Fortress in the Eye of Time

CHAPTER 15

Guards snapped to attention at the doors, and another pair at the stableyard gate: evidence of Idrysʼ efficient arrangements. And at that clash of weapons, old Haman came out in a scatter of stableboys — the man was at his post, to Cefwynʼs mild surprise — but Haman had no frown nor seemed other than cheerful.

“Your Highness.” Haman bowed. Amefin, Haman was a man of the land, not the Amefin court. His politics was the care of his animals and he cared for absolutely nothing else. A Prince could restrain his temper in respect to such a man. And in the replacement of Amefin guards from their posts, both Cook and stablemaster were left unquestioned.

“Haman. My guest, the young man. Where is he at the moment?”

“Come to see to his horse, Your Highness. And gone back inside again.”

Cefwyn bit his lip, refused to turn immediately and acknowledge Idrysʼ self-sure stare, which he was certain awaited him. He drew a slow breath and looked instead toward the stable, where his own Danvy was putting out his head. He walked to that stall door, lingered to give his favorite a pat and an apple from the barrel.

“Heʼs fit enough, Your Highness,” Haman said. “Throwed a shoe in that affair, no more. Smithʼs already seen to him. Iʼm for putting him out to the far pens for a sennight, by ʼr leave, Your Highness.”

“Give him good care, master Haman. Iʼve no questions. Pasture it is. And best you give both my horses good exercise. Work the fat off Kanwy. — Did my guest say nothing of his further business this morning?”

“No, Your Highness. Concerned for the horse, he was. Wanted to see her before we sent her down to pasture. He walked to the paddocks back there, he brought her some grain with his own hands and he spoke wiʼ her a while, and then he and his man, they went back inside again. — He were fearful pale, Your Highness. I thought then of sending word. But his man and your guard was with him all the while, and I thought he was there on proper business.”

“Iʼm certain he was. Thank you, master Haman.” He turned to go, met Idrysʼ eyes by complete accident, and scowled. He brushed past Idrys, stalked across the yard and heard him and the guard following as he mounted the steps again into the lower hall.

“My lord Prince,” Idrys said as they came into the corridor above, “leave it in my hands. Iʼll find him.”

“We will find him.” He cast Idrys a look over his shoulder and found precisely the expression he had thought to find.

“Warm this egg in your bosom, my lord Prince, and you may find it hatches something other than a sparrow. Weʼve done quite well with the lord of the Amefin. I advise you confine this fledgling of Maurylʼs. Confine him in whatever comfort you deem suitable, but confine him closely, at least until Emuin is at hand to deal with him. This man will surprise you with some action you will most assuredly regret.”

He glanced away and strode ahead, seeking the windows that had best view of the garden, ignoring Idrys and his advice.

Tristen was not in the garden, either.

In the end he was compelled to stand and wait, chafing while Idrys consulted with a chance-met group of Amefin servants in the hall, who pointed down the hall toward the archive and bowed in frightened confusion, uncertain in what affairs they were involved on this chancy day, with Guelen guards posted everywhere and rumors by now running the halls.

“The library,” Idrys reported, “mʼlord Prince. The horse…and the archive.”

Cefwyn exhaled shortly, relieved, as they walked toward the east wing, to think that it was nothing more sinister than books that drew Tristen…until he began to wonder with what insistence Tristen must have prevailed upon his guards and Uwen, and why, rising from a profound sleep, so unnatural a sleep, he had insisted after fatuous poesies, philosophies…

Books, in these particular hands, were not harmless…which was exactly what Idrys was thinking, he knew it. He could hear it hanging in the air in Idrysʼ very tones.

He could see, with the same clarity, Tristenʼs unlined and sleeping face yestereve — which Idrys had seen; and he could see that wild-eyed visage at Althalen, that same face with horror all the way to the depths of those uncommon eyes when he overtook him on the road. Idrys had also seen it.

He did not forget it, nor ever would. And now, lo, the unnatural sleep, leading straightway to, the guards had said, a natural waking and the visit to the paddock, which was perfectly of a piece with the gentle moonstruck youth heʼd taken under Emuinʼs less than explicit instructions and led out into conspiracy and eldritch ruin.

Now books. Archives? Gods knew what the Amefin archive might hold in its dusty stacks and pigeonholes.

He quickened his step, came through the door into the musty precincts of the archive, where books and chaotic piles of civil records shared a room that had not, by reports, known order in ages, a room where tax records had been most effectively misplaced, and where, pursuant to last nightʼs orders, his own accountant still commanded a battalion of pages rummaging the west wall of the archive.

“Your Highness,” Tamurin said, mistaking his mission and the object of his inquiry. “I am immediately requesting the records necessary — immediately, mʼlord Prince.”

“And in good haste, master Tamurin. I approve all you need do.”

