Fortress in the Eye of Time

CHAPTER 27

Emuin had hangover, abundantly, the natural and just result of a pious life returned suddenly to old habits. Emuin was, Idrys reported, suffering the prayers of two pious brothers above his bed, and they were brewing a noxious tea.

It served him right, Cefwyn thought. He had, right now, this morning, the departure of the Duke of Murandys to the capital: Murandys had come with his fatherʼs men, had fought at Emwy, and would go back to the capital full of news.

He had, on his desk, the disposition of the Lord Commander of the Dragon Guard. The Princeʼs Guard had to guard the heir. That was now Efanor. He would not cede Idrys from his own service, which meant replacing Gwywyn, but he had to consider the morale of the Dragon Guard, which had a strong attachment to its Lord Commander. Promoting Gwywyn to higher office was the apparent answer — but he had to find the right office.

Soon, atop his other worries, delegations from Guelemara were bound to come pouring in, condolences and good wishes from lords offering to give their oaths, as they were obliged to do, and this and that royal secretary with papers to sign — the inevitable flood of petitioners who thought a new reign might give new answers. He had seen his father face it with their grandfatherʼs death, he braced himself for it, and meanwhile he had the local business to attend. He was already arranging to receive the oaths of the several barons, — counting Orien — who were within daily reach of him, a ceremony which had to be arranged in due formality, with all respect to the color and pageantry that bolstered the dignity of the courtiers as much as that of the King.

But, no, at the moment he did not want to consider the menu for the attendant festivities, or his wardrobe — his Guelen tailor was beside himself, having discovered himself suddenly in charge of a Kingʼs oath-taking for a third of the provinces. Master Rosyn, at the height of his dreams, was obsessed with secrecy and cursing the necessity of dealing with what cloth two very rivalrous and doubtless gossip-prone merchants of Henasʼamef had in hand.

He did not count his tailorʼs requirements for secrecy quite on a par with the reports that were not coming in from the border. He privately feared there would be no ceremony at all, and that the oath-taking would be on horseback and soon: the account-books on his table now weighed down a set of maps also far more secret than master Rosynʼs forays to the drapersʼ shops. The books contained the Aswyddsʼ reckonings of the armories and the Amefin levies; and, on separate parchments, a small curling pile, were the voluntary but probably far more accurate accounts of the other southern barons detailing their resources. War at least on some scale was all but a foregone conclusion to the building of those bridges, and the death of the Regent (if Emuinʼs wizardly knowledge was accurate and Uleman Syrillas was in fact dead and not leading his forces across the river) did not mean peace: it would not affect the Elwynim rebels except to encourage more reckless moves inside and outside Elwynor.

But their fighting each other under such circumstances was a possibility, and he hoped such a war was long and very wearing on them before the victor turned any other direction.

If, in order to gain the advantage of surprise over the Elwynim before they spilled over the river, he went to war immediately, he might face an enemy divided and vulnerable. If he raised an army, however, it meant taking men from the harvest in his own lands, a harvest now in progress and already suffering from the rains — and he would have angry lords and hungry peasants on his hands, especially if later intelligence proved it unnecessary. He had also to consider that there would be no demonstrable gain of land or property from such a war, as he was certain there would not be: they could hold Elwynor out of Amefel, but never hope to take and hold Elwynim territory — while Elwynor could gain a province, if it could peel away Amefel.

The warring earls of Elwynor might unite if he attacked, uneasy and fragile union though it might be. And he himself was a new King, bolstered with the popular expectations of a new reign and vulnerable to those expectations turning very quickly to apprehensions: any early reverse could make the new King of Ylesuin look a fool, not even considering the reasonable anxiousness over Maurylʼs demise, and the shifting of all balance of power in the region — which certainly his barons were considering. In any loss of confidence in him, the barons north and south would have their heads together in two opposing councils making plans to take certain decisions into their own hands, and to assure their own survival.

There was all that at risk in going to war. But if he wagered everything that the Elwynim would not move until spring, and if he acted too late, and could not hold the Elwynim out of his land, they could be defending Henasʼamef from siege it was ill-prepared to sustain. The walls of his only walled town in the province were not modern. The inner citadelʼs defenses were the only ones up to modern standard, which said a great deal about where Heryn Aswydd regarded his real threats to be, but the outer town defenses were, he had seen from the first hour he rode up on the town, generally too low to protect against the engines he was certain Elwynim engineers were as capable of building as were his own engineers. Modern ballistae would send fire and stones of tremendous weight right over the wall which two generations of Marhanen kings had not seen fit to authorize raised, and which Heryn probably had never asked to raise, preferring to spend the money on his marble floors and his wardrobe.

Two generations of Marhanen kings, however, had not considered as urgent the possibility they would be the besieged inside Henasʼamef and not the besiegers outside.

All of which argued to him that Efanor might be right, and that perhaps he should retreat to the capital immediately. But his leaving Amefel would virtually cede a rich and generally willing province to Elwynor: Amefel had no loyal lord, the earls were divided, and its fall was certain in the absence of a strong royal hand on the reins. If it did fall, in the stead of a deep and treacherous river, Elwynorʼs southern frontier with Ylesuin would be a wide land boundary defined by nothing more than a meandering brook — a vast, open approach with well-maintained roads leading right to the heart of Ylesuin and Guelessar itself.

Ceding Amefel, whether by policy or by defeat in war, was not a viable option: Amefel one summer, and an Elwynim army coming right down those well-maintained highroads by the next spring. The Elwynim need not spend any time consolidating their hold on a province the commons of which were of the same customs and religion as themselves, and considering they had both been the heart of the Sihhë holdings only eighty years ago.

He had never conducted a war. Skirmishes, yes; the wide-scale movement of fair-sized forces against bandit chiefs on the edges of Ylesuin…but no outright war between Ylesuin and another kingdom.

He had the dicta of his grandfather, helpful advice such as: Make the first strike and make the last one; Taking prisoners encourages surrender (this from the man who had butchered the Sihhë at Althalen); and, lastly, Never outmarch your baggage.

The latter seemed sensible advice. Tents and supper were a reasonable requisite for men who had to keep all Elwynor from pouring across the bridges — who might already, if the silence out of Emwy was an indication, have established themselves in fortified positions across the river. He had read about fortifications such as the Sihhë of the middle reigns, notably Tashânen, had built. One could see remnants of them in the ditches all about Amefel.

