Fortress in the Eye of Time

CHAPTER 10

Idrys occupied the chair opposite him when he waked — Idrys sat with arms folded about his ribs, head bowed. But not asleep. Tristen caught a sharp glance from that black shape near the light of the diamond-glass window and recalled uneasily both how he had come to this bed, and why this man sat watch over him.

Idrys did not move. Even with no cause but his waking, Idrysʼ lean, black-mustached countenance held no expression toward him but disapproval, a coldness that seemed to him far greater and far more fearsome than that of the gate-guards or the Guelen soldiers, who had toward the last of his ordeal sometimes laughed, or touched his shoulder kindly, or offered him a cup of water. He imagined that he smelled food. But mostly he smelled burnt evergreen. He supposed that, over all, this room was far finer than the guardsʼ quarters, and that the things over which Idrys presided were far more extravagant than the soldiers had offered — but he had, he thought, far rather the Guelen soldiers, if he could only have the bath and the bed, too.

He pretended to sleep a while longer, in the vain hope that Idrys would lose patience and leave, or call someone else to watch him sleep. Idrys had to be bored. He hoped to outlast him.

“There is food and clothing,” Idrys said finally, undeceived, “whenever you feel so inclined.”

“Yes, sir.” Thus discovered, Tristen dutifully sat up, aching and sore, and followed with his eyes Idrysʼ consequent nod toward the table in the other room, where a breakfast was laid — he saw from where he sat — on large silver platters.

He was chagrined to have slept through so much coming and going.

And he supposed if they gave him breakfast they were going to take care of him and that if they took care of him he must have duties of some kind that he was neglecting lying abed.

So he rolled stiffly out onto his feet and wrapped his tangled sheet about him as he cast about looking for his clothes.

“Have your breakfast first,” Idrys said, so without demur he went and looked over a far too abundant table of cheeses and fruit and cold bread, while Idrys, never rising from his chair, watched him with that same dark, half-lidded stare.

He gestured at the table. “Do you not want some too, sir?”

“I do not eat with His Highnessʼ guests.”

That seemed as much conversation as Idrys was willing to grant to him, and Idrys seemed impatient that he had even asked. In embarrassment and confusion, he sat down, gathered up a bit of bread, buttered it, and ate it with diminished appetite, for he had little stomach left after days of hunger, and he felt Idrysʼ eyes on him all the time he was eating. He drank a little, and had a piece of fruit, and had had enough.

“I am done, sir.” He was appalled at the waste of such delicate food. “I could hardly eat so much. Will you eat, now?”

“Dress,” said Idrys, and pointed to a corner where a stack of, as he supposed, towels rested on a table.

He found it clean linens and clothing — not his own dirty and torn clothes, but wonderful, soft new clothing of purest white and soft brown — along with a basin and ewer, a wonderful mirror that showed his image in glass, and all such other things as he could imagine need of. But most pleasant surprise, he found his own silver mirror and razor and whetstone, which he thought the gate-guards had taken for themselves; he was very glad to have the little kit back, since Mauryl had given it to him.

And all the while there was Idrys at his back, arms folded, watching his every move. He tried to ignore the presence as he reached for the razor and tried to ignore the stare on his back as he began, however inexpertly, to clean his face of the morning stubble. Idrys remained unmoved, a wavery image in the silver mirror he chose to use.

He combed his hair and dressed in the clothing that lay ready for him — which fit very close and had many complications and required servants to help him. It was not as comfortable as his ordinary clothing.

What they had provided him was like the fine clothing that Idrys wore, like that Cefwyn had worn: gray hose, a shirt of white cloth, boots of soft brown leather, a doublet of brown velvet, — far, far finer and more delicate cloth than that Mauryl had given him, and his fingers were entranced by the feeling of the clothing. But he would have rather the things he knew, and the clothing Mauryl had given him, and Mauryl with him to tell him not to spoil his shirt. It was a thought that brought a lump to his throat.

“Your own had to be burned,” Idrys told him when he asked diffidently where his own things were. And he wished they had not had to burn what Mauryl had given him, and thought them very wasteful of good food and clothes, and candles, which Mauryl had said were not easily come by. But he dared not argue with the people who fed him and sheltered him. He supposed there were new rules for this Place, in which such things counted less.

Idrys regarded him with the same coldness when he had finished and when he stood shaved, combed, and dressed. He found no clue to tell him whether it was fault Idrys found or whether it was impatience with his awkwardness, or merely — it was possible — boredom.

“What shall I do now, sir?” Tristen asked. He hoped for answers to his questions, for a settling of his place and duties in this keep — perhaps to speak at length with master Emuin, who reminded him most of Mauryl.

“Rest,” Idrys said. “Do as you wish to do. Pay my presence no heed. I shall stay at least until His Highness calls me. He will probably sleep late.”

“Did you sleep, master Idrys?”

“I do not sleep on duty,” Idrys said, arms folded.

Tristen wandered back to the table and found the little food he had taken, and perhaps Idrysʼ at least moderate and reasonable answer to him, had further stirred his appetite. He sat down and buttered another bit of bread and cut a very thin bit of cheese. Idrys had settled in a chair nearby, still watching him the way Owl might watch a mouse.

“Master Idrys,” he found courage to say. “If you please, — what is the name of this place?”