Master Tamurin passed from his acute attention. In the dim light that came through a cloudy window some distance down the east wall, at a reading table almost overwhelmed with stacks of parchments and codices and towers of decaying paper…there, run to earth, sat Tristen, with a massive codex open on the overloaded table, with Uwen and the two guards leaning against chairs on either side of him, peering at the work as if they could possibly read much more than their pay vouchers, and waiting as if at any moment Tristen might pronounce some extraordinary wisdom.

“Out,” Cefwyn bade them, and included Uwen with that princely sweep of his arm.

Tristen lifted his head, his face lost in shadow, his hair a darkness in the dusty sunlight. It was — a chill touched Cefwynʼs skin — a strangerʼs face, with the light touching only the planes and not the hollows: it was a manʼs face, a forbidding face.

The guards, conspirators in Tristenʼs wanderings, perhaps at last recalling that they were to have reported a change in Tristenʼs condition, eased past, trying to slip unobtrusively out of the way. The guards he had brought with him held their position, but somewhat to the rear. Only Idrys pressed close enough to involve himself in the situation, and Cefwyn considered banishing him as well. But on principle and to have another opinion of the encounter, he decided otherwise.

“Lord Prince.” Tristen rose and started to close the massive codex. Cefwyn took two steps forward and thrust his hand into the descending leaves as Tristen stood stock still. Cefwyn dragged the book across the table, reopened the heavy pages and turned the book on the table, dislodging clutter, to look on the crabbed Amefin script, the crude illuminations, the miniature map of the Ylesuin that had once been, when it had been a mere tributary to the wizard-ruled west, the wide realm of the Sihhë kings.

He half-closed the book, then opened to the first page and the title: The Annals of the Reign of Selwyn Marhanen.

“Ah. Grandfather,” Cefwyn murmured wryly with a look at Tristenʼs shadowed face. Still standing, he turned back to the pages that Tristen had been reading and angled the page to the light of the dust-clouded windows. “Althalen,” he read aloud, and Tristenʼs face had a strange, now fearful expression, still shaped in shadows.

Cefwyn set his foot in the seat of the chair, dragged the great codex up on his knee and inclined the whole face of the page to the light of the same dusty window. “The account of the taking of Althalen by the Marhanens.”

He looked up to see Tristen, whether that face was contrite, puzzled, angry, or any other readable expression. Window light made it still a white, forbidding mask. He took a loose parchment from the table and laid it on that open page for a marker, closed the codex and gave the massive volume into Idrysʼ keeping, dust and all.

He looked at Tristen to see what Tristen thought of that — which seemed no more than Tristen thought of his intervention here at all. The frightened Amefin chief archivist stood in the shadow of the stacks by the other archway.

“How did he find this book?” Cefwyn asked, fixing that man with his stare. “Did he ask? Did you suggest it him?”

“He — asked for a history of Althalen, Your Highness.”

Cefwyn cast a look about the other volumes stacked high on the tables all around him: census files, tax records, deeds of sale, meager books of poetics, science, and philosophy. And history. Oh, indeed, Amefel had history.

He looked toward Idrysʼ black shape and frowning countenance. “There are witnesses,” Idrys cautioned him, meaning that his questions were already too full of particulars and betrayed too much.

“Tristen,” Cefwyn said mildly, “walk with me.”

“Yes, mʼlord,” Tristen said meekly. He looked into light as he bowed and the gray eyes seemed as naked as ever they had been. Fear was there. Cefwyn thought so, at least. Bewilderment. All the things that might placate an angry prince.

Tristen turned, started to pass Idrys on his way to the door, but Idrys, unbidden, set down the book, laid a hand on Tristenʼs arm, and roughly searched him for weapons. Tristen endured it, stone-still, in midstep.

It was carrying matters too far, unordered: a protest leapt to Cefwynʼs lips, in Tristenʼs defense, this time; but on a morning like this, in a hostile hall, a prince was a fool who blunted his guardsʼ attention to his protection. When it was done, Tristen continued down the aisle of the library, seeming only mildly disturbed by an indignity that would have racketed to the Kingʼs ear had Idrys inflicted it on Heryn or Herynʼs familiars. He walked behind with Idrys while Tristen walked ahead in a downcast privacy and careless dignity that, had Idrys stripped him naked, he did not think Idrys could have breached. It was no astonished, defenseless youth such as Emuin had brought him that night in the lesser hall. This morning the jaw was set. The broad shoulders, in velvet and silk, declared a restraint of self, emanating not from fear but from fearlessness, and he did not think Idrys failed to be aware of whether a man feared or disregarded an outrageous interference in his affairs.

Tristen walked down the aisle of cluttered tables, past the business of account-gathering and agitated archivists, and the guards joined them at the door, escorting them down the corridor and up the stairs.

Anger blinded him, Cefwyn saw that in himself now, anger he had not let break. Anger had gathered in his chest and dammed up his reason; and now came a strange sense of grief, of betrayal, if he could lay a word on it: loss — of some rare and precious treasure that he had briefly seen, desperately longed for in this man.