The earthworks Tashânenʼs Art of War described had been his despair in Emuinʼs hard tutelage. Even the copied Guelen version, in the modern alphabet, had not been easy going for a nine-year-old. But it had stayed with him. It was part of him. When he was twelve he and Efanor had dug a miniature of such earthworks in the middle of the herb garden, which had won them severe reprimand: cookʼs wife had turned an ankle and fallen very painfully in their siege of the thyme and the goldenseal.

He did not forget the old lessons. There had been no place to use them. Earthworks and rapidly advanced entrenchments ill-suited a bandit war in the stony terrain of the foothills eastward. But defending a valley of villages and farms and prosperous towns was another matter.

Tashânen had dug in along the Lenúalimʼs lower course in his war, combining mobility behind the fortifications with clever design, reshaping the land itself to make it more convenient for his enemy to do what he wanted his enemies to do. More, Tashânen, relying, as Sihhë would, only seldom on war engines, and far more on mobility, had still set outlying defenses to make their use against him impossible. He had had no hesitation to attack in winter, at planting or harvest, or any other time inconvenient for the enemy — possible, since the Sihhë of those days had had a large standing army that did not go home on the annual schedule of farmers: it had been hellish famine in the lands where that war was fought, but Tashânen had kept it out of his own territory, another lesson.

The warfare of the Marhanens had never been so elaborate or so deliberate: Grandfather had been one of Elfwynʼs generals, but, again, King Tashânen had subdued the whole south when, consequent of a rift in the Sihhë royal house, a claimant to the throne had broken away and fortified himself, as he had thought, invincibly in what was now Imor Lenúalim. Grandfather in his day had faced no such advanced threat or tactical necessity: Grandfather in the wars he had undertaken for the Sihhë had faced nothing but what existed today, a matter of subduing isolated rebels and pacifying the perpetually troublesome Chomaggari border — skirmishes that required mobility over strength, and on which various lords of Men had gained fair reputations of generalship.

Entrenchments had not been the style, not for hundreds of years, not since Tashânenʼs dynasty had dwindled away in foolish grandsons, enabled by Tashânenʼs brilliance to be foolish and to base their court in luxurious, unwalled Althalen. The Art of War had existed in one known copy, which his grandfather had taken and had copied for his own use along with various other Sihhë works — fortunately not burned by the Quinalt like so much else. It was one of his grandfatherʼs best acts, the saving of such Sihhë wisdom — granted Grandfather had burned the library at Althalen, not intending the fire, so he claimed.

And if a general taught by some other surviving copy of Tashânenʼs Art of War were ordering things on the Elwynim side, it was possible he could look not only for bridge-building across the river at several points, not one, and on the land border a series of incursions to establish fortifications at various points along the frontier, where the enemy would dig in behind steep wall-and-trench formations designed to funnel cavalry into brutal traps; that situation could last for several seasons, the enemy seeming to claim no more than a few hundred paces of territory.

But from those initial castellations, the enemy would extend wall-and-trenchworks to the left and right until they formed a formidable earthwork, increasingly difficult to take, and a screen behind which the enemy might shift forces about and arrange surprise excursions into the countryside: then try to dislodge them, or prevent their taking one set of villages, and the next, and the next.

Considering the Sihhë wars, which had been fought on this very land, before, there was indeed a way to attack and hold a territory the size of a kingdom. Barrakkêth had done it first, through wars rarely involving siege; and the halfling Tashânen, whether by his own genius or by relying on some other work now lost, had repeated Barrakkêthʼs feat and written down his tactics.

But Barrakkêth, one of the five true Sihhë, had relied on magic, wizardry, whatever Sihhë truly used, as well as arms, and come down from the Hafsandyr, where Men were, if anything, a distant rumor and where, one supposed, wizardsʼ towers were common as haystacks — more common, granted there was, by other account, nothing but barren ice to live on, as far as the eye could see, and gods knew what sustained a people there besides magic.

What then, did one do, if oneʼs opponents could work magic? He had seen in the last two days the efficacy of wizardry at getting messages passed — while his own couriers could not. The whole question was a matter Tashânenʼs book had scanted, though supposedly there had been Sihhë and magic on both sides. And Tashânen, mortally disappointing for the boy of nine who had expected magic as his reward for pressing on in a very demanding text, had not so much as mentioned it except in reference to Barrakkêth. He wondered why now. He wondered was it forbidden, or simply buried between the lines so matter of factly his eyes could not see it. Did the Sihhë put some sort of magical barriers about them? Did they curse their enemies? Was there simply some point of honor about war and wizardry?

There was Tristen. If they could find him, there was Tristen for advantage — if Tristen had any sense of what to do. He could lose abundant sleep on that score.

Worse, he was not in Tashânenʼs position, able to snap his fingers and move an army without destroying his own source of supply: he sat, instead, at the edge of harvest, with winter approaching, in a town vulnerable to siege, with no earthworks to defend it — although that was at least one thing he could change at Henasʼamef, if he was willing to sacrifice the three-hundred-year-old orchards and pasture hedges.

But that fortification set him inside entrenchments that were a damned embarrassing trap to be in, a king of Ylesuin sitting still while the Elwynim hammered at him. They had gotten ahead of him with their bridges. He might try to take them down without their using them. But it was a long river, and action at one place might bring action at another — besides that he had limited numbers of men to take away from the fields to create such an elaborate defense.

They would more than lose their harvest for certain if Henasʼamef fell.

And, with all disadvantages, the notion of making Henasʼamef too tough a nut to crack did tie the Elwynim down to a siege in which they could be under attack from the other provinces, unless they wished to rush past an untaken town to attack Guelemara. That would be a mistake if they did it, exposing their supply lines to attack from Henasʼamef.

Fortifying Henasʼamef with earthworks would not please the peasantry, of course, nor the lords who derived income from those fertile, long-tilled fields, which in turn thrived on the sweepings of the lordly stables.

But fortifying that outer wall might be an answer to the townʼs other defensive faults.

