Fortress of Dragons

CHAPTER 1

A slow procession passed by night, little disturbing the sleep of Henas’amef. Tristen on bay Petelly, two ladies on horses the lords of Ivanor had lent them, with Captain Uwen Lewen’s-son and Tristen’s bodyguard attending, all climbed the hill in a lazy fall of fat lumps of snow.

That families were asleep and shutters were drawn and latched up and down the streets lent welcome anonymity to their passage… for by day the sight of the duke of Amefel riding in company with the red-haired former duchess and her sister would have alarmed the town.

As it was, their small party reached the Zeide’s West Gate and dismounted with little fuss. The stableboys turned out dutifully, bleary-eyed with sleep—until they discovered their lord had brought two visitors they never wished to see again. Then young eyes grew wide, and the boys moved fearfully and quickly about their business.

The gate-guards, who had come inward bearing torches to light the stable yard, also recognized the visitors by that light and seemed utterly confounded to know who the women were. So with the west stairs guards, who came down in their turn and stopped in their tracks.

“Here’s your own lord!” Uwen Lewen’s-son said to the gawkers. ‘An’ he’s gi’en refuge to these ladies, on account of some damn godless bandits has burned down the nunnery at Anwyfar. They walked here in the storm, half-dead and near frozen, which ain’t their choice, nor His Grace’s. Don’t gawp, there, man! Help their ladyships inside! An’ you, Edas! Run up to master Tassand an’ tell him come down an’ get ‘is orders! Haste about it!”

Tristen himself was only too glad to have turned over Petelly’s reins to a stableboy. Now he climbed the west stairs, taking charge of his guests.

“Where shall we lodge?” Orien Aswydd asked him haughtily, turning and standing fast at the landing a step above him, and only a breath later did Tristen realize she was none so subtly inquiring after her former rooms. Those rooms happened to be the ducal apartment—his apartment.

And little as he liked his lodgings, green velvet draperies and all the heraldry of the Aswydds into the bargain, he had no intention whatsoever of allowing these women that symbolic honor of place. The ducal apartments were not merely rooms: they were an appurtenance of high office, a place from which the duke’s orders flowed to all Amefel, and no, and twice no, Orien Aswydd should not have them.

Nor should she have any other such stately rooms, now that she made a demand of it, not a decision of spite, but rather of realization that nothing he granted her was without consequence in the view of those watching him. Her deserts were in fact the West Gate guardhouse and the headsman’s block: king Cefwyn had stripped title and lands from her, but spared her life, despite the fact her crimes included attempted regicide. Cefwyn had spared her life and sent her off to the nunnery instead on the understanding she would never return to Henas’amef or set claim on the duchy.

And now, now so very soon after the new year, here she stopped at the west doors of her former hall, drew herself up straight and defiant despite the ravages of weather and a body lately failing from exhaustion, and strongly suggested she be given the honors of her birth and recent office.

One could—almost—admire her… but one could never, never yield to her.

“We’ll find a place suitable,” Tristen said curtly. “Rooms better than the guardhouse, at least.” He knew the outrage he provoked by adding that last remark, but it made his point. And turning to Lusin, his chief bodyguard: “Tell Cook to come.” Cook, like many of the servants, had served the Aswydd lords before he had taken the dukedom, which was to say only last year; but now he relied on her and trusted Cook as the only woman of his close acquaintance. More, Cook had children, several of them, and might understand Lady Tarien’s condition better than a man would.

Regarding that condition, however, Cook’s was not the only advice he needed now. Master Emuin was awake, and knew, and had known about the ladies even before they reached the town gates.

—What shall I do? he asked Emuin now within the gray space wizards used. The Aswydd women might hear him, this close, but in this moment he did not care. Where do you say should I put them?

—I’m sure I don’t know, Emuin said, and as the gray place opened wide, they stood, in their wizardous aspect, in a place of cloud and wind, equally wary of the Aswydds—who were there, unabashedly eavesdropping on them. This is inconvenient.

They had feared the stars, had gotten through the perilous time of change with no worse calamity than the arrival of Owl, who was somewhere about, and they had hoped that Owl was the end of the last troubled epoch and the beginning of a more auspicious age.

But, perhaps on the same night, counting the time it took to travel so far—for so it turned out—Orien and Tarien had left their exile and set out to reach Henas’amef and their former home.

—With child, no less, Emuin said, and turned a fierce and forbidding question toward Tarien Aswydd.—Whose, woman?

It was harshly, even brutally demanded, so uncharacteristically forceful that Tristen flinched. In the same instant Orien flung an arm about her sister, who shied from answering and winked out of the gray space like a candle in the wind.

Orien’s was a swift, defiant retreat.

Emuin’s abrupt question rid them, if only momentarily, of the Aswydds’ wizardous eavesdropping, and for Tristen’s part, he was no little chagrined that he had never asked so important a question in all the long walk back with the women. In his own defense, his attention in those hours had all been to the simple struggle with the snow, and with Orien’s challenge to him… and then with the dismay his allied lords, down in the camps about the town wall, had felt very keenly, simply to see Orien back in Amefel. That Tarien was with child had seemed to him one of those things women could arrange, and one of those states women at times maintained—consequently had he, a wizard’s Shaping, born of fire on a hearth, asked himself that one simple, essential question before bringing the women here?

No, he had not.

Whose child, indeed, begun in a nunnery, where, as he understood, there were only women?

Or perhaps not in the nunnery.

He felt a shadow pass in the gray space, and at the same moment, in the world, felt the wind of Owl’s wings pass him and sweep on.

So Owl, who had guided him to find the sisters in the storm, was still abroad in the world. And magic was. And everything that had seemed simple now became a series of choices, each one with consequences.

“The west wing,” he said to the men waiting for their orders. “Lodge them there.” He knew the house had at least one set of rooms vacant in that wing, since Cevulirn had chosen to camp with his men. And no one lodged in rooms fit for the duke of Ivanor could complain of being slighted; but anything less than her former state as duchess of Amefel was too little in the estimation of Orien Aswydd, who had attempted Cefwyn’s life and on that dice throw, lost everything. He thought twice and made a firm choice. “Cefwyn’s rooms.”

“His Majesty’s old apartments,” Uwen repeated to the servants, as a row of frightened maids and men met them at the inside stairs. “An’ hurry about it. Careful on them marble steps. Mind the ladies’ boots is wet.”

A slip on the stairs, Tristen thought, an untimely, fatal accident would not happen to a wizard outside of wizardry… he had no fear either would slip. But a true accident might save the whole kingdom the consequences of his charity. He had brought them here. He had acquiesced to whatever sent them, and being what he was— a lord and a wizard who could wish harm on the ladies and perhaps ought to—he had never learned to do such things. He nevertheless warred in his own thoughts about the wisdom of having brought them into the citadel at all, and had a frowning look from Lady Orien, back from the stairs.

Orien knew he was thinking about harm, at least, she who could wish harm back at him, and perhaps had, often. He feared warfare was inevitable if she would not accept less than her former honors— his magic opposed her sorcery, for sorcery it was. She knew it, she had already met it, and he hoped she might come to reconcile with the situation as it was—but he did not readily see how that might be.

He regretted his act of mercy now, and he wished, if not harm on Orien, at least safety for his staff and all the friends, allies and townsfolk his charity had set at risk by bringing her here. Fool, he was ready to think, as often he had been a fool: but Owl had led him, and Owl, that chancy bird, knew nothing of reason.

Lives had been at risk already, among those he loved. Uwen had come out into the storm searching for his foolish lord, trailing after him Lusin and the rest of his bodyguard, honest men immeasurably distressed to have lost track of their charge outside safe town walls.

And not only his household had ridden out to search for him. Crissand Earl of Meiden and the duke of Ivanor had both come searching, the latter two having wizard-gift enough to find him in any storm… and wizard-gift enough to know for a truth what dangerous guests he had brought home.

From those two he was sure that by now the word of the Aswydds’ return would have slowly, discreetly spread among the lords encamped near the walls. From the servants here on the hill, it would go like wildfire through the staff, some of whom had served the ladies and their brother Heryn. And word would leap from there into the Bryaltine shrine, too, a random thought informed him, to the nuns, who had been maids to Lady Orien and who now repented their lady’s war with the Marhanen through their charitable acts and pious prayers.

From there, for very little good and a great deal of ill… rumor of the Aswydds’ arrival in Henas’amef would reach every corner of the province, from the border with Guelessar, which had sent the ladies to him, to the borders with the other lords, and northward to those who already distrusted Amefel.

And it would go northward in Amefel, too, to Captain Anwyll’s camp, Guelenmen, Dragon Guard, who would wonder what to make of it. Anwyll well knew the ladies were supposed to be under ban, and was sworn to uphold the royal decree that kept them so. Word would run to Modeyneth, where the men of Bryn built a wall; and to Althalen, where fugitives out of Elwynor established a settlement under his protection—and was the lord of Amefel’s power that sure, the fugitives must ask themselves, if he housed the sisters of Heryn Aswydd?

The news would go to their enemy, Tasmôrden, sitting in his newly won capital of Ilefínian, up in Elwynor. He had tried to stir the Amefin to rebel against Cefwyn, with the promise of reestablishing the Aswydds and supporting them in war. What must he think?

And not last or least, word would reach Cefwyn, telling him that wizardry or the malice of Men had overturned his sentence and freed the two most dangerous prisoners in his kingdom… for they were that. They certainly were that. Sorcery was their crime, not to mention an attempt on Cefwyn’s very life, and on his kingdom.

Forgive me, should he write to Cefwyn, but I could think of nowhere else to send them?

The only place he could think of to send them, indeed, at this hour, was to hasten them upstairs, into rooms fit for the royalty they claimed to be… aethelings, of the old noble house of Amefel, with wizard-gift strong in their blood.

They were not the only survivors of that line, to be sure. His friend, his foremost supporter in council, Earl Crissand, was kin of theirs, and heir to the name… so he had sworn to himself, so Auld Syes herself had said, in an appearance as curious and ominous as he had ever seen—and no, these women would not take what was Crissand’s: whatever came of his constrained charity, Crissand’s heir-ship could not be challenged, not while these stones stood one on the other. It was that certain in his thoughts.

“What’s Emuin say?” Uwen asked. They were still standing in the lower hall, Uwen and his guard all deaf to magic and wizardry alike, but Uwen knew his resources, and knew that Master Emuin tended to be awake at night; and knew by experience that his lord’s moments of woolgathering were often conversations.

“He’s not pleased,” Tristen said, blinking the ordinary world into being. His sight centered on Uwen’s gray-stubbled, earnest face. “Nor am I pleased, but what can I do?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” Uwen said, and bit his lip, which usually presaged his saying something anyway. “Except as His Majesty might ha’ had their heads on the South Gate, and didn’t, on account of ye told ‘im they’d be worse threats to us all if they was ghosts. And, ye know, m’lord, I ain’t so sure on that, now.”

“I’m not sure on that point either,” he said, not in jest, and added: “But I don’t think I can kill them, Uwen.”

Uwen’s look was the more distressed. “Ye ain’t o’ the mind, nor ever were, m’lord. An’ her sister bein’ with child, an’ all—what’s to happen? Ask Emuin. Ask Emuin, m’lord. This is beyond me.”

“I fear it’s beyond him, too.” Uwen was right: he had never been willing to exercise a lord’s cold justice, nor had done. But despite his thinking on slippery steps, something felt so utterly wrong in the notion of killing the women, he could not compass arguments about it, could not consider it—whether it was wrong in the magical sense or wrong because it was terrible to kill at all, he had no way to sort out. He only knew he shuddered at it. “Emuin’s as surprised as the rest of us.”

“ ‘At there,” Uwen said, with an upward glance, the way the women had gone, “looks to be seven, eight months she’s carryin’.”

“Can you say so?”

“Summat,” Uwen said, as they began to walk their own direction, toward the other stairs. “Looks to be. Nine’s the term of a child that’ll live, an’ by the look, that ‘un ain’t far from it. That ‘un’s bloomed in the nunnery, gods save us all, but I’ll wager she didn’t get it there.”

Being not born, himself, and never a child, and never intimate with a woman, he had only uncertain questions where ordinary men had sure knowledge. He felt helpless in his ignorance, and so many things had converged in the last few days… magical things, dreadful things, hopeful things, and now, it turned out, Tarien’s child, which it seemed would come sooner rather than later. He had feared Midwinter, just past, and the turning of the year, when a conjunction of the stars that Emuin said had been his birth had ended, and a new cycle had begun.

“When?” he asked. “How will we know?”

“She ain’t immediate, I don’t think,” Uwen said, who had had a wife, once, and children. “A hellish far walk, she’s been, if they come from Anwyfar, an’ in the snow, and a-horseback before that. If she was near, that might ha’ brought it on. And it didn’t.”

“Eight months?”

“Seven or eight, maybe.”

In magic and wizardry, more particularly in sorcery… there were no coincidences. Seven or eight months… from its beginning, which was also to reckon.

“Could she have gotten the child in the summer, and no one know?”

“Damn sure she did,” Uwen said somberly, “an’ all that time, and her bein’ a witch an’ all, I’d about wager she knew right well, m’lord, that I would.”

His thoughts grew vague and frightened and darted here and there in distracted fashion as he walked. His shoulders had felt the burden of armor for hours, as his cloak and his boots were soaked through with snowmelt. He had been scant of sleep for far too long, had walked, letting Tarien ride on the way home—and he thought now, after a month of striving and wrestling with Amefel’s danger and Ylesuin’s, now that he had done something so irretrievably foolish as this, he might rest… he might finally rest, as if he had done what folly his restlessness had aimed toward, and as he faced the stairs upward all the remaining strength was flowing out of him like blood from a wound.

Tarien knew about the child, he kept thinking to himself. When she went to Anwyfar, she knew. When they dealt with Hasufin Hel-tain, and bargained with him—Orien knew.

“M’lord?” Uwen asked, for he had faltered on the first step. All the accumulated hard days and wakeful nights came down on his shoulders at once, and he found he could not set his foot to the step.

“Are ye hurt, m’lord?”

Uwen’s arm came about him, bearing him up, and with that help he essayed the first step. Another arm caught him from the right, Lusin, he thought, and he made the next, telling himself that he must, and that rest was at the top of the stairs, just a little distance down the hall.

“Are ye hurt?” Uwen insisted to know.

“No,” he said. “Tired. Very tired, Uwen.”

“ ‘At’s good, then, m’lord. Just walk.”

He climbed up and up the right-hand steps, those that ascended above the great hall, leaning on two good friends… and there he paused, drawn to turn and look down on that staircase, on that lower hall lit as it was from a mere handful of sconces. There burned but a single candle in each at this dim hour.

He had come up this stairs from the great hall the one night he had come very close to believing Orien and falling into her hands… and then, too, Uwen had seen him home.

He had run these steps the night Parsynan had murdered Cris-sand’s men… and the shadows of those men haunted the whole lower hall, all but palpable at this hour.

He had gone down these steps toward the great hall as a new-made lord, and there faced a haunt that now was all but under his feet, the old mews, out of which Owl had come.

And did it stir, tonight, that power, knowing these twin sisters had come home?

He willed not. Trembling in the support of two strong men, he willed strength into the wards that kept the fortress safe. He willed that nothing within these walls, no spirit and no living soul, should obey Lady Orien, accustomed as this house might have been to her commands.

He did all that on three breaths, and was at his weakest, but he was sure then that the haunt below in the mews had not broken out or answered to Orien’s presence, and that most of all reassured him, for of all dangers in the fortress, it was the chanciest and the greatest.

“Shall we take him on up, then?” Lusin asked, tightening his arm about his ribs, clearly supposing his lord had lost his way.

“ ‘E’s stopped on ‘is own,” Uwen said pragmatically, against the other side, and shifted his grip on his wrist and about his waist. “An’ ‘e’ll start on ‘is own. ‘Is Grace is thinkin’ on somethin’ worth ‘is time, and I ain’t askin’ what till he’s through.”

“I’m very well,” Tristen said then, although for the life in him he could not think of what he had just been doing.

“Lean on me, lad,” Uwen said then—neither Uwen nor Lusin was as tall as he, but they had their leather-clad shoulders beneath his arms, and a firm grip around him, and bore him up the last step and down the corridor. His head drooped. He was next aware of his own foyer, outside Uwen’s room.

And could not bear to go back into the bedchamber.

“I’ll sit by the fire,” he said.

“The fire an’ not your bed, m’lord?” Uwen asked. “Your bed’s waitin’.”

“Not now.” It was an effort for him to speak, now, not that it was hard to draw breath, but that his thoughts wanted to wander off, and the firelight seemed safer than the dark in the rooms beyond.

Time was when he would fall sound asleep at moments of revelation, at any moment when new things poured in on him so fiercely and so fast that his wits failed to keep up. For hours and hours he would sleep afterward, no physician availing to wake him, and when he would wake—when he would wake, then he would have remembered something he never knew.

But such sound sleeps no longer happened, not since the summer, when War had Unfolded to him in all its terror. He no longer had that grace, nor dared leave his servants and his men a day and more unadvised. He fought to wake, and make his limbs answer him— and yet it was so much effort. If he could only sit by the fire, he thought, and see the light, then he would not fall asleep.

“Will ye take food, lad?” Uwen asked.

“Hot tea,” he said.

“Tea an’ honey,” Uwen said, and a distant murmur went on a time, then a small, distant clatter of cups until one arrived in Tristen’s hand.

He drank, and the fragile cup weighed like iron, an effort even to lift. There was no strength in him, and he supported one hand with the other to have a sip without spilling it.

Uwen hovered, waiting for him, perhaps expecting to drop it. Uwen had ridden through drifts the same as he—but was not half so tired.

“Petelly,” Tristen said. He did not remember now where he had left his horse. His last memory of Petelly was of his shaggy coat snow-plastered and his head hanging.

“Havin’ all the grooms make over ‘im,” Uwen said, “an’ ‘e’s sleepin’ by now, as you should be doin’, m’lord.”

He gave a small shake of his head. “Not now. I daren’t, now. ^pve things to do.”

He failed to remember where Owl had gone… Owl had gone off to kill mice, perhaps, or flown off to some place more ominous, but at least Owl had gone, and nothing worse would come tonight.

“What d’ ye wish, m’lord?”

That was a fair question, one to which he as yet had no answer.

“Ye want to post a guard up there wi’ the ladies,” Uwen reminded him. “There’s servants in this house that served the Aswydds.”

“Do that,” he said, and then heard, in the great distance, Uwen naming names to Lusin, choosing Guelenmen, Quinalt men, men least likely to listen to the Aswydds’ requests or to flee their threats.

He had another sip of honeyed tea, sitting before a fire that had been Orien’s, in an apartment that had been Orien’s, green velvet and bronze dragons and all. It had been Orien’s apartment, and Lord Heryn’s before her, and on the best of nights he never felt quite safe here. He watched it, guarded it as much as lived in it, and of all places in the Zeide where he could bestow the twins, he would not cede this one to Lady Orien.

The old mews was virtually under his feet here, that rift in the wards out of which Owl had come, and which he had not been able to shut, since.

“Tassand’s gone to see to the guests,” the next-senior of his servants came to report to him… Drys, the man’s name was. “Your Grace, would you have another cup? Or will you have the armor off?”

He had lost his cloak somewhere, or Uwen had taken it. The brigandine’s metal joinings scarred the chair, and the padding beneath it was much too warm.

He must have assented. Drys knelt and began to undo buckles about his person, and two others helped him from the boots. He stood, then, with Uwen’s help, and shed the brigandine, piece by piece. It was light armor, and lighter still the padding beneath, but the very absence of its weight was enough to send him asleep on his feet.

“ ‘Ere, m’lord,” Uwen said. “You ain’t stayin’ awake. Best ye go on to your bed an’ sleep. The ladies is under guard an’ dawn’s comin’ afore ye know it. Ain’t a thing in the wide world ye can do else for anyone, but to sleep.”

He was defeated. Drys set a cup of mulled wine in his hand, and the mere pungent smell of it sent his thoughts reeling toward the pillows and the warmed soft covers. Whatever he had tried to think of before he stood up to shed the armor went fleeting into the dark.

“ ‘At’s good,” he heard Uwen say, realized he was abed, and felt Uwen draw the coverlet up over his shoulder.

Mauryl had used to do that small kindness for him. Uwen had done it most nights, from the time Uwen had begun his service… only this summer. So quickly he had sped from youth to manhood— and missed so much, never having the ordinary things a man might know. Summer seemed long ago, an autumn ago, a winter ago. He was wiser now, and knew there were dangers in the world he had never reckoned in the summer.

But he was not unguarded. He had Uwen. Owl was somewhere about. Emuin was awake and wary. Even knowing the quality of the guests he had brought beneath his roof he could draw himself smaller and smaller and smaller, until he could finally wrap himself up in a small dark ball of awareness, and gather to him his hard-won memories.

For memories he did have now, not many, but vivid ones that spread themselves like shadowy curtains. He saw visions of battlefields and forest, he smelled the stone of Ynefel’s rain-swept tower, and faced Mauryl’s rain-soaked indignation.

He met Uwen’s gray-stubbled face by evening candlelight, saying to him, “Lad, ye mean well. ‘At’s worth somethin’.”

And Emuin’s face, gray-streaked beard gone whiter and whiter at the roots, and eyes sunk deep in wells of shadow: “Mean well, young lord? Do well, there’s the challenge!”

He saw Owl, sitting in a leafless, ghostly tree in Marna Wood. Owl dived away and flew before him through the night, his self-appointed guide, above a white stone path that was the Road into the world.

He saw Owl, shining with wizard-light, fly before him through an unnatural night of sorcery, amid the clash of iron and the cries of dying men.

He saw Cefwyn, standing by a tattered banner, saying to him, ‘We’ve won!” as if it were true for all time.

He curled tight against the dark, holding fast to these things that bounded the spring and summer of his single year of life, too weary to be as afraid as he ought.

He sank so deep he saw the dark before him.

Then, not in fear, but in sober realization of his danger, he began to travel away from that Edge, resolute instead on reaching the world, determinedly gathering up his resources. He bent all his will on opening his eyes, and on being alive.

He lay still a moment, counting what he had brought back with him, for his dreams were not like Uwen’s dreams. Where he went in his dreams was not, perhaps, memory: he had begun to fear so, at least. He remembered not dreams, but efforts; and what he remembered of his ventures told him things.

It told him that all the books in the archive of Henas’amef, all the accumulated wisdom of the kings and dukes of Amefel arrayed on those dusty shelves, was less knowledge of time past than what he could draw to the surface, if the Unfolding came on him again.

But he resisted it. Perhaps that was the reason the Unfolding happened less often now… he feared to know. He wished not to know. Men said that he was Barrakketh, first of the warlords of the Sihhë. But he did not know it. He refused to know it. The Book of that knowledge he had burned in fire, the night before the battle at Lewen field, but the knowledge of the Book that Barrakketh had written he had stored away as too fearsome, too inimical to all he wished to know. Waking, he tucked that away, and carefully remade his world without that knowlege, testing every part of it, renewing his ties to those he loved. He slept seldom, and waked relieved to remember he did have Uwen, who always slept near him.

He had Emuin. Not Mauryl. Emuin… though the width of the fortress lay between them.

He had Cefwyn, who was his friend, though the width of a province and the distrust of all the court lay between them.

He waked by dim daylight cast from outer windows through the archway of his bedchamber. He waked in the great bed beneath the brazen dragons of Aswydd heraldry, and recalled that these things were so.

And in rare luxury of absolute abandon he drew deep, grateful breaths into his chest, finding everything well under his roof, even given their guests, and Orien Aswydd, who would never own this bed again, and never rest where he had slept.

This part of the world he remade, too, and made it sure in his mind, for doubt was a breach, and doubts he refused to entertain. He was safe, abed, suffering the aches of last night’s long ride.

His servants moved about. They needed nothing from him. Out in the yard the whole fortress had waked to life without him. The garrison had begun its drills. The town had spread open its shops and gone about its trades. The camp outside had waked, stirred its fires to life, and the tavern help from inside the walls had bustled out with hot porridge to feed the men gathered there. Far across the fields, in pens they had established for the army that would gather there, stablehands tended their charges. Down by Modeyneth men set to their day’s work on a wall he had ordered restored, and as far as the Lenúalim’s banks, soldiers watched and warded the border. All these things happened this morning without his guidance, or rather, within the compass of his care but without his oversight; and the progress of those unwatched matters reassured him that the sun reliably rose and the roof under which he slept was safe even when he let his attention fall.

He found great pleasure in unaccustomed idleness, in fact: in the small sounds of his servants laying out breakfast for him… things also happening quite without his guidance, quite pleasantly without his orders or his will. Indeed, the bulk of things that happened would go on without him, or around him, or in spite of his cautions—and he need not govern every drawing of breath as he had grown accustomed to do since Cefwyn had set him in charge of Amefel.

He had been giving too much, and managing too much, and over-seeing far too much.

Folly, he said to himself.

As if Uwen, who had guided him this summer, needed his guidance now.

As if Tassand, who had come along with him to manage his small household in campaign tents and in palaces alike, could not protect this place and manage the staff without his niggling daily concern and his abundant, constant questions.

He lay, deliciously imagining this morning what each sound meant, as he had seen them do the tasks scores of times.

He imagined that Uwen would be in soon, and that Uwen would be in his ordinary gear and ready to go about his peaceful business. He knew the look of Uwen Lewen’s-son of a morning down to the gray of his hair and the freshly scrubbed look of his face… and when he rose and dressed, Uwen indeed had joined him in just such a condition, and declared he was going down to the stables and the camps as soon as they finished breakfast.

So despite his guests, he drew a leisured breath, and another one.

It was a fine morning, in very truth—a peaceful, a glorious, a safe morning, leisured instead of idle… he had never before understood the distinction in those two Words, until he had found time to draw breath.

“No alarms,” Uwen said cheerfully, over buttered bread, “and Her Grace ain’t seduced the guards yet.”

Tristen knew the power of Orien’s persuasions. She had bent her thoughts on him once, though to little result.

And it was indeed worth his concern, regarding anyone set to watch her.

Also the lords had all seen her arrival… and they had had few questions last night, considering his long ride, but they would have them before the morning was over. That Orien reported an assault on a shrine in Guelessar, just across the border, seemed credible, but it was still to doubt.

And they had not even heard the matter Tarien brought.

So, breakfasted, dressed, with Uwen off about his duties, he resolved to gain some of those answers from the question that was Orien. He was sure of himself, at least, that she could not charm him into compliance, or overwhelm him with sorcery: she had tried both when he was far more innocent, even then to no avail. If he had fear for his men, he had none at all for himself, nor in the least doubted he could deal with the ladies.

Emuin was asleep, like Owl. So was Paisi. Outside was snow, remnant of the storm that had blown white and thick while it lasted. Now the sun was bright, and the weather seemed to have spent its momentary tantrum. Midwinter, the hinge of the year, as Emuin called it, had passed with a fury.

And just last night they had finally gotten into shelter all the contingents of their muster that had been at risk on the road: Uma-non’s heavy horse and Cevulirn’s light horsemen, both accustomed to sleep under canvas: they were safe in the camp, while Pelumer’s rangers out of Lanfarnesse would camp wherever they were. Lord Sovrag doubted the storm would have greatly delayed his boats on their journey south, for the storm wind had blown from the north, and his men, he declared, would manage come what might. So the storm that heralded Orien’s return had done nothing to disarrange his plans, and things regarding the camp were in order.

He did not trust, however, that that was true in lands beyond his reach—clearly not so where men had assailed a nunnery and sent the twins toward his hospitality.

“News’d come welcome, out of Guelessar,” Uwen had remarked at breakfast, and in putting it that way, laid his finger on the most worrisome thing: an attack on such harmless religious women under Cefwyn’s rule, in Cefwyn’s own central province, hinted at unrest in the heart of Guelen lands, perhaps even in the capital itself. Welcome, indeed, would be the knowledge that Cefwyn was safe and taking firm, swift action there.

There was the chance, of course, that Orien had made up the story. There remained a chance that she had done the damage to the nuns, or drawn baneful events to them for the sole purpose of setting herself and her sister free of Cefwyn’s guards.

But whose if not Orien’s was the storm that had so cast things into confusion, and posed Orien and him alike an obstacle? The snow had begun on Midwinter Day, had gathered strength and gathered violence for days—then vanished without fuss once he had found Orien and her sister. Was she so powerful as that? She never had been… not alone.

And whose was Owl? His, for what he could tell, but he had not planned Owl’s arrival. He had not planned the storm. He had not planned Auld Syes’ arrival in his hall on Midwinter, or the darkness and all the events and omens which had followed.

And most of all he had not planned Tarien’s baby.

So what Uwen had said about Guelessar and the lack of news from Cefwyn settled into his heart with a cold, persistent worry… for there was no safe way to send or receive a message in that quarter. If Cefwyn had sent any message to him in recent days, he had not received it… and his last messenger had had to come back like a fugitive, in fear of his life from such elements as Orien blamed for the destruction of the nunnery: in fact, it all fit together in very disquieting agreement, the last messenger’s story with Orien’s tale of the nunnery burned.

And if the king’s law did not prevail out into the countryside, not protecting the king’s messages, and now, evidently, not protecting houses of worship, of a sect the Quinaltines accepted as respectable… as they did not deem respectable the Bryalt faith of the Amefin… how then did they regard the lady Regent, Cefwyn’s bride? And how did they take their king’s other orders?

And was Ninévrisë safe, if men were hunting the king’s messengers and burning nunneries?

He wondered that with a great deal of concern—and furtively thought he might gain Ninévrisë’s attention in the gray space, even at such great distance. She had the wizard-gift, a weak gift, unprac-ticed, but his certainly was not: after the dire news of last night and Uwen’s remark this morning he found himself lingering over a last cup of tea and wondering if, one-sided in the effort, he might reach her.

He thought so, and wished he had her advice regarding the As-wydds, for that matter: but the risk was far greater than the gain, much as he was tempted to try. She was small and quiet in that aspect: she might enter the gray space unnoticed; he, Emuin assured him, could not, and reaching to her, he might well draw unwanted attention—Orien’s, for one. But it was only one.

The weather breaking free of his wishes, Orien’s arrival, all these things advised him his was not the only will at work even in Amefel. He was far more subtle these days, and knew a wizard-wish need not be thunder and lightning and the overthrow of oak trees. It might be far, far subtler than that… wizard-work was, in fact, more effective when it did not flail about and raise storms and blast holes in roofs. Such attacks did not frighten him. The subtle ones did; and if he acted rashly, trusting he could deal with every subtle attack that might come, when the truth was, no, he could not—where would hostile wizardry aim its deadly shots, but straight at his heart?

And where was his heart, but with Ninévrisë and Cefwyn, with Uwen and Crissand and Cevulirn and Emuin himself—all those he held most dear; and those who touched the gray themselves were not most defended: they were instead more vulnerable to such attacks.

Such possibilities Orien brought with her under his roof.

That there were other wishes at work, he was certain.

Whether Tasmôrden, his enemy across the river, had worked this maneuver on him, or whether it was some other force, that he did not know. Eight months, Uwen had said, looking at Tarien Aswydd. And eight months ago Tasmôrden had not even been a cloud on the horizon.

But other enemies had been.

And Orien Aswydd had been hand in hand with them.

CHAPTER 2

First it was the kitchens, down in the warm, firelit domain of baking bread and wash water: Cook’s maids were scrubbing away flour when Tristen arrived, the scullery lads washing pots, while the open door, braced with a bucket, only gave a welcome, snow-flavored draft to the hardworking staff. Daylight shafted through a haze of steam in an amazing glory of white and old, scarred surfaces. He could not but give a glance to it, despite the sober purpose of his visit.

“M’lord,” Cook said, not surprised to find him in the kitchens, or his four day guards outside her domain, finding converse with the maids. The kitchens were one of his favorite places from summer. Cook was one who had been kind to him before others had, and among the very first acts of his rule here, he had set Cook back in her domain. He took tribute now and again in the form of hot bread and the occasional sweet.

This time, however, he was straight from a good breakfast, had delayed only to toss the remnant of bread to the pigeons, and had come down here on matters he hoped Cook had observed last night.

“Seven, eight months along,” Cook said to him, confirming Uwen’s guess, and added with a shake of her head, as she folded her stout, floury arms: “And wandering in the storm, they say, clear from Anwyfar.”

“Lady Orien said they began with a horse and lost it.—But might they have walked that far, do you think? Orien might. But Tarien—”

Cook set her hands on her hips and wiped a strand of blowing hair. They stood in the draft, and Cook was sweating, even so. “To tell the truth, m’lord, I hain’t the least notion where Anwyfar is, except it’s in Guelessar, which is far enough for a body in high summer and with the roads fair and dry. With the storm, and the drifts and all…”

“Was it impossible for them, since, say, Midwinter Eve?”

“I don’t know as to impossible, m’lord, but…” Cook had an unaccustomedly fearful look, and added with a shift of her eyes toward the upstairs, and back again: “Their ladyships has a gift, don’t they?”

“They do,” he said. “Both.—So it had to be before that.”

“I don’t know,” Cook said. “I’ve never traveled by horse. I hain’t the least idea. Was it Midwinter, m’lord?”

“Or before. It might have been before. They might have tried to be here on Midwinter, and come late.”

“For wizardous reasons, m’lord?” Cook’s eyes narrowed. Little frightened her, but she ventured her question in a hushed and respectful tone.

“I don’t know,” he said.

Cook said not a thing to that. She was a discreet soul, in her way, and not a word would she say to the maids that she knew she was saying, but the gossip was bound to fly, and had already flown. He saw the looks from the staff all about them. At a certain point the rattle of a spoon sounded like doom, and swiftly hushed.

“Get back to your work!” Cook said sharply, and: “M’lord, there’s sweets, there.”

He took one. It was honey and fine flour, and stuck to his fingers. The lord of Amefel licked fingertips on the way out, and then turned back and took two more, which he saved as he climbed the rebuilt scullery stairs.

He ascended to the west stairs, and up to an area of the Zeide which had had a very different feeling for him this summer past, when Cefwyn had been in residence.

Not Cefwyn’s bodyguard, now, but Guelen guards from the town garrison stood at that door, and more in Guelen colors stood down the hall. Guards guarding the guards: that was the seriousness of Uwen’s precaution where it regarded Orien Aswydd and her sister.

The guards on watch opened the foyer door for him, not advising those within; and at a wave of his hand, he set his own watch on that threshold, a ward, a pass of his hand, and a wish, whether the guards knew it or not… but Orien knew it. He felt her attention, and her anger: she had set her own ward on the door, and he violated it with hardly more than a chill.

Her precaution was reasonable and he was hardly angry, but he was sorry not to have set his own last night, for the guards’ safety.

His two nunnish guests, clad all in gray, sat at the snowy window, and as he entered, Orien rose straight as a candleflame to defy him, gray habit, red hair unveiled in its cropped despoilment. She had been a lord’s sister, accustomed to luxury, sought after for her beauty, her birth, her access to power, even before she had been duchess of Amefel.

Now instead of the glittering court gowns, the velvets and jewels and the circlet on her wealth of autumn hair, she wore a travel-stained gray robe. They had both cast off the nun’s wimple, and the red hair—that she had cut to spite Cefwyn—stood in stark, untidy disorder. It was her twin sister, seated in the white window light, who still kept that glory about her shoulders.

From a lush, luxurious woman to this lean, harsh creature that was now Orien—it astonished him how dreadfully the more powerful of the twins had changed, even while the white light that fell on Lady Tarien’s seated form found softer edges. Tarien’s pale face lacked any of the anger that suffused Orien’s: a young face, a bosom modestly robed in gray, a body grown strange and potent with the child inside. Orien stood with her hands on Tarien’s shoulders, as if her sister were some sort of barrier to him—and for the first time without the cloak and in the daylight from the window he faced a woman far along with child. He saw in her not one change but an alchemy of changes, the scope of which he did not clearly imagine, and which spun wildly through the gray space, fraught with possibilities. Power was there, power over the powerful, in the hand that rested on Tarien’s robed belly.

“How may we please your lordship?” Orien asked, and, oh, there was thick irony in that salutation, to the lord who had title now to all that had been hers and her sister’s.

“I came,” he began, “to see how you fared, and whether you needed anything.” He proffered the sweets. “From the kitchens.”

He knew Orien would not take them. He saw, however, that Tarien wanted them, and he set them on the table near him. “At your convenience,” he said.

“Where are our servants?” Orien asked in ringing tones. “Surely the great Marhanen won’t have been so petty as to harm them. Where are my sister’s maids?”

“Most of your servants fled across the river when Cefwyn came. The others are my servants now… or the gods’.”

“I demand my servants!”

“And I say they aren’t here any longer.”

“And our gowns?” Tarien asked. “Surely Your Grace has no use for our gowns.”

“I’ve no idea where they are.” In fact he had never wondered where the ladies’ wardrobe had gone: he had supposed it had gone with them to Anwyfar, in all the chests. The gowns they had worn in their days of power here had been gloriously beautiful, and with all the jewels, he supposed they were as valuable as Lord Heryn’s dinner plates—which he had in the treasury. “I’ve seen no store of clothes, not a stitch of them.”

“And our jewels?”

The whereabouts of certain of the Aswydd jewelry he did know, and was sure in his heart that the province’s need for grain was far greater than their need for adornment. But he regretted the beauty and the sparkle of the stones, too, all shut up in the dark treasury.

“I shall send up some of the jewels,” he said, and then added, because they took every gift as their right: “I lend them, understand, until we need them for grain.”

“For grain!” Orien cried. “These are the history, the glory of Amefel! These are the treasure of the Aswydds, my property! How dare you sell them for grain?”

“If you were duchess of Amefel, I would agree you own them. But you aren’t. And I give them to the treasury.”

“I am still duchess of Amefel, and damn the Marhanen! If you hold me here prisoner in my own hall, then look to yourself, sir!”

“I’m sorry about the gowns. I don’t know where they went. I’ll ask; and if I can’t find them, I’ll find you others. It’s all I can do.”

Orien drew a deep breath, and perhaps reconsidered her position. “You were always good-hearted, always kind to us before. I see you still have a kind heart.”

“I wish you no harm, and ask you wish none.”

“Harm to the bloody Marhanen!”

“I ask you not do that.” He felt her anger in the gray space and rebuffed it strongly, refusing to encounter her there. In the world her face seemed all eyes, and the eyes a window into a place he chose not to go. He remembered how Cefwyn had wished to kill the twins, at least Lady Orien, and he had pleaded otherwise—not even so much out of mercy, although that had been in his heart—but rather the fear of Orien’s spirit let loose among the Shadows in the Zeide, set unbarriered within the wards and the Lines of Henas’amef, in those days when the sorcerous ally she had dealt with still threatened them.

Now they had defeated that ally of hers, at Lewenbrook. And if Cefwyn had now proposed it, he did not know whether he would have been so quick to save her life, or Cefwyn to hear him: to that extent they both had changed.

—Is it so? Orien asked him, a voice as sharp and cold as a dagger. Is it so? Did you save us? And had the bloody Marhanen not a shred of remorse?

“Can you keep us in this prison?” Tarien asked, assailing him from the other side. “We have nothing, not even a change of clothes. My sister is the aetheling. Whatever else, she is the aetheling, and no one should forget it, least of all under this roof!” Tarien’s eyes glistened as she confronted him. A handkerchief suffered murder in her clenched hands.

“Aethelings, yes,” Tristen corrected her gently. “Both of you. But Crissand of Meiden is the aetheling now, and there’s no changing that.”

Orien’s eyes flared. “By whose appointment? Cefwyn’s? He has no right!”

“By mine, lady.” He could be obstinate. He had learned it of Emuin. And he had every right, beyond Cefwyn’s grant of power to him. He was suddenly as sure of that as if it had Unfolded to him: their power had ebbed here, and ebbed further as he gave it away to others.

More, Orien knew it, and fear insinuated itself into all her dealings.

“For my sister’s sake,” Orien said, past tight lips, “we require a lady or two—a lady, mind you. Shall a lady of our rank give birth with the cook and the scullery maids in attendance?”

That was unkind. Cook had never affronted Orien that he knew of. But he had no wish to provoke a quarrel that might bring harm to someone. “If you object to Cook, I might ask Lord Drumman’s sister to assist you.”

“Lady Criselle? That preening crow!”

Now it was Crissand’s mother Orien slandered. “Lady Orien,” Tristen said with measured patience. “No one pleases you. You may not have your servants. You refuse all others. I don’t know what more there is.”

“I wish my own nurse,” Tarien cried, and burst into tears. “They murdered her, at Anwyfar. They killed all the nuns, and Dosyll with them. She was sixty years old, and she never threatened them!”

“I’m sorry.” He was honestly afflicted by her report. “Who did it, and why?”

