Fortress in the Eye of Time

CHAPTER 24

The leg ached, a constant pain that preyed on temper, with occasional sharp pain that brought a cessation of reason, whereby Annas and the pages walked softly about the place. There had been no sleep. None. After a late, last converse with Efanor, who had gone off to his third-floor rooms, Cefwyn had not so much as gotten out of his clothes in the hours before dawn, when Uwen Lewenʼs-son had come hailing his door-guard, reporting a horse gone from the stables and Tristen out the Zeide gate.

If any other man in the Zeide had slipped the gate on any ordinary night, Cefwyn would have concluded the man was off to some merchantʼs daughter. If any other lord had taken a horse from the stables he might have concluded that the man was some partisan of Herynʼs, and that his gate guards and the camp sentries that let him pass were fools.

But the guards knew this man as his partisan, Sihhë that he was, and had never questioned, never questioned Tristenʼs right to take a horse from the stables or to ride out two guarded gates in succession, because Tristen wore the Kingʼs own cloak and was known throughout the town to have the Kingʼs friendship. If it had lacked any help in the calamity, Tristen had worn a new riding-coat which had the Tower and the Star on it, plain as plain for any gate-guard who failed to know the Sihhë and any Amefin who would for the blink of an eye think of arguing with him.

And because, he had to admit it, he had abandoned Tristen downstairs to the care of a rank of guard that had never received the cautions the guards in the royal residences had had regarding Tristen — with Uwen dismissed upstairs, and on a night of driving rain and turn-of-season cold that had persuaded sentries at two gates to keep their noses inside gate-houses and under canvas — no one had asked the right questions, no one had challenged him, and no one had advised Captain Kerdin, who alone might have raised an objection.

If there was wizardry in Tristen it must be the sort to rob sane, preoccupied men of their better sense, and to convince otherwise sensible and experienced gate-guards that here was the most innocent urgency they had ever met — on the Kingʼs business at that. If he had ordered Tristenʼs escape himself, he could not have found more plausible stories than the various guards had raised in their defense, and he could only hope that Marhanen cloak did not prove a source of danger in a countryside where armed soldiers on the Kingʼs business went in bands for safety. That was the kind of law Heryn Aswydd had kept in his province, and peace was fragile most of all with Heryn Aswyddʼs corpse and six others hanging at his own south gate and no lord at all in power over the Amefin.

Meanwhile Uwen Lewenʼs-son, on little sleep and in an agony of failed responsibility, had taken to the road on one of Cevulirnʼs better mounts with a captain and an élite fifty of Cevulirnʼs light cavalry in search of Tristen. And thank the gods, the lower town guards, damnably lax in other points, swore convincingly that Tristen had left specific word that Ynefel was not his destination.

So where did Tristen know to go in the world, if not to Ynefel? There was Emuin, for one, and in a contrary direction from all the others. The best information they had said that he had gone west, and that only left Althalen, Emwy, and Elwynor, a pretty choice of troubles.

Ask whether lying and evasion were, like swordsmanship and horsemanship, two more lordly arts Tristen had unfolded from his store of amazements. Not that it surmounted the shocking ills of treason and regicide and the consequences that Tristen had seen around him in the last two days, but it was disturbing, all the same, that Tristen had committed such acts so masterfully and so successfully.

And his own restless staring out the window this morning after such events, for a view of, above the wall and the surrounding roofs, gray-bottomed clouds which at least were showing blue sky between, did nothing to ease the ache in his leg or the impatience he felt. He wanted to reach Tristen himself, to have a word with him apart from the officers and the allies, to know what reasoning had prompted Tristen to have left — and to ask what Tristen believed he might do, given what little Tristen knew of the attack against him or the doings up by Althalen.

He paced, bereft of further information on which to decide anything. He leaned on a stick which he refused to use before outsiders, and it had already made his hand sore and did nothing to mend either the pain in his leg or his ill temper. Walking hurt; it was a different hurt from the throb of the limb while he sat, and that was the variance an ill-humored fate gave him on the first day of his reign over a divided realm, a dukeless province, and a pious brother he had as lief, if Efanor crossed him this morning, drown in the nearest deep well.

“Go back to bed,” Idrys said first, when Idrys decided to report in, red-eyed and dusty.

He did not answer Idrys. He was not in a humor to be chided to bed and he was not in a humor to be told, as he could guess by Idrysʼ face, that there was no better news in the search after Tristen.