He had the book with him. It was in his small chest of personal items. He was reading it again, had it under lock and key so as not to have it disappear to the Amefin, and hoped the Elwynim earls did not have a better book. They might. The Quinalt burning of the libraries had not gotten to their side of the river, and gods knew what they had, as gods knew what was sitting in Maurylʼs tower, prey to the mice and Tristenʼs fancied enemy.

He wished he could see how magic worked into Tashânenʼs account. Emuin had professed not to know, except to say the Sihhë had used it — or wizardry, which distinction Emuin had drawn in Tashânenʼs case, and an angry nine-year-old had not paid strictest attention: gods, heʼd deserved the stick, and not gotten it at the right times.

He also wished he could believe he had months to prepare. But the system of scouts and post riders he had instituted (lacking magic or a wizard reliably willing to inform him) had been supposed to shuttle back and forth with messages regularly from a watch on every bridgehead on the river, and settling Kingʼs men in way stations or villages, whichever happened to be feasible.

It was supposed to keep him constantly apprised of events on the river, and damn it, the system, like any new system, began with problems: the messengers from two of the three sites had come trailing in, one two hours late, complaining of heavy rain, and the other confessing that he had mistaken an intersection of roads in the dark and the bad weather and ridden an hour and more along a road that proved to lead to a sleeping and terrified village.

But the rider from Emwy-Arys never had made it in at all. He hoped it was for as silly a reason, but it was making him increasingly concerned — the man never had shown up, and now, at midafternoon, he reckoned he could begin looking for the return of the messenger who had to check on the messenger.

And if that man failed, they could assume that their entire scheme had worked and that something had gone very wrong on the section of border nearest Marna, the section where they had patrols out, the section where his father had been ambushed, and where they had a village of dubious loyalty.

If something had happened to that messenger, (and he was down to asking Emuin whether he could see that matter, once Emuinʼs headache subsided) it meant a siege of Henasʼamef, he would wager, before snowfall, the Elwynim intending to disrupt the harvest and prevent Henasʼamef from storing adequate food, as well as to rampage through the villages during a time when the roads did not make relief easy.

It meant, of course, that the Elwynim disrupted their own harvest by taking men away from the farms, but if in years previous they had had the foresight to hold reserves of their grain, they could bring it from Elwynor, managing the extended supply that Grandfather had declared was the most important item to have secured: Never rely on the farmers for food, was another of Grandfatherʼs rules; it makes the farmers mad, gives your enemy willing reports, and it never amounts to what you think it will once you most need it.

Grandfather was silent on the problems of feeding the farmers of Amefel while the armies of five provinces and all the enemy camped on their fields and their sheep-meadows — when the Amefin were farmers and shepherds of the chanciest loyalty in all Ylesuin. As well the King did stand on their pastures; holding Amefel otherwise would not be possible.

And damn Efanorʼs Quinalt priest, who had been sniffing around the local market, and had this very morning, in these unsettled times, had the town guard arrest a simples-seller who happened to have the old Sihhë coinage for amulets in her stock. Efanor of course supported the priest. Efanor—

The door opened, a guard holding the door and a windblown, panting page unable to get out his message. “Your Majesty!” the boy said, turning a bow into a hands-on-knees gasp for wind. He had run the stairs, by the look of him. “Your Majesty. The Elwynim—”

It was a cursed bad word on which to run out of breath.

“—with banners and all, coming on the gates, Your Majesty!”

“The whole army?”

A wild shake of the head. “No, Your Majesty. No.” Another space for breath. “With the Ivanim, down by their camp. Theyʼll be coming in the gates and right through the town next! So the messenger said!”

“Will they?” Cefwyn did not think so. He pushed back from the table and levered himself to his feet. “Boy, run down to the stable, have horses saddled. Taywys, — ” That for the guard who had brought the boy. “Advise the Lord Commander, and have men to ride down with me. Go!” The leg hurt and he did not look forward to the stairs. He had arranged his whole day so that he need not go down those steps today, and now the damned page had gone, the guard had gone, the servants were not at hand, and, needing to dress for outdoors, he was daunted by the prospect of doing it alone: he had begun to measure such small distances as that to the door and back as he had only a fortnight ago measured distances between provinces.

But the whole Elwynim troop could be riding through the gates and measuring his inadequate town walls if he delayed to call Annas and the pages and put on the prudent mail shirt or the elegant velvet coat with the royal crest. If he had to deal with some Elwynim demand for territory or a challenge to combat, he could cut a martial enough figure on horseback with a soldierʼs cloak slung about him, and damn what was beneath.

He took the cursed stick in hand, ordered the door guard as he passed to go back and fetch his cloak, and started down the hall without it: he declined to descend the stairs carrying its weight or having it swirling across his view of the steps when his footing was unsure as it was. The one guard hovered while he descended, and the Olmern lad, Denyn Keiʼs-son, who had gone back to fetch his cloak, overtook him before he reached the bottom, offering it to him as he went.

“Iʼll put it on outside,” he said curtly to Denyn, and to the guard who had dogged him down the steps as if he could have rescued him from behind in a fall: “Donʼt flutter ʼround me, damn it. If youʼd be of use, get in front.” He thought about descending the outside steps without the stick, but he considered the spectacle and, worse, the omen of the King of Ylesuin tumbling down them onto the courtyard, and let prudence rule.

The whole descent took long enough that a horse was saddled and ready for him at the bottom — not Danvy: Danvy was down in pasture, recuperating from his cuts and bruises, and Hamanʼs chief assistant had given him that damned blaze-faced, showy black Efanor had ridden, when they had saddled everything in the stable to remount Efanor and his company: Synanna, — who was a good horse in most points, but tall; and facing that climb to the stirrup, in which he had to use the help of the guard, he thanked the gods it was his right, not his left, leg wounded.

He handed his stick down to the groom with an order to keep it for him, and took the cloak the guard handed up, steadying Synannaʼs foolery with his feet and his knees: his right leg hurt with the pains of hell as he slung the cloak about him and used his knee to steady Synanna from a compensatory shift sideways.

More, the horse was sore, having been ridden that breakneck course for Emwy the last time out of the stable. Consequently he had his ears back and was going to take every chance to have things his way on this outing. The horse was looking for excuses as he rode to the gate with five of the guard clattering after — and the Kingʼs standard-bearer riding to catch up, still unfurling the Kingʼs red banner, at which Synanna threw his head and acted the thorough fool under the gate arch.

