting meat or cord, slicing apples or green wood, but well made. Gereint gave it a little shove, pushing it toward the balance a fighting knife ought to have. To really alter it, he’d need tools and a forge. But he could do a little just by letting the knife know his preference.

The frilly lady’s bed looked inviting. Gereint ignored it.
Go for a walk
, Amnachudran had said. He’d meant,
Test your freedom
. It was, of course, a perceptive suggestion. Gereint slung the pack over his shoulder, hung the little bow and quiver in their places, and walked out of the room. Down the hall. Down some stairs. It was a big house… down the largest hall he could find. He passed servants, who nodded. A pair of shaven-headed men-at-arms in livery, with swords at their hips, who also nodded politely but turned to watch as he passed. Cold ran down Gereint’s spine, prickled at the back of his neck. He forced himself not to look over his shoulder, and after a moment breathed again when he found that the men had not followed. He turned the corner and found the main door of the house in front of him. It led out into the courtyard, filled with people… hurrying about their business. Some of them glanced up at Gereint, a few with enough interest to make his skin prickle.

But the courtyard gates were open. No one stopped Gereint from walking through them. In the light, with a clear mind, he could see how the road unrolled gently south and west through a pleasant patchwork of orchards and pastures.

Gereint followed the road through the nearest orchard, nodding to the people he passed. He didn’t look back. He picked two apples—no one objected; one woman even looked up with a grin and a wave—splashed across a stream, put a gentle hill between him and the orchard, and turned across country, heading north. Glanced at the sun for his direction, turned east, and came back to the house from the northeast, where the quiet hills offered concealment. From this angle the house lay far below, a gracious presence at the heart of a gracious countryside. He found a decent rock to sit on and padded it with the blanket. He ate the apples and a strip of dried beef. Watched the house.

There was no unusual bustle that he could see. People moved around, going about the ordinary business of the day. A shepherd and two dogs brought in a small flock of sheep; a boy chased and caught a goose; women carried baskets of apples in from the orchard. No one hurried; no one seemed to feel any urgency about their chores. No one, as far as Gereint could tell, had followed him or tried to track him into the hills. There was no sign that the freedom Eben Amnachudran had offered had been any sort of deceit or trap.

The sun slid across the sky. Gereint dozed. Woke. Read some of Berusent’s
Historica
. Dozed again. At dusk he finally stood up and stretched. Folded up the blanket and put it back in his pack, along with the book. Picked his way down the hill alongside the little stream, skirted the new pond with its raw-clay bank, and came back to the courtyard gates. The gates were standing open. He went through them.

A man-at-arms posted by the gates moved in the dimness. Gereint stopped.

The man-at-arms looked Gereint up and down. Said, expressionless, “The honored Amnachudran said he’s expecting you. I am to ask, do you wish the gates left open tonight?”

Gereint stared back at him. “Not if your custom is to close them.”

The man-at-arms shrugged. He said, “There’s a man to show you where to go.”

There was in fact a servant woman, who looked Gereint up and down in quite a different manner than the man-at-arms had, smiling in appreciation of his height. Being looked at by a woman was an entirely different experience without the brand. The woman said cheerfully, “The family is dining in the little hall. I’ll take you there. May I take your pack? I’ll put it safe in your room…”

Gereint let her take it.

The little hall turned out to be a spacious room with a single table and long sideboard, appointed in rich wood and dark, quiet colors. The table was covered with dishes of sliced beef and bread, late carrots and early parsnips, beans with bits of crisp pork… Gereint’s mouth watered, despite the apples he’d eaten earlier.

Amnachudran was at the head of the table. The “family” consisted of Amnachudran, Lady Emre, a dark-bearded man of about thirty—one of their sons, Gereint assumed—and, at least tonight, no one else. The family evidently served itself; there were no servants in the room. The son glanced up at Gereint with friendly curiosity; Gereint guessed his father hadn’t told him every detail of his recent adventures. Lady Emre smiled a welcome. Amnachudran himself smiled in welcome and what seemed relief. So the man had not been as confident of Gereint’s return as he’d seemed. That was, in a way, reassuring.

An extra place was set at the table. Amnachudran gestured an invitation that was not merely kindness, Gereint understood. It
was
kindness; he didn’t doubt the man’s natural sympathy. But it was also a test, of sorts. Of whether he could use tableware like a civilized man? Or, no. More of whether he could put off a slave’s manner and behave not merely like a civilized man but like a free man. He did not even know the answer to that question himself.

Gereint nodded to Emre Tanshan and again to the son, walked forward and took the offered chair. Lady Emre passed him a platter of beef; the son shifted a bowl of carrots to make room for it.

“Your day was pleasant?” Amnachudran asked politely.

“Very restful, honored sir,” said Gereint. He took a slice of the beef and a few carrots.

“Take more beef,” Lady Emre urged him. “One needs food after hard healing.”

Gereint took another slice of beef, nodding polite thanks when Lady Emre handed him the bowl of beans, and said courteously, “You are yourself, like your husband, a healing mage, lady?” Yes, he remembered Amnachudran saying something like that…

Emre Tanshan waved a casual hand. “Oh, well… more or less.”

“My lady wife is a true healing mage,” Amnachudran explained. “She is the one who healed us both. Not like me at all; I couldn’t have managed anything as difficult as your knee. I am, ah. More of a scholar than a practitioner, you understand? My skill lies with, hmm. With injuries that are… symbolic or… one might say, those that have a philosophical element.”

Like scars from a
geas
brand, evidently. Gereint couldn’t remember ever having heard of any such surgical specialty, but he nodded.