“The town? Henasʼamef. The castle is the Zeide.”

“Kathseide.”

“So men used to call it. Did Mauryl tell you that?”

“No, sir. Master Idrys.” Tristen swallowed a suddenly dry bit of bread, still terrified of this grim man, and was very glad that Idrysʼ mood had passed from annoyance to this sullen, idle companionship.

“Why have you come?” Idrys asked him, then, as swift as Owlʼs strike.

“For help, master Idrys.”

Idrys only stared at him. There seemed one reasonable thing to say to Idrys, and to all the people whose sleep he had disturbed.

“Or if you will only let me go,” Tristen said in a small, respectful voice, “I will go away. If I knew where to go. — Am I in the wrong place? Do you know, master Idrys?”

Idrysʼ face remained unchanged, and in that silence Tristenʼs heart beat painfully. Idrys finally said, “Ifs count nothing.” But Tristen did not take it for his answer, only a sign that Idrys had heard his offer and, pointedly perhaps, ignored his real question regarding his permanent disposition.

But in that moment came a rap at the door, and Idrys rose and went to see to it. There was some ado there: servants, Tristen thought, were waiting outside, or perhaps guards; but the fuss came inside with an opening of the inner doors, and it was Emuin.

He rose from the table, glad to see the old man, who had listened to him patiently last night, who had been kind and pleasant to him and kept his promises to bring him to the master of the keep. Emuin smiled at him gently now and dismissed Idrys to wait outside — as behind Emuin came Cefwyn himself, whom he was not quite so glad to see, and who looked reluctant and unhappy to enter. Cefwyn clapped Idrys on the shoulder in passing and spoke some quiet word to him, after which Idrys nodded and left.

The door closed. Tristen stood still, looking for some cue what to do, what to say, what to expect of them both or what they expected of him.

“Much the better,” Cefwyn murmured then, looking him up and down. “Did you rest well?”

“Yes, master Cefwyn.”

Cefwyn looked askance at that greeting; Tristen at once knew he had spoken amiss and amended it with, “My lord Cefwyn,” as Cefwyn sat down in the same chair Idrys had lately held. Emuin settled on a chair near the table, and Tristen turned the chair he had been using and sat down quietly and respectfully.

“You may sit,” Cefwyn said dryly, in that very tone Mauryl would use when he had done something premature and foolish.

“Yes, sir.” So he had been mistaken to sit. But now Cefwyn said he should. He had no idea what to do with his hands. He tucked them under his arms to keep them out of trouble and sat waiting for someone to tell him what he was to do here.

“We come to unpleasant questions this morning,” said Emuin gently. “But they must be asked. Tristen, lad, is there nothing more you can tell me of Maurylʼs instruction to you?”

“No, sir, nothing that I know, beyond to read the Book and follow the Road where it would lead me.”

“But you cannot read the Book.”

“No, sir. I canʼt.”

“And what was Maurylʼs work? What was the nature of it? Did he say?”

“He never told me, sir.”

“How can he not have known?” Cefwyn snapped, but Emuin shook his head.

“He is very young. Far younger than you think. Not all seemings are true. Listen to him. — Tell me, Tristen, lad, do you remember Snow?”

Snow was a word White and Cold and Wet, lying on the ground, clinging to the trees, falling like rain from the skies.

“I know what it is, sir. It comes to me.”

“But you have not seen it.”

“No, sir.”

“Ever?”

“Not that I remember. Perhaps the shutters werenʼt open.”

“This is an unnatural business,” Cefwyn said, locking his arms across his chest. “I tell you I have no liking for it. Emuin, can you judge what he says?”

He feared Cefwyn, whose eyes were sometimes cold as Idrysʼ eyes, whose voice very often had an edge to it, and whose speech had many, many turns he failed to follow.

But Emuinʼs voice was gentle and forgiving. “He was Maurylʼs, my lord Prince, and Mauryl was not wont to lie, whatever his faults.”

“He never stuck at worse acts.”

“Peace,” Emuin said sharply, and turned on Tristen a gentler look. “Lad, Iʼve told you that I knew your master. That he was my teacher, too. He would not have you lie to me.”

“No, sir,” Tristen answered. “I wouldnʼt think so.”

“You have no idea why he died.”

“I donʼt know that he is dead, sir.”

“What do you think befell him? Why do you think he might be alive?”

“I donʼt know, sir. I know—” It was difficult to speak of his reasons and his guesses. He had never said them aloud. He had persuaded himself not to speak them aloud, not so long as the guards questioned him. But Emuin said he was Maurylʼs student, too, so surely he should tell Emuin the truth.

“I know that Mauryl believed he would go away somewhere. I thought he meant the Road. He gave me the Book and said he might not have to go if I could read it. But I failed.” It was a difficult failure to admit. He was deeply ashamed and troubled with a thought that had worried at him ever since he had come to the guardsʼ hands. “Perhaps I was mistaken to go out the gate. Perhaps I was mistaken about when he wanted me to go. I would have asked him, if he were there, sir. I wish I might have asked him.”

“I do not think you were mistaken,” Emuin said, which he was glad to hear. “You did exactly as Mauryl would have had you do, and very wisely, too.”

“I hope so, sir.”

“I am very sure.”