Maurylʼs gift, he reminded himself, in a morning fraught with dealings with traitors, in a morning after breakfast with Heryn Aswydd. It was Maurylʼs Shaping of present flesh and something other; and, given he had adequate wit to rule a province, he should have seen hazard in Tristenʼs fecklessness toward all and sundry threats; he should have seen it did not come of helplessness, but of Maurylʼs work. He should have armored himself and steeled his heart.

And had not, had not. Had not.

Upstairs, safe behind the doors of his apartment, he looked again into that too-clear gaze and met the absolute challenge to trust that Tristen posed.

“Out,” he said to the guards, but Idrys did not budge. “Out, Idrys.”

“In this alone I am your fatherʼs man, my lord Prince. I will stay.”

Tristen stood alone by the table. The book lay beside him. Cefwyn sat down by it, laid his arm on the leather, fingered the edges of it.

“Why,” he asked, looking up at Tristen, “why did Mauryl send you to me?”

“He did not send me to you, sir, not in anything he told me.”

“One forgets. The road brought you.”

“The road did, yes, mʼlord.”

“Did you sleep well last night?”

“I slept, yes, mʼlord.”

“Rather long, as happened.”

“Uwen says I did, sir.” There was the least edge of distress, now. “I had no knowledge of it.”

“What happened in Althalen? What did you see? Ghosts?”

“No, mʼlord.” Wariness crept in. “Nothing happened.”

“You rode with the devil on your heels. You rode such a course as Iʼve scarcely seen and none including myself could overtake. And you never having ridden. How did you manage?”

“I donʼt know, sir.”

“Wizardry?”

“No, sir.” The voice was faint. Respectful. Convincing, if less in the province were amiss. “I was afraid.”

Tristen had a faculty for adding the unexpected, the ridiculous, that tempted a man even in the heat of temper to burst out in laughter.

“Afraid.”

“There was something very bad there, mʼlord Prince.”

“Something bad,” he echoed. A childʼs word. A childʼs look in eyes gray as a boundless sea. He refused to be turned from anger this time. “So you broke from the company, you risked lives, you deserted me, you deserted the men guarding you, and rushed onto the road into the hands of you knew not whom, because something bad frightened you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“‘Yes, sir.ʼ Say something more than ‘yes, sir,ʼ ‘yes, mʼlord,ʼ ‘beg your grace, mʼlord Prince.ʼ These are serious matters, Tristen, and I refuse to be set aside with ‘yes, mʼlord.ʼ If I ask you, I want a full and considered answer in this matter. What frightened you? Something bad? Good living gods, man, credit me for good will, and tell me what you saw.”

A breath. A settling. “I donʼt know, sir. I donʼt remember all that I saw or all that I did, or where I was. I thought I was doing what I ought. But I thought you and the soldiers were behind me. I thought you were there.”

“Damn you! you knew. You knew where we were!”

“No, sir. I did not.”

“Men die for such mistakes, Tristen.”

“Yes, sir,” the answer came faintly.

“You damned near killed your horse, damned near killed me, and half the men with us. If it wasnʼt wizardry that carried you safe over those jumps, I should assess that mareʼs foals for wings. — And, damn you, donʼt look at me like a simpleton! You say youʼre not simple. You claim Mauryl for your teacher. You say thereʼs nothing unnatural about your riding, your appearance, or your coming here. You say there was nothing unnatural in your sleep nor in your waking. What do you think me? A fool?”

“No, sir.”

Fainter still. More contrite. Cefwyn averted his eyes from that look that compelled belief. He opened the huge book and turned to the place the loose parchment marked.

“What did you seek in this book?” he asked Tristen without looking up. “What do you seek in the one Mauryl gave you? — Who were you before Mauryl set hand to you?”

There was no answer. He looked up and saw Tristenʼs face had turned quite, quite pale.

“I donʼt know, sir.”

“What did he send you to do?”

“I donʼt know, sir.”

“I want more answer than that. I want your honest, considerate opinion.”

“I know, sir. But I donʼt — I donʼt understand — what I was to do. I donʼt even understand — what I am. I think — I think—”

Finish it, Cefwyn thought, his own heart beating in terror, because Tristen had gone beyond what he asked, went beyond, in his wondering, what he would ever want to know of wizard-work — because there were answers, and there was, he suddenly realized it in the context of Tristenʼs vacillations between feckless acceptance and that severe, terrible self-confrontation, — there was somewhere a truth. He was Emuinʼs student as Tristen was Maurylʼs. He had learned no wizardry but he had learned its peculiar logic. There was a reason Tristen had not read Maurylʼs strange book. There was a reason Tristen had gotten onto the red mare uncertain of the reins and hours later terrified him in a hellbent rush he could not match with a better horse.

“I think,” Tristen said in a thin, small voice. “I think other men are different than I am.”

