Fortress in the Eye of Time

CHAPTER 14

“I done what I knew,” Uwen said. The veteranʼs voice shook. And Uwen Lewenʼs-son, Cefwyn thought, was not a man who feared that much of god or devil — or the lord court physician. “I talked to ʼim all thʼ way home, Your Highness,” Uwen said, “I told ʼim, donʼt you fear, I told him, Donʼt ye go down, lad, and he clung on. He hears what ye say. — He ainʼt deaf, sir.” The latter to the physician, who tucked his hands in his black sleeves and scowled.

Cefwyn scowled at Uwen and at the physician alike, as the learned fool shook his graying head and withdrew from Tristenʼs bedside.

“In sleep, despite the protestations of unlearned men, there is no awareness,” the physician said. “It is perhaps a salutary sleep, Highness. There is no hurt on him that mortal eye can see, naught but scratches and bruises, doubtless from the falls—”

“A fool can see that! Why does he sleep?”

“Nothing natural can cause so profound a sleep. I would say, ensorcelment. If he would bear the inquiry—” The physician moistened thin, disapproving lips. “I should say this far more aptly is a priestʼs business. Or — failing that — the burning of blessed candles. The Teranthine medal — is that his choice?”

“I gave it to him,” Cefwyn said sharply, and whatever sectarian debate the physician was about to raise died unsaid. “Holy candles, is it?”

“He needs a priest.”

“He needs a physician!” Cefwyn snapped. “I engaged you from the capital because I was assured of your skill. Was I misinformed, sir?”

“Your Highness, there are—” A clearing of the throat. “—rumors of his unwholesome provenance. — And if it is true that he came from Ynefel, I understand why you have engaged no priest. Yet I have risked the inquiry, Your Highness, and made the recommendation. Perhaps a lay member—”

“A plague on your candles. What in the godsʼ name ails him?”

“Not a bodily ill.”

“A priest, you say.”

“I would not for my own soul stay an hour in Althalen; the feverous humors of that place, particularly at evening—”

“Out on you! Youʼve never come near Althalen!”

“Nor ever hope to, Your Highness.” Secure in his physicianʼs robes, his officerships in the guild, and in his doddering age, the man gathered up his medications, restored each vial, each mirror, each arcane instrument to its place, while the patient slept unimproved and an unlettered soldier did the only things that seemed effective, kneeling by the bedside and talking, simply talking.

Baggage packed, the dotard pattered to the door and opened it.

Guards closed it after him. They were Guelen men, of the Princeʼs Guard, men he trusted — as he would have thought he could have trusted the Guelen physician not to be affrighted by the unorthodox goings-on of a largely heretic province.

But Uwen stayed, on his knees, arms on the bedside, pouring into the sleeperʼs ear how red Gery was to be let out to pasture tomorrow with his own horse for a well-earned rest, how sheʼd taken no great harm of the run Tristen had put her to, and how he was very sorry to have left Tristen in the woods, but heʼd had the princeʼs orders to ride to town and he had done that.

Uwen had indeed done that. With two of Uwenʼs comrades dead and Uwen himself struck on the head with a sling-stone that might have cracked a less stubborn skull, Uwen Lewenʼs-son had ridden his own horse to the limit and roused Lord Captain Kerdin and a squad of the regular Guard in an amazingly short time. Then, instead of pleading off as he well might have done with his injury, Uwen had changed horses and ridden with the rescue, joined of course by His Grace Heryn Aswyddʼs oh-so-earnest self.

Uwen Lewenʼs-son had stayed with his charge all day and night after, besides his breakneck ride and a lump on his skull the size of an egg. Uwen had bathed the man, warmed the man from the chill that possessed him, and talked to an apparently unhearing ear until he was hoarse. Uwen had hovered and worried without the least regard to his captainʼs casually permissive order to retire, and not expected a princeʼs reward for his staying on duty, either.

“Youʼve done him more good all along than that learned foolʼs advice,” Cefwyn said. “But thereʼs no change. Iʼll have reliable men watch him. Do go to bed, man.”

“By your leave,” Uwen said in his thread of a voice. “By your leave, Your Highness, I had to leave him in the woods. Iʼd not leave him to no priest who wonʼt stir for thunder. Iʼd rather stay.”

So Uwen Lewenʼs-son had looked Maurylʼs work in the eyes, too, poor ensorcelled fool. Idrys had called Uwen a longtime veteran of the borders, a man of the villages, not of the Guelen court, but long enough about the borders to know wizard tricks and sleight-of-hand; and to know now — a shiver went through his stomach — what the hedge-wizards only counterfeited to do.

He recalled the gust of wind that had skirled around the old woman in Emwy. That was either a timely piece of luck, or it was something entirely different. Tristen had been involved. Therefore Mauryl had. Kerdin, in a moment out of Herynʼs hearing, had wanted to send a force of Guelen men to occupy Emwy and poke and pry into local secrets; Idrys, having seen the area himself, had wagered privately that such a force would find bridges as well as witches, and advised them, in colder counsel and with his prince safe in retreat, that they ought well to consider how much they wished to discover, and when.

Heryn, during that ride home, had said the horsemen whose sign they had seen near Ravenʼs Knob might have been nothing more sinister than his own rangers, going about their ordinary business and keeping out of sight.

Then where are Emwyʼs young men? he had asked Heryn plainly, himself, and Heryn, always ready with an answer, had said they were in fact hunting outlaws, that Emwy district had indeed lost numerous sheep, and that the prince was entirely mistaken and misled if he thought there was possibly aught amiss in Emwy.

