CHAPTER 12

Words trembled in air, writings black and red, Names, that were Ashiym, Anas Mallorn, Ragisar, Malitarin…villages, that were Emwy and Asmaddion, and sheep were there, but Anas Mallorn ruled the riverside—

Owl flew above a parchment and faded land. Owlʼs wings were barred and blunt and shadowed villages at a time. Owl, Tristen called to him, standing at some vantage he could not at the time understand. But Owl was on a mission, or hunting mice, and would not heed him.

Owl eluded him and kept flying, opening up more and more of the land to him, Names that writhed in red ink and fortresses in black. Streams snaked under Owlʼs broad wings to join the Lenúalim, and all, all went under him.

“Mʼlord,” someone called to him. But he was losing Owl.

Owl, come back! he called, for it seemed to him that Owl would leave the edge and enter the dark. But the map kept widening, Words and Names and lands like Guelessar and Imor…Marisal and Lanfarnesse…

“Mʼlord.” Someone touched him, and he blinked, realizing it a gruff voice and perhaps one of the gate-guards, standing over him by dim candlelight.

It still might be, as he opened his eyes wide and gazed on a scarred and broad-nosed face, fair-haired, but gray and bald on the crown. He feared the man at first glance.

But it did not seem an unfriendly face.

“Uwen Lewenʼs-son, mʼlord. The captain sent me. He said I should wake ye. Sorry. But it are toward dawn. And yeʼll be ridinʼ wiʼ His Highness, so best ye be up and breakfasted.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Mʼlord, I ainʼt sir yet, no wise. Uwenʼs all. Servants is waiting wiʼ a small breakfast, and Iʼll fit ye for the ride, if ye please.”

“Thank you,” he said, if Uwen would not be called sir. Still — he was going out riding, Cefwyn had kept his promise, and for the first time in days he was glad to get up. He rolled out of bed and went immediately to wash and dress, while the servants were bringing breakfast in and lighting more candles in the early-morning darkness.

“Hereʼs a robe, mʼlord,” Uwen said, flinging a robe about his shirted shoulders. “Ye have a bite, now. Yeʼll be regretting it halfway through the day, else ye do.”

He thought it sensible advice, and he sat down to a breakfast of hot bread and butter and honey, while Uwen was working with something of padded cloth and oil and metal, taking up laces, as it seemed.

He finished his breakfast more quickly than usual. He stood up, and Uwen gave him a padded undergarment, such as he had seen the soldiers wear about the barracks, such as, he thought, Uwen also wore under his mail and leather.

He was disturbed and fascinated at once, exchanging his robe for the soldierʼs padding. Uwen snugged the laces tight around him, saying, “Well, yeʼre slighter ʼn ye seem, mʼlord. Breakfast anʼ all. Does that seem fitted, here, mʼlord?”

“Yes,” he said, and Uwen took up a mail shirt.

“Watch your hair, mʼlord,” Uwen said, twisted his loose hair into a rope and helped him on with the shirt. The shining metal settled on and shaped itself about him like water, like—

His fingers traveled over the links, smooth going one way, rough-edged going the other, and as he breathed, he found the weight — like a Word, like a Name, settling about his shoulders and about his ribs and becoming part of his own substance — but he was not this Thing. He was not this Weight. He was Maurylʼs, not a soldier…he was not this thing that enveloped him in steel.

“Yeʼll get used to it,” Uwen said. “Hereʼs rough land, mʼlord. We got bandits, we got Elwynim, we got Amefin who could mistake ye for a target, silly lads. Here.”

Uwen had a coat in his hands, and Tristen put his arms in like a shirt. Uwen buckled it on, then looped a belt around his waist and snugged it tight.

“His Highness has got you a nice, quiet horse. She donʼt do no nonsense. Ye ready, mʼlord? Ye set fair?”

“I think I am.” The coat was red, like Cefwynʼs guard, and like what Uwen wore. He looked like another soldier, except the brown hose and brown boots where the soldiers wore black.

“Them are house boots,” Uwen said, following his downward glance. “But the captain didnʼt warn me ʼa that. Theyʼll have to do, begging your pardon, mʼlord, just stay tʼ horseback and mind ye got light feet.”

“I will,” he said. Uwen certainly must have leave to speak to him. Uwen chattered in a friendly way, in a manner of speech he found like singing to his ears, and when he went out, Uwen spoke in the same way to his guards, knowing them all, it seemed, laughing, clapping the one named Lusin on the shoulder as they left.

