Or would Osanan and many another simply lack enthusiasm to advance in the battle, and retreat at the first reverse on the field? Every man for himself it would be if that sentiment took hold in various units.
Sulriggan? The lord of Llymaryn was no hero. If the army began to break, Sulriggan would trample the foremost riding to the head of the pack, and take his men with him.
Maudyn would stand. Panys. And the Guard.
No. He had laid his plans during this long day’s ride, he had settled what he would do with Ryssand, even how he would shape the battle so that units like Osanan could make their choice and units like Panys and the Dragons and Guelens would have their honor.
Let Ryssand fold or hold, as he planned matters: the outcome would be the same. And they would still push Tasmôrden back to Ilefínian, with Tristen, he fondly hoped, coming from the other leg of the triangle, to catch Tasmôrden from the other side—the last of the pretenders to the Regency, with an army large only because it was the scourings and the survivors of the long struggle. Honest men had taken to the hills. Bandits took Tasmôrden’s hire. And if they pressed Tasmôrden back and if the Elwynim saw Ninévrisë’s standard, Tasmôrden would find no support among the commons. It was Ninévrisë’s hope and it was his, that one defeat would shatter the pretender’s army and honest Elwynim would rise out of the thickets and the hills.
Trust Tristen, that if wizardry could arrange it, Tristen would be there, where he needed him, no blame, no recrimination: Tristen was coming, with Cevulirn and Pelumer and all the south, where he should have placed his trust from the beginning.
And of all unexpected things, a flight of birds soared above the wood’s edge and turned.
Pigeons, for the gods’ good sake! Pigeons. He stared after them amazed.
When did pigeons become forest-dwellers? They were not. They never had been, not these birds.
Tristen was there, he was surely there, just the other side of this cursed ridge.
Captain Gwywyn, of the Prince’s Guard, and in Idrys’ absence over the Dragons and the Guelens as well, approached him from the side, bringing a practical and immediate question. “The west for the latest to camp, Your Majesty?”
“The west and north,” he said, for there was room in the meadow on that side, and while the petty notion occurred to him to move the horse pickets on the east and let Ryssand and his allies pitch on that soiled ground, the same as they had marched on it all day, the peasant levies did not deserve it, and he did not indulge the whim. “I’ll cool my anger. Bid them join us at supper.”
“As Your Majesty wishes.”
“Advise all the lords to join us at supper. We’ll settle our marching order. Hereafter we have the enemy to quarrel with, not each other.”
Gwywyn went aside on his mission. Lord Maudyn, who had walked with him, gave him a questioning look and a blunt question: “Will Your Majesty inform Ryssand of all the plans?”
“We have to stand on the same battlefield and face the same enemy,” Cefwyn said with a sigh. “We’ll leave no lord out of our councils. I’ve no wish to expose the men afoot to risk of their lives: gods know they’re not at fault, and I’ll not face the widows.” He walked a few steps farther in the lord of Panys’ company. “But you and I have somewhat to say together. Perhaps we won’t tell Ryssand everything.”
“I would be easier in my sleep,” Maudyn said, “if Ryssand knew less.”
“I’m very sure,” he said. “To tell you the very truth, I have more doubt of Prichwarrin’s courage to defy me than I have of Ryssand’s, and that alone frets me: I don’t know what the man may do. Ryssand, on the other hand, has courage; but he doesn’t give a damn for his servants, his staff, his men, or his horses, not when he sees what he wants. His sworn men and his peasants have no worth, save as they serve him: I pity them. He doesn’t, and no few will die.”
“Then I pray Your Majesty arrest him. Others stand with the Crown. No honorable man could misunderstand.”
It was exceedingly comforting to hear Maudyn say so, and he wished he knew it was true. It was almost like hearing Idrys’ voice saying: kill Ryssand.
And when he recalled how often and why he had denied Idrys that satisfaction, he became quite clear in his own thoughts.
“No,” he said. “No, my dear friend. Much as I wish it…much as I regard your advice and your wisdom…no. Let him at least do what we accuse him of. Let it be clear beyond even Murandys’ ability to find excuses. They think him simply clever at going to the brink. I know how far he’ll go, but they don’t believe it yet.”
“Stand by and let him bring a sword against my king’s back?”