It was another of Tristenʼs turn-about conclusions, the sort that could tempt a man to laughter. But this one stuck in a princeʼs throat. This one echoed off walls of his own circumscribed world, and he thought to himself, too, — he, the Prince of Ylesuin — Other men are different than I am; while the look in Tristenʼs eyes mirrored his own inward fear. That, he saw facing him and, much, much worse, the look of a man who could say that honestly, the look of a man who had gone to that archive and asked for that book.

Alone. Mortally alone. He understood such fear. He had to fear Tristenʼs declaration for what it was, but he respected above all else the courage it took to face that surmise and seek an answer, with all it might mean.

“Tristen, certain folk say it was bandits who attacked against my banner. Certain folk say it was otherwise, a mistake, only the movement of Amefin patrols and lost shepherds. What do you think?”

“There was harm meant.”

“I agree. Iʼve set guards to protect certain people, and you will aid me best, understand, if you do not go wandering about the halls against the advice of your guards.”

“Yes, sir. Iʼm sorry.”

“Are you well, Tristen?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You said you could not recognize a lie. Now I ask you to discover the truth, truth, as you would speak to Mauryl. Say it to me or never again ask me to trust you. What did you see that frightened you?”

“Smoke. Fear. Fire. I wanted us to come through, sir. I wanted you to come through, and I thought you were behind me, I did truly think so.” There was a momentʼs silence. “I believe I thought so.”

“You thought you were leading me to safety. — Or, if you were only running, Tristen, I forgive it. Only say so.”

“No, sir. I thought that I was going toward safety — I believed that you were behind me, and that if I turned back…if I turned back…I donʼt know, sir. Thatʼs all I remember.”

“Conveniently so,” Idrys said, forgotten in his habitual stillness. Cefwyn flinched, the spell broken.

“But you did follow me, sir,” Tristen said.

“And you fell straightway into a sleep no man could break,” Idrys said coldly. “Is this wizardry? Or what is it?”

“I—” Tristen shook his head, and there was — there was — Cefwyn would swear he detected guilt, or subterfuge in that look; and if this was guilt, the other things were either lies or hedgings of the truth.

“Did you dream?” he asked, and Tristen looked at him like a trapped deer.

“No, sir.”

“What did you do? The truth, Tristen. As you told me before. Trust me now or never trust me. You have no choice.”

“There were names. There were too many names. I grew tired. I slept. I sleep when there are too many names.”

“Names of what?”

“Althalen. Emwy. Other names. I might know them if you said them, mʼlord. I can think. I can try to think of them.”

“Did this dusty book tell you anything?”

“Not yet, sir.”

“You didnʼt read it.”

“I hadnʼt time, sir.”

Cefwyn leaned back and bit his lip, flicked a glance to Idrys.

“Be rid of him,” Idrys said. “At least confine him until Emuin returns. Neither you nor I can deal with something Mauryl Gestaurien had his hand in. This Shaping is no hedge-magicianʼs amusement. Be rid of it.”

“Damn you, Idrys!” He saw Tristenʼs face gone ashen. “Tristen.”

“Sir?”

“Would you do me harm?”

“No, sir, in no way would I.”

“Go back to your rooms across the hall. Do not leave them on any account. Iʼll have your belongings delivered to you.”

“Yes, mʼlord Prince.”

“This evening…” Cefwyn said, impelled to soften his order, which was arrest and confinement. And he had not intended to agree with Idrysʼ cursed advice, nor at all to appear to — but it seemed the only safety for Tristen and for the Crown and the peace. “This evening I shall expect you at dinner, if you will accord me the pleasure.”

“Sir.” Tristen rose from his chair, seeming reassured. Idrys saw him to the door with complete if cold courtesy.

Then Idrys came back to stand in front of the table, arms folded, impossible to ignore.

“Do not give him that book, mʼlord Prince. Donʼt send it to him.”

“You are a useful man to me, Idrys, but do nothing to harm him. Nothing. — And whose man are you?”

“Where it regards your safety,…yours, of course. — What says that book, my lord Prince?”

“Blast you, — must none come near me but you?”

There was a momentʼs silence. Idrys drew a long and quiet breath while Cefwyn tried to catch his.

“You suffer strange attractions, my lord Prince, mindfully stubborn attractions toward those things which are most likely to harm you.”

“You suspect everything and everyone that comes close to me! You and Emuin—”

“Orien and Tarien, my lord?”

“Damn you!” He looked aside, feeling a burning in his eyes he cared not to show to Idrys.

“My lord Prince,” Idrys said, coming to lean too familiarly against his chair back, “the last of the Sihhë kings died at Althalen at the hand of your grandfather. That is what he will read in that book.”

Cefwyn swept the parchment aside from the place it marked, and smoothed the heavy page. The letters swam before his eyes, a script that cast back to the Galasite foundations of all writings, a history once safely remote from his present-day concerns.