That meant that the prince, the Lord Commander, and his company had foolishly panicked at the sign of friendly Amefin rangers, that they had fled those friendly forces in confusion, and outlaws — outlaws, where supposedly Herynʼs rangers were thick! — had shot and slung from ambush, killing the princeʼs men, for which they would pay — so Heryn Aswydd swore.

The bedside candle, aromatic with herbs, not holy oil, broke a waxen dam at its crest and sent a puddle down the candlestick and down again to the catch-pan beneath it. The puddle glowed like the sleeperʼs skin, pale, damp, flawless.

Heryn had implied, by what he had said, that the prince and the Lord Commander of the Princeʼs Guard, who, himself, had led His Majestyʼs forces in border skirmishes before this, were fools, starting at shadows.

Or Heryn thought to this very moment that the prince and his Lord Commander were fools to be tricked by shadows.

Shadows of which Amefel had many, many, in its secret nooks and clandestine observances — and in its ancient alliance with the Silver Tower. Maurylʼs tower, as men had called it since the Sihhë kings died.

Heryn thought the prince did not delve into such secrets. Heryn thought the Marhanen prince, out of Guelen territory, sanctified by the Quinalt, had no conduit to such strange wells as Heryn Aswydd drank from in his countryish meanderings. But the prince had had Emuin for a tutor, the prince had learned enough to safeguard himself from pretenders to Emuinʼs craft — and the prince, more lettered in many respects than Heryn Aswydd, he would wager, was not complacent or blind.

The prince wondered, for instance, considering the luxury hereabouts which did not find its way to royal coffers, where Heryn had found the means. The polished stone — oh, well, there were quarries. The carvings, to be sure — the artisans of Amefel were skilled, if heretic, and the patterns traditional to the region were…ornate, and devoid of symbols nowadays that might offend the Quinalt, whose local patriarch had such carvings in his own residence, set in gold and pearls, of course. One wondered with what hire Heryn bought them, or where the gold flowed before and after.

The Sihhë kings had hoards unfound — they said. The Sihhë kings had had means to call it out of the sea — or less savory places.

The Sihhë kings had had such wealth as Heryn used — Heryn, who might, like the Elwynim, have a little of that ancient, chancy blood in his veins, as he had such ancient, chancy connections to various villages of Emwyʼs sort, hung about with curious charms and observing strange festivals regarding straw men and old stones.

Heryn appeared to tax the villages white — and a Marhanen prince was not certain, with all the work of his accountants, whether that appearance was as simple as even the second set of accounts showed, or whether there was a reason villagers were to this day more ready to cut the throat of the hated Marhanen than they were to overthrow Aswydd taxes. Treasure trove was due the Crown — but one could prove nothing in the damned books. Heryn appeared to pay his taxes. Amefel appeared to be richer than its fields.

“Mʼlord,” Uwen was saying, patting the sleeperʼs cheek. “Mʼlord, dʼ ye hear?” At the bedside, Uwen took the sleeperʼs hand, which the physicianʼs ministrations had left prey to cold air, and, tucking it across Tristenʼs chest, drew the blankets up to his chin.

Like chiseled stone the face was, too perfect — and seemed older sleeping than awake, curious perception of Maurylʼs creature. It was a grimmer, more hollow-cheeked visage than when the curious, gray eyes were open, entrapping, ensorcelling the unwary eye to look into them, not at the features, not at the stature, which was tall, nor at the shoulders, which were broad — nor at the hands, fine-boned and strong and sure on red Geryʼs reins.

Maurylʼs piece of work had fallen ill in the Sihhë ruin, complaining of smoke which only some of them had smelled before or after that warning, but which he could now imagine clinging even in this room.

Maurylʼs piece of work had ridden a good mare a course that should have broken her legs and his neck, through sapling woods and over ruined walls, along starless trails, over thorn hedges and dead-on to the road they were looking for — staying just out of their reach and with uncanny accuracy arriving to meet Idrys, who was desperately looking for them.

Thereafter — an increasing swoon, moment to moment waking to be with them, then gone again, like a candle guttering out, wit and resource all spent. Uwen had had hard shift only to keep his charge ahorse; and it had taken two men to carry him, yestereve, to this room.

Tristen had not waked since that last time on the road, still far from Henasʼamef; had not waked though taken through the clattering town streets and through the gates; had not waked though borne by the guard upstairs and undressed and settled here; had not waked through the ministrations of three separate physicians, the last of which had been the princeʼs own resort.

Cefwyn looked at Uwen and let go a breath, giving a shake of his head.

“A priest would call this a dangerous place to be. Are you a pious man, Lewenʼs-son?”

“Not soʼs Iʼd leave him, Your Highness. I seen wickedness. I seen it where I had no doubt. This ʼun donʼt ʼfright me.”

“They say heʼs a haunt, you know that.”

“Who says, Your Highness?”

“Oh, the wise, that might know. Gossips in the hall. Servants in the scullery. Men in the guardroom. — Priests at their prayers. Some might say your soul was in danger. Some might say heʼd bewitch you. Or that he already had.”

“Some might say theyʼre full of wind. — Wiʼ all respect, Your Highness.” Uwen ducked his head and his ears were red. “I misspoke.”

“Idrys called you honest. I respect that.”

“I donʼt know that, Your Highness, but if the Lord Commander says.”

“Servants will attend tonight. Tell them if you have need of anything for yourself or for him. Anything. Do not be modest in your requests. His belongings are under guard in his own room, upstairs. My guard, across the hall, will rouse me if he wakes — or worsens.”