Tears welled up in his eyes and a knot came into his throat. He looked down, because Mauryl had said men did not show their tears, and Mauryl had said he was becoming grown. But the tears escaped him and ran down his face, so he wiped at them surreptitiously, as quickly as he could, and tried to pretend they had never happened.

“You see,” Emuin said to Cefwyn. “He is still a child in many respects. Mauryl did not gain everything he wanted in his working.”

He had no idea what Emuin meant. He looked to see whether Emuin frowned or not, and in that moment Cefwyn leaned back and folded his arms, regarding him coldly. “You will stay here,” Cefwyn said sternly, and then cast a glance at Emuin. “—How much, then, can he comprehend?”

Heat mounted to Tristenʼs face. “Sir, I do understand you.”

“Do you?” Cefwyn seemed always on his guard, as Idrys seemed to be. Perhaps Cefwyn was angry about his mistakes in manners. He knew he had made them, even in recent moments.

“Lad?” Emuin said. “What do you understand?”

“I understand most things, sir, but there are some Words that come slowly, so I lose the sense of them. But,” he added quickly, lest Emuin think he was more trouble than he possibly wished to undertake, even on Maurylʼs wishes, “I am not slow to learn, sir. Mauryl told me otherwise.”

“Cry you mercy,” Cefwyn said in a breath. “So you do answer for yourself, sir.”

“Yes, sir. — Yes, mʼlord.”

“Apprentice to Mauryl?”

Apprentice. It came muddling up out of somewhere. “I think after a kind, mʼlord, but — Mauryl called me a student.”

“Did he?”

“Yes, sir.”

“If I give you liberty of the keep, of all this vast building, will you agree to stay within its walls?”

He suddenly realized Cefwyn was asking him to stay. And Emuin had just said that he had done what Mauryl wished. He began to hope for a turn for the better — that after all he had not failed Maurylʼs order. “Yes, sir,” he said, with all attention, all willingness to obey.

“You will undertake not to speak to others than myself and Emuin, in any regard.”

“I will not speak to others, no, sir.”

“Lad,” Emuin interposed, “Prince Cefwyn means that restriction for your protection. There are some few people about who are not to be trusted, who would use you very deceitfully, and some would do you harm. You must trust the two of us, and only us.”

“Not Idrys, sir?”

“Idrys serves Prince Cefwyn. You may speak to Idrys. He is Lord Commander of the Princeʼs Guard. And you may always tell the servants what you want and what you do not. His Highness means simply that you should not converse with chance strangers you meet in the halls.”

“Yes, sir. I understand.” In Ynefel — in all the world before — there had been only Mauryl. He had never had to understand there were safe people and dangerous people, but on his way to this new place he had learned that abundantly, and he was glad to know there was a rule he should follow. It would be ever so much easier to please these men and avoid trouble if he had a rule.

“Good.” Emuin rose and, as Emuin had done before, patted his shoulder in leaving. Cefwyn got up to go, Tristen rose, and Cefwyn delayed to look back, frowning as he studied Tristen from head to foot.

Then Cefwyn shook his head and left, as if he still disappointed Cefwynʼs expectations.

He stood staring at the door after it shut, hands clenched on the back of the chair. He should not, he told himself very firmly, be angry or upset with Cefwyn, who had given him everything he presently had; who had, in fact, given him everything pleasant and good.

Everything… but welcome.

Their leaving was the first time he had been altogether alone since he had come here last night, the first time he had stood in the middle of a room which — he supposed — was to be his. It was a far, far different and grander room than any Ynefel had had to offer, as large by itself as the downstairs hall at Ynefel. The whole keep had no wooden balconies, but stone floors throughout, which stayed up by some magic, he imagined, and did not tumble down of their own tremendous weight.

But the moment he wondered about it with a clear head, he thought of Arches, and Barrel Vaults, and Coigns and all such Words as masonry and mason-work, and the scaffolds he had seen in the town below, all, all those many Words and memories of the town and Ynefel pouring in on him. Like pigeons fighting over bread, his thoughts were, as he remembered the space outside the walls, and he put his hands to his head and turned all about — finding no more Words, at least, everything safe and known, bed and table and chair and Curtain, indeed, there was a Curtain, of which Ynefel had had none such embellishments.

There was Leading, and Gilding and when, on a quieter breath, he dared look out the window, one knee upon the bench there, he saw, distorted through rippled glass, slate roofs, and chimneys, and, oh, indeed, there were pigeons walking on the ledges.

He went at once to the table and the remnant of his huge breakfast and took bread, and carefully unlatched the little section of the diamond windows that had a separate frame and latch. The pigeons flew away in alarm when it opened, but he put the bread there on the ledge below the glass and trusted they would find it soon.

He was very glad to find them. He wondered were any of them his pigeons, that might also have escaped from Ynefel.

He wondered whether Owl would come, and what place there might be in this place that would be possible for Owl to sleep by day, as Owl preferred to do. Perhaps there was a loft somewhere in the buildings nearby. Perhaps there was a loft even in the Kathseide itself. He stood and watched, and, certain enough, the pigeons gained courage to come close, and then advanced to the roof slates below the window, and landed on the sill beyond the diamond-glass panes. He was very still, as he had learned to be in the loft at home, and watched them make short work of the bread.

He brought them more, and frightened them again, but they would come back: pigeons could be quite brave, he knew, where bread appeared.