They walked down the shadowed hall to the stairs. The sun was just coming up. Servants were removing last nightʼs candles, hurrying about on early-morning errands, some bearing linens, some coming from the kitchens. Guards were changing watch downstairs, and a few early-morning clerks were on their way to archive.

Uwen led him down the outside steps, past guards who also knew Uwen, as it seemed, and down and around to the stable-court in the first light of dawn, where a troop of soldiers and another of stableboys were saddling horses, and pages were standing with banners and bringing other gear.

Uwen picked up weapons by the side of the stableyard, weapons which had a worn, well-used look; and Uwen buckled on a sword and a dagger as Tristen watched, queasy at his stomach and hoping no one expected him to go likewise armed.

The mail surrounded his breathing, reminding him constantly that there was danger as well as freedom in the outside. In Uwenʼs close company he walked among the red-cloaked guard…saw Cefwyn, who looked little different than his soldiers, with brown leather and a gold dragon, like that his guards wore, on his red coat. All, armor and arms alike, that distinguished him from the soldiers at all was the silver band on the plain steel helm.

“Tristen,” Cefwyn hailed him, and strode through the others to meet him.

Idrys walked like a dark shadow at Cefwynʼs back, hand on hilt, where that hand always, even indoors, seemed most comfortable.

And at Cefwynʼs orders a man brought up a horse, red from crown to feet, with a clipped mane and a look of stolid patience. “She will bear you gently,” Cefwyn said. “Her name is Gery and the stablemaster swears sheʼs easy-gaited.”

Tristen took the reins in his own hand, rubbed the red, warm shoulder and threw the reins over, set foot in the stirrup and swung up as he had seen, dizzy for a moment at the mareʼs shifting of weight — a haze of sensations, of smells, of sounds. He looked down at Cefwynʼs anxious face, at Idrysʼ frowning one.

“Well enough,” Cefwyn said then, patting him on the boot, and patting Gery. Cefwyn turned away and a groom brought Cefwynʼs horse and held it as he swung up. It was dark — Bay — the Word came to him; it had black stockings and a black mane as bays did. Idrys mounted a big black; and Uwen another bay — it was a color common in the guardʼs horses.

Idrys gave the order, the Zeideʼs iron gates swung open, and horses grouped together, stringing out as they passed the narrow gate.

“Ride to the fore,” Idrys ordered, passing by him, and Tristen set himself as near Cefwyn as he could, almost at the head of the column, save that Idrys and a handful of the guard rode before him; but suddenly a number of men thundered past on either side and increased that number in front. Shod hooves echoed down the cobbles of the hill, disturbing the streets, where townsfolk early from their beds scurried from their path. Shutters came open. It was strange to see the town from the height of a horseʼs back, and to ride swiftly down the very street over which he had walked, sore-footed and hungry.

A child ran from their path and a woman cried out. Tristen took Gery aside with his knee and turned in the saddle to look back, frightened by that cry of alarm, but the child had made the curb safely. And in that glance back—

He saw Bones. Skulls — above the gate. The bones of men.

He all but dropped the reins, and caught his breath as Cefwyn said sharply, “Tristen!” and Gery bumped Cefwynʼs horse — his fault, he knew. His knee in Geryʼs ribs had caused Gery to drift; the uneven hand, the uneven seat — he suddenly knew with exquisite precision where his hands were and where his knees were, and how Gery had understood every move, every shift of weight he made. He straightened around, found his balance, found the right stress on the reins that made Gery know where to be and Gery at once struck a different, confident stride.

Gery looked to him, he thought, as he looked to his teachers; Gery, like him, wanted to do right, and wanted to understand, and he was talking to her with his knees and the reins alike as they went clattering at a fair speed through the streets, past all the buildings, all the scaffoldings and the shuttered windows and the find buildings and the less fine, all the way down to the level courtyard by the main town gate, which he had once passed behind an idle cart, slipping past the guards.

But the gates stood wide for them and the guards there stood to attention as they went out with a rush onto the open and dusty road, out through the fields, toward his Road—

But not onto it. They went along the wall, and they went past the town, toward the horizon of rolling fields.

Then Idrys and the men in front slacked their pace, and Cefwyn did, and all the column behind.

Men outside the walls were already at work, already walking the roads, carrying hoes or mattocks or other such. The countryside was awake far and wide as the light came stealing over the fields.

“You ride well,” Cefwyn said, “Tristen.”

“Sir?” He shook off the haze that had come on him, blinked and brought the morning into clarity again, the fields, the creak of leather and the ring of harness — the give and substance of mail that surrounded him.

“You ride well. In the streets, you rode well. And you say you have never sat a horse.”