“I take it there is no news of him,” Idrys said.

“I do not have to tell the Lord Commander. You know there isnʼt.”

“Lewenʼs-son wonʼt give up. I have every confidence.”

“Would that I had.”

“Would Your Majesty care for other news?”

“Is it better?”

“I have searched for this name Hasufin,” said Idrys. “For some few hours. I have made brief inquiries of the annalists and the archivists, rousing them from their beds, and I and my most reliable clerks have run through, in short, the Zeide archives, the local Quinalt library…and the Guard records. Then with notes in hand, and with a fair familiarity with the Red Chronicle of Guelen record, I visited the Bryaltines, reckoning the Amefinʼs local breed of priests might recall items our godly and proper Guelenish Quinalt has forgotten. And, mʼlord King, as you may see, I did my own searching.” Idrys brushed at his doublet in distaste. “I am coated in age and cobwebs.”

“And gained something? Damn it, get to the point.”

“There are Hasufins woven through the warp and weft of the genealogies I plumbed — including, in the Bryalt Book of Kings, one Hasufin, called Heltain, a wizard, rumored as some sort of spiritual antecedent, or, indeed, namesake, of Aswyn, the fourteen-year-old brother of Elfwyn Sihhë of the Guelen Red Chronicle, which, let us recall, our guest had in his hands.”

“And had no time to read. If you believe he made up this tale—”

“By no means. I merely point out he has an interest in the old accounts himself, and one wonders for what he was searching.”

“To the point, crow!”

“Iʼm arriving just now. And I confess I was surprised to see Hasufin as a name of such surprising persistence in the Bryalt accounts — even back hundreds of years. As, let me say, I found several Mauryls of various repute before the records go back into the old Galasite tongue — for which, mʼlord, you must obtain a priest. There are Bryaltine clerks who claim to read that language fluently, but without your orders I declined their assistance. It would have necessitated questions and names named which I did not judge you wished made a matter of gossip.”

“The hell with the Bryaltines. Tristen. Is there anything naming him, while you were about it?”

Idrys heaved a sigh, then, leaned on the back of a chair and ducked his head a moment, evidently gathering patience to deal with an impatient and very short-tempered lord; and Cefwyn repented his curt tone. Idrys had been as sleepless as he.

“No, my lord King,” Idrys said. “I found Triaults, Trisaullyns, Trismindens, and Trisinomes, all married into four Sihhë dynasties, but not a single Tristen under any spelling, in any age, in any chronicle, although I certainly do not claim to have made any exhaustive search in my few hours. I would say the old man plucked his Shapingʼs name from his own fancy — or out of Galasienʼs long history. Who can know? In any case, I no longer think Elfwyn is at issue. I fear Mauryl sent us a soul far less gentle.”

“Yet this Hasufin supposedly at Ynefel is one certain name we do have in this business. You can remember accounts I canʼt. I wasnʼt born until Father and Grandfather were speaking to each other only through the Lord Chamberlain. If they werenʼt shouting. I had nothing of the gossip after the event. What are you looking for?”

“If,” Idrys said, “if the Hasufin of our Sihhëʼs mysterious dream is indeed at Ynefel, those records we cannot possibly find without a perilous venture to Ynefel itself, where Lord Tristen swore — reliably, let us hope — he was not going. But the matter that set me so urgently searching last night — the name Hasufin has the ring of Amefel about it, and, it turns out, by the Bryalt record, it might even be a kinship name for one of the Sihhë of Althalen, though I am hard put to know how a dead prince signifies, or how he could overwhelm Mauryl. But — to confound matters further, the name turns out to be as prevalent as Maurylʼs in the Bryaltine records — which I must say are anecdotal and fragmentary — but,” Idrys said in some satisfaction, “many of that name are reputed to be wizards, all supposedly descended of a very early Hasufin Heltain who studied with someone, yes, my lord King, someone named Mauryl, reputedly in a district which the Bryaltine record called Meliseriedd — a name Iʼve never heard attached to it, but I hazard a guess the district it describes is Elwynor. At least it lay to the north of the river. In delving into civil records the one wisdom I have learned is to join no names into one name until I see proof.”

“But it is well possible that our Mauryl is all one Mauryl. So is it not possible that this Hasufin Heltain is one man?”

“A far leap, Your Majesty. I still refuse to make it, or to attribute anything to a name I cannot otherwise put shape to. So to speak.”