Amnachudran made a small, disparaging gesture. “Philosophically, I have some skill, I think. My practical ability… I removed the scar, but I didn’t guess the procedure would cause you such terrible pain. And then it was too late to stop. I’m very sorry—”

Without even thinking about it, Gereint set his hands flat on the table and leaned forward. “Eben Amnachudran. I beg you will not apologize to me for anything.”

The scholar stopped, reddening.

His son said earnestly, “But after you rescued my father from the river and dragged him all the way to our doorstep, I’d think it would be my father in your debt, honored sir, and not the other way ’round, whatever old and symbolic injury he eased for you.”

The son wasn’t much younger than Gereint himself. Standing, he would likely be taller than his father, broader in the shoulder, a good deal less plump. The shape of his face was his mother’s, but his cheekbones were more prominent and his jaw more angular. His black hair was cropped very short, short enough to suggest he had recently shaved his head in the common soldier’s style. His beard was also like a soldier’s; maybe he had recently been with the army. Either way, his honest curiosity was hard to answer. Gereint said after a moment, “I suppose it’s a debt that cuts both ways,” and took some parsnips.

“Not from the account I heard,” the young man declared enthusiastically. “Though I suppose we always feel our own debts most keenly. Still, it’s a great service you did our household, honored sir; never doubt it.”

Gereint felt his own face heat. He muttered, “You’re kind to say so.” He dipped a piece of bread in gravy and ate the bread to give himself an excuse to let the conversation go on without him.

“My eldest son, Sicheir,” Amnachudran said to Gereint. “Sicheir is a more practical man than I. He is an engineer. He will be leaving for Dachsichten in the morning. The Arobern is gathering engineers there, you may know.”

Gereint had not known, though he was grateful for the change of topic. He nodded. It made sense that the Arobern, King of Casmantium, would command his engineers to gather in Dachsichten, crossroads of the whole country. There, the great east-west road met the river road that ran the whole length of the country from north to south. Everything and everyone passed through Dachsichten.

“We’re to head west from Dachsichten,” Sicheir explained, as Gereint had already surmised. The young man leaned forward, speaking rapidly in his enthusiasm. “We are to widen and improve that rough little mountain road from Ehre across the mountains into Feierabiand. It’s part of the settlement the Arobern made with the Safiad king. He”—meaning the Arobern, Gereint understood—“wants a road a spear-cast wide, paved with great stones, with bridges running straight across all the chasms. It will be a great undertaking. We’ll have to lay down massive buttresses to support the road through the mountain passes, and devise wholly new bridge designs, and new methods of grading—there’s never been another road so ambitious in Casmantium, probably not
anywhere
.”

It surprised Gereint that the Arobern had gotten any concessions at all out of the Feierabianden king, under the circumstances. But that the Arobern would then design a massive, hugely ambitious road—
that
wasn’t surprising. He nodded.

Eben Amnachudran cleared his throat. “You might go west with Sicheir. If you wish. It’s the long way ’round, to be sure, going so far south before you head west—I’d understand if you preferred to make your own way through the mountains after all. But in these troubled days a man puts himself at risk traveling alone. A good many brigands have appeared, far more than usual—preying on the refugees heading south from Melentser, you know. Besides, a good road under your feet cuts miles off the journey, as they say.” He offered Gereint a platter. “More bread?”

Eben Amnachudran came to find Gereint later, long after the household had retired for the night, after even most of the servants were abed. Gereint was still awake. He was standing, fully dressed, in front of the long mirror in his room, studying his unmarked face and thinking about the advice Merrich Berchandren suggested for travelers in his book on customs and courtesy. Among other recommendations, Berchandren suggested that “an uncertain guest might best speak quietly, smile frequently, and depart discreetly.” The line did not make clear whether this advice was meant to apply when the guest or the situation was uncertain. Or, considering Berchandren’s subtlety, both.

Gereint twitched when the knock came. But it was a quiet knock, the sort of circumspect rap that a man on the edge of sleep might ignore. Nothing aggressive or alarming. Gereint swung the door wide, found—of course—Amnachudran waiting there, and stepped back, inviting the scholar to enter with a gesture.

Amnachudran came in and stood for a moment, looking around. “This is my daughter’s room,” he commented. “I have four sons, but only one daughter; youngest of the lot. She hasn’t stayed here for several years, but we keep the room for her—unless we have a guest, of course. It may perhaps be,” the older man glanced around doubtfully, “a little feminine.”

Gereint assured him solemnly that the room was the very essence of perfection, adding, “According to the precepts of Entechsan Terichsekiun, who declares for us that aesthetic perfection lies both in the flawless detail and the eye that appreciates it, and which of us would dare argue with the greatest of philosophers?”

Amnachudran laughed. “Any other philosopher, as I’m sure you know very well! But, you know, that you would quote Terichsekiun makes me wonder… My daughter lives in Breidechboden. Tehre. She’s a maker, like you. Or, maybe not quite like you. She works on these, ah”—he gestured broadly—“these abstruse philosophical things. Nothing as practical as waterproof saddlebags. I may be something of a philosopher myself, if hardly in Terichsekiun’s class, but I can’t say I understand my daughter’s work.”

Gereint, wondering where Amnachudran was going with this digression, made a polite sound to show he was listening.

“Well, you see… I know my daughter’s been searching for another maker who might help her do something or other. Someone intelligent and experienced, with a powerful, flexible gift. It’s important to her, but she hasn’t found anyone who suits her.”

Gereint wanted to say,
You want me to go to
Breidechboden
? You do know there’s no city I want to visit less?
Instead, he made another politely attentive sound,
Hmm
?