“That’s not what I expect of him.”
“What, then?”
“Oh, he’ll run—and not he, no, never say Ryssand bolted. Some unnamed man of his will turn and start a panic, and the officers will turn and the company will run, leaving the peasants to face Tasmôrden’s heavy horse and leaving the rest of us to the slaughter. And if it’s found out later, blame will fall on some poor wretch of a lieutenant, but mark me! Ryssand deals with Tasmôrden, makes a treaty, and marches home with clean hands. Therefore I set him in the center. Remember I said so beforehand, and report it in the court later, but say not a word of this even to your sons. I fear I can’t help Ryssand’s peasants. But the rest I can deal with.”
Maudyn gave him a look of intense distress. “Surely—”
“He’ll retreat. We’ll advance,” Cefwyn said. “Trust in me, sir. And hell take Ryssand.”
Owl called, in the world, and Tristen opened his eyes on stars above him, aware of Uwen sleeping on one side, aware of Crissand not so far away with his household guard and the Amefins all around: aware of the Amefin, the Ivanim, the Olmernmen, and the Imorim, with a handful of Pelumer’s rangers tucked away to the side, in their own group.
That awareness went on to all the camp and the lay of the land. Horses slept. Almost all the camp slept.
But the woods did not.
A second time Owl called. And Tristen gathered himself to his feet, feeling the stir of a wind out of the woods, a wind that smelled of rain and green things, a wind that rushed at him and blew and blew, and yet Men slept. Uwen slept. Only Crissand and Cevulirn waked, and roused to their feet as well, seeking shields and swords and helms, for they had simply loosed buckles and slept in their armor.
So indeed Tristen had done, but what he perceived was not a threat that would stop at leather and metal, nothing a shield could turn: Shadows moved in the woods, and with a thought of that Elwynim force left dead in the snow near Althalen, he felt the hair rise at the nape of his neck: he would not fall to it, but he was determined his friends would not perish: Uwen would not perish, nor would the men who came here trusting him.
The horses grew uneasy: to have them break the picket lines was a disaster they could not afford, either: the beasts smelled danger, but except for the three of them, and a slight stirring here and there across the camp, no man roused out of sleep.
Peace, he wished the Shadows, and was instantly confident they heard him, instantly reassured, for out of the wood came a whisk of wind that flattened the meadow grass in the starlight, and there skipped a child, blithe and happy and as perilous as edged iron. She skipped and she played in the starlight, and beyond her, around her, came other streaks in the grass, and other children that laughed with high, thin voices, distant and echoing as in some far and vacant hall.
Seddiwy, he named her, and looked for her mother in the shadows.
So Auld Syes came, a white-haired woman as he had first seen her, in homespun and fringed shawl, like any grandmother of the town; and as he had first seen her, the shadow-shapes of peasant folk came following her, the inhabitants of some village, he took them to be, but dim even for starlight.
Then he recognized an old man, and another, a lame youth, and a chill came over him, for they were the folk of Emwy village, dead since summer, young and old.
“Auld Syes,” he said t
o the old woman, and in the next blink saw banners among the trees, a sight that alarmed him for an instant, but Auld Syes turned in slow grace and held out a hand toward those that came. It was the Regent’s banner, and the men with it were Shadows as that banner was a Shadow itself.
It was Earl Haurydd, who had died facing Aséyneddin at Emwy Bridge, Ninévrisë’s man, and her father’s; and with him were others of that company.
And there was Hawith, one of Cefwyn’s men, killed at Emwy, and there…there was Denyn Kei’s-son, the Olmern youth who had stood guard at Cefwyn’s door, Erion Netha’s young enemy turned friend.
He saw his own banner, the Tower and Star, and the shadowy youth bearing it, and felt the deep upwelling of loss, for it was Andas Andas-son, who had joined him so briefly to carry that banner at Lewenbrook. The dark had rolled over the boy, and he had gone bravely into it, and never out again.
He trembled at the sight, he, who was no stranger to Shadows, but it was not fear that shook him, rather that he felt his heart torn to the point of pain. It was not harm the Shadows brought with them, but their loyalty, their fidelity, faith kept to the uttermost.