“Brave soldiers of the Guelen Guard,” Orien interposed harshly. Heroes of the same company the bloody Marhanen garrisoned in my town, the same company as these hulking men you post at my door! The Marhanen’s best bandits! Murderers! Mercenaries!”

“Are you sure they were of the Guard?”

“And should I not be sure, with the Guelens garrisoned at Amefel all my life? I know what I saw. I know their badges and their ranks and of one of them I knew the face!”

“Do you know the name?” he asked, with a sinking heart recalling the men he had dismissed home because of their discontent in his service, men guilty of malfeasance and murders that should have sent them to the hangman, if they had not acted under Crown authority, in the person of Lord Parsynan.

“Essan,” she said, and he had to bow to the truth.

“I doubt your eyes deceived you, then,” he said, “since I dismissed him, with a handful of others, for crimes here. The others, I sent to Cefwyn. He and his sergeant slipped away rather than answer my summons to accounting.”

“Gods bless the Holy Quinalt, then! They shouted that, you know, while they burned down a Teranthine shrine, and murdered old women! I don’t know what they were looking for besides the wine and the treasury, but they weren’t shy about their cause.”

“No,” he said, “clearly not. I’m sorry for your nurse and I’m sorry for the nuns. And I know Cefwyn didn’t send them.”

“You know nothing. You said yourself, you sent these murderers to him! He sent them back again, to Anwyfar!”

“Not Captain Essan. He and his sergeant took shelter in the Quinaltine, so I understand.”

“Oh, so it was the Patriarch himself who sent them to burn Teranthine nuns!”

“I doubt it, and you doubt it, lady. And if you’ll give me answers, I can send to Cefwyn. I know he’ll find these men. Can you tell me any reason for what they did? Were they looking for you? Were they angry with the nuns?”

“Look to yourself, Tristen of Ynefel! Look to yourself! Yes, it was us they wanted, and do you think common soldiers imagined this? Do you think the drunkards and ne’er-do-wells of the garrison traveled all the way to Anwyfar to raid the wine cellars in the nunnery and assault old women? It was hate for us, and these were soldiers! Someone sent them! Someone put the idea in their heads, and it was the hate they bear all of us who have wizard-gift—it was fear of my sister and me! So look to yourself, Tristen of Ynefel. If they hate us, a hundred times more they hate you, and now you shelter us!”

“That may be true,” he said. “But Henas’amef is stronger than Anwyfar.”

“A great deal stronger. And have they come for you? Is that the cause of the army outside these walls? There were Ivanim we spoke to last night. I saw Sovrag’s pirates.”

“You did see Olmernmen,” he said, letting her shafts rain about him, none landing, for she knew nothing, and struck none home. “And Ivanim. But none of these have to do with the nuns and Essan’s men.”

“The rumor reached us,” Orien said haughtily, with her hands on her sister’s shoulders, “even in our rustic exile, it reached us— that Cefwyn has married the Lord Regent’s daughter and intends war against Elwynor this spring. And is that what we see outside the walls? Will you wage his war for him? Tristen, the innocent? Tristen, the wizard, Tristen, Mauryl’s heir, the defender of the king? Does the Marhanen not wield his own sword, these days?—Or does he wield magic, through you? And is that what came down on us at Anwyfar?”

It was a fair question, however unkindly put.

“What he calls on me to do, I’ll do. And I’ve wished nothing against you.”

Barbs had flown. Now Orien seemed to pause for thought, and heaved a sigh and walked a few paces from Tarien’s side. “And do you wish anything against us?”

“Not for yourselves. Not except as you wish harm here, or to Cefwyn.”

“Have we sanctuary here?”

Sanctuary was a Word. It meant safety no matter what, justice and all other considerations notwithstanding. It was a strong Word, and Unfolded with magical force.

“Do you wish harm to Cefwyn?”

“Am I required to wish him well?”

“No. Nor would I ask it, nor would he. And I don’t offer sanctuary, but if you deserve safety, I promise you’ll be safe in this room.” A coldness wafted to him out of the gray place, fraught with time, and change. “No more can I do.”

“What? You have limits?” Scorn edged her voice. “Or do you set them for yourself?”

“If you work mischief here or anywhere, Lady Orien, I will prevent it. If you work any mischief against Cefwyn or anyone else, you won’t be safe here, or anywhere.”

“I am your prisoner.”

“Yes.”

“I demanded my rights of my liege lord, my rights by oath, and Cefwyn denied me them and sent me and my sister away in a common cart in the mid of the night, like offal from the kitchens! Was that just? Was that justice? Better he had killed us!”

“He thought it mercy,” he said in all honestly. “And said it was a risk.”

“And how long will this arrest go on?” Orien cried indignantly. “Are we to live here forever?”

“As long as you wish to oppose Cefwyn. I won’t ever permit that. And I know that you do.”

Clearly this had taken a turn the ladies Aswydd did not like. Tears brimmed in Tarien’s eyes.

“And shall we never leave this room? Shall we not at least have the freedom of the halls?”

He had pity on them in that regard, if not his sense of the danger in them were not so great. He had had his own fill of locked doors and silent guards.

“Not while you intend harm. Think and change your minds if you can. Intend better if you can.”

There was a moment of silence, in which Lady Orien gazed at him with heaving breast and fire in her eyes. But then the glance lowered, all but a bowed head, a meek clasping of hands—an implied acceptance he did not trust.

“We have no choice,” Tarien said in a low voice. “And we have no chance if we go on as we are.” Orien’s anger flared, scenting the very air of the room, but Tarien persisted: “Good sir, we did hear in the convent that you had been given Henas’amef, else we wouldn’t have dared come here. You were the kindest of the Marhanen’s friends. I expect nothing good of him, but you would never harm us.”

“Cefwyn didn’t harm you,” he returned. “And you tried to kill him.”

“To win him,” Tarien said, but he knew that for a lie, and Tarien perhaps knew he knew, for the gray space grew dark and troubled.

“Emuin’s here, too, isn’t he?” Orien asked. “I heard him quite clearly.”

“He’s here.”

“Dry old Emuin,” Orien said. “Hypocrite.”

“He says very ill things of you, too,” Tristen said, “and I regard his opinion as far more fair.”

It was perhaps more subtle a sting than Orien had expected. Her nostrils flared, but she did not glare. Rather she seemed to grow smaller, and more pliant.

“We shouldn’t quarrel. I never held any resentment for you, none at all. You never had a chance but to fall into the Marhanen’s hands, the same as we, and you have far more right to be here: I shouldn’t chide you.”

He felt a subtle wizardry as she said it, and he wondered what she was attempting now.

He broke off the blandishments and the weaving of a spell with a wave of his hand, and she flinched. So did Tarien, for that matter.

“Don’t,” he said, to Tarien as much as to Orien. “Don’t press against the walls. You’re in danger, and you’re far safer here than anywhere else if you’ll accept it.”

“Accept it!” Orien said in scorn.

“Accept safety here. It’s my best advice.”

“I need nothing from you or that dry stick of a wizard!”

“But you do,” he said. “You need it very much.” Orien turned her shoulder to him, but he went on trying to reach her, in the World and in the gray space alike. “Lady, you didn’t only open the wards and the window, you opened yourself and your sister to Hasufin. You thought it might give you a way to rule here and be rid of Cefwyn, but all Hasufin wanted was a way inside the wards.”

“And an end of the Marhanen!”

“Lady Orien, the truth is, if you had died and if everyone had died, Hasufin didn’t care. It didn’t matter to him. It doesn’t matter to him now—if there’s anything left of him. If sorcery finds a way inside the wards, it won’t give you back what you had. Cefwyn might have, but Hasufin Heltain never would and never intended to. If you don’t know that, you don’t know what he was.”

She was angry at what he said, but she might think on it. Perhaps she had already thought on it. Doubtless she had had ample time to think, sitting in a Teranthine nunnery in Guelessar with no fine gowns, no servants, no books, and no one who cared to please her.

And in this moment of her retreat, he pursued, with a question which had troubled him since summer.

“You tried to kill Emuin,” he asked her, for someone at summer’s end had attacked Emuin and left him lying in a pool of blood. He could think of no one more likely than Orien Aswydd, who had commanded all the resources of Henas’amef. “Didn’t you?”

She gave him no answer, but he had the notion he had come very near the truth: Orien or someone sworn to her. And he could think of many, many connections she had had among the servants and the nobility of the province, one of whom had perhaps stayed more loyal than most.

“Lord Cuthan’s gone to Elwynor,” he said. “Did you know that?”

Perhaps she had not known it. Perhaps she was dismayed to learn that particular resource was no longer within her reach, when he was sure Cuthan had something to do with Orien Aswydd. Perhaps through Cuthan she had even known about the proposed rising against the king, and the Elwynim’s promised help.

But she said nothing.

He tried a third question. “Did you bring the attack on the nuns?”

It was as much as if to ask: Did you wish your freedom from the nuns, and, Did you grow desperate because the plan had failed?

And: Did it work finally as you wished?

It all might have shot home, but Orien never met his eyes, and he somewhat doubted she heard… or that she knew any other thing. He only wished that if it were possible she could find another path for her gift, she would do differently. He wished it on her with gentle force, and with kindness, and she stepped back as if he had grossly assaulted her. The white showed all around her eyes.

“I wish you well,” he said in the face of her temper, and included Tarien in the circle of his will. “I assure you I do, as Hasufin never did.”

“You take my lands,” Orien cried, “and wish me well in my poverty! How dare you!”

It was a question, and he knew the answer with an assurance that, yes, he dared, and had the right, and did. The gray space intruded, roiled and full of storm; and in it, he did not retreat: Orien did. In the World, she recoiled a step, and another, and a third, until she met the wall. Tarien rose from her chair, awkward in the heaviness of her body, and turned to reach her sister, still holding to the chair.

“If Aséyneddin had won,” Orien said. “If you had died—”

“You promised Cefwyn loyalty,” Tristen said, “and you never meant it. Do you think you’d lie to Hasufin, and have what you wanted? If you lied and he lied—what in the world were you expecting to happen?”

She had no idea, he decided sadly. Nothing at all Unfolded to him to make sense of Orien, but he suspected Orien’s thoughts constantly soared over the stepping-stones to the far bank of her desires, never reckoning where she had to set her feet to take her there.

Flesh and bone as well as spirit, Mauryl had said to him, when he had been about to plunge down a step while looking at something across the room. He could hear the crack of Mauryl’s staff on incontrovertible stone, to this very hour. Look where you’re going, Mauryl would say.

It was in some part sad that Orien had had no Mauryl to advise her.

But on a deeper reflection, perhaps it was as well for all of them that Hasufin’s counsel had never been other than self-serving.

And she never answered him now, never confessed her expectations, possibly never knew quite what they were or why she continually fell short of her mark.

“What do you hope I should do?” he asked them. “I might send you to Elwynor.”

“Send us to Elwynor?” Orien echoed him, and drew herself up with a breath, a shake of her head, a spark in the eye. “Oh, do. Do, and you send king Cefwyn’s child to Tasmôrden!”

Cefwyn’s child, he said to himself.

A man and a woman made a child together, and would it be with one of the stableboys Tarien had done this magic?

No. It made perfect sense. Now her defiance assumed a purpose, and her coming here disclosed a reason. So did the nuns’ deaths, at a far remove: whatever men had killed those hapless women, he knew that greater currents were moving in the world, and that none of them was safe.

“And when will the child be born?” he asked, already having clues to that answer.

“I’m eight months now,” Tarien said, and settled into her chair like a queen onto her throne.

Nine was the term of a child that would live. So Uwen had said.

Three times wizards’ three, this term of a child. Wizardry set great store by numbers, and moments, and times.

“And have you sent this news to Cefwyn?”

“No,” Orien said. And Tarien:

“We kept it our secret. My secret. Even when he sent us away. It never showed until fall, and under all these robes, and then the winter cloaks… only my nurse knew.”

“Yet the Guelens came,” Orien said with a bitter edge. “So perhaps the nuns did see, and perhaps he does know, this good, this honest king of yours, despite all you say.”

Tristen shook his head. They were back to that, never resolved. “No. I know he wouldn’t.”

“What, a Marhanen king refuse a murder? To prevent an Amefin claim on the throne, to keep our secret a secret—come now, what might not our Cefwyn do?”

“He didn’t do this,” he said with unshaken confidence. “He doesn’t know. He wouldn’t harm you.”

“Come now. If he knew—oh, indeed, if he knew. You,” Orien said, “who are good, and honest—all these things… you’d stick at murder. You have virtues. But three generations of the Marhanen has taught this province the Marhanen do not!”

“And this is his child.”

She gave him a startled, uncertain look at that saying.

“A child with the wizard-gift,” he added, for in the storm he had heard sometimes two lives, and sometimes and faintly, three.

“An Aswydd child,” Orien said, “with Marhanen blood.”

“My child.” It was a small voice. A near whisper from Tarien, that still managed a hint of defiance. “And he’s right. I think he is right; they didn’t come from Cefwyn.”

“Oh,” Orien hissed, “now we believe him again. Now we think him full of virtue and chivalry, this lover of ours. A Marhanen king would not hesitate to rip that child from your womb and destroy it, never doubt it. But not here. Not from Lord Tristen’s hands. Tristen would never allow it, our gentle Tristen…”

He liked nothing he heard, least of all Orien Aswydd appealing to his kindness, and now he wished he had called Emuin to this conference. But it was too late. He saw Orien’s confidence far from diminished and her malevolence far from chastened.

“You think you’ve done all this,” Tristen said, for she seemed to have no grasp of any other state of affairs. “You let Hasufin Heltain past the wards, you dealt with wizardry, and you think it was all yours? The child has the gift. If he’s Cefwyn’s, he might be king. And you dealt with Hasufin Heltain! You know what he did at Althalen, you know Emuin cast him out then, and you know what he wants most of all—is that what you want? This child is his best chance since Althalen!”

Tarien had her hand on her belly, and she understood his meaning—at last and very least one of the Aswydds heard his warning, she, who held within herself all the consequence of Hasufin’s ambition, and could not escape it, could not on her own prevent Hasufin’s taking the child as his way into the world of Men.

“Don’t listen to him!” Orien said. “Pay no attention. It’s only Cefwyn’s interest he cares for, nothing, nothing at all for the babe’s sake! Your child will be king!”

Tarien pulled away and leaned against her chair, arms folded protectively over her belly..

“Tarien!” Orien insisted, but Tristen drew Tarien’s eyes to him.

“Don’t listen,” he said.

“Amefel is ours!” Orien hissed. “We are the aethelings. We are the royals and we were royal before the Sihhë came down from the Hafsandyr! This land belongs to her son!”

It was indeed her claim, and a claim with some justice. Tristen considered that, considered the angry determination in Orien’s eyes, and her wishes, and the strength they had. “You can’t,” he said, to all her wishes. “Not alone. I wish not. Emuin wishes not. Mauryl wished not, and I don’t think you can wish otherwise to any good at all, Lady Orien. Your servants have gone, Lord Cuthan’s across the river—Lord Edwyll’s dead, and his heir is the aetheling now.”

“Crissand!” The voice shuddered with scorn.

“The Witch of Emwy said it, and I say it. Did Tasmôrden promise you what he promised Cuthan? There was no army. There never was an army. He lied to Cuthan. He lied to all the earls, and Edwyll died of the cups in your cupboard… or was it your wish?”

Orien’s eyes had widened somewhat, at least in some inner recognition.

“Was it your wish?” Tristen asked her. “Your wish, and not the cups?”

Orien’s brows lifted somewhat. “The wine. My sister and I had no inclination to die as our brother died. We preferred that to exile.”

It was not all she preferred to exile: death here, death in her Place, as the Zeide was: foreseeing that danger, even then, he had advised Cefwyn to banish her and the Aswydds of the name. Both dead and alive they had gone out the gate, to prison and burial elsewhere.

“And Cuthan is in Elwynor,” Orien said, “with the latest usurper. And you sit here. The mooncalf, they called you. The fool. Mauryl’s hatchling.”

“I was,” he said.

“And Bryn?” she asked.

She knew, he was sure now, that Tasmôrden had promised invasion: she likely knew everything Cuthan had done. Messages had gotten to Anwyfar, and she had expected a rising against the Crown. But she had not known anything since Cuthan’s flight: that said something of her sources, and of Cuthan’s slight wizard-gift, remote now from her. It was clear that whispers had gone on in the gray space that neither he nor Emuin had heard. In Guelessar, in the autumn, he had rarely reached out to Amefel. Emuin had forbidden it.

“What of Bryn?” she demanded to know. ‘Drusenan of Modeyneth is Lord Bryn now.” It did not please her. But she turned her face elsewhere and wrapped her wishes inward, tightly held, and he left them unpursued.

“So busy you’ve been,” she said, gazing into distance. “Gathering an army in Amefel, all those tents arrayed outside my walls… a winter campaign, is it to be? All for Cefwyn. For Cefwyn’s heir.” Her eyes lanced toward him, direct and challenging. “For his firstborn son—his firstborn Aswydd son—a kingdom.”

“It is a son,” he said, for Tarien’s child was male, and would be firstborn. That was the truth, and only then knew with full force how it would hurt Ninévrisë.

And that son, not Ninévrisë’s, would harm the treaty with Elwynor.

It would harm Cefwyn—the northern lords would reject a child of Aswydd and Marhanen blood out of hand. So would the Elwynim.

“A son,” Orien said. One set of plans dashed in what he told her, she gathered up others, and recovered herself. “A bastard, he may be, but a royal, firstborn bastard.”

Bastard was a child without ceremony, unrecognized. Bastard was a child no one would own.

But that was not so. Someone owned this child. Tarien did. Ta-rien already held it protected in her arms, her eyes wide with alarm while Orien’s flashed with defiance of him. They were twins, of one mind until that moment: of one ambition, until that heartbeat. He had divided them. The child had. Cefwyn had, for Tarien’s feeling was not Orien’s, and the realization of that shivered through the gray space with the kiss of a knife’s sharp edge.

He was sorry for their pain, but he was not sorry for Orien.

And he sealed himself against all their entreaties and their objec-tions. If anyone could bend Orien Aswydd, it might be Tarien. If anyone could sway her, it might be her twin, given time, and a quieter hour. There was the hope for them: Cefwyn’s son he could not reach, not now, not without harm.

“I’ll ask about the gowns,” he said, intending to leave.

“Servants,” Orien said. Her lips made a thin white line. Her eyes held storm that, prudently, did not break.

“Respect the wards,” he said, “and respect the guards.”

“And if we don’t? Would you harm my sister and the child?” she asked, with the clear expectation he would not.

It was the truth. She expected to have won the argument, and to have her way, and she would not.

“I don’t intend her harm,” he said with a glance toward Tarien, whose eyes met his in dread. “I can’t say what she means to do,” he said directly to Tarien. “Take care. Take care for yourself.”

And with that he walked out, sealed against the roiling confusion they made in the gray space.

He realized now that Emuin had been listening for the last few moments, subtle and stealthy as Emuin was. But he did not acknowledge that he knew, not this close to the twins’ apartment. He gathered up Uwen and his own guard, who had been talking with the Guelens at the nearer station.

“They ask for their gowns,” he said to Uwen. “Do you know what happened to them?”

“I fear they’ve gone, m’lord, I’d imagine they have.”

“The servants?”

“I’d say. His Majesty was at Lewenbrook, His Highness bein’ here didn’t know one man from another, comin’ an’ goin’—” When Efanor had been in charge of Henas’amef, Uwen meant, and sure enough there had been no few of the servants fled when Cefwyn came back. “I’ll imagine the pearls an’ such on those gowns just walked out o’ town in purses and tucked in bosoms, and went all the way to Elwynor, or even into noble ladies’ dower chests, closer to home.”

There had been ladies of various houses near enough the As-wydds to have had access to a wardrobe.

Without the Aswydd sisters in their red-haired glory, the gowns, the jeweled cups, the gold plate on the tables, the hall would never be as fine or as glorious as he had seen it in Heryn Aswydd’s reign. He was sad to miss the beauty of it, but not at all sad about the grain it bought for the hungry families, or the army it fed, until hands could let go the bow in favor of the shepherd’s staff. Cefwyn had used to say Lord Heryn’s court outdid Guelemara for luxury… and that was not true in size, but in sheer brightness, it might well have been so.

“I did promise them jewelry, at least. I thought of the necklaces we found in Parsynan’s room. I think those were likely theirs.”

“ ‘At were generous,” Uwen said. “But a woman’s jewelry is money if she took to the road, an’ off to Elwynor, as these two might if one of the guards don’t watch sharp. An’ one of them jewels is three years’ wage to these men.”

“They won’t leave this place,” he said, and it had the ring of truth in it as the words came out. “Tarien’s afraid.” He considered who was near them, and knew of a certainty that Emuin was listening, remote in his tower as he told Uwen the simple, the important truth. “Tarien’s child is Cefwyn’s son.”

“Gods save us, I was afeared so. Ye’re sure?”

“A son, and a wizard.”

“… An’ His Majesty’s. Gods save us all.”

“They think the nuns didn’t know anything, not even that Tarien was with child… but if the nuns did know, word might have gotten to the Quinalt, and to Ryssand, mightn’t it?”

Uwen gave a soft whistle. “A chain of ifs, m’lord, but it’s a damn short chain, and none of ‘em’s impossible.”

“Ryssand would want them.”

“Damn sure he would.”

—To say the least, Emuin said within the gray space, where he had been lurking the last several moments in utter quiet. Cefwyn took chances. Now one of them’s come home.

—What should I do? Tristen asked Emuin, since Emuin had remarked on the situation. And: “What shall I do?” he asked Uwen, aloud, attention divided, distracted in two conversations at once.

“Tell His Majesty,” Uwen said. “This ‘un’s worth a letter.”

—Write to Cefwyn, Emuin said, in the same instant. If Ryssand is behind the raid on Amvyfar, gods save us all, then he’s gone far beyond retreat. This is deadly, if he alleges it. And above all else, Cefwyn needs to know before the rumor reaches the streets.

He had no wish to bear that news—but Emuin was right: the rumor spreading was inevitable. The babe would be born in its due course, with all that he was and might become, and would no one know? It was impossible to keep that secret, impossible to keep it with all the wizardous currents running through the world. Tarien, with her sister, had tried to kill Cefwyn this summer—but was that in fact all they had aimed at?

And did that matter now to the truth that grew inside her, a creature, like himself, with its own presence and own will within the gray space?

Mauryl had made him. What had Tarien Aswydd made?

—The child is a wizard, he said to Emuin. And has he not his own reasons?

—Weak yet, Emuin said, which in some measure comforted him.

But not wholly.

Not so much as to give him ease of mind or spirit.

And when they reached the stairs, he and Uwen together, and went down, as one must, to go up again to his wing, it cast him momentarily within reach of traffic in the lower hall—in sight, as it chanced, of the master carpenter, who hurried over with the report of a leak in the archive window, which must be dealt with.

“As it’s endangering the books, Your Lordship…”

“I’ll attend it,” Lusin said, Lusin, chief of his bodyguard, whose business had nothing to do with the master carpenter; but ice forced snowmelt through cracks, and the woes of the world went on.

He hourly—even at this hour—expected the report from Mo-deyneth, of grain headed for storage, safe from Tasmôrden’s reach.

He expected another report from Haman, tomorrow, of the horses in pasture. Cefwyn had a child of whom Cefwyn knew nothing, and grain moved, and the library window leaked.

Meanwhile the boy Paisi, who, a former felon, marshaled two servants to carry firewood for him, passed on his way to Master Emuin’s tower. Paisi bowed, and the servants bowed, but Tristen had already set his foot on the step before he even gave a thought to the courtesy, or thought of Paisi as a messenger to bear a quiet word to Emuin, one the twins would not hear.

“Tell him I’ll see him this afternoon,” he said, and Paisi turned, eyes wide, and bobbed a courtesy, knowing well which he he meant: his lord would meet with his master in what quiet and privacy they could arrange in the fortress, but hereafter such moments were difficult to achieve, and all they did in the gray space might flow through it to other interested souls.

Emuin was right. He had to write to Cefwyn. The more understanding of such a child Unfolded to him, the more he knew that Cefwyn must not be caught by surprise with this news. Cefwyn had to break it to Ninévrisë, and to the lords in his own court: Cefwyn had to tell his friends, and break it to them early and with all the facts in hand… before Ryssand heard it and whispered it piecemeal and had the lords forming a dozen different opinions, each at odds with the other.

To two lords at least he had no need to send a messenger. At the top of the stairs he slipped quietly into a gray space momentarily untroubled by the Aswydds and whispered to Cevulirn of Ivanor, — Come. Bring all the lords. There’s a matter to discuss.

Likewise he sought Crissand Adiran.

But he did not find him, not in the Zeide, nor in the confines of Henas’amef, or yet in the camp outside the walls. Perhaps he was asleep… but the hour argued against it.

He grew troubled, then, and made his presence bolder, and stronger, and went searching more noisily through the gray space, seeking whether Crissand was indeed simply sleeping, and near at hand, or whether something dire had befallen him.

He did not expect to find Crissand’s presence far, far north of the town, struggling through drifts. But there he was.

He did not expect, given all the untoward things that had happened last night, to meet evasions, or to know that Crissand had slipped his guards and risked his life escaping him and his notice.

He did not expect to meet the pitch of anguish, or the fear that shut Crissand off from him.

It was not the action of a reasonable man, but that of a man pressed to the limits of his endurance. And he knew nothing that might have sent Crissand out and away from him in that state— except his bringing Crissand’s cousins into Henas’amef, and settling them in the Zeide.

That was the fear. That was the anger and the anguish.

He stopped on the stairs, his hand clenched on the stonework, and looked away past the walls of the stairwell. He was heart-struck that Crissand had hidden his feelings from him so well until now,| and never disturbed him in leaving.

—Are you well? he asked. Are you safe? Come back. Where are your guards?

Crissand failed to answer him… too far a thought for Crissand’s scant ability, it might be. And now he did dread the Aswydds’ attention, and feared to make too great a thing of it.

It might be that Crissand had no inclination to listen: the lord of Meiden rode northerly, toward Anwyll’s garrison and, in between, the village of Modeyneth, and the building of a defensive wall . . all these things were in that direction. There were ample things in which Crissand had a legitimate interest, in his lord’s name.

But nothing about Crissand’s self-appointed mission gave Tristett any sense of quiet or surety. He felt only the keen awareness that Crissand was Aswydd himself, and that the quarrels that had split the Aswydd house and brought it down might not be done—for if there was a lord in Henas’amef who had reason to take strong exception to the return of Orien Aswydd to this hall and to the shelter of this roof, Crissand had that reason. He had buried a father thanks to her.

—Be safe, Tristen wished Crissand, and continued up the stairs, more than distressed: worried to the depth and breadth of his heart. And he wished Crissand’s welfare whether or not Crissand heard him, and whether or not it accorded with other matters he cared for.

—Be sensible. Trust Modeyneth and go no farther… above all not to Althalen. And come back to me when you’ve done what you set out to do. Be assured I am your friend.

That, he wished Crissand to know most of all.

CHAPTER 3

The lords came to the summons with snow still unmelted on their cloaks, tracking icemelt through the lower hall and into the great hall itself and delaying not at all for conversation or for ceremony. No one pleaded excuses, except Crissand, who did not appear at all.

It needed no magic to know why they had been so quick and why the summons had met with immediate compliance. Cevulirn would have come, regardless, out of friendship, and Sovrag, who detested to be left out of any proceedings, would have come, for one thing, to be sure he was not the object of the council.

But Umanon, the stiff, Quinalt lord of Imor, had come with as great a haste, and so had Pelumer, who viewed schedules as mutable at need.

Together with Amefel these four comprised the muster of the south. War was their agreement, war with the rebels in Elwynor, supporting Cefwyn’s intended attack from the east.

And now with neither preface nor prologue the exiled duchess of Amefel had turned up and gained admittance to the center of their Preparations?

Folly, they might well be saying among themselves.

Certainly they were due an accounting.

In all sober consideration of that fact, Tristen took his seat on the dais that dominated the great hall, that seat which had been the throne of Amefel when Amefel had been a petty kingdom. Around him hung the tapestries that portrayed the triumphs of the Aswydd line, figures stitched in stiff rows, conspicuous in the Aswydd personal heraldry of gold and emerald. He was conscious of that, too: the Aswydds’ long dominance in this hall—and in that consciousness he wore the red of the province of Amefel itself, with the black Eagle crest, the colors of the people, not the Aswydd house.

He had Uwen by him on the one side, Uwen being his captain of the guard, and he had master Emuin, who generally held to his tower. That Emuin had come down was in itself remarkable, and a sure sign of the seriousness of the situation—but Crissand, who should have been here, on his right, was at least a day away by now, a perpetual, worrisome silence.

Crissand was not the only absent earl of Amefel—there was in fact a general scarcity of local faces, not that the earldoms had no interest in the current matter: indeed, they had a more acute concern in Orien Aswydd’s return than did the dukes of the southern provinces, who had never been under her rule. But most of the Amefin court had gone out to see to their lands and villages after Midwinter Day, attending ordinary needs and necessities, and traditional observances—in truth, more than one of them simply disappearing from court much as Crissand had done, with no more leave: Tristen reminded himself it was the habit of the court, that no one had ever held them to any different courtesy, and that it was not so different with Crissand—but he knew and Crissand knew that there was an assumption between them that demanded a leave-taking, and that had not been satisfied.

So, too, likely Crissand and likely the other absent earls would be slower returning than they had planned, thanks to the unexpectedly heavy snow: and there was serious business to do out in the villages, plans to make for the spring, justice to hear, even winter weddings… all such things the earls had under their hand, and reasonable enough they rode out after the Midwinter festival to see to their duties—if Crissand had ridden to his own lands, to Meiden.

He had not.

So now with Crissand and Drumman both out among the snowdrifts and the wretched roads, it fell to old Earl Prushan to stand by his duke’s right hand, an honor usually several degrees of precedence removed from that good old man… in fact, beside Prushan, next, were only a handful of the lesser earls and the ealdormen of the town, a set of faces all grave and curious, all come to hear the circumstances of Lady Orien’s uninvited return… but not the representation of the highest lords in Amefel that Tristen would have wished. It was instead the gathering from Lewenbrook, the southern army, the neighbors, who came to him at his call.

How many of the earls had gotten wind of Orien Aswydd and absented themselves?

Fearing what? Had they not seen Auld Syes enter the hall on Midwinter Eve? Had they not seen enough strange things in this turning of the year to send them uneasy sleep?

A whisper of wind wafted past Tristen’s head. Owl swooped down and lit on his forearm, piercing his flesh with sharp talons, caring not a whit for his discomfort, it was certain. He was more and more distressed, and yet refrained from a general call into the gray space, a shout to rouse all that was his against all that was Orien Aswydd’s.

“Last night,” Tristen began, addressing those who had come, the locals, and the southerners, “last night I heard travelers in the storm, and I found Orien and Tarien Aswydd walking toward the town. They say armed men burned the convent at Anwyfar, and killed their nurse along with the nuns there. They say they had a horse at first, and lost it, and walked the rest of the way, hoping for shelter here. I don’t think it’s a lie, how they came here. But they’re not welcome guests. They’re still under Cefwyn’s law. I had nowhere to send them, but I don’t set them free.”

“Send them to Elwynor,” was the immediate suggestion, from more than one voice, and others had a more direct suggestion: “Better if they’d burned.”

“Point o’ that—who burned Anwyfar?” Sovrag asked, above the rest, and that was the question.

“Who burned Anwyfar?” Tristen echoed the question. “Orien said it was Guelen Guard, Cefwyn’s men—that it was Captain Essan.”

“Essan!” old Prushan exclaimed, and no few with him. The earls knew the name, if the dukes of the south did not, and for a moment there was a general murmur.

“There’s another should have hanged,” someone said. “Turned right to banditry.”

“I know Cefwyn didn’t order it,” Tristen said. “If he wanted to kill them, he certainly didn’t need to send men to burn a Teranthine shrine and kill all the nuns, who never did him any harm.”

“Ryssand,” said the Bryaltine abbot, standing forward, hands tucked in sleeves. “Ryssandish, it might well be. Parsynan was Ryssand’s man, and every other trouble he visited on us Captain Essan had a hand in. And why not this?”

The ealdormen thought so. There were nods of heads, a small, unhappy stir.

“And what when the king in Guelessar finds it out?” Prushan asked, and Earl Drusallyn, who was almost as old: “And what when the king blames us?”

“Send ‘em to Elwynor!” an ealdorman said.

And Sovrag: “Hell, send ‘em to the Marhanen, done up in ribbons!”

“No,” Tristen said. “No. Not Elwynor, and not Guelessar.” He drew a breath, not happy in what he had to tell. “Lady Tarien’s with child. Cefwyn’s.”

“Blessed gods,” Umanon said, under the gasp and murmur of the assembly, and a deep hush fell.

“I haven’t told Cefwyn yet,” Tristen said. “I have to write to him, and my last messenger to Guelemara came and went in fear of his life. I don’t know what’s happened there, with Guelen Guard burning shrines and killing nuns. I don’t know if Cefwyn knows what they did.”

“His Majesty doesn’t know about the child?” asked Umanon.

“He last saw the lady this summer,” Cevulirn said. “So did we all.”

“There’s the gift in both of them,” Emuin said in the low murmur of voices. “What they didn’t want noticed, even the ladies of the convent might not have noticed. The king doesn’t know. But someone may.”

“Cuthan,” Tristen said, provoking another hush. “I think Cuthan kept her informed, and informed himself.”

“Then Parsynan might know,” Prushan said.

It was true. It was entirely possible.

“Marhanen issue with an Aswydd and a witch to boot,” Pelumer murmured. “The Quinalt will be aghast.”

“Not only the Quinaltine,” Umanon said, who was Quinalt himself. “Any man of sense is aghast. How many months is she gone?”

“Eight,” Emuin said.

“Gods save us,” Umanon said, letting go his breath. “Gods save Ylesuin.”

“And gods save Her Grace,” Sovrag muttered, for Sovrag adored Ninévrisë. “There’s a damn tangle for us.”

What indeed would Ninévrisë say? Tristen asked himself in deep distress. What indeed could she say? She loved Cefwyn, and eight months was before they were married and before Cefwyn ever laid eyes on her—from that far back a folly arrived to confound them all.

And folly it was. Cefwyn had not done it on his own, he was surer and surer of that: Cefwyn, who had not a shred of wizard-gift, was utterly deaf and blind to the workings of wizardry, but not immune: no man was immune, and there was every reason in the world these two women had worked to snare him and cause this.

“The legitimate succession in Ylesuin,” Cevulirn said, “was already in question, with the Quinalt contesting Her Grace at every turn, and them wanting to refuse the war if they can’t have the land they take. The unhappy result is that there is no settlement on an heir in the marriage agreement. And that is unfortunate.”

No one had thought of that. Tristen had not. The stares of those present were at first puzzled, then alarmed.

“We’re to fight a war to bring the Elwynim under Her Grace’s hand,” Umanon said, “and now Tarien Aswydd bears a pretender to Ylesuin?”

“No legal claim,” Pelumer said, “since there was no legal union, no matter the vagueness of the marriage treaty. In either case, there is an heir: Efanor.”

“But the Aswydds claim royalty,” Umanon said, “and royalty on both sides of the blanket, as it were. It’s not as if our good king found some maid in a haystack. This is troublesome.”

“A witch,” Sovrag said, “no less; a sorceress. And what’s our blessed chance it’s a daughter?”

“Small,” Emuin said, hedging the point.

“It is a son,” Tristen said bluntly. “And he has the gift.”

Another murmur broke out, with no few pious gestures against harm. Blow after blow he had delivered to the alliance, with no amelioration, and he had nothing good to offer except that the lady and Cefwyn’s son were not at this moment in Elwynor, in Tasmô-den’s hands.

“There’s some as’d drop the Aswyddim both down a deep well,” Sovrag said. “And solve our problems at one stroke.”

Tristen shook his head, lifted his hand to appeal for silence, and Owl bated and settled again on his shoulder. “No,” he said in the stillness he obtained.

‘Ye’re too good,” Sovrag said. “Give ‘me to my charge. My lads’ll take ‘em downriver, an’ they’ll go overboard with no qualms at all.”

‘No,” Tristen said again, and the gray space came to life. The hall seemed a hall of statues, everything set, the very pillars of the roof and the occupants of the hall one substance, set and sure and warded against the queasiness just next to this hall, that one place of slippage and weakness in the wards which he could not continue to ignore. “I’ve thought of our choices. I’ve asked myself whether it’s wise to be good, or good to be wise and, aside from all I can think of, or all I can do, the truth is that the Aswydds built this place. Their wizardry is in these stones. It makes them part of the defenses of the Zeide and Henas’amef. Emuin can tell you so.”

“Woven into its defenses like ribs in a basket,” Emuin said in the attention that came to him. “The stay and support of it, and every chink and weakness in it, they know in their bones. Wisest was what Cefwyn did, sending them to Anwyfar. They were as safe there as it was possible for them to be, given it was nuns watching them and not an armed guard or a half a dozen wizards. Now someone’s made a move to free them, and they’ve come here not only because they had to come here rather than Guelemara, but because they know the same as I their protections are here. They’re bound to Henas’amef. That’s one point, and never forget it. The second: Ryssand may have burned down a Teranthine shrine, but if Ryssand, not only Ryssand was in on it. The man’s too canny to do something like this openly, or recklessly. He has concealment he believes will hold, or he has overwhelming reason to do something so rash.”

“What reason, then?” Umanon asked.

Tristen tried to answer, and in Emuin’s silence he could only shake his head, eyes widely focused, taking in all the room at once, on all levels, as the gray winds tugged and pulled at his attention. “A wizard doesn’t even need to be alive,” he said, determined to be honest with his hearers as Emuin had never been honest with him.

But once he had said it he felt fear coursing through his hearers. He felt the courage of some, the apprehension of most. Hasufin was his fear; it had now to be theirs, and every man who had stood at Lewenbrook knew what he meant: that a wizard need not be alive. Hasufin Heltain had not been alive when he had cost so many lives, when the dark had rolled down on the field like a living wave, and no man among them forgot that hour.

In that general dismay Emuin came to the center of the steps and stood with arms folded in his sleeves, waiting, waiting, silently commanding the assembly’s attention.

“His Grace is telling you difficult things,” Emuin said when quiet came and every eye was on him. “He means to say that the Aswydd sisters aren’t strong enough to have released themselves from the bindings I set on them—yes, I! But if they move with currents already moving they might well have done it themselves, and without the knowledge or help of our enemy. But be assured there are such currents. There are currents in waters that have been moving for some time, and now these two have cast themselves and Cefwyn’s son into that flow, if not with their attempt to free themselves—which hasn’t, in fact, gained them their freedom—then certainly early last summer, when they worked petty hedge-witchery to get a child.”

“Saying what?” old Prushan asked. “What does your honor mean? That there’s some other wizard? The wizard from last summer?”

“Do you mean this is all foredoomed?” Umanon asked uneasily.

Emuin held up a finger. “Not foredoomed as to outcome.” The hand flourished, vanished again into tucked sleeves, to reappear with a silver ball, that again vanished. “Say that a wizardous river is in spring flood, and the shore’s become damned uncertain. The As-wydds and the usurper are deep in the waters. Hear the lord of Amefel. Hear him! He’s the only swimmer in the lot.”

Tristen cast Emuin an uneasy look of his own in the murmur of the assembly, not wishing to hear what he had heard, not taking it for any more solid truth than the maneuvering of the ball, and wondering why at long last Emuin, who shied from discussing wizardry directly even with him, had suddenly spoken in council and employed this trickery of the eye.

Was it because he had resolved to speak out the truth to these men, and Emuin followed him?

Emuin made a final flourish, hurled the ball at the wall, making the assembly at that side flinch.

Nothing hit. Nothing happened.

“Don’t trust your eyes,” Emuin said, serenely passing the silver ball from finger to finger, to the assembly’s disquiet. A glow possessed his hand, which vanished. So did the ball. “Don’t believe what you see. Don’t believe what you suspect. Listen to your lord.”

A stillness followed.

“Your Grace,” old Pelumer said then, “what about Orien Aswydd in our midst, telling whoever might want to know all she can see here? There’s the depths of cellars. I’m sure the town itself has a number of them that could host the lady. I’m sure the Zeide has.”

“I’d rather have her here,” Tristen said, “over all, I’d rather have her where master Emuin can keep an eye on her.”

Master Emuin snorted. “Great good that will do.”

“But while they’re here, Tasmôrden can’t get his hands on His Majesty’s child,” Cevulirn said, “which would be disaster if it happened. And if we place the Aswydds somewhere we can’t watch, there’s a greater chance he might reach them.”

“When he does know,” Umanon said, “he’s bound to be sure the whole world knows. Her Grace of Elwynor a bride, and a queen without a title, and now there’s a bastard in the Marhanen line, out of an Aswydd sorceress, no less, and will the Quinalt abide it? I don’t think so.”