“Some things come to me.” He patted Geryʼs neck, overwhelmed with the feel of her, with the smells and the sounds around him. He was trembling. He wished to make little of it, but Cefwyn cast him such a look that he knew he had not succeeded in indifference; and he feared that calculation in Cefwynʼs eyes.

“Maurylʼs doing,” Cefwyn said. “Is it?”

“I know things. I read and write. I — ride.” Geryʼs warmth comforted him. He kept his hand on her. He felt her strength and good will under him. “I didnʼt know I knew, mʼlord Prince.”

Cefwyn frowned. The horses kept their steady pace and if Idrys or Uwen heard what passed between them, they gave no sign of it.

“You know it very damned well,” Cefwyn said. “For down a hill and out a gate.”

“Itʼs like Words. I know them, sir. I know things.”

“Am I to believe you?” Cefwyn said at last.

“Yes, sir,” he said faintly, fearing to look at Cefwyn. Good things seemed always balanced on edge, always ready to leave. He did look, finally, as they rode, and Cefwyn stared at him in a way different from other people, even Mauryl, even Emuin — afraid of him; but not angry with him, he thought, nor willing to abandon him.

He knew not what to do or say. He looked away, embarrassed, not knowing whether he should have perceived this fact of Cefwyn. They rode in silence a time, well past the walls, now, and out along a narrow track where men rode two by two as the road went around the west side of the town and toward the rolling fields and pastures. The Dragon banners fluttered and snapped ahead of them, carried by young men. The morning sun glanced silver off a small brook in the valley. Hills rose on the eastern horizon, just past their shoulders, and beyond them — perhaps the Shadow Hills, perhaps even the mountains Mauryl had named to him, Ilenéluin, drifted in morning haze.

In the west were lower hills. The forest was that way. Marna Wood lay that way, and south. He knew. He gazed in that direction, remembering that dark path, remembering the wind in the leaves.

“A long walk.” Cefwynʼs voice startled him.

“Yes, mʼlord.”

“A fearsome walk.”

“It was, mʼlord.”

“Would it fright you now?”

“Yes, mʼlord.” He did not think they would ride that way. He hoped they had no such plans. “The horses could not cross the bridge.” That thought came to him.

“Bridges can be mended.”

“The stones are old.”

“Wizardry raised them. Wizardry could mend them, could it not?”

“I donʼt know, sir. Mauryl would have known. Emuin might know. We never saw any men, ever.”

“Elwynim press at us. The skulls above the gate? Those are Elwynim.”

“Did those men steal sheep from Emwy?”

“They came to kill me.”

He found it shocking. “I donʼt know about that, sir.”

“Donʼt you?”

“No, sir. Mʼlord Prince. I donʼt at all.”

“Mauryl knew. Mauryl assuredly knew.”

“He didnʼt tell me, sir. He didnʼt tell me everything.” He became afraid, here, riding alone with Cefwyn, with no advice from anyone, and with the talk drifting to killing and stealing. “What should I know?”

“Uleman.”

“Is that a name, sir?”

“One might say,” Cefwyn said, seeming in ill humor. Then Cefwyn said:

“The Regent of Elwynor. That must mean something to you.”

Names, again. Words. Tristen shut his eyes a moment, and there was nothing in his thoughts, only confusion, Words that would not, this morning, take shape. “I donʼt know. I donʼt know, sir.”

“I thought you just — knew things.”

“Reading. Writing. Riding. Words. Names. But I donʼt know anyone in Elwynor, sir. Nothing comes to me.”

He was afraid to have failed the test. For a time Cefwyn looked at him in that hard and puzzled way, but, unable to answer, he found interest in Geryʼs mane. It was coarser than a manʼs hair. It was clipped short, and stood up straight. He liked to touch it. It was something to do.

“Tristen,” Cefwyn said sharply.

“Sir.” His heart jumped. He looked to find what his fault was. Perhaps even his respectful silence. Cefwyn kept staring at him as they rode side by side. He was afraid of Cefwyn when Cefwyn looked like that.

“Ninévrisë. Does that name come to you? Does Ilefínian, perchance?”

“Ilefínian is the fortress of the Elwynim.”

“And Ninévrisë? What does that name conjure?”

He shook his head. “I have no idea, mʼlord. Nothing.”

“Such names donʼt come to you.”

“No, mʼlord.”

“Do you take me for a fool?”

“No, sir. I donʼt think you are at all.”

“And where do you find your truths? Do they come to you—” Cefwyn waved his hand. “—out of the air? The pigeons tell you, perhaps.”

“My teachers do.”