After that, he explored every detail and secret of the room and (none too early) the practical necessities in an unlikely cabinet with a most ingeniously made swinging shelf, a shelf which could, he found on his hands and knees, be reached from the outside hall. But that door could be latched from inside by a very strong latch.

And bothering that small door must have alerted men outside, guards in brown leather and red cloaks, who came in immediately through the foyer and the inner doors to ask if he wanted anything.

“No, sirs,” he said, embarrassed. And then asked if he might go outside a while.

“His Highness give permission, mʼlord, excepting to talk, that ainʼt permitted, even to us, begging your pardon, mʼlord. And us is to be wiʼ ye wherever, to keep ye out of difficulties.”

Mʼlord, they called him, and respected him. That was a different thought, and relieved him of fear somewhat.

He decided to take it for granted, then, that he was set free as Cefwyn had said, and he did venture into the hall. Idrys was not there, to his relief, and he walked down the hall with two guards remaining behind at the room and two guards trailing him, guards who declared they were not to talk to him and who seemed also forbidden to walk beside him. He wished that they could do both. There were questions he would have liked to ask them. But there was, his consolation, a great deal to see in all this great place.

He explored the polished upstairs hall, where echoes rang with every step. None of the servants returned his attempts to smile, but shied from him as the townsfolk had, and he supposed that they had had their orders, the same as the guards had, not to speak with him.

He went cautiously downstairs, and met the stares of finely dressed men and women who stood in groups, stared with cold eyes and spoke words guarded behind hands and turned shoulders. They seemed to measure him up and down and did not want him among them, that was clear. He had as fine clothing as they, but no gold, no embroideries — he supposed that as they saw things what Cefwyn had given him was very plain. And perhaps they knew that he was from Ynefel, which no men but Emuin seemed to trust. The men when he did walk past them gave him only cold faces. But the women, some of them, looked over their shoulders at him, and one, with remarkable red hair, did smile.

He stared longer than he should have, perhaps, drawn by that one pleasantness and wishing to speak to her. But he remembered Cefwynʼs instruction, and the woman walked away with a swaying of remarkable bright skirts. Men that witnessed the exchange gave him very cold, very angry stares and made him certain that he should not have smiled back at her. There seemed to be a rule against looking at him. Perhaps Cefwyn had made it.

“Was I wrong, sirs?” he asked his guards. And they looked confused, and one said,

“Certainly not by us, mʼlord.” At which the others laughed, but not in an unpleasant way. So he felt he had not done wrong, at least not so the guards could tell where the fault was, and he continued right in their eyes.

But he had, the moment he thought of it, broken Cefwynʼs commandment to him, just by speaking to them. And he heard Mauryl chiding him, saying, Can you not remember, boy?

He seemed to have learned very little, over so much time. Mauryl would still despair of him. Mauryl would still shake his head and say he was a fool, chasing after butterflies again, and forgetting to mind the many, many things he was supposed to remember.

But he did not retreat to his room. There were things still to see and things still to know. There could be no learning if he did not try new things, and there could be no safety, he thought, if Cefwyn did not will him to be safe: Cefwyn was clearly lord of all these people as Emuin was master, and if either of them said that he was free to walk where he would, then he went where he would, trying to ignore the angry looks that came his way.

He walked further, to a place in the downstairs hall where the marble pavings changed to worn flagstones. That dividing line in the plan of the building struck him like a Word: it felt that strange, that important to him. He stopped still, and looked about him across that Division at walls less ornate than the walls elsewhere. He expected doors where there were no doors, he expected a hall — and found one, but hung with Banners out of place there, and the stones were plastered over and painted. It was not right. The doorway was not Right.

Thereʼs a magic to doors and windows, Mauryl had told him. Masons know such things. So do spirits.

“Mʼlord?” he heard his guards say, faint and far to his ears. He heard the clank of armed men walking. He saw Shadows there, and turned a frightened look to the men with him.

The hall changed. It was only the hall again.

“Are ye well, mʼlord? Will ye walk back again? Thereʼs no outlet by this way.”

There was not. Not now. The Place he knew had had a further door. But the door let them only into what seemed a blind end, bannered and hung with weapons of every sort. He knew another Name, but clearly it was not the right Name, as Kathseide was not right, and men knew what he said, but named it differently, so they thought him a fool, too, and simple. That was what they called a man who lost himself in hallways and stumbled over sills that to his reckoning did not belong there.

He feared that flagstoned hall. He was glad to leave it. It felt wrong, in that doorway. It was fraught with the chance of Words, and he had had enough of Words for a few days: he truly hoped to settle the ones he had, and perhaps to find Owl, if Owl could find his window.

He did not know why the place down there had made him think of Owl. And then he knew: it had been like the loft. There had been a high, peaked end, and exposed rafters. Sunlight had streamed in where now there was stone. Birds had gone in and out that opening that did not exist, Hawks had lived there, and fed on pigeons and on mice, being birds fierce as Owl.

Those were the shadows he saw, the bating of wings, not the still, straight display of dusty banners. Owl might have come there. But Owl could not find an entry, no more than he had found a way to summon Owl.

He thought the more time passed, the stranger and wilder Owl might grow, until Owl quite forgot him.

He wished he could ask his guards if they had seen a large lump anywhere about the eaves, a very unhappy lump, Owl would be.

