Fortress in the Eye of Time

CHAPTER 32

It was a night impossible to sleep, the courtyard rumbling with heavy wheels — and on a short and fitful rest, Tristen rose well before daylight, with the whole Zeide awake at that unaccustomed hour. He took a cold breakfast while the servants gathered up the leather bag of armor, which he would not have to wear until things were more dangerous than Henasʼamefʼs streets. A wagon was supposedly in the courtyard, at the west stairs, and it and three others made such trips with whatever of the lordsʼ baggage had to be gotten down the hill in the dark. His servants and his guards took turn about carrying items down the stairs: one of the guards already on horseback and Tassand, who did read, at least as far as lists, would ride the wagon down and check everything against the tally-tablet, being sure the men helping loaded it off into the right wagon in the line.

It was their last load, his personal equipment and Uwenʼs. He put on his mail, and a padded black coat, new, since the night at Althalen — gathered up his Book with the mirror tucked into it, put it where he reckoned it most safe, next his belt, and laced up the coat. He took the sword from beside the fireplace, where it had rested since he had brought it home, except Uwen had taken its measure and the armory had sent a sheath for it, with a good leather belt, which he buckled on.

Last of all he slung a heavy cloak about his shoulders, and put on his riding-gloves, of which Uwen had said he would be very glad in the chill air.

There was nothing to do, then, but to watch the servants put out all the candles and put out the fire, and for all of them to take a last look at a home no one knew if they would see again, in a gathering that might never come together again.

Then it was down the stairs amongst the servants with Uwen and Lusin, one of the guards who had been with him longest, to the courtyard, where they were bringing horses up, by precedence.

Outside the town walls, on the lordsʼ former campground, was where their personal wagon and their drivers would be waiting, also in their order of precedence — a long line, since the Guelen guard and the Amefin contingent had not only their own baggage, but also the baggage train of the absent lords and their armies under their escort.

Their wagon was already loaded with the gear and trappings from the pasture-stable, which Aswys himself had accounted for, and seen loaded — at least that was the prearrangement, if Aswys had been able to get to the wagon.

“Heʼll be there,” Uwen said. “Heʼs a Kingʼs man. Theyʼll let him through. Hainʼt no trouble at all, mʼlord, compared with the ranks tryinʼ to find their gear in a thunderstorm.”

Heavy-axled wagons had been rolling for half the night, as anyone trying to sleep could attest, the most of them loading once, at the granary, as they understood, and not to unload again until they reached their final encampment: a certain number would distribute grain to the individual wagons at the first camp, and immediately turn back to Henasʼamef, to reload and go out again. Supply for that many horses when the hazard of attack precluded letting the horses out to graze was a very great difficulty; and feeding that number of men over the same number of days, plus the supply of firewood when foraging might be dangerous made necessary another number of wagons — and heavy wagons traveled at the same speed as a man could leisurely walk, no faster, often slower. That meant that the ground a man on a light horse could cover in a day was three to five times the rate at which loaded wagons would travel, and if an experienced rider on a well-conditioned horse needed make the distance only once rather than three or four daysʼ sustained effort, the rider might push it to six times the distance a wagon might cover over a number of days, granted the day-after-day wear on the wagon teams, the wheels, and the axles did not create further delays.

The supply had to be there: it was no good for scattered units of horse to arrive and run into battle without the infantry, or for the infantry without their weapons or food to eat or shelter from the chilling rains. It was, Cefwyn had said it, and the words had made absolute sense, not a skirmish, but full-scale war: and that was right, in his own thinking.

So the Guelen and the Amefin went necessarily at the speed of the baggage train and the Amefin foot. With the signal fires flaring out across the land, they counted on Amefin villages coming to the muster, and all of them counted for their very lives on the southern light horse in particular being able to use their speed — counting that each lighthorseman had two horses. Umanon, with the other heavy horse contingent, would not make Cevulirnʼs speed overland, but the Imorim heavy horse had good roads, and Lanfarnesse, which had primarily infantry and longbowmen, had the shortest distance to come.

That, at least, was the reckoning they had made in their session with Cefwyn as late as yesterday, with a detailed list of every wagon, with the wagon-bed measured and the wagons and their teams rated as heavy or light, horse or ox. They had hoped for dry roads. They did not have them — but the rains had been light.

But if he was right, if he was right, the faster they could reach the river, the greater were Lord Tasienʼs chances of survival and of their holding the bridge. They had already reinforced Tasienʼs garrison; and if they could hold the bridge, as Lady Ninévrisë had said in council, the greater were the chances her partisans across the river might rise against Aséyneddin and make it a civil war, not a war between Elwynor and Ylesuin: that was their best hope, the one that shed the least blood on either side and ended the war before winter set in. Those were Cefwynʼs hopes, at least, and Ninévrisëʼs.

But Tristen did not, himself, believe that they had that chance — not with the likelihood that Hasufin had found more than Aséyneddin to listen to him; one did not know that there were no wizards in Elwynor — there very likely were.

Orien would have told their enemy everything, by means he should have days ago accounted of. And that meant there could be far worse happening: Sovragʼs nephew had escorted lord Haurydd into Elwynor — and possibly Aséyneddin had discovered that indirectly from Orien. Aséyneddin could locate Haurydd and discover the names of those people Haurydd had relied on meeting.