“Your Highness.” Uwen gathered himself up to his feet. “Thank you, Your Highness.”

“Bed down by him, on the mattress. Youʼve need of your own rest, man. Heʼll not mind.”

“Aye, Your Highness. — I—”

“Yes?”

“The physician didnʼt hint at any cause, Your Highness? I seen men hit on the head, mʼlord, or knocked in the gut, and I seen ʼem sleep like this.” Uwenʼs scarred chin wobbled. “I didnʼt think heʼd fallen, Your Highness, and I couldnʼt feel aught amiss, but maybe he sort of cracked his head, or one of them slingers—”

“He had a good soldierʼs helm till he lost it, Lewenʼs-son. Where was yours?”

“I guess I give it him, Your Highness.”

“So your own head is the chancy one, isnʼt it? No, Lewenʼs-son. This is Maurylʼs working, and by Maurylʼs working he lives or not.”

“They say Maurylʼs dead, Your Highness.”

“That they do. And perhaps the old manʼs work is unraveling. Or maybe it isnʼt. If we knew, then weʼd be wizards and our own souls would be in danger, so Iʼd not ask, man. Iʼd just keep the fool covered and pour a little brandy wine down him if he wakes. You could bake bread in this room, gods, and it wonʼt warm him.”

“I been thinkinʼ of warming stones. Summer ʼn all, Your Highness, if we could once get ʼim warm…”

“It could do no worse. Tell the servants.” He gave a shake of his head and walked out, through the anteroom where Lewenʼs-son had a bed he refused to use, and across the hall where Guelenmen stood guard over his own quarters. It was a larger room heʼd allotted Tristen. It was a finer room, but that was beside the point for a man who might not wake. It was — the holy gods knew, a twinge of conscience, that heʼd so failed Emuinʼs simple behest to take care of their visitor.

Heʼd sent to Emuin, last night, post-haste, a royal courier, one of twelve such silver tags which the King in his expectations of calamity had allotted his son and heir. They allowed a courier anything he needed anywhere along his route, under extreme penalty for refusal of his demands. Heʼd not used a one, before last night.

Heʼd not needed one before last night. Or had, counting what had been quietly going amiss over in Emwy district, and he had failed to see it growing.

Outlaws. Using shepherd weapons. And, if one believed Heryn Aswydd, rangers on horses, unusual enough in a woodland district. Rangers who didnʼt show themselves even to the princeʼs banners plainly and unequivocally displayed?

Not proper behavior, as he added the tally.

He crossed through the anteroom of his chambers and inside, where the servants were disposing bath and bed, and where Idrys was poring over maps on the sideboard.

“No change in him,” Cefwyn said.

Idrys said nothing. Cefwyn unlaced cuffs, collar, side laces, and hauled off shirt and doublet together, before the staff could receive all the pieces thereof.

“The men I wanted?” Cefwyn said to Idrys. “Iʼll see them between bath and bed.”

Idrys frowned. They had had their argument already: it was bootless to dispute it in front of servants. Idrys said, “Yes, my lord Prince,” and turned and went.

Four messengers.

To four lords of the south besides the Duke of Henasʼamef, proud Heryn Aswydd. There was a lesson to be taught, and it began now, before the sun had risen on this silken-smiling Amefin lord, who asked with such false concern after his safety, who rode in hall clothes out to the windy road to ask after a Marhanenʼs welfare.

Cefwyn shed the rest of his clothing, stepped into the bath and ducked down under the tepid surface long enough to scrub the sickroom heat from his skin and hair, long enough to count to twenty, and to want air; and to find the bath too warm for pleasure after the stifling warmth across the hall. Gods alone knew how Lewenʼs-son stood it.

“Your Highness,” Annas said, alarmed as he broke surface again — expecting a near drowning, perhaps; but Cefwyn found the draft from the open window vents more pleasant than the heat of the water. He clambered up to his feet, reached for the linen which a servant, taken aback, was slow to give him, and snatched it around himself, splashing the marble floor and the plastered walls as he stepped out. Servants mopped to save the woven mats and other servants scrambled to offer his dressing robe and more dry linens. The bath smelled of roses and hot oils. It cloyed. The water heated the air around him. He shrugged the dressing robe about him and mopped his own hair with the linen towel, ignoring the servantsʼ ministrations as, in his wake, Annas ordered the just-poured bath removed, the bath mopped — the linens taken away.

“Leave it,” he said, and tossed the towel at the boy nearest him. “It can cool.” It took six servants half an hour to empty the cursed tub. “Do it in the morning, Annas, please you, I prefer quiet.”

Annas understood. The three pages seniormost in his service understood. The latest come, he doubted. But he sat down in front of a window vent in his double-layered robes, and endured, still damp, the noxious airs of the night breathing from the open windowpane, despite his physiciansʼ earnest disputations and predictions of the upsetting of his humors — his humor was vastly upset already, and if anything, the damp wind cleared his wits and made him less inclined to order summary execution for the servant who escaped Annas with an offer to light the, he was assured, already-laid fire.

“Out!” he shouted, he thought temperately, and moving to his desk, taking up pen and uncapping the inkwell, he wrote four brief notes to four provincial lords, affixed the seal of his personal ring, which precluded tampering with the ribbon he wrapped about each. Then he waited.

The chest was in front of him. The Elwynim chest. The bride offer.

