"Mirielle?"
She blinked and looked up from a canted table that held stone tablets under cloudy glass. Beltessar Snaaib got a warm smile. "Oh, hello again. I'd thought you were going to the palace."
"Not quite yet. There's always something. A security delay - nothing severe, but those who watch out for me would prefer I wait until sunset and leave by a gate other than the front one."
"Is that something they make you do every day? Or just this once?"
Beltessar shrugged fluidly under his layers of robes. "Now and again, since my appointment to the Divan." He came around to stand beside her, look down through the glass at the tablets. "It's remarkable, isn't it. So far as I'm aware, not even the best scholars have a clear idea of the sequence of
the Ages. This piece is thought to be from the
Age of Uroghosh, but-"
"It's newer than that," said Mirielle firmly. "That glyph, right there - I read about it in
Elbion. It's a known mistranslation of an insignia associated with King Grichen, from the
Age of Expansion."
"That much a scholar. Your husband is a fortunate man to have such an advisor."
"My husband was Melic ibn Baha of
Lazular."
"The Amir's brother? I was sorry to hear of Melic's death, and I'm sorry for your loss as well. He was a righteous man."
"He and I barely knew each other before he passed, but thank you. He would have liked to meet the Archlector, certainly."
Beltessar glossed over mention of his office. "So you live at Lazular still?"
"Amir Farid considers me family. We'd be pleased to welcome you there someday." There was a good deal of ambiguous subtext here. Farid ibn Baha was not an easy man to define as one of Gerra's subjects. Whether Lazular really truly fell within the domain of the
Amol-Kalit empire was a somewhat unsettled and subjective matter. Snaaib, as a religious authority and a member of the Empire's ruling council, couldn't help but look at her in a certain way. Unavoidable.
"And I'd be pleased to visit. Lazular has a beautiful reputation." He paused as something occurred to him, maybe genuinely, or maybe he'd just been waiting for the right moment. "You spoke of your faith. Your brother-in-law, does he...?"
"He's quite orthodox in worshipping the Annunaki, like Melic was. The gods I follow have no presence in Lazular."
He waved that away. "Oh, any number of deities are welcome among the Hundred."
"But it would have been nice to know if an independent warleader like Farid followed the sort of gods I'm pledged to? With the sort of practices they demand? It's certainly not the case. You know more of my...faith...than he does. He simply knows he can call on me as long as he has a spare murderer or two locked away." A tacit note that, if relationships ever deteriorated, she might have an active role to play.
"That sounds very sensible for all concerned."
"It's a reasonable arrangement. As much as possible, though, I prefer it when he doesn't need to call on me at all."
###
She'd been hoping to use the Serpent Gods' hard-won goodwill by retroactively eavesdropping on the two mages' private discussion. Having spoken so long and openly with Beltessar, though, protecting their privacy seemed the better choice. If Mirielle could use the gods' favour to see and hear what had happened in a given place, full mages probably could too. Well, maybe not the Dreadlord, but Gilleth, yes.
The boon that Mirielle asked of the Serpent Gods was this: to guard her conversations with Beltessar from any visionary eavesdropping after the fact, any spell that asked what had transpired between them. The protection wouldn't do a thing if that had already happened, but she doubted it. Gilleth and Avar were probably still locked in politics, making eavesdropping unlikely.
But there could well be a time, tonight or a year from now, when a mage might seek to know what she and the Archlector had discussed. The Serpent Gods could prevent that, and she'd already paid the cost.
Alone in the observatory once Beltessar left for the palace, she made the quiet prayer and felt her blood burn in reply.
All in all, it seemed like a decent way to spend the day's human sacrifice.