“Your teacher is dead, man. Emuin is gone. He fled to holy sanctuary. Who teaches you now?”

“You, mʼlord.”

“I? I am many things — but no teacher, I assure you. And damned certainly no moral guide.”

“But I have to believe you, my lord. I have no other means to know.” He was afraid, and shaken by Cefwynʼs rough insistence on what he knew must be the truth. “The philosophy I read makes no sense of Names. Rarely of Words.”

“Gods witness,” Cefwyn said after a moment, “gods witness I am a man, not a cursed priest. Choose some other. At large and random you could fare better.”

“Emuin said to listen to you.”

“Then damn Emuin! I am not your guide, man. Moral or otherwise. — Would you believe anything I told you?”

“I believe everything youʼve told me, mʼlord Prince.” The prospect of doubt in things he had taken for true was sufficient to send sweat coursing over his skin. “I must believe you, sir. I have no other judgment, except to judge the people that tell me.”

“Gods.” Cefwyn slumped in his saddle, then suddenly took up the reins. “Follow me!” he said, and spurred around Idrys and past the vanguard.

Tristen followed; Idrys and Uwen would have, but Cefwyn turned and shouted, ordering their separate guards back. Their lead widened until they two rode alone with the escort far too distant to hear.

“Do not,” Cefwyn said, “ever confess to any man what you have just told me.”

“Yes, sir.”

They rode in silence a time. “I have never lied to you,” Cefwyn said at last, and quietly. “At least that I can recall. — Do you know who I am, Tristen? Do you really understand?”

“You are the Kingʼs son,” Tristen said, looking at him, “of Ylesuin.”

“Of Ináreddrin, King of Ylesuin, son, yes, his heir; and of Amefel, by His Majestyʼs grace, his viceroy in Henasʼamef and over Amefel and its uneasy borders.” Cefwyn looked down his nose at him, a narrow stare. “Most men — and women, oh, especially the women — have ambitions to share that grace. I have a vast multitude of devoted followers, and from none but a handful of my guard would I take untasted wine. What say you, Tristen?”

“Of untasted wine?”

“Poison. Poison, man. Poison in the cup, a knife in the dark. I defend this cursed tedious border against old resentments, and the Amefin, in particular those Amefin who are opposed to the Aswyddim on account of their burdensome taxes, would prefer another heir, since me they cannot manage, and they have discovered that. Now with nine heads on Henasʼamefʼs gates, the Elwynim sue for peace and the Regent offers me his daughter. And the Amefin like that well, save Heryn Aswydd and his lovely and well-traveled sisters, who like that least of all.” He lifted his hand to the east, where Henasʼamef itself showed small and remote, now, falling behind them. “And should you lack for suspect affections or affiliations, or even bedmates, why, my dear sir, consider Guelemara. The capital. My father, my kith and kin, another pack of wolves, but with far better and courtly graces. The capital is vastly more civilized than here. They poison only fine vintages. Youʼve been treated far more shabbily, having experienced Henasʼamefʼs rough hospitality.”

“I find it kind,” Tristen said, “mostly.”

“You are quite mad, you know.”

“Most have been kind to me.”

“Mad, I say.”

“I think I am not, sir, please you.”

Cefwynʼs hand moved to a medallion he had at his throat, like Emuinʼs. “Do you not suffer midnight impulses to revenge? Do you not resent what certain folk did to you? Do you not think remotely of serving them in kind?”

“Who, sir?”

“A man has a right—” Cefwynʼs words tumbled one over the other in a passion and fell to a halt.

“Sir?”

“Donʼt look at me like that! I am not Emuin. Donʼt look to me for answers, damn you, donʼt you dare look to me for answers! Iʼm no arbiter of virtue! Youʼll not trap me in that!”

“Emuin said you were a good man. But he said not to copy what you did.”

Cefwynʼs mouth opened. And shut. Cefwyn stared at him.

“I ought not to have said that,” Tristen said. “Ought I?”

“Gods. You will terrify the court.”

He was terrified, too. And lost. Cefwyn used words very cleverly, very quickly turning them from the course Tristen thought they would take.

“Or is such your humor?” Cefwyn asked.

“What, sir?”

“Cry you mercy, Tristen. I have never met an honest man.”

“You confuse me,” Tristen said. He felt cold, despite the sun. “I donʼt understand, sir, I fear I donʼt.”

“I donʼt ask that you understand,” Cefwyn said, “only so you donʼt ask too much of me. Emuin did tell you the truth.”