And perhaps it was imprudent and tempting his own immoderate anger to lift the lid and to take out the ivory miniature, and to test his mood against that wide-eyed expression, the full lips, the midnight cloud of curls and swell of bosom daringly portrayed to entice a man, an offer of luxurious peace — to snare the heir of Ylesuin.

And ask—ask whether there were old bridgeheads being refurbished across the Lenúalim. Ask what this offer meant against the arrant folly of Heryn Aswydd who, if he were wise, might know his two sisters, fields for every plow, were temptation to lesser lords, but not to the heir of Ylesuin, not to promote His Grace Heryn Aswydd of rebel, perpetually heretic Amefel up to high estate in the court at Guelemara.

All that Heryn expected, in return for no more than a tumble in the bedclothes, for the latest gossip, for a whisper of Herynʼs ambitions, for a night few whores could match for invention or few councillors for wit: oh, well indeed the twins (who came in a set, he had always believed, principally because neither trusted the other) were full of plans. By what he had heard, Tarien never, never forgave her sister her minute precedence into the world and would knife her in an instant if she thought Orien might gain anything above her.

Mothers thereby of a royal heir? No. That was for ladies richer, less versatile, more religious, less profligately trafficked, and certainly of larger, more influential and orthodox provinces. He could name an even dozen candidates of higher degree; ladies virginal, well-brothered and — fathered and — uncled—

Close-kneed, religious, limp and meek.

But — this — Elwynim. This — ivory bewitchment at which he stared, at odd moments, imagining that face alive with hints of both virginity and hoyden mischief — a crown of pearls and maiden violets, mirth dancing in the eyes, lurking about the edges of the mouth…

The Regentʼs maiden daughter and only offspring, a bid for peace, an end of the old rivalry.

Meanwhile the vicinity of Emwy seethed with so-called outlaws, that near the ruins of Althalen, that near the Lenúalimʼs dividing shores, open defiance aiming at seeing the Prince of Ylesuin come to the same end the Sihhë had met — while the Aswydds simply pursued kin-ties, bed-sharings and bastard offspring (who might be worth lands and money in the coffers of the Aswydds, if nothing else) and endlessly embellished this great gilt palace which, the prince would greatly suspect, came not only of hidden Sihhë gold, but of other sources.

Foolish offer, this ivory Elwynim loveliness. A message had come with it that Elwynor did not propose to yield up its sovereignty, but that the Regentʼs line, having come down to a daughter with no other royal prospect, considered a matrimonial alliance and separate title for the heirs.

Audacious. Damned audacious of a man waiting all his sonless years for the Sihhë to rise from their smoky pyre, or for Mauryl Gestaurien to mend his treason and send them a King.

The more to worry — considering the feckless young man across the hall, whoʼd shown a seat any rider could envy and a skill at riding he claimed not to have.

Damn Emuin. Damn Emuin for kiting off to prayers and piety and leaving him a young man so full of mysteries. Every possibility and every fear he owned was potentially contained in the young man lying cold as a corpse in that bed — who might be fading, for what he knew, with Maurylʼs power leaving the world, who might be ensorcelled by gods knew what, who might be afflicted by some malady that — naturally? — gods! came on the raised dead.

The source of souls, Emuin had said.

And fallen into languor at Althalen, the very place where the last Sihhë king perished?

He heard the sound of men entering the antechamber and knew by the plain fact there had not been a rush to arms among his guards outside that it was Annas or Idrys, and by the scuff and clump of soldierly feet that Idrys had come back with the men he had asked Idrys to find.

He disposed the miniature to the chest; he closed the lid; he looked up as Idrys shepherded his choices to his desk. Idrys took a stance with arms folded, his eyes disapproving; and Cefwyn ignored the pose as he had ignored Idrysʼ objections to his decisions.

Four men, plainly armored and armed, Guelen men. So was the patrol that was going out in pursuit of the bandit remnant that had official blame for the attack on the Marhanen prince. They were Guelen men, too, that patrol, with orders to believe nothing too fantastical of bandit origins, and to look closely at kinships with Emwy and with Henasʼamef did they take any bandits — did they take any, which a gold sovereign would wager they did not.

But these four men would not ride all the way with the patrol.

Nor would the four parchments bearing the Marhanen Dragon and Gillyflower personal seal of Cefwyn Marhanen, the Kingʼs viceroy — who did have specific authority to do what he proposed, but who…with the Kingʼs grant of a viceroyʼs power in Amefel…held the royal command over this whole uneasy border, with authority the southern barons would ignore at their peril.

“A patrol will go out under sergeant Kerdin Ansurin,” Cefwyn said. “And once out of view of the town, you four will go your ways, avoiding all eyes; that is important. You, sir: this to Pelumer in Lanfarnesse; you, to Sovrag in Olmernhome; you, to Cevulirn at Toj Embrel, in his summer residence; you, fourth, to Umanon in Imor Lenúalim. Say nothing of this to anyone, not to man, nor woman, nor lover, light-of-love, nor your own barracks-mates. Walk from this room to your horses and join the band at the gates. A good opinion and reward if you discharge your missions faithfully and discreetly. The patrol you will leave is seeking the bodies of your comrades up in Emwy district. Believe there is danger. Believe there are those seeking Guelen lives. Be prudent, be quick, seek water only at brooks and springs, and lodge nowhere but under the sky.”

Heads nodded. Grim looks confirmed their purpose. Young, these men, but Idrys had chosen them, and he knew Idrysʼ standards.