“Sink ‘er,” Sovrag said. “I tell ye, that’s the way out o’ this muddle.”

“Oh, aye,” Emuin said. “We have that choice: kill the child, or let it live: two choices more: kill the sisters or let them live; and again, two choices: keep them prisoner or let them free. The child is male, and has the wizard-gift, and she claims it’s His Majesty’s. Again two choices: believe her or don’t believe. Those are your choices, lords of the south, eight choices we all have, but not a precious one else can I think of.”

“Do you doubt her?” Umanon asked.

“I believe her,” Tristen said, “and I know her son has the gift. In the storm I thought there were three; and there were only Orien and Tarien when I found them. I felt it again when I spoke with them. I have no doubt at all.”

“And doubt as to the father?”

“I never felt they were lying.” Tristen watched Owl wander down to his hand and he lifted it to oblige Owl, as claws pricked uncomfortably through the fabric of his sleeve. Owl arrived at his fingers, and swiveled his head about to regard him with a mad, ruffled stare, as if utterly astonished by the things he heard—before he bent and bit, cruelly hard.

He tossed Owl aloft, and Owl fluttered and flew for a ledge.

The eight choices Emuin named, whether those present thought of it or not, were the same choices Emuin had had in Selwyn’s time— the choices Emuin had had when he killed a prince of the house of Elfwyn, the last High King, the last reigning descendant of the Sihhë.

Gentle Emuin had killed a child.

And Mauryl, the Mauryl who had fostered him, had ordered it.

He stared at the wound Owl had made, blood, that smeared his fingertips: he worked them back and forth, and looked up where Owl had settled.

Wake, Owl seemed to say to him. Rule. Decide. Blood will attend either choice.

He drew a breath, looked at the solemn, shocked faces of the assembly, with the blood sticky on his fingertips… and knew that the question was Orien Aswydd.

“She won’t rule here again,” he told the assembly. “Cefwyn set her aside. Now I do.” And as he said it he made that doom certain with all his force, all the might that was in him. Emuin turned in alarm and mouthed a caution, half lifting a warding hand, for Emuin above all others felt the currents shift, much as if he had cast a mountain into the flow.

And half the fortress removed and upstairs, Orien and Tarien surely felt it—for something like a cry went through the very stones of the Zeide and the rock of its hill.

Owl took to his wings, and flew off across the hall to settle on the finial of the ducal throne.

“Amefel,” Cevulirn said—Cevulirn, who alone of all of them but Emuin could hear that protest of the wards—”What of the child? What for it?”

He was less sure of that. On few things he was certain. On the matter of Tarien’s child and Amefel, he was not.

“I say what I can,” he answered Cevulirn.

“So what does His Grace think is coming down on us?” Pelumer asked. “We’ve Marna on our borders, and an uneasy neighbor it always is, but this winter nothing goes right near it… fires die, bowstrings break, men who know the paths lose their way. Is something coming, the like of what we saw this summer?”

“Not only Marna,” Sovrag said. “Haunts here. The servants in the halls is saying there’s haunts in the downstairs and a cold spot right next the great hall—and in sight of all of us ye went into the dark and come out with that owl at that very spot, did ye not, Amefel? Spooks in Marna I can swear to, and so can my neighbor here who sailed in with me. We come here to fight Tasmôrden. So what are we makin’ war on? I ask the same question. Is it Lewen-brook all over again?”

Emuin, too, had heard that shriek through the stones. In him was no fear of haunts in the hall, only a calm assessment that, yes, there was risk.

And it was his assessment.

And all these men knew now what sided with them, and if they were not willing to face what arrayed itself against them, they above all others, knew what it was to face it—they had stood on Lewen held. He did not count any man in this hall as other than brave.

And oh, he missed Crissand’s presence now—missed the assessment of the other presence who might read the gray space and steady him.

“You want to know what we make war on,” he answered Sovrag’s question. “And I wish there were a simple answer. I don’t know what may happen. I know what I have to do. Tasmôrden claims the banner of Althalen.”

That dismayed them. No, they had not known.

“Well,” said Sovrag, “that man’s a fool, ain’t he?”

There was a small breath of laughter, a relief, in the hall.

“The camp at the river is secure,” Cevulirn said in his quiet, customary calm. “The roads are not so badly drifted. The grain supplies are secure. Our enemy has resources. We trust Your Grace has better. Your Grace proved the stronger at Lewenbrook… and will again.”

“I’ve no easy feeling,” he said honestly. Among Guelenfolk he had so carefully tried to be like everyone else; but these, his allies, had drawn away all the concealment and spoken to him frankly until now he felt compelled to give them all he knew, an exchange of honesty, a revelation so private and so profound in this room it was all but painful. “None from the riverside nor anywhere about, either. I can usually hear things if I listen hard, and there’s only Earl Cris-sand, who’s chosen to ride out that way, but it worries me. Everything along that road worries me, and I wish he may come back safely.”

“Does Your Grace see any stir out of Elwynor?” Pelumer asked. “—Counting that the owl might, as’t were, fly abroad.”

“Where Owl goes I don’t myself know. Nor the pigeons.” They saw the birds as spies, he was aware, and were wrong in that, attributing to Owl what he might learn from the gift. But that Owl guided him in his dreams, and that his dreams were less fair than the condition of the land he knew around him… that he still kept secret until he knew what to make of it. “I don’t know their number, daily at Althalen, but I know it’s defended. Aeself and his men have my leave to guard the camp, and they do; and Drusenan guards Modeyneth.”

“Nothing’s troubled them,” said Cevulirn.

“Not that I know. None of Tasmôrden’s men have tried the bridges that I know, either. And Tasmôrden himself is still in Ilefi-nian, but a great many who survived have left it and come toward our border villages. This I’m sure of.”

A silence had attended his words. It persisted, a little fear, and a hopeful confidence.

“And Your Grace knows this,” Pelumer said, the third attempt on his secrecy.

“I know,” Tristen said, more than knowing—aware of the gift, though a very small one, in Pelumer himself, and Pelumer’s asking as an uncertainty perhaps keenly self-directed.

“Far less a trouble than riders and horses,” Sovrag said under his breath.

“Is Your Grace ever mistaken?” Umanon asked: Umanon did not have a shred of the gift, the only one among the lords who had not the least glimmering of it.

“Yes,” he said, “I’ve made mistakes. A great many of them. But not so many now.”

“Wizardry or magic,” Emuin said, “alike has its weaknesses, and worst when one commits one’s entire plan to them. Lean on a single staff . . . and another wizard or some traveling tinker can tip it right aside in a heartbeat. That there are more settlers at Althalen, yes, that’s so, and he knows, does His Grace, who put them there. That they’re a resource, yes, I have no doubt. That they’re any sort of an answer to Tasmôrden and his army, no. If they were strong enough to fight him, they’d not have lost Ilefínian in the first place.”

“But the weather,” Pelumer said. “There’s some that have weather-luck… as the Sihhë Kings had. Is that so? And that great storm and the Aswydds—was that in Your Grace’s intentions?”

“I wished good weather for us,” he said, keenly aware that the land lay deep in snow, and that at this very moment Crissand struggled through a windblown drift, remnant of the Aswydds’ storm, leading a strange horse, fearful and berating himself for his plight. Now he heard the thought in Crissand’s heart—or perhaps Crissand had heard him a moment ago. “I didn’t wish the storm, no, and I don’t think Orien could.”

“Then who?”

“I don’t know. It might have just needed to snow. The weather’s like that. It lasted a fair time, but whether the snow would have its way or just what turned it, I don’t know. I think I can turn the weather good again. But so very much has happened since yesterday I haven’t wanted to confuse things further.”

“Wise notion,” Emuin muttered.

“It can snow a while,” Pelumer said, “so long as it snows hard in Elwynor.”

“If you enter on that,” Emuin muttered, “be advised of the danger. Wish for good.”

“Pray for it,” said Umanon, the Quinalt among them.

“That, too,” Emuin said, laying a hand to the Teranthine sigil he wore. “Prayers. Wishes. Many of them. Candles by the gross. Gods bless all of us.”

Gods remained a mystery to Tristen, but no one had flinched from the questions or the answers.

And he had never depended on mastering the weather.

“The granaries are full,” he said. “I can’t say whether the river may freeze; but we have the wall at Modeyneth if it lets the enemy across. I can’t say whether Tasmôrden may turn east or south, but there’s Cefwyn to one side of the hills and us to the other, and when the weather does serve, we’ll not receive an attack: we’ll bring one.”

“And camp that night in Elwynor!” Sovrag shouted out. “There’s the word! In Elwynor!”

“In Elwynor,” others echoed, and, In Elwynor became the word throughout the hall.

Then Owl let out an eerie cry that came from every place and no place. Some laughed nervously. Umanon blessed himself.

Tristen wished the recreant bird back to him, and Owl plummeted down and settled onto his arm, turning his head backward to look at the assembly.

He had intended to quiet Owl and make him less a disturbance.

But he doubted his effort had had that effect.

As for the lords’ wishes for the weather to improve, he hoped, no, wished with all his might for fair skies and a warm wind out of the south—and he wished that Cefwyn might begin to move against Tasmôrden sooner if the weather bettered itself.

It was time. It was indeed time.

And Sovrag was right: a camp just the other side, by the riverside and still within the compass of his orders not to undertake to win the war, could discomfit Tasmôrden.

More than that, considering rumors of internal weakness in the steady arrival of fugitives at Althalen… he hoped his disturbance at the edge of Elwynor might search out the hollow heart in Tasmor-den’s power, the ones only marginally loyal to the usurper, most in fear for their lives. Those Elwynim who would turn again and swear to Ninévrisë Syrillas as liege lady might in such a presence find a place to stand, and Tasmôrden then would find his strength melting away, as the commons found the Lady Regent more to their liking.

In point of fact, it was not alone the weather he wished to change, and had no compunction at all about wishing Elwynim to serve Ninévrisë Syrillas. She had the right to their allegiance, and the good heart to mend the land after its years of war and waiting. There could be no better fate for the Elwynim.

“Time, then,” he said aloud, “time for us all to set to work.”

So the lords agreed. They were pleased when they left. He had accomplished that.

He remained seated a moment, Owl spreading his broad wings and settling claws into his flesh. “Go,” he wished the recalcitrant bird, and encouraged him with a toss, but Owl only moved to his hand, and drew blood, and clung.

“You were very plain, young lord,” Emuin advised him, neither approving nor disapproving. Emuin had stayed, along with Uwen; and Lusin and his men. “Some of your army might be afraid. Not the great lords, perhaps, but some of your ealdormen looked green as new apples.”

“Cefwyn says I’m a poor liar.” Wind brushed his cheek, distracting him with a flap of wings as Owl flew up to his other favored perch, up on the cornice. “When should they discover the danger, master Emuin? On the field?”

“And what will you? When will you make up your own mind?”

“To what?” He was genuinely bewildered.

Emuin’s glance followed Owl’s course, and came back to him, dark and direct under his snowy brows. “That you lead this army.”

“I know I lead it.”

“That you rule this province.”

“The man who should rule is freezing in a snowdrift right now, between here and Modeyneth.”

“Crissand.”

“Yes, Crissand. In this one thing I’m certain. About the war itself I won’t wish. I observe caution. I learn, you see, I do learn, master Emuin.”

“That you do.” Emuin walked a few paces to the left, and turned again. “So now the truth is out. Cefwyn’s child. Gods save us. A Marhanen Aswydd. A white crow. A black dove. And ours to deal with.”

“Ours. And hers.” He still felt Emuin’s disapproval. “I did the best I knew, bringing them here. I still think it’s safest. I think it was best to tell the lords.”

“Safest, yes. Safer than most dispositions.”

“We could not send Cefwyn’s son to Elwynor. Nor have him in Ryssand’s hands.”

“I agree. He’ll be born here, under all the auspices of this place— and if I read the stars aright—he aims for your birth night.”

“For mine.” He had not remotely thought.

“Wizardry, wizardry, wizardry, young lord! Wizardry is an art of time and place. We have the place, we’ve missed the turn of the Great Year… what time shall we suspect is coming?”

He was appalled. It cast everything in a new and threatening light.

“And we need a midwife,” Emuin said. “A woman skilled in childbirth—a woman with the gift—and proof against Orien Aswydd.”

“Are there such women in the Zeide?”

“The best is in town. Sedlyn. Paisi’s gran, so he calls her, though no more kin to our young jackanapes than Cefwyn is. And she may serve. The date of birth is the question. Sedlyn might help us. A child can be encouraged to come into the world, or held out of it.”

He had only book knowledge of births. He sat on the ducal throne of Amefel, empowered to dispose life and death over a province.

But to change a birth, to hasten, to delay, to meddle with what a child in his very existence wanted to be—the sort of meddling Emuin proposed troubled him.

“Was I wise or unwise to obey Mauryl?” the old man asked him, apropos of no question he had asked aloud, and walked away without another word—more, left without a whisper or a breath of wind in the gray space.

No one else could be so silent, or so secret.

No one in his knowledge had done such a deed as Emuin had done—no one carried such a wound as Emuin carried, having murdered the last prince of Althalen, a child he knew… or had known. That was what Emuin meant.

And in the silence Emuin wrapped about him like a mantle, in his secret going, cloaked even from him, for the first time Tristen knew why Mauryl must have chosen this one wizard, of all the others, and sent him to kill Hasufin Heltain—for the silence Emuin could wrap about himself was so great, so deep, that he had never realized it was uncommon among wizards.

He had never truly known, in his reckless, innate magic, that not every wizard could tell him no.

And now that he saw into that silence, he found himself grateful for master Emuin, deeply, profoundly grateful that his first venture into the world had brought him into Emuin’s hands. It seemed now no chance had directed him.

And all this time there had been a warm, soft blanket wrapped about him, protecting him, shielding him, containing him in every sense.

Now, in this moment, Emuin quietly folded it and took it away, and left him feeling the cold winds of wizardry in all its reach.

Behold the world, young lord.

Behold the choices of those who choose for others, and who hold life and death of thousands in their hands.

“Ye ain’t quarrelin’ wi’ master Emuin,” Uwen said uneasily.

“No,” he said, finding it difficult even to speak in master Emuin’s silence. But the mortal world went on. “He just now challenged me. A lesson.”

“A wee bit late for learnin’,” Uwen said, “by me.”

“He contains the Aswydds. They can’t work while he holds them in. I don’t know they even know it. He contains what I can do. I see now how much harder that is. And now he’s let me go, to do what I wish to do.”

A clatter startled the silence, right by him. Syllan had dropped a spear, and was red-faced, gathering it up.

Dropped, perhaps. There were small, darting movements, as the servants quietly snuffed all candles on the far side. Darkness advanced, flowed along the channels of the pavings, spread soft grays from its harsher dominion over the deep, curtained corners of the hall. It chased under tables, at the side of the hall. It divided itself and extended tendrils of dark along the joining of wall with floor, and ran between the paving stones, reminding one that ‘within the wall, all was dark.

Tristen saw movement within that dark from the utmost tail of his eye. He felt a draft from some source that might not be the opening of the robing room and its corridor. The drapery there did not stir. Nor did the great green velvet curtains near the front of the dais.

“We’ve Shadows in the hall tonight,” he said to his guards in the faintest of voices. “Listening. But there’s no harm meant.”

“Ghosts, m’lord?” Lusin looked anxiously at those dark corners, and Syllan and all his guards gripped their weapons the more tightly.

“Something like. Some were Crissand’s men, not bad men at all.” He drew a deep breath, and stood, listening. “The hall’s been threatened.”

“Tasmôrden?”

“I think it comes from outside, and far.” He could see the little shadows moving, back among the pillars, and the littlest of all running along the masonwork, like darts of dark fire, flickering like lame. “They’re uneasy. They listen. Something’s trying to get in.”

“Into your hall, my lord?” Lusin seemed to take it in indignation, regarding a hall he was charged with guarding.

“The candles don’t truly dispel them,” Tristen said. “They’re al-

ways here. They’re part of the wards, or they’re tangled with them: but they’re harmless. Don’t wish them harm. Especially the Shadows in the great hall. They’re all our Shadows, honest Amefin Shadows, and a few Guelen. They’re guards, standing their own watch.”

“And elsewhere?” Lusin dared ask. “Elsewhere, m’lord? The old mews… what’s that place?”

“The old mews leads places. I don’t know how many.”

“To Ynefel,” Uwen said.

He nodded slowly, thinking on that place of strange light and bating wings, row on row of perches, for Ynefel had indeed been within that light and he had been in Ynefel. He recalled the high, rickety stairs and wooden balconies, all bathed in the blue, strange light.

But he had explored them in all their brown, dusty webwork when he was new and when the light was the leakage of daylight through the cracks and the soft glow of candles, casting a shifting, wind-driven light along balconies and out into impenetrable dark of further distances. He had had no idea in those days that dark spots and cold spots and bumps in the night could mean ruin. His fears had been all surmise in those days… Mauryl’s anger, the whisperings of the wind, the surprise of a carving on the stairs—such things he had feared.

Had the old mews always led there?

He had never discovered any other place from Ynefel. He had run amongst the Shadows in Ynefel and not known to fear them— at least not the little ones that came out and went back again in the trickery of candlelight. The stone faces within the walls of Ynefel . . . they were Shadows, themselves, of a sort, that seemed to change and shift on uneasy nights.

And were they destroyed when he drove out Hasufin? Or did they still stand?

“The mews leads to Ynefel, and leads from,” he said to Uwen. “And it’s a cold spot in this hall. It’s the cold spots I like least. Shadows there always are, but the cold ones are never happy.”

“What is that place?” Uwen asked. “We saw the light, things flutterin’ and movin’, leastwise we thought we saw. We agreed we might ha’ seen.—And I could see you, almost, but for the life o’ me, all I touched was solid stone.”

“Could you see that much?” Tristen asked, surprised and all attention, now.

“I don’t know ye could quite call it seein’,” Uwen said. “It wasn’t like I was lookin’ with me eyes.”

“You saw into the gray place. Into the haunt. If it opens to you, don’t go in, no matter what. Stand on solid ground, and call to me if you find reason to take alarm.”

“Take alarm, lad!” Uwen laughed. “I was cold scairt!”

“Did you see it?” Tristen asked the other guards, Lusin and Syllan, Tawwys and Aran. “What did you see?”

“Like the cap’n,” Lusin said. “Not at first, but the longer we stood there, we all saw a blue light, cold-like. It weren’t fire and it didn’t burn. And ye come walking toward us like a movin’ bright light, and ye had this owl wi’ ye.”

“Which hadn’t any place it come from, that any of us could see,” Tawwys said. “He scares the lot of us, perchin’ outside your door, starin’ while we’re on watch.”

“Does he? I’d thought he was in the stables.”

“He comes an’ goes,” Tawwys said, and Aran:

“An’ he ain’t friendly. He bit Syllan’s finger.”

“I offered ‘im a tidbit,” Syllan said, “but ‘e weren’t grateful.”

“He’s not,” Tristen said, and considered the wounds Owl’had dealt him, with the stain on his fingertips. “I fear he’ll eat the pigeons. But I can’t wish him away.”

“Why not?” Uwen asked.

“For one thing, I don’t think it would do any good and for another I don’t think I ought to. He lived in the loft when I was at Ynefel. When I lost my way in Marna Wood he guided me. And on Lewen field he flew ahead of me. He’s always there when I don’t know where to go.”

“Then he has a use,” Uwen said.

“He seems to. At least when he flies I’m not lost. He’s here now, and I don’t see my way through, but he’s here.” He had not thought of Owl’s presence as a comfort, but he began to think that way. “Someday he’ll fly, and I’ll know it’s time to follow him.”

“Don’t ye talk of goin’ after that bird!” Uwen said. “Or of followin’ ‘im. I don’t trust ‘im, not a bit. An’ if he goes to Ynefel or worse, don’t ye dare go wi’out me. There’s roads. We can take ‘em, the lot of us.”

He was silent. He dared not promise that. He looked at Uwen’s honest, worried face. “I can’t promise you,” he said, and looked away again with a shake of his head, as honest with Uwen in return.

CHAPTER 4

There seemed no courteous way to write the letter that circumstances required. Two pieces of paper, three, four, and five Tristen used, and cast each attempt away into the fire of the hearth near his desk. He had every confidence in Tassand and his servant staff, but he found the letters too painful to have lying about, and he would not leave them a moment on his desk—or send them to his friend.

Orien Aswydd came with her sister Tarien. Tarien is with child, which is yours, and a wizard…

… Orien and Tarien Aswydd fled Anwyfar when men attacked it. Tarien has your child, a son, and he has the wizard-gift…

With the Aswydds in residence a few stone walls away it was folly to carry difficult consultation to the gray space, and he feared he was growing so distraught with the letters he had become easy to overhear. He felt alone, abandoned by his friend, by his advisor. He had somehow to say a thing which he knew would bring pain to two he loved, and which might, in the wrong hands, bring bloodshed and war, and he could not find the words to take away the sting of that unanticipated revelation.

Tarien Aswydd came here for refuge and will bear a child in perhaps a month, which…

The sixth attempt went into the fire. He rested his head against his hands, checked his fingers belatedly for ink—they were clean— and at that one practical thought knew that his later attempts at gentle advisement were worse, not better.

At that point he left his desk in his apartment, gathered only Lusin and Syllan to guard him, and went to Emuin’s tower.

He rapped, pushed the latch, and discovered the old man, far from having lain sleepless during his hours of flailing about the edges of the gray space, had fallen sound asleep in his chair. Young Paisi was curled by the fire like a young hound, and their supper dishes stood empty on a table cluttered with charts.

He eased the door shut. The latch went down, and stung, doing so.

Emuin’s head came up. Eyes blinked, as if trying to resolve what they saw.

“Well, well,” Emuin said. “Is there trouble? Or more trouble?”

“Forgive me. I need words, master Emuin.”

Two blinks more. “Words for Cefwyn?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh, try folly and prodigious fool.”

“You don’t mean that, sir.”

At this point Paisi waked, looking exhausted and startled at once.

“Oh, I mean it,” Emuin said, ignoring the boy. “I said it then, damn his stubborn ways, and I say it again.”

“But I can’t. Do I say to him… Tarien Aswydd has your child, a son? That’s what I’ve written.”

“That’s fair enough. That should inform a thoughtful young man he’s been a fool. That’s the essence of the report, isn’t it? Maybe he’ll hear it from you.”

“He listens to you.”

“Not in this.”

“Ninévrisë will be upset with him, won’t she?”

“Oh, I imagine she’ll be somewhat upset. She’s a lady capable of setting aside her heart’s feeling to serve her common sense, but this will test the limit, I rather think.”

There had been a time he had not understood Emuin’s humors, or his ironies. Now they cut keenly, but he knew that they shielded a worried and fond heart.

“What will she do when she knows?”

“All of that is Cefwyn’s to deal with,” Emuin said brusquely, not yours. You’re not the keeper of his conscience, nor am I. Just deliver him what he needs to know, and let him find the way through this maze. It’s enough we have the lady in keeping and she’s not making pilgrimage to Guelemara this winter. At very least we’ll deal with the birth. I don’t know what more we can do with the plain, unpleasant truth.”

“Am I not to be his friend? Wasn’t that your advice? And Wouldn’t a friend give him something more than just… the plain truth, on a paper? Shouldn’t I have something else to say? Shouldn’t I be wise enough to have advice?”

Emuin’s frown eased, and the fierce scowl revised itself into a more pensive, wounded look.

“Or can’t you advise him, sir?” Tristen leaned both hands on the table, on the welter of charts and dishes. “You came here with me, and you left him to fend for himself. Idrys is clever, and Her Grace is wise, and Annas is kind, but you aren’t there, and I think he’d truly wish you were with him when he reads this letter. He needs your advice. He needs it most of all.”

“I can’t travel in this weather. I’m old. My bones won’t stand the saddle, I can’t ride through such drifts, and by the time a carriage; made the trip the news would have walked to Guelemara, drifts and all. I can’t advise him! Too many people know this. Someone is going to tell the wrong person, if they haven’t already run to the capital to shout it in the streets, and the longer we wait, the more certain that is. We don’t know we’re not already too late to keep it out of Ryssand’s hands… particularly if those blackguards of Es-; san’s attacked the nuns because someone had found out about Ta-rien. Tarien might have been their reason, more fool they—someone’s hope to keep her and the babe when it’s born. And if that was the case and if they lost her, they’d have run straight to the capital and reported to whoever set them on.”

“Or they’d run for the far hills and not come at all.”

“There is that hope.”

“Orien thought it might be because Cefwyn found out. I don’t think so. If he knew, he didn’t need to send the Guelen Guard: Idrys, maybe, but not soldiers to attack the nuns. I think they could be; Ryssand’s. Maybe Orien said what she did about Cefwyn finding out because she suspected someone had found out, but I don’t think that someone is Cefwyn. He wouldn’t kill the nuns.”

“He would not,” Emuin mused, raking tangles from his beard. “I can think of two reasons there was an attack on Anwyfar in the first place: first, the one you name, that someone knew there was a child and wanted Tarien in his hands. Ryssand could do gods know what at that point, none good. So could Tasmôrden, if Cuthan spilled what he knows in that quarter, and if he knows too much. That’s well possible.—Or it could be someone’s blind ill working that bounced off us like a rock off a shield and rebounded on the closest and most vulnerable of our precautions. Our confinement of the Aswydds was always chancy.”

“There’s a third,” he said, taking very seriously what Emuin said.

“That the working was Orien’s, to arrange an escape, and to come here. She surely wished it. Ordinarily she couldn’t manage it. But she found a current already moving—and maybe she found help.”

“Certainly she’d like to be involved,” Emuin said. “And think, too: the gainer in what’s happened is Orien. She’s here. The great loser thus far in what happened is Ryssand: he’d have been so pleased to have Tarien in his hands. The scandal will still break: there’s no hiding it forever. But if we’re very lucky we might conceal the child until after the attack across the bridges. If Cefwyn wins the war and sets Ninévrisë on the throne, he can do no wrong in her people’s eyes and if Ninévrisë has her kingdom back, she may forgive him his old sins. Maybe we wished too hard for Cefwyn’s safety and something we’ve done is looking out for his interests… preventing the rumor reaching home, in fact.”

“And those women died for that?’“‘‘ He was appalled by the thought.

“Oh, don’t count it our fault: it may be no one’s particular fault—except the scoundrels who killed the nuns, of course. They have the fault. The rest is blind chance. Water breaks out where the dike is lowest, young lord, never the strongest point. And by now, after what Mauryl’s done, what I’ve done, what other agencies have done—there’s a lot of water flowing.”

“Are they guilty, without knowing what they did?”

“Oh, they knew what they did. And it may even have been Orien they were after. These were Quinalt men. They served in Amefel when she ruled here. They knew her for a sorceress and they hate sorcery. As for the nuns, they were nuns of my sect, not the Quinalt, and these men were Ryssand’s. Maybe they were looking for nothing more than some charge of latent witch-work to lay against the Teran-thines. Ryssand’s failed in one assault on Cefwyn’s rule; he may be looking for another weak point, and never forget that Cefwyn is Teranthine, and that I am. A sorceress sent among Teranthine nuns to hide her and keep her head on her shoulders—how will that sound among the orthodox and doctrinist Quinaltines?—Ah, me, write you must, but we have to keep this news out of Guelessar in general, if that’s possible, yet be sure Cefwyn knows. We’ve sheltered these Women, we have them, all to our advantage now, and whatever wizardry opposes us will go straight for that babe. Rely on it.”

Much of it seemed conjecture, none leading anywhere.

But the part about wizardry and the baby sounded all too reasonable.

“So we,” Emuin concluded, “must do something about it.”

“What can we do, sir?”

Emuin rose from his chair at the table and picked up a rod that was at the moment weighing down a half a score of scattered parchments. He waved it at Tristen, waved again in what seemed an instruction to stand on the other side of the table.

Tristen did so. Emuin pushed the rod end-on toward him across that scatter of charts.

“Now push it back to me.”

Tristen obliged. Emuin received the end, and mildly pushed the other end again toward Tristen’s side of the table, while Paisi came and stared dubiously at the proceedings.

“Push it back to me,” Emuin said, and as Tristen slid it toward him, Emuin placed a thin, arthritic finger in the path of the rod, with a tap diverting it to the side.

“What?” said Emuin. “Are you suddenly weak? Push it to me, I say.”

Tristen drew back the rod.

“Push with all your strength this time.”

“It would not,” Tristen said. “No more than a sword past an opposing blade. It will miss, no matter how much strength I have.”

“A child’s finger could do the same.”

“At the right point, likely so, sir.”

“Paisi?” ;

“Oh, no, sir,” Paisi said, tucking both his hands behind him and backing up a step. “I ain’t tryin’ to stop m’lor’ wi’ me finger.”

“Paisi sees the lesson,” Emuin said, “—don’t you, boy?”

“As I ain’t puttin’ my finger in m’lor’s way, ‘at’s sure.”

“But you would win,” Emuin said.

“As I ain’t puttin’ meself in m’lor’s way by winnin’ again’ ‘im, either.”

Tristen smiled, but the lesson was not lost.

“And that’s what a boy learns,” master Emuin said. “What does the lord learn?”

“That if you set your finger in the way of the rod too late, you lose. And if you have your finger in the way at the right time, the rod can’t reach you. And it’s not about rods… or swords. It’s about wizardry.” The grim thought Unfolded itself and cast a gloom over him. “The point of diverting this wizardry isn’t now. It was this summer.”

“In the early summer, when a prince shared a bed with Tarien Aswydd. If you will know, he was abed with her the night you arrived.”

It was like a dousing with cold water. “Me, sir?”

“You came, you diverted his attention, various things changed, and he had no further time for the ladies Aswydd, but not in time, since by then the deed was very clearly done.” Emuin picked up one of the scattered charts and cast it heavily onto the table. “Does that Unfold to you?”

Tristen turned it, looked at it, and turned it again in hope it would make some sort of sense. It might have been upside down or sideways for what he made of the scratchings and circles and numbers and intersecting lines. “No, sir. It doesn’t.”

“Likely because it’s wizardry, and not magic. The Sihhë-lords never needed such meticulous proceedings.”

“It’s to do with the stars and the moon, I see that much. Has it to do with the Great Year?” That was just past, and it had long occupied Emuin’s attention in the heavens.

“It’s to do with calamity,” Emuin said. “Mind, no such chart is infallible. It marks opportunities, moments of vulnerability, moments of power, and, the Nineteen witness! the Sihhë can create their own moments outside of wizardry and throw all our meticulous plans and times askew—gods, but you can, young lord! But I suspect even you find magic easier at certain times and in certain places—or that what you loose flows more readily in certain directions than in others: the river finds the lowest, easiest course, does it not?”

He understood how it explained the twisted course certain of his wishes took, or why he saw some things as easy and direct and some things not.

But he was not diverted by any sleight of hand, not now. His thoughts ceased to skip and turn, and went straight to a single question. He did not even ask it aloud. He wished an answer, and Emuin’s chin went up, and he frowned, opposing Emuin’s will.

“Forgive me,” Tristen said. “I wish to know, and not to oppose you… not at all to oppose you. I know how hard you’ve tried to keep all your plans in shape around me, no matter how often I cast them all down. But now I want the truth, master Emuin, with all good will. Inform me, and perhaps you’ll have less patching to do. I might agree.”

Emuin let out a slow breath. “Cefwyn proposes to set out this spring against Tasmôrden. Before the trees break their buds, there is ^an hour, a day, on which what Men call luck will more than ebb: it will turn utterly against him. That is written in the events he himself set in motion, and written in the stars.”

“Then I should be with him!” Tristen said.

“Or—perhaps you shouldn’t. Perhaps you can do more from a Distance, where you have a better view of what’s happening, and where you can lay hands on the very things that threaten him. Possibly you’re doing exactly what you should do. Before the trees break their buds, too, that child will be born, here, in Amefel.”

He had thought only of weapons. What Emuin said appalled him.

“The child.”

“Here, I say, the child will be born.”

“And I brought her here!”

“Perhaps it was the best of intentions. She’s not in a worse place. Parsynan isn’t in charge here, Cuthan’s not here to help Orien, and Tasmôrden’s men aren’t pouring across the border to raise the whole province in rebellion. All the things you’ve done have put her in your hands, not the other way about. I don’t say this child’s the only danger. What Cefwyn may do when once he hears the news: that is a danger. What Her Grace may do is likewise a danger, and what her people may do is a danger, all approaching that moment Cefwyn’s luck—luck! so men call it, and nothing further from the truth—his luck will turn. The flow will all go against him, for a certain number of hours. I confess that all along, I’ve thought constantly of the battle with Tasmôrden, and that manner of threat. But again, the river may have taken the easiest course. It was natural these women come to their home, to their people. They say the nuns didn’t know. And there’s a fifth possible agent of the situation at Anwyfar… you, young lord.”

“I would never wish what happened!”

“But you know that you have effect.”

“I know that I do, sir.”

“We aren’t masters of how a thing happens. So likewise we must be careful how our letters will inform Cefwyn and Her Grace, and do it well. You’re quite right to come to me. You’re quite right to approach this with caution.”

“You know how to tell him. You see the danger. Twice over, it should be you that writes that letter.”

Emuin’s brows lowered. “Oh, I know these things, I know them too well. Mauryl called on me to kill a young prince in his sleep. And I did, young lord, and have bad dreams all my life. Now I see that dream one more time.”

“Hasufin Heltain.” Tristen drew a great breath, knowing well how their enemy—Mauryl’s enemy—had entered a dead babe in Althalen, King Elfwyn’s son… and nothing might have prevented him, except he had grown too sure of himself, too early… a boy’s faults of haste, betraying a very, very dangerous spirit to the only wizard capable of dealing with him… of killing him, before his adulthood.

“He’s dead,” Emuin said. “But he was dead before he fought you at Lewenbrook. That’s only mild inconvenience to him. A woman dabbles in sorcery, far past her knowledge. A foolish woman lets down the wards, in all senses, and bargains for power… and what better chance has a wandering spirit? You caught Orien at her sorcery once. We don’t know how often and to what ends she opened that window in your apartments. We know Hasufin used Aséyneddin on the battlefield, but that was the right hand of his effort, and it fell too quickly, far too quickly. I suspect this babe for the left, his second and surer gateway, one he already knew he had, and which he didn’t risk at Lewenbrook. That babe is half-Aswydd and half-Marhanen… wizard-gift matched with all the Marhanen faults—and strengths.”

“I hear the child in the gray space. Surely you do.”

“I hear him. A son, I do agree with all you said, below in the hall, though I’m a little less reckless in inquiring.”

“There seems no harm in him.”

“Oh, indeed there isn’t. Right now he’s Tarien’s child… an innocent. What better way to breach our defenses? What better way to gain entry to this warded fortress? What better way to defend himself, than by our virtue, and our scruples, and our reluctance to do harm to innocence? If we harm him… we damn the virtue that’s in us, and we turn ourselves down a bloody dark path. If we kill this child.—Hush, boy!” It was Paisi he meant, for a startled shiver had leapt into the gray space, and Ernuin whirled about and seized Paisi by the shoulder.

“We ain’t to kill it!” Paisi cried, wincing from Emuin’s grip, and the danger of flying into the gray space with Orien and Tarien only a few stone barriers away from them brought Tristen’s sharp no! and with it he imposed a hush so deep Paisi struggled for his next breath, mouth open, eyes wide.

“Be calm,” Tristen said, and made his wish gentler, so the boy could get his wind. “Be calm. You mustn’t go there with what we say here. Be very quiet. Listen to what Emuin’s saying to us. Listen. Understand him.”

“I brung Gran Sedlyn up th’ hill, an’ she had a look at the lady, an’ she says it’s an Aswydd babby an’ a wizard. But she ain’t sayin’ it’s evil!”

‘Gran Sedlyn is the midwife,” Emuin reminded him. “And canny as they come. No, boy—” This, to Paisi, whose eyes were round as moons. “—we haven’t any ill intent: that’s the point. Wizardry. Wizardry, lad, is a matter of seasons and timing, and this… this one event is set. That child will be born in his time, and as much as Gran Sedlyn can assure it, it will be the child’s time, not Tarien Aswydd’s wishing. It won’t please her, but it pleases me, and it gives the child his best chance.”

Tristen had misgivings of his own, but none that he chose to discuss in Paisi’s hearing. He laid his hand on Paisi’s other shoulder, wishing him calm and steady and confident. “Trust Emuin,” he said to Paisi. “And don’t talk about this. Don’t think it in the gray space where the Aswydds might hear you.”

“Oh, gods,” Paisi said, and his eyes rolled toward the west wing, where the women were.

“Do you understand your lord?” Emuin said sternly, drawing his attention back. “Look at me, boy! Think of filching apples.”

“Apples, sir?”

“I’m sure you’ve stolen apples in the market. In fact I know you have.”

“Aye, master.”

“And didn’t get caught.”

“No, master.”

“Why weren’t you caught?”

“I was careful.”

“And slipped in very quietly and didn’t disturb anyone. Is that it?”

“Wi’ my hands,” Paisi said, making a flourish of his fingers, and a twist of the wrist that tucked an imaginary apple up his sleeve.

“Clever lad. Well, now you’re the merchant, and you don’t want some clever lad making off with any apples. So what do you do?”

“I watch wi’out seemin’ to watch. Old Esen down in market, ‘e’s a canny ‘un. He always looks as if ‘e’s watchin’ somethin’ else, an’ ‘e’ll nab ye quick as ye can say—”

“So can Orien Aswydd. Do you understand me?”

Paisi’s head bobbed slowly. “Aye, master, that I do.”

“Think as if you were going to steal something from her apartment.”

“Oh, no, sir, I ain’t.”

“As if you were, wretched boy. As if! Pretend that’s what you’re about, and go very, very quietly, because she’s the merchant and you’re the thief, and she’s very, very dangerous.”

“Aye, sir. Aye master. Yes, m’lor’.” This, with a bob of his head first to Emuin, then to Tristen. “M’lord.”

“He’s learning,” Emuin said. “The fair mother tongue suffers less every day, and he’s learned to wash his hands and the vessels, and not in the same water.” Emuin reached out a hand and tousled Paisi’s unruly hair. “I kept you here to hear this, boy, because I’ll not have you overhearing half we say and then wondering about it or peeking and prying about the gray space, which, gods know, is the worst thing you could do. Salubrious fear. Do you know the word salubrious?”

“No, master Emuin.”

“It means healthful. Good for you. Trust that now you know everything there is to know, or at least as much as your lord and your master together know, and don’t try to find out anything except from me: it wouldn’t at all be helpful or salubrious for you to pry into Lady Orien’s affairs. So don’t!”

“Not salubrious, sir. I understand.”

“Good!” Emuin said, and to Tristen: “I’ll write to Cefwyn, and you write whatever you find to write. The sooner Cefwyn knows, the safer for us all.”

The Aswydd ladies walked to Henas’amef for safety, Tristen wrote, with the brazen dragons looming over his desk and Aswydd green draperies open on a blood red sky. Men attacked the convent at Anwyfar. Lady Tarien is with child, a boy, and yours, which I do not know otherwise how to inform you, except that Emuin and I are taking care here and you should also take care.

With the help of all the southern lords and the earls of Amefel I hope soon to release the Dragon Guard from their watch at the river. I hope also to be sending the Guelens as soon as the weather permits. I know I have many of your best men. You can trust the officers Uwen put over the Guelens, but not the ones I sent away. I hope you will not restore them to their office. Orien says it was Essan who attacked the nuns at Anwyfar, and I think she is telling the truth in that.

I hope that you are well. All the lords with me wish you well. So does Uwen. Master Emuin is writing his own letter to go with this one. Be careful for your safety. We are doing everything we can “ere to carry out your orders, which I have never forgotten.

He put the pen in its holder, out of words, at least of those he would write. He heated wax and made the seal.

But on an impulse of the heart he took a fresh sheet of paper and wrote: To Her Grace of Elwynor, a wish. And he wrote it only with his finger, with no ink, but in the manner of a ward, and sealed it with his seal and with a ward. He had no idea whether a wizard could receive it, but he thought one could. Most particularly he Bought Ninévrisë might have gift enough, and that no one handling it would understand the message: Cefwyn is in danger. Here is refuge if you need it.

CHAPTER 5

Snow, and snow: that was the view from the windows of Tristen’s apartment, as persistently depressing a sight every morning as the Aswydds’ brazen dragons and green; draperies within… not that he failed to see the beauty in it, piled high and white across the land; yet with all the monotony of it, the beauty of the ice had never palled. He wondered at the new traceries of frost on the windows every morning, meticulous and fine as the. work of some fine expert craftsman. The sun in the afternoon melted it, and a miracle renewed it in the morning: he was sorry when he fed his pigeons that their flapping and fluttering at the window, spoiled the patterns on the little side pane, where he put out the bread.

