Tavi let irony creep into his tone. "Maybe I'm just tired. But calculating the duration of a merchant ship's voyage or tracking the taxation payments of outlying provinces seems sort of trivial to me at the moment."
Ehren stared at him for a moment, his expression shocked, as if Tavi had just suggested that they should bake babies into pies for lunch. Then said, "You're joking. You are joking, aren't you Tavi?"
Tavi sighed.
Outside the classroom, students burst into conversation, complaints, laughter, and the occasional song, and filed down the nearest walkway toward the main courtyard in a living river of grey robes and weary minds. Tavi stretched out the moment he got into the open air. "It gets too hot in there after a long test," he told Ehren. "The air gets all squishy."
"It's called humidity, Tavi," Ehren said.
"I haven't slept in almost two days. It's squishy."
Gaelle was waiting at the archway to the courtyard, standing up on tiptoe in a useless effort to peer over the crowd until she spotted Tavi and Ehren. The plain girl's face lit up when she saw them, and she came rushing over, muttering a string of apologies as she swam against the grey tide. "Ehren, Tavi. How bad was it?"
Tavi made a sound halfway between a grunt and a groan.
Ehren rolled his eyes and told Gaelle, "About what I thought it would be. You should be fine." He frowned and looked around. "Where's Max?"
"I don't know," Gaelle said, her eyes looking around with concern. "I haven't seen him. Tavi, have you?"
Tavi hesitated for a moment. He didn't want to lie to his friends, but there was too much at stake. Not only did he have to lie, but he had to do it well.
"What?" he asked blearily, to cover the pause.
"Have you seen Max?" Gaelle repeated, her voice growing exasperated.
"Oh. Last night he said something about a young widow," Tavi said, waving a hand vaguely.
"The night before an exam?" Ehren sputtered. "That's just… it's so wrong that… I think maybe I should lie down for a moment."
"You should too, Tavi," Gaelle said. "You look like you're about to fall asleep on your feet."
"He did during the test," Ehren confirmed.
"Tavi," Gaelle said. "Go to bed."
Tavi rubbed at an eye. "I wish I could. But I couldn't finish all the letter-running before the test started. One more, then I can get some sleep."
"Up all night, then taking a test, and he's still got you running letters?" Gaelle demanded. "That's cruel."
"What's cruel?" Ehren asked.
Tavi started to answer, then walked straight into another student's back. Tavi stumbled backward, jolted from the impact. The other student fell, shoved himself up with a curse, and rounded on Tavi.
It was Brencis. The arrogant young lord's dark hair was mussed and stringy after the long exam. The hulking Renzo hovered behind him and a little bit to one side, and Varien stood to Brencis's left, eyes glittering with anticipation and malice.
"The freak," Brencis said in a flat voice. "The little scribe. Oh, and their sow. I should leave you all neck deep in a cesspool."
Varien said, "I should be pleased to help you with that, my lord."
Tavi tensed himself. Brencis wouldn't forget how Max had humiliated him the previous morning. And since there was little he could do to take vengeance on Max, he would have to find another target for his outrage. Like Tavi.
Brencis leaned down close to Tavi and sneered. "Count yourself lucky, freak, that I have more important matters today."
He turned around and swept away without looking back. Varien blinked for a moment, then followed. Renzo did the same, though his placid expression never changed.
"Huh," Tavi said.
"Interesting," Gaelle mused.
"Well. I wasn't expecting that," Ehren said. "What do you suppose is wrong with Brencis?"
"Perhaps he's finally growing up," Gaelle said.
Tavi exchanged a skeptical look with Ehren.
Gaelle sighed. "Yes, well. It could happen, you know. Someday."
"While we're all holding our breath," Tavi said, "I'm going to get this last letter delivered and get some sleep."
"Good," Gaelle said. "Who are you taking it to?"
"Uh." Tavi rummaged in his pockets until he found the envelope and glanced at the name on it. "Oh, bloody crows," he swore with a sigh. "I'll catch up to you later." He waved at his friends as he broke into a weary jog and headed for Ambassador Varg's quarters.
It wasn't a long way up to the Citadel, but Tavi's tired legs ached, and it seemed to take forever to reach the Black Hall-a long corridor of dark, rough-quarried stone very different from the rest of the First Lord's marble stronghold. The entrance to the hall had an actual gate upon it, bars of dark steel as thick and hard as the portcullis to any stronghold. Outside the gate stood a pair of soldiers from the Royal Guard in red and blue-younger members, Tavi noted, in full arms and armor as usual. They stood facing the gate.
On the other side of the gate, a single candle cast just enough light to show Tavi a pair of Canim crouched on their haunches. Half-covered in their round capes, Tavi could see little of them beyond the sharper angles of their armor at the shoulders and elbows, the gleam of metal upon the hilts of their swords and on the tips of their spears. The shape of their heads was half-hidden in their hoods, but their wolfish muzzles showed, and their teeth, and the faint red-fire gleam of their inhuman eyes. Though they squatted on the floor, their stance was somehow every bit as rigid, alert, and prepared as the Aleran guards facing them.
Tavi approached the gate. The scent of the Canim embassy surrounded him as he did-musky, subtle, and thick, somehow reminding him of both the smithy at his old steadholt and the den of a direwolf.
"Guard," Tavi said. "I bear a letter for His Excellency, Ambassador Varg."
One of the Alerans glanced over his shoulder and waved him past. Tavi approached the gate. On the other side, a leather basket sat in its usual place on the rough floor, an arm's length away from the bars, and Tavi leaned through to drop the letter into the basket. In his mind, he had already completed his task and was looking forward, finally, to sleeping.
He barely saw the Cane nearest him move.
The inhuman guard slid forward with a sudden, sinuous grace, and a long arm flashed out to snare Tavi's wrist. His heart lurched with a sudden apprehension too vague and exhausted to be proper panic. He could have swept his arm in a circle toward the Cane's thumb, to break the grip and draw back, but doing so would surely have caused him to lash open his own arm on the Cane's claws. There was no chance he could have pulled away from the guard by main force.
All of that flashed through his mind in the space of a heartbeat. Behind him, he heard the sharp intake of breath from the two Aleran guards and the sound of steel hissing against leather as they drew swords.
Tavi left his arm where it was in the Cane's grip, and raised his free hand to the guards. "Wait," he said, voice quiet. Then he looked up-a great deal up-to fix the Cane guard with a flat stare. "What do you want, Guard?" Tavi demanded, his tone impatient, peremptory.
The Cane regarded him with unreadable, feral eyes and released his wrist in a slow, deliberate motion that trailed the tips of the Cane's claws harmlessly against Tavi's skin. "His Excellency," the Cane growled, "requests the messenger to deliver the letter directly to his hands."
"Stand away from him, dog," snarled the Aleran guard.
The Cane looked up and bared its yellow fangs in a silent snarl. "Its all right, legionare," Tavi said quietly. "It's a perfectly reasonable request. It is the Ambassador's right to receive missives directly from the First Lord should he wish."
Both the Canim started letting out low, stuttering growls. The one who had seized Tavi's arm opened the gate. Tavi stared for a moment, at how easily the enormous Cane opened the massive steel portal. Then he swallowed, took up the single candle, clutched the envelope, and entered the Black Hall.