The sun climbed the sky, and far past the view of the town, even beyond the reach of the fields, they took a westward road that ran up among low hills. The guard had long since swept them up again within their ranks and Idrys rode with a small number out to the fore, sometimes entirely out of sight as the road bent back and forth.

But it seemed the land declined, then, and in very little time the hills gave way to meadow, where a breeze that had made the day a little chill grew warmer and stronger, and lifted the banners and pennons.

They kept a moderate pace over an hour or so, between pausing to rest the horses. One such rest, as the sun passed its zenith had bees buzzing about a stand of white and pink flowers, and the horses cropping grass and the blooms of meadow thistles. Their company disposed themselves on a grassy slope and shared out a portion of the food they had brought.

It was wonderful, in Tristenʼs mind: he sat on the grass next to Cefwyn and Idrys and Uwen, and felt a pleasant camaraderie with these rough soldiers — a joking exchange which Cefwyn and all the rest seemed to find easy, and in which the respect men had to pay Cefwyn seemed quickly to fall by the wayside. There was laughter, there was nudging of elbows at what might be cruel remarks, but the object of them rolled right off a stone, feigning mortal injury, and got up again laughing. Tristen was entranced, thinking through the way these men joked with one another, laughter a little cruel, but not wicked: he understood enough of their game to see where it was going, involving a flask that emptied before its owner regained it; there was mock battle, the man laughed, and Tristen thought that if he were so approached, he could laugh, too. It was good not to be on the outside watching from a distance, and Cefwyn laughed — even Idrys looked amused.

It was good not to be protected into safe silence. He wished the men would play jokes on him. He had not understood jokes before, not this sort. Mauryl had had little laughter in him.

But he saw Cefwyn easier, saw Uwen grinning from ear to ear — even Idrys flashed half a grin. He hadnʼt known the man had another expression; and he doubted it after he had seen it — but it made him know other things about the man.

Afterward, though, when they were mounting up again, Cefwyn said they should go warily, and Uwen said he should stay close, that thereafter they were crossing through more chancy territory. There was a woods ahead, which the Kingʼs men had wanted to cut down, but Heryn Lord Aswydd, as Tristen gathered Uwen meant by naming the Duke of Amefel, had lodged strong protest, because of the hunting and because of the woodcutters of Emwy village and others, and had undertaken to keep the law there himself.

“So,” Tristen said, “can the Duke of Amefel not find the sheep?”

And Idrys said, “Well asked.”

Cefwyn, however, looked not at all happy with the question, so he guessed he had wandered into a matter of contention between them, and he was well aware that Idrys had begged Cefwyn to choose some other direction.

But Cefwyn, unlike boys growing up with wizards, was a prince and did what he pleased, when he pleased, and what he pleased was to ride in this direction. So Tristen thought, and began to worry—

Still the soldiers seemed to take the news of their direction as a matter of course, and Idrys had almost laughed at noon. It seemed, at least, the men felt confident of accomplishing what Cefwyn wished at Emwy village, whether that was finding lost sheep, or Elwynim, or outlaws.

He thought about it as they rode, and patted Geryʼs neck and wondered if the horses thought at all about danger: it seemed to him, one of those things he knew along with riding, that he might rely on Geryʼs sense of things, and on all the horses to be on the watch for danger of a sort horses understood.

In late afternoon they had woods in sight on their left hand, and the land grew rougher, less of meadows and more of stony heights, on which forest grew.

They traveled until forest stretched across their path. The woods was not Marna, Tristen judged: it was green. But it was very likely part of that forest that lay on Amefelʼs side of the Lenúalim, a thick and deep-looking forest all the same, reminding him of hunger and long walking.

The men talked about the river lying close.

“Is it the Lenúalim?” he asked Uwen.

“Aye,” Uwen said. “And Emwys-brook. And Lewen-brookʼs not far. Not a good place weʼve brushed by, the last hour and more, mʼlord.”

“Because of the woods? Or because of the Elwynim?”

Uwen did not answer him at once. “Ghosts,” Uwen said finally, which was a Word of death and grief and anger. It disturbed him. He looked at the trees on either hand as they rode into that green shade, and so did the men, who said very little, and seemed anxious.

But he looked to the green branches, even hoping to see a feathery brown lump somewhere perched on a limb. Since their excursion planned to stay a night near this wooded place, he even hoped for Owl to find him — if Owl would haunt any place outside Marna, such a place as this seemed exactly what Owl would favor. The whispering leaves sounded of home to him. It made him think of standing on the parapet at Ynefel and listening to the trees in the wind. And he thought it would be a very good thing if he could find Owl and bring him back to Henasʼamef. But the men around him looked not to be comforted at all by what they saw or heard.