Yet every morning it was new, and every morning there was a little more snow sifting down from the heavens, after a fall at night. The sight of it all still seemed marvelous to him, this changing of the seasons and the confidence of ordinary Men that they would see the land change back to what it had been before. This was the last of seasons that he had not seen in his life and between concerns, he enjoyed it absolutely for what it was, wondering what every day would show him, expecting new patterns in the frost.

But nothing about the weather had changed in a number of days now, and the skies that had once appeared to obey his lightest wish now seemed obstinate and ominous in their resistence. The storms that came at night grew worse with every effort he made to change the weather.

And it was now three days since Crissand, among other lords, had left him—certain lords to their holdings, all without a by your leave, m’lord—but Crissand not to his own land and with no more request than the others.

Crissand’s absence, which had been a niggling concern the first day, had become a worry in the two days since, and last night the silence from that quarter had urged him to venture the gray space in earnest—to no avail.

Now, with the weather resisting him, with the sky dawned gray again, the doubts that had begun to assail him niggled away at his confidence in all else that he knew as certainties.

He regretted his folly in seeking after Crissand, telling himself that when Crissand would, Crissand would hear him—and this morning, in this pearl-colored morning like the last three, he could only remind himself how much harm he could do if he reached out recklessly and drew sorcerous attention to Crissand when he was near the enemy’s territory.

In his venture last night he had learned only that Crissand was asleep somewhere… and what else did he hope for, at night, and in a snowstorm that sent down thick, fat lumps of snow, that obliterated tracks and buried fences?.

He had slept very little after that. Sleep had eluded him—so, too, had the dreams that sometimes sent him winging over the land on Owl’s wings, dreams that might have found Crissand, dreams that might have discovered whether Crissand was snugged down warm and well fed at Modeyneth or fallen in some ditch along the way— whether the lack of urgent danger he had felt in that sleep was the safety of a friendly roof and hearth, or the peace of a mind too frozen and faded to worry.

Too, the gray space was not the place of light and cloud it had been, but a place as leaden and violent as the heavens. It was as if he rought the weather in that realm, too, and could make no headway in it with Orien and her sister close at hand.

Whether Orien knew he tried to find someone close to him, she never confronted him there. Whether Crissand might be attempting reach him through it—he never heard. And now, as of yesterday, so Uwen said, Crissand’s men had set out down the north road Booking for him, to ride as far as Modeyneth or the river if they must. And he took that for his comfort this morning: if Crissand were in danger, injured on the road, they would find him.

And if it was otherwise… he could only think that it was no accident that Crissand had gone into the land of Bryn, and down the track that Cuthan Lord of Bryn had taken in his exile.

But toward the holding of the new lord of Bryn, too—equally troublesome. Crissand was a young man of high passions and sudden impulse—agreeable to young Drusenan’s appointment to the honor, but the feuds and contentions of the lords in this ancient province had cropped up in unexpected ways before now. Tristen thought there was no resentment there and no possibility of a feud, but he was not utterly certain.

And the snow sifted down and the worry of it gnawed at his peace. He wished better weather to speed Crissand home, and wished it to ease the suffering of townsfolk and shepherds, those whom Crissand had not ridden out to visit, in the village of Levey, among others; and farmers across the land, and craftsmen and householders and the humblest ragpicker in the town, for they all were his responsibility, hapless folk who had done nothing to involve themselves in the quarrels of wizards and kings.

Last night Lusin had reported a roof in the town market had given way, and a man’s goods were all damaged: today the man had sent begging intercession with his creditors, for nothing had gone well for him, even before his roof came crashing down. Tristen wished it might go better for him, but he feared even to wish for that, his wishes for weather having gone so far opposite to his intention. He stood at his window looking out over the snowy, weightladen roofs, the ledges, sparsely tracked by wandering pigeons near at hand, and asked himself had he harmed all those he wished to benefit.

He knew that down in the stable yard Master Haman’s boys clambered up to the shed roofs twice a day to shovel them clear for fear of their collapsing. He knew that Haman himself must go our to the meadows where the horses of the assembled army were sheltered, to be sure of the older boys and men who cared for those more remote sites—stablehands whose plight was perhaps worst of all the hardships the army suffered in its winter camp at Henas’amef. Out there it was a lonely and cold duty of breaking ice for the horses to drink, hauling hay from the stacks, and generally keeping their charges from suffering in the cold, while at night their small hearths and their small shelters were beacons to vermin and true shadows that prowled the night.

The soldiers had the cold to fight—beyond the walls, and under canvas, the muster of Amefel, of Ivanor, Imor, and a handful of rangers from Lanfarnesse had all come here in better weather, which his wishes had maintained. But now they suffered from the cold, and endured misery of frozen ground.

He could at least relieve the soldiers of some of their hardship: at his own charge, the taverns near the gates had set up kettles in their kitchens, for hot suppers. It incidentally used less wood, which cost heavy, snowy labor to get more of. But prodigious quantities of wood fed the camps’ other needs: warmth, and the laundry kettles. Reasonable cleanliness for so many men required another small camp of attendants, where kettles sent up steam that froze on any nearby surface—a man needed not bathe all winter, one of the Lanfarnesse-men was heard to remark, only stand downwind of the washing kettles, and be drenched to the skin. And in that vicinity the laundrymen battled ice: clothes and blankets froze rather than dried, and had to be hung in the smoke downwind to dry at all—so that anyone with a nose could tell which men had come from the camps: the men, the tents, and their blankets smelled of woodsmoke: so did the lords who lived with their men.

Yet—one of the day’s good reports—the men were in good spirits, by reason of the abundance of food and the moderate but cheerful quantity of ale: the men needed not stay on hard watch, so Uwen said, and they might have the ale to keep them happy. And the ground being frozen so hard at least meant that mud, that bane of soldiers, was all but absent from clothes and tents—except the mud-holes around the laundry, in which pigs might be content.

They managed, with this continued assault of winter on the army he had gathered. But he could not improve it. And this was yet another iron gray day, with snow veiling all but the nearest towers. Neither he nor Emuin nor both of them together with all the grandmothers in the lower town had been able to change it… and, what was far worse for wizardry, he was beginning to doubt he could. He longed to stretch out, search the gray space, meet his enemy if he could find one…

But, oh, there was risk in that, mortal risk to all who depended on him. There were so many things at hazard, so many lives, so many things he did not yet understand. If someone had the better of him in the matter of the weather, it was because that wizard had the better of him in other ways, and knew things he did not, and outmaneuvered him with sheer knowledge and experience—as Emuin had done, while Emuin sufficed.

This… this opposition… was stronger than Emuin.

It was stronger than Mauryl—at least that it had caught Mauryl at his weakest.

But had not Mauryl had to go to the north and bring down the Sihhë-lords to have a chance at subduing it?

And had not the Sihhë-lords failed, ultimately, to contain it?

He hesitated to say that evil was out at the back of this storm. He had read about evil in Efanor’s little book, and how it permeated the doings of Men, but he had never found such doings evil, rather good and bad… but none without self-interest, none he could not understand even in terms of his own will to have his way. Misguided and foolish governed most actions he had met: spiteful and selfish. These were bad traits; but none quite descended to that worst word in Efanor’s book.

Was selfish enough to say for the creature that had stolen one child’s life and that might have caused this one to exist?

Was foolish enough to say for the creature who had overthrown all the good that was Mauryl—all the kindness, all the wit, all the learning, all the skill—was foolish and spiteful and selfish enough to compass Mauryl’s enemy?

And was selfish enough to describe the desire that had wrecked Elwynor and slaughtered the innocent and driven hapless peasants into the snow?

It might be. Wicked might describe his enemy. But had he not killed? Had he not driven Parsynan out onto the road, and Cuthan across the river? And did not the soldiers who fell to him have kindness of their own, and wit, and learning, and skill?

The sword had found its place to stand in this fortress, too. It lurked by hearthsides, the alternative to peace and reason.

Truth it said on one side. Illusion was engraved on the other, and the Edge was the answer to the riddle it posed. It was the answer; to the riddle he posed. It answered all he was, and there was no word for him but the Edge of that riddle.

Perhaps there was such a word for his enemy, neither evil, nor; wicked, nor even selfish, but some edge between absolutes. Perhaps that was why wizards could not compass it.

Not even Hasufin Heltain had compassed it… only listened to its whispers and its unreasoning reason. What would a man need with the whole world? What would a Man need with absolute power?

If he could understand that, he thought he might understand his enemy, and how Hasufin had fallen to him.

“M’lord.” Tassand was brisk and cheerful, arriving in the room, disturbing his thoughts as freely as if something good had happened. “M’lord! Lord Crissand’s back. He’s here.”

“Is he?” Tristen reached on the instant for the gray space and restrained himself from that folly. “Where is he?”

But in that moment Crissand answered his question by appearing behind Tassand in the short foyer. Dark-haired Amefin, and dour as the Amefin could be, Crissand was all fair skies and brave ventures on most days… but now he was muddy, travel-worn, and exhausted.

“My lord,” Crissand said in a thread of a voice.

“Sit down,” Tristen urged him, and scurrying about at the back of his mind was the realization that Crissand was never yet a presence in the gray space: he simply could not find him; and had not found him, even with him here, in the same room. That alarmed him. “Tassand, hot tea and bricks.”

Crissand had surely come straight up from his arrival, coming to him still in mud-flecked boots, lacking a cloak which might have been sorrier than the boots, and all but out of strength.

“Forgive me. Forgive me, my lord. I knew before I was the first night on the road that I was doing something foolish.”

“Where were you?” Crissand was a candleflame of a wizard as yet, and he had known and master Emuin had known where Crissand was… but not precisely where he was.

But still not to know where he was when he was in the same room with him: that was the inconceivable thing.

He searched with great care, investigated more and more of the gray space in concern for Crissand’s welfare, and at last found a very quiet, very small presence, all wrapped in on itself, all knotted up and resisting.

In that condition, Crissand had ridden home again, through this weather.

“I thought it better for Amefel,” Crissand said in the voice he had left, “if I went to Lord Drusenan and spoke to him directly.”

It was a minuscule part of the reason Crissand had gone and a minuscule part of what must have sent him back in such a state, but at least it was a start on the rest of the tale, and now that he was safe and here, Tristen was willing to use infinite patience. He sat down opposite Crissand beside the warm fire, waiting for the part that might explain why Crissand had left on such a journey on the tyght his remote cousins—and Drusenan’s—had suddenly turned up estitute, escaped from Guelen vengeance, one of them with child… and both of them breaking the terms of their exile.

He understood entirely what Crissand had likely wanted to do, which was to set distance between himself and Orien Aswydd. He even understood why Crissand had gone to speak to the new Lord

Bryn, successor to the man who had done so much harm to Cris-

and’s father and his people. But the silence in the gray space even now kept Crissand at distance from him, and he waited to hear those reasons from Crissand’s own lips.

And waited, and waited. The silence went on between them what seemed an eternity; so he ventured his own opening.

“So did you make peace with Drusenan?” Tristen asked.

“With a will.” Crissand seemed relieved to be asked that question and not others: his whole body relaxed toward his habitual easy grace… but that motion ended in a wince, an injury he had not made otherwise evident. “He was as glad as I was, to settle at! grudges. He wasn’t glad to hear the news about Lady Orien and her sister being here. He’s not her man. We agreed together, that our quarrel is all with Cuthan, across the river, and I know now in my own heart and for certain he’s not Cuthan’s man, nor ever was or will be. He received me very graciously, he and his lady.”

Crissand finished. The silence resumed.

Then with a deep breath, Crissand added, “My lord, my patient, good lord, I should have asked leave, considering the state of things. Other men come and go. But you’ve given me duties; I thought I was seeing to those duties—I persuaded myself I was doing that—but before I was halfway to Modeyneth I knew I was a fool.”

“I would have granted leave for you to go anywhere. But you left without your guard, and without my hearing you. You were a night on the road before I knew you were gone,” Tristen said, “and then I dared not call you too loudly, not with the Aswydds so close. If they urged you to do such a thing, they were very quiet about it.”

“I’d do nothing they asked!”

“If you knew they asked it.”

Crissand was silent, and troubled of countenance, thinking on that, and at no time had he unfurled from the tight, small presence he was.

“I searched for you,” Tristen said.

“I didn’t hear you, my lord. Unless you were telling me I was a fool—I knew before the night was half-done that that was the truth. I came the rest of the way to my senses when the sun came up and I was trying to find the road in the snowfall. But by then I realized Modeyneth was hardly over the next hill, and my poor horse couldn’t have carried me back without foundering. So I went ahead, hoping to borrow a horse, and I presented myself to Lord Drusenan. I wanted to bring you some profit for my foolishness.”

“I needed no gifts,” Tristen said. “I need nothing but your loyalty—and your safety.”

It was not his intent to cause pain, only to urge caution, but

Crissand’s color rose and he looked away, surely knowing how he had risked all that they hoped to accomplish.

gut it was not just foolishness, and that he had somehow to make Crissand understand… and that he could not avow a clear reason for his actions made a frighteningly clear sense, for Crissand had ridden out in the very hour the Aswydd sisters had ridden into Henas’amef, and while on the one hand he did not know what exact thought had seized Crissand to send him out, he was as sure now as he was sure of the next sunrise that Crissand’s actions had directly to do with the sisters’ arrival, and all of it directly to do with the currents in the magical wind—for Crissand was Aswydd.

And Crissand being Aswydd, head of that lineage in Henas’amef until Orien set foot in the town, he had a strong sense for those currents in the wind. He might have left under direct urging of his own wizard-gift, protecting him or leading him astray… completely without understanding it, completely without directing it.

It was no straight course—the last lord of Bryn, Earl Cuthan, who had betrayed Crissand’s father, was Orien Aswydd’s man, exiled now and the lands gone to Lord Drusenan, but Cuthan was in Elwynor—in Elwynor, where their enemy sat.

And with Orien back under the roof where she had been duchess of Amefel, small wonder if that presence stirred the winds of the gray space, and small wonder a man with the gift had done reckless acts, not knowing why they did them. That Crissand had rushed in some direction was entirely understandable.

But that it was toward Bryn, and toward Elwynor, and that, in the gray space, Crissand remained that tight, unassailable ball… that alarmed him.

To their mutual relief, Tassand brought the tea, and made some little ado over it. One of the servants pulled a heated brick from the hearth, and Crissand set one booted, sodden foot on it and tucked the other against it for the warmth.

“You might do with dry boots,” Tristen said. “You’ve not yet been home?”

“I met with my guard on the road. They know; they’ve passed the word to my household. But no, I came straight here.”

Tassand, send a page for another pair of His Grace’s boots. And tell his servants make his bed ready.”

‘Yes, m’lord.” Tassand was off, at a good clip.

‘So tell me what you did,” Tristen said then, and bent another small thought into the gray space. Still it told him nothing. But his eyes had seen. “You’re hurt.”

“Nothing mortal.”

“A fall?”

“Elwynim. I—” Crissand took a sip of the tea and his hands shook. “I should set it out in order.”

“Do,” Tristen urged him..

“I left without a word to my guard—just rode away from the camp in the night. And I rode, as I’ve told you—I reached Modeyneth… I think sometime after midday, by the time I dealt with the drifts. I took a light meal. I met with Lord Drusenan—that was a long matter; but he was gracious—more than gracious. I slept only a few hours, then left my horse there and took another, by his good will, his best and favorite… I owe him the worth of that beast. And I was coming home, as soon as I could, my lord. I took your warning about venturing into the wizard-place, and I feared to try to reach you there, but I knew I’d been a fool, and I feared that concern for a fool might divert you from far more important matters. I’m sorry, my lord. I can’t express how I regret it.”

Tristen reached again for that knotted presence, touched it briefly, felt it contract, flinching from that contact. “But the wound,” he said. “The Elwynim.”

“The roads are drifted worse to the north than here. And in the blowing snow and the evening light, I saw riders. I thought at first they were yours, or maybe my own, as did happen, but later than this. When I saw these men… they weren’t coming on the road at all, and I knew all the border was at risk, so I held back, and saw them go toward the open land and toward Althalen, where Lord Drusenan told me Aeself has his men under arms day and night— Drusenan says—says the same way Aeself and his men crossed without the garrison seeing, over to the rough hills to the north and east, other men come that way, intent on spying out whatever they can see, just looking about and hoping to find a weakness. So I knew this. I hid. I could see them very clearly, just at the edge of night as it was…”

“And they were Elwynim?”

“No doubt,” Crissand said. “They came across my tracks in the snow. I saw them look around. I had to judge whether to run back for Drusenan’s holding or ahead to home, and I ran for home, because I didn’t know but that more had come in behind me. I took one arrow, shallow, no great injury; Drusenan’s horse will carry a scar worse than that, and still carried me, brave fellow that he is. The snow was coming down again, and with the dark and the trees, they seemed to lose me, by then, I had to wait a time, for the horse’s sake, and then I waited a little longer to be sure I didn’t run back into them by mistake, because by then I wasn’t completely sure where I was. I moved a very little, until dawn, in what I thought was the right direction, but without the stars and with the snow coming down I couldn’t tell what was the right way even after I came on the road again. But when the sun came up I had my bearings again and I’d chosen right. Then I met up with my guard, who was out searching for me. And we talked about going back to catch the band that shot at me. But my captain persuaded me we might risk telling them more than we might learn if we lost a man.”

“You were right to retreat.”

Crissand ducked his head and sipped his tea, two-handed, exhausted, and still withdrawn from him.

“So I came home. My guard at least had the foresight to bring provisions, and I think the horse will be as good as he was; but I never thought to use him so, or to stir up so much trouble. Now the Elwynim know they’re seen. I might have managed far more cleverly than that…”

“Yet we do know they’re inquiring of the state of affairs here for themselves, which may mean that they’re not hearing all they’d wish from the villagers. That’s good news.”

“Yet I am ashamed of what I did.”

“Why did you do it? Because I took in Lady Orien? Was that it?”

He asked, no longer believing that that was the answer, but it was a place to start. The answer was not immediate, and Crissand did not immediately meet his eyes, but took another sip, and gazed across the ornate chamber, with its green velvet draperies and brazen dragons.

“My father died in this room, my lord, of Orien Aswydd’s poison. It appears I have the wizard-gift, and if that’s what sends me dreams, my lord, I could wish it gone, but while I have it—while I have it, I beg my lord not to trust that woman.”

“It takes no wizard-gift to see harm in Orien Aswydd. I assure you I do.”

“I was halfway to Modeyneth before I knew the thing I feared most was not her under this roof, but my lord in these rooms within her reach. And then I wished twice over that I were back here.”

Never had he doubted Crissand’s heart in his disappearance— but in his silence he found very much to concern him. In very truth, as he had told Crissand himself when he had been the one riding off northward and Crissand had protested it, wizard-gift never left them out of reach of one another… or it should not have.

Yet Crissand had crept up on him, even in the hall a few moments ago, following Tassand in. He had grown accustomed to knowing just who moved where in the Zeide, and few could surprise him… except Emuin.

Except, just now, Crissand, who huddled in the corners of the gray space, seeking utter anonymity, even from him: Crissand, who had found in the gray space that which he could not face.

But he hushed all use of the gift, himself, for he began to suspect what was at least the source of Crissand’s fear—for as Crissand had been deaf to his gift before he came, now he increasingly did hear; and now came two women, his enemies, with wizard-gift and hostility toward him. Nothing was coincidence in wizardry. Wizardry thrived on accidents and moments of panic fear or happy recklessness.

And something had found a gap in their defenses, and in his, and in Crissand’s.

“When the gift begins to Unfold,” he said gently to Crissand, “it’s hard to find one’s balance. It was dangerous for you to ride out. But it was dangerous for you to stay here with the gift Unfolding and Unfolding with no end to it. There was a time I took Petelly and did something very like.”

Crissand looked at him, questioning that, hoping for respect perhaps.

“Too,” Tristen said, “you were amazingly quiet. Master Emuin is no quieter. I never heard you, and I hear most things.”

“I don’t know about that,” Crissand said. “But I took care you didn’t hear, my lord. I stole away like a thief in the night and without a word, and I take no honor from that.”

“Yet it’s a skill.”

“None I can claim for an honor, my lord. And if things were going wrong, I failed to ask those who might know.” Crissand held the teacup still in both hands, his fingers white on its curve. “I feared being here, I feared going, and I was on the road before I though my way through it. Then I could have come back, but I hadn’t a thought in my head until morning. I don’t to this hour know why I went in the first place.”

“I do,” Tristen said quietly. “That’s the simplest thing of all to answer.”

“My lord?”

“Danger entered the house—and having the gift, you moved. The gift moves you. It’s wizardry. That’s what it is.”

“To be on the road to Bryn before I had my wits clear? To be such a fool? Is that wizardry?”

“Yes.”

“Master Emuin didn’t take horse in the middle of the night.”

“He might have, once, when he was new to it. I’ve been such a fool,” Tristen said, “very often, in the beginning. At times I found myself in very unlikely places… the guardhouse at the stable-court gate, for one: Her Grace’s camp for another, and in the next moment surrounded by her soldiers, which led me to think I’d been a very great fool. Things Unfold. Wizardry moved you, beyond your thinking about it. My wish brought you back, perhaps, and not against your will, but perhaps faster than you needed come. Perhaps it governed your choice which way to ride and when to leave. I wished you safe at the same time I wished you back, and then I feared— too late—that my very wish might put you in danger. You see? You aren’t the only fool. I regret Lord Drusenan’s horse. I wish the horse well, with all my might.”

“Thank you for that, my lord. I’ll return him with one of my father’s best mares, and my utmost gratitude; but if you have a hand in it, then he’ll mend better than he was foaled.”

“I hope that’s so,” he said. “I hope the arrow troubles you little. I wish you might let Emuin see it.”

“It’s nothing,” Crissand said, and flushed, even while he put a hand to the wound. “It’s nothing at all.”

Yet the fear persisted, the retreat within the gray space. Nothing they had said had drawn Crissand out of it.

“Yet it is something,” Tristen said. “It’s a warning. But don’t think it was all Orien’s doing. Wizardry isn’t anyone’s. It’s patterns. There and here are the same thing. Now and then are the same thing—left and right to the same design.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Why did you go to Drusenan?”

Crissand blinked.

“Why to Drusenan,” Tristen asked, “and not to, say, Levey, or somewhere within your own lands?”

Crissand shook his head slowly. “It seemed that was where I had to go.”

‘So we look instead for those who might have sent you there.” listen said. “Emuin might have had something to do with your going there. I might. For that matter, Paisi has the gift, and Cevulirn.

Even Drusenan himself does, though very little; and certainly Lady

Orien and Lady Tarien have gift enough, but I doubt Drusenan was in their thoughts at all. You didn’t fall in a ditch in the drifts and you escaped alive, and you come back with news about Tasmôrden’s movements, which is something we all desire. So however it was— it wasn’t that bad a venture.”

A wry smile touched Crissand’s mouth, and that knot in the gray eased the slightest hint. “As always, my lord sees the pure snow, not the mire.”

“I see the mud, too. But it’s the snow that’s marvelous. Isn’t it? I see the mud, and the ill my wishes can cause; but I wish better than that.—Yet leave wishing to me. I ask you believe me in this, and think about it at your leisure: what brought me to Henas’amef isn’t a little pattern, and that means a great many men move to it. All the lords camped outside the walls, and Lady Orien in her nunnery before it burned, and Cuthan and all the rest… Everything. Everything is in the pattern around me, for good for ill, help or harm. My coming here—harmed your household. It was nothing I wished. But it happened.”

“Even my father dying?”

It was a thought on which he had spent no little pain, and no little doubt.

“It might have been… because you have to be where you are. It’s nothing I willed or intended. It’s nothing you willed. That’s the point. Orien wanted to be here, I very much believe it. Cuthan wished harm; both of them have the gift. Most of all Mauryl Gestaurien did, and he set me on the Road I followed. The pattern sent me here. Do you see? I wished nothing but my safety and Cefwyn’s friendship. Nothing was intended. But your father was in the pattern, and when it moved… he drank from Lady Orien’s cup. There’s danger in my company. There’s danger in my wishes. And because you stand near me—with the gift—there’s danger in what you do, and danger in what you wish.”

Crissand left his seat as if the vicinity had grown too close, action preferable to the pain his wound cost him. Or perhaps it was the distraction of the pain he sought.

“Parsynan killing my men and my cousins, and Orien’s cup poisoning my father… and Cuthan betraying him… these were all foredoomed?”

“No. Nothing was foredoomed. But we two have to be here, as we are right now, in this room.” It was a terrible truth that he had to tell, but he trusted Crissand to withstand it, as he trusted only his closest and dearest friends. “Emuin says that what I will and will not is dangerous. It took me a long while to understand that, but I do. He’s very much afraid of me, and he ought to be. He tells me very little, I suspect so I won’t make up my mind too early. He says I don’t have wizard-gift, but magic. And that means I don’t depend on times and seasons: I can wish at any time, for anything. And that’s terrible. That is terrible, do you see? No seasons govern me. No times limit me. I learn wizardry not because I have those limits, but because I want to learn what those limits are—of my friends, and of my enemies. You are the Aswydd, and you will be the Aswydd, no matter Lady Orien’s demands. Auld Syes said it; and you are my ally.”

“Beyond a doubt in that, my lord.”

“Yet everyone I love, everyone who loves me, is in danger… from my wishes, my mistakes, my idlest thoughts… and most of all, in danger from my enemies, especially when they venture outside the bounds. Tasmôrden has the gift. If he can’t strike me, the wizard-gift that helps him will try to harm something dear to me. I can protect only what’s close to me. Like warding a window. Like making the Lines on the earth. Inside is safe. Outside is dangerous.— Don’t leave me again.”

In the world of Men the things he tried to explain were all but inexplicable, difficult even for a man with his wits about him. Cris-sand trembled with exhaustion, and his fear of the gray space and what was Unfolding within him even now kept him balled and silent there… small wonder he had a distracted look, and seemed lost.

Tristen reached to the tea tray and moved one cup, which nudged the pot, the other cups, and the spirit bottle.

“Move this, it moves that. That’s wizardry. It’s that simple.”

“It’s mad!” Crissand protested. “How do you know what moves the right thing? How does anyone deal with it?”

“I left on such a ride as yours,” Tristen said, “and came back with Ninévrisë. I didn’t know she was there. But someone had to bring her to Cefwyn. I was able to, and I was there. But she would have come, by one way or another. When things need to happen, they happen.”

“Yet you say it’s not foredoomed.”

It’s not. She would have come not because it was foredoomed, but because wizards wished her to be with Cefwyn. Even I, perhaps, since I wished Cefwyn well, and certainly he’s happiest with Niné-vrisë. The wishes of all those with the gift wishing at once shape Patterns, and within those patterns we can move. Within the design, we can choose what we do, and by our choices, shift the pattern that is and change the choices of what can be.” So he hoped, who had met himself in Marna Wood, and again at Ynefel, or at least had come fearfully close to it: how mutable time-to-come might be was of vital interest to him. “Only, being Sihhë, as Emuin supposes, it seems I can go counter to that pattern and throw it all into confusion again. I can change what wizards have set and I can do it even contrary to the pattern of the world itself. That’s magic, as best I understand it. Magic, as opposed to wizardry. And I think that frightens wizards most of all. Ask Emuin. He explained these things to me. I learn wizardry, because it shows me how to work within the patterns Emuin sees, and not overthrow things. It’s hard to be patient. But it’s safest for everyone.”

“I don’t understand,” Crissand said earnestly. “But I do hear, my lord, with all my heart, and I do know I do my lord no service by acting the fool—least of all by flinging myself into Tasmôrden’s hands. But—”

“But?”

“I thought I was right!”

“Within the pattern, you were.”

“But how—if these fits come on blindly… how can I know what’s truly right? How can I say no to them?”

It was a question, one he had had to answer for himself, by having Emuin in his tower, and always within reach.

“Come to me. Not to Uwen, not to Tassand, no messages by way of Lusin. Come to me and tell me what you feel in the least moved to do, at whatever hour. That’s the only way.”

He had flaws of his own, he knew: latest of them, he had brought the Aswyddim into Henas’amef, endangering people who loved and trusted him, and never consulted Emuin. It was much the same as Crissand’s riding off to the river. He found no difference, at least.

But Crissand was too weary to reason further. The ball that he had made of himself stayed tightly furled. There was only hope he would remember it.

“Go home,” Tristen said, “sleep. Come back. I need you.”

It echoed through the gray space, that truth that overrode all others. In the Pattern magic made, Crissand’s presence was no matter of chance: it was a necessity to him, and Crissand did not remotely comprehend his danger.

—Crissand! be said, and startled that knot into unfurling, at least a little. Crissand! he said again, and this time the knot came undone.

—My lord! Crissand said, and faced him uncertainly. But the gray winds blew and blew, and that grayness about him whitened to pearl, if not to the sun of his presence before.

—Wake! Tristen said, and the light shone through, and Crissand shone in the gray space, clear and pale as the morning sun. There you are, Tristen said then. There you are. Look at me. Keep looking at me, he said as Crissand began to cast a look over his shoulder. Here is where you need to be.

The Edge was beyond them, that dangerous slide into dark. He knew, and perhaps Crissand had seen it, but Crissand had his bearings now, and stood beside him and turned a calm face outward, toward the deeper shadows.

—Don’t go there alone, Tristen said to him. Promise me.

—I swear it, Crissand said to him, and drew another, a whole breath. The things he could not learn in the world of Men he seemed to learn by seeing, and feeling the currents of the wind, where it blew, and where it tried to take him.

So Tristen led him out of the gray and into the candlelight of the room in which they sat.

And a small portion of the light Tristen kept with him, and held in his hand, and let it slowly fade.

“Gods,” Crissand said.

“So you know it’s not that far,” Tristen said. “So you know I can always reach that place, wherever I am. And you can. You don’t need to ride to the river to find it, or to inquire what our enemy is doing. Go home. Go to bed.”

“My lord.” Crissand was at the end of his strength, and yet moved to the wish he made: he rose, and took his leave, regretting what he had done… but the need to have done it was stronger than all regret, as if a fire burned, and only going and moving could extinguish it: and it was a true fire. Tristen knew it, as he knew the Aswydd, and only hoped to govern it, for Crissand’s sake.

But as Crissand stumbled home, safe in the hands of his own guard, the gray space was clear at last, the tie that was between them was safe, and the warmth that was Crissand shone again on his right hand.

He had gotten Crissand back—in spite of the weather and in spite of all ill wishes to the contrary, he had recovered Crissand, in all senses, and that was a victory.

As for what Crissand had learned at such risk—he already knew, Tasmôrden feared what was going on at his southern frontier, and hoped to slip his own men in among the Amefin, where they could mingle with like speech and stature and coloring.

And now that Tasmôrden knew about Aeself’s band of expatriates at Althalen, he surely hoped to lodge his own men among them, to betray them at some advantageous moment. That was the risk inherent in mercy: he read it in his books, but had no need to read it: common sense advised him that he had run that risk in allowing the fugitives to cross and to establish a force there.

He felt the currents Crissand had felt without ever going to the river, as he had said. And for Aeself’s sake, for so many other reasons he yearned to draw the main attack south, where he could reach it. But Cefwyn had expressly forbidden him to do that, saying that the northern barons of Ylesuin must have their moment of glory—the very barons that betrayed their king. Yet Cefwyn’s orders stood, and the situation within Ylesuin had reached a complexity which had somehow to reach its own resolution: when the south was part of the action, then the northern barons acted together, jealously, against the south. Whenever they had to act together, they also acted separately, jealously, against one another. It was Cefwyn’s attempt to! make them act together that had done this—and bringing the south; in to steal their war and present them a victory could never do whats Cefwyn dreamed of doing: that was the difficulty in all this, and: considering the attack on his messenger and the attack on the nuns at Anwyfar, he saw the state of affairs in Ylesuin, as clearly as if it, too, were within the gray space.

Tasmôrden’s ventures south, this arrow launched at Crissand, offered him an excuse: he might strike back, within the scope of Cefwyn’s orders. But if he did move, no small strike would serve; any purpose but to draw another small assault, and more harm.; What would deal with Tasmôrden’s incursions was a hammerblow; no mere chase from a border camp and back, but an answering presence at the edge of Elwynor, on Elwynim soil. That he could construe as within his orders… while Cefwyn was in danger from within his own kingdom.

His message regarding Tarien had sped, but other messages might have gone astray.

And what then? What then, when the north divided itself again into quarreling factions?

What when the news broke, that Cefwyn had, not an Elwynim heir, but an Aswydd son—a southern heir, and a wizard to boot?

Tasmôrden likely knew: Cuthan would have told him. And he would hear about the arrival of Orien and Tarien: it was in the gray space, as the child was, once one knew to look; and would the birth of such a child be silent? Tristen thought not.

Captain Anwyll, wintered in at the riverside garrison, would know once the rumor limped its narrow channels to reach him. And then what must Anwyll think, a Guelenman, loyal to his king?

Why should Tasmôrden move east, against the heart of Ylesuin, where scandal might do the work of armies, dividing his enemies?

No. It was Amefel Tasmôrden had to fear, where he knew walls were going up and fortifications were rising despite the bitter weather. Tasmôrden was not blind, Tristen was sure, nor ignorant of both trouble in Guelessar and threat to the south. If anything drove Tasmôrden east—it would not be Tasmôrden’s own interests.

Did Tasmôrden know that?

Or would Tasmôrden go east, like Crissand toward the river, because irresistible currents moved him?

Tristen sat, the cup cooled in his hand.

Outside the windows, for some reason beyond his wishes, the snow continued to fall.

CHAPTER 6

A gentle snow veiled the banners, snow falling on snow, cooling the passions, hiding the blackened beams of the Bryalt shrine across the square from the Quinalt, so that Luriel’s second wedding processional had no such ill-omened sight as it wended its way to the steps of the Quinaltine. Lay brothers swept the steps, which in Cefwyn’s estimation only made them chancier, and he held his consort’s hand with attentive caution on the climb. Trumpets blared about them, all the bright display of the houses of Panys and Murandys, colors of gold and green and blue and white billowing out in streamers from the drafty doorway above.

The choir began, eerie echoing of voices within the stone sanctuary. Cefwyn had always found it unnervingly evocative of funerals, of souls trapped in the shrine that was the holiest of all Quinalt shrines, all the dead buried in the vaults below. He had seen more funerals than festivals when he was a boy: the old guard of the Marhanen court had been dying; then his cousins dying; his mother and then Efanor’s mother dying. He had come to detest the Quinalt liturgy, as he had come to detest the Quinalt’s influence over his father. From boyhood he had far preferred the Teranthines… partly since it was his grandfather’s choice and annoyed his father; but mostly because the Teranthines had more cheerful music and talked less about sin.

But that alliance had been a boy’s liberty to choose. The man was king of Ylesuin, the Quinalt was the order that dominated the court and held most power in the kingdom, and to that faith the king must show due and solemn observance.

Especially that was so since he had appointed the new Patriarch, and had to uphold the man in his office. But on the brighter side, he had very good cause to expect cooperation: Father Jormys, now

Patriarch of the Holy Quinalt, was a devout religionist, but no fool, and not unaccustomed to politics, having been Efanor’s spiritual advisor since Efanor had left the Teranthines. He had encouraged a little too much devotion on Efanor’s part, perhaps, but that had been the extravagance of green youth—Efanor’s—and the enthusiasm of a young priest with a willing hearer; and that, too, was settling to sober good sense as the boy became a man courted by dangerous men, and as the priest found himself enmeshed in the court.

And if there was a miracle to be had, some divine blessing to mark the accession of Jormys and the confirming vote in the Quinaltine, it was… thank the gods of both faiths… the snow. Riots and murder were far less likely when the weather closed in like this. Snow was more efficient than troops of the Guard in dispersing the crowds and lowering the voices that had lately cried out in anger. Men drunk on wine and the last Patriarch’s murder had burned and looted the Bryaltines just across the square, convinced that the Bryaltines had sheltered assassins and wizards.

But now the populace had seen a body displayed as evidence of the king’s justice on the impious—not that the man was guilty, to be sure. His sole recommendation was that he was already dead, unidentifiable, and a convenient recourse when the mob demanded justice. They had hung the unfortunate posthumously… and in that very hour the snow had started to fall, and fall, and fall with no letup.

Hard to maintain the will to riot when fingers and toes were numb. Hard to gather in great drunken numbers when the streets were slippery with ice.

Today, even for a court wedding, he had provided no unbounded largesse of ale in the square, and consequently the majority of those onlookers who came to watch this processional were sober, intent on the spectacle, not the excess of good cheer flowing in the Quinaltine square, which had been the most grievous mistake of the last attempt at this wedding.

And without the drunken crowd, the troublemakers in the town who had escaped having their crowns cracked by the Guard were lying low and quiet. The ordinary folk of the capital who were not standing to cheer the procession were busy sweeping the snow off their steps or struggling with frozen cisterns and ice dams on their roofs.

So in the safety of the snow Lady Luriel of Murandys could attempt again to be married. It was an indecently short time after the murder of the Patriarch to be holding a state wedding, but the affairs of state rushed on: the last Patriarch was three days in the vaults beneath the Quinaltine following a fortnight of extravagant ritual, the blood was cleared off the stones, the shrine was purified, and Lady Luriel and the second son of Panys were back for another attempt at married bliss.

The banners swept in, the procession followed, and in the pageantry of the banners and the trumpets to either hand, Cefwyn marched down the aisle and took his place in the first row of seats, standing with the Royal Consort to await the rest of the court.

His brother Efanor arrived next, and Lord Murandys and Lord Panys… the Lord Commander should have been there, too, but Idrys, he noted, had disappeared.

“Where is Idrys?” Ninévrisë whispered in some concern. When Idrys was not punctual, there was a reason, and Cefwyn’s confidence in the safety of the place was just a little undermined, the sound of the trumpets gone just a little thin in his hearing.

“Seeing to the Guard,” Cefwyn guessed, whispering, and thought to himself, I hope so.

The recent upheaval left all the land uneasy. Only yesterday came word of a Teranthine shrine attacked, plundered by bandits, rapine and murder on innocent nuns—disturbing enough in itself until he heard the name of the place so afflicted. Anwyfar was also where he had lodged the Aswydd women, and there was no especial word on their fate. He had the least uncomfortable suspicion it might not have been bandits, rather the actions of someone bent on causing trouble. Idrys had sent men to find out. That report might have come in, among other matters Idrys saw to.

The murder of the Patriarch had not settled the struggle inside the Quinalt, between the orthodoxy and the moderate wing. Far from it. The orthodoxy, which was almost certainly to blame for the death of the Patriarch, had tried to set the blame on the hapless Bryaltines, since the murder had left the Patriarch’s murdered body in a room filled with heretic Bryaltine charms and imagery—it was far too obvious a lie, but not for the mob: the mob had set fire to the sole Bryaltine shrine in Guelessar, and hung its priest… bad enough if that were the end of it. But it was Ninévrisë’s priest.

She had attached herself to the Bryaltine sect to please the Quinaltine, who could by straining a little accept that faith, all to allay the popular fear of Elwynim as a people steeped in wizardry and godlessness.

So he did not take it for a coincidence that whoever had murdered the Patriarch, his ally in the skirmishes with the Faith, had blamed the Bryaltines, Ninévrisë’s… no matter that hapless Father Benwyn, a bookish man and nearsighted to the extreme, had been the least likely murderer in all Ylesuin.

Cefwyn did not take any of it for a coincidence, he found it hard to take the business in Anwyfar as a coincidence, and now came the absence of his right-hand man when they were all met again in this place that had been the center of the previous incident in this first trial of the new Patriarchate and the second attempt at this marriage. It was the first major court function since the Holy Father’s funeral and interment, and it was the apt occasion for trouble.

He hoped Idrys was only exercising caution—perhaps personally standing by the new Patriarch even as he robed for the event.

Please the gods they made it through this wedding without incident… and married off his former lover before she was herself the focus of trouble in the court.

He tightened his grip on the rail before him as, to the wailing of the choir, the bride and groom arrived in their places at the altar. Shortly after came the moment of previous disaster, the moment when the last attempt at matrimony had ended in blood-spattered priests running out to announce the Patriarch’s murder. Cefwyn clenched his teeth as the smoke of censers increased, creating smoke through which the Holy Father should make his appearance—and relaxed with a sigh when the shadowy figure of the new Patriarch did appear out of that veil of smoke.

The entire congregation sighed and seemed easier as that fatal moment passed safely. The choir never ceased its haunting, haunted praise, and the new Patriarch lifted his heavily robed arms and pronounced an untrammeled blessing on the congregation and on the couple.

Cefwyn heaved a second and ultimate sigh of relief, feeling as if knotted ropes had loosened about his chest.

