“Master Emuin. I am here. If there is anything in me that you can use, if there’s anything I can give or you can take, and it won’t prevent me from what Mauryl sent me to
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do—I am here. Do you hear me, sir? I want you to mend yourself.”
— Easier said than done, the answer came to him. But it seemed to him then that things grew dimmer, and the lines of the Zeide showed around them, blue, and faint, and brighter, then.
He still wants in.
— Inside? he asked. Why inside, sir? Why not do harm
to us outside? It was so reasonable a question he wondered he had never asked Mauryl. And why, he wondered, at evening?
And why indoors?
— Curious question, Emuin said. What is there about
buildings? About houses? Dwellings?
— That people live in them. It was like sitting with Mauryl, the question, the answer. Foolish boy, Mauryl would say. But perhaps his questions had gotten wiser, if not his answers.
— That people live in them, Emuin said ever so faintly, and the lines glowed bright. That we invest something here. That
it becomes a Place for us. And we cannot be harmed…in
certain ways…while that Place exists for us, even in our
dreams. We must violate our own sanctuary, to be
harmed…in those ways. But your Place is also his. And
his is also yours.
— At Ynefel, you mean, sir.
— At Ynefel, Emuin said. He felt Emuin’s fingers move, and tighten. I shall hold fast. I have done what I can. I fear what
you are. But I shall not cripple you by asking anything or
by restraining you. Do what you were Summoned and
Shaped to do.
— You fear what I am, sir,…Do you know what I am?
Can you at least answer that? Can you warn me what I
might do wrong?
— No, Emuin said. I don’t think I can. I can’t think of those
things. I can’t foresee…
I cannot begin to foresee the things you invent to do, Mauryl said. Rain in puddles. Rain on the parapets. Flash of lightning.
Can you not think of consequences, Tristen? And he had said…I try.
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— You have never admitted the enemy to your heart, Emuin said. You have never compromised with him. Never
do it. Never do it, boy. Now go away. Don’t bother me. I
have enough to do.
He was in the room again. His foot had gone to sleep. Emuin rested, no worse, no better than he had been. He thought he had heard Mauryl’s voice. Or that he touched what Mauryl was.
Or had been.
He rose quietly. The brothers bowed to him in their dutiful way. He bowed to them, and felt the amulet beneath his shirt, the circle that Cefwyn had given him, that Emuin had given Cefwyn. It never showed in the other world. He was only conscious of it now because it had been Emuin’s, and was a wish for protection.
But he was Emuin’s protection. He had become Cefwyn’s.
I cannot begin to foresee, Mauryl had said, the things you invent to do.
Think of consequences, Tristen.
The next day likewise dawned with frosting breath and a slick spot in the courtyard where one of the servants slipped and fetched himself a crack on the head that master Haman had to attend, since the lord physician had left in angry disgrace—in attendance on Lord Sulriggan, the rumor was, who had left for his capital, and good riddance, most said.
Cefwyn called a war council for noon, in his apartments.
Tristen was hesitant, but Idrys said he should be there, so he came. So did Efanor. And Ninévrisë and Lord Captain Kerdin, and Lord Commander Gwywyn, but none of the Amefin lords, many of whom were at harvest, and no one from Sovrag’s men, who were all over on the river, Cefwyn said, in opening, but they were sending messages by way of the daily couriers from several points, and that he had sent dispatches to the villages and the lords of Amefel.
The dining board bore a stack of small maps, which Idrys said had just arrived last night, which recorded every large 675
rock, every hillock, everything Ninévrisë’s few men had explored in the area of Lewen plain, north and west of Emwy’s ruin. Lord Tasien had sent a message to Ninévrisë by way of the Guelen messengers: Lord Tasien said that he had met with rivermen from Lord Sovrag, who had brought supplies downriver, and who had reported a quiet shore: that was the same as Sovrag’s messages had said.