But, no talking to them, Cefwyn had said. He had learned something. The place where Owl might have been at home in the Kathseide was shut to him, with the coldness with which shoulders turned to Owlʼs master.

Again…no welcome. No hint of welcome, not for him, nor for Owl. They would become lost from one another. The windows were too tight, except for here, and here it seemed things should be wood and very little stone, there should be an airy passage, and it should smell of straw. It frightened him. Words and Names had never betrayed him before. It made him doubt other things he thought were sure.

But there was, absent Emuin, no one he thought might advise him what he saw.

And Emuin did not come that day or the next, nor the next.

The size of the building was deceptive. It sprawled its wings and corridors in unexpected directions, and made courts and narrow shafts and mazes of halls in which it was easy, except for the presence of his guards, to become lost.

But six days was sufficient to wander every permitted hallway of it. There was a tiny cramped library filled with parchments and codices, occupied by two old men who had no love for each other. There was, on a seventh day, when his guards became involved in a dice game in the hall below, a great room of sunny windows where brightly dressed ladies sewed and infants played, but he was not welcome there, and he distressed his guards, two of whom he did not see the next day; he counted it his fault and sent in writing to beg Cefwynʼs pardon, but Cefwyn sent back to him, also by written message, saying they were men, not children, and they knew their duty.

He took that for severest rebuke, and a sign that he was not himself a man, in Cefwynʼs opinion.

He had found the kitchen, a ready source of food at any hour, Cefwynʼs orders refusing him no luxury.

There were Barracks which he avoided, where the guards exchanged long and easy conversation with their fellows, but he could not speak, and he found it tedious and uncomfortable, and full of harsh and disquieting Words.

There was the Armory, which smelled and echoed of Weapons, and his guards said that was no place for him. But there was the Forge not so far from it, where the master Smith and his helpers worked metal glowing bright and almost transparent, making it grow and change, and where sparks flew like stars.

There were Stables, which excited his interest the moment he saw them, but soldiers barred him and his guards from that yard, saying they had had orders. So there were exceptions to Cefwynʼs grant of freedom, and one involved Weapons, which did not appeal, and the other involved Horses, which were a Word of Freedom itself, a Word of Hay, and Leather, and soft noses. They were a cascade of Words — Heavy Horse, and Light; Mare and Foal; Hoof and Hock and Pastern, and he could have stayed and watched for a long time and drunk in those Words, but the guards had their orders, and he had no more than a glimpse of creatures that set his heart to racing and his hands itching to touch and know.

There was a long wing of Warehouses dusty with grain, a place of pleasant smells and an occasional furtive rat; he liked to be there, and he had discovered it on the third day, but the records keepers of that place seemed likewise anxious to have him gone, and the guards were bored, so after the fifth day he came no more to the granaries.

In all his explorations, he found no loft, only upper floors, and they said there was nothing higher, no place better than his own windows from which he could see the other roofs and a narrow space of courtyard. His windows could not be opened, except the small square that could let a breeze in; he supposed that was for safety.

He did not like it that the windows had no inside shutters to latch, and reading by candlelight or lying abed in the dark, he cast looks askance at that glistening dark glass on nights when the wind blew and sighed about the eaves, but evidently the Zeide had less fear of Shadows, and no one but he seemed worried about the matter. He even opened the window one night and left a bit of sausage out on the ledge, closing the little window quickly. He hoped Owl would find it and he would know by its being gone in the morning that Owl had been there — but it was still there when the sun rose, and by the next afternoon it was gone, after the servants had been there tidying up, so he thought that they and nothing baneful had found it.

One sanctuary he discovered where he could walk and sit at will: the west garden — which he came upon quite by accident, and which he most loved of all the places he could go. It was like a small, safe woods grown within walls, the trees carefully trimmed, even the pond neatly bordered. Birds from beyond the walls came and perched in the trees and hedges as he could not imagine they would do in the cobbled streets of the town down the hill. His pigeons came down, too, five at least that he recognized from his ledge on the other side of the building, and with the freedom of the garden and no opening pane to scare them, they began to take bread quite fearlessly from his hand.

But others disapproved the pigeon-feeding, and showed it by their looks. The lords and ladies of the Court resorted to the garden in the shady hours, jeweled and beautiful to see, at distance, in clothing with gilt threads that flashed and sparked in small patches of sun; but their stares at him were disdainful when he sat on the ground feeding the birds, which, when he thought about it, they, in their fine clothes, could never do.

The pigeons came to him now when he simply sat on the bench by the pond — there was a pair of titmice that grew more and more clever, and he fed them and fed the fish that lived there, while the lords and ladies (for those were the titles one did call them) along with earls and ealdormen and such, simply ignored his presence, and he theirs. He read his Book in the bright sunlight — or dutifully tried to read it — and on further days tempted the birds with grain that he asked the servants to bring him.

They were, he said to himself, mostly town birds, never so trusting as the birds of Ynefel, and would not bear a sudden movement, except the tits and the pigeons, who became entirely sure of him and very daring.

No one in all these days had broken Cefwynʼs rule and spoken to him. He watched the lords and ladies in the assurance of safety here and studied their manners and their better graces such as he could puzzle them out, thinking that if he were more like them, he would become more acceptable in this place. Since in all these days, neither Cefwyn nor Emuin had troubled to call him, and the servants, the cooks, the archivists, and the granary keepers all dealt with him as quickly as possible and in silence, it did seem to him that it might please Cefwyn if he were more mannerly, and more like the people who lived here.