In that event, there would be no chance of Ninévrisëʼs friends inside Elwynor laying any sort of plans before Aséyneddin came against them. And there might be no help for Cefwyn from that quarter, if ever there might have been.

The wagons rumbled on iron-shod wheels over the cobbles, and dogs yapped and men shouted at each other.

Uwen was in his own. He was able to sort out the horses for Lady Ninévrisëʼs borrowed staff, two young Amefin ladies of good reputation and their fathers, very minor nobles, who had been given good horses of the Kingʼs stable, to bear the four of them — the Kingʼs servants managed the ladyʼs tents, baggage, and provisions, and the ladies and their fathers, who would, with Ninévrisëʼs four guards, take charge of her establishment in the camp, had no staff to manage and very little to do but find the horses — with which none of the four, town gentry, had any skill whatsoever, the ladies being there for Ninévrisëʼs reputation and the ladiesʼ fathers being there to set the seal of noble propriety on the household.

Banners were being uncased and unfurled, with the least hint of light in the sky. The grooms began to lead the horses out. Uwen went off with one of the servants and came back with his horse and Petelly, ahead of a scar-faced man who, bearing a furled banner, also led a horse up. That man said, in a voice low and somewhat shy, “Iʼm Andas Andasʼ-son, mʼlord. Iʼm to bear your standard, His Majesty said. I served eleven years in His Majestyʼs Dragons. The sergeant there knows me.”

“Heʼs a good man,” Uwen said under his breath. “A fine man. I know ʼim those eleven years. Heʼll keep matters straight.”

“Then thank you,” he said, “Andas Andasʼ-son.” He knew — he all but knew that this man would not leave the field; and did the man not know it?

No more would Uwen leave him. No more would his servants. Or the others. He did not understand. Least of all could he understand the determination it took to take that post, for a lord who was not his own. He made up his mind if Andasʼ-son lived and ever he could do good for him, he would do it. But it was no favor Andasʼ-son had been granted.

The groom brought Petelly and he rubbed Petellyʼs nose and patted his neck as Petelly cast a white-rimmed eye about the proceedings and cocked ears toward the racket. The steam of their breaths commingled in the light of a lantern a man carried past. He felt calmer himself with Petelly under his hands. He climbed up and from that higher vantage, out of the shadows of wagons and horses and men and the flare of lanterns, saw the dawn well begun, a faint glow about the peaked roofs of the Zeide, and above the high walls.

At that moment a shout went up. Cefwyn and Efanor had appeared in the doorway, held up joined hands in the lantern-light, embraced with more than formal warmth, then parted at the steps. Efanor was staying as defender of the town, taking command of the Guard that stayed, and Cefwyn was moving to take horse, as Idrys rode close to the base of the steps.

Then Ninévrisë and her ladies came down, and grooms brought those horses up; Cefwyn mounted up on bay Danvy, and Idrys joined him as Ninévrisë and her ladies were assisted into the saddles. The Dragon banner unfurled, red and shadow and gold, transparent where it crossed the lantern-light. Cheers went up all about. The Tower of the Regent billowed out, and cheers went up at that, too.

Petelly was growing excited, working the bit and looking about at this and that movement. Tristen kept him as close to his place in line as he could manage until Uwen had mounted up; the grooms, Aswysʼ lads, handed them up their shields, which they would carry through the town.

Then the two of them rode over to the place he was assigned, with the King. He could not see Cefwyn, but he saw Ninevrisë, and saw Cefwynʼs personal guard. Erion Netha and Denyn Keiʼs-son were with them, Erion carrying the short lance the Ivanim favored; and Denyn with the curved sword and small buckler common among Sovragʼs rivermen. The several Guelen guard with them were armored as they were, as light cavalry, but bearing heavy horsemenʼs shields.

Of a sudden another cheer went up. He had no idea why, until he saw the Tower and Star billow out, eerily pale in the light that broke above the walls — his own banner had unfurled.

A horn brayed across the din, and the three standard-bearers began to move out the gates, down through the town, no mad haste in this ride, but solemn deliberation. The bells of the town began to peal, ringing from every town gate and from the citadel, a clangor that started every bird still drowsing in the towers.

Townsfolk that gathered along the street waved and shouted. Boys broke from the crowd as the banners passed, and ran along beside them — boys too young to have been mustered to the Amefin lords, boys clutching bows and carrying old swords, boys some of them with no weapons at all. The young lads coursed their route and stayed with them, though he saw mothers and fathers shout at them to come back. Tristen saw a band of them break from the crowd as the banners passed, and as they rode under the gate and turned to the right, along the long, long line of wagons, the boys burst forth from outside the gates and ran alongside the foremost riders.

Dogs joined the chase. Several stray sheep wandered through, among the wagons, right across the path of the horses, and, with the dogs behind, jogged back through the line in front of them.

Outside the town gates, the nearby rural and town levies mustered in the dark, and there came a flood of Amefin infantry behind a few horsed lords. The Eagle standard of the Amefin swept in just behind their rank, with the several earls and their separate standards, and behind those the pennons of the various sections with their lieutenants and sergeants in command.