“Further,” he said, “say no word of departure to any but your officer on the road, and if the lords to whom I send should ask you further of my business or the reason of the message, say that you understand that the summons is general; no more than that. You know no more than that. All else is surmise which cannot be profitable. — Have you any question? Ask now.”

There were shakes of heads, and “No, Your Highness,” faintly from two.

“Go, then.” Cefwyn leaned back in his chair the while the men filed out.

And waited, foot on the rung of the table, one ankle on the other.

Idrys came back and lingered, arms folded, a shadow in the doorway.

“Youʼve given me your opinion,” Cefwyn said.

“Surely now you will need a fifth messenger.”

“How and where?”

“To your father the King, to explain what youʼve done.”

“Blast your impudence! You do surpass expectation.”

Idrys remained unmoved. “He will surely send to you then, my lord Prince.”

The bare foot slipped off the rung. He drew a deep breath and tucked his feet under him, canting his head at Idrys. “Tell me truth, master crow. Are you my man or his?”

“Yours, my lord. Of course I am.”

“Then grant I have some wit. Grant I do what I must.”

“Perhaps so, my lord Prince; but you know that it will not at all please His Majesty. You did well to send for Emuin.”

“Because he will listen to Emuin?”

“Because the situation on this border is increasingly unsettled. And it would be wise.”

“I am summoning the lords to consult.”

“You are raising an army to intimidate the Amefin, and there is no one who will fail to understand that. Best it were a Guelen army, not provincial, raised of their neighbors and quartered about this town.”

“Yield this inquiry back to my father? Come crawling to his knee and say I could not manage it?”

“You would win far more by filial humility than by what you propose, my lord Prince. An appeal for more troops would not be accounted an admission of fault or failure.”

“Are you my man, Idrys?”

“I have given you my oath, my lord Prince.”

“Then act like it.”

Idrys inclined his head slowly, with just irony enough to sting.

“My lord, a second time: wait for Emuin.”

“Because I will not take your orders, Idrys?”

“Because you are in danger here and I am not given resources enough to protect you from it. When danger comes into these chambers, I am one man, my lord Prince, with no more resource. The Guelen forces have lost man after man: niggling losses, but good men. Youʼve just sent patrols out into the countryside. The remaining men will be on longer shifts, under the constant knowledge that they are few among these Amefin. The kingdom could lose its invested heir here, my lord; and that would not well please His Majesty, either. I do not know how I should explain it to him. Forgive me, sire, but I seem to have lost your son? I think not, Cefwyn prince.”

“I hope to save you the necessity. Bear no reports to my father. Give me time to summon the march lords in. Once done is done, once I have the necessary troops to impose peace — my father and my brother will accept the settled state they see here.”

“That is not the way I know my lord King.”

“He loves me well,” Cefwyn said with a twist of his mouth, “only so I make no errors. My brother, now, — Efanor…is the one who will fret himself hollow at my maintaining an army here.”

“One cannot possibly see the cause.”

“I am the heir. Am I not? And shall I not, in I hope not imminent prospect, command the armies of eighteen provinces, including the ones Iʼve summoned tonight? And why should my brother be anxious about four, now, as if I had cause to fling over my duties here and leap upon his privileges? Should I care, in his place, if he raised armies? But I do think he will care, Idrys; he was all out of countenance that I had had you to my household when Father posted me to this province. As if my brother should need a general in Llymaryn. And good gods! we have sworn oaths of our brotherhood. I do find it curious what men surmise one will do that they would do, Idrys. Do you ever ponder such curiosities? It seems to forecast their inclinations more than mine.”

“Your brother has unhappy precedent. Your uncleʼs death—”

“Was chance.”

“His advisers believe not.”

“And Father loves Efanor. Let us say the truth. Father loves him and would not mourn overmuch if some Elwynim put a dagger in my back.”

“Fathers often dote on the lastborn. So Iʼm told. This does not make him first.”

“So my father set me this duty to teach me responsibility. So he said.”

“I heard.”

“Well, then, duty leads me to this measure, and my royal father knows he need have no fear of my diverting that army off the Elwynim border and against him or Efanor. Whatever he thinks of me, he does at least believe me sane, and my brother can learn so.”

“Your father is old, and it does not well agree with his years or your brotherʼs anxious fears, my lord Prince, to have one son amassing troops in the countryside while the other son is living quietly in Llymaryn. Whatever your father knows or believes of your intentions, there will be concern about this among the northern barons. That is the plain truth.”

“I am the invested heir; if trouble comes of what I do, then let Father look to the ambitions of the barons whose advice heʼs leaned upon too much, — including Heryn Aswydd, chief among them, Heryn Aswydd. I donʼt know whether Father has me watching Heryn or Heryn watching me, and, damn it! I have nothing to gain that is not already mine.”

“It would still be more politic, my lord Prince, to use only Guelen troops.”

“And what will that say? Dear father, send me your armies? I promise not to bring them home?”

“I shall sharpen my sword.” Idrys made a second ironical bow. “You will have Heryn and his men buzzing about your ears when word of this flies free. You raise the wind, my lord Prince. And there may follow rain. Perhaps a frost.”

“Given this present situation, Idrys, — how would you secure the Zeide from disturbance, without reinforcements?”

“Disarm the Amefin — now, before they can hear what you have done. Put the Guelen on guard at all posts, and bar the Amefin guard from duty and from the armories.”

“Do it. Tonight.”

Idrysʼ brows lifted. “That is extreme, my lord Prince.”