Another horseman overtook them there and fell in beside him: Idrys, on black Drugyn, this time having heard the summons. The standard-bearer and the bearer of Idrysʼ personal banner made it to their position in the same general flurry of riders.

“I had the report,” Idrys said.

“Gods know what this regards,” he said. They passed through the town streets and on the cobbles Synanna wanted to drop into his worst gait, which took work to prevent; it hurt, and stopping it hurt, and he was in far less pleasant a mood as he reached the lower town and saw the town gate standing wide — to welcome the Elwynim, one supposed. He was not thoroughly gracious as first Cevulirn and a small number of riders, with the White Horse standard and pennons and all, rode up and joined them at that open gate.

Then Umanon and three of his lieutenants arrived, making a collection of banners enough to make a brave show for a King whose wounded leg and whose temper could not stand much more of Synannaʼs jolting trot.

But his two loyal lords might have shut the gates and met the damned Elwynim where they could not get a good look inside or a head count on all the camps down that lane.

“Pass the word to all the watches,” he said to the gate-guards. “No foreign banner and no foreign courier is to pass this gate until an officer of the Dragon Guard comes down himself and takes charge of them. Do you hear that?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” came the answer; “Yes, Your Majesty,” came in awestruck tones at his back as he rode out westward with his growing company.

And there on the muddy road, plain as a horse in a henyard, were the Elwynim, with the banners of three earls behind the black and white and gold Tower banner of the Regent of Elwynor.

And with them, the pennons of six squads of the Ivanim light horse.

That was much better; Cevulirnʼs men were escorting the visitors in. There was Uwen Lewenʼs-son, up at the fore. And best of all, Tristen, thank the blessed gods: he had no idea how all three elements had gotten together, but he was both vastly relieved and disquieted anew, and for the same reason.

Synanna went into his bone-jarring trot in his momentary lapse. He corrected it, and in the abating of pain, and past the cracking satin of his own red banner, saw a black-haired woman in a mail shirt and a billow of mud-spattered blue skirt that blew back on white linen — a woman, his startled gaze informed him, who rode preceded only by the Regentʼs standard-bearer, ahead of the other banners; more, the Regentʼs crown flashed in that mass of dark hair — and he knew that hair, that heart-shaped face that had resided for months in a keepsake chest in his bedchamber.

“The Regentʼs daughter, in the flesh,” Idrys said, coldest reason. “No sign of the lord Regent. And with Ynefel. What have we knocking on our gates, mʼlord King?”

“Iʼll wait to see,” he muttered, while his thoughts were flitting wildly to Tristenʼs safety, bridges spanning the Lenúalim, the missing messenger, the whereabouts of the lord Regent Uleman, the young ladyʼs distractingly pretty and apparently unconscious display—and her reasons for approaching the gates of Henasʼamef.

To pursue a royal marriage by passage of arms? He did not think it likely. But she was certainly far deeper into Amefel than any lordly delegation reasonably ought to come without his leave. It was an extravagant challenge of his good nature, which the Elwynim might guess was not good at all at the moment.

And Tristen showed up in this business?

Trust Tristenʼs naïve confidence. And damn Idrys if he dared remind him now he had predicted Tristenʼs blithe honesty could be his bane someday.

Their two parties reached a distance at which their banner-bearers mutually stopped for protocols, and he rode up even with his banner, with Idrys riding beside him and Cevulirn and Umanon and their standard-bearers staying behind him. The young woman similarly advanced to the Regentʼs standard, and one man rode to her side.

“Weʼve come to speak with the King,” that man called out.

“Stay back,” he said to Idrys, and raised the wager by riding forward of Idrys. Only his banner-bearer advanced with him.

There was consternation on the opposing manʼs part, a frown on the ladyʼs face as her captain put out a hand, clearly wishing her to make no reciprocal advance. But the young woman rode forward alone, and the Regentʼs standard-bearer advanced with her.

“I am King Cefwyn,” he said as she stopped her horse within a lanceʼs length of him. The portrait-painter had not lied, never mind the mud and the mail coat: the image that had haunted his more pensive evenings was facing him in life, a face pale and wind-stung and afraid, and a resolve not giving backward a step.

“The lord of Ynefel has made himself our hostage,” she said, “against your grant of safe conduct for me and my men back across the border.”

“I shall certainly grant that. I would be obliged, however, if you returned me the lord of Ynefel and accepted my simple word to that effect, gracious lady. Am I correct? Do I recognize you, or have you a sister?”

“I am the Regent.” The voice quavered slightly. “My father is dead, last evening, Your Majesty. I have come to ask your forbearance for our presence in your lands, and your permission to fortify a camp in your territory.”

So Emuin was right. It was a sad event for the lady to report, a grief more recent than his own. It was, moreover, a very precise military term, doubtless her advisorsʼ idea, which she had been told to ask in its precise wording. He wondered if she understood it.

“To fortify a camp,” he echoed. His view of blowing skirts and white, mud-spattered linen was competing with the consideration of Elwynim in view of his very vulnerable town. “I give you my sincere condolences, and ask why fortified, Your Most Honorable Grace.”

“I understand that Elwynim crossed the river against your father the King up in Emwy district.”

“Yes,” he said, not seeing how this answered his question. “They did. In collusion with the Aswyddim. We recovered shields from that field, and wounded now dead, three of them of Lower Saissonnd.”

“Caswyddian,” she declared without hesitation. “Lord Caswyddian of Saissonnd. A rebel against my father — a rival of Aséyneddin.”

He had heard rumors, he knew that name and had marked it down as a man who would pay in Herynʼs fashion, did he turn out to have been on that field at Emwy, or to have known of it — and did he ever fall into his hands; but he did not wish to tell her what he had heard or how much he knew. “So you bring Elwynorʼs troubles onto Amefin soil, and want to fortify a camp, making us, I suppose, your allies of a sort, certainly as Aséyneddin will see it. That could cause us trouble. And, forgive my suspicion, Your Grace, but of how many men do you propose to make this camp?”

“These men—” There was the least tremor in the ladyʼs chin, the first thorough fracture in her composure. “—these fifteen men, sir. Thirty-three were camped with my father. A band we think was Caswyddianʼs attacked us last night and half my men stayed to guard our retreat, so that I might remain alive to make this request — in which regard, I would ask you, if you would, if you would be so gracious, should they chance into your hands — place them under the same safe conduct.”