But he would not abandon the birds, who chattered to him, and buffeted his ears with their wings.

Came a day he sat, as often he would, by the pond, once he had exhausted the birdsʼ appetites; and he had two books to read — one being Maurylʼs, of course, which he would try every day until his eyes grew tired. But the other was a book he could truly read, and which spoke about Truth, and Happiness, and he daily lost himself in that, once the birds were well fed and the fish in the pond were sated. Each afternoon, now that his guards had found occupation to themselves in the old stone arch, a comfortable place where they sat and tossed knives idly at the dirt and talked freely to each other, he read, laboring over the Words that concerned the manners of men and of Philosophy and right and wrong, tangled reasonings, not all of which made sense to him. Words came but slowly out of that maze. But they seemed to be very important Words, and he chased them where he could.

He was thinking of Justice when a shadow across the page startled him, and made him look up in alarm.

He had not been listening for any approach. He looked around at brocade skirts and dainty slippers and up into a fair ladyʼs face that smiled on him, red lips and dark eyes, and masses of auburn hair. It was the lady who had smiled at him before.

“Good day,” she said.

He laid his book aside and quickly gathered himself up, having now to look down at her, for she was not so tall as he. She was beautiful, bright and dainty, with a light in her eyes that seemed mirth just about to break forth. He was entranced, delighted — and dismayed, because he very well remembered the condition of his freedom, and spread his hands in apology.

“I cannot,” he said.

“Cannot what, sir?”

“Talk with you. Cefwyn forbade it.”

“Did he, indeed?”

“Forgive me. Please go. My guards will be unhappy.”

Auburn lashes swept over dark eyes and lifted again, restoring an intimate moment. She smiled at him, such a smile as held friendship and mockery at once. “Your guards will be unhappy. — I am Orien Aswydd. And who are you, sir, that Prince Cefwyn keeps so isolate in my house?”

“Your house?” It upset all the order he had made of things; and his question immediately brought a frown from her.

“My house, indeed, sir, and what is your name?”

“Tristen,” he murmured, and mʼlady was what he thought one called a lady, be she a thaneʼs lady or an earlʼs, but he feared offending her, having made one mistake already.

“Tristen of Ynefel? Do I hear true? Maurylʼs — what? Apprentice?”

“Student, mʼlady. I was his student.”

“And Prince Cefwyn keeps you prisoner here. Why?”

“I donʼt know.”

“What, donʼt know?” She laughed and lost the laughter in gazing past him, where someone had walked close.

His guards had moved, and one put an arm between, wishing him to turn away. He bowed slightly before doing so. He knew that he had lingered longer than he should.

“Lady Orien!”

Emuin. Tristen looked, dismayed as the old man came strolling down the path.

“Your Grace,” Emuin said, also with a nod, “good day to you.” And after a silence, and sternly, “Good day, Lady Orien.”

Orien stared at Emuin with what seemed intense dislike, whisked her beautiful skirts aside and walked away with small precise steps down the gravel path. The sun on her auburn hair shone like a haze of fire.

Tristen stared after her, and Emuin set a heavy hand on his shoulder, demanding his full and sober attention. “What was said?” Emuin asked.

“I told her my name, sir. She asked why I was a prisoner. She said this is her house. I thought it was Prince Cefwynʼs.”

Emuin seemed slightly out of breath. Emuin drew him to a bench and sat down, drawing him to sit beside him. “Do you feel yourself a prisoner?”

“I promised Prince Cefwyn I would not leave, and I—”

“Do you wish to leave?”

“I know nowhere else, sir. But if I am not welcome here, I know how to go back to the Road — if you give me leave.”

Emuin studied the gravel at their feet. “Do not,” he said at last, “trust that lady. She is one of the chiefest Prince Cefwyn meant when he warned you not to speak to strangers.”

“Yes, sir,” he said. He must say. Emuin commanded Orien, and Cefwyn perhaps commanded Emuin; he had tried in all he heard to make sense of it. Emuin was still out of breath, and he suspected that his guards, less attentive to their talk than he had thought, might have called Emuin, or Emuin might have seen what was going on from the windows above. He had never seen master Emuin in the garden before.

“As for going back to the Road,” Emuin said, “believe me that you are ill-prepared to wander it, young sir. There are very many dangerous people to account of.”

“Like Lady Orien?” He truly wanted an answer to his question. But surely Emuin remembered what he had asked, and chose not to answer.

“Lady Orien,” Emuin said, “and her sister, are Amefin, and this is, in good truth, their brotherʼs house. Heryn Aswydd is Duke of Amefel, and lords of Amefel did formerly style themselves kings — petty ones, but kings. Now they style themselves aethelings, which is the same thing — but they do so quietly. Prince Cefwyn is Lord Herynʼs guest, by the will of the King in Guelemara, who is not a petty king: Ináreddrin is King of Ylesuin, which is eighteen provinces, most of them far greater than rustic Amefel, which he also rules, above any duke. Prince Cefwyn is King Ináreddrinʼs heir, and he does the Kingʼs will here in Amefel as the Kingʼs viceroy, which means the Duke of Amefel is obliged, being a loyal subject, to quarter the prince and his court, and his Guelen guard, both the Princeʼs Guard, and the regulars. It also means the west wing of the Zeide is Prince Cefwynʼs so long as Prince Cefwyn pleases to remain in Amefel, which he will please to do so long as the King wills it. So you are the princeʼs guest and ward, by right of Maurylʼs title in Ynefel, which His Highness chooses to honor at least by courtesy. So you are not answerable to Lady Orien except through him.”