“You claim to be my man. You give me advice. Then you have my authority for whatever needs be done to make it clear to all Ylesuin where this mustering of forces is aimed — at Amefin treachery, not my brotherʼs feverous fancies of an enmity I do not bear him. The one is a family matter. The other — is an order to me to hold a province with two hundred thirty men. Folly, Lord Commander, and letting Amefin fill out the posts after the business at Emwy — I think not. They cherish no thoughts of our good will, only hopes of our timidity. Hence my summons to the southern provinces, which my father may count his elder sonʼs folly, or his elder sonʼs premature ambition, but not if I turn up sufficient stones quickly enough. Lest you marvel, I do not believe Heryn — not his rescue, not his protestations.”

“Is this recent disbelief or longstanding?”

“Oh, growing apace. Nor patient of further incidents. I take to heart all your warnings about the Amefin. Say to all who ask that the armory is locked to prevent thefts. We have had recent thefts, have we not?”

“If you say so, mʼlord.”

“Say, too, that we suspect an Elwynim spy among the guard. I should hate to offend the honest among them. Just let the next shift — be Guelen. Will that not make a quiet and quick transition? They wonʼt know the replacement is general until they go back to their barracks. Review all rosters for patrols or issue of equipment. Better we have short patrols for a few days than lose our knowledge of what tidings have flowed to what place in Amefel. — And set up the sergeants with the scribes to take down a list of our loyal Amefin guard, man by man, accounting their villages, their residences, their relatives, persons who may vouch for their provenance and behavior, and question the men they name to vouch for them, and check back again. We are foreigners here. How else can we tell loyal men from trespassers? — Appoint Mesinis to the task.”

“Mesinis? Mesinis, do I hear correctly?”

“This should take sufficient time for a muster of foot out of Far Sassury, if we needed send so far.”

“My lord,” Idrys said, “Mesinis it is.”

“Wake me,” he said, “promptly — if it goes amiss.”

“My lord Prince, I am well certain, if our guard-change goes amiss, you will hear the alarms in the night.”

“But alarm among the Amefin will give my brother far sounder sleep. Will it not? And Heryn certainly less?”

“If success tonight goes to our side, mʼlord, and not to Herynʼs. The man might take action, my lord Prince.”

“See it does go to our side. — And, and, Idrys,…have master Tamurin take yet one more look at Herynʼs tax accounts, past years as well as this. Have master Tamurin go directly into archive without warning, and appoint him pages to carry all relevant books to his premises, no matter the protests of those dotards Heryn appointed. Including the books of the town accountants, this time. That will divert mʼlord Heryn from his petty grievances over Emwy and his guard appointments, and set the rumors flying among his earls and his thanes and his what-nots, some of whom may come to us in their distress.”

Idrys actually lifted a brow, looking pleased and amused. “As you will, mʼlord Prince.”

“Good night, Lord Commander.”

Idrys went without further objection. Cheerfully. That was rare.

Afterward Cefwyn lay in the broad bed, threw a coverlet over himself against the breeze from the window, and stared at an unrevealing mural on the ceiling, a trooping of fairy and a breaking-forth of blossoms, wherein smaller fay lurked under leaves and made love in the branches. A star was in the painted sky. A gray tower — or was it silver? — was on the hill. A star and a tower were the arms of the Sihhë, alike the arms of Mauryl, the Warden of Ynefel, were they not banned throughout Ylesuin. But surely Heryn would not lodge his prince in this chamber, under that painting, if they were more than chance elements of the piece. Perhaps the prince was suspicious and uncharitable even to suspect Amefin humor in the arrangement — as he was suspicious and uncharitable to suspect Amefin humor in Herynʼs riding, oh, in hall velvet, and lightly cloaked, with the guard, risking danger—

— only in his tardiness to make his claim of innocence. Heryn had faced no danger of alleged outlaw weapons, the real nature of which he would wager his royal stipend Heryn knew.

He had laid out his riding clothes, his sword and his leather coat on the bench nearest the bed, without advising Annas or asking the servantsʼ or the pagesʼ help. He wanted no rumors running the halls until a bolt was on the armory door.

He did not take for granted at all that he could, without a blow struck and with but a handful of loyal guard, collar Heryn Aswydd — who was no novice in deceit and who had far cannier and hereunto unknown advisors. Even relying on Idrysʼ skills to avoid surprise, he knew Idrysʼ failings in diplomacy toward recalcitrant outsiders, and knew he risked stirring resentment where none had existed — at least where none existed to any extent that would prompt Amefin to assail the prince of a realm that had been, if not loved, at least peacefully and reasonably obeyed.

It seemed to him urgent, however, to act. His household officers generally had thought it best to tiptoe about the secrets of Amefin disaffection and map all the edges of it before making any move, all for fear of starting something far larger than Heryn from cover — meaning Amefin collusion with their ancient allies the Elwynim — and stirring themselves up a far wider conflict than a bandit or two in Emwyʼs bushes.

Disarm the Amefin by night, simply by moving them off watch as they turned in their weapons at the armory. That in itself would provoke outcry and dismay by morning, but it would frighten the Amefin, who had seen Marhanen vengeance in prior generations. And to confound their wildest terrors, the scribe he had assigned to the questioning and registry was far from vengeful — a kindly and grandfatherly old fellow, fine for small details. Mesinis was the absolute soul of patience,…and incapable, one suspected, of taking accurate notes long before he became slightly deaf. Moreover, Mesinis did not deal well with Amefin names or the Amefin brogue.