“Itʼs not so dark as Marna,” he said, to make Uwen feel safer.

“Few places would be,” Uwen said, and made a sign folk made when they grew frightened. So he did not think he dared say more than that.

But in a little more riding, the track they followed, leaf-strewn and hardly more substantial than the Road he had followed through Marna, brought them through a thinning screen of trees and brush, into yet another broad valley, with fair grasslands and fields and hills open to the afternoon sun.

“This is Arys-Emwy,” Uwen said. “Theyʼre mostly shepherd-folk.”

So they were still in Amefel, Tristen decided. He remembered the pale lines on the map. He saw the Name in his memory. Sheep had left their tracks about the meadow and on the road, although they saw none grazing.

They came on stone-fenced fields beyond the next hill, and crops growing, and further on they could see the thatched roofs of a village — Emwy village, Uwen said, which seemed a pleasant place. It had no outer walls, just a collection of low stone fences. The buildings were gray stone, two with slate roofs and a number with thatch. Shutters were open in most of the houses, and many of the doors likewise were open. Men and women were working in the fields closest to the village, and thin white smoke was going up from a few of the chimneys.

Folk stopped work as they saw what was riding down their road, folk came in from the fields, and dogs ran and barked alongside the horses, as slowly the people gathered.

“Hold,” Cefwyn said, and the column halted; he gave some order to Idrys about searching the houses, and Idrys and the men around him, with none of the banner-carriers, went riding off quickly into the single street of the village.

“Where are the young men?” Cefwyn asked of the silent villagers, who leaned on hoes and gathered behind their stone fences.

And they were all old, or young women or children.

“Answer the Prince!” a man of the guard said, and lowered his spear toward the people.

“Off wiʼ they sheep,” an old man said. “Off seekinʼ after they sheep, mʼlord.”

“Who is the head man, here?”

“Auld Syes. She is, mʼlords.” The man nodded toward the village, and all the people pointed the same way.

Cefwyn drew his horse about and bade them ride on toward the village itself, where Idrys and his men going in advance of them had turned out a number of villagers from their houses, a number of children, Tristen saw. Dogs were barking.

“This ainʼt good,” Uwen said. “If village lads is off searching for any sheep, they should have the dogs along. Theyʼre lyinʼ, mʼlord.”

What Uwen said to him echoed in Tristenʼs head as they rode up on the village and into its street. There were two girls — a number of children, many very young. There were old folk. Cefwynʼs men, those afoot, who had been searching, and others sitting on their horses, were looking this way and that, hands on weapons. Idrys came riding slowly closer to them.

“Not a one of the youths on the rolls,” Idrys said, out of some far distance. “So much for Herynʼs law-keeping.”

Tristen drew a sharp, keen breath, feeling a shiver in the air. Dust moved aloud the street as a stray gust of wind blew toward them. The gust gathered bits of straw, whipped a frame of dyed yarn standing by a doorway, and one woman, one old woman was in that doorway.

“Are you Auld Syes?” the sergeant asked.

“I am,” the old woman said, and lifted a bony arm, pointing straight at Cefwyn. “Marhanen! Bloody Marhanen! I see blood on the earth! Blood to cleanse the land!” The wind danced around her rough-spun skirts, it skirled through the tassels of her gray shawl and the knots of her grayer hair. She wore necklaces not of jewels but of plain brown stones and knots of straw. She wore bracelets of knotted leather. Tristen looked at this woman, and the woman looked at him. She feared him. He knew that look. She stretched out her arm at him and pointed a finger, and cried a Word without a sound; and now in dreadful slowness Cefwynʼs men were making a hedge of their weapons.

The wind wrapped around and around the old woman, winding her skirts and shawl about her until she was a brown and gray bundle in the midst of the dust.

The Word was still there. He couldnʼt hear it. People were screaming and running and Gery was plunging and snorting under him, crazed, as the wind whipped away from them, taking straw and dust with it, still blowing in and out among the houses, still whipping at the skeins of yarn. The frame fell over on the woman, covering her in hanks of yarn. Dogs were growling and barking, but some had run away. A handful of old men and women and a boy with one foot all stood where they had, and Cefwyn was shouting at the riders—“Up the lane! Catch one!”

Maurylʼs damnable tinkering, the Wind was saying, with a hundred voices. Maurylʼs meddling with the elements. Unwise. He would never take advice.

Who are you? Tristen asked it, and thought of Emuin — it was like that gray place. But Gery was with him, Gery refused to go further, shied back and turned

“Tristen!” Cefwyn was shouting at him, and the wind whipped about, blinded him with bits of straw that flew and stung. Gery jolted so strongly forward he hit the cantle, and he fought to hold her as old women hauled the sputtering woman out from under the hanks of yarn and young women bolted down the lane between the houses and fled.

