Gael described his final interaction with Carbraes to Keir as they made their way through the bailey toward the stables. One of the cohorts was drilling on the slope, marching in complex and everchanging formations which required considerable space, so Gael and Keir had to maneuver around the edges.
Keir had recovered her equanimity, but her eyes glowed as she listened to Gael’s narrative. “You actually argued him to a standstill,” she said, her tone appreciative.
“Not really,” said Gael. “I appealed to his good judgment, which remains his guiding principle. He’s never capricious, you know.”
Keir repressed a grin. Gael saw her lips twitch upward.
“Very well,” she said, “if you won’t accept my applause for your powers of persuasion, I’ll remind you that you earned Carbraes’ cooperation by your own loyalty to him. He could not have simply wished you farewell and goddess’ speed, if he’d not been certain you would never . . . oh,”—she tilted her head, considering—“turn over a map of Belzetarn’s defenses to his Ghriana foes, for example.”
Gael allowed his eyebrow to lift. “Is it so important that I accept your praises?”
She snorted, delicately. “You did save my life, Gael!”
At the stables, Barris had already obtained horses for them and conducted their mounts outside the citadel, so Gael led the way to the small sally port on the western wall. Had it really been only the day before yesterday that he’d traversed this same path in search of Nathiar?
The beech leaves rustled in a light breeze, sending dapples of sunlight dancing on the ferns of the forest floor and over the roots crossing the narrow track.
They discovered three horses—Gael had been expecting two—in the glade of cherry trees with its bubbling spring. When Nathiar stepped out from behind the mounts, wearing a gaudy robe of yellow suede embroidered with red, purple, and copper thread, Gael knew some surprise.
“Do you accompany us?” he asked.
Nathiar snickered. “Really, my dear Gael. Me? Camping rough? No!”
“Then why—?”
“When Barris asked my direction for the way to this clearing, I thought it simpler to do the job myself,” drawled the magus. “Delegation can be such a bore, don’t you think? Good afternoon, my dear Keir,” he added.
Keir wrinkled her nose, but nodded politely enough.
Gael frowned. What was Nathiar not telling him?
“Also,” the magus continued, “I thought you might like to have this.” He shrugged Gael’s satchel of sketches from his shoulder. “Barris had omitted to pack it, and that would never do.”
“Thank you!” Gael exclaimed, further surprised. He was not accustomed to having the magus as an ally. He hesitated, considering a moment. “Wouldn’t you prefer to keep them yourself? In aid of your magical researches?” Nathiar had expressed a wish—in this very glade—that he’d had access to the information contained by the sketches long since.
“I’ve made copies, of course,” said Nathiar. “I felt sure you would urge me to it, my dear Gael. Or. Really, what am I saying? I tested near three dozen messenger boys for their drawing skills and set the best of them to sketching. So much less fatiguing than doing it myself.”
Gael chuckled and slung the satchel across his own shoulders. “You know that Keir and I depart Belzetarn? For good.”
“I nearly think I know it all, my dear Gael. My dear Keir. Really, Carbraes is a fool,” said Nathiar, his characteristic drawl disappearing from that last remark.
“Oh?” said Gael.
“Dreben will be regenen inside a decade,” snapped Nathiar.
“I thought you liked Dreben.”
Nathiar glanced at Gael in exasperation. “It has always been prudent to cultivate the troll, our new march. But did I stand in Carbraes’ boots, I’d have Dreben’s head from his shoulders tomorrow. Sooner.” Nathiar shook his head. “Carbraes can manage most trolls, but he will not manage this one.”
“Sure you don’t want to accompany us?” asked Gael.
“I’ll give you a leg up,” said Nathiar, surprising Gael yet again. Would the magus really do anything so vigorous, so menial?
But he did, clasping his hands firmly beneath Gael’s foot and boosting him upward enough that it was easy to swing the other leg over his mount’s broad back. He did the same for Keir, and Gael was somewhat bemused to note that the magus engaged in no shenanigans, and that Keir exhibited no reluctance at the close contact. Apparently all Nathiar’s innuendos about Keir were just so much persiflage and nothing more.
The third horse did not bear a riding cloth, Gael saw, but a collection of leather haversacks strapped to a pack harness. Barris had obviously been thorough in collecting all the supplies they would need. If Gael had been more observant, he’d have known there was never any question of Nathiar’s company.
“Follow the brook,” said Nathiar. “You’ll find that after a short interval of rough going, there’s a track that heads northwest. I presume you’re going northwest? Unless you have access to a boat builder?” Nathiar’s drawl had returned.
Gael checked the bags strapped onto his own mount behind the riding pad, settled his seat, and picked up the reins. Only then did he reply to Nathiar, although not with an answer to his question.
“Watch yourself, my friend. Belzetarn will always be perilous.”
Nathiar snorted. “Your friend, Gael? I hardly think so!”
Gael smiled. “Have it your way, then. My rival? I can’t term you my enemy, you know. Not anymore.”
“I’ll watch out for Barris,” said Nathiar abruptly. “And the boys in the smithies.”
“Good!” That relieved Gael’s lingering doubts. With both Carbraes and Nathiar alert, the cook and the scullions should be safe.
Keir had fastened the halter rope of the pack horse to the strap of her riding pad and was gathering her own reins. “Will you look out for Kayd, too?” she asked. “He’s a decanen in the hospital.”
“I know him,” said Nathiar. “And, yes, I’ll be sure he prospers.”
The magus nodded, lifted one hand, and turned away.
Gael paused a moment, wondering if Nathiar might glance back over his shoulder, but he did not. How strange it felt to bid the magus farewell, when Gael was more in charity with the man than he had been in decades.
Nathiar’s robed form faded into the dappled woodland understory, and Gael kneed his mount, urging the horse through the brush growing at the spring’s outlet. The ground was moist and sucked at his horse’s hooves. Then it grew uneven, and Gael had to really grip with his legs to stay on. He could hear the twigs breaking behind him as Keir followed. An odd pang twinged within as he realized he was leaving his tally room forever.
The tally room had felt so secure. He had felt secure, with every element of the vaults and the smithies tallied, monitored, and controlled. He’d believed himself to be rooted there for the rest of his life. He’d believed himself contented. He’d liked the feeling that every scroll possessed its place—its proper pigeonhole—and that every scroll occupied its given place. There was comfort in the notion of order.
But his tally room had been a narrow refuge.
And its security an illusion founded on his own divided loyalty and beset by every troll in Belzetarn who coveted Gael’s power as secretarius.
This crazy quest he’d embarked on would be far more uncomfortable and uncertain than that illusion, downright chancy. Perhaps reality always was. But it would be honest.
The ground leveled out, and the undergrowth drew back. He’d found Nathiar’s track, with the brook chuckling alongside it over sun-dappled rocks and pebbles.
Gael let his mount move forward several strides before pulling the beast up and looking back over his shoulder. Keir smiled as she emerged from the brush.
“It feels good to be away,” she said. “Are you glad?”
He gazed at her, sitting comfortably astride her horse, her straight blond hair—chin-length—a little tousled, her gray eyes serene, and her face . . . what did he see in her face? Relief? An absence of a wariness that he’d never fully realized was there before? Pleasure in his company?
All those, he decided.
“I am glad,” he answered her.
Next scene: coming September 22.
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The Tally Master, Chapter 23 (scene 105)
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The Tally Master, Chapter 1 (scene 1)