That last seemed both sincere and from a lady not used to asking abject favors of strangers.

“I shall,” he said, “most gladly, and I shall advise my searchers to be careful. I must, however, advise you, Your Grace, that fifteen men hardly constitute a fortified camp, certainly none to strike fear into your enemies.”

“Fifteen men is what I have, Your Majesty. But if we could make that camp as a secure point, and send into Elwynor—”

“You can gain more men for your camp?”

“I am confident, sir.”

Confident, he believed not in the least. But it was a sensible plan, and a far better one than he had expected of a young woman in such a desperate situation. Whether or not it was her idea, she presented it with authority, used the right words — and did know why the camp should be fortified. It was the Sihhë entrenchment, plain and simple: dig deep and hold on, then spread out.

More, she had not once appealed him in terms of the marriage proposal lying just uphill in his bedchamber, not so much as acknowledged it existed, nor asked for troops, nor requested alliance with Ylesuin. The mischief the artist had put into the eyes was all iron and fire today — gray, was the answer to what the artist had made ambiguous.

They were still ambiguous. Gray as morning mist. Gray as new iron. The mouth had dimples at the corners, but they were part of the set of a determined jaw, which he would like to see in that other expression — gods, he knew this face. He had lived with this face. He was fascinated out of his good sense — so fascinated he had imagined beyond her proposed camp and her proposed recruitment of an unspecified number of Elwynim onto his side of the river to launch a war from his territory against her enemies — and not asking the number of men this Caswyddian and gods-knew-who-else might have across the river up there, and where his post rider might have disappeared to.

He needed to ask Tristen what he had seen. He needed to talk to the Ivanim captain about how what he had seen agreed with what the lady now Regent was saying. His leg was hurting and he was distracted by Synannaʼs restlessness.

But it was toward late afternoon, the lady herself was the potential source of a great deal he wanted to know about the intentions of Elwynor, and he could hardly ask the Regent of Elwynor to camp in the orchard next the lord of Lanfarnesse, in the mud and the midst of apple-harvest, with — he could see — no tents and a couple of horses with very scant baggage.

“Your Grace,” he said, “I shall consider your proposition. May I ask an indelicate question? Are you aware of a proposal and a medallion that your father sent to me?”

Her cold-stung cheeks were already blushed. The pink reached the rest of her face, and the frown stayed. “Since our messengers did not return to us, Your Majesty, and since you mention it, I can only surmise it did reach you, and that your silence spoke for you.”

“The messenger did not return to you.”

“No, sir. As others did not. Do you say this was not to your knowledge? That there are no Elwynim heads above your gates?”

Heryn, he thought, and damned him to very hell. “Lady, on those terms your courage in dealing with me is amazing. Will you marry me?”

The color fled. The lips parted — and clamped tight. “Sir.”

“Will you marry me?”

“You are mocking me.”

“On my most solemn oath, Lady Regent. I by no means mock you. Your state cannot be more desperate. On the other hand, the bloody Marhanen does have troops at his disposal and wishes to assure peace on this frontier. What terms would you wish?”

The lips had relaxed, as if she were about to speak one word, and then another, and finally, on a deep breath: “I would agree to nothing, Your Majesty, without the advice of my own lords. They have given up their safety and risked their families to come here.”

“Their advice, but not their consent?”

“Majesty, I am in my own right Regent of Elwynor. And if you ask my terms, sir, they are that I be Regent of Elwynor, in my own right, and not subject to any authority of yours.”

“You have the most extravagant eyes.”

The eyes in question widened and sparked fire. “I am not to be mocked, sir.”

“I am a King more absolute, and can agree without my advisers, who will damn me to hell if I take such terms from you.”

“I shall take my safe conduct and ride to the border!”

“I said I agreed.”

The remarkable eyes blinked. Twice.

Cefwyn asked: “Did you talk to the lord of Ynefel? Do you find him pleasant, agreeable — somewhat mad?”

“You are mocking me, now.”

“I mock myself, dear lady; I see war inevitable if your rebels have their way, and wizardry is already with us. Things will not be for us what they were for our fathers. Mauryl Gestaurien is dead, my friend yonder is beyond all doubt Sihhë, and possibly your King — some do think so — who may be bent on having his kingdom, if he does not tomorrow take a fancy to some other pursuit.”

She took a large breath. “Sir! I—”

“But should you find yourself in that event without a realm to rule, I shall be glad to reconsider our pact of separate rule.”

“You are the most outrageous man I ever met!”

“Since youʼve met Tristen, I take that for a sweeping statement. — Do you accept?”

“You are mad, sir!”

“And?” He had almost seen the dimples. The look was in her eyes.

“I — shall consider it, with my advisers.”

“Your name is Ninévrisë. Am I right?”

She stared, in deep offense. Then she laughed. “You know that!”

“One should always be sure. — In the meantime, while youʼre considering—” He left all banter, and turned completely serious. “Will you and your advisers be my honored guests? I swear to your safety.”

Her anxious glance traveled to the heights and back again. “I put you on your honor, sir.” She gathered up the reins, began to turn her horse. And looked back. “—Cefwyn. Is that your name?”

With which she rode briskly back to her men.

He shut his mouth, and rode back to his — to Idrys, in the main, but Umanon and Cevulirn were moving in.

“Iʼm going to marry her,” he said.

“My lord is not serious,” Idrys said.

“Tristenʼs upstairs room for the lady — Tristenʼs belongings are all downstairs, are they not? The adjacent quarters for the lords, the men disposed with them or elsewhere at their wish. Send ahead of us and set reliable servants to work on the details. The betrothal within a day or two, I swear to you.”

“My lord King,” Idrys began, and, in the presence of witnesses, fell prudently quiet.

“Oh, Iʼve thought about it, Idrys. I have most seriously thought about it. The woman demands sole title to the Regency of Elwynor. I have more imminent concerns.” He cast a look at Umanonʼs frowning face — and Cevulirnʼs, but Cevulirn showed no more expression than usual. “I am not mad, sirs. This lady is an ally who has importunate suitors raiding our territory to have the better of each other. That will stop. I had far rather, if I must go to war, go to war to settle a permanent peace on this border, and if a marriage is the price of that peace, I shall.”