He ignored Idrysʼ wry humor. “Yet the name is in the Sihhë line. That proves some connection to my grandfather, to Mauryl, to Ynefel, and to Tristen.”

“Suggests a connection, my lord King. Which might mislead us. All those things are possible. But none are proved.”

“Still,—”

“Worth inquiry.”

“Prince Aswyn called Hasufin in the Bryaltine book. Was there possibly also another still-living Hasufin when Althalen fell? A namesake uncle? A cousin of the same name? Or was this Aswyn?”

“I looked for all manner of references. One must know, mʼlord King, the records, particularly the early ones, are all anecdotal, nothing of a chronicle in the way of the Guelen book, just the notation that a wizard named Mauryl did this or that, a wizard named Mauryl lifted a cattle-curse at Jorysal in a certain year. A wizard named Hasufin was supposedly associated with the Mauryl who may or may not be the same Mauryl as ours. The trouble is, there are Hasufins aplenty associated with the district for as far back as the records go. And Aswyns. Four at least. Elfwynʼs youngest — not younger, but youngest — brother, the Book of Kings reports as stillborn. And then the same book turns up an Aswyn as brother to Elfwyn with no mention of the stillbirth — typical of the records-keeping.”

Cefwyn leaned heavily on his stick, sank into the nearest chair, and adjusted his leg before him, deciding that this would not be a simple report. “And the lad who died at fourteen?”

“According to the Red Chronicle, which we know, Maurylʼs partisans killed the fourteen-year-old younger brother of Elfwyn king, during your grandfatherʼs attack. According to the Bryaltine record, the Amefin record, mind you, yes, the one Prince Aswyn died at birth, and turns up in further records as living. Then in that record — the Bryalt one, mark you, mʼlord, he has the surname or gift-name Aswyn Hasufin. But no further mention for good and all does the record make of him between two and seven — if it is the same Aswyn and not a third. Two brothers of Elfwyn died by accidents. We do not have their names, though I remotely remember hearing in my youth of one called Hafwys or something of the like. Possibly Hasufin — who knows? I was not born either when Althalen went down.”

“Fevers. Childhood mishaps. In a house reputed for wizardry — one would expect, would one not, fewer fevers and fewer fatal mishaps?”

“There was mention of vows made by the Sihhë king for the life of that infant, some sort of offense to the Galasite pantheon, some hint of an unholy bargain with the gods, the usual sort of thing — but this is a Bryalt record that talks about divine judgment.” Idrys was not a superstitious man. It had the flavor of irony. “From the Bryalt — they might know. The Sihhë king was unlucky in the rest of his reign, at least, lost two sons and died, which brought Elfwyn to the throne within a span of — perhaps fourteen years. That much is not coincidence. And, it seems, even in a royal household, chroniclers grow careless and namesakes confound the record — Iʼve searched archives before, on various accounts, and, understand, I find this confusion nothing unusual, Majesty. An entry goes in, no one records the death. A second child is born, they assign the same name, the chroniclers fail to rectify the account, and someone later attempts to mend matters, further confounding the confounded.”

“Elfwynʼs younger brother was always given, in every account Iʼve heard from Emuin and my mother, as Aswyn, no mention of Hasufin.”

“If we for a brief moment assume the Red Chronicle can be reconciled with the Bryalt account, and that this is Elfwynʼs only surviving brother who appears as Aswyn, and that it is also Hasufin — though they give the age as nine, not twelve — at Elfwynʼs coronation, and that it is not a cousin I found also named Aswyn — an Aswyn who is the right age does appear in further record, a prince among princes, and there were dozens honored with the title but remote in the succession. He was a student, as Elfwyn was, of Mauryl Gestaurien, as who in that court under the age of his majority was not a student of Mauryl? — But, but, lest I forget, my lord King, in this prolific confusion of Aswyns and Hasufins — another name of note: an Emuin, called Emuin Udaman in the chronicle, named as Maurylʼs apprentice, aged thirty-four at that time, if the chronicler made no other mistakes. Is that not remarkable? If that were our Emuin, and not a cousin, that would make his age—”

“Over a hundred.”

“One might certainly ask. And dark-haired still in your memory as well as mine. I debated mentioning that. And must.”

He recalled Emuin of the immaculate Teranthine robes — but more the graying man in ink-stained roughspun, making a most unwizardly ascent of a willow in which his kingʼs sonʼs first hawk had entangled its jesses and tried to break its wings.