He liked that stroke; he truly did. If one was bound to create consternation among oneʼs enemies, it seemed, after outright terror was established, best to aim that consternation at small, maddening obstacles like Mesinis, which obscured the more outrageous acts — small, maddening obstacles in which the prince could graciously create exemption and ease the way, making Amefin grateful for Marhanen intervention on their behalf.

Hourly he expected some alarm from the halls, some wild threat from Heryn and his minions, or worse, some rising in the town at large that would invade the halls and tear them all limb from limb.

They were not thoughts on which a man could sleep. But when the hour for the guard change passed without alarm, that matter at least seemed settled. The one patrol was out by now, riding by night, and his messengers would leave that column and spread out to the barons of the adjoining provinces, who in their lordship of their provinces did not directly owe him fealty.

But if His Grace of Amefel were allied with some Elwynim lord slipping his Regentʼs leash (as well Amefel had once been, with Elwynor, ruled from Althalen), and general war broke out, then be certain that His Royal Highness Cefwyn Marhanen would bear the lifelong reputation for losing a province, and be certain that his royal father would regain it, to his fatherʼs credit but to his own lifelong disgrace — and lasting trouble in his own reign. His father had set him here to prove himself or fail, with hopes, at least on the part of certain barons in Guelessar, Llymaryn, and elsewhere in the realm, that the elder prince of Ylesuin, known for debauch, might most spectacularly fail in the temptations of Herynʼs court — or die and never sit the Dragon throne.

But those were northern lords who opposed him, while the barons of the more religiously diverse south readily distrusted that coalition of established and orthodox Quinalt interests that had moved into the court at Guelemara during his fatherʼs reign. Even in heretic Amefel, he suspected, many hoped for Good King Log to establish his rule in Ináreddrinʼs quieter younger son Efanor.

While if there was any personal advantage he himself had in undertaking this oversight of Amefel, it was the expectation of the southern barons that the Crown Prince, having ruled in the south, supported by the south, might reward the south and send such influences packing. Efanor never saw it. Efanor had lately become piously Quinalt. Efanor, turning to the gods, had no real heart for conspiracy. It was why the northern barons so loved him.

It was the reason he was so desperate as to send those messages.

And twice in the night he roused poor Annas to go inform himself how Tristen fared. Each time the answer was the same: He has not wakened, my lord Prince; and, reliably, His man is with him.

Maurylʼs gift. That cuckoo in the Amefin nest was yet to fledge — and a frightened small portion of his heart wished the wizard-gift might come to nothing, while the greater, the nobler part of him feared losing that gift, whatever it might mean, whatever uncertainties it brought him.

Came a noise somewhere that caught him with his eyes shut and his thoughts drifting. He was not certain he had not dreamed it. The fire in the hearth had burned down; he roused himself to tend it, not troubling Annas, and looked and found gray daylight in the windows.

The noise repeated itself. Thump. The guard was admitting someone to his chambers, and he cast a thought toward his sword. He rubbed his eyes and his face and reassured himself with the remembrance that the guard had changed at least once in the night, and nothing had raised alarms or rung the muster bell.

The inner door opened, that from the foyer; and it was Idrys, shadow-eyed and unshaven, but fully armored and bearing his sword.

Idrys bowed with his usual grace. “My lord Prince. Amefel applies to see you. He frets in his disfavor.”

“And my orders?”

“Executed. While the Zeide slept, at the watch change, as you ordered, the Guelen forces took the Zeide gates, the armory, the stables, the storerooms and the kitchens, and stand guard outside Herynʼs and the twinsʼ rooms. The Amefin guard is disturbed, needless to report, but awaits its orders from Heryn, and Heryn…is awaiting your pleasure, my lord.”

Idrys had rarely looked so pleased with a situation.

“Well done,” Cefwyn said.

“My lord.”

“I think,” Cefwyn began, and nudged the brass kettle and last nightʼs tea water over last nightʼs coals to heat. He tossed on a few sticks of wood from the heap beside the hearth, while Idrys took up watch over him, arms folded. “I think that Heryn may seethe in his own juices a time. How long, do you think, is prudent?”

“Enough time to see Your Highness breakfasted and well sated with tea.”

“Perhaps I shall invite him to breakfast.”

“Shall I relay that invitation, Your Highness?”

“Carry it yourself. He fears you.”

“Most gladly, my lord Prince.”

Idrys departed, and Cefwyn thoughtfully investigated the kettle of water, hesitating still, in the weariness of a long night, to call in the clatter and conversation of servants and pages.

But he rang the bell, and when Annas turned up from his bed nearby: “Breakfast,” he ordered, “for myself and Heryn Aswydd. A guard will escort you, the cook, the pages, with every pot and every cup and source. There is dissent and division afoot.”

“I shall take good care,” the old man murmured, “my lord Prince.”

Cefwyn went back to the wardrobe to revise his selection of clothing while Annas arranged an early cup of tea. Pages arrived, seeking use, and by their grace he bathed, merely an affair of a hot towel: the bath which he had left unused and cold still stood. Over his linen went bezainted leather, nothing approaching the two stonesʼ weight of the shirt he had worn on the ride to Emwy. It was for lighter weapons, the kind that came from close at hand, and it glittered with suitably decorative but martial effect.

It did sit well, at least, between the Amefin and a Marhanen heart.

The breakfast arrived in the hands of Annas, two senior guards and two pages; the maps were discreetly rolled — except the one for Emwy district, which he deliberately left in plainest view — and he had had the pages move the dining board into the sunlit alcove beneath the windows.