“They are Elwynim!” Umanon said.

“Patently. That is their use, Your Grace. A pious Quinalt lady will not get me a peaceful border. This lady will.”

Cevulirn had never batted an eye. As for Umanon, he knew how to reason with him: make it a plot, a scheme, a stratagem. Then Umanon understood.

He had thought, however, that shadow in the wind and sound of a horse moving quietly up beside him was Idrysʼ standard-bearer. It was a different horse. It was Tristen on him, Tristen unshaven, mud-flecked and shadow-eyed.

“Gods,” Cefwyn said. “You startled me.”

“You will marry her,” Tristen echoed, as if assuring himself of what he had heard. Tristenʼs eyes were unwontedly opaque to him. Guarded. Gray as the ladyʼs: he had never thought it until that instant, and a chill went with that awareness.

“I shall indeed marry her. — Ride with me. Tell me later what happened.” Whatever Tristen had been up to, he did not think it a story for Umanonʼs sensitive ears and gossip-prone mouth. He wanted nothing of any of Tristenʼs doings or the ladyʼs until he had Tristen in private. “Are our Elwynim going to ride with us, or not?”

There was apparent consternation among the Elwynim bunched together on the road. He could guess that at least one of the three lords was unconvinced of their safety and argued for a camp outside the walls.

“Lord Tasien is anxious about coming here,” Tristen said with his accustomed bluntness. “But she will do what she wishes to do.”

“And what is that?” he asked, before he remembered he wanted no news.

“To find men to fight the enemy, sir. Maurylʼs enemy.”

There was consternation on Umanonʼs face. Even Cevulirn gave Tristen a troubled glance.

“A matter for council,” Cefwyn said quickly. Religious anxiety would be far more potent among the common soldiers than among their lords, but their lordsʼ response forecast the commonsʼ. A moment ago he had been half in love. Cefwyn, the lady had said, as if their meeting were chance and he were any would-be lover with not a thought in his head but that pretty face.

The fact was she need not have been pretty. She needed to be the Regent of Elwynor. Better yet if she were at least publicly Quinalt.

Best for his peace of mind if he had not found those eyes suddenly so familiar, and so disturbing. He could not imagine why he had not realized in their ambiguity even in the portrait, that they might be gray — or recalled, when he had fallen under their spell and offered himself in marriage, that they were reputed, like that mass of black, black hair, as a Sihhë trait.

It was nothing he need fear, but, gods! how the whispers would run, even in Amefel, even by this evening.

The Elwynim joined them, and names were named, Lord Tasien of Cassissan; Lord Haurydd of Upper Saissonnd; Lord Ysdan of Ormadzaran…names hitherto belonging to aged parchment and crooked trails of ink.

“My lords,” Cefwyn said, and could not resist a bow, ironic mockery of their clear apprehensions. “The bloody Marhanen bids you all welcome and hopes for your good opinion. Bear the Regentʼs banner next to mine. Such are the terms the lady Regent requests, and Ylesuin will honor — whatever the lady requests. I cannot daunt her. I am resolved to please her.”

The Elwynim bowed. The lady, to his astonishment, blushed.

But he said to Idrys, as Synanna, on his casual mistouch of the reins, brushed Drugynʼs shoulder: “The west gate, for the godsʼ sake, not the south. Bid someone remove the heads tonight.”

Cefwyn was completely occupied with the lords around him, and Tristen thought it a good time to keep silence. It was comfortable enough to ride with Uwen; and it was comfortable to be riding up a street he knew, among people who knew him.

But it was a long ride up that hill, with the townsfolk of Henasʼamef turned out to stare and talk together, wide-eyed, at the display of Elwynim banners that he was sure they had never expected in their streets.

Then someone cried out, “Lord Sihhë!” and others took it up, crying “Lord Sihhë!”

They did not cry out that way for the other lords. He had had his fill of being conspicuous, last night. He was tired, he was aching and, as certain as he had been not so long ago that he could not possibly bear the confines of his rooms and the mundane chatter of Uwen and his servants, he thought now that nothing could be more dear or more welcome to him.

The rain had come down on them most of the night and again during the morning. Petelly was switching his ears and clearly had honeyed oats in mind, and Uwenʼs borrowed Ivanim mount had protested strenuously at the gate, knowing that he belonged down in the Ivanim camp, as all but a few of their Ivanim escort went aside to their well-earned rest. The Ivanim had come with provisions, as the Elwynim had, so they had not gone hungry; and they had rested on the journey — at least three times; but only once, toward dawn, had they stopped for enough time for men and horses alike to catch a little sleep.

It had not been enough — nor real rest. Tristen had feared sleep as he had not feared the ghosts that walked the earth of Althalen, and sat half-drowsing, content to watch Uwenʼs rest as Uwen had sworn himself willing to watch his — but Uwen had very quickly nodded off in the quiet and the stillness of the wind that, after the gale against their wet clothing, had seemed like warmth.

The lady had dreamed. The lady had dreamed of childrenʼs games, and childrenʼs songs, and the childish voices haunted him no less than the ghosts, rhymes about blackbirds and skipping steps, and memories of rain-puddles and gray stone.

They terrified him. He knew that they were her memories and not his. And in them she had felt small, which he never had. Their memories were so much the same, or hers had delved into his, and diverged again, into being she, and being he, and living in a bright hall and fearing the dark, and living in a keep that always ran and rippled with it.

Ynefel touched his drowsing thoughts with poignant warmth, with longing to see his familiar loft and the stairs to his room, and to hear Maurylʼs familiar step-and-tap; but the lady had waked from his dream with an outcry, afraid of the stone faces, and Tasien had asked her what was wrong.

A nightmare, she had answered Lord Tasien, and hugged her cloak about her and shivered.

That had more than stung: it wounded him; and he had sat watching her while she fell back to sleep, thinking, in his own fears, how very strange it was to have been so small as she had been, and to have weighed so little on the earth, and yet to have enjoyed the same pleasures as he treasured — except, except dodging around the stone walls, and looking at the faces, and thinking of them as familiar.

She had never known her father was a wizard…or whatever it was that gave her father the strength he had to travel that gray place. He had wondered once if everyone could go there. He had wondered whether it was a place Emuin had made for them alone — or that Emuin had let him into; and here at least was someone as surprised and dismayed by that place as he had been.