There were a confusing number of Words in what master Emuin said. But it meant Prince Cefwyn had taken care and charge of him. That was comforting to know. And he supposed that if he had to choose who was telling him things most true, it would most likely be master Emuin.

“I am glad to know that, sir,” he said.

“What are you reading? Is that Maurylʼs Book?”

“Yes, sir. But I still make no sense of it. The other the archivist lent me.”

Emuin picked the other book up from beside him and looked at it. “Philosophy. Hardly a noviceʼs book. And you read this one, do you, with no difficulty with the words?”

“It seems a great deal of argument.”

“Argument, indeed.” Emuin seemed both thoughtful and amused. “Do you like the scholarʼs argument?”

“It seems to me, sir, the book is about Words, and I learn them.”

“And how else do you fill your hours?”

“I feed the birds. I walk.”

“You must be lonely.”

“I wish Mauryl were here. Or I were with Mauryl.”

“You Miss him.”

His throat went tight. “That is the Word, yes, master Emuin.” It was difficult to speak more than that. He looked away, wishing to speak, now that he had someone, if only for a moment, to speak to. But the words stuck fast. He thought Emuin would leave him in disinterest.

But Emuin set his hand on his shoulder, and left it there while he struggled to clear the lump in his throat, a strangely difficult matter now that there was someone beside him to notice.

“This morning,” Tristen began, as calmly as he could, “this morning I was thinking that, in Ynefel, I knew very little. I thought things changed a great deal. But now that Iʼve been Outside, things inside the Zeide seem to change very little.”

“Very perceptive.” Emuin lowered his hand. “Things do change. But mostly common and noble folk alike live their lives inside safe walls, and never seek to go outside or travel as youʼve traveled ever in their lives.”

“Are most folk happy, sir? I see them laugh. But I canʼt tell.”

“Nor can I,” Emuin said somberly. “Nor can I, Tristen.”

“Emuin, Iʼve seen children.”

“Yes?”

“A man should have been a child. Ought he not? — And I never was.”

Emuin did not move, but stared at him with that troubled look any appearance of which he had learned to dread in people: it presaged fear. But as if to deny it, Emuin smiled warmly and patted his knee. “If there is fault, be it that old reprobate Maurylʼs, never yours. Your consent was neither asked nor given. You exist. What you do now is in your power. What Mauryl did regarding you — was not at all in your power.”

“Was I a child, Emuin? I donʼt remember. Mauryl called me boy. But I think I never was.”

“Think of now, young sir. Now is yours. The future is yours.”

“But I was not a child, master Emuin. — What am I?” He began to shiver and Emuinʼs hands seized hard on his arms. He wanted the old man to draw him into his arms as Mauryl had, to shelter him as Mauryl had, but there was, he believed now, no such shelter left in the world. Held at armʼs length, he saw mirrored in Emuinʼs eyes his own terror; he felt the grip that held his arms for comfort push him back more than draw him in — impossible either to escape or approach this man. Cefwyn had claimed him. Emuin had not.

“Ask no questions now,” Emuin said.

“You know, master Emuin. You could answer me. Could you not? All these people know. And they fear me.”

“Therein—” Emuin let go his arms and tapped him ungently on the chest. “There. Therein lies what you are, Tristen. Therein lies cause for them to fear you, or to adore you, or to trust your judgment as true — which is not the same thing, Tristen. And, believe me, you have more of choice in those matters than seems likely to you now.”

Tristen blinked; the pain in his chest unknotted at the old manʼs rough touch and for a moment he breathed more easily. It was very much the sort of thing Mauryl would have said, and perhaps, though it lacked the tingle Maurylʼs cures had always set into him, there was a bit of healing about it.

“Important now that you stay here,” Emuin said, “mind what youʼre told and stay safe while you learn.”

“You knew Mauryl. Did he speak to you about me? Did he warn you I was coming?”

“I last saw him years ago.”

“But you said that he taught you.”

“When I was as young as you seem now, he was my teacher. That was a long time ago.”

“And not after?”

“I couldnʼt stay with him.” Emuin shook his head, and fingered that silver circle that he wore. “We differed. I walked the same sort of Road that you walked, my boy, the Road back into the world. Donʼt be frightened here; this is a far less dangerous place than Ynefel.”

“I was never in danger there.”

“Truth, lad, you were in most dreadful danger. As was Mauryl. As events proved, I fear. Mauryl protected you. Mauryl saw to your escape. Mauryl could do no more for you, and less for himself.”

Memory of that place was all he owned and Emuinʼs words threatened to change it. “I was happy there. I want to be back there, master Emuin.”

“He was a demanding master, and he could be a terrible man. And well you should love him, if only that you never saw that other side of him. Patience never came easy for him.”

“He was good to me.”