Murandys and Panys, two houses of great wealth, one troublesome, one loyal to the Crown, were now joining hands in this marriage. Luriel, who had looked to marry the heir of Ylesuin, and who had found herself instead in virtual exile in Murandys, was redeemed. Panys’ second son, a good young man, had by the nuptial agreement secured himself the right of inheritance in Murandys—when heirless Murandys died, he would pass into the line of Murandys and become lord of the province… since Prichwarrin Lord Murandys had produced no male heir, and the sibling line had produced no male either. Luriel would inherit as far as the custom of her province allowed: that was to say, she had chosen her husband; and if she was canny and bided her time, she would be essential to her spouse in the administration of the province of her birth.

Patience was certainly not Luriel’s best skill, lending some doubt to her help—but after the vows she became her husband’s concern, and her uncle’s… not to cross his path again until Prichwarrin should die (please the gods) a natural death abed, at a goodly and peaceful age.

The new Holy Father reached the final pronouncement of marriage. The trumpet fanfare rang out. The choir soared to hitherto unreached heights, all but painful to the ears, and the high, pure bells began to peal. The whole town seemed joined in relief that the deed was done, the ceremony had come off without an ill omen, and the Patriarchate had survived.

A second fanfare echoed among the shadowy pillars, the signal for the banner-bearers to file toward their departure. The king and royal family must leave first, with their various banners: then the married couple, in precedence over all other lords and ladies for this one day of their lives… though Murandys ranked high in the order of things under any circumstances.

The red Marhanen banner with its golden Dragon swept across the light from the doors, then the red banner of the Guelens, translucent against the sun, bearers fanning out to the side against the snow-laden light. The prince’s standard followed.

Cefwyn and Ninévrisë swept to one side, with Efanor close beside them: Luriel and Rusyn of Panys swept to the other side in a flow of blue and white and gold and green banners astream in the ice-edged wind and the pure, clear daylight. The bells rang, the trumpets blew, and such of the town as had braved the cold to stand before the steps, respectable folk all, waved kerchiefs and cheered an event of hope in the affairs of their land.

It was a moment for smiles, and for an unrestrained breath and a sigh. Cefwyn lifted a hand and waved, and Ninévrisë waved. The populace waved handkerchiefs and scarves.

And in that moment a shadow slipped close to Cefwyn’s side, as only the Lord Commander could without the quick reaction of the king’s bodyguard.

“Ryssand’s come to the wedding,” Idrys said in half a whisper, and Cefwyn swung his head half-about, appalled.

“Here?”

“He’s passed midtown… ridden Ivanim fashion to get here— doubtless for the wedding.”

“Damn him!” Cefwyn’s voice escaped discipline, but he lowered it quickly. “At risk of his bead he comes here! And nothing from the gate-guards?”

“They reached me, my lord king. You were already in the processional. Hence my absence. I’ve alerted the Guard.”

“Damn and damn!” Cefwyn said, and unwillingly caught Ninévrisë’s attention. “Wave,” he said, and did, smiling.

Ryssand risked everything on this return… of course before the weather worsened, of course at the worst moment, of course while the union of the Marhanen with his own troublesome but essential house was still under discussion. Here was the man likeliest at the root of all the realm’s troubles, strongly urged to absent himself from the court for the season, and he dared come back unbidden?

The timing was no accident. Ryssand was a master of public display for his provocations, and would never arrive to attend the wedding, no, but rather just in time take advantage of the crowd thus gathered to force his king to act or fail to act in public.

And a king who had just arranged this marriage at some personal investment and cost to the Crown had to wonder, did Lord Muran-dys, father of the bride, who had agreed to the wedding to secure his own unstable political ground, know of the return of his erstwhile partner in dissent? Had they possibly conspired to do this?

“Cuthan and Parsynan are with him, my lord king,” was Idrys’ final caution, as horsemen broke forth into the snowy square, the banner of Ryssand brazenly displayed. A clot of townsfolk accompanied the column, the curious of the lower town swept up in Ryssand’s course through the streets. The celebrants who had been cheering Luriel and her groom saw it and deserted the space below the steps to gawk as the unannounced arrival made his procession toward the Quinaltine.

Corswyndam Lord Ryssand reined his fine chestnut in at the steps and made his bow. And with the banner of Ryssand was another, smaller banner, one which most of Ylesuin would not recognize: the banner of the earl of Bryn, out of Amefel.

Never mind the man, still in the saddle as if he headed some invading army—or trusted Ryssand gave him the ducal privilege of staying ahorse in his king’s presence—had no longer any right to the display of those colors.

‘My lord king,” Corswyndam said loudly enough for half the square to hear. “My lady. My lord prince.”

Oh, that was calculated, a salute to Ninévrisë, the Royal Consort. Corswyndam had moved heaven and earth to see Ninévrisë treated ^as an enemy instead of an honored and queenly bride. By the protocols, she being merely the Royal Consort, he might have omitted her from the reckoning entirely, and yet he did not. He saluted her, he saluted Prince Efanor, whom he courted for a son-in-law. There was no piece of mischief in Ylesuin that did not have Lord Ryssand somewhere involved, and all this public courtesy, all this show was a challenge to his king to accuse him of any of it—an attempt to interject the very scandal Cefwyn had avoided into this most happy of moments.

Cefwyn strode to the edge of the Quinaltine steps and set fists on hips. “You left our lands and our court at our express invitation,” Cefwyn shouted down at him. “Now you presume to return without so much as asking our leave. Do you come to honor the new bride? If so, I find your timing damned ill considered, to her, to the noble houses here displayed, and to the Crown, sir!”

“Concern for the realm brought me, Your Majesty.” Corswyndam swept a second bow. “And the honoring of my oath to Your Majesty, to uphold the king, the realm, and the Holy Quinalt! Things I’ve learned dictated I ride with scarcely a guard, in all haste, before intemperate influences might bring worse weather on the roads! And forgive my intrusion into this festive occasion, but I ask a hearing, Your Majesty, of utmost urgency. Your Majesty has been misled—”

“We have been misled?” It was clear, now, by the colors of Bryn, what Ryssand dared with this public show, and letting the famed Marhanen temper out, Cefwyn strode a step lower and pointed at Earl Cuthan of Bryn and at Lord Parsynan, faces he knew, one from his stay in Amefel and the other because he himself had appointed the scoundrel viceroy of Amefel on Ryssand’s recommendation. “There’s a pairing straight from hell! The man who would not be duke of Amefel, who betrayed his own people and contrived with traitors, and the scoundrel who slaughtered a nobleman’s guard for his own damned petty spite! Are these blackguards under arrest? Is that the gift you bring me, two wretches fit for hanging? For that, I may be appeased!”

The two in question held back, and Parsynan retreated a step, looking starkly afraid. But no accusation scathed Corswyndam or brought a decent blush or a pallor to his face.

“The gift I bring Your Majesty is the truth, the much-abused truth, that—”

“Oh, come now, come, sir! Ryssand defends the truth? If you think it resides in these two miscreants, you need to have a lad to guide your steps!”

“Your Majesty, I bring you peace! Peace with Elwynor!”

“Damn you, I say! And damn these two traitors!”

But Ryssand had gotten his blade past Cefwyn’s guard, and the poison had reached ready ears. Prichwarrin Lord Murandys, at Cefwyn’s elbow, rushed to plead, loudly, before all witnesses, noble and common: “I beg Your Majesty hear him.”

“Indeed,” said Lord Isin, from his other side. “Indeed, peace with Elwynor, Your Majesty. Hear him.”

“I know the source,” Cefwyn began to say, but then Lord Murandys cast himself to his knee on the icy landing and seized Ninévrisë’s hand.

“Intercede, Your Grace, for the saving of your subjects and the king’s mercy.”

Cefwyn was shocked to silence, but Ninévrisë backed a step and tried to rescue her hand, all but slipping on the ice. Isin besought Efanor’s arm in similar plea, but Efanor’s bodyguard interposed an armored side, diverting the old man in alarm. A man slipped, guards reached for weapons, and all manner of mischief might have broken out, except Idrys called out sharply, “Hold! All hold!” and set an armored presence beside the royal family, arraying the Dragon Guard and all their weapons at his command.

And still Prichwarrin Lord Murandys, father of the forgotten bride, remained on his knees, a public scandal, and Ninévrisë, recovered from her near fall, refusing to grant him grace.

“Get up,” Cefwyn said harshly.

Prichwarrin rose stiffly and obediently to his feet, and Cefwyn turned a baleful stare down at the armed company.

Artisane was there, too, that cloaked woman on the piebald mare, riding sidesaddle in her many-petticoated skirts, and she was a presence as unwelcome in Ninévrisë’s women’s court as her father was in his own. Inside the Guelesfort, out of public view, he could order Ryssand’s throat cut, if he wished the breach with the north irrevocable—and Prichwarrin at the head of his enemies.

But such was the tangle of relations between the Marhanen kings and this most powerful of the dukes of Ylesuin that he could not set ducal heads side by side on Guelemara’s gate. He had not formally banished Lord Ryssand: he had sent him forth in private disgrace precisely because he could not afford a public breach; and he had then countenanced Ryssand’s pursuit of an alliance with his house, namely Efanor, trying to patch up the northern region’s relations with the Crown—because without the north there was damned little left of Ylesuin.

“Peace, of course, is what we all desire,” Cefwyn said at last, “and you shall have your hearing—at my convenience! Now clear the streets before these good people demand your arrest! You’ve disrupted the festivities.”

“When shall I see Your Majesty?” Ryssand asked.

“Obey your king!” Idrys said. “Withdraw!”

“At Your Majesty’s command,” Ryssand said, with another deep bow and with a faint smile touching the corners of his mouth. “Shall I camp at the town gate in disgrace? Or shall I have my residence in the Guelesfort at my disposal?”

Camp at the gate, was on Cefwyn’s tongue, and, Sweep the steps of them, close behind. But Ryssand was too canny a campaigner, and the presence of the crowd, the hired tongues that would surely wag the instant this confrontation ended and spread whatever rumors Ryssand ordered, all forced control over the Marhanen temper.

“Sleep in the stables, for all I care, but—” Now, he looked beyond, to his people, acknowledging their witness of this unseemly display. “—take heed of rumor, and mind the source! The words of those who have fallen from grace for murder and treason in their own province are not to be trusted in Guelemara! We will listen and we will hear, but we will not be swayed by the interests of murderers!”

He descended then two steps closer to Ryssand:

“You will have your audience,” Cefwyn said in no good humor, and for immediate ears only. “And if these two you’ve brought affront me as they affronted the duke of Amefel, their heads will sit on spikes on the town gate! Let them look to their lives, I say! And I place their behavior at your account, Ryssand! Look to it, and let them not offend me as they offended Amefel!”

“Your Majesty.” Ryssand bowed in the saddle, and bowed again, and a third time before he turned his horse about and rode at the head of his small column—the banners of Ryssand and Bryn happening in the process to seize the precedence over the Dragon Banner of the Marhanen.

For that reason and in full consciousness of appearances, Cefwyn did not descend the steps to tail onto the lord of Ryssand’s procession to the Guelesfort. He stood fast on the steps, with Idrys beside him, with Ninévrisë, with Efanor, Lord Murandys and Lord Panys and Lord Isin, and the bride and groom.

“Damn him,” Cefwyn said.

“This is my wedding!” Luriel cried, in tears. “This is my wedding, does anyone remember? This is my wedding!”

“Be still!” her uncle said sharply. It was a wedding already marginally scandalous, not alone since the Patriarch’s murder at the last attempt; all the world knew the niece of Lord Murandys had been in the royal bed.

And now at the outburst from Murandys, the young groom, leaving his bride, went several steps aside to confer with his father, Lord Panys, leaving Luriel alone before the scandal-loving crowd at the foot of the steps.

Cefwyn cast a look at Efanor, the while, wondering how Efanor had taken what had just transpired, and whether the marriage proposal between Efanor and Artisane had assumed an extreme advantage at the moment or whether he should take the excuse of his offense against Ryssand to consider the marriage entirely out of the question. It had seemed advantageous from time to time, Efanor being in no wise gullible and having his own notions how to contain Ryssand’s ambition; now, among a dozen times else, he doubted the wisdom of it and asked himself how he could have been so foolish.

Ninévrisë’s hand sought his, and her fingers pressed on his as if she would drive her own good sense into his hot-tempered Marhanen head: nothing precipitate, nothing foolish, she silently counseled him. The baron foolish enough to challenge his grandfather to that degree would have gone to the block, so he said to himself, but those raw, rough times of beginning a kingdom were done: his own reign was a rule of reason—so he hoped. Yet he asked himself now how the populace saw him, whether he had won this encounter or whether Ryssand had.

But on the thought of his grandfather’s methods he left Ninévrisë, took the bride’s hand, and brusquely led her to the groom and seized his hand. He held up their joined hands then to the witness of all the crowd, many of whom had by now forgotten they had come to witness a wedding.

That was what they had come to see. Had they forgotten it?

“A king’s penny apiece!” he shouted. It was the third penny the Wedding had cost the treasury, but it was a grand gesture, it distracted the crowd into wild cheering, and he left it to Idrys and his capable staff to marshal the crowd into order and to the treasury to nnd pennies enough.

It was cheaper than bloodshed and the entanglements of a ducal execution.

Kiss the bride,” he ordered young Rusyn, the groom, and as

Rusyn obliged, there rose cheers and laughter from the crowd. The union of two young nobles was far more understandable to the people, far closer to their hearts than the constant feuds close to the throne. “Give us a diversion,” he added, for the young man’s ears alone, and Rusyn, nothing loath, gave him that and more, leaving his new bride breathless, to the utter and noisy delight of the crowd. The traditional cheers went up, and when Cefwyn left the bride and groom to their moment of public display, and reached his intimates and his wife, he passed only a glance to Idrys, who understood every order implicit in that moment’s stare and went to be sure all the necessary things happened.

The duke of Ryssand’s little entourage had meanwhile had time to clear the square by now, the crowd had been entertained, and now the bridal procession could get under way without looking like the tail of Ryssand’s.

“Ring the bells!” he said, realizing that the bells were the source of the silence, and a lay brother ran to relay that order.

“Trumpeters!” the Guard sergeant shouted. “Way for His Majesty an’ Her Grace!”

They descended the icy steps without mishap, save one of the lay brothers went sliding in unseemly fashion, to the rough laughter of a now good-humored crowd.

For those who gathered omens from ceremonies, however, this one had not had the best beginning. Everything about the marriage of Luriel and Rusyn was second-best, from the choice of mates to the once-worn wedding finery, which had had to be recovered from soot and, one suspected, even traces of blood the common folk now called sacred.

Not the best-omened wedding, but gods, it was a relief all the same to have the matter done with. Panys was assured of a foothold in Murandys, where the Crown needed a loyal man. Ryssand had timed his arrival for after the ceremony, thank the gods, not to have disrupted the wedding altogether, and Lord Murandys was likely of mixed feelings about the choice of Luriel’s wedding for Ryssand’s return—Ryssand correctly predicting there would be no bloody confrontation and no arrest to mar a wedding.

But since Murandys had made the alliance with Panys as the way out of royal displeasure, during Ryssand’s forced retreat from the court… Murandys might be asking himself now whether Ryssand’s choice of moments might be a veiled threat against him. It might have been premature, Murandys might now think, to have made an alliance with a friend of the monarch: Ryssand must have some secret behind this move.

So Cefwyn thought, too; and that was the other reason not to order Ryssand’s arrest. There was more to it than appeared, and its name was very likely Cuthan of Bryn, and Tristen, gods save them all.

And peace with Tasmôrden? He began to guess the sum of matters, and said not a word to Ninévrisë on the matter of this peace Ryssand spoke of. She had heard as well as he, and knew no more than he, but neither of them could like the source of it: there was no agreement possible with Tasmôrden in Elwynor that did not preclude Ninévrisë’s return as lady Regent—and that condition was entirely unacceptable.

Beyond unacceptable—it was foolish even to contemplate it. Tasmôrden was forsworn, a rebel against Ninévrisë’s father. What faith could they put in another oath?

Not mentioning the faith in Ryssand.

So they walked over the now well-trampled snow, with evidence of horses roused out from a well-fed evening before: they walked, a royal procession, a wedding, over snow no longer clean, thanks to Ryssand—but becoming so, in the steady fall of white.

Snow veiled the Guelesfort gates into an illusion of distance and mystery.

Snow lay on the ironwork, a magical outlining of the dragons that were the center of the work, on the gates that lay before the second, oaken set of gates.

“He has something,” Ninévrisë said in a hushed voice, as they passed outside the hearing of the crowd. “And it’s not good.”

“I know damned well he has,” Cefwyn answered her. “And I know it’s not good.”

CHAPTER 7

There was no haste to deal with Ryssand… no chance, however, to exchange the royal finery for plainer garb, or to bathe away the incense that clung to the Quinaltine and everyone that had been within its walls.

Efanor came on the unspoken understanding that they had matters to discuss—urgent matters.

“Had you foreknowledge of this?” Cefwyn asked, drawing him into the privacy of the Blue Hall, where Ninévrisë waited, and added as he shut the door: “Superfluous to ask, but had you the least hint of this move?”

“None,” Efanor said, and Ninévrisë sank down at the small round table where they often sat in their deliberations. “There was in fact every indication he would remain in his province at least until matters were settled between us. And yet he’s brought the lady Artisane, when he certainly knows she’s not welcome with Her Grace.”

“Unwelcome,” Ninévrisë said, “indeed, and so she is. But that’s not saying I hold that sentiment to the last. If needs be, needs must. If Ryssand regrets the offer he made in favor of this peace he talks about—perhaps that alliance with Artisane is that much more important.”

“My very wise lady,” Cefwyn said, touching her fingers. “I’ve no doubt. None of you, either, brother.” He withdrew his hand from Ninévris딑s and found that hand wished very much to become a fist, which movement he resisted, as he resisted the absolute order he could give at any moment, any hour, on any given day, to arrest the man. Second thoughts were always possible. As the people’s blood cooled, they were less and less wise. “Damn him! the effrontery of the man!”

But common sense, which even a monarch possessed, insisted that this man, this extravagantly provocative man, had come with something beyond the ordinary, something so strong Ryssand was willing to cast his life and the survival of his house on its validity… and Cefwyn was relatively sure of the nature of it.

It was no surprise, the news that Lord Cuthan had come to Ryssand’s lands: he had known that already; he had known Parsynan was there, too, both supping at Ryssand’s table, Parsynan nightly regaling the man with Tristen’s affronts to Quinalt decency, Cuthan complaining of high-handed abuse of power.

Conservative, noble-born Quinaltine in Parsynan’s case, and—at most charitable guess in Cuthan’s case—liberal Bryaltine, if Cuthan’s private beliefs were even that close to the Quinalt. They were an unusual pair of advisors for any northern baron, to say the very least. Cefwyn wondered, did those watching that pair on horseback consider that curiosity? Did the commons have any least idea they were in the presence of an Aswydd, however remote in blood—advising orthodox Lord Ryssand?

Tristen had sent Cuthan to exile in Elwynor, in effect, into Tas-morden’s hands. Damn Cuthan for a traitor—and depend on Tristen to grant him that retreat. It had given him a hellish problem.

“So Ryssand says he brings peace, and has a man lately in Ta-môden’s keeping,” he said, out of that thought. “An offer from Tasmôrden, that’s the news, no great wit required for us to guess that much. It wants only the details.”

“An offer from Tasmôrden,” Efanor repeated. “An offer acceptable to the Quinalt zealots. One can only imagine those details.”

“None of them acceptable to Elwynor,” Ninévrisë said.

“Which goes without saying,” Cefwyn replied. “Still, it would help to know the exact nature of the proposal before he brings it within hearing of the court—or has his agents gossip it about. We took damage enough in our encounter on the steps of the Quinaltine this morning—he uttered the word: peace. Peace, in any form that doesn’t involve troops, would come welcome to all the barons. The seed’s there. We can’t unsay it.”

“He was too polite,” Efanor said slowly.

“Polite?” Cefwyn exclaimed, for politeness had been nowhere in his sight.

“To Her Grace,” Efanor said, “he was polite. Everything he’s done, every move his zealot followers have made, has been with the intention of lessening her position, and to chastise you for having the effrontery first to choose a Bryaltine wife instead of Luriel and then to support Her Grace’s claims to lands the barons—particularly those near the river Lenúalim—would have for their own, if you were our grandfather. Now, and for no reason, he acknowledges Her Grace publicly, and Murandys openly courts her favor. I ask why.”

Any question of Ryssand, the Quinalt, and Ninévrisë struck so deeply to the heart of his fears he lost all sense of moderation. Most of the Quinalt zealotry which had caused such trouble in Guelessar had its doctrinal origins in the northlands, in Ryssandish territory, where the Quinaltine faith found its most absolute and rigid interpretation. They had seen that small leaven in the loaf rise up to bloody riot involving half the town of Guelemara not a fortnight ago, at Luriel’s first wedding. Priests liberally supported by Ryssand’s donations preached their conservative doctrine, and disaffected guardsmen Tristen had let go had spun tales of magic and sorcery in Amefel… the part about magic at least was true: sorcery Cefwyn did not believe. They had killed Father Benwyn, clandestinely murdered the Patriarch as too moderate, too accommodating to the Crown—he was sure that the Patriarch’s accommodation of the royal marriage had cost him his life.

And most of all Ryssand’s darts and the zealots’ sermons had flown at Ninévrisë… Artisane’s empty accusations, Ryssand’s attempts to rouse the Holy Father to forbid it, even the appearance of a Sihhë coin in the offering box, sending Tristen into exile. All these schemes had aimed at foreign influences in the land, and he could not forget now that the Aswydds’ place of exile at Anwyfar was burned to the foundations: even the moderate Teranthines come under attack. The Teranthines were no longer safe. The Bryaltines certainly would not be.

And Efanor was right: Ryssand had not taken the chance to slight Ninévrisë, on the very steps of the Quinaltine, when protocols might have covered that small spite, when in fact Ryssand’s zealot priests would have taken amiss his acknowledgment of her—would have disapproved it heartily if they were there to hear, as they might have been.

What manner of game had Ryssand set in motion? And what did he intend?

Order something too extreme, and Ryssand might prove to have another, fatal dart in his quiver… something that might unsettle the populace, snow or no snow, into another convulsion of religious outrage.

But what was this courtesy toward Ninévrisë?

“He has something,” Cefwyn found himself saying, unable to look his brother in the eye. “He has something that makes him confident enough to return in spite of me, something beyond an offer from Tasmôrden, which needs must include peaceful dealings between Quinaltine and Bryaltine.”

“He has some accusations against Tristen almost certainly,” Efanor said, “considering the company he brought with him. And I’m sure Tristen will have done something worth our apprehensions in any given fortnight.”

“Almost certainly he has.” About Tristen he had no illusions, nor fear of him, either. Gods, how he missed him—missed the innocent indirection that could lead a man to question his most dearly held assumptions. Truth went where Tristen went, and his court, it seemed, could not withstand that habit of his. “Amefel can break out in plagues and frogs, and I’ll still trust him. But you have the right of it. I fear he’s not been discreet, not when he banished the earl of Bryn, not when he sent Parsynan out in disgrace.”

“What dared we hope?” Efanor asked. “Discretion hasn’t yet dawned on him.”

“But, damn them, he’s an assurance for our safety, if they understand him well enough, where he is. Mauryl held the old tower with never a bleat from Ryssand. What’s changed?”

“Ryssand’s ambition,” Efanor said.

“Perhaps Tristen is the reason we hear from Tasmôrden now,” Ninévrisë said softly. “Fear of what rises in Amefel. Perhaps Tasmôrden understands the new lord in Amefel very well indeed.”

“So would Ryssand fear the new lord in Amefel, though for different reasons. He urged me appoint Parsynan to the post, and I never asked. I never had the full accounting of the archive in Henas-’amef; I never had the full account of Heryn Aswydd’s dealings, or where the gold flowed, and in Ryssand’s uncommon attachment to Amefel, Ryssand’s uncommon fear for Parsynan’s safety. Gods know whether we’ll ever get it out of the records, not since Ryssand’s man went through them. But Ryssand can’t touch Tristen—even without this army of alliance he’s building—and gods help Ryssand if Ryssand ever struck at me: I don’t know if I could restrain Tristen. Surely Ryssand knows that.”

“But is it to the good of Ylesuin,” Efanor persisted, “if we let the old power wake. Yes, Mauryl was in his tower, but he was quiet in his tower. Is it the gods’ will… or is it some other will that guides this? I confess to you, brother,—I am not wholly at peace with this. I trust the lord of Amefel, I trust him for his honor and for his goodwill—but he is—”

Efanor broke off, and left it unsaid, what Tristen was, or might be.

Sihhë?

The High King of the Elwynim?

“He is,” Cefwyn said with a sigh, “Tristen. That says all. It says all he knows, more to the point.”

“Are we sure?” Efanor asked. “Is it the man we know, who drove Parsynan from the town?”

“Oh, yes,” Cefwyn said on a long breath. “Beyond any doubt. No temporizing, no debate. It was his best decision. Gods give us all the courage.”

“Gods grant us the wisdom,” Efanor said pointedly, “to apply it in due season. And thank the gods there’s only one Tristen. Two would be—excessive.”

“There were five, once,” Ninévrisë said in the ensuing silence, “Five, if he is what most think.”

“Gods save us from such days,” Efanor said. “And I ask, in all, honesty, in all regard for one who’s served you very well… is it; wise to lean for safety on this friend of ours, even willing the best; for us, as perhaps he does? He is Mauryl’s, if he is anyone’s. And’ Mauryl, whatever else, was not necessarily a friend of our house.”

“An ally of necessity,” Cefwyn said. He had not approached Efanor with his own fears in that regard, and perhaps that was a mistake on his part. Efanor was devout; but indeed, Efanor was emerging from a young man’s religious innocence to a sober awareness of the power inside the Quinaltine, and its warfare with the Crown. He had seen firsthand the consequences of Lewenbrook, when an army came back after an encounter with sorcery. Efanor understood that sort of warfare, and when they came to a question of Tristen’s involvement—the question was there, and it hung silent in the air a moment.

“I trust him,” Ninévrisë said. “I believe in him.”

“So do we all. So do we all,” Cefwyn said, and wished to say it, with all his heart. “He won’t betray us. We’ll have our army yet, damn Ryssand’s conniving heart. He’s failed in slandering you. Now he’ll raise complaints about Tristen. That’s exactly where this is; going. I can see it, right under the surface. Tristen’s in the wrong and these saintly men he brings to argue how they were wronged—”

“Don’t set your mind too early,” Ninévrisë cautioned. “This peace—”

“This peace he claims to bring,” Cefwyn began, but a page hovered in the doorway. “Well? Well?”

The boy tried to say a word, but Idrys appeared behind him and simply moved the boy aside. “My lord king,” Idrys said, and drew in a man in the habit of the Quinalt, a lay brother, a fearful and woebegone young man.

“That’s very well, Deisin,” Cefwyn said to the page. It was the presence of the priest that the young man very wisely doubted as legitimate or wanted, but the page drew back and Idrys escorted the priest in.

“It’s good you came,” Cefwyn said peevishly. The lack of warning about Ryssand was not Idrys’ best work, by far, but Cefwyn bit back any harsher word.

“My lord king, this is Brother Meigyn. He asks Your Majesty’s protection and a recommendation to the Quinaltine, for his service to Your Majesty.”

“And that service?”

“Brother Meigyn has been a clerk of the Quinalt in Ryssand. His position there has become difficult, because of the service he’s about to render. If he goes back to Ryssand’s court, he’s a dead man.”

“Give him to Annas. Recommend him to Jormys. What’s the tale?”

“Let me dispose of the good brother,” Idrys said, and escorted the frightened man to the door, where he gave orders to the page waiting outside. “His Majesty’s instruction,” Idrys said. “A hot meal, a warm place to sit. Wait for me. I may have more questions.”

Then Idrys was back, a black, foreboding presence: master crow with news that did not bode well.

“From Lord Ryssand’s court?” Ninévrisë prompted him in a faint voice.

“Just so, my lady. Unhappily, this was my last man in Ryssand’s court. Two others had to flee, not without delivering useful information. Another died a suicide, or so the official explanation ran. Meigyn remained to the last. He’s given to venial sins, a love of ale and women, far better a Teranthine than a Quinalt avocation, but that’s his misfortune. Being my last and best source, he had the good sense to come only when there was something worth his life… and considerable reward.”

“He accompanied Corswyndam here?” Cefwyn asked, wondering how close the clerk might have sat to the duke of Ryssand, and whether there would be a storm over this desertion.

“Fled, rather, on foot, when he knew Corswyndam was coming here and with what news. He’s an unobtrusive man—stole a mule at Evas-on-Reyn, and managed to get here two hours behind. What he does say seems well worth his risk, my lord king. It’s the essence of what Ryssand will say tonight.”

The details. The chance to set their course before the battle. Cef- wyn exchanged a look with his brother and his wife.

“Say on, master crow.” Cefwyn drew a deep breath and leaned an arm across the back of his chair, waiting. “What does Ryssand think to win?”

CHAPTER 8

The evening was for a state celebration: Luriel’s wedding night and all the grand commotion of a noble union, the bride and groom feted in hall, with course after course of food.

It should have been an unbridled festivity, but the undercurrent of matters in the court had Ryssand and Murandys, those traditional allies, doing a dance around each other more delicate than any pa-selle on the floor… the uncle of the bride tending not, as was traditional, to the side of the groom’s family, the lord and lady of Panys, but to his old fellow in misdeed, Lord Ryssand.

Consequently the eyes of every experienced courtier in hall were less for Luriel than for Ryssand’s daughter Artisane, emerging tonight as a whispered candidate to marry into the royal house. Efanor had loosed that rumor deliberately: far better to be the source than the subject of speculation.

And perhaps Artisane had also let word slip out. Certainly Ryssand had done nothing to restrain her. Her gown outshone the bride’s; it all but outglittered the royal regalia, for that matter.

And clearly Luriel did not like the competition on her evening: her stark-set, basilisk stare settled on Artisane at every moment they crossed one another’s line of sight.

A wild bedding tonight, Cefwyn said to himself. Luriel’s temper was oil on tinder, in that realm… he could say so, who had Proposed to marry the lady himself. Now he asked himself how he could ever have fallen into Luriel’s web of angers and passions, piques and rages and most of all how he could ever have thought her continual upheaval the ordinary way of women. That was a basilisk indeed, tonight, stalking the cockatrice.

The lady beside him, in the simple circlet crown of Elwynor, in fine embroidery and a comparative lack of ornament otherwise… this was a woman, and she far outshone the pair of combatants on the floor. So Cefwyn leaned across the difference in their seats— Ryssand’s damned stone—to whisper to his consort.

“You’re the sun and the moon. They’re summer lightning, and a dry night at that.”

“And what will you be?” Ninévrisë asked with that wry response he so loved. “Ah! The stormy north wind.”

“When Ryssand presents us his little play tonight, by the gods, he’ll think so. And they could pile the wealth of the southern kingdoms on that minx and not improve her disposition.”

“Which?” Ninévrisë asked, dagger-sharp.

“What, no love for Luriel either?”

“I welcome Artisane. The two of them will not make common cause, not till pigs make poetry. It should keep the two of them busy and provide entertainment for the rest of us.”

They never had loved one another, Artisane and Luriel, contrary to the politics of their houses. Luriel’s detestations were legion, her uncle among them, and while the ladies warred with glances across the hall, the uncle and father made solemn converse behind a thick column, and tried to pretend no one saw them.

At a reasonable hour in the wedding-night celebration it was the custom for bride and groom to retire with the maids and ladies and young men trooping after them, bearing lit candles and fistfuls of acorns… the latter of which posed great annoyance to the marriage bed, when they cast them in. He and Ninévrisë had found the last wandering nuisance in the small hours of their wedding night, and flung it ceremoniously in the fire.

So on this evening, young Rusyn of Panys finished a solitary paselle with his bride. And on the very last notes, with a flourish and squall of pipes, the traditional chase was on, the young couple, warned by the pipes, dashing for the door, the young men and married women of the court in close pursuit, snatching candles conveniently in the hands of servants and having brought their own supply of missiles. The couple might be spared the gifts in the bed if they were fleet of foot, but few made it.

Scores of nuts in a marriage bed, open wishes for children cast among ribald comments: a perfectly respectable tradition that roused nothing but laughter. But a man presenting a single acorn to the love of his life on the ballroom floor was a matter for scandal.

No, not a man: a king. And not the love of his life: the ruler of a rival court. And the fruit of that union would be no ordinary child, but would arrive into the world shadowed with political debts and promises he and Ninévrisë between them would have set for all his life to deal with. What a man started in his lifetime, his sons—and his daughters—needs must finish, and in finishing, set the incomplete pattern for their sons and daughters.

A sobering thought as the shrieking festivity departed, the province of the matrons and the young—which left the somber elders to enjoy a round of wine and contemplation… or so it should be, in happier times.

As it was, it left all the lords in position for the confrontation Cefwyn expected, Ryssand lurking about, waiting a summons, trying to obtain one by every means short of walking up and asking.

“Master crow,” Cefwyn said.

“My lord king.” The shadowy eminence hovering at his back and Ninévrisë’s came forward on the dais and leaned down near his ear.

“Is there more news, at this last moment for second thoughts?”

“Nothing more than my king already knows. Shall I summon him?”

“Oh, stay, converse about the weather. Let the scoundrel wonder what we say to one another. Frown and laugh. I’ll not help his digestion.”

“He’s talked to Murandys all evening, and Murandys has been passing more than pleasantries to the other lords about the hall tonight, too, which is just as well: otherwise it would have to come from Your Majesty to explain matters.”

“I’d not plead his case.—How is the weather riverside?”

“Much the same as here… cold winds, bitter weather…”

“Bluster of priests.”

“With thunder and lightning. Much of that.”

“Any word on the whereabouts of the Aswydds?”

“Three of their household are dead with the nuns, nurse and two maidservants, that’s certain, but no report of the sisters, dead or alive. My wager is they lived: Orien has sorcery to warm her feet. A further wager: that they went to Amefel. Where else might they go?”

“Tasmôrden. To ask him to set Orien on the throne of Amefel.”

“There is that chance, and a very good chance. But reaching Elwynor requires a walk through Amefel, and by my sense of things, my lord king, wizards do tend toward other wizards. Inconveniently so, at times, but it does keep them collected, and largely concerned with each other.”

He was not certain he liked that thought any better. “One wonders if Cuthan knows her whereabouts.”

Idrys lifted a brow. “Being Aswydd? Might we ask whether Lady Orien herself brought down the disaster on Anwyfar?”

“An alliance with Ryssand, and Cuthan her messenger? Gruesome thought, all our enemies in one camp.”

“Oh, a good thought, my lord king. One strike and we’re rid of them. But I doubt we’re so fortunate.”

“If she’s gone anywhere, I fear you’re right about Amefel. She’ll have gone right for Tristen’s soft heart.”

“Worrisome that the heir to the Aswydds might have gone to Mauryl’s piece of work, the very man I do recall my lord king wrote his late father was—”

“Hush, crow. Hush! For the gods’ sakes!”

“I think Her Grace is no stranger to that surmise.”

“Don’t press me! Not now, damn you.”

“Aye, damn me while you like. But I pray my lord king think on it when you take counsel what you’ll do about this barbed proposal Cuthan brings you.”

“You’re not free of error yourself, master crow.”

“I never claimed to be.”

“I don’t like a damned procession coming into the town before I know it’s on the road!”

“The fault is mine and several dead men’s. I am not possessed of all information, and my sources have no more protection than their own wits and no more speed than a chance-met mule. But since my lord king has abandoned the habits of his wastrel youth, I’m glad to report he’s frequently well informed on his own.”

It seemed to be both justification and praise of him, of a convolute and twisted sort, and Cefwyn took it as such, nor did he greatly blame Idrys: they had, after all, what they needed, thanks to Idrys. Idrys had rid the streets of the zealot priest Udryn, but they had lost the Patriarch in retaliation—yet on Idrys’ advice he had appointed Efanor’s priest Jormys to the office, again, a good recommendation, for Jormys, though devout, was not naive in politics, not in proceedings within the court and not matters within the sacred walls. Udryn’s silence had not prevented the spate of retribution against the Bryaltines and even the moderate Teranthines, but the zeal of the populace seemed to have spent itself in the cold… granted Ryssand was not the next voice he had to silence.

And granted Orien Aswydd did not find some way to have her dainty finger in the stew.

Ryssand was the likeliest next use for master crow’s darker talents.

But then again, Ryssand might become useful—if he could be brought to see his own interests as linked with the Crown, for with Brugan’s death, everything had changed for Ryssand: he had no male heir, no more than Murandys. He was in the same situation, with Artisane the prize. He needed to marry her up the ranks of nobility, not down, and there was no one higher than a prince of Ylesuin and inclusion in the royal family.

That would change his interests on the sudden.

And for the sake of the realm and the agreements that bound the kingdom together out of its former separate, kinglike duchies, it was far better to bring Ryssand into line than to destroy the house with all its alliances and resources.

That was surely Efanor’s thought in letting slip the rumor of royal interest in Artisane tonight. Last of all possible motives was any love lost in that marriage: it was utterly impossible to conceive that Efanor loved Artisane or even remotely admired her. It was rather that Efanor loved the kingdom and loved the land more than he loved his own comfort, and thought so little of his chances of a bride he could love… shy, serious Efanor never having had much converse with women in his sheltered, circumscribed, and pious recent years.

Gods send him enlightenment, Cefwyn thought, hoping the marriage never needed take place.

And to Idrys, leaning close, he said, regarding the compliment, “I take your meaning, master crow.”

“Your Majesty is forgiving and generous.”

“To the deserving.” He never passed Idrys compliments. He did so, after making the unworthy accusation regarding Ryssand’s slipping up on them. He felt bad about that, and could not find a way to unsay it, not with Idrys’ acerbic wit. “Well, well, do you think it’s time? Let’s summon the old fox before he has an apoplexy. I’m anxious to hear the performance.”

Idrys straightened with his usual sleek, dark grace and Cefwyn turned a silent stare on Ryssand, who had not failed to watch His Majesty’s lengthy conversation with the most feared man in royal service—a lengthy conversation on the very night Ryssand meant to beard the king in his lair.

Cefwyn stared thoughtfully at Ryssand, and stared longer, completely expressionless; and when the rest of the hall had noted that fact and conversations all around had ceased, he crooked a finger and beckoned Ryssand forward.

Ryssand came as he must, and bowed, and the musicians faded away into silence.

“You said you had a matter to bring before me,” Cefwyn said. “Here I sit. Bring it.”

“Your Majesty.” Ryssand bowed a second time, and bowed very slightly a third and even a fourth time, perhaps summoning scattered wits. “Your Grace. Your Highness.” He included Efanor, the usually silent presence on the peripheries. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. You’re entertaining scoundrels who’ve met a just condemnation… my condemnation, since I’ve had the fair report of what they’ve done, and you have, I trust, some awareness of that condemnation when you bring them to this hall. Do you intend I behead them and save you the bother? Or would that action utterly surprise you?”

“Brother,” said Efanor, advancing a step from the side of the dais. They had agreed Efanor would intercede to keep the fire and fuel separate, when the snake had to feel the stick on its right hand— and that Idrys would provoke Ryssand when the snake had to feel the stick on the left: there was indeed a way to shepherd a viper toward an objective. “—Brother, I’ve heard somewhat of Ryssand’s business. Hear him.”

“You and all of this court, down to the scullery maids, have heard His Grace,” Cefwyn said. “We’ve all heard some version or another. Discretion has not proven one of His Grace’s otherwise extensive gifts.—Oh, I’ll hear him,” Cefwyn said grudgingly and with a limp wave of his hand. All of this they had agreed beforehand as their position, and so had Ninévrisë. “But I don’t welcome traitors to my court!” Having acceded, he burst into a tirade in Ryssand’s very face. “And I hold backhanded rumormongers in utter contempt! Let us hear this version.” He waved his hand, tacit leave for Ryssand to speak, if he could muster calm against the royal storm.

“Your Majesty,” Ryssand said, seeming shaken, “I do not support any man caught in wrongdoing, as I have no cause to doubt Your Majesty’s word, but Earl Cuthan has a tale to tell, and I beg you hear him… not for matters in Amefel, which is another matter altogether. He comes straight from Tasmôrden’s court with a letter.”

“Tasmôrden’s court,” Ninévrisë said scornfully. “Tasmôrden has a court! Indeed!”

“Your Grace.” It was the first time Ryssand had turned conciliatory toward Ninévrisë—his desperation was a remarkable sight, and perhaps it was even a true sentiment he expressed, insofar as the lord of Ryssand might have recognized that the Lady Regent of Elwynor represented a potent force in the Crown’s camp, one it was more expedient to deal with—certainly should Tasmôrden’s proposal see acceptance, he would have to deal with her in the future. And should Artisane marry into the royal family Ninévrisë was the power over the women’s court. His reasons were clear enough.