It made him feel…older, somehow. It made him wish he could give her in one instant all that he knew, and have someone then who would always understand the things he saw and how he saw them; it made him wish that he could leave all the others behind in camp and go somewhere alone and tell her and ask her…so many things, so many questions that stirred tonight in the grass, in the leaves, in the memories of Ynefelʼs creakings at night, the force of a gathering storm of Words and Names and so, so much about the world that he might almost understand if events and dangers had not swept him from one thing to the other. It was like the pigeons carried on the storm: they stayed aloft, they flew, but they rode the gusts, not choosing their own path so much as choosing the violence that went where they wished to go; they dived at the last into the safety of the loft on the blast of the rain, and a boy who was never truly a boy waited for them, with the wind blowing straws about and blasting the rain in through the broken boards — that boy called them home to the loft, waved his arms and called out Hurry! hurry! never knowing they were helpless to do more than they did.

He could not have been different than he had been. He could not have been the child that the lady had been. He could not remember the long ago that people kept attributing to him. He could find only dark before the light in Maurylʼs keep.

The banners snapped and thumped in a wind that had never warmed with the sun. He saw, past their intersecting folds, that they were coming to the western gate, the stable gate. They passed beneath the arch, and into the stable-court by the shortest way, and to the western steps of the Zeide, where grooms ran to take the horses, Cefwynʼs first, and the ladyʼs, Cevulirnʼs and Umanonʼs, and the other lordsʼ. A boy came running to take Petellyʼs reins.

Tristen dismounted quietly, and Uwen got down. He saw a boy hand Cefwyn a stick, which he did use, and seemed for a moment to be in pain, but Cefwyn was at hand as Ninévrisë slid down in a flurry of skirts: so was Tasien there to take the ladyʼs arm. Cefwyn and Lord Tasien were polite to each other, and Lord Haurydd and Lord Ysdan were there, all of them being polite, all of them concerned about the lady.

He supposed it would be difficult to add himself to that crowd. He could speak to the lady in a way they could not. He could tell her things they could not: he would gladly, when his knees were not shaking from exhaustion, help her explain to Cefwyn what had happened, and why there was a danger up by Emwy, and what had happened to the old man and to the Elwynim rebels.

But he knew better now than to intrude on Cefwyn when Cefwyn was dealing with the lords — least of all, he supposed, when Cefwyn was dealing with the lady Regent.

Marry her?

Cefwyn had talked about marriage, before now.

Marriage was a Word of great importance to a man and a woman. Marriage entrained other Words so…numerous and so strange to him that he lost his awareness of where he was, and realized that he was walking across the courtyard, watching Cefwyn and Idrys and the lady and the lords climb the steps, Cefwyn using his stick and limping in pain and talking all the while.

It was one of those moments in which he felt shut out, unwelcome. And he supposed Cefwyn was angry with him for leaving — deservedly so. He wanted Cefwyn to be as glad to see him as he appeared to be to see the lady — as he wished the lady herself would speak well of him. He thought he had deserved it. He could show her things Cefwyn could not. But, no, they would settle things as they pleased, without him.

Uwen was with him as he walked up the steps. They had already gone inside. He heaved an aching sigh, found tears almost escaping him, and realized how tired he truly was. He was foolish to expect a welcome after he had stolen Petelly, lied to the guards, and sent six squads of Cevulirnʼs horsemen out looking for him. Well that Cefwyn had been as pleasant and glad to see him as he was. He had not at all deserved well of Cefwyn for what he had done.

He had not deserved, either, to have Uwen still faithful to him, and forgiving of a soaking and a long, long ride and a chase through very dangerous places. But Uwen did forgive him. He supposed that Cefwyn did; and the lady, after all, owed him nothing.

He followed the lords inside, and while they went down the corridor to one of the halls of state, he went upstairs, and down toward his apartments, where his guards, to his chagrin, were still patiently standing, as if he were still there.

Had they never left? he wondered. He saw their faces lighten as he came, and, “Mʼlord,” one said, and they were glad to see him; which he did not at all deserve.

It made him ashamed.

“You go fetch His Lordshipʼs servants,” Uwen said to the youngest. “You tell them heʼs here and wanting to rest and they should be quick.”

“Yes, sir,” the guard said, and hurried to do that as the others let him in and wished him well.

Every detail of the rooms, the very fact of coming home, when he had not been sure he would ever see any of it again — filled up his senses to a dizzying fullness. He stood in the middle of the room just looking at the furniture and finding somewhere he had, wonderful to say, come back to and found again.

He heard a step behind him and thought it was the servants. But a brush of gray as soft as the footsteps told him a further amazing thing before he even turned around.

“Master Emuin!”

“Tristen.” Emuin came and set his hands on his shoulders. “I wish I had foreseen more than I did.”

He had done badly, Emuin meant, on his own. He found himself facing the judgment of the only teacher he had alive, and found it a hard judgment of his choices. “I did what I knew, sir,” he said. “I tried to reach you.”

“You have met so much. A great deal of changes. A great deal. Youʼve had to find your own way, young lord. And not done so badly, perhaps. Tell me, tell me what you did, and saw, and how you found your way.”

Emuin held out hope of approval, which he was all too ready to grasp: but Emuin began to draw him into the gray space — which he feared since last night, and with the Regent dying, and with Ninévrisë—and the Shadows, and their Enemy. He refused; and Emuin stepped back of a sudden, ceasing to touch him.

He had not remembered Emuinʼs face seeming so old, or so drawn, and Emuin, who had at first seemed so wise and calm, looked haggard and afraid. “I see,” Emuin murmured faintly, “I see, young lord.”

“Do you know all thatʼs happened? Hasufin was reaching out of Ynefel. But the lord Regent said he shouldnʼt have Althalen, and wanted to be buried there—” Things made far better sense, telling them to Emuin, than they had to the lady, or than they would when he told them to Cefwyn. “He said heʼd listened to Hasufin too long. He came to Althalen to be buried because he feared he would be a bridge for Hasufin if he was buried anywhere else. And I brought the lady here, sir: her father wanted to talk to Cefwyn, and Cefwyn says he wants to marry her.”

“Merciful gods. Marry her.”