“Tristen, you will hear hard things of him; they are many of them true. He was feared; he was hated; and most of the ill that men say of him is true. But so, I very much believe, are all the things you remember. I tell you this because you will surely hear the ill that men do speak of him, and I would not have you confused by it. Hold to the truth you know of him; it is as true as any other truth, as whole as any truth men know, and I am vastly encouraged that you reflect a far gentler man than the master I knew.”

It was the same as when he had touched the hearthstones. The hand that had met the fire was never the same as it had gone in, having knowledge but never again the same joy of the light. That hand had been burned. The pain had entered his mind. And a little smooth scar remained of that moment, despite Maurylʼs comfort. In the same way he heard the truth about Mauryl, that Mauryl had existed before him, and outside him, and had had other students, who liked Mauryl less. He had no reason to think Emuin lied in his harsh judgment of Mauryl, who was his arbiter of all past right and wrong — as Emuin was his present master.

“Tristen,” Emuin said, “you say that you sat outside on the step the day Mauryl left you.”

“Yes, sir.” The sunlight turned colder. “I did.”

“What did you see there? What did you hear? What did you feel?”

“Dust. Wind. The wind took shape. It broke and became leaves. And the wind blew through the keep, and stones began to fall.”

“The wind took shape. What manner of shape?”

“It was a man.”

Emuin said nothing, then. Emuinʼs face seemed more lined with age, more somber, more pale than he had been. He knew Emuin had not liked to hear what he had said. But it was the truth.

“It is too much to ask,” Emuin said, “that Mauryl in any sense prevailed; but he sheltered you, and I trust guided you to reach this shelter. Do not think of going from this place. Whatever happens, do not you imagine going from here. I believe everything you say is the truth. I do not see falsehoods in you. Will you do as I say? Will you take my judgments in Maurylʼs place?”

“Yes, sir.” Tristen gazed at him, waiting for explanation, or instruction, and hardly felt the old manʼs grip. The bearded face so like Maurylʼs swam in his eyes and confounded all memory. “Will you teach me as Mauryl did?”

Emuin held his arms and drew him to his feet. “You and I should not stand in the same room. Not now.” With reluctance, the old man embraced him, then embraced him tightly. Tristen held to his frail body, not knowing why Emuin said what he said, but knowing Emuinʼs embrace was unwilling until the very last, and knowing now that desertion was imminent.

Emuin set him back again, and for a moment there seemed both sternness and anger in Emuinʼs eyes. “Cefwyn will care for you.”

“Yes, sir,” he said. He could think of nothing worse than being abandoned to Cefwynʼs keeping, not even wandering in the woods. He looked down and Emuin shook at him gently, as Mauryl would.

“There is a good heart in Cefwyn, Tristen. He was my student, and I know his heart — which is a fair one, and a guarded one. Many people try to gain his favor, not always for good or wise intentions, so he makes the way to his favor full of twists and turns, but there is, once you have overcome all barriers, a good heart in him. He is also a prince of Ylesuin and his fatherʼs right hand in this region, and you must respect him as a lord and prince, but mind, mind, too, — now that I think on it, — never take all that Cefwyn says for divine truth, either. He will be honest, as it seems to him at the moment, but his mind may change with better thought. Like you, he is young. Like you, he makes mistakes. And like you, he is in danger. Learn caution from him. Donʼt learn his bad habits, mind! — but expect him to be fair. Even generous. As I cannot be to you. As I dare not be.”

“Yes, sir.”

The place they stood grew brighter and brighter, until it was all white and gray, like pearl; and the light came out of Emuin, or was all through Emuin, and through him.

— You are indeed, Emuin said, seeming, finally well-pleased in him. You are indeed his work, young Tristen. Hold my hand. Keep holding it. Keep on.

He could scarcely get a breath, then, and was standing on the pondside beside the bench. But Emuin was far away from him, halfway to the door; and with his back to him, walking away down the flagstone path.

— There is no leaving, young sir. You cannot find Mauryl again. But you can find me, at your need. Do not come here oftener than you must. I strictly forbid it. So can your Enemy reach this place. Do not bring him here. And do not linger in the light. At your urgent need only, Tristen. To do otherwise will put us both in danger.

It was like a brush of Emuinʼs hand across his face. Like a kindly touch, as Mauryl had touched him. And a warning of an Enemy that frightened him with scarcely more than that fleeting Word. He knew that Emuin was going away, but not as Mauryl had gone — there was a Place that Emuin would go to, and it was measured across the land and down the Road, and was not here — but it was not death.

He knew that something had happened to Mauryl, and that there was a danger, and that it dwelled in the light as well as in Ynefel, rendering that gray space dangerous for him to linger in.

Emuin vanished within a distant doorway, rimmed with vines, a green arch above the path.

And a gust of wind skirled along the gravel, kicking up dust. There was a fluttering sound, as the wind went ruffling callously through the pages of his abandoned books.

He had been careless. He did not like such breezes. He went and gathered up Maurylʼs Book and the Philosophy both from the bench, closed and pressed the precious pages together, under the watch of his patient guards.

But he had nowhere he had to go, nothing now that he was bound to do but what Emuin had bidden him do. He sat on the stone bench and thought about that, watching the fish come and go under the reflections on the surface until the shadow from the wall made the water clear, and he knew his guards, who had no interest of their own in books or birds or fish, were restless, if only to walk somewhere else for the hour.