“My lord,” Crissand whispered, having moved close to him, and Cevulirn arrived at his other hand.
“I know them,” Tristen said. “I know them all.”
But it was not the end of visitations, and at the next the brush rattled and moved to the presence of living men, and a handful of peasant villagers appeared, ragged lads carrying spears and one of them a makeshift standard.
Then from another quarter, from the road, appeared a handful of men on horseback, and them with well-made banners, and one of them the Tower Crowned.
Aeself was one of them, and slid down from his horse and walked forward as sleeping men began to wake to the commotion, hearing sounds in the world. Men leapt up, seizing weapons and shields, and calling out in alarm.
“Friends!” Aeself called out. “His Grace’s men!”
A third time Owl called, and the Shadows all were gone. More and more men came from out of the wood, men on horseback and peasants afoot, and a scattering of banners among well-armed and lordly folk.
Aeself went to one knee, and so did the others. “The King,” Aeself said, and so the others said, one voice upon the other, “the King.”
“There is a king,” Tristen protested, but there were more and more of them, spilling out of the trees, while the wood could in no wise have concealed all of them and he could not have been so deceived about their presence. They arrived like the Shadows, as if they had risen out of the stones and the earth, and a wind skirled through the clearing, startling the horses, lifting the banners half to life.
And Aeself rose, foremost of the rest, while Ivanim and Amefin, Imorim knights and Olmern axemen, and a scattering of Lanfarnesse rangers stood utterly dismayed, no less so than their lords.
Auld Syes arrived in their midst like a skirl of wind, fringed shawl flying like threads of cobweb, gray hair shining like the moonlight, and her daughter danced, holding her hand and skipping about her skirts.
—King in Elwynor, King Foretold: deny nothing! The aetheling has found his King, and peril to deny it!
He hoped with all his heart none of the men heard. He wished Auld Syes’ aid for all of them, and by no means rejected Aeself or the Shadows…how could he turn from Andas Andas-son and Earl Haurydd or deny the outpouring of so many wishes? If Men could bind a magic, he found himself snared in it, caught in their wishes, their long, faithful struggle in what he feared was his war, always his war…but now theirs, as well.
“My name is Tristen,” he said to them all as he had said to Hasufin Heltain. He said it as a charm and as the truth which anchored him in the world. “My name is Tristen. Nothing else.”
“King of Elwynor!” some cried, among the living, and the Amefin cried, “Lord Sihhë!” But he shut his ears against it, and turned away, and in doing so, met the faces he most dreaded to meet: Uwen, as Guelen as ever a man could be; and Cevulirn, steadfast in his oaths; and Crissand Adiran, Amefin, aetheling, king of Amefel…all his friends, all with claims impossible to reconcile, one with the other.
“Lord Sihhë!” the Amefin all shouted now, and so the Elwynim took it up: “Lord Sihhë! Lord Sihhë! Lord Sihhë!”
That was the only truth he heard. He turned again to confront Auld Syes, but in that moment’s distraction the very light had changed to earliest dawn: there were no Shadows among them to answer, there was no lady and no child, only the shapes of trees and the shapes of Men still indisputably among the living. He knew what he had seen, but he could not believe that every man in the company had seen the same, and could not reconcile what he knew and what they knew, or reason out how much they had heard. They shouted for him: they wanted him with such a fervor it shook him to the heart, and yet he wanted nothing of it, nothing but Cefwyn’s safety.
And in hailing him, they turned from Cefwyn. The Elwynim and the Amefin hailed another king: they made him their lord, and would hear nothing else, while the southern lords who had followed him at risk of life and honor stood dismayed, not knowing what to do at this sudden turn of loyalties on the borderlands.
Tristen held up his hands, begging silence, and it was difficult to obtain, in the dim gray light that only hinted at the dawn.
“Lord Sihhë I am,” he said. “Lord Sihhë I am willing to be.” The cold dark seemed to gape beneath his feet, threatening to drink him in, and yet he strained to see their faces, in that hour that stole the stars. But no more than that, he wished to say…yet all along he had listened to Auld Syes, and was not sure she was wrong.
“Cefwyn is my friend,” he said, difficult as it was to speak at all. “Her Grace is my friend. Crissand is the aetheling, and Amefel has a king, the king of the bright Sun! But my name is Tristen!”