Emuin, skinny legs in evidence, retrieving the wayward bird, which bit his thumb and his ear bloody for the favor.

“You find conspiracy under every leaf, master crow. You cannot doubt Emuin. Heʼd laugh at you.”

“A man whose ambitions and actions, like Maurylʼs, may be older than the Marhanen reign? I find at least a question in the coincidence and a duty to report it.”

“I find nothing at all sinister in it. He always claimed to have been Maurylʼs student. Why should he not be in the account? And if we accept that Mauryl was as old as the Amefin believe — as by our experience, he might be — whatʼs a mere hundred years? Why quibble, if we accept Mauryl saw centuries? If we accept that Tristen is — whatever he is — why, gods, indeed, why balk at anything? Our search through archive is for a dead man!”

“One observation more, my lord. I may yet astound you. Emuin, most certainly our Emuin, indisputably, paid a visit to the Bryaltines in this very town when he left Mauryl and came seeking service with your grandfather. But, what is not in the Red Chronicle, but in the Bryalt book, he recorded a curious wish among them: that for a sum of gold, provenance unknown, a sign be written on the wall in letters of curious shape, that the Sihhë star be set in silver there, and that candles in certain number be burned day and night.”

“You jest.”

“Certainly not the sort of shrine one could bribe the Quinaltines to establish. And not one even the Teranthines would countenance.”

“Was it done?”

“Oh, it is there, mʼlord. The size of a manʼs hand, that star, with odd symbols, in a remote corner of the crypt. To this hour the candles, thirty-eight is the specification, burn day and night — tended by someone in constant care. The sum of money must have been considerable. It does go back eighty years, during your grandfatherʼs reign. Perhaps, too, the Bryaltines are very general in their worships; in the villages, I have observed, Bryaltine priests seem very little distinguishable from hedge wizards. Most of all, this is Amefel, my lord, and never did I feel it so keenly as standing in that small shrine.”

“Thirty-eight. Why thirty-eight?”

“Why, twice Nineteen, my lord King. A second Nineteen. A return of the old gods? Another ascendancy of wizardry over men?”

“Damn.”

“Aye, mʼlord.”

“Emuin is Teranthine. A rational man, not a religious. I know him, my teacher, my—”

“The record is there to be read, my lord, in the shrine, if you will I bring it to you. — My lord, granted the Teranthines do shelter him and attest his piety. But they were an obscure sect before he came to them and brought them fame and fortune. As Emuin has grown in favor, in two, now three reigns, so they have prospered in donatives and courtly devotions of lords who would not omit a respectable order, especially now, one favored by the Marhanens. And so blessed, would the Teranthines denounce him willingly for his private devotions, to whatever powers? A minor peccadillo, one of those small matters I doubt Emuin told your grandfather — or your father when your father made Emuin your tutor. I know him well. And I doubt Emuin has ever confessed fully his sins to me — or to the Teranthines, who doubtless do not wish to bear the burden thereof, even if they suspected it. I am tolerant, but not where it regards the overthrow of the realm or fealty to dead wizards.”

“Gods,” Cefwyn muttered, and touched his chest where once he had worn a silver circlet, a Teranthine amulet. But he had given the amulet to Tristen. It had been comfort to him as a child afraid of dark places and his grandfatherʼs nightmares of burning children. It had become a luck-piece when he became a man, if only because Emuin had given it to him. He had seldom thought of the religiousness, only of the friend and counselor. Now he did think of it. Now, perhaps belatedly, he questioned to whom he had given something he treasured, his personal attachment to Emuin.

Emuin had been a father to him, more than his own had been; and to lose both his father and Emuin in a matter of days—

Now, he thought angrily, eyes stinging and hazed, — now you have me to yourself, do you not, master crow? My bird of ill omen. My jealous shadow. Now you have discredited even Emuin. And of course you speak against Tristen. Shall I trust only you, hereafter?

“Emuin is at Anwyfar,” Idrys was saying. “I can send the message. I can summon him. If he is not already on his way, on the news of your fatherʼs—”

“Let Emuin be. Let be, Idrys! Gods! You have an excess of zeal for turning stones.”

“My lord is too generous for his own safetyʼs sake. Go back to the capital, where a King of Ylesuin belongs. Leave your brother this thankless frontier. Above all, I counsel you, do not let Efanor go to Guelemara without you. Far better he stay here in Amefel with you, if you will not go.”