“She—” Tristen began, but had no words to say what the wind had said to him — it was all fading in his mind the way dreams faded, except it had spoken of Mauryl, and home.

“Mʼlord Prince,” Idrys said, sword in hand, “this is no longer a ride for pleasure. Take an escort. Ride out. Now!”

Cefwyn was incensed. “Damn it! Iʼll not be chased by a pot-wizard and a gust of wind!” Cefwynʼs horse was fighting the rein and he brought the animal full about in the midst of them. “Sheʼs a foolish old woman!”

“Lost sheep be damned,” Idrys shouted at him. “It was a lure, mʼlord Prince! They wished nothing but to draw you here. Your life is in danger. No one dragged their sons across the river. Theyʼve gone, theyʼve taken to your enemies. — No, Your Highness!” Cefwyn had gone aside from the road, and Idrys went so far as to ride in front of his horse. “Go up in those hills and youʼll be feathered like a goose. Thatʼs their purpose. Thatʼs what they want!”

“Do not you dispute my decisions, sir! The women know where to go!”

“Straight to their brothers and husbands!” Idrys said. “Give over, mʼlord Prince. This profits no one but your enemies! If thereʼs aught to learn, the patrol Iʼve sent will find it!”

The wind came near them. The air seemed to buzz and hum like insects on a lazy day. Uwen caught Geryʼs rein, and Cefwyn was still disputing Idrys, but Idrys seemed then to prevail.

Two riders who had left them were still chasing across the fields, jumping fences, but the banner-bearers and the rest of the troop gathered around Cefwyn.

They were alone in the village, then, with the old villagers and the lame boy and the dazed old woman staring at them.

“Where are your men?” Cefwyn asked again, and had a confused babble of pointing, and swearing, oh, indeed they were up with the sheep.

“The lost sheep?” Cefwyn shouted at them. “The sheep that strayed, that you complained of? Or was I ever to see that message? Was it to Heryn Aswydd you sent? And what was it to say to him? Treason? Do we speak of Elwynim, and not of sheep at all?”

The villagers were afraid. Tristen was afraid. The air still seemed to him to be alive with threat. The elderly villagers kept protesting their innocence. But the air tingled. The light was strange.

“Uwen Lewenʼs-son,” Cefwyn said then, “take your charge and ride as fast as the horses can bear. Tell them at Henasʼamef weʼve stayed in this village asking questions, and weʼll hold these people under guard until the patrol comes back with you. — Take Tristen with you!”

“Aye, Your Highness.” Uwen turned his horse, reached out, leaning for Geryʼs rein, and drew Gery about with him perforce.

“No!” Tristen said, fighting him for the rein.

“Mʼlord,” Uwen said, and would not give the rein up as Gery jerked and shook her head, hurt, Tristen saw, and abandoned his attempt to hold her back. “Weʼre ridinʼ for help for the prince, mʼlord! His Highness donʼt need no argument. Come on!”

Gery went, fighting a step more, and then Uwen let go the rein and expected him to follow. He knew that Uwen had no time to spare for his fear. He steered Gery with his knee as Gery joined Uwenʼs horse in a brisk gait, back along the road.

“Prince Cefwyn will manage,” Uwen said. “Unarmed and unschooled ye ainʼt much help, mʼlord. Weʼre bound to do what weʼre told, ride to the other side of that damned woods, and fast back as we can.”

“What are they looking for?”

“Just you leave the village to His Highness!” Uwen said to him. “Anʼ stay wiʼ me, mʼlord. We got to get us past them trees. If we start summat from cover up there in the rocks, that woods is all one woods, clear to the other end of Lanfarnesse, and full of trails. — Can ye stay a fast ride?”

“Yes,” Tristen answered. His breath was coming hard. Idrys had spoken of enemies, and that word he did know — Mauryl had had enemies. The Shadows were enemies, and the forest seemed the most apt place for them to hide. He rode with Uwen, and glanced back as two more of the guard came riding breakneck down the road and their own horses picked up pace to match.

“Hawith, Jeony,” Uwen said, waving his arm toward the road and the woods ahead. “Get yerself out to the fore of us, we got a mʼlord to get through here.” He took off his helm as they jounced knee to knee and offered it to Tristen across the gap. “Put that on, mʼlord. No disputing me on this.”