“The Marhanen,” said Idrys, “were not kings then; they were trusted chamberlains to the long line of Sihhë halflings in Althalen. As your grandfather was to Elfwyn. Perhaps our innocent lad would like you to resume that post to him.”

“Push me no further, Idrys. I warn you.”

“I warn you, mʼlord Prince. Not so long ago, not so long ago that cursed place sank in ashes: men are still living who remember. Emuin for one. He was at Althalen. Ask him. Mauryl was certainly there to open the gates to your grandfather and make him King; and for that pretty treachery, your grandfather appointed Mauryl only the ruins of Ynefel and banned his arms from civilized precincts. A fine jest, was it not? And for all these years the woods have grown over Althalen and cloaked all the bloody Marhanen sins.”

Cefwyn looked up sharply. “Speak so freely to my father, Idrys.”

“Murder has been done for far lesser things than thrones. Most dangerous when the possessors of thrones forget how they came by them. Your father, like your grandfather, decreed death for bearing the Sihhë arms or practicing the old arts.”

“Yet employed Emuin!”

“What says the book, my lord Prince?”

“Blast your impudence!”

“It serves you. What says the book, my lord?”

Cefwyn covered the page with his outspread palm, stayed a moment until the swimming letters became clear again and his breathing steadied.

“I have need of Emuin.”

“Now, now, you are sensible, my lord Prince.”

He whirled on Idrys, making the chair turn. “But likewise you shall wait for his advice, hear me, Idrys. You will lay no hand on Tristen!”

“My lord Prince.” Idrys stood back, implacable. “For your own safety—”

“For yours, do not exceed my orders.”

“Do you know, my lord, why Emuin made such haste to escape Henasʼamef? Do you know why he retreated out of Amefel before this Shaping of Maurylʼs asked him too close questions?”

“You make far too sinister a design. He has gone to retreat to consider.”

“To consider what, my prince? Your messages?”

“He will come back, damn you, when he has thought this matter through…”

“My lord, I have thought on this. I have thought long and hard on this: if Mauryl could summon something out of the last hour of Althalen, think you that of the two thousand men who died there, it would have been some humble spitboy out of the kitchens? This Shaping is deadly. Mauryl was no true friend to the Marhanens, nor to the Elwynim, either. He served the Sihhë until he turned on them, out of some quarrel with his fellow wizards. He killed his own king. He locked himself ever after in Ynefel, brooding on gods only know what resentments or what purposes; and dying, sends you this, this Shaping with lordly graces? Ask his name, mʼlord. I urge you ask his name.”

“He does not know his name.”

“One can guess.”

Cefwyn pressed his lips together, the sweat started on his brow. He wiped at it. “You suppose. You suppose, Idrys.”

“A Sihhë, my lord. What worse could he send you?”

He had no answer for that.

“No stableboy,” Idrys said. “No scullion.”

“Then why for a halfling king? Why not the first five Sihhë lords — those of full blood?”

“Why not, indeed, my lord Prince? A good question.”

Cefwyn left the chair in temper and went to look out the window at something less troubling. At pigeons walking on the sill.

“They still burn straw men in this district,” Idrys said. “You see the old symbols on boundary stones, to the priestsʼ abhorrence.”

“I have seen them. I have had your reports, master crow. I do listen.”

“Read the chronicle, mʼlord Prince. The Sihhë were gentle lords. Some of the latest, at least. Barrakkêthʼs blood ran thin at the last. They ate no children. They went to straw men and not captives for their observances…”

“They never ate children. Thatʼs a Quinalt story.”

“But were they always straw men, at festival?”

“None of us know. Histories may lie. My grandfather was not immune to the malady, you know.”

“Elfwyn, was, they say, a very gentle sort. Dead at Althalen — as were they all. Last Sihhë king. — Last of the witch-lords.”

“Then no hazard to us. A gentle man. You say so.”

“One doubts he even blamed Mauryl for his death. And perhaps he was the only one of that line Mauryl would regret.”

“If he were Elfwyn, if he were Elfwyn—”

“It was Elfwynʼs younger brother Mauryl wanted dead. So did Emuin, and all that circle. So Iʼm told. They insisted the youngest Sihhë prince was a black wizard, whatever that means, if not a sorcerer. And of course Mauryl and his circle had no wizardly ambitions, themselves, whatever makes wizards ambitious. But the child prince died in the fall of Althalen, and so did Elfwyn and all the Sihhë who could claim the name, since the wizards could come by Marhanen help and arms no less bloodily. Marhanen ambition was satisfied with the crown. The Elwynim councillors drew off to shape a Regency until the Sihhë should rise from their smoky grave, I suppose, and sit on the throne of Elwynor. I wonder what satisfied Mauryl. A tower in the woods?”

“Who knows what Mauryl wished or wanted?” Cefwyn retorted. “One supposes he got it, since he left us in peace.”

“But, if one believes the Elwynim,—”

“One has no reason to believe the Elwynim.”