Lord Tasien had also reported in his letter to Ninévrisë that they had made a wall and trench camp that was well begun, with the help of the Amefin peasants who had come up with the wagons. Tasien reported his men under canvas, digging their fortification, and awaiting word from inside Elwynor, and said they had seen no sign of hostile forces on this side of the river.
Efanor shook his head only slightly, perhaps in amazement that they were receiving such a report from the Earl of Cassissan—less charitably estimated, in personal disbelief that Lord Tasien’s word could be relied upon. But Efanor said nothing, only remarked later and very mildly, for Efanor, that it was very odd, very odd to have a woman in a council of war, but that the Elwynim were very efficient, and seemed to be experienced men—which made Tristen ask himself where the Elwynim had been fighting; but he kept that question to himself.
Efanor in general was on very good behavior. Gwywyn was very proper and made no allusion at all to the doings the night of the fire. He only seemed apprehensive, and increasingly relieved as the meeting went on and his counsel was taken with equal weight with others’.
“There’s a lot that’s ashamed of themselves,” Uwen said when he spoke of the meeting later. “What I hear, that night all that business got started there was a gathering over in the Quinaltine, praying and the like, and the lord physician having a tantrum and saying His Majesty was going to die. I think,” Uwen had added, “that the Prince thought His Majesty might have died, on account of the lord physician being sent out. I don’t doubt the lord physician was a lot of
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the cause there. And there was priests out talking to the staff, saying that the King was bewitched. Which I’d put to nothing, m’lord, but I don’t like much that gathers around that priest.”
Then Uwen added another thing that troubled him. “I’m Guelen,” Uwen said. “And I seen just a touch too much of Quinalt priests and their politicking. Ain’t nothing to do with praying. They don’t like wizards.”
“Why?” Tristen asked.
“On account of the Quinalt says the gods laid down the world the way things are, and wizards meddled with it. They don’t like ’em. Meanin’ they killt no few. I’d be just a little careful, m’lord, and stay clear of ’em.”
It seemed to him Idrys had warned him much the same. So he told Idrys in private that evening what Uwen had said. And Idrys nodded and said, “His Majesty’s Guard is well aware of the priest, Lord Warden. Believe me.” Then, unusual for Idrys, Idrys had stopped him for a second word. “It was very well done, Lord Ynefel, that night.”
“Catching Orien, sir?”
“Among other things. I must tell you my mind that evening was on one of Lord Heryn’s partisans. Sorcerous action does not naturally occur to me as a cause.”
“I don’t think anyone used sorcery against Emuin, sir. I think they had to keep Emuin from seeing them.”
“Seeing them.”
“So to speak, sir. Wizardry might make someone fall on the steps, but I don’t think Orien could have done it. And certainly sorcery wouldn’t break someone’s skull.”
“Certainly,” Idrys echoed him, and Idrys’ lean, mustached face was both earnest and troubled. “I fear wizardry encompasses few certainties with me, Lord Warden. What is the likelihood Emuin will be on his feet and with us come the full of the moon?”
“I fear it’s very little likely, sir. I think he’s helping Cefwyn most.”
“You are not to say that.”
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“Yes, sir.”
“So the Aswydd lady had someone attack Emuin.”
“As I think someone moved Orien to do it. Mauryl said it was easy to make things do what they want.”
Idrys was silent a moment. “Is wizardry a consideration, then?”
“Hasufin’s, yes, sir.”
“Hasufin Heltain?”
“I don’t know all his name, sir, but he made a bird fly at my window. It killed itself. And in the lower hall, in the banner hall—the lines were almost gone, that protect this place. Emuin brought them back.”
It was deliberate, that confidence, a test he made of Idrys and how far Idrys did see; and Idrys did not exclaim in exasperation or walk away. Idrys only gazed at him steadily. “So has Orien Aswydd flown at the glass,—has she not? What do you recommend we do with her?”
Idrys turned back his test, he thought, whether he had the resolve Idrys thought a lord needed. Cefwyn had not condemned her. Cefwyn had not gotten to that matter. Or Cefwyn shrank from it.