“Your Grace,” Ryssand said mildly to Ninévrisë, “he has an army.”

“An army bought and paid for,” Idrys interjected sharply. “My lord king, this is no respectable lord: they’re scoundrels. Mercenaries with no stake in the lands they are stealing, bandits, some of them within this so-named court.”

“As the Lord Commander objects,” Ryssand answered, “there are irregular elements. But an army nonetheless, and with that army Tasmôrden sits in Ilefínian, which is a fact. He holds a court there— whether legitimate or illegitimate, I leave it to others to say.”

“I do not admit it,” Ninévrisë said, and Ryssand reprised, refusing to be shaken from his point.

“But that he held court there enabled him to receive Earl Cuthan when he fled Ylesuin. And through Cuthan, who alone of his resources could pass our borders alive—merely a courier, Your Majesty!—he sends a convincing offer of peace.”

“Convincing,” Idrys echoed dubiously.

“Hear him,” Efanor said, and said so just as Ryssand drew a large breath in anger. He had to let it go and reprise in a mild, a reasonable voice.

“Thank you, Your Highness. I am honor-bound to lay this letter before His Majesty, for the good of Ylesuin, and pray to do so.”

“Peace with Tasmôrden?” Cefwyn said. “I think not.”

“Your Majesty, I have brought the letter. Only hear it.”

“A letter to me?”

Ryssand hesitated. “A letter which Earl Cuthan was authorized to unseal—”

“A letter from a scoundrel, unsealed by a scoundrel!”

“So that I would know its import to bring it to Your Majesty!”

“You allowed the opening of a sealed letter,” Idrys said, and by now sweat stood on Ryssand’s face.

It was time to have the content of it. Cefwyn waved a negligent hand. “The letter is compromised, but no less so than the source and the letter-bearer. We will hear it, since you’ve read it, in its Principle details and as best you remember it. I will not entertain

Earl Cuthan in my hall, a man who has betrayed his own brother lords and connived with a man recommended to me as honest—” He had no need to say that it had been Murandys who had recommended the appointment. He only shot Duke Prichwarrin a burningly resentful glance… and at the same time found it noteworthy that Prichwarrin did not stand immediately next his former ally in this; moment of peril, but rather over against the nearer column, as far as he dared remove himself from the area. “A man who turned out to be a common thief and a liar, besides. A man who ordered the murder of surrendered and disarmed noblemen. What a pedigree for this business!”

“Your Majesty.” Ryssand was not finding it easy going, his immediate plan overset, his witnesses disallowed. “I pray you hear the exact words…”

“Tasmôrden’s? As if they were sacred writ? As if any letter the bearer could unseal at will is proof in itself? I find all our enemy’s arrangements curious. If Cuthan could pass our border at will—why come to you, a league and more to the north? Why not send to me, for the good gods’ love? Why this care to have it in your hands, pray?”

“The enemy knows Her Grace’s presence in the court and feared lest the letter“

Well struck. “Don’t say it!” Cefwyn burst out. “Don’t dare to suggest—”

“Your Majesty!” Ryssand cried, “not my suspicion at all, I assure you, but rather the imagination of our enemy—”

“A lie,” Ninévrisë said. “Lies and deception are old allies of his.”

“Nonetheless, Your Grace, Your Majesty, if you will hear his proposal—Tasmôrden is prepared to make peace with Ylesuin, and to agreed that the Lady Regent rules in the districts east of Ilefínian, granting to her the title of Queen of Elwynor, granting to the king of Ylesuin the district northward, and agreeing for himself to the titles and honors of the King of Ilefínian and High and Lower Saissond.”

A woman who was a fool, perhaps, might have leapt up in rage and tears and lost her case with a people never in the least enthusiastic about their king’s foreign war and foreign bride, and for such a response Ryssand undoubtedly hoped.

Such a response the man who had raised Artisane would undoubtedly expect.

But Ninévrisë was not such a fool. She sat, chin on fist, staring at this recital.

“Ridiculous,” Cefwyn said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “The man consorts with sorcery! He claims a kingship, in Elwynor, where prophecy claims a High King will rise against us! Gods save us, Ryssand! To what do you counsel us? To give this snake a lair from which to breed and strike at our heart?”

“By no means sorcery, Your Majesty!”

“Oh?” Cefwyn asked in mock mildness. “And who informs us of that?”

“Your Majesty, his own words… if Your Majesty will read his letter…”

“Damn his letter! Word from a heretic!”

“Quite the contrary, in a land rife with the old ways, he contends against the dark arts which sustained the Regency—”

Now Ninévrisë’ did move, drew herself up with a breath. “There is a lie, sir.”

“The Regency depended on wizardry,” Ryssand said in a rush, “as the Lord Regent was a wizard, no less than Aséyneddin’s ally—”

“A great deal less than Aséyneddin’s ally!” Ninévrisë cried. “Who was a sorcerer!”

“Yet this man struggles against the remnants of Aséyneddin’s forces and Caswyddian’s, your enemies, Your Grace, which have kept the land in turmoil. He struggles against a rise of the old powers—against the far greater threat from across the Lenúalim, where contrary to Your Majesty’s law, the old Sihhë walls are rising and a claimant exists to the High Kingship…”

Corswyndam of Ryssand was dangerous and quick. They already knew that. He delivered a telling shot and Cefwyn lost no time in returning fire, with a slam of the royal fist on the arm of the Dragon Throne.

“You are deceived, Ryssand. Dangerously deceived. Good gods, I had thought a man of your years would see it!”

“I am not so deceived, Your Majesty!”

“What, and bring me a murderer and a thief to swear to Tasmôrden’s character? It seems apt, but hardly persuasive! And you take his word, above your own king’s? What are we come to? And wherein do foreign powers write you letters and send you my messages as if you were—what, a king?”

‘If Your Majesty please, only listen to an agreement which may save the realm from great, from incalculable danger! The war Her Wace urges can only cast more and more power into the south, where the dukes of Ivanor, Lanfarnesse, Imor, and Amefel have raised an army, and authorized fortifications your grandfather ordered demolished. This new lord in Amefel, this wizard’s fetch, this Sihhë-lord as they openly hail him in the streets of Henas’amef…”

“… is not the enemy of this realm!” Cefwyn shot back, strike and parry, and now with full knowledge how much this rebel duke was willing to risk in public. This Sihhë-lord, as you are at such great pains to call him, is the true friend of this court and the fortifications he restores at my order are all that stand between our land and that purchased army of brigands Tasmôrden has raised against us, no less than Aséyneddin, with no cleaner claim, no less allied with sorcery—silence, sir! I’ve heard enough of this brigand’s letter!”

There was an uneasy stir in the court, all the same, and he had let it through his guard. Tristen’s doings in the south were rumored, but not the wall, and not the current adoration of the populace, or its connection with the High Kingship, and now there was a dangerous murmur throughout the hall as all of it came into the open. Cefwyn rose to his feet and let loose the notorious Marhanen temper, letting any waverers in the court know what the stakes were and what he was prepared to do.

“As for you, sir, do you count Tasmôrden your friend? This man, the heir of Aséyneddin? This man who raised war against his lawful lord? A man who insulted Her Grace, murdered her friends and relations? A man who’s purchased army rapes and murders and robs the very people he would claim to lead? Is that our preferred friend, sir? And you swear to his honesty?”

Ryssand had the sense to bow, and bow deeply, and lower his voice. “I swear to nothing, Your Majesty. I only bear the message.”

“Receiving the messenger from an enemy of the realm—gods, sir! as if you were king?”

That shot had scored the last time. This time it raised a stir, a charge revisited, clearly a threat.

And Ryssand looked afraid. “I received a traveler, Your Majesty, who turned out to have such a message, and who had alarming reports out of Amefel… reports of which I had no knowledge Your Majesty already knew.”

Dangerous man, subtle as a snake, but there was no escaping the inappropriate nature of his actions and Cuthan’s, and on such subtle issues did the support of those listening sway.

“We knew. We knew from the source, and we knew the truth of the conditions in the lands to the south and the reasons for the building of those fortifications. We based our judgment of those reasons on our personal knowledge of that source. Have you personal knowledge of Tasmôrden’s character? Of Tasmôrden’s actions this past year? Or how long have you received his messages?”

And so, without accusing, he planted his own seeds in the minds of those wine-touched individuals hanging on their every word.

Opinion of those outside these walls, however, had less to do with protocol than with rumor. And Ryssand’s resources in that sense went far beyond Cuthan and Parsynan, beyond anything even a king could muster. Rumor spread on the wings of religious fear: they had rid themselves of Udryn, but now they had the Quinalt Patriarch of Amefel newly arrived in the town, complaining in the inner councils of the Quinalt that the old ways were gaining far too firm a foothold in Tristen’s lands. Here was a man who had fled his post and a tolerably comfortable living rather than endure Tristen’s rule over him—or so the Quinalt would see it. Guelen soldiers, too, Parsynan’s men, whom Tristen’s soft-handed mercy had let leave his land alive… they had talked in the taverns and all the low places, so the rumors were fairly sped.

Oh, there were a dozen ways men of Ryssand’s stamp could take any mercy and turn it back as a weapon.

He had known Ryssand would do this, had seen no real way to prevent it, but he had prevented the worst of the damage, and made his case in front of witnesses half-gone with wine, minds on which subtleties and details would be lost.

And so he waited for Efanor to move in, as he at last did, and interposed quiet, personal words to Ryssand. The intervention became a small, urgent conference, the drift of which came to him, anger on Ryssand’s part, fear, and Efanor’s solicitous promises. Ryssand was not unscathed in the view of the hall, either: his countenance had gone from ruddiness to pallor and back to congested redness that suggested ill health. The man had lost a son to his quest for power, a recent loss, and no sham; but Cefwyn had no pity.

“I beg Your Majesty’s pardon,” Ryssand said at last, bringing a reluctant silence to the murmur of speculation among the courtiers.

“I urge Your Majesty grant it,” Efanor said… playing his part.

“I will not hear this,” Cefwyn said, playing his, while Idrys loomed over all.

“Your Majesty,” Efanor repeated. “I ask it.”

It was what they agreed. When the storm had grown too great and become dangerous to the realm, Efanor would ask pardon, and intercede for Ryssand. Efanor would thus widen his own small court, hitherto mostly scholars and priests, include among his debtors a potential father-in-law, and thereby set himself as confessor to receive all the things that an unreasonable king would not hear.

Cefwyn settled back against the throne in his most forbidding manner. “I shall hear you, brother. In the meantime, do not consider we entertain this traitorous Amefin earl or any of his connections, Elwynim or otherwise.—Play!” he shouted at the musicians, who had not stirred in this utter stillness of the hall. After brief hesitation they took up the paselle they had been playing, from its beginning.

It was a light, a graceful music, little appropriate to a royal tantrum, but the whole court drew a collective breath. No one moved to dance except two very young folk who hesitated toward that notion, and desisted, frozen in place.

Slowly, very slowly, Ryssand backed and bowed his way to safety, ignoring Murandys in his retreat.

Slowly the court began to murmur and to move, half a hundred statues come to life. The musicians struggled on, and Cefwyn waved a hand at a cluster of the young people and smiled, waving them to the floor. They moved with uncertainty, and the talk broke out among their elders, almost fit to drown the music.

Cefwyn drew a breath and a second, willing to be soothed as Ninévrisë sought his hand across the gap between their seats.

“Well done,” Cefwyn said to his small company of conspirators. “Well done.”

“Detestable man,” Ninévrisë said.

“Is he not?” Cefwyn said acidly. “Is he not, indeed? But he didn’t have all he wanted.”

“The court knows the royal disposition,” Idrys said, “to the good, say I.”

They had married Luriel to Panys, and regained Ryssand and his vixenish daughter… well, to no great profit, that latter transaction, but inevitable, once Ryssand dared return.

And it was probably best. Ryssand in the country was apt to breed secret ills, rumor and supposition let loose unchecked by fact. Now Ryssand had to mind what he said. He knew he was watched.

And for good or ill, the rumors were abroad tonight, and those who had not heard would hear. The leaven of the zealots was still fermenting, the discontent of the populace with what, in taverns and in higher places, they called Her Grace’s war… was no less in certain quarters.

So Tasmôrden magnanimously offered Her Grace sovereignty over a third of Elwynor, and Ylesuin a third, with not a blow struck, their mission accomplished, and no Guelen or Ryssandish lads to bury as a consequence. He had no doubt he had given Ryssand a few wounds in kind.

“Ryssand and the zealots,” Cefwyn muttered so only his brother and Ninévrisë and Idrys could hear. “Backing Aséyneddin’s heir, and him the ally of the sorcerer who brought down Mauryl. What a contortion they made to get everyone into that alliance!—Do you know, Jormys should preach against it. A few good sermons would do great good.”

“I’ll speak to Jormys,” Efanor said. And a moment later: “I’ll go speak to Ryssand and his daughter, and smooth his feathers.”

“Mind your own,” Cefwyn said and, with great misgiving, watched his brother descend the steps.

Ryssand wanted that royal alliance, oh, indeed Ryssand wanted it. It must give him indigestion, considering the situation he was in now.

Clever men could become great fools when what they most wanted dangled in reach of their fingers. And Ryssand might well enter into conspiracy with Efanor, who posed himself to draw the lightning of all the discontents in the court.

“If that marriage goes forward,” Ninévrisë said faintly, beneath the music, “that man will wish Efanor to be king. Have you taken account of that?”

It was a thought. It was certainly a thought. But his trust in Efanor was oldest of all trust in the world. Efanor would countenance no move against him: that was solid as the rock under the throne.

“The army will move to the river on the first clear day,” he said, “and let Tasmôrden make you another offer when you’re standing in Ilefínian. When there’s no enemy across the river, and the worry of the war is past, then let Ryssand consider his position with me, and speak me fair again.”

“My lord king.” Idrys had moved close, after brief absence, and had that edge to his voice that meant urgency.

Cefwyn turned his head, saw the black eminence of his reign bearing a grim look indeed.

“What is it?” he asked in honest alarm, and Idrys came close, closer, to his very ear, and whispered a handful of words:

“A letter from Amefel: the Aswydds did reach Tristen. Lady Tarien’s with child and claims it’s yours.”

Cefwyn was not certain whether his heart beat the next moment. He did not let his face change: royal demeanor was schooled from far too early to betray him now. He was aware of all the room, all the reach of consequences, and of his lady sitting at his side.

It was possible, on all counts. He had been a fool, defying his father, disdaining his responsibilities. He had done things he now regretted.

“One of Tristen’s letters?” he asked, fey attempt at humor, for they all agreed Tristen wrote the worst letters any of them had ever read, letters utterly lacking in detail. If that was the case he truly despaired of learning more than Idrys had just said.

“Master grayfrock wrote, too,” Idrys said with uncommon gentleness. “I have the letters safe with me. I don’t know how long this will go unrumored. There are witnesses enough in Amefel, where I fear it won’t be secret by now.”

Cefwyn’s fingers were numb. He rubbed fingertips together, feeling very little, and looked at Ninévrisë, who had heard some of it, but not all.

They won the joust with Ryssand, damn the luck, and were hit from ambush—his own doing.

CHAPTER 9

I advise you so that you may decide the advantageous time to report the news to your court…

So Emuin had written.

There was no advantageous time to report such news to his bride of not many weeks. Cefwyn was painfully conscious of Ninévrisë beside him, in this intimate grouping in the Blue Hall, in privacy even from the pages. She listened as Idrys read the letter aloud. Her face grave and pale, her eyes no longer dancing, but set on her hands in her lap.

“Forgive me,” Cefwyn said, taking her hand in his. “Nevris,—I did a great many things in those days, and always escaped the consequences. This one… this one… with Tarien Aswydd, of all people… gods save me… I can’t explain it to you.”

“She has the gift,” Ninévrisë said in low voice, and as if she could no longer contain herself, disengaged her hand, rose from her chair, and walked briskly away to a place remote from him, from Idrys, from Annas, whom they had gathered to share this calamity.

There was no real privacy for a reigning monarch. In very fact, there was nothing he did that failed to impinge on others’ lives and fortunes, and gods knew he had not done wisely in this.

“She has the gift,” Ninévrisë repeated, and turned to face him, fingers laced together before her. “As will our child.”

In the depths of self-accusation Cefwyn heard it, and heard it twice, and rose to his feet, asking almost silently: “Our child?”

“I don’t know,” Ninévrisë said. “I’ve wished. What more can one do with the gift? A great deal more, it seems.”

What more might Tarien Aswydd have done? What might you have expected of these women, fool? Those questions she kindly held unasked.

“At that hour, in those days,” he said quietly, not knowing how to interpret her wounded silence, “I had no good appreciation of what wizardry might do or not do. I was used to Emuin. He worked tricks. He refused to do magic. I didn’t know what I was dealing with.—And, no, damn it all, that’s not true, either. I knew. In my heart I knew. I didn’t believe it would come near me. Nothing else did. I was young and damnably foolish, a year ago.”

Her face was a regal mask. Did a guilty heart only imagine the sheen of tears in the candlelight?

It was after the festivities, late. All fires in the hearths should have burned down and the servants should be down to one candle, ‘ replacing the old ones upstairs and down.

But for this late conference, on his order, the servants had built up the fire in the little hearth and lit every sconce, so pretense and falsehood should have no place to hide, and so that afterward he could not hope he had dreamt this night. It was bright as day, and neither of them were likely to sleep afterward.

“I was a fool,” Cefwyn repeated heavily. “There’s no more to say for it.”

Ninévrisë gave a great sigh and looked elsewhere for a space, then lifted her chin and looked at him squarely.

“We’d not even met,” she said.

“You’re far too kind.”

“Can I be otherwise?” Ninévrisë said sharply. “And can I not pity the child? No one loves it. Its mother has no heart. How will it fare in the world?”

“I don’t know,” he said. Her question struck memories of his own severance from his father, who had never loved him, his mother, who, dying, had not had the chance.

He had not even thought of that burden, had not, in that sense, thought of the child at all, beyond an embarrassment and a disaster.

“And what will be his inheritance?” Ninévrisë pursued him relentlessly. “And who will be his father?”

“I don’t know,” he said again, left with no other answer. He found himself with no pity to spare for another boy with no father and no hint of a father’s love.

“Folly, to give his first years to Tarien Aswydd,” Ninévrisë said, counting the difficulties of a child’s existence before he was born. “And yet what shall we do? Bring him here? Let your gods-fearing Guelenfolk see a son of yours with wizard-gift… as Emuin and Tristen alike think he has? Tristen has no doubt at all it’s a son.” She folded her arms beneath her breast, hugged tightly. “I have only a suspicion and a hope of a child, as yet, one I can’t even tell you is real, and now he’ll not be your firstborn.”

She had told him they were to have a child, and he had let that precious moment slide by in an argument over a royal bastard. It was an unforgivable, irrevocable lapse.

“Our child. To me—”

“Don’t disallow this child of the Aswydd woman! He exists!”

“It’s none I care to acknowledge!”

“Yet he exists.”

“If I could undo it…”

“There’s no undoing it. My father used to say that if and could and wish have no effect outside philosophy. But they do in wizardry, and I won’t wish this child harm. I will not!’’

He was shaken to the core, confronted by an iron determination, news he was in no wise prepared to have twice in a night, and his lady’s unanticipated defense of her rival’s child. He had no notion which direction to face, and knew Idrys witnessed his discomfiture— no advice from that quarter, not a word.

“I ask your forgiveness,” Cefwyn said. “It’s all I can say. It’s my fault. And hers.”

“But none of the babe’s fault. And she will teach him to desire the throne and to hate me, and perhaps hate you.”

He could not deny her fears. They were his.

“There is a remedy,” Idrys said, intervening at last, grim master crow, reminding a king with a threatened kingdom what terrible, unspeakable deeds he might command, at the lightest word.

And did Idrys dare bring that darkness into Ninévrisë’s hearing? He found himself all but trembling.

“Don’t disallow him,” Ninévrisë repeated.

It was not hers to command the Lord Commander. It was his, and he drew a long, steadying breath.

“He’s all but born,” he said, “considering the time it was possible. The very limited time it could have happened.” It was not the Privilege of a king to sink his head into his hands and shut the world out of his ears. “He’s with Tristen, and Emuin. That’s something.” Tristen’s letter said be and a son. He fell into it unthinking, and then realized he had admitted it.

“And with his mother,” Idrys said, “who is a sorceress. That’s also something to consider, my lord king.”

The Marhanen temper rose up on his next breath, silently railing on fate and wizardry. But his heart refused to lead him where Idrys advised him to go… and he knew whom he had made keeper of his heart, and his gentler nature. He knew what terrible, unanswerable force he would contend with if he attempted the babe’s life— and knew that he would himself bring prophecy down on his head.

“Tristen wouldn’t countenance it,” he said with a sense of relief, and then knew his own bearings, as if he had found the daylight in this night. “And gods help me, I won’t.”

“Both Emuin and the Lord of Amefel are potent barriers to a boy,” Idrys said, “but when this seed casts a shade, my lord king of Ylesuin, what shape will it have? And, pray,—” It was one of Idrys’ most detestable habits, that pause before his worst remarks: “—what heritage and inheritance will this boy claim?”

Cefwyn bit back an angry request for silence: Idrys’ value was precisely that he would say what he thought, whether or not it pleased him; and do what had to be done, at times, whether or not his king had the will to act.

But was Idrys to rule Ylesuin, or was he? And were the decisions to be decisions not to decide, and to rein back Idrys?

And should Idrys say such things to him in Ninévrisë’s hearing?

He found he was as shaken by that as by the facts themselves, and discovered in himself a sense that Tristen had found and Ninévrisë had tended, until he did not know who was master of his opinions, or where he had passed beyond Idrys’ dark counsel, but he knew he had never made a decision he was surer of. He thought how Emuin, when he entertained notions of being rid of Tristen, had counseled him very simply, and in the face of all the danger Tristen posed him: Win his friendship.

And was that it now?

Win this unintended son? Acknowledge a bastard and create a claimant when the barons’ damned haggling over the marriage treaty had left Ninévrisë’s son no more heir to the throne of Ylesuin than Tarien’s son?

He was mad.

He had gone quite mad, and went to his unresisting lady and took her hand, and looked at her eye to eye, no easy deed.

“I don’t know what I can do,” he said. “I don’t know. I only know Tristen has the situation in his hands. And I know what he won’t do, and won’t countenance, and I know you’re right.”

“I don’t,” she said. “I don’t know that I’m right. But I know what’s not right.”

“He’ll have his mother,” Cefwyn said. “And gods save him, his aunt. But at Amefel now he has Tristen and Emuin, and the Aswydds won’t have their way, will they?” He wished Idrys would leave. He longed to gather his bride against his heart and attempt to mend things—to talk about their son, and make the moment what it ought to be. But no such gesture would mend what now was.

He tried. He extended a hand. Ninévrisë stood with arms tightly folded, protecting her heart, gazing somewhere that was not this room.

“Go,” he said to Idrys, trying to signal him that he wanted rapid, silent departure. “I think we know all we need to deal with.”

“There is one other letter,” Idrys said, ignoring his king, and drew a second folded, sealed missive from his coat.

And what other, more disastrous missive could have arrived, and from whom, and on what damnable misreading of him had Idrys held it back? The anger all but strangled him.

“For Her Grace,” Idrys said, “from Lord Tristen.”

It was unprecedented that Tristen write to Ninévrisë. But of course—of course, Cefwyn thought, it was a separate consolation from Tristen, and he was a dog to resent it, even with Idrys’ abominable timing; even with his own pain and Ninévrisë’s. It came, he was sure, out of the devastating kindness Tristen had, so often timed to wring the temper out of him and drive him to distraction. It was, as much as Tristen understood this matter of children and the getting of them—utterly well-meant, and completely upsetting.

Ninévrisë took it, read what seemed only a word or two. Her hand flew to her heart, and, clenched, lifted to her lips.

Then she said to Idrys, “It’s nothing. There’s nothing here. Please leave us.” The last was sudden, anguished, more plea than order, and with only a glance at him to confirm it, Idrys silently bowed and left.

Ninévrisë ebbed into a chair and held the small paper close against her heart, and Cefwyn held his breath, trying with all his might not to pry into what was, until she willed otherwise, her business.

Then Ninévrisë released the paper to her lap, and to his eye there was nothing written on it, nothing at all.

“He’s afraid for you,” she said in a trembling voice, and a tear traced a path down on a face otherwise tranquil. “And afraid for me, and would defend us both with all his heart. He wishes us both well.”

He could only be one man.

But he still saw nothing to tell him those things. Or he saw nothing he wanted to see… for he knew Ninévrisë had wizard-gift, a gift kept small and quiet and never wizard-taught, except what she had learned of her father. And if there was something magical written on the blank paper that only wizards could see, then she had just used it.

He forgave. Against the evidence of his sins of the flesh, her good use of the gift she was born with could hardly weigh at all. He was still her debtor: she at least was true as gold to her promises, all of them.

“Do you read something there?” he asked, and dropped to a knee beside her chair, to gaze at a paper as blank as the day it was made, save only Tristen’s signature and red wax seal.

“I know his heart. I know what he wishes me to know, as surely as if I read it.”

“We can trust him.” That was true, no matter what in the world changed, and the remembrance of that warmed his heart to a stronger, steadier beat. “I do trust him, Nevris. He’s scared me at times beyond good sense. And he does, now. What does he say about this?”

“That he loves us. He loves us so much, so kindly… no one could deserve it.”

“We can contest for deserts,” he said, “and you would win.” He was grateful, desperately so, to find hope of affection and forgiveness in this blank paper, and in her glance. “If anyone can care for Tarien’s baby, do you think, it would be Tristen. He won’t harm it. It’s not in him to harm it. But he won’t let it do harm, either.”

She gave a desperate small laugh. “Tristen? Gods, to care for a baby? So much comes through. I don’t know how.” She placed a hand over the paper and inhaled deeply, several times. “It’s as if I was there! Emuin’s upset with you.”

“Gods, upset. Far too small a word.”

“And Tristen’s confused.”

“Tristen’s always confused.” His spirits soared in this exchange of breathless probabilities, almost as if she could see through a window into Amefel, one shut to him: but he saw it through her eyes, almost now as if he could see it, and could say that it was true. What she saw gave her courage, and she lent it to him. The relief was so great he could all but laugh. “Tell me all you know.”

“There’s a boy,” Ninévrisë said. “Emuin’s found a boy to help him. I don’t understand his name. But there’s some sort of boy.”

“I could be jealous,” Cefwyn said fervently, who had been the boy in Emuin’s care, in days of climbing trees and skinning knees. “But I’m glad for Emuin, and the boy.”

“Uwen’s well. So are all the others. Captain Anwyll’s off at the river and the weather’s been wretched, the same as here. I think… I think Tristen’s doing very well, except for Orien Aswydd and Tarien.”

“That’s a large exception.” The flood of information after Tristen’s lamentably terse letters both cheered him like the voice of a friend and then gave him pause, as if perhaps Ninévrisë added to her guesses to please him. “Does he true say all that?—Of course he does. How could you make all that up?”

Ninévrisë pressed the sheet to her heart. “I hear him say it, or I don’t hear, but it’s like a dream, and I’m sure what he meant. He’s done so much… the changes, and building the walls and the fortresses up, and he’s built up at Althalen…”

It should be a lance of ice to the heart… the Marhanens had risen to power at Althalen’s fall: the condition of his dynasty depended on Althalen’s ruin.

But he heard it only half-alarmed, for Tristen did it, and he refused to think evil of his friend—least of all for the consolation he had given Ninévrisë. “I don’t think the Quinalt will like that,” he said, “but damn them.”

“He had to have it for the people, for all the people running from Tasmôrden.” Her voice was unlike her, trembling. “And he’s saved some of them. He’s made them welcome in his lands. He’s settled protection all up and down the river, despite the snow. And the lords have come to him, Aeself, and others: a cousin of mine is alive!”

“He’s done well,” Cefwyn said. “He’s done very well. But no matter how Tasmôrden provokes him, he mustn’t let those folk start fighting on his land. He mustn’t attack from there.” And on a sudden thought and a soaring hope: “Can you use that paper and talk to him?”

She shook her head, dashing the hope before it reached any height at all. “No. I can’t. It doesn’t work that way. He cast a spell on the paper. I couldn’t do it.”

“But don’t lose it,” he said. The hope, however uninformed, modified itself to the thought that the letter might be bespelled to go on spilling things to them as they happened. He longed to touch the paper himself, wondering whether a man as deaf to magic as the nearest ox could possibly gain some sense of Tristen’s presence from it. He knew acutely what he had lost when he had had to send Tristen away: that sense of things possible and magical that had lent him courage to fight all his battles, that sense of a friend at his back that no one but Tristen had ever given him.

And now that steady, reassuring presence came through his lady’s voice, and gave him an absurd confidence that they were not alone, no matter how things seemed to close around them.

But he forbore to touch it, in case the enchantment might die in his hands, and thrive only in Ninévrisë’s.

“Thank you,” he said. And added, “I love you,” as he said often: but now he felt constrained to say it in apology for irrevocable and damaging acts. “I love you for your forbearance. I love you a hundred times more now than at the first. And if you still love me through all this, I’ll be so far in your debt a hundred years won’t see me clear. Once and for all, I had no idea, when I exiled the Aswydds. She may have known. But I didn’t.”

“Why Tarien?” was the sole unkind question, and he could only shrug and force himself to look straight into her eyes.

“I ask myself that question, I assure you. I’ll ask it so long as I live. And I can’t answer it.”

“I answer it. Sorcery led you. You couldn’t be so foolish.”

“I wish that were so,” he said, and bowed his head. “I have been that foolish, and was that foolish, and generally I needed no great help at it.”

She embraced him where he knelt, leaned her head against his, all the soft perfume of her hair, and the random hard edge of pearls wound into her braids.

“The news of this will get out,” she said, her hand against his cheek. “You know you have to deny this son or acknowledge him in some fashion.”

“Let Emuin prove what he is first. Then I’ll know what to do.”

“Word might already have gotten out. If the men who were guilty of the raid on the nunnery didn’t know, the nuns might have. She’s near her time. They must have seen. And if they missed it, at least everyone in Amefel must know by now, and there might be spies: in everything else we think there might be spies. Wouldn’t they report this back to Guelessar?”

The Aswydds were not a presence one could slip unknown into the town, or keep close in a house where every servant knew them. It was a surety that someone would talk. “It’s too much to hope Ryssand doesn’t learn it within the week, and will bring it into the open at the worst moment.”

“If,” she said slowly, “he doesn’t already know. She is Cuthan’s cousin. Might that not be the arrow they’re still holding in reserve? Might Tasmôrden know and be conspiring with Cuthan on behalf of that child, price for price, for the next step in their plan?” Her fingers sought his on the arm of the chair. “Peace with Tasmôrden. Peace with him. I can’t grant this. It’s a barbed hook. Everyone of sense has to know it. It’s not even to Ylesuin’s advantage, let alone yours.”

All she said was true, the depth of his betrayal of her had filled his heart and warped his thinking, and he grasped at her logic as a drowning man to a life rope.

“When a battle begins,” she continued, “the archers go first, don’t they?”

“So as not to hit their own men, yes, commonly they go first.” He knew it was not archers she meant, but he followed her where she led, and answered honestly and soberly, looking into gray eyes that hinted, to his mind, of violets.

“I think,” she said, “I think we are seeing the archers of this spring.”

“Precursors to the attack?”

“I think sorcery’s not done with us. Lewenbrook was the beginning of it. After the archers, what would you look for?”

“The flying attacks. The cavalry.”

“And the battle line behind that. Well screened, not evident.”

“Archery,” he echoed, thinking that it was like that, bolts seemingly random, but to the advantage of Ryssand, all to Ryssand’s and Tasmôrden’s advantage. Except Ryssand had lost his son, and perhaps suffered doubts in Efanor’s approaches, as if perhaps there was advantage he could gain. His enemies were not unscathed, so not everything had gone their way.

But right now Ryssand hoped only to confuse matters and gather power into his hands in the confusion. Even if he had won the encounter with Ryssand and cast doubts on the offer, his lords were surely still tempted by this peace, this offer of dividing Elwynor into parcels one of which would be theirs, new lands, new honors, new titles. It had been hard enough to lead men to war with no promise of gain… and now if their enemy offered peace and a third of the contested lands, the only barb in the bait his own men would see was the fact Tasmôrden was akin to the hated Bryalt and probably employed sorcery.

He had hit that point hard tonight. He had, he hoped, made them see it.

But that meant that his own likeliest allies against this damnable treaty Cuthan brought were, ironically, the same orthodox Guelen priests that had opposed Ninévrisë’s marriage in the first place. The orthodoxy that so narrowly had voted to confirm his nomination of Jormys for Patriarch were more than unlikely bedfellows for him: they were snakes in the sheets. Snuggle close to them, and he was sure they still could bite, and would, irrational in their abhorrence of all things foreign… and would they find tolerance for foreignness across the river to be rid of foreignness in the royal bed?

And now, at the moment when all these things were true, when he needed be Guelen to the core and most needed to be able to restrain these skittish, volatile barons from a headlong rush toward Tasmôrden’s lure of profitable peace, lo!… he had a half-sorcerous son about to be born, and rumor about to break forth in Amefel, of all places.

Give it a fortnight, and Ninévrisë was right. If the rumor needed walk barefoot from Amefel, it would reach Lord Ryssand.

Thank the gods he had the letter, he thought. And then, Thank Tristen. They were ahead of the rumor by some few days, if the gods were good; and Ninévrisë had not had to hear the news first in hall, to be assailed by that on Ryssand’s lips.

“There’s one thing I can do,” he said, “that will dash cold water on this peace.”

“Attack?” She looked at him in puzzlement. “The snow’s not stopped.”

“The snow will keep my contentious lords busy… or have them forsworn, Ryssand with them. I’ll have the army on the march and damn the weather, damn the ice, and damn the opposition.”

“The loyal will go and suffer. Ryssand and his allies will dispute you, and if you’ve sent the like of Panys and the loyal men to the river, and have only Ryssand and his friends in court…”

There was such shrewd judgment in so sweet a face. He gazed at it in deep consciousness of his good fortune.

“I can deal with Ryssand,” he said. “Only so my friends stand by me.”

“That I will,” Ninévrisë said, “to the gates of Ilefínian.”

“No!”

“To my capital.”

He had met the Regent of Elwynor at his gates when first he laid eyes on her, muddy-skirted, leading men to conference or to certain death, and it was that look she had now. His better sense wanted to deny her, the more so since she spoke of carrying his child. His better sense ached even at the thought of her riding, in the winter, and in hardship, and into war.

But she was no fool: she had proven that at Lewenbrook, obeyed orders like a soldier and kept her post; and could any man who had been on that field deny any heart that had known that danger, no matter the fear he had for her?

“To your capital,” he said. “To the promise I made you.” He had kept that, at least, and meant to keep the rest he had sworn to her, if it cost him a son.

But Ryssand would do anything to prevent him.

And he was within a very little now of calling Idrys and bidding him do that which he had resisted doing: arranging Ryssand’s lasting absence. But he did not.

But now, considering his grandfather’s example, a man who had died abed and at an old age, with a kingdom at peace… he was not sure whether, in a king, it was not a mortal sin to refrain from that order.

CHAPTER 10

The hills of Amefel north of the town were utterly changed in their outlines, white and rounded, small trees covered. The road had become a zigzag of sharp-edged small drifts, but Dys’ great feet thumped through them with ease and enthusiasm, and even on so grim a mission, Tristen found it a rare pleasure to break through these barriers of winter, he and Uwen, and the small number of Amefin guard behind them… pleasure amid grimmer intent, for it was Crissand’s point of encounter with trouble they sought, and the band who had fired at him in the dark and the storm.

That answer might easily lie in error on both sides: they went to confirm that hope at Althalen—for it was quite possible that Aeself’s men and Crissand had had a near pass, one with the other.

But in case that was not the source of the arrows, and to be sure of the safety of Modeyneth and Anwyll’s camp, at the far end of the road, Tristen had requested a band of Ivanim light horse, armed and ready for encounter, to ride out ahead of him and assure themselves that things were well in that direction.

He rode out himself, then, for he had the gift to know who was in the land, far better than any scout, and Cevulirn himself had volunteered to stand by Tassand and Lusin in administering things in Henas’amef while he was gone… for Lusin and his company had become far too useful there, Crissand was still nursing his wound, and wished to go, but Emuin called it folly, and it afflicted him most when he sat a horse, so there he stayed in the town, assisting Cevulirn and overseeing Tassand’s oversight.

So Tristen had no doubt at all in his riding out that he had left the town in good hands—no slight to Uwen, who had not had the authority Cevulirn had, when the Patriarch had deserted the town: not even Cevulirn could have prevented that disaster.

Uwen was glad to be with him, all the same, and said so.

“As I ain’t set to be any town mayor, nor ever will be, and gods save me, I didn’t know what I was to do when His Reverence up and went.”

“No more than I could have done,” Tristen said, “except I used magic, and that wouldn’t have been wise, would it?”

“Not if His Reverence knew’t,” Uwen said, “but happens as most times folk don’t know, do they?”

“I don’t,” Tristen said as they rode. “I don’t wish people to do things or not to do them. It doesn’t seem polite.”

Uwen laughed. “No,” Uwen agreed. “It don’t, at that.”

They were on the West Road, since other searchers had gone out to the north. It had seemed good to go by the back route toward Althalen, to be sure that no enemy had slipped in to establish a presence in the lesser-traveled west of Amefel. That brought them generally toward Lewenbrook, though they would not go that close to Marna Wood, and it brought them generally toward Emwy village.

Near Emwy was the ruin of the westernmost bridge, the one that had let Aséyneddin across before Lewenbrook, and it had no garrison, only the observance of Pelumer’s rangers, who reported that the bridge stonework still stood, but that it had no decking.

That was quick to mend if an enemy dared use it. With a road to guide them and a means by which stealthy small bands could come deep into Amefel, it seemed a weak point—not utterly so, for it was Auld Syes’ land, and under wards far stronger than any he had set at Modeyneth.

But now it seemed worth the inquiry. They would ride out to the west and ride back again by the North Road, where the attack on Crissand had taken place. That way they covered both routes, and Cevulirn’s riders were further assurance, deeper into the north than they would go. They would set Modeyneth’s men to watching and scouring the hills, which shepherds could do far more efficiently than armed riders or anyone but the Lanfarnessemen.

And well knowing that Pelumer’s rangers were abroad from here to Modeyneth and into the rough lands beyond, and that Aeself’s men maintained patrols, he rode plainly under the banners, the red of Amefel and the black of Althalen and Ynefel, and with all the equipage of war, besides that they wore the red bands of cloth that Pelumer had decreed to distinguish them from intruders.

And if he needed any other distinction to mark his passage through his province, Owl joined him, soaring past now and again as if to be sure he was still where Owl thought—or perhaps to torment them all with his silent approaches, just near enough the horses to startle.

Owl was not given to lengthy flights, and found perches, Tristen was sure, in one and another of the scattered trees… but Owl passed by them at times when there seemed to be no perch, when the hills were as bare as eggs and the land was flat under winter white, and his coming and going put the men on edge. No few of the Guelenmen blessed themselves when Owl would pass near, and one of his guards remarked that, “That bird’s often ahead o’ trouble.”

That did not seem to be Owl’s purpose in joining them, however, not as he thought today. Owl might presage change, but he also presaged discovery.

Change came of finding new things, however; and sometimes those things were not what one might wish. It was an all-day ride, in increasing cold, this ride they had undertaken, down a road he had ridden more than once in Cefwyn’s company, again with Ninévrisë, and last of all toward Lewenbrook and home again.

That last journey had been very different… joyous for the victory, solemn for the loss of many, many lives. And that journey stayed most on his mind—the last time he had seen this land, at summer’s end, with leaves on the trees that now were bare and snow-coated.

They counted on an overnight stay at Althalen, but in consideration of the difficulty of provisioning the residents there, they carried provisions for two days. It was slower going than usual for riders, on account of the snow impeding progress, and although they had started at first light, they began to ask themselves whether they might not need those supplies tonight, fearing they might not reach Althalen before the last glow of day left the sky.

“There’s reputed to be haunts,” said Gweyl, of his night guard… not that Gweyl or any of his guard would flee if a whole host of Auld Syes’ company trooped across the road. The men who served him had all stood their ground under remarkable circumstances. But it was a worried look, all the same.

“We’ll miss supper, at least,” Uwen said with a sigh, “damn this road and its holes. We can’t make speed wi’out ye break your neck, man, so we just keep goin’.”

“They’ll provide for us,” Tristen said. “No need to make camp. We can go as long as there’s light and after.”

“I don’t doubt they’ll be glad to see ye,” Uwen said, and added with a laugh: “If it was just us metal-coats, we’d have a cold ‘un and a foul look from th’ landlord… but then, it ain’t, and the Elwynim ain’t goin’ to grudge you a late arrival.”