“Even for bride-offers?”

“Have I accepted it?”

“Yet the Elwynim claim the Sihhë kings will return. Who do you suppose promised them that?”

“The Elwynim chose to believe it. It gave legitimacy to the lord of Ilefínian, who otherwise had no royal blood, no more than any other Elwynim lord. The lord of Ilefínian chose to call himself Regent because there was nothing else he could call himself — certainly not king — not even aetheling.”

“As of course the Marhanen were royal to the bone.”

“Treason, master crow.”

“Treason for the commons. Loyalty — in an adviser to the Crown. Look at the reasons, mʼlord Prince. Mauryl raised up this Shaping. Perhaps the old man was atoning for his crime, bringing back the King he helped to murder — an excess of your grandfatherʼs zealotry, or his ambition. Perhaps Mauryl did promise the lord of Ilefínian a King to Come.”

“You must have spent hours on this. Youʼve kept yourself awake with these fancies, master crow. I suggest a roll in the sheets. ʼT will help you sleep.”

“A prince with two thoughts to his own safety in this rebel province would help me sleep, mʼlord. A toadstool tea for this Summoning you take to your bosom would help me rest at night, but you will not take that advice.”

“Have you read this book?”

“I know the history of all claimants and lineages alive, mʼlord Prince, who might come into serious question. Now I see I must study the dead ones.”

“And if Mauryl has raised Elfwyn of the Sihhë? What can you say of him, beyond a short reign distinguished only by his calamity?”

“A weak king, who wasted his treasury on shrines and supported scholars and priests of any persuasion at all. He lost three towns to the Chomaggari in his first year of reign and still kept his scholars fat and his army nigh barefoot. If it were not for Mauryl Gestaurien he would have fallen sooner. But then, if it were not for Mauryl Gestaurien, he might not have fallen at all, and the Marhanen would still be lords chamberlain to the Sihhë. Rebellion wanted an able general. Which your grandfather was. Unfortunately for the Sihhë king — your grandfather was his general.”

“As you hope to become mine?” Cefwyn asked, and had the satisfaction of seeing Idrys blink. “On the tide of a war on this border?”

Idrysʼ chin lifted. “I trust I serve a wiser lord. The latter-day Sihhë put all their trust in Mauryl, and thereby, my trusting prince, the gates flew open to the Sihhë successors and the Sihhë died a terrible death along with their king, next Althalenʼs burning walls. — You invite — whom? — to your table, my lord Prince?”

“A well-spoken and civil young man, whose converse is pleasant, whose company I find far less self-serving than, for instance, Herynʼs, whose presence you have generally approved.”

“Your grandfather tossed Sihhë babes into the flames,” Idrys said, “hanged the women and impaled the men above the age of twelve in a great ring about Althalenʼs walls. And even from the grave, would the Sihhë bear you love, Cefwyn Marhanen? He does not remember these things. He could not remember these things with that clear, innocent look he bears you. Think of this when you trust too much. That account is, I will wager you, in that book, mʼlord Prince. That is the chronicle your guest has been reading, and I will wager you he is Sihhë, with all it means.”

“Then what do we do? What do we do, hang his head at the gate? I am not my grandfather! I do not murder children! I have no wish to murder children! Elfwyn in life was a gentle man. He haunted my grandfather to his dying day. My grandfather on his deathbed swore he heard the children crying. I do not want a death like that. I do not want dreams such as he had or a conscience such as he had. He never slept without holy candles burning in his room.”

“He had a peaceful reign. His enemies feared him. Consequently his taxes were lighter than Elfwynʼs or your fatherʼs. Ylesuin remembers his reign as golden years.”

“Golden on Sihhë gold — consequently his taxes were lighter.”

“And his enemies were all dead or in terror of him.”

“I will not be such a King.”

“Mʼlord Prince, — what became of the ivory miniature?”

Another of Idrysʼ flank attacks. Thwarted on one front, Idrys opened another. And the devil where he was going with it.

“A lovely thing,” Idrys said. “Is it in the chest yonder? Do you still keep it? Or have you sent it to your father for his word on this — Elwynim bride-offer?”

“My father, as you well know, would fling it in the midden.”

“Ah. And therefore you keep it? You temporize with this offer?”

“I do not see what this has to do with my grandfather or my guest.”

“A marriageable daughter, a sonless Elwynim king — ah — regent. Uleman of the Elwynim sees the ravens gathering — knows he cannot command his own lords, who are more apt to war with each other over fair Ninévrisëʼs hand — so, oh, aye, offer you the daughter, offer the bloody Marhanen the last Sihhë realm with no more than a wedding and an heir-getting. Whatever has prevented you from leaping to that offer, mʼlord Prince?”

“Nine skulls on my gate is not enough?”

“And, of course, you are the heir of Ylesuin. And wish no witchly get out of a marriage bed.”

“It did somewhat cross my mind.”