He did. It was one thing on the field. It was another in reasoned thought—to kill. And a lord, he thought, ought to be able to do such things—as Owl had to eat mice.
“Come, sir,” Idrys said. “Do I trouble you? I had thought you unmoved by the lady’s charms.”
“At least,” Tristen said, and found his hands shaking, “she should not die as Heryn did.” He nerved himself to say that Idrys was right, and that Orien should die, but then he thought of the lord Regent, who was also a wizard. “But where she is buried, where she dies, she will be like Hasufin. She might ally with him. She would be bound to this place. I think that would be dangerous.”
He had not given Idrys, he thought, what Idrys looked to have. “Persistent, you mean.”
“Sir, as best I understand—she is less a wizard than Auld Syes up at Emwy. Very much less. I think she did very little 678
but let Hasufin in, and perhaps helped him a little. I think she hates us. But I would not let those women together. I would send them all apart, and send them all away from here.”
“Does it run in families?” Idrys asked. “Heryn is buried here.”
It was a disturbing thought. “I have no idea, sir. He’d always have a Place here, if I understand it. But I would move him.
Bury him among good men. Holy men.”
“Holy men.”
“I think so, sir. That is my advice.”
“Digging up corpses,” Idrys muttered. “Holy men. This is not to my liking, young sir. Not at all.—So wizard me who did this.
Who set the fire? Who cracked master Emuin’s head?”
“I’m not a wizard, sir.”
“Just like Emuin. Never the hard questions.” Idrys began to walk away.
“Sir,” Tristen said as an odd recollection came to him. He had spoken. He had Idrys’ attention. He hesitated, then said: “Lord Sulriggan’s dish was salty, at the dinner. He was furious at his cook.”
“Was he, now?”
“Cook’s boys played a prank.” It seemed incredible to him that so small a thing—could do so much harm. “He would have been very angry. And Sulriggan was leaving.”
Idrys drew a long breath. “An angry cook. Well. Well. Sulriggan.—And what of the other, lord of Ynefel? Who struck master Emuin?”
“I don’t know, sir. That, I truly don’t know.”
“An Amefin shrine,” Idrys said. “Lord Heryn had his connections. So has Orien. Of various sorts. You’ve given me enough, lord of Ynefel. Quite enough to serve.”
“But—” A terrible thought came to him. And he had not thought. Idrys had started a third time to leave, and stopped again. “Sir. Orien knows about the lords leaving. She knows about Lewen plain and the full moon—she must have found out.”
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“Sulriggan’s cook, carrying lady Aswydd’s messages?” Idrys asked. “Hardly likely. And in the wrong direction. A Bryalt priest, now,—or someone connected to him—”
“No, sir. That’s not the point. Lady Aswydd doesn’t need a messenger. Hasufin needs none. She could have told Hasufin.
Hasufin will have told Aséyneddin, across the river. Aséyneddin knows the place. He knows the day. He will move before that, sir. He will cross at Emwy and take Lord Tasien’s camp. I said it would be the new moon.”
Idrys’ face had gone very still, expressionless. “Say nothing of this.—However you wizard-folk say such things, keep it to yourself.”
“Sir,” Tristen said, thinking of the bird, and the cook, and how very small things could move, even against their will. “Sir, it’s as well the lord physician went with Sulriggan.”
“Another damn witch?”
“No, sir. An angry man. Things do what they want to do. But the bird didn’t want to fly into the glass. If it had wanted to, it would have been easier.”
Idrys did go away, then, quickly, to Cefwyn, he was sure.
He thought that they had very little time, now. For no particular reason he had thought of the new moon.
He remembered Mauryl’s cipherings. The moon-plottings. He had never understood them. But no more did he understand the work of masons or wizards than he ever had. He only knew that something very dire was coming at Amefel, and at Cefwyn, and, now, purposefully, he realized,—at him.
“He said—it would be sooner,” Cefwyn said, and sat down.
“Damn. Damn the woman.”
“That would have been my inclination,” Idrys said.