“If Efanor dies here, well-sped? Is that your meaning? Is that what you say?”

“I am my lordʼs man, none else.”

“You do not trust Efanor as my representative? Even absent the chance for my fatherʼs funeral?”

“He is, straight from his devotions in godly Llymaryn, a naïve and believing man. To send him alone among the machinations of your fatherʼs courtiers and the western lords is not wise, my lord king. Hold him here in the place of danger and go yourself back to safety. Hard duty is the lot of superfluous princes, especially if they are contrary-minded. And if Lord Tristen of the Sihhë asks you lend him soldiers to lead, why, give him the Amefin and march them against Ynefel as he wishes. It would please the Amefin commons and most of the lords, who do not mourn Heryn Aswydd or his taxmen or his usurers, and give them common purpose against an enemy not yourself.”

“And if Tristen should succeed, and take Ynefel from this purported enemy — this — Hasufin of various chronicles?”

“Why, good success. I should applaud it, since I cannot counsel you against this Sihhë gift. And if your Lord Warden of Ynefel should instead join with your more numerous enemies across the river — at least your enemies will all be facing you, not standing at your back.”

He drew a deep breath. “And as we spin out this skein of distrust, what should we do with Emuin?”

“Oh, by all means, bring Emuin here. Your Sihhë lord might well need him and his shrine.”

“Idrys,—”

“I am entirely serious, and I pray you take me so. Any other course may make your reign a short one.”

“Already men of my fatherʼs court think I had a hand in my fatherʼs death.”

“I have not heard that said today.”

“Oh, but it was said often yesterday. It was the reason of Efanorʼs coming to Henasʼamef, master of all suspicion! Maybe it was an empty court my brother hoped to find, where he could ensconce himself and his Quinalt advisers, while Father caught me consorting with Elwynim and Amefin sorcerers. Maybe he was honest in his hope to save me from sorcery and heresy. Killing Heryn did not prevent my enemies from shaping their own belief, nor will it in future. So shall I likewise murder my brother, my black and bloody counselor? A pious and believing man Efanor may be, but he is no innocent in intrigue. He and I survived my grandfather together, and my uncle is in his grave. Do not talk to me of courtiers besieging Efanorʼs sweet innocence! I will not have you of all people fall under his spell!”

“I am not unaware of his abilities, nor blind to his ambitions — nor to his Quinalt supporters. Do what you will. You are King. When you are an old king, none will dare remember it to you.”

“I would remember. And they would write it, after I am dead.”

“What care you then? Likely they will write it anyway.”

“But I would know. I have to sleep of nights. I love my brother, damn you! Is that a fault in me?”

“My lord King, leave this place, leave Amefel and all its influences. There is too much of the Old Kingdom here. You belong eastward, in Guelemara. When you can breathe that air, you will forget all these morose thoughts — and this Sihhë revenant.”

“Are you afraid, Idrys? Have I finally gone where you fear to follow? Have I possibly gotten ahead of you?”

“I am my lordʼs man.”

“Your advice to me once had more than retreat in it.”

“Shall I give you the advice I like best? Kill Efanor, kill the Sihhë, and be rid of Emuin all at one stroke. But you would never hear that. Kill Orien Aswydd and her sister. But you will not. Kill Herynʼs four feckless cousins, who will lie down with conspirators and get up with ideas, but you will not.”

“No,” he conceded. “I will not.”

Idrys frowned. “So. Who is to the fore now, mʼlord King? I, or you?”

“There is yet,” Cefwyn said, “no news from Sovrag?”

“No, my lord. Nothing.”

“It is possible, you know, that even Tristenʼs fears are born of too much rich dessert and a disposition to dream of that place on uneasy nights. It may be nothing. He may come back on his own, confounding us all.”

“You dismiss all my advice out of hand, then complain I am too timid. What shall I say else? Dream, my King, of a safe and pleasant province.”

“I hear you, Idrys. I warn myself by everything youʼve said. And hear me, now: I would rather my brother in court with the northern barons about him than to see him command the southern barons in the field. These marchlanders, excluding Amefel, are the most formidable troops in the whole of Ylesuin, and Efanor is far more to Amefelʼs liking than I; I know it; Efanor is everywhere better loved than I—”

“How not? He has never had to use the hard edge of authority: he can be fair weather to every man. Prince Efanor simply listens and lets every man shape his own desires about him. A reigning king has no such luxury.”