Tristen settled Uwenʼs helm, warm and damp with Uwenʼs sweat, on his head, and made Uwen no more trouble. They were coming to the woods, with the danger of some sort to pass, he understood well enough, trouble which might try to stop them. He understood the concern to know where the village men were, if they were supposed to be in the fields, but some of Cefwynʼs men had gone up in the hillside meadows chasing those who had run — and what they thought those fugitive women had done or might do, he did not understand. Their own course seemed the most dangerous, a road winding past gray rocky knolls and through thick forest shadow, and as they approached the forest, with the horses already tiring, Uwen reined back, jogging a little distance, letting the horses take their breath.

“Weʼll ride hard through,” Uwen said. “Fast as we can. Ainʼt no deceiving anybody. If they come on us, if happen I donʼt come through, ye ride straight on for town, hear me? Woods or fields, overland, wherever ye can find a way, ye get to the Zeide gate and tell the Lord Captain of the Watch — his name is Kerdin, heʼs always on duty at night, and heʼll get us help. Mind the village is Emwy, and ye donʼt talk to no Amefin officers, ye hear me, young mʼlord?”

“Yes, sir,” he said. They were passing into the green shade, and Uwen took a faster pace. The men, Hawith and Jeony, had vanished ahead of them through intermittent shafts of light that hazed the way ahead.

Their own horsesʼ hoofbeats sounded lonely on the earth. Sounds began to come strangely, and the sunlight seemed brighter, the edges of things unnaturally sharp and clear. Gery caught-step under him and threw her head, and that sharp-edged clarity was all around them, making things dangerous.

“Uwen!” he said, caught in strangling fear.

He reined back in fright, heard a hiss — before or after his hand had moved. Something hit his side in a whistling flight of missiles and Gery jolted forward, crashed through brush and under a branch.

He spun over the cantle sideways and crashed down into brush on his back as he held tight to Geryʼs reins. Men were shouting, rushing downhill, motley clothed and motley armed. Stones whisked through the leaves, cracked against trees. Arrows hissed and one thumped and sang near him.

He got up again — found the stirrup and hauled himself, winded as he was, to Geryʼs back. He reached the road, ducked low and hung on as Gery ran.

He heard nothing of the hoofbeats. He was in that bright light, that grayness, he and Gery both, though brush stung his face and raked over his shoulders. He had lost Uwen. He had lost the other men. Gery broke out of the woods and he saw not the road home, but the village where Cefwyn and the others were.

He had gone the wrong way. But there was no choice, now. He rode up at all Geryʼs speed, and Idrysʼ men swept him up with them, in what he only then realized was safety.

“They Shot the men.” He could scarcely speak. He was trembling. So was Gery. But no one had followed him. There were no arrows here. “Uwen might have gotten away,” he said, teeth chattering as with chill. “I donʼt know, sirs. Iʼm sorry.”

“Damn them,” Cefwyn said.

“Overland,” Idrys said. “We go overland. I know the map, mʼlord. We can make it through. Damn the village and their witch! Theyʼll wait for night.”

Cefwyn was not pleased. Cefwyn was taut-lipped and furious.

“Call the searchers back!” he said, and a man lifted a horn to his lips and sounded a quick series of notes that echoed off the hills.

He hoped Uwen was alive. He had heard the sound of arrows: he would never forget it in all his life. He shivered still, held Gery as quiet as she would stand and felt her shiver, too. Breezes brushed against his face, and he felt it chill, but that was only fear, not — not the stifling foreboding he had felt in the woods.

The men Idrys had sent out came back over the hills, down the lane beside the orchard, six men filling out their number again, on tired horses.

“Overland,” Cefwyn said. “As best we can. Idrys! Take the lead.”

It had not been the outcome Cefwyn had wished. They had not gained anything. The old woman, tottering on her feet, still disheveled, came out from among the others and down the street, calling out,

“The King, he come again, he come again, Marhanen lord, ye mark me well! The King, he come again!”

“One should silence that crone,” Idrys said. Tristen caught his breath up to plead otherwise, that the woman was old and she was afraid and she sent only a little presence into the air.

But Cefwyn said, “Let be,” and that stopped it. Idrys took the lead in leaving the road, back down the lane that led downhill past the village and toward a meadow pasturage.

The banner-bearers followed. Cefwyn led the rest of them, down this lane that sheep recently had used.

He thought he should have tried to help Uwen, but he had thought he was doing what Uwen said.

He had made a mistake, a foolish, foolish mistake, when, after getting back in Geryʼs saddle, he had turned back instead toward Cefwyn, blinded by fear, mistaking his direction. Fool, Mauryl would say.

Deservedly.

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