“It would not have prevented this,” Cefwyn said, with all they had been talking about in council—all the figures and estimates of supply and logistics—tumbling through his head. “Why did Emuin not perceive this going on, if Tristen didn’t?”
“I could not possibly guess,” Idrys said, “save that master 680
grayfrock showed no enthusiasm for wizarding. Perhaps he didn’t—whatever wizards do. Perhaps lady Orien didn’t—whatever m’lord Tristen thinks she did: whatever Tristen does: talk to passing birds, or hear it from the frogs, or whatever.
This is far beyond my competency, m’lord King, but Tristen’s chancy warnings have in the past been of some weight.”
“I should have heard this one,” Cefwyn said. “I told him not to speak. I tried to silence him in council, thinking him—”
“Feckless?”
“Innocent.” The room seemed stifling. He rubbed the leg, which was both sore and itched devilishly with healing, asking himself whether he was remotely fit, and distractedly adding in the back of his mind the same figures they had added in council, and wondering if three days was enough to see him more fit than he was—and the baggage train delivered to Lewenside.
Fear crept in—the sensible sort, that said there were additional troubles, of the sort he could have expected.
“Did I not say—” Idrys began.
“Oh, you often said, master crow. And I listened too little.”
“He is still the mooncalf. But on the field he seems to have a very clear understanding. He comprehends in council. He says Orien alive or dead should not remain here. That her brother should not be buried here. Nor anyone of great animosity. He seems to imply—though I was already past my understanding—that anyone of animosity, wizard or not, could be moved by a wizard to act against us.”
“Good loving gods, there are grudges. There will be grudges.”
“That was my impression. It may be incorrect. But he was definite about two things: first, that, through Orien, Aséyneddin knows our plans, which may include, I would surmise, lord Haurydd’s mission into Elwynor, and that fortification at Emwy, and the day on which we plan to move. And second, that Orien Aswydd and Heryn must move—Heryn to holy ground.”
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“Holy ground. Heryn!”
Idrys held up a languid hand. “I assure my lord, it is not my fancy.”
“He said the lord Regent had to remain at Althalen. That he came there to die.”
“We are contending with the dead, m’lord
King. I’d take the advice of one who should know.”
Cefwyn drew a deep breath and shook his head. And had a chilling thought. “The skulls from over the gates. Send those with Heryn Aswydd—to the same interment. Tonight.”
“What a wagonload,” Idrys said. “The Aswydds—and their victims.”
“It seems due. Light the signal fires and pass the word. I’ll have written messages—for my brother, for Tristen, for my lady,—for Sovrag, on the river. They should go out together.
But meanwhile, light the fires.”
Tristen sat by the window in the early night, with the Book shut in his hands and saw the fires—one after the other, on the hills.
A single glance at the writing had shown him he knew no more than before. Then the fires had begun to go. And Uwen came in, his face aglow with the cold wind, cheerful—until Uwen looked at him.
“M’lord?” Uwen asked.
“We are moving,” Tristen said. “It’s come.”
Uwen caught a breath, shrugged off his cloak, and tucked it over his arm. “Has His Majesty said?”
“The fires. Do you see them?”
Uwen came near the window and looked out into the dark.
“Seems as if the lords is hardly had time to take their boots off,”
Uwen said, and went and put his cloak on the bench. “So there ain’t no putting that away.”
“I told Cefwyn what I should have realized sooner—when I knew about Orien Aswydd—that they would know. I should have seen it. I should have understood.”
“They. They—the Elwynim.”
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“Aséyneddin.”
“Ye’re saying Aséyneddin knows.”
“The day. The place. Lord Tasien is in very great danger.”
“Can ye—warn him, wizardlike?”
“I don’t think even Emuin could. And he—far more likely. I should have known, Uwen. I should have seen it.”
“Ye’ve had summat to occupy your thoughts, m’lord.”
It was Uwen’s duty to cheer him. It was his to take Uwen into more danger than Uwen knew how to reckon, and it was his not to upset Uwen, or to spread fear around him to his staff and the army. He tried to gather his wits, and his composure.