“I think—” he said, because he had had all the ride home to reason it out, “I think that the people of Emwy village were hiding the lord Regent. I think they knew he was there all along, and they protected him. He was a good man. But now all the houses are burned and the people are Shadows. Idrys might have done it; he was going to burn the haystacks; but I think it was a man named Caswyddian, looking for the Regent. He found us — but the Shadows caught him. I donʼt think he followed us out of Althalen. I heard the trees breaking.”

Emuin passed a hand over his face and went over to the table and sat down as if there were much more to hear. There was not. But Tristen went, too, and sat, feeling the weariness of what seemed now days in the saddle, Cefwynʼs fatherʼs murder, and now this ride to and from the Regentʼs death — there was so, so much in turmoil around him, and too many dying, whatever it meant to die — he could not puzzle it out. And he wanted to have Emuin tell him he had not been mistaken, and that he had not brought Cefwyn worse trouble.

“I should have been there,” Emuin said.

“Have I done wrong, sir?”

“It remains to see.”

“Iʼve killed people. I fought Cefwynʼs enemies. But I — knew how, sir. It came to me — as other things do.”

“Did you do unjustly?”

“No, sir. I donʼt think that I did.” It was a question the like of which Mauryl would have asked. It showed him a path down which he could think. “But is this what I was meant to do? Is fighting Cefwynʼs enemies what Mauryl wanted me to do? I thought by going on the Road I might find the answer, and I found the lady and the lord Regent. I think this was where I was supposed to go. But I canʼt tell if this was what Mauryl wanted. How am I to know such things?”

“Gods, lad, if I only knew, myself. But you did very bravely.”

“Hasufin still has the tower, sir. He has that, and he might have Althalen, now. I donʼt know. The old man, the lord Regent, was fighting to stop him. — He was a wizard. I think he was, at least.”

“The lord Regent?” Emuin sounded surprised. “Why so?”

“Because he went to the gray place. So did his daughter, but she didnʼt know she could do it. Can only wizards go there?”

“The daughter can?”

“Yes, sir.”

Emuin drew a long, slow breath.

“Is it wrong to do?” Tristen asked, not understanding Emuinʼs troubled expression.

“No. Not wrong. But dangerous — especially in that place. I have always told you it was dangerous.”

“Because of Hasufin.”

“Because of him, yes.”

“Could you have defeated him, if you were there?”

“Where Mauryl failed? I am not confident. I am far from confident. And you must stay out of that place! You and she both must.”

“The lord Regent said—” He tried to follow the tangled reasoning that the lord Regent had told him, how it was easy to slip into Hasufinʼs trickery, but all thinking was becoming a maze for him, like the dazedness that came with too much, too fast. His tongue forgot the words. His eyes were open, but they were ceasing to see things clearly. He was all of a sudden profoundly, helplessly weary, and knew he was where he could trust, and that there was his own bed very near him, which he wanted more than he wanted anything in the world.

“Poor lad,” Emuin said, as Mauryl would have said; or he dreamed, and rested his head on his hands. He heard the scrape of the chair as Mauryl rose, and he tried to wake. He felt the touch of a kindly hand on his back. He might have been in Ynefel again. He might have begun to dream.

“Poor mʼlord,” someone said, and he heard someone say, “Put him to bed. He needs that most of all.”

He felt someone at his shoulder, heard Uwenʼs voice then, saying, “On your feet, mʼlord.”

“Emuin,—”

“Master Emuinʼs gone to his supper, lad.” Uwen set an arm about him, and he waked enough to help Uwen, and to get his feet under him. “Servants has got hot towels, mʼlord, and your own bed is waitinʼ.”

He could walk for that. He let Uwen guide him to his own bedroom and set him down on a bench by the window. Uwen helped him off with the coat, and with the mail shirt, and with the boots, and then he sat and shivered in clothing that never had dried.

But the servants came with stacks of hot, wet towels, and he shed his clothing and let them comb his hair and shave him and warm him with the towels, until his eyes were shutting simply with the comfort, and he was near to falling asleep where he sat.

Uwen and one of the servants pulled him to his feet and took him across a cool floor to his bed. There was a fire going in the hearth, he could see that as he lay back and let Uwen throw the covers over him.

“Was Emuin angry? I donʼt remember.”

“He wasnʼt angry, mʼlord. He said youʼd sleep a while. He said not to worry, heʼd talk to the King.”

“I am tired, Uwen, unspeakably tired. Thatʼs all, now.” His eyes were shut already, and the mattress was bottomless. “Iʼll sleep through supper, I fear.”

“ʼAtʼs all right. ʼAtʼs just all right, lad. Yeʼve done very well.”

“I wish I thought so.”

“Yeʼve weathered moreʼn yeʼll say, is clear.” Uwenʼs gentle hand brushed the hair off his face. “Ye got to stay out of such places.”

“They seem where Iʼm most fit.”

“That ainʼt so, mʼlord. Donʼt ye ever say so!”

“Uwen, forgive me for bringing you out in the rain.”

“Thereʼs naught to forgive, lad. Only I hoped yeʼd fled the blood and the killing and just took a ride in the country, is all. And ye found ghosts and worse.”

“I found Hasufin. I found him and he still was too strong. But the old man drew me to the Elwynim. And I drew you to us, at least I think I did. I was wishing you away, but toward the last, there was nothing I wanted more to see than you coming down that hill.”

“Nothing I wanted to see more than you, lad. But ye done right well, ye done right well. I heard you askinʼ master Emuin. Itʼs a spooky business, I say. The Elwynim talking about fire and smoke, which we was smelling, with the rain coming down in buckets and tubsful. The Ivanim say thatʼs the reputation of the place, that the haunt often goes with that smell about it. But what broke the trees, mʼlord?”

“I think it was the folk of Emwy,” Tristen said, and tried to open his eyes, but they immediately closed again. “Talk of something else. Talk about the village you came from. Talk about the town. Make me laugh. I would like to laugh.”

Uwen talked, and talked, but it became a lazy sound to him, and dear and distant at once, telling him about his aunt and the priest and the pig, which was a funny story, and made him laugh, but he could not for two blinks of his eyes follow it, or consciously understand the joke, except the pig had found its way home again by sundown, and the priest had wanted to have it for dinner. So he was on the side of the pig.