“And would cross your fatherʼs. And your brother Efanorʼs. No witchly offspring to sit the Dragon throne. Yet you still keep the ivory.”

“A lovely piece of work. A pretty face. Why not?”

“Still temporizing with the matter. Asking yourself how more cheaply to gain a claim to Elwynor.”

“I do not!”

“You doubt that Uleman countenanced the assassins. You said so yourself. Internal dissent. Angry lords, jealous fellow suitors for the ladyʼs hand…”

“I am no suitor, for her least of all! And what has this to do with Tristen, pray, master crow? What edifice of fantasies are we now building? Or have you quite forgot the track?”

“‘Tristen,ʼ is he now, and not ‘Maurylʼs giftʼ?”

“Insolent crow. Crow flitting about the limits of my tolerance. What has this business of assassins and Elwynim to do with him?”

“Ah. Maurylʼs motives. Thatʼs our worry.”

“What? A stray piece of work from Maurylʼs tower? Maurylʼs dying maunderings? — Maurylʼs rescue of a Sihhë soul from wherever Sihhë go when they die? Emuin said treat him gently. I take that for the best advice, and until you have more substantial complaint—”

“Maurylʼs motives. And Uleman King—”

“Not King. As you well know. Find your point.”

“Oh, you have taken it, mʼlord Prince. Elwynor has no kings. Only Regents, a Regent in waiting for a King, like his father before him, and his grandfather. Waiting for what? A King your grandfather murdered. I ask what dealings Uleman had with Mauryl before Mauryl died, or what the promise was thatʼs kept Elwynor under a Regent for all these years. Not so foolish and stubborn as we thought, if they were waiting for something Mauryl promised them — and now has delivered.”

“Then why send a Sihhë revenant to me, crow? Your logic escapes me.”

“Mistakes are possible. Mauryl dead — perhaps the Shaping went down the wrong road. Or perhaps he did not. Who knows but Mauryl? And perhaps Uleman.”

“Then Ulemanʼs logic escapes me. Why this proposal to me?”

“Why, because Mauryl had not yet fulfilled his promise. Or if he had, Uleman had no idea of it. He sees his kingdom foundering for want of an heir — and, my lord Prince, if he had such, he needs no marriage with his longstanding enemy. Iʼm certain he desires no Marhanen in his daughterʼs bed. But Uleman is an honest and doting man, as I hear, fond of his wife, fond of his daughter, with his lords chafing at the bit, wanting more than a Regency for some King to Come. Each of his earls seeing, as mortality comes on the third and sonless Regent, that marriage with this — we dare not call her princess, only the Regentʼs daughter — would legitimize any of them as an Elwynim King. This is what they see. And — if one believes in wizardly foresight — dare we believe that the third generation is the charm, that old Mauryl laid a sonlessness on the Elwynim Regent so that it would come down to this, just at the time Mauryl should produce a claimant and fulfill his magical promise.”

“Gods, I should have you my architect, not the Lord Commander of my guard. Such a structure of conjecture and hypothesis! Shall we put towers on ʼt?”

“And shall we not think that this Shaping of Maurylʼs is a rival for your fatherʼs power? That he is the bridegroom for this bride? That Uleman will know this, the moment he knows this Shaping exists? Send now to Uleman accepting his offer and see whether he sends the bride. I think he would see her wed a dead Sihhë king rather than a live Marhanen.”

Cefwyn drew deliberately slow breaths and leaned his chin on his hand, elbow on the arm of the chair, listening, simply listening, and thinking that, whatever else, Maurylʼs childlike Shaping had least of all the knowledge what to do with a bride, Elwynim or otherwise.

But — but — Tristen had had no knowledge of horses, either, until he climbed into red Geryʼs saddle. Tristen rode — a prince could be magnanimous toward such skill — far better than he did, on far less horse. That stung, more, actually, than any prospective rivalry for the Elwynim Regentʼs daughter, who was, as an ivory portrait, a matter of mere theoretical and aesthetic interest—

But interest enough to risk a taint of Sihhë blood in the Marhanen line — no. The Quinalt would not accept it. The Quinalt would rise up against the Crown.

“It may be true,” Idrys said, “that Mauryl robbed this Shaping of his wits. But Mauryl gave him a book which I concede may not be Maurylʼs household accounts. This Shaping is, however you reckon his worth, not the feckless boy that came here.”

“Oh, come, would you set Tristen to guard the larder from the kitchen boys? Far less set him to govern a kingdom! And now you fear wizardly curses and prophecies? You were never so credulous as that before.”

“My lord Prince,” Idrys said broadly, “I did not believe in such things. I did not believe that the Mauryl Gestaurien who betrayed Elfwyn was that Mauryl who betrayed Galasien after very similar fashion. Now I do take it so.”

“On what evidence?”

“Good gods, mʼlord, we talk and sit at table with a Shaping, in broad daylight and by dark. What is more probable? That Mauryl is the same Mauryl — or that you have invited a dead man to your table tonight?”