“So there is no remedy.”

“No, no, no, mʼlord King. Give Efanor real authority. Give it too much and too early. Let him fail — save his life. Then he will also appear in your debt.”

“What, fail at the cost of my southern lords? Of this border? If he did try to general the south, provoked a war with the Elwynim, and decimated the best troops we have, — then where should we be, Idrys, thou and I? In the capital, — with battalions of courtiers?” The leg hurt at a sudden shift of weight; he winced and eased it, and shook his head. “I will not give him the south.”

“Ah, but release the lords home. Theyʼd not answer a second summons this season. Itʼs coming up harvest-time, and winter. They will sit in their capitals. Meanwhile let him loose his Quinalt legalists on the Amefin, and heʼll not be the beloved prince by spring. Not in Amefel.”

“Let him loose the Quinalt on the Amefin and I wonʼt able to hold Amefel.”

“My lord,—”

“I have made up my mind, Idrys.” He waved a hand at the table. “I have signed orders for levies on the villages and master Tamurin has made you lists, names and ages. I do not invoke them yet, understand. But they are there, against need, and can go out at any hour, as faithful a list as the Aswyddsʼ taxmen own. — Ah! and speaking of Orien and Tarien—”

“Yes, mʼlord King?”

“The ladies Aswydd are mortally penitent, have you heard? They apply to be freed of arrest.”

“Surely Your Majesty jests.”

“Oh, I am considering it. Better them than their rivals, whose account books we have not discovered. — And the mayor of the town wishes to see me. So do various of the Amefin thanes, earls, lords…whatever they style themselves and however they relate to the Aswydds, whoʼve been in every bed in the province. Likewise the local patriarch of the Quinalt wishes audience — I can guess that matter. I shall make donations for services in the capital. And, no, Iʼll not send my fatherʼs body with Efanor when he goes — I stand by my word in council. No funeral until I bring our father home, no chance for Efanor to display his extravagant grief in public show, even unintended, to raise hopes of him and rumors about me, have no fear. — Gods! I find this gruesome.”

“But wise, my lord. Not to remove your father from the province without justice done him — is a good and pious thought. I did applaud it.”

“I have learned from you.” He moved, and winced. “I do thank you, Idrys, for all your dusty labors. I am warned, regarding Emuin, and I shall not forget — but I look for him, I do look for him. I shall thank you, also, if you advise me at whatever hour he arrives.”

“My lord King could thank me well by taking himself to bed before he lames himself.”

“Take to your own for at least two hours. I need your clear wits, Idrys.”

“Majesty.” Idrys bowed, unsmiling, picked up the lists and the levy orders, and departed.

Cefwyn wrapped his arms about his ribs, cursed, and then in febrile restlessness, rose up and began to pace the room, cursing his sore hand at every other step with the stick, which took his mind from the ache in his leg and the greater ache in his sensibilities. He wrapped himself in righteousness and anger sufficient to deal with the Aswyddim and the Quinalt conjoined.

Then he went out into the anteroom and opened the door, little caring now for the pride that had kept him from using the stick in view of others. The pain was more. He gazed across the hall, where guards still stood at Tristenʼs door, awaiting what — gods alone knew, doing what, the gods alone cared. They were assigned: they were on duty. No matter that there was no one there to guard.

Soldiers, Tristen asked. Soldiers, for the godsʼ sake. In so short a time Tristenʼs concerns had changed so much.

He remembered the methodical rise and fall of a blade in Tristenʼs hands. A dark figure wreaking destruction without pity.

The bowed, sad figure that rode ahead of them homeward, on the tired red mare.

He leaned painfully on the stick and turned, furious with his own pain and faced with the innocent guards at his own door, two Guelen guards, still of the Princeʼs Guard, and, part of the lending of trusted men of other commands, two Lanfarnessemen, giving him Guelen of the Dragon Guard and the Princeʼs Guard to spare to other posts.

Then, on unremitting duty, there were the two in chains, lordly Erion and the river-brat Denyn, horseman and pirate, keeping at least the semblance of peace between themselves — and looking anxious under his close notice.

“How do you fare?” he asked them, fighting the pain, compelling himself to be patient and soft-spoken, when an outcry of rage was boiling behind his teeth.

“Well, Your Majesty,” Erion murmured.

“The wounds are healing?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

He looked at Denyn. “How do you deal with your companion?”

“Very well, Your Majesty.”