And with that he could bear nothing more, and turned away, past Crissand’s reaching hand, past Cevulirn’s grave face. Only Uwen went with him in his withdrawal, and his guard shadowed him until he had found a refuge at the edge of the horse pickets, where Dys and Cass stood and offered mute comfort.
He had left confusion behind him. He had left Aeself and Crissand and Cevulirn with wizardry unexplained. He had left the lords of the south with their understanding challenged. He thought he should have done better. But he could not find how.
He was aware of Uwen’s presence, of his new guards, Gweyl and the others, and at this moment he sorely missed Lusin, who would stand by Uwen come what might. He ached heart-deep with what he feared, and what was laid on him to do, with no choice of his: it was what he was made to do. He apprehended at least that Auld Syes was not in charge of him, nor beyond mistakes, only charged with truths as she perceived them. He could refuse.
And his heart cried out against their expectations. It was not Cefwyn’s doom to fall. It was not his own to sit in a hall signing and sealing and rendering judgements, when this single judgement was so difficult.
He drew a deep breath when he knew that, as if bands had loosed about his heart. He looked up at a sky in which the stars had all perished, and at Uwen’s sober, stubbled face. Love shone there, brighter than the dawn; and he opened his arms and embraced Uwen, for all that Uwen was; in his heart he embraced Crissand, and Cevulirn, and the lords of the south, too, and Aeself, who had come by no ordinary road to find him, whether or not Aeself understood what company he had had or how unnaturally he had arrived.
He heard Owl complaining of the sun. He stood still, cold to the very heart of him, as if his very next breath hung suspended between day and dark.
Lord of Shadows he could be. That, more than Lord Sihhë, he might be. He knew the gray space: it would open for him, and he could draw power out of that realm, hurl the hapless dead against the dead that Hasufin summoned until between them they laid waste to the gray space as well as the lands of Men. The last struggle had imprisoned Shadows within the walls of Ynefel and brought down the towers of Galasien. Between them, Mauryl and Hasufin, they had
done that: Mauryl, wielding wizardry, and Hasufin, wielding wizardry, had not seen the consequences of the struggle. But he saw that it would not last. At the last, Mauryl had seen the wards falter, he was sure of it: Galasien had perished in vain. It did not hold.
And Efanor and a small band of priests walked a perilous Line in Guelessar, as Emuin and Ninévrisë warded the south and Ninévrisë’s father and Drusenan’s Wall held the border of Amefel.
It was to keep those barriers strong that he had arrived on Mauryl’s hearth.
“I dreamed,” he said to Uwen, who most knew the youth who had come to Amefel. “Such, at least as I do dream…that there’s something behind Hasufin, and the Sihhë-lords fought it, all those years ago.”
“Lad, such as I couldn’t tell.”
“This is true.” He could no longer bear to wait, not for the men who stood in doubt and debating among themselves what he had said, not for the disturbance in the wood where Shadows hid for the coming day. He would not be the king Auld Syes foretold. He was never suited to it: it was not—he was as sure of it as of the coming day. “Mauryl didn’t Summon me to sit on a throne,” he said. “Cefwyn hates it… but he’s a good king. I’m not what he is. None of us is what he is.”
Uwen was silent, in what mind he could not read.
“You don’t ask me what I am,” he said, curious, for curiosity was always his fault, and he could never understand the lack of it.
“Ye don’t rightly know, do ye?” Uwen answered him with a wry smile. “Nor me. Nor do I need to. Ye’re my good lad.”
“Uwen is what you are,” he said, “and the captain of my guard, and my right hand.” He reached out to Uwen’s leather-guarded shoulder, as much to feel his solid strength as to reassure Uwen. “Set us to horse. Make these men move. Cefwyn needs me. That’s what I know.”
“Aye, m’lord,” Uwen said with relief.
That was Uwen’s answer.
And for his own, when he went back to Cevulirn and Crissand, he took their hands, and embraced them in the murmurous hush of the army. He embraced Sovrag’s huge shoulders, and Umanon’s stiff back, and Pelumer’s thin and aged frame: he opened his arms to Aeself, when Aeself would have cast himself to his knees, and made him stand and have that, and not a lord to worship.