Ahead of them the banners made their identity sure, and would do so as long as there was light to show the colors: so Tristen hoped, thinking of arrows and Crissand’s misfortune: foul looks from the landlords indeed.

But a hill farther on, they came to a tree the snow did not disguise, a lone tree taller than the snow-covered rocks among which it grew, and there they crossed a frozen stream, a small sheet of ice.

Owl, absent for the last hour, called from among the trees, and sat as a lump of feathers in the fading wintry light.

“Damn that bird!” Uwen said, startled, and then: “Forgive me, but he don’t give warning.”

“He doesn’t,” Tristen said. But it was as if the land had gone in disguise under the snow. Suddenly, from that old tree and the rocks he recalled, the land looked altogether familiar. He remembered being here with Petelly, before he had met Ninévrisë. He remembered the grass on the bank, how it had grown, and how Petelly had drunk from water now hard as glass.

The sun was beginning to stain the leaden, sifting clouds, but he pointed to the way he remembered, and led them off the road and into the untracked white of the hills.

Untracked, but as they rode Tristen recognized the path all along, an old road, a broad course through the rounded roughness of the sparsely wooded hills, paved, once. He felt the presence of old stones in his very sense of the land, and guided Dys around a buried wall where the road took a turn.

“Wary o’ them stones,” Uwen cautioned the men. “There’s trenches an’ foundations to stumble into.”

Indeed it seemed to Tristen as if buildings should stand to left and to right, and there, yes, a fountain had once stood, fed by that very spring. Now there was only snow, and a straggle of gorse.

Old stones soon poked edges up atop the snow; and a wind rose, sporting around the horses, blowing up under their bellies and play-ing around their faces. Owl, tracking them since the stream, dodged and dived through the gusts.

“Damn!” Uwen said in exasperation, for Owl made Cass shy violently under him, and arrows could scarcely do that.

“Is there ghosts?” Gweyl asked.

“I’m sure,” Tristen said, and yet had no alarm about reaching out into the land, listening for living souls… and they were there He had a sense of presence, nothing threatening. He found nothing threatening in the sport the gusts made.

But there, he felt something other than living souls, something which grew as the light faded and the wind rose.

“Spooky place,” Uwen said. “Wind’s talking.”

It did make a sound, a soft sighing across the snow.

“It’s a welcome, no more.”

The banners flew out, snapped and bucked, trying the strength of the men that held them steady. And now the wind acquired voices, a mournful sound.

“Seen this,” Uwen said above the sound. “It’s the oP lady!”

“Don’t fear her,” Tristen said. “But go quietly, all.”

Uwen had seen Auld Syes more than once, and had seen the Shadows of Althalen. The Amefin guard was for the most part new to this, but they went doggedly ahead toward ruins where they would not willingly have ridden, glancing warily about them.

And a turn or two on, they came on a place where something had made old streaks in the snow, and where strange shapes jutted, half-uncovered, from the depth of the drifts.

They came closer, finding the glint of metal overlaid with ice, then the angle of an elbow, a knee, a shoulder, all frozen in the snow.

“Gods bless,” the sergeant of the Amefins said. “It’s Elwynim.”

It was no hapless band of Amefin that lay thus frozen by the winter, armed and armored. He rode by, giving the area a passing glance, and near a ruined wall they found another such clump of frozen remains, well armored, and that armor sheeted with ice. The faces, for a few showed, were openmouthed, as if they cried out against their deaths.

Suddenly the wind sported with them, and skipped, and streaked the snow and tugged at the banners. Owl swooped near, broad, blunt wings atilt on a snow-laden gust.

“Captain,” Gweyl said anxiously.

“Stick close,” Uwen said, and half turned in his saddle to call out to the guardsmen. “Don’t fear the wind, lads! It’s on m’lord’s side an’ always has been.”

The banners flew sideways in the gusts, and the blast of ice-edged cold rocked even Dys’ huge strength. Oaths escaped some lips: “Hush!” others said.

“Auld Syes!” Tristen called out. “Do you hear? Soft! Speak softly to your folk!”

The wind fell somewhat, and gusts skipped away over the nearest hill, streaking deep tracks in the snow. Snow still blew, and ran in small clouds off the tops of old walls, in the last sinking of the sun.

But now they came to higher walls which partially sheltered them from the wind, and entered a maze of ruins, old stone walls long devoid of plaster, all dark gray against the snow, and liberally dusted with new fall from the roiled heavens.

Then, past a narrow convergence of ruined walls, appeared walls built of wood, structures abutted up against the old stoneworks. They rode through a gap in old stones and smelled fires, and heard the high voices of children at play.

They and the children caught sight of each other at the same moment, a few heavily bundled figures that stood stock-still and stared, then ran shrieking in among the wooden walls.

That brought out the elders, into that strange still time between oncoming storm and evening, a dim, snow-veiled number of cloaked men with weapons, and a handful of women tightly bundled in shawls and cloaks, carrying spears.

Owl flew across Tristen’s sight, and came back again, and presumptuously spread his great wings for a landing, with no perch, if Tristen had not put out his gloved hand.

On that, Owl settled. The banners flew straight out in the gusting wind and Owl, feathers clamped tight and still ruffling, shifted his grip, rowing with his wings for balance.

The guard had stopped still about him, and the leader of the folk came through the blowing snow to pay his respects, came earnestly, sweeping off the cowl to show his face.

It was Aeself, bearded, bright-eyed, and cheerful at the sight of them.

“M’lord,” Aeself said with a deep reverence, and turned and shouted out to the others. “This is the lord of Althalen and Ynefel! This is himself, the lord Tristen and his men, and our lord’s guard out of Amefel! Show him respect!”

The heavily cloaked men and women knelt in the snow, and the elder children uncertainly did as their elders did, the youngest huddling shyly into parental arms. More came out of hiding among the buildings, until around about the area there might have been a hundred, two hundred souls, all kneeling, in a great half circle.

Astonished at so many, Tristen stepped down from the saddle, and raised up Aeself, and another of his men, then a woman who chanced to be near, for this kneeling and reverence was not his, and nothing he sought. Aeself he embraced, and looked him in the eyes where he saw the pride Aeself had in what he had made of Althalen. Encouraged, the people, too, rose to see, and Uwen and the guard silently dismounted, until they all stood facing one another, a gathering so silent for that moment of assessment that the gusting wind and the restless shifting and blowing of weary horses was the loudest sound in their camp.

“Lord of Althalen,” Aeself said against that silence, “you’ve come to your capital.”

“You’ve done very well,” Tristen said, for dull as he was to proprieties, he knew how much Aeself yearned to be in the right of matters. “You’ve made these people safe.”

“My lord,” Aeself said, and hastily waved a hand at those standing near. “Bring our lord and his men meat and drink! See to their horses. Hurry there!”

He had forbidden Aeself to hail him king, and Aeself had obeyed that wish, but he knew the thought in Aeself’s heart, and he saw it in these people, who welcomed him and his guard and opened up the wide, rough timber doors of their great hall to him.

“Come in, come in,” Aeself urged him, and he did so, with Uwen beside him, and Gweyl and his guards, leaving Dys and Cass to the men, with all the horses.

The place was half of that same rough timber and half stone from the ruins. He was anxious to have his men out of the cold, but this place was large enough to receive them, and Aeself left the wide doors open for all to come and go, despite the snow falling outside.

Women, snow-sprinkled and bundled up in shawls and scarves, hurried to bring in trestles and benches, and men brought snowy planks, so that in a moment the barren place had tables. Women hurried back with baskets of hard bread, and men brought bowls, while the chill wind wafted the scent of food around the half-open hall.

“The horses,” was all Tristen needed to say to receive Aeself’s assurances there was provision for them and that the men had help settling them. In the meanwhile nothing would do but that they sit and accept mulled ale, while onlookers jammed the door, a living wall that cut off much of the wind and made the hall all but snug.

“Are you well here?” Tristen asked, and had Aeself’s assurance that they were, and more than that, they thrived: Modeyneth helped them, and they had no sickness in the camp, no lack of warm blankets and dry boots.

Other questions waited on their supper, which waited for the men to come in, and when they did, it was a good thick stew with their hard bread, rough fare which came wonderfully welcome after a long cold ride.

With so many bodies already to block the drafts and a good fire in a chimneyed old hearth giving off a grateful warmth on the right side, still more of Aeself’s folk crowded in, a living blanket of well-wishes and earnestness.

“I came to see how you fared,” Tristen said, broaching the business on which he came, “and to learn whether there might be Tasmôrden’s men across the river, and I found dead men outside your walls, frozen in the snow.”

Heads nodded solemnly. No one seemed surprised, but no few blessed themselves.

“Two bands came at us here,” Aeself said, “and each time the wind came up, and the snow blew. We said to ourselves it was a ghost wind when first we heard it. And the next day we went out to find whether they’d been back, and there they lay, stiff and frozen, Tasmôrden’s men, and up to no good. So it happened the second time, two days after that.”

Even among the Amefin men blessed themselves, and Uwen said, softly, “It were the old lady got ‘em.”

“Your enemies aren’t welcome at Althalen.”

“Gods bless,” Gweyl said, and his men with him, while the Amefin echoed the same.

Tristen said quietly, “The earl of Meiden said he fell in with armed men to the west and south, as he was riding from Modeyneth, and so we sent Ivanim by the north road and came by the west, to see if they had come toward you. We thought we should come see if you needed help. And clearly not.”

“As you see… no, my lord. We have help.”

“Do you need anything? Are you in want of anything?”

“We want for nothing but the chance to serve,” Aeself said, “to post our own guards along the river, to defend you, my lord. We are your men to order. And if Tasmôrden’s men come into this land, we know them, and we know whom to trust.”

“Do it,” Tristen said without a qualm, and to Uwen’s slight unease in the matter.

“M’lord,” Uwen said softly, “the rangers is out, too, an’ there wight be a misfortune.”

Tristen shook his head. “They’ll wear the red badge.” He had looked Aeself in the eyes and knew this was a loyal man, and that Aeself of all men would countenance no spies.

“Here are three hundred men,” Aeself said, “and eleven women who know the bow and who can stand and shoot, and the women can keep a tower, if we raise one, if we have your leave. We can take the field. We have men skilled in woodcraft and in stealth, and we can range up and down the river and be sure who comes and goes here.”

“So do the Lanfarnessemen, to the west,” Tristen said, “but the land east of Modeyneth, there we have no eyes but the villagers who live there. There you might do us a great deal of good.”

. “Only so’s ye choose good an’ loyal men who’ll not make off wi’ pigs an’ th’ like from the villages,” Uwen said, “them as feed ye.”

“That we won’t countenance,” Aeself said solemnly, to Uwen’s blunt concern, and on a second cup of ale, they shared news… not a great deal from the camp, but very much from the town, which was as far from Aeself’s knowledge as Guelemara itself. Aeself and his two companions having been as far as Henas’amef had told every detail on their snowy evenings, so Aeself confessed—so now these folk born to Elwynor knew the names of no few earls of Amefel, and all the lords of the south, and their devices and colors, knowledge that might be vital in the struggle to come.

And of Henas’amef, they, being many of them countryfolk, wanted to know the sort of shops there were, and the taverns, and food—oh, very much the food: such things fed them while they dined on hard bread and barley stew.

All these things they freely provided, besides the news out of Guelessar and the quarrel of Lord Cevulirn with the lord of Ryssand, and all the doings in both courts, besides the voyage of Umanon with Sovrag, his longtime enemy in the south… while Aeself and his lieutenants told them a darker story, of Tasmôrden’s connivance with the Saendal, the hill bandits, his marriage with a Saendal daughter and his theft of Aséyneddin’s gold, from the time Aséyneddin had gone south to what would become the battle of Lewenbrook. With that gold Tasmôrden had rewarded the Saendal, and well armed and well fed, they had taken advantage of the fall of other leaders to gain the service of masterless men, for hire.

That was the core of Tasmôrden’s army.

“Not that they love one another,” Aeself observed, “but that they have no other master, and hate one another, but serve him, because not to serve him means to fall to the others—no man walks away from Tasmôrden’s army. The dogs find him.”

Many among the Elwynim blessed themselves at that, and none of the Amefin had heard the tale, so Aeself provided it.

“The Saendal hunt with dogs,” Aeself said, “and Caswyddian when he was claiming the kingship had a large kennel himself, which Aséyneddin took, and let his dogs and Caswyddian’s fight, and the ones that lived he had guarding his camp. So Tasmôrden had a number of Saendal hounds as a gift from his father-in-law, and when he took Aséyneddin’s holdings he took all the dogs he found and had them and the hounds fight, and the ones that lived guard his camp. He hunts men with them, and sets them on anyone that defies him. If a man leaves the army, the hounds hunt him down.”

Tristen listened in deep distress, thinking of the yellow dog that had used to follow him out on his rides in Guelessar, fond, foolish creature, and thinking that nothing he heard of Tasmôrden recommended him, this not the worst he had done, but nothing savory either.

He wished the men such dogs hunted might escape them. He saw how some of Aeself’s men were very quiet and apprehensive as Aeself told the tale, and he wondered whether among these fugitives who listened to him some might have served Tasmôrden, or Aséyneddin, or Caswyddian before now.

“Well, too grim to go to sleep on,” Uwen said quietly—indeed, some of the children huddled close to parents’ sides at the edges of the gathering, and many a man had a gloomy look, brooding over weapons that Tristen recalled he had forbidden.

But Uwen told the matter of the feast at Midwinter, and how the Lady of Emwy had come to dance, and how Owl, who had found somewhere else to shelter, had flown right out of the walls: it made a good story, Tristen thought, who was part of it—better, in fact, than it had worrying about the rift at the time. But the people were awed to hear about the Lady, and astonished about Owl.

“The Lady watches this place,” Tristen said, “and very likely your intruders fell afoul of her. I know at least that the men who ambushed Lord Crissand haven’t come here to trouble you thus far, and they’re very likely those in the drifts outside the walls. The Lady stopped them.”

“Is she a pretty lady?” asked one of the children.

“I think she might be,” Tristen said, recalling the gown of golden lace, the gown like cobwebs, and a face that never would stay in the memory, no more than snowflakes in the hand. “She has a daughter. Auld Syes is the Lady’s name, and Seddiwy is her daughter, and if you speak kindly to them, I’ve found they’ll be good neighbors.”

“I would give her bread,” the child said, at which her mother hushed her, and rough men laughed a little.

“That you would, sweet,” Uwen said, tousling a small dark head. “And sweet dreams to you tonight.”

So all of them began to settle for the night. And there was a nook curtained for warmth and furnished with fine cloth… where or how they had come by it, Tristen had no idea, but Aeself gave him and Uwen this finest bed, and all the guard had their bedrolls, so they could lie down in comfort. Aswys reported the horses well fed and settled, and chose, himself, to sleep in the shed nearest his charges, where he was accustomed to rest.

It was in one sense easier to rest here than in the Zeide with all its duties and expectations… here Tristen settled, sure he had satisfied every request, and fulfilled everyone’s needs, and answered their curiosity, and that now he could close his eyes, with Uwen beside him and ale-bound for sound sleep.

But he had no sooner said as much to himself and attempted rest than he became aware of a furtive presence, a movement on the edge of his sensibilities, and not a comfortable one.

He lifted his ear from the pillow, not certain whether he had heard something or imagined it. But the wind had begun to blow, breathing cold through the cracks and making the curtains move.

“M’lord?” Uwen rose on an elbow in a dark less only by the fire outside the curtains. “M’lord, there’s an uneasy sound, sum’meres.”

He felt the same, not that they were threatened, but that something untoward had happened out there. Lives were out in the wind, but they went out one by one, and three at one instant, and if he listened he could hear angry voices.

If he listened, he could hear them speak of traitors, and angry retribution; and one there was with a quieter voice, a Shadow… not the One he expected, not Uleman, who had rebuilt the old ivards here, but a gentler one, one seated far in the recesses of the gray space, who rose, and came forward what seemed a long, long distance, yet remained far from him, and trying to speak.

He wished to know what this one had to say, and strove to close the gap, but every effort turned him aside. He became aware of darkness where that Shadow moved, of strange shapes shifting and flowing, Shadows within shadow.

Then a blue light flared up and ran along the foundations of the old capital. Wards leapt up bright and strong, and he could no longer see the Shadow he had been watching at all. The web of light spread outward from where be stood, bright and clear as he had seen it shine before Lewenbrook.

This was the web that was Uleman’s making, so strong now it sang and rippled like harp strings. Outside was dark and danger, but where the web reached, embracing all the sleeping people, was safety.

Yet there were doors within the Pattern: it Unfolded to him that within the weaving there was such an access as existed in the Zeide… and had always been.

He could go through that portal and reach Ynefel.

Another path led to the Zeide’s lower hall.

A third ran to a place somewhere to the north and east, one as easily within his reach as the other two, but of great peril: a place of muddled sound and strange shapes, yet familiar to him in the way many things he had never seen seemed familiar, and Unfolded to him.

“M’lord.”

He could reach that third place. And he could reach Ynefel. And he could take one step and be in the old mews, from which he could walk straight into the lower hall of the Zeide.

And beyond that, from the Zeide’s portal, to still other places, places unvisited in very long…

“M’lord, will ye hear? The wind’s takin’ on fit to blow the roof off.”

A shape came out of the gray, a woman of grays and gold, gowned in cobweb lace. It was Auld Syes, and the small Shadow of her daughter went after her, skipping and flitting.

But after them ran an entire troop of shadows, less comely, and less dangerous than these two.

He wished them not to cause any harm in Aeself’s camp.

Owl came swooping by, and on the edge of his wings the light glowed white, white that blinded.

He blinked, still dazed, and was aware of Uwen in the dark. Through a seam in the curtain, he saw the banked fire that had broken forth into flame where wood jutted from the ash. A gust of wind must have wakened it.

The wind outside moaned around the eaves.

“What a blow!” Uwen said, “It’s woke the fire up. Gods!—D’ ye see somethin’, lad, where ye’re lookin’?”

He shook his head, hearing the murmur of the guardsmen wakened from their sleep. He was still dazed from the vision of other places, convinced he could reach the Zeide from here as easily as wishing: he could walk through the old mews; he could stand in Ynefel’s ruined hall between one blink and the next, and truly be there, and touch and be touched.

Had he fallen asleep within such a place as the mews in the Zeide, and not known it?

Or was it within his dream that such possibilities existed?

And suddenly his waking mind made sense of the memory of that third place he had seen in his vision, which was the Quinaltine, beside the Guelesfort—and his heart beat fast to think that he could come that near Cefwyn.

It beat faster still to feel the trouble he felt in that place, and to know danger moved in it, danger which Cefwyn might not see. He himself had stood in the Quinaltine before the altar. He had seen the tangled shadows mill behind the Lines the Patriarch had drawn— he had pitied them, unhappy, angry shadows, Quinalt souls laid to rest above Bryaltine and Teranthine, all jumbled together, all within walls raised contrary to the Lines earlier masons had made. The Patriarch had seemed utterly unaware of what screamed and strained at the barriers: it was all silent to him. It was utterly outside the priests’ awareness how later masons had laid down contrary Lines, blind to the proper Lines of the earth, blind to what earlier ma-sonwork had stood there—these later builders, Quinalt builders, for whatever reason, had laid their own structure over that place and crossed the Lines in impossible tangles, pockets, dead ends, traps, from which the anguished souls could not escape.

Oh, there was power there, but it was not any power Efanor’s little book described as godly power. It was a terrible place, like the hell of Efanor’s book.

And far from curing it, the priests before that altar had walked one principal Line, over and over, deaf to the pain and anguish which roiled just behind it, souls in torment, imprisoned for all eternity in spaces too small for their smallest longings.

That was the place that third passage went.

And with a breath and a wish he might cross that distance tonight and find Cefwyn.

But disturbance among the priests would not serve Cefwyn: he foresaw panic among them if he stepped out of the stonework, by magic, in the place these men called holy. He feared to do it, and was unsure, moreover, what he might disturb there.

It was a chance. A risk. It was nothing to undertake inconsiderately.

“It’s eased way off,” Uwen said with a sigh, meaning the wind.

“At least the roof is stayin’.—Are ye all right, m’lord? Ye wasn’t havin’ a dream, like?”

“Somewhat of a dream,” he said faintly, but he did not say what he had learned, not even to Uwen. He doubted it would reassure Men in the least to know that their wards both intersected Althalen and reached to Henas’amef, though they were leagues apart. He saw possibilities in it. He saw a way he dared not take yet.

He ought to ask Emuin, among other matters he had discovered here.

A blast of wind made the wooden beams groan, and woke the fire to full life in the heart.

“Damn,” he heard one of his guards say, and knew honest men were afraid of the violence in the dark. More, he knew in himself the power to mend that fear, and he knew it was time to mend it.

Calm, he wished the heavens. Be calm.

And in his own heart he was sure now, sure that it was time to move the war against Tasmôrden, sure that he must move, even if it made things more difficult for Cefwyn to explain to the other lords… and sure now, reaching out through the maze of the wards, that he could reach not one, but three Places and perhaps others.

He had seen the Lady walking the hills hereabouts, and knew the secret traces between the wards: walls were no barrier to the Old Power. She had asked admittance to the wards of Henas’amef, and he had granted it—to the good, he was sure now, for now the Old Power ran as it had been accustomed to run, between here and there, between here and Guelemara, until the priests’ Line dammed it—on purpose or otherwise.

He had said he ruled in Henas’amef, and in Althalen, and on that hill above the river, where stood ruined Ynefel: and now, having laid his head on the stones of Althalen, having dreamed here, he had found the Lines as apt to his hands as the reins of his horse. He drew in a deep, deep breath, sitting disheveled in the dark, amid his blankets, knowing all these wards at once, all the work of Masons and all the Lines on the earth, all the lives of common folk at their work and all the nobles and wizards who had ever ruled—

And these Lines, often walked over the generations of Men, often worked, these graven paths of habit and deed… all were his. They were not his by Cefwyn’s grant, although that had confirmed his lordship for Men; they were not even his because Mauryl had meant him to rule them, though that was so, too.

They were his because they obeyed him. And they did, now. It seemed that the power in them ran through his veins, and stood the hairs on his arms and the hair on his head on end. He could have lived without breathing, for the power that ran through him needed no such thing.

But breath was what he chose, and the solidity of the lives around him. He strove to make out some detail of Uwen’s presence in the dark, desperate for it of a sudden, for he had strayed that far, that remote from Men. And when his eyes had searched out the least hint of Uwen’s shape, and his hand had found Uwen’s solid, strong arm, then he told his heart it could beat again.

“Go back to sleep,” he said to Uwen.

It was quiet now, all the moaning of the wind stopped, the wards quiet and not in evidence. Uwen was all shadows, and all loyalty, and all love, and if there was a moderation to the power that ran through the air and through his bones, if there was a caution and a reminder in his heart, it was Uwen’s.

Perhaps it was not a good thing to wish too hard, too absolutely.

Perhaps, he thought, considering Uwen, it was well to do his weather-wishing not absolutely, but with regard of Men, and with love of the men around him, and of the men who were his friends: there was his safety. There was the assurance he would do good and not harm.

In that thought alone he could lie back down and let his guard deal with the fire and the questions what that storm might do outside. It would abate. In time it would abate as a storm should, and the weather would moderate, and he would have done no harm with the power that ran through him to the tips of his fingers and the soles of his feet. He would still be Tristen. He remained as Mauryl named him, and as he named himself, and nothing could tempt him out of that choice, no offer of the enemy, no pure sensation, no curiosity.

Tristen, he said to himself, and summoned that youth who ran naked on the battlements of Ynefel, that young man who raced Dys across the pasture, chasing dying leaves.

Being Tristen, and flesh and blood, he could sleep.

And in the morning, in the silence of all the world, Aeself’s men opened the doors and they all walked out into a strange sight.

“It ain’t snowin’,” Uwen exclaimed. “Gods, I forgot what the sun is!”

The sun glanced off the recent fall as if jewel dust had been the last sifting from the heavens. And Tristen looked about him at the still edge of winter and drew a deep breath. When he looked carefully into the gray space, he saw the soft blue fire of wards not only about the old buildings, but the new.

That had happened in the night, and not, he thought, of his doing.

“Lord Uleman,” Tristen said softly, for he realized for the first time in the clear light of this morning, and without the driving snow, that Aeself’s camp included the tomb they had made. The Lord Regent’s burial place stood within the wall just outside their makeshift great hall… Ninévrisë’s father, walled into his grave by the devotion of his last remaining men, on a night when Caswyddian’s hunt was closing on them and all their lives had been in jeopardy.

Tristen walked across the untracked snow and laid his hand on those stones he had last seen the night the old man had died; and within them he felt no threat such as Auld Syes could send, but rather a sense of peace and great strength and safety.

“Sir,” Tristen said, just for the two of them. “Is it you who’ve stopped the snow this morning? I take it very kindly if you have. Your own people live here, now, have you seen? I think you must have. Protect them.”

There was no clear answer to his touch, so he thought at first, but when he drew back his hand he saw the blue fire running on his fingers and tracing its way up his arm.

Owl, wretched bird, came and perched on the crest of the ruined wall, and asked his silly, persistent question.

“Foolish bird,” he said, not ill meant, and Owl swiveled his head remarkably far about and glared at him from eyes like black-centered moons. He was not a creature of the daylight… but he was here, ruffled, looking like Emuin with too little sleep. “Why do you follow me?” he asked, and then knew that was a wrong question: Owl never followed him. Owl preceded him, like a herald.

He turned around again, unaware he was observed, and met the awed faces of the whole of the people that had gathered, marveling at the snow and now at another strange sight.

“This is the Lord Regent’s grave,” he said, for it was Uleman who deserved their reverence. “Did you know?”

“We chose this place by chance,” Aeself said. “Or believed we had. But could we settle in such a place by accident?”

“It was his accident,” Tristen said. “The Shadows in this place can be dangerous. He’s remade the wards all about your building: I saw them last night, and I couldn’t improve them. The Shadows here respect the Lord Regent above all. And if you do see an old woman or a little girl, respect them. They always give good advice.”

“My good lord,” Aeself said in a hushed voice.

“Might there be breakfast?” he asked then, for he hated the awkwardness of their reverence; he wanted only to have a warm cup and a friendly converse, and to be on their way. He had seen so much he wanted to think about, and so much he thought he should report to Emuin, and now for no reason in particular his thoughts, skittering like mice, had darted toward Tarien and toward Cevulirn and all there was yet to do. “We should be on our way.”

There was breakfast first, porridge and honey that lent a comfortable warmth all the way to their fingertips, and the men were glad to be setting out toward their own home in the evening—toward a place, perhaps, where the wind was less noisy and less threatening.

They were glad to saddle up, on this bright morning: even the horses seemed eager to be under way.

But as they were mounted and about to set out, Aeself, reaching up, pressed a small and much-used paper into Tristen’s hand. “We had but two scraps of paper, my lord, in all the camp, and forgive me the condition of them. The one is the muster of Althalen, for your use; and the other… the other is a letter to Lady Ninévrisë, on our behalf. I know you sometimes send to the king in Guelemara; and if it please Your Grace, send it on to her. The burden of it is the news we have of Ilefínian, such as we put together by all our accounts: you know from last night all we have to report, but read it: I send it unsealed. I’m her remotest cousin. She may know my name; to that end, I signed it. But I ask you put your seal on it, my lord, if you approve it, and recommend me to her.”

Aeself had never confessed before that he was in that degree Ninévrisë’s kin, never claimed rank in the Regent’s house, and in the tangled nature of the noble houses, perhaps he had never held it.

But now he held the post of seneschal of Althalen, at very least, the keeper and the protector of all the loyal Elwynim who made it across the river. He was the defender, and the man who saw to the commonest, most necessary things to keep alive the folk who came to him, against weather and Tasmôrden’s men. Auld Syes herself had taken Aeself under her protection, and perhaps safeguarded Crissand, too, against the worst they could do.

“You will have all I can give,” he said, “when we come into Elwynor.”

“To bring my lord into Elwynor is the honor I want,” Aeself said, looking up at him. “Grant me that.”

“When you see the fires alight,” Tristen said, “then ride to the bridge.”

“My lord,” Aeself said fervently, and Tristen took the two precious scraps of paper and put them in his belt as he rode away. The well-wishes of all the folk of Althalen were at his back, the banners out in front, and the Amefin guard about him, and a clean, clear sky above all.

“ ‘At were well done,” Uwen said. “Well done, on your own part, m’lord. ‘At’s a good man, that.”

Owl turned up, flying across their path. And Uwen blessed himself, and so, Tristen guessed, did many of the men in his company, but he did not turn to see.

In time, on the way, to Dys’ rolling gait, he read the unsealed papers, written with a crude pen in a fine, well-schooled hand.

There were the number of men Aeself had said in the muster, by name and quality, as fairly written as any such account his clerks brought him. The message to Ninévrisë was respectful and sadly informed her of the death of very many of the family, by name, and of the execution or death in battle of friends, by name.

And it told her of the fate of the treasury, put away in cisterns deep in Ilefínian, so, the missive said, the Usurper will have hard shift to bring it out again in the winter.

Aeself Endior, your cousin.

Aeself had been right to have given him the letter unsealed, and at his discretion. Knowing what news it had, he might send or not send—and he did not find it prudent to send the original into Guelemara, where his messengers were in danger. He feared the letter might fall into hostile hands, and inform Ryssand where the missing treasury was… although Tasmôrden might have guessed, and doubtless Tasmôrden had probed the wells: Cook had thought of a similar stratagem to save her utensils during Parsynan’s regime, and it was not the first time such things had been done. But in the winter, and near-freezing water, Aeself was right: it was not secrecy that would keep the treasury safe, it was the bitter cold of the water.

And by the time the water warmed enough to lower a man in, he intended the wells might have changed hands again… but not that Ryssand should find some way to the gold first. It was knowledge for Ninévrisë to have, first and foremost. He had a gift to give her, when they met in Ilefínian. He saw the moment clear before him, Cefwyn safe and well, and the Regent’s banner flying over the courtyard.

The weather in the Amefin hills around him held clear and the sun warmed his back in a way it had not done since the first of winter. Even the air held a different smell, of moisture and melt, and the snow underfoot lost the crispness of deep cold.

“The weather’s taken a turn,” Uwen said. “It even smells like spring.”

So he imagined, and thought a while, and tried to imagine consequences, as Emuin and Mauryl had taught him.

But at the last he saw there was nothing to gain by waiting.

So gathering up the courage to wish change on the world, and blind to all untried things it meant, he willed that the spring come in earnest and the snow depart.

Nothing seemed to oppose that wish, nothing this near, nothing at this moment opposed him.

He did not trust the ease with which the weather obliged him: he felt his wishes all unfettered, unopposed, unmatched in the world.

Therein, too… he had learned to question his own wisdom.

CHAPTER 11

Pigs in a gate, Cefwyn said to himself, kneeling amid a glow of candles, did not squeal louder or wiggle harder than the recalcitrant barons when they heard the order to bring their men to the bridge at Angesey.

Ryssand was doubtless the loudest… having Cuthan and Parsy-nan in hand, all prepared to confront the king in solemn council, after his defeat at the wedding party, and having raised a certain support for the notion of peace among the barons accustomed to support him. Instead, finding his schemes ignored and the order given to march without his having had a second hearing, Ryssand was so wroth he had struck one of his servants to the ground.

So Cefwyn heard, at least, from Efanor, who retained favor with Ryssand’s staff. For himself, after passing the order at night, after the wedding party, and with no consultation or counsel with any of his advisors on the matter… he had declared to all concerned his need to seek spiritual, not mortal, guidance for this war, and he had barricaded himself in the King’s Shrine within the Guelesfort.

He took no counsel but his brother’s and the Holy Father’s, and fasted… was in prayer, seeking the favor of the gods on his holy venture into Elwynor, and could not be disturbed.

Could the barons who carried the banner of orthodoxy and the doctrinists fault him for fasting and prayer?

He knelt and went through the forms of devotion, not that he believed, but that it seemed one thing to create the subterfuge; it was somehow mean and disrespectful, his conscience informed him, to sit in the shrine drinking and eating while he lied to the barons and mocked what good and decent men supporting him thought holy.

So he did go so far as to pray during those long hours, if only the memorized recitals of formal catechism, and as he passed beyond hunger to light-headedness even fancied a certain spiritual elevation… he had had not a bite to eat, and no relief from the chill in this drafty little precinct.

He had no relief from thinking, either, in the tedious hours of kneeling, until at last his unaccustomed knees were beyond pain and his shoulders had acquired an ache that traveled from one aggrieved portion of his back to another like the stab of assassins’ knives.

For the first time he knew his body had lost the resiliency of his boyish years; for the first time he accounted how he would pay for all the little follies of youth… at seven, he had cracked his knee falling through the stable-loft floor: that came back to haunt him. The elbow he had affronted in weapons practice not five years gone, that afflicted his shoulder as well. The time Danvy had pitched him off over his head, the slip on the ice when he was twelve, the times his mother had warned him about leaping off the side of the staircase… you’ll break your feet, she had said, and he had not remembered his mother’s voice clearly in years, but he could now, in this long watch.

In what he fancied was the night he endured a silence so deep he heard echoes he had never heard, as if the Guelesfort itself had a secret life within it, ghosts, perhaps, distant shouts, sharp noises.

It was a shrine his grandfather had dedicated and never used. Efanor had used it, in his childhood, all too often, for a refuge from the shouting and the anger that had filled the royal apartments… shouting and anger that had said very many things a son had not wanted to hear about his mother.

To this day Cefwyn wanted not to think about it, not wishing to remember the worse aspects of his father, who had found fault in both the mothers of his sons. In the death of his own mother and his father’s preoccupation with a new wife, he had found alternate escapes, Emuin’s study among them, and far less savory nooks of the Guelesfort and the upper town. A brother’s at first grudging acceptance had sustained Efanor during the quarrels, the reconciliations, the tirades and the sorrows of his mother’s marriage, for no woman at close range could escape their father’s eternal discontent. But when Efanor’s mother had died, this echoing silence was the place that had consoled Efanor.

Efanor, the younger, bereft too early of a mother he had adored, and led far too often into sin by his rebellious elder brother, had seemed to lose heart somewhere in the extravagance of mourning afterward, being at that age boys began to think more deeply and ask themselves questions. Efanor had found peace first by retreat to this place of cold stone and then by agreement with their father— finding a father’s doting on him a great deal safer than the tirades and angers that came down on his brother’s head.

And perhaps he’d just grown tired. Cefwyn could find no way to blame him… Efanor, for whatever reason, had spent his adolescent hours in this room, thinking, in a state of mind Cefwyn only now understood. Thinking, as no boy who valued his freedom or his reason should have to think, led by the priests into self-doubt and fear. The Quinalt attributed evil to evil actions. Efanor’s mother had died, a sister stillborn. Was that not evil? And had Efanor’s sin and rebellion not caused it all? And was their father not quieter now, and grieving, and did not their father need him?

Peace ought to come of this self-questioning, so the priests avowed. But that was not what came of Cefwyn’s vigil: rather it was anger at their father, understanding of his brother such as no other place had taught him.

He found anger at Ryssand, too, who had seized on Inareddrin’s weaknesses, fed his furies, undermined all trust that might ever have existed between Inareddrin and his eldest son, and perhaps—though he could not find the proof—dealt with Heryn Aswydd in the plot that had sent Inareddrin and almost Efanor to ambush and death.

Had not his own letter had a part in it—his revelation to his father that he had found in Tristen the Elwynim King To Come… and had bound him in fealty?

Gods, did Ryssand know that matter, and could Ryssand keep silent on it if he did?

Doubtless not.

Patently not.

But of causes that had brought Inareddrin to that fatal battlefield, it was not his letter. It was not his letter, but Ryssand’s undermining his father’s trust, it was Heryn Aswydd’s feeding that fear, secretly reporting to his father…

He felt the numbness growing in his back, as pain passed beyond limits. And pain in his heart diminished. He was not his father’s murderer. He had almost saved him. Almost. Fate, or wizardry, or whatever guided the affairs of Ylesuin these days, had snatched responsibility out of his hands, and then snatched Tristen, too.

Unfair, but necessary, perhaps. There was no one less blamable for the ills of the court—ills that would not even reach Tristen’s understanding in Amefel—or that might have reached it, to Cuthan’s discomfort.

Tristen, unlike his king, had not a second’s hesitation in dealing with the unwholesome. Tristen had never learned to negotiate: there was the difference, while He had grown up negotiating for his fa-ther’s affection. Emuin had another boy now. He was glad of that jealous, but glad; and swore if the boy was not grateful, he would’ bring the wrath down on the lad.

He had had the benefit of Emuin’s teaching. Of Annas’ patient management. They had saved him from going down Efanor’s road.

And there was Idrys. Thinking on it, in this long meditation on those who had shaped his life and brought him to this moment, he was not sure he was fond of Idrys. It was hard to be fond of the man, in the way it was hard to love a honed blade—but rely on it? Absolutely.

One need not grow maudlin, over Idrys least of all.

Yet… was there nothing for all the years, all the trust, all the hard duty, and all the concentration of a life bent only on saving his? The Crown and the kingdom owed this man more than he had ever gotten… he relied on Idrys, repository of all the unpleasant confidences a monarch could make to no one else, not his pious brother, not his wife, not his best friend’s gray-eyed innocence; and thinking on it, damn it all, he was fond of Idrys, though he could never say so.

Idrys was out at this very moment, having necessarily extracted his last reliable spy and resource from within Ryssand’s house, trying to find out what Ryssand was up to from less dependable, external sources. While the king was at his prayers the king’s right hand was at work steering the events his order had set in motion, and if things outside this chamber had been going contrary to his orders, Cefwyn had every confidence that no sanctuary would deter Idrys from reporting.

Efanor came and went, however. As near kin, Efanor brought him the water custom allowed… and brought his own reports of the barons’ answer to his call to arms, barons who, deprived of access to the king, sought alternative routes of information and protest, barons who, still uncertain as to where Efanor himself stood, revealed more than they knew.

And on this day, too, Efanor came in very softly, still making quiet echoes, and sat down near him on a prayer bench.

“Marisal will march,” Efanor relayed to him. “Osanan is contriving excuses and wishes to hear the peace treaty.”

Cefwyn heaved a sigh. Of the nineteen provinces of Ylesuin, five were indisputably with Tristen, four were marginally with him, five at least dared stand with Ryssand, and the rest… danced an intricate step in place.

“Guelessar?” he asked. Efanor himself was duke of Guelessar.

Efanor hesitated the space of a breath, head bowed. “Guelessar is a title,” Efanor said, the truth both of them knew: that his power was not the real power in the province, only a title that gave him estates and honor. He had very little governance over the lesser lords who administered the districts. “The lords in Guelessar are meeting and have been meeting and two at least have sent messages to Ryssand. For my word, at my order, they will march, will they, nil they.” Then Efanor added, the bitter truth, but honest: “How reliable they will be to go to the fore of a battle, and how reliable to stand… that remains to be seen.”

“Will we know that of any men on the field, until the moment comes? Relieve yourself of guilt on that account. Gods, gods, that I ever dismissed the south!”

“If you’d kept the southern barons here in court, there’d have been civil war, and you know it.”

All too well, though he hadn’t known it when he’d called on the south to defend their border before his father’s body was cold in his grave.

He had soared at the height of his power when he had stood on Lewen field, victorious over the sorcerous enemy. He had had a tattered and battered army, but five provinces of the nineteen all devoted to a newly crowned king, the likelihood Panys and Marisal and Marisyn would join him in a drive north, and the blessing of the Lady Regent of Elwynor into the bargain, not to mention the likelihood some of her provinces would join them an effort to go straight to her capital and end all the war.

But his southern army had been tired, winter threatened… and he had been king in deed only to half his kingdom.

Crowned in the south, heady with the support of barons ready for action, filled with the desire to restore his newfound beloved to her throne—and, he had to admit, to impress her—he had instead come north to claim the heart of his kingdom, this, in the foolish confidence he could take up all his father’s alliances intact. Then, he had thought, he would have had power enough in his hands to assure a well-conducted campaign in the spring with minimal losses on either side.

But he had discovered that his father’s compromises with the north had been more extensive and more damaging to the Crown’s authority than ever he had suspected. Earliest, he, too, had taken the advice of Murandys and Ryssand, his father’s trusted advisors, first of all in appointing Parsynan as viceroy over Amefel, and in so doing, he had fallen into the pattern and embroiled himself in his father’s compromises.

He had, with the aid of his friends and advisors, old and new, worked his way to real power: he had wagered everything on the matter of his marriage and gained the Quinalt’s approval. He had lessened Ryssand’s influence. Now after handling the rebel barons roughly, he set a test for all the north: march in a blizzard, march in defiance of all sanity, march in defiance of the enemy’s lying peace offer… or refuse and stand in rebellion to the Crown while the battle flag was flying.