“It is a question,” he conceded.

“And if Mauryl has robbed him of his wits, still this Tristen is not the young man that came here. That compliant boy is gone, my lord Prince. Look at him carefully tonight. You were far safer dining with Heryn at Herynʼs table. At least you never believed Heryn to the exclusion of your own advisers. If I were a credulous man — and I am fast becoming a believer in more than ever I did — I would say you were bewitched.”

“I and the Elwynim Regent. — So what profits us to wriggle? We are foredoomed, we cannot stray from our wizard-set actions. I do not believe that, Idrys! And I have seen a portrait of Elfwyn, likewise in ivory — my father had it from Grandfather and keeps it in a chest with other curiosities of Althalenʼs unspendable treasures. I see nothing like our guest in that face, as I recall it. So what is a Shaping? If the Summoned soulʼs the same, then why not the flesh that clothes it?”

“Because the flesh is gone to worms, my lord, and whether a Shaping need resemble the dead it clothes I leave to wizards. But should the soul not have something to do with Shaping the flesh about it, all the same? I should much doubt he was a Sihhë princess. A king, well he could be. The King the Elwynim believe will come again. Go, go, accept the Elwynim marriage. Iʼll warrant no bride comes across the river.”

“Then why should Mauryl not send him to the Elwynim? And how could a wizard who could raise the sleeping dead so broadly miss his target?”

“Perhaps he didnʼt miss.”

“How not?”

“To wreak most havoc, my lord Prince. Iʼll warrant worse than happened at Emwy comes by spring, and Iʼll warrant bridges are building at least by spring thaw, if not by now, else I would have counseled you more emphatically than I do not to call the border lords in. Let your father the King take this move of yours for foresight — and so it is. But foresight against only one of your enemies, mʼlord Prince. The worst one of all you lodge next your own bedchamber. The King who should come again, my lord. Well that youʼve called Emuin.”

“Emuin was Maurylʼs student.” He wished not to listen to Idrysʼ fancies. But once the thoughts were sailing through his mind, they spread more canvas. “And dare I trust Emuin, if this was all along the design? Whom shall I trust, master crow? You, the arbiter of all my affections?”

“Few,” Idrys said. “Trust few, mʼlord Prince. And only such as you can watch. You say very true: Emuin was Maurylʼs student.”

“Leave me. Iʼve thoughts to think without your voice in my ear.”

Idrys rose, bowed, walked toward the door. Anger was in Cefwynʼs mind. Petty revenge sprang to his lips…harsh belittlement of Idrysʼ fears. But Idrys had never deserved it.

He let Idrys go in silence to the anteroom that was his home, his narrow space between the doors. Sword by his side, Idrys slept, every night ready to defend his own life and the heirʼs should the outside guards fail or fall in their duty. Little wonder Idrysʼ every thought was deception and doubt.

He had sent for Emuin and had now to wait, first for the message to reach his old tutor, and then for Emuin to gather his aged bones onto a horse and ride back. He was not certain now whether he wholly welcomed Emuinʼs intrusion into the matter. He needed time for all that Idrys had told him to sink into bone and nerve. He needed time to know in his own heart what he had taken under his roof, or what manner of situation he had made for himself.

Win his love, Emuin had said. Win his love.

Gods, how much had Emuin known, or guessed, or foreseen about Maurylʼs work? He had questions to ask. He had very many of them.

And it was still, all things considered, a good thing to have sent to Emuin. But more than trusting Emuin to solve matters — he had to solve them in some way that preserved the peace on the border, if in fact Mauryl had aimed at overthrowing the present order.

Wizards and spells. Like Uwen, he had been disposed to believe the accounts of magic as exaggerated, the wizard arts as no more than he was already accustomed to see in Emuinʼs warnings and in the likes of the woman at Emwy — a great deal of show, taking advantage of a fortuitous gust, claiming credit for natural events and natural misfortunes.

But if one did take Tristen for exactly what Emuin claimed him to be — and certainly Tristenʼs continually changing skill argued for something unnatural, as Tristenʼs manner argued for his personal honesty — then all disbelief was foolish, and a prudent prince should take careful consideration, Idrys was very right, even of folk tales and superstitions which might forewarn him what else Mauryl might have done, and how Mauryl might do it: whether spells worked at long or short range, and whether they could grow in strength even after the wizard was dead. He knew the wizard of Ynefel could do far more than cure cattle or luck-bless a pregnant sow. The village of Capayneth had certainly enjoyed far more than luck in Maurylʼs favor.

One dared only so far ignore the possibilities of what Mauryl might have done less beneficently. One dared only so far treat a wizard-gift as what it seemed, and all Maurylʼs purposes as friendly and generous.

Win his love, indeed, win his love. What Emuin had said was not the pious Teranthine sentiment it had sounded. It was a wizardʼs direct advice.