Erionʼs right wrist and Denynʼs left were wrapped with leather against the galling chain.

“Do they,” Cefwyn asked the Guelen sergeant, “keep the peace?”

There was a little hesitation, a tense regard from the sergeant. “Aye, mʼlord King.” He did not entirely believe that report, and regarded the pair skeptically and at length, but it was unprecedented that a Guelen sergeant should lie for two miscreant foreigners. He had made matters clear to the fractious barons. What remained was cruel, and a difficult matter for his own guard, and it challenged his own pain. “Free them of the chain,” he said, and walked away — insisting to himself that he was himself free, that he was not bound to Tristen; that he owed nothing to Tristen; that Tristenʼs apprehensions were of no substance and Tristenʼs appearance in his court in this most perilous time for Ylesuin was more related to an old manʼs natural demise than to any immutable destiny of the Marhanens — and that Tristenʼs fears were no more than innocence confronted with the very frightening sight of the Kingʼs justice.

Which…had not stayed Tristenʼs hand on the field at Emwy. He was, if one believed anything about Tristen, a conjured soul who had shown a frightening skill at arms, a conjured soul who was mostly surely not the feckless, bookish Elfwyn of the Red Chronicle. There had been defenders in that hour who had fought for Elfwyn — some of them his heirs; but Tristen had defended him. Tristen had saved him from certain death. Was that the action of an enemy? Was that a man he should doubt, no matter what Idrys found or did not find in archive?

Perhaps he should have listened to Tristen. But to send troops to combat Tristenʼs nightmares of Althalen would do no favor, not to the men nor probably to Tristenʼs reputation.

And if Tristenʼs fears owned more solid form, if such a band met not with nightmares but with living enemies, come on reconstructed bridges across the Lenúalim, it would engage Ylesuin prematurely on a front he was not ready to open — which he did not wish to open at all if he could delay the matters he had with the Elwynim Regent into sensible negotiation. He was not, whatever his anger, whatever his passion said, about to lay waste the whole Lenúalim valley in retaliation. He had a kingdom of provinces in precarious balance, he had a southern frontier with the Chomaggari always looking for advantage. He could not, for a gesture, for vengeance, for any consideration, give way to temper and attack Elwynor, even when his own spies said Elwynor was in extreme unrest: he dared not lock both their kindred peoples in a struggle the coastal kingdoms would see as their opportunity to take lands long disputed on his own borders.

Meanwhile there was hope: the Regent was old. If the Sihhë prophecy were the substance behind this uneasiness and this resurgency in wizards, if the Elwynim knew the Sihhë standard was brought to light in Henasʼamef, and that a Sihhë lord stood high in council, something might well begin to change on the Elwynim side of the river, and peace that had been impossible for two generations might be possible in the third.

Give me opportunity, he asked privately of the gods he privately doubted — because in two generations of Marhanen rule no King of Ylesuin had had sure command of the western marches.

In two generations of Marhanen rule no King of Ylesuin had had a hope of establishing lasting peace on any border.

And he could not allow Tristen to leave him — not in respect to his hopes of peace and a reign that would not be remembered for its disasters.

Nor for his own sake, he found; it was a large part of his anger and distress that, absent Tristen, he could see no one — no one he could look to for his own happiness. Emuin would ask him common sense. Idrys would lay out cruel choices and remorseless reason for taking them. Tristen asked him simple questions that made him look again at simple things he thought he knew.

He had no friend, none, in his entire life, that his father had not minutely examined and appointed to serve that function. He had no prospect or enterprise to draw him from day to day except the duty of a king. And of men who crowded close about an heir apparent, and those, far more numerous, who must settle their future hopes and daily needs upon a king, he had three he relied on: Annas for his comfort and his good sense; Idrys for his dark and practical advice, Emuin for the knotty questions of justice a king could face — but of all he knew, he had never found any man who reached the less definable needs of his heart, until, that was, Tristen asked him foolish questions and touched those things in him he had thought men gave up asking. Tristen had brought the wondering of boyhood back to him, and he found himself thinking about things and looking at them in odd ways, when for years he had simply defended his own thoughts, taken wild pleasures to give his detractors a less vital bone to gnaw, done his duty to the Crown and barred his soul against those with something to gain of him.

A king could live without a friend: gods knew his grandfather had, and his father, by what he knew. He might reign long, might become well respected, might die in a productive, peaceful, perhaps safer, old age, alone.

But his heart would have died long before that day.