He would be king in truth, or not at all—that was his determination. He would not spend a lifetime catering to fools or compromising his way into his father’s situation. He grew aware of his silence, aware of Efanor’s eyes studying him, and when their eyes met, Efa-nor said:

“They did listen, Cefwyn. They did hear you. Whatever they decide, your arguments for this action were not wasted.”

Efanor knew what he gambled, as perhaps no other could—Efanor who, if he went down, would have to deal with Ryssand in his own way—a different way, perhaps, with a necessarily diminished force, in a vastly changed kingdom.

Thus far he had Tristen uniting five provinces in his name, while he as king could claim only three as solid, one of them Llymaryn— Sulriggan’s province, gods save him, Sulriggan, as self-serving a pious prig as ever drew breath, a man with no stomach for fighting—but even less for being left without royal protection: he sided with the Crown because Ryssand hated him for his weathercock swings of loyalty. There was his sudden source of courage.

Panys he could trust absolutely. He suspected that Marisal might have moved more quickly to join him because Sulriggan had, being a neighbor, but he still gave the lord of Marisal all due credit, as a man who would not break his oath of fealty. It was a sparsely populated province, with fewer men under arms, but the lord being a devout man and a decent one, he gathered himself and marched.

Those three he had, yet he could not even claim the undivided enthusiasm of his own brother’s province of Guelessar, in which the capital sat, in which they now were. It was not surprising, perhaps, since Guelessar was the hotbed of politics of every stamp and the seat of the Quinaltine, and could no more make a decision than the council and the clergy could.

But, gods, that was difficult to hear, and it was difficult for Efanor to report.

“I would think,” Efanor said quietly, “that you have prayed here as long as profits anyone, and it may be time now to come out and hold council. Your captains have readied the army to move. What more can there be? If you ordered such as you have to march now, you might frighten the likes of Osanan into joining you.”

He saw his brother in the light of half a hundred candles, modestly dressed as always, but with a certain elegance: whence the gold chain about his neck, that did not support the habitual Quinalt sigil, but rather a fine cabochon ruby? Had he seen Efanor without that sigil in the last year?

And whence the rings on his fingers, and the careful attention to his person? Had this worldliness begun to happen, his brother attiring himself to draw a lady’s eye, and he not seen it?

He stared, entranced and curious, seeing in this suddenly handsome and elegant younger brother the flash of wit as well as jewelry, the spark of a man’s soul as well as a saint’s. This was his successor, if it had to be. This was the continuance of the Marhanen, absent an heir of his own body, staunch in loyalty and awakening to the power he had.

There was hope in his brother.

“Also,” Efanor said, “I have some concern for Her Grace.”

“She’s not fasting!” He would not let her fast, not with the chance she was with child. That had meant she was alone for her devotions, except for Dame Margolis, who ran her household.

Efanor seemed abashed. “Her Grace has reported the morning sickness to her maids.”

He was appalled. The maids gossiped in every quarter. Ninévrisë knew better.

Then he was sure she did know better, and intended to break the news unofficially—deliberately, with calculated effect. Rumor would chase rumor through the halls. When Tarien’s secret became a whisper, after the whispers about Ninévrisë’s, it would only be meaningful in the context of Ninévrisë’s secret. Women’s secrets would battle one another for weeks in the back corridors before they both came to light in council; and lords, again, would take sides.

But before that, the army would march. That might be in her mind.

“Likely her stomach’s upset,” Cefwyn said, trying to make little of what men ought not to take note of—yet. “So is mine, for that matter. Ryssand is a bane to good digestion.”

“Whether it’s true,” Efanor said, “I am no judge. But it must be end to end of town by now. And in the people’s minds their own prince will be the firstborn. Your lady is a very clever woman.”

“Their own prince.” He kept his voice muffled. He had his guard outside, but he wanted no report of crows of laughter and loud voices to come out of his solemn retreat. He could not believe it. He had counted up the days since their wedding night, and it was possible, but only scantly so. It was too much to expect, too soon. “But if it’s not true if she’s made this up only because of the Aswydd woman…”

“She surely wouldn’t.”

“We have scarcely enough time together… three months, three months, is it not, to be sure?”

Efanor blushed, actually blushed. “I believe women know signs of it, besides the sickness, and there’s a chance she’s right. Besides…” Efanor added anxiously, “her father was a wizard, no less than the Aswydds. So couldn’t she—?”

“I honestly don’t know what she could and couldn’t. She could be mistaken.”

“But if she’s deceived herself,” Efanor said, “you’ll be in Elwynor and maybe in Ilefínian before anyone knows it. Leaves don’t go back on the tree. Isn’t that what grandfather used to say? You’ll have Elwynor.”

“She will have Elwynor,” he reminded his brother.

“To the same effect, is it not?”

By the time anyone knew whether there was a prince to come, the war and the outcome of it would have been settled… except that knotty question of inheritance. Had Ninévrisë thought of that when she confided in a maid?

Or had the sickness been real, and the confidence in the maids a necessity?

And would not the child remove Efanor and all his line from the succession? Perhaps Efanor hoped for it. Perhaps he saw it as he would, as his chance of freedom.

“It will open a battle in the council,” he said to Efanor. “To loose this, on her own advice—”

“There is the chance,” Efanor said soberly, “that it was the truth, and the sickness was no sham.”

“And if it is, she should not ride!”

“Where shall she stay?”

“I would protect her.”

“But the rumors would fly. And there would be danger.”

“These are good Guelenmen, most. It’s Ryssand who’s poisoned the well.”

“He still thinks he has the advantage,” Cefwyn said. “And damned if he does. He will march. Cuthan’s head is in jeopardy, Parsynan’s with it. I long to say the same of Ryssand, but his obedience would serve me better. I don’t need the other two.”

“Don’t trust him. Never trust him.”

Cefwyn laughed, bitterly, and hushed it, because of the still and holy precinct. “Trust? and this the father of your prospective bride? I trust him only to make mischief, and I shall never allow you to make that sacrifice, I tell you now. I’ll have none of Ryssand in the royal house, in the blood, in the bed, in the intimate counsels. No! don’t nay me. I have had unaccustomed time to think, and I will not have that girl attached to you. If I should fall—don’t marry her. If I come back, by the gods, you won’t marry her. I love you too much. “

He surprised Efanor, who looked away and down, and seemed affected by what he had said. He hoped Efanor believed it.

“And I, you,” Efanor said at last, “but what other use for a prince who’ll never rule?”

“Don’t say you’ll never rule. War is—”

“Don’t say that! And don’t talk of falling. The gods listen to us in this place.”

“The gods listen to us everywhere or nowhere. It’s common sense I make provision. Every farmer who marches with the levy knows to instruct his wife and his underage sons. Shall I do less? She’ll ride with me. I know there’s no stopping her. And if you rule, promise me Ryssand won’t live to see the next day’s sun. Marry that chit of his to some farmer. Break that house. It will be a detriment to you.”

Efanor looked about him as if he feared eavesdroppers. “Not here,” Efanor said. “I beg you don’t say such things here.”

Efanor revered this place, his refuge, his place of peace, the source, Cefwyn suspected, of all Efanor’s fancies concerning the gods and the means by which Jormys and then Sulriggan had secured a hold on his brother. And Efanor wished it not to be profaned with talk of killings.

“I respect my brother’s wishes,” Cefwyn said. “Respect mine. For the good of Ylesuin—promise me.”

“I do,” Efanor said, and his face was pale when he said it… damning himself with the promise of a murder, so Efanor would see it.

“You’re no priest. You’re a lord of Ylesuin, you’re the duke of

Guelessar, my heir, and justice is in your hands, a function of the holy gods, the last good advice the Patriarch preached to me. Murder isn’t in question. Justice is.”

“Idrys argues much the same,” Efanor said. “And constantly. Yet you will not hear him.”

“Caught in my own trap,” Cefwyn said.

“Yet if you kill Ryssand—”

“Merry hell,” Cefwyn said, and Efanor gasped at the affront. “So to speak,” Cefwyn said. “And my wife may be with child. That won’t please Ryssand either, especially as he wishes me to die childless and his darling Artisane to bear you an heir. Tarien Aswydd, meanwhile, will bring forth my bastard son, a wizard and a prince of the south, an aetheling. I can’t think Ryssand will dance for joy at that, either, although who can say what he’ll find to object? Any complaint will serve. He brings them like trays of sweetmeats… here, pick one you like.”

“Pray the gods for help. Use the time you have here. Trust them. And come out and lead the kingdom.”

“Dear Efanor.” It was on his lips to say wake from your dream, but he could not spoil his brother’s faith, not when it was bound to lead to quarrels, and he needed quarrels least of all. “Dear Efanor. I trust you. Ask the gods for me. I’m sure you’re a voice they know far better than mine.”

“I do. Nightly. And have.” Efanor glanced down… had always had the eyes of a painted saint as a boy, and did now as a man, when he looked up like that. “I hated you when Mother died, and I prayed for forgiveness. I wanted to love my brother, and I prayed for that. I wanted not to be king, and I wanted not to marry, and I prayed for that. By now I must have confused the gods. So they give me Artisane.”

It was the most impious utterance of humor Efanor could manage, brave defiance of his fears in this overawing place, and Cefwyn managed to laugh.

“I wanted my freedom and they gave me the crown,” Cefwyn said. “Both of us were too wise to want to rule, and thus far, you’ve escaped.”

“Only so I go on escaping, and you keep your head on your shoulders, brother. If Ryssand harmed you, yes, I would kill him with my own hands. I have only one brother, and can never get another. I don’t care to be king. I care that you have a long, long reign, and I wish Ryssand nothing but misery. I can be angry. I can be our grandfather.”

“Oh, I know you can be angry! I knew you before you became a saint.”

“Don’t laugh at me.”

“I never laugh at you. Come, come—” He held out open arms. “As we did before we were jealous. As we did when we were young fools.”

“Still fools,” Efanor said, and embraced him, long and gently, then gazed eye to eye and in great earnestness. “You need to call the council. You’ve shown the loyal from the doubtful. Now reward the loyal and chide the rest. And gods save us, master crow reports he doesn’t think Ryssand knows yet about the Aswydds.”

That was a vast relief. “He’s sure.”

“He doesn’t think so. That’s as far as he’ll go.”

“Will you carry a message to Ninévrisë? Can you?”

“I’m a pious, harmless fellow. You know I can go anywhere without scandal.”

“Tell her everything we’ve said. Tell her I love her beyond all telling. Make her understand. Tell her be no more indiscreet than she’s been.”

“I’ve no difficulty bearing that message. Will you hold council?”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “Our prayers are done. Hers and mine. I need her by me. Tell her… tell her I’ll see her in the robing room, beforehand. Two hours hence. Make her know I love her. A man belongs with his wife, after all I’ve done amiss—and what have I had to do? Be here, separate from her! And if she’s ill, where am I? Holding council! Reasonable and wise she may be, but when a gut turns, wisdom has nothing to do with it.—Ask her if it’s true.”

“I can’t ask her that!” Efanor was honestly appalled. “Don’t ask me to ask her that!”

“The robing room. Two hours. I’ll ask her myself.” He clapped Efanor on the arm. “Away. Carry messages. And be there, in the robing room, yourself.”

The robing room held no privacy, and hardly space to turn, with the Lord Chamberlain and the pages and the state robes on their trees, the king’s and the Royal Consort’s, stiff with jewels and bullion. It was of necessity the red velvet embroidered with the Dragon in gold, a stiff and uncomfortable Dragon that reminded a man to keep his back straight; and pages buzzed about with this and that ring of significance, the spurs, that were gold, the belt, that was woven gold, and the Sword of office, the belt of which went about him all the while he fretted and had no word yet of Ninévrisë.

Then the door opened, and Ninévrisë came in, wearing the blue of Elwynor, with the Tower in gold for a blazon, like a lord’s, on her bodice, and the black-and-white Checker for a scarf about one shoulder. He had never seen it, had no idea by what magic the women’s court had created such Elwynim splendor… Dame Margolis, perhaps, who arrived close behind her. There was the likely one, the one who would have stayed up nights to accomplish it; and, nothing of what that array meant was wasted on him, nor would the meaning miss its mark in hall.

She was the authority over Elwynor, damn Ryssand and his peace offers from a traitor. She had few jewels. But she shone in his sight, and he came toward her in the silence of the chamber and took her hands. He knew he ought to say something clever and formal and endearing, but he had no words. He simply held her hands and gazed into the gray-violet of her eyes, and said, in a whisper almost hope-less in the silence:

“Efanor carried me a report… are you well, are you able? I’ll not risk your health.” He kissed her hand, all propriety allowed. “ love you. I love you. I love you.”

She carried his hand to her lips, bestowed a kiss of her own, unprecedented in his court as the petticoat; but it was tender and fervent and made him for a moment think of things far different than statecraft. He could not take the time, could not deal with her in the way he wished even with loyal servants present. The lords were waiting, the kingdom was waiting… but, damn custom, he said to himself… he was the king, damn it all.

“Out!” he said. “Annas, give me a moment. All of you, all of you but Her Grace, out. Dame Margolis, with Annas, if you please.”

There were two senior pages, Annas, Margolis, all sensible people, all in his gratitude for their immediate and unquestioning departure. He need not even look away from Ninévrisë’s face, need not let go her hands. He kissed her, long and soundly, and held her tightly against him, and whispered against the flower fragrance of her hair, “Gods, half my meditations were on you, how you fared, how you thought of me, what difficulty you might have…”

“It was a clever thing to do,” she said against his neck. “It was clever and wise and gave them all time to stew and bubble.”

“And for good men to obey, leaving me the blackguards and the laggards. But Artisane’s loose, and I feared for you, gods! I was afraid. And when Efanor said you were ill and the maids were let loose to talk—”

“I fear I betrayed myself. I didn’t intend it.”

“The anxiousness of the war? Might it be that? A bad bowl of stew?”

“Don’t name food to me. No dishes. Even yet.”

He held her hands clasped together, made her look at him. “It’s likely?”

“It might be fear. It might be. But I’ve dreamed… I’ve dreamed since our wedding night, I’ve thought… I’ve hoped… I’ve feared… all these things at once. My son… and if my dreams are true, it is a son… has no inheritance, no place, no people…”

“My son has Ylesuin. And yours has Elwynor.”

“He doesn’t.”

“He will.” He feared wizard-sight. He wanted not to hear it, wished nothing foredoomed or foreboding between them. “I’ll reign into my old age and he’ll be a bored prince as I was, with both kingdoms in one bloodline, and peace for his reign.”

So he said, but he saw fear in Ninévrisë’s eyes, a fate she believed and kept inside her, secret, with her son.

Her son. His son. His love. His life.

It took all his courage to face that silence and wait for her to speak.

“If he’s born,” she said in a trembling voice, “all else is possible.”

“He will be born. You’ll take care. You’ll use the good sense you had in Amefel, and keep yourself safe. It’s you I love. It’s you I can see and have in my hands, and for the gods’ good love, don’t give our enemies a shot at you. I don’t understand wizards, and prophecies, and what’s foredoomed and what isn’t. I only know what I have to do and that’s keep my promise to you. I’ll give you your kingdom. And we’ll build a great ship, the sort that sails on the sea, and we’ll anchor her in the Lenúalim and we’ll make her our palace…”

“With silken sails,” she said faintly, resting her head again against his shoulder, and gave a great sigh. “That we never unfurl.”

“Red ones or blue?”

She laughed, and lifted her head, all the bright faith in her eyes.

“The left red, the right blue.”

“Oh,” he said, “we must be facing upstream.”

“We should be used to a contrary current by then.”

Her face was pale, her skin all but translucent, like light glowing through it. She looked fragile, and immensely strong, all at once. And if an ordinary man could have a vision, he had one then, and knew that all their plans were like the ship, the fancy of their hearts, with nothing certain, nothing but a prophecy of a King To Come that hovered over all their lives… and two sons, now, yet to be born, and not under one roof.

Danger to his life had never struck terror into him: fear, but never terror, not even on Lewen field, to this degree. There had been a shadow on that day as dark as night, and memories of memories that never would surface, not for a sane man: he had thought it all in the past, and his life become tame wrangling with his barons; but now he was as good as on that field again, this time having given his heart outside himself, this time with so much to lose, and so much to gain.

“We’d better call Annas and Margolis back,” he said. “We have to go make Ryssand miserable. Are you well?”

“A little giddy. No more kisses. I won’t have my wits in there.”

“Truly. Are you well?”

“Oh, I shan’t miss this. I won’t. You have a sword. Give me a dagger to wear. If we go to war, I won’t be ranked with Artisane and Bonden-on-Wyk.”

“There’s my love.” He gave up her hands, went to the door, having left himself no servants, and called in Annas and Margolis and the pages, catching a glimpse of courtiers prowling like wolves among the columns beyond, a hungry and angry lot of wolves, who until lately had been well fed and complacent in their individual haunts.

The Dragon was about to flex his claws, and the Tower had set her defenses and armed for confrontation.

CHAPTER 12

Captain Anwyll was back in Hen-as’amef, on his way to Guelessar, and a company of Ivanim and Lanfarnesse rangers were at the camp on riverside, reporting through Anwyll that they had met no intruders on their way, nor had report of them from Modeyneth. The snow was melting, but not yet to mire, no great impediment to travel, and the men came off the road not into town, where, Uwen said, they might disgrace themselves in the taverns, but out in the tents the Ivanim had left, half the Ivanim camp, where they found a comfort far surpassing that on the border, all the same: ale kegs set out, and steaming kettles the taverns provided. It was holiday for them, and a merry one.

The Guelens, too, were packing up, to yield their permanent barracks to the Amefin who had been housed in the hastily made second barracks, in less comfort; and there was both cheer and regret there: certain of the men had liaisons, even children, in town, and there were tears and the possibility of desertions.

So Uwen reported.

“Tell them,” Tristen said, “I’ll speak to Cefwyn for any that choose to come back, after the summer, and I think he’ll grant it; but they owe their company their service now.”

“That’s more ‘n fair,” Uwen said, and went to tell the men.

And for the officers, Anwyll who had spent hard weeks in camp and for the Guelen captain who had gotten his rank because all higher had deserted, it seemed right to Tristen to have them into hall for a good supper and the honor they were due… a sword or a good mail shirt, Uwen said, was a soldier’s gift, and Cossun the armorer had brought the best of both, a ducal gift.

So they met in hall… the usual fine fare, for Cook never disappointed them, and the lords were glad to come to the gatherings: and Anwyll and the Guelen captain both sat high at the tables, and stood for all to honor.

“Thank you,” Tristen said, presenting Anwyll his gift, a fine sword with a red leather sheath and a goldwork cap, and the silvered mail.

“Your Grace,” Anwyll said, and gave him a soldier’s salute, blushing as he did.

So with the Guelen captain, a plain man, who had never looked for a captaincy, and while Anwyll was a man of some connections, this man was not, and took his sword and fine armor with stammering gratitude.

“An’ for the men,” the captain said, “a word to Your Grace, that they’ve stood guard here and seen duke and duchess and viceroy, and say that Your Grace has done… that Your Grace ‘as done the best of ‘em all.”

That brought a little cheer from the Amefin, and there followed a presentation then from Uwen, which was a box for each, and in those boxes, tenscore and more holy medallions the Teranthine father had blessed, “For the men,” Uwen said, “luck and the gods’ blessin’, which the reverend father himself will give out, an’ bless every man as served here.”

The assembly applauded, from every table, and the captains and their aides took their formal leave in great and heartfelt cheerfulness, Tristen was glad to see… he well knew now how great a harm unhappy men could work. He had finally made good his promise to Cefwyn to march the Guelenmen home. He had had to do it all at once, with the uncertainty on that border, but the tents and all merely changed hands, and the gear the Guelens owned was all their armor and their horses. The Dragons had packed up in a day and ridden out on the next, and made as good speed toward Henas’amef as men might who had the comforts of town to lure them.

So too, in their departure, Tristen chose his moment to make other changes.

“Lusin Bowyn’s-son will be lieutenant under Uwen,” he said to the assembled leaders and nobles and soldiery, “and I set him in charge of the house guard; Syllan Syllan’s-son has charge over the fortress and its walls, Aran Gryysaryn over the town defenses, and Tawwys Cyll’s-son over the supplies to the camps. My chief of household, Tassand Dabrynan, will be my chancellor, with all the offices of the Zeide under him.” None of these offices had existed since Orien’s few days as duchess, and he could think of no one more apt.

“My night guard will serve as bodyguard, and men from the Amefin guard will take their place.”

Emuin had a sense about ceremonies, and had deftly arranged things so that everyone had his honor and necessary duties found names to describe them. It was not a mistake, Tristen thought, that he had come out from Guelessar with fewer men than he might: he found others here, among the Amefin, overall found less of confusion in his court now, as he sent the Guelenfolk home, than had existed under the garrison before he came.

As important, he kept faith with Cefwyn, and entrusted Anwyll with a message that said simply, We will soon have a camp settled on Tasmôrden’s side of the river, from that we will prevent any force moving to the south or west.

He had added: Anwyll has carried out his orders in very hard weather, and so have all his men. I have also sent the Guelens, who are not the men who have done the harm in Amefel. Certain men of the Guelens have wished to settle in Henas’amef and I ask out of our friendship for their release when they have done their duty this summer so they may return to families here.

Then, from the heart: In all these matters I hope I do well and hold out hope we may see each other this spring. The lords of the south wish you well and so do the lords of Amefel send all their good will. So do Emuin and all the house.

It was a message of more sentiment than substance. Anwyll knew the details which he would tell Cefwyn, when they met, details worth days of questions. He sent the message Aeself had given him, too, with Anwyll, who was a harder, sharper-eyed young captain than had gone out to the river: it was a risk, he thought, but he trusted Anwyll would by no means hand over to Ryssand or Ryssand’s men the things entrusted to him; his honor had suffered enough in his moment of doubt when Parsynan had set the Guelens on helpless prisoners, and never would he be as easily confused as he had been that night. He could have no better messenger than Anwyll, for being able to come directly to the Lord Commander. A lowly sergeant like Gedd the enemy might hound: but a captain over a province… he doubted even Ryssand would dare.

And in a handful of days there would be no Guelen force within the south for the first time since the rising against the Sihhë. Cevulirn’s men were there, under Cevulirn’s able lieutenant, while Cevulirn himself continued in the camp at Henas’amef, the man of grays, the lord who could obtain the consent of the others so deftly they never seemed to consider refusal. Under Cevulirn, the town had suf-fered no disasters in his absence; under Cevulirn, the camp ran smoothly, and Cevulirn’s presence touched his along with Emuin’s and Crissand’s, a quiet assurance of things well in order, from the hall, to the barracks, to the town streets and the camp outside the walls. From Crissand he had an awareness of the lords of the town, men Crissand knew well, and knew that they were content—Crissand was an uneasy point of unrealized distress, to have sent his lord on a long, cold ride; but that was Crissand’s nature, to wish to be faultless. Cevulirn was an easier presence, seeding less worry, less of everything. Where Crissand was the burning sun of bright day, casting light and examining everything, Cevulirn was the remote moon, changing and the same, content to leave a few shadows so long as the major things moved along as they ought.

Tristen did not think he would ever change either or them, or wish to. He sipped lukewarm wine and his thoughts raced in a hun-dred directions as he considered the prospects of the changing weather, heard the well-wishes of the various ealdormen of the town directed toward the new officers of the court and the province, con-sidered the resources he knew were setting to work with the replace-ment of the Dragons at the riverside… the Ivanim were no great hands at building, but the rangers of Lanfarnesse were skilled at many crafts, and the Olmernmen vowed to bend their considerable skills with ropes and tackle to move the deckings into place—without oxen, so they claimed, which seemed to him half-magical.

Sovrag was exceedingly confident: Cevulirn’s Ivanim were dubious. But the Olmernmen would ready great frames out of ships’ masts— weather or no weather, Sovrag had declared—and have them in storage with the rope and the sections of decking over which the Ivanim stood guard. This was the word Anwyll had brought back with him to Sovrag, and in his cups, Sovrag revealed his plan to the company.

“One day,” was Sovrag’s boast. “One day to see that bridge bear traffic, much as ye like. She’ll carry oxen; she don’t need ‘em to rise.”

“Believe him,” Umanon said.

Tristen hoped, willingly, for it meant a far quicker readiness on the riverside than they could manage with ox teams.

“I wait to see,” he said, and lest that imply doubt, added: “I expect it.”

And after that the evening rolled, wine-colored, to its cheerful conclusion, the lords of the south delighted in the prospect of bridges all the lords of the town delighted in the prospect of a town utterly under Amefin authority for the first time since the rise of the Marha-nen—it was strictly understood there would be no cheering the

Guelen departure, no disparagement of the Guelens, either, not before they went out and not after.

So Tristen had worried there would be, and Emuin and Uwen alike had passed the word to the officials of the town and the officers of the watch: he hoped it had gone where it needed to go.

“A health!” Crissand stood, lifting his cup, among the last toasts of the evening. “To the bridge!”

“To the bridge!” everyone cried, and drank.

“And a health to the Dragons!” Crissand, whose house had suffered most from the Guelens under their former captain, and an anxious silence fell, for Crissand had nothing to praise in Guelenmen. “These are honest men,” Crissand said aloud, “and the scoundrels have gone home, after Parsynan. Here’s to the honest men of the Guelen Guard!”

“To the Guelens,” the others said, and Cevulirn, rising, lifted his cup, and added: “To an honest king.”

They all drank. Anwyll blushed red with wine-flushed pleasure, and rose and proposed in his turn: “And a health to the honest, loyal southrons, one and all!”

None of it Tristen found fault with at all. But they had drunk very many rounds and the candles had burned far down, the hour close to midnight. He had learned from the lords of Amefel the formulas by which he dismissed the gathering, and made a proposal of his own:

“To Amefel and the Amefin, good rest.”

“To the duke of Amefel, good rest and good fortune,” the lords all said to him, drained and upended their cups, and then the company of the evening began its nightly retreat, now with lordly folk speaking respectfully to Tassand as an officer of the household.

“Good night, my lord,” Crissand came close to say, and knew his approval of what he had done, cheering the Guelens: he had done it, defying his own bitter hurt, and done it because he thought it support of his lord, and to heal a breach; and now grieved for his father because he had said it—so many things boiled up in Crissand at any one moment he was rarely quiet.

But Tristen touched his arm and wished him well, wished him Peace, and caught Crissand’s eye for an instant that became a moment. He had no idea himself of what it was to mourn a father, or what it was to hold such anger as Crissand had held: all this violence was beyond his knowledge, except that Crissand governed it, desperately envied the calm of a man like Cevulirn, and in that envy of a man his lord respected, governed himself with a hard hand.

It was for love Crissand did such things, an extravagant, devoted love, that when it was in the ascendant smothered all other things; it was only once he had acted that the anger and the grief came back to confuse his generous heart.

“It was well done,” Tristen said in his turn, and was grateful. For a moment the love and the anger ran to and fro, confounded, and each passion doubted the other’s honesty: in that much, Crissand bore a wound that had never healed. Wine had perhaps made it the more evident. And it was that healing which Tristen wished tonight, with a touch and a glance. “Well done. Go, sleep. Join me at breakfast.”

“My lord.” Cheer began to win over the confusion.

The matter of Crissand’s adventure to Modeyneth was settled, the Dragons were back from the river, Cevulirn’s men and Pelumer’s and Sovrag’s were all set in place and on watch against the enemy.

And in Crissand’s lightening mood Tristen found his own heart lighter: he allowed himself a feeling of accomplishment in a world of intentions, a court at peace and things in better order than before he took the province. Crissand had taken no great harm of his adventure, and showed signs of recovery in a larger sense, as well—nothing, tonight, of the Aswydds, or his fears of the women who languished upstairs, rather he had determined to settle divisions and heal breaches tonight, and had urged the Amefin to generosity no one expected.

It was by no means the full assembly of Amefin nobility. A number of the other lords were out in their own lands tonight, particularly those bordering Bryn, and by now taking good advantage of the sudden turn in the weather, he hoped, and setting their households in order for the spring. The lords who remained in hall tonight were friendly and easy in the company of the southerners, dignified old Pelumer fallen fast asleep in his place, in fact. One of his men waked him and gathered him off to his bed.

For a moment then in leaving Tristen delayed, seeing Lusin and Syllan across the hall, in the foolish thought that he needed to wait for them—but they were about their own business. From now on he had not Lusin and Syllan to guard him, but Gweyl and the men of the night watch, who had come close to him on his left, to see him back to his apartments.

He had them, and he had the four Amefin he had taken to stand night guard in their place: it was another change, one that set men he relied on in better places, and gave them honor, but it made him sad to lose the ready recourse to their friendship, and when he had told them his intention, it had made them sad, too, amid more honor than they had ever looked to have in their lives.

He wished them well, last thought of all before he collected his new guard and Uwen, and left the hall, to the whisk of Owl’s wings.

It was change again, and sadness preoccupied him as he left, the knowledge that there were new men with him, and that for the good of Amefel and Lusin and the rest his life had gone past another milestone, another good-bye. He found nothing easy to say to the new men, though he knew it would have pleased them. He tried not to think on Lusin’s objections, but he heard them in memory as he walked in silence up the stairs. There was not the irreverent banter between Uwen and these men. Their presence in the gray space was that of servants, remote from him, too respectful for close confidences.

Of other presences—he heard, remarkably, nothing tonight, so much so he extended curiosity to the other wing of the Zeide, and heard sullen silence, a surly temper.

There were two who had not rejoiced in the general festivity. He had not invited the Aswydds to the hall, and he was sure they knew something was proceeding below… knew, and were jealous, but Emuin had taken pains to ward that hallway, and kept a close watch over the guards, picked men all, who watched there.

Paisi’s Gran Sedlyn the midwife had taken the guard’s anteroom in that apartment, besides, and attended most of their wants, except that frequent requests to Cook brought up delicacies for Tarien, who was vexingly fickle in her whims and her appetite—but Cook said she had been so long before she was with child.

Otherwise the ladies had troubled the household very little at all, even during Cevulirn’s two-day governance here. There was no news, either good or bad, out of that apartment, and he decided that tomorrow he should concern himself and pay at least a brief visit.

So he thought, setting foot on the topmost step of the stairs, when suddenly the gray place rang to a presence and a threat, and the tone of it was not Tarien.

It was Crissand, and Crissand was in danger.

“M’lord?” a guard asked. He knew Uwen was beside him. He knew Lusin and the accustomed guards were still down in the hall, with Tassand; but Crissand—

Crissand was in the lower hall, where the old mews made a rift in the wards. And suddenly the wards were threatened.

Tristen spun about on the precarious marble steps and ran down them, two steps at a time, startling servants who were changing the candles at the landing, while Uwen and Gweyl and the new guards hastened behind, a clatter of men and metal. He reached the lower hall, passed the broad double doors of the great hall, and there was Crissand, running headlong toward them—toward him, Tristen knew of a certainty, and the thoughts in Crissand now were fear: fear of what might be behind him, fear of what he might have brought into the Zeide, fear that he had breached his promise to come to Tristen before doing something rash.

Lusin and his old guards all arrived at once from out of the great hall, rallying to the commotion in the hall, if not to a danger none of them had perceived.

“Voices,” Crissand said, and his was low, for Tristen’s ears and Uwen’s, alone, as a late straggle of guests and servants gathered to overhear. “Voices came from the storeroom, noble voices, learned voices, and I heard the king’s name and Her Grace’s, and something about moving before the walls were finished. I feared treason, my lord. And—and when I looked into it, sensibly, so I thought, cautiously—suddenly there were men—there were men…”

“In the storeroom, Your Grace?” Uwen was attempting to make sense of the matter. Crissand, the man who had led the defense of the Zeide courtyard and faced death with never a tremor, was shaking as he spoke, and Tristen could sense his efforts to keep his wits and set aside the fear.

“It… it was no one I knew, my lord. And there was a room, a table… it wasn’t here, my lord. But the place where Owl came from. Where you disappeared.”

Tristen set his hand on Crissand’s shoulder to calm him, and though he knew the answer said, “Show me where.”

And they went to the spot of candlelight beside the great hall, the sconce that hung on the wall where the old mews had been, that stretch of stone wall, at the base of which the pavings were the aged cobbles and fill of the old courtyard instead of the even work of the new.

Crissand laid his hand on the stonework beneath the sconce. “Here,” he said.

Tristen had no doubt at all. A storeroom was near, one that served the great hall, but the voices had nothing to do with that.

“They named Modeyneth, my lord. And the wall—and the child.”

“Tarien’s child?”

“I think they meant hers. They argued times and seasons, and the birth of a child. One said—one said best strike while the child was yet to come, than to wait until after the birth and risk a stillborn. Another said the child only complicated the issue and they should do as they would do and let the child take his omens from them.

I’m sure of the words, but they don’t mean as much to me as they might to you or Emuin, I’m sure, my lord.”

They might well make more sense to Emuin. Tristen only guessed it regarded wizard-work, and the Zeide.

But it could not be Ynefel, where the mews had led him.

“You didn’t recognize the room.”

“No, my lord.”

“Did they see you?” he asked in all seriousness.

“See me? I don’t think so.—Do you know where it was? Was it where you found Owl?”

Around them were only his guard, Uwen having waved all the curious servants away, and that Crissand could venture through that rift—or at least see what lay beyond—that he had not anticipated.

“I very much doubt it was Ynefel you saw. But this—” He set his hand to the stone next to Crissand’s, deceptively solid stone for the moment, as the gray was deceptively quiet. “This place must lead there, and something drew another place close for a moment. It reaches different places. I don’t know yet how many or to where. Ynefel is one. Althalen is.” He could not but recall the dream he had dreamed within the old Regent’s wards. “The Quinaltine in Guelessar is another.”

It was that which he most feared, the plots of priests near Cef-wyn, no friendlier to him than they had ever been. And in the flickering light from the sconce, Uwen frowned. Crissand’s troubled face, however, took on a different, puzzled look.

“It wasn’t ruins, and it wasn’t holy men,” Crissand said, and his eyes widened as if something only then came clear to him. “There was a banner, my lord.” And took on a look of outrage. “Your banner, my lord, the Tower, with a Crown!” And having said it, Crissand’s fist clenched as if he would rip that offending sight from his own memory. “The High King’s banner.”

“Tasmôrden,” he said, in quiet conviction now where Crissand had been, and where the old mews led besides. “There’s clearly another place it goes. Wherever in Ilefínian Tasmôrden sits tonight, this place leads.”

He wished—almost—to open the rift again, to venture into the room and the council Crissand had seen… and seen, but not been. The fact that Crissand had the gift had let him see into the place, but Crissand had not gone further, perhaps had no power to go, alone, for which Tristen was very grateful. The thought of Crissand caught and trapped on that other side, in Tasmôrden’s hands, turned his blood cold.

Yet on the thought, the stone beneath his fingers warmed, and he saw the room then, exactly as Crissand had described:

The table, seven men, the banner Tasmôrden had usurped. And one man was on his feet facing him, shouting at the others: Don’t tell me what I saw, damn you! He was there! Eyes widened. Oh, gods!

So at least one of them had seen Crissand in return, and one presence in the gray space leapt to awareness—one, who had sat with his back to him, leapt up and turned in astonishment.

Two, now had seen. And that crowned man who had leapt up was Tasmôrden.

A hound bayed, somewhere in the distance, echoing in unseen halls.

And, sword in hand, Tasmôrden approached the wall, willing to face him, intent on discovering the nature of the rift, and would have no hesitation in breaching it from his own side, to the peril of all the places it led.

Unless someone gave him pause, unless someone gave him reason to fear that which he might find on the far side.

“My lord!” Crissand’s voice, and Uwen’s: “If you can go wi’ him lad, go! Protect his back for us all!”

And Crissand was beside him, in that rift between rooms, with a sword to thrust into his hand, and Owl was before him, so he knew he was meant to go.

“You should have seen their faces,” Crissand’s lively rendition of the scene far exceeded anything Tristen would have thought to say. “One fell to the floor, praying forgiveness of the gods, another fainted dead away, I swear to you. Another—it must have been Tasmôrden—” Crissand glanced at Tristen and Tristen nodded, fascinated by the account as well as the rest. “Tasmôrden dared raise a hand to my lord, his guard all about him—until my lord raised the sword and wished him back!”

Crissand’s account, together with the banner that lay folded and somber on the table before them—Crissand’s gift to him on their return from that room in Ilefínian—lent substance to the tale—and Uwen and Emuin and all those gathered about him in the ducal apartments had it for evidence.

Emuin, however, was less pleased.

“Well done, on the whole,” Emuin said. “To have called me was better.” And to Paisi, who had been standing next to Emuin when he and Crissand returned and so was of necessity included in this meeting: “You see here the way not to satisfy curiosity, boy. Consider the consequences of the lord of Amefel in the midst of Tasmôr-den’s guards, unarmed and alone.”

It was true, at least as he had gone.

“Yet now we can overhear his councils,” Crissand said.

“I doubt it. He’ll set guards there and take counsel elsewhere.”

The excitement faded from Crissand’s face. “So if he hadn’t seen me, we might have learned much more.”

“Possibly,” Emuin said, and added, on another thought: “Or they might have discovered it on the other side, and come through, to our peril. There is that.”

“Something breached the mews,” Tristen pointed out. “It was Tasmôrden in that room.” He had seen Tasmôrden in his dreams and knew by that means, not the most solid of evidence to bring forward, and he hesitated to say so. “But he didn’t know they were overheard, so someone did it by accident, on his side, on ours… someone made a mistake.”

Emuin turned a glance toward Crissand, and Crissand shook his head. “I’ve no such gift,” Crissand said.

“On the other hand, perhaps you do,” Emuin said, “and should have a care, young lord! On that evidence, have a care what you wish! Were you even thinking of Ilefínian?”

“I was wishing I might serve my lord,” Crissand confessed. “But I was outside the great hall when I heard the whispers to my right.”

“Not enough,” Emuin judged. “I doubt it was enough. Someone is stronger. If he let fly that casual a wish, it was an unlatched gate, was all. A means by which.”

“Tasmôrden himself isn’t that strong,” Tristen judged.

“I take your word,” Emuin said with sobering directness, “and judge you do know, young lord.”

“Meaning what, sir?” Crissand asked.

“Meaning wizards were involved,” Emuin said sharply, “and a damned strong one, somewhere about, and thanks to you, the barn door was open, young sir, with people going in and out it.—Wish elsewhere, henceforth, but not in the lower hall, which is as haunted a place as one can find this side of Althalen!”

“I shall, sir,” Crissand said meekly enough, and meant it with all his heart, Tristen was sure, as much as a young man untaught in wizardry could keep from wishing.

“Still, there’s there substance of what we heard,” Tristen said. “They know about Tarien.”

“Cuthan clearly brought more than stolen parchments across the river,” Emuin said.

“If Cuthan hasn’t used the mews himself,” Tristen said. “And if Lady Orien hasn’t.”

Emuin cast him a glance. “Past my wards, she didn’t. Of that I’m certain.”

“So would I be,” Tristen said, for he had had no sense of Lady Orien’s involvement: across in the other wing of the fortress, she knew something had disturbed the wards, yes. That fact had gone through the very air, like the reverberations of a beaten bronze, since they had come out of the mews, and it still disturbed the gray space. But the rift opening on Tasmôrden’s schemes was not Lady Orien’s doing, nor Tarien’s.

“So, well,” Emuin said, with finality. “Someone’s attempt at our unlatched door—and I don’t mean the portal—didn’t go as well as he wished. It all came back on him, twofold.”

“An’ Tasmôrden ain’t that pleased,” Uwen said. “But, m’lord, ye shouldn’t ha’ gone. Two men wi’ swords ain’t much of a match to men in their own quarters.”

“But you haven’t heard all,” Crissand said, and his voice was low now, and filled with passion. “I said my lord raised his sword, but it wasn’t the sword that stopped them, but the light. He glowed, so blind-ingly bright, I’d have fallen in fear myself if I were in front of him. Tasmôrden’s guard fell back, Tasmôrden himself ran behind the table— and my lord’s voice, his warning against any pursuit whatsoever—still echoes within those walls… gods, I hear it to this hour!”

What Crissand modestly failed to mention was his own part. The guards had fallen, and in the frozen confusion, Crissand had swept past Tasmôrden, contempt in every line, had taken the banner, ripped it from its fastenings.

And to Tasmôrden’s face as he passed again, Crissand had waved the banner, saying, in a shout of his own that only his lord had the right to those arms. Woe to any pretender who dares fly this banner! It belongs to my lord!

Tristen wondered, in the way things about the gray space faded in the light of the world, whether Crissand even recalled saying so, or making that claim for him.

So it was in his dream.

And the banner itself being the substance of the matter, and being such a gift as it was, the substance of his dreams, from the man whom Auld Syes had hailed as the aetheling—could he—dared he— refuse it?