Annas provided them a simple meal and a hot one, easy to eat a quick sufficiency and end the meeting early; or, if he pleased, to linger over the breads and jams. Cefwyn settled into place at the table and waited, sipping at a cup of tea.

Shortly Idrys arrived with Heryn in tow, a sullen and scowling Heryn, who stopped and bowed at formal distance from the table while Idrys continued to the warm window-side, where he took up his station, arms folded, waiting.

Cefwyn rose, bowed, and gestured to the seat at the far end of the table. “Welcome, Your Grace.”

Heryn came to the offered seat, stood with his hands clenched on the back of the chair.

“Your Highness,—”

“Sit, sit down, Amefel. No doubt you have questions.”

“With armed guards—”

“You could not protect me, Your Grace. That Amefin patrols were in the area of Emwy I do take your word for, but I do think they would have regarded our displayed standards and my banner. I fear you have been misinformed on the nature of the attack at Emwy, which casts into doubt not you, of course, but certain assumptions. Therefore Iʼve moved to secure the premises until we learn whether there has been compromise of your informers. Surely your own life is not secure. Trust my guards. They are honest men.”

The color had utterly fled Herynʼs handsome face.

Cefwyn smiled, lips only, sure that Heryn took his double meaning. “Sit, sit down. I assure you that this apartment is at least as secure as your own.”

Heryn sank into the chair, picked up the cup and carried it almost to his lips as Annas began to serve the breakfast. Heryn stopped in mid-sip with a look at him, guarded, terrified.

“Your health,” Cefwyn said, still smiling, lifted his cup and drank.

The sweat stood visible on Herynʼs face. And Cefwyn half-turned, looking at Idrys.

“Idrys.”

“Your Highness.”

“Any sign of the horses out of Emwy?”

“Aye, my lord, a few. The dun and three bays made their way back last night. Peasants brought them for reward, knowing the Kingʼs mark.”

“You rewarded them.”

“Amply, my lord.”

“Excellent.” He looked at Heryn and divided up a sausage. “Itʼs clear that the general countryside still has reverence for the Crown.”

“I would assure Your Highness so,” Heryn said.

“Our patrols will be searching the country round about very thoroughly. We wish to find that bandit group and question them.”

“I would have thought all your men were on duty here,” Heryn said bitterly, while the sausage went down quite well. “So many in the halls.”

“I assure you, itʼs to your own advantage that the Crown should take direct responsibility for my welfare. The cost to the town for losing the Marhanen heir would be bloody and extreme, and — regrettable as it might be, and no matter your efforts — there would be that certain cost to pay. His Majesty and I have quarreled, but the depth of our quarrel is vastly exaggerated. Vastly. Marhanens may quarrel with each other. Attack us — and he is head of our house.”

“I assure Your Highness—”

“Oh, we do believe your efforts might well succeed. But I refuse to put that manner of responsibility on this province and on you, Amefel. The Guelen are seasoned men. They know the extent of their duty, and theyʼll stand their posts indefinitely, until we are sure the persons responsible have been hunted out and hanged. — Sausage, Your Grace?”

Annas made a trip to Herynʼs end of the table, but Heryn took only bread.

“Your Highness,” Heryn said, “surely your personal guard will be under hardship. I assure you my own men are sufficient for myself. You might at least relieve the ones at my door—”

“I will not hear of it. The welfare of this province is my special concern. My guards stay.” He filled his mouth with bread and honey and ate, enjoying the breakfast. “Amefin honey. I shall send some to my father with personal recommendation.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Heryn murmured, although he seemed to have difficulty breathing, let alone eating.

“You must not take the issue so to heart. You have done your best to guard me. Now I shall do mine. — Do you not care for the bread, Lord Heryn?”

Heryn gathered up the knife and his knuckles were white on the handle as he dipped into the butter.

“I have,” Idrys said, “set Anwyll to watching Tarien and Sergeant Gedd to Orienʼs door.”

Cefwyn smiled grimly. Anwyll was immovable, and Gedd was by his preference immune to Orien and all her servants.

“Iʼve made certain promises of liberal reward among the ranks, mʼlord Prince,” Idrys added, “once this period of double watch is safely carried. The men are in excellent spirits on that account.”

“Promise it on my authority.” Cefwyn gathered up his sword and buckled it on. “I will see that reward paid.”

“Where are you going, mʼlord Prince?”

“To see to our guest.”

Idrysʼ frown was instant. Cefwyn started to the doors, and Idrys shadowed him past the guards and into the hall.

“Be rid of this ill-omened guest,” Idrys said. “Send him to Emuinʼs retreat. Send him to the Quinalt in Guelessar, if you ask my advice in this matter, mʼlord.”

“Not in this.”

“I wish you would wait for Emuinʼs arrival.”

“You have mentioned that.” He had glanced at Idrys as he walked out the door of his apartments. He looked back, and stopped in what he purposed to say next. There was but one pair of guards at Tristenʼs door. “Whatʼs going on here?” he demanded of those men. “Where are the other two?”

“Gone wiʼ him, Your Highness,” said one man. “Wiʼ Uwen.”

“He waked.”

“Natural as morning, Your Highness, and ate breakfast and left.”

“I left word to wake me!”

“You had a guest, Your Highness. We was told not to interrupt.”

“Damn.” He was aware of Idrys watching and forbore to scatter blame for what were doubtless contradictory instructions. “Where did he go?”

“To the stables, Your Highness. Something about his horse.”

Cefwyn swore. “Stand your post,” he ordered, and strode off for the stairway, with Idrys and an anxious pair of the Guelen guard close at his back.