They passed their wagon in line near the head of the column: Dys and Cass were with it, along with Aswys and two of his boys on horseback, and Tassand and the other servants. Lusin and the other fifteen Guelen guards, the four shifts that had stood at his door, all on horseback, rode in to their assigned place behind the Kingʼs guard, the Kingʼs Dragon Guard being under Gwywyn, who rode behind the leaders. But Lusin and the rest were directly under Uwenʼs command, since Uwenʼs armoring and commission as a Guelen officer and, at least by honor, as Tristen now understood, a captain over the almost nonexistent forces of Ynefel and Althalen.

Uwen had said when Cefwyn had given him the horses that he could not figure how he had gotten to such a station, being a man of the villages, not of the court, and seemed quite overwhelmed by it. Now he had a command.

But Tristen thought most of any honor he simply wanted Uwen and all his folk to come through alive — and Uwenʼs rise to fortune occasioned him a guilt he himself did not understand, not because the wish to have Uwen safe was wrong, he decided, but because he had so much he should be thinking about and understanding rather than worry, as he could not help but do, about a household and the men who depended on him.

He was not the same as the lords of the south, he told himself, as he rode beside Cefwyn and Ninévrisë in the rank of Kings, with their three banners snapping and cracking in the dawn wind ahead of them. He was not the same as Cefwyn, who was born to be a king; he had no attachments for good or for ill the same as they. He had stolen them, he had borrowed them, he had put up the pretense of being a Man, even though he had had but one thing to do from the hour that Mauryl had called him into the world, a dangerous thing, and he had no justification for allowing Men to form such attachments to him, where their dangers were more than they could know. Uwen — had been so confident, had known so well where things ought to be, and what had to be done to move men and horses: he was a calming presence this morning for all the household, and yet Uwen with all his common sense was only giving orders that someone once had given to him, and that the soldiers knew how to obey, anyway.

But, he thought, Uwen more clearly than any of them had an inkling he was facing some danger very different from anything they knew, and Uwen was not spreading fear around him: Uwen had calmed him when he had faltered this morning, when the attachments he had made had suddenly added up and overwhelmed him; and Uwen did all that he did with a kind of courage he did not know if he possessed.

He had said it as clearly as he saw it himself, that if they could defeat Hasufinʼs allies on the field, they might deprive Hasufin of agencies to do his bidding — but the cost of that, he saw all around him, this morning: men who were not at harvest, boys who had no notion what they were facing — Ninévrisë and Cefwyn who were arguing about her presence on the field. Ninévrisë had suddenly said she would not stay in camp when it came to a battle, and Cefwyn had relied on her to do exactly that, “Which is why,” Cefwyn said with asperity, as they rode nearby, “I gave four damned fine horses to get you an escort.”

“We should not be thinking of defeat,” Ninévrisë said, “my lord.”

“I am not thinking of defeat! I am thinking of men who may die satisfying your whim, my lady, to view a battle.”

“I have men at risk at Emwy, — my lord! I owe it to them to come as far as I can!”

“As far as you can come is the camp, woman, without diverting precious reliable men to guard you! You will not give an order on the field! Leave it to men of experience!”

It went on, several exchanges more, but nothing was resolved. Tristen agreed with Cefwyn: he wanted Ninévrisë safe in camp, too, and would have told her so, but resort to the gray space was dangerous, and he did not wish to do it — or to intervene between Ninévrisë and Cefwyn. It was another attachment he could not spare the thought to maintain now. Ninévrisë was one more life to fling at the lives Hasufin flung at them. But she was not Emuin, and whatever her father had been, Ninévrisë had nothing of his ability.

Nor had he. He had not had the strength to reinforce the old man at Althalen, and he was responsible for far more than just the fires being lit days earlier than Cefwyn had expected. He had swept up Cefwyn and all his men into Maurylʼs struggle and carried them from Ninévrisëʼs war into her fatherʼs, and into Emuinʼs, and into Maurylʼs.

He did not know, in fact, if Maurylʼs struggle would end on Lewen plain — and did not know, in fact, whether he himself would. It seemed he had little use to Mauryl after that was done, and for all that he knew the magic Mauryl had used to bring him here would be finished, too, win or lose, as Uwen would say.

He had had time to think of very many terrible things during the hours of preparation. Now he watched the road above Petellyʼs ears and past the moving barrier of blowing silk — black, white, red and gold. And, Ninévrisë and Cefwyn being largely occupied in argument, he found it needful to say little at all, except to Uwen.

He won the dispute. Cefwyn thought so at least, since Ninévrisë conceded it might not be the wisest thing to advance with the line, but that she might take up an observation point, and be ready to send messengers to advise the officers immersed in battle of any unanticipated flanking movement: she did know whereof she spoke. She had studied, she said. She had read the same writers on the topic. She had read Tashânen.

“I considered,” she said, “that it behooved me to know what I do and what I ask when I send men in certain numbers to certain tasks, my lord King.”

“You constantly amaze me,” he said.

“I trust you will never be amazed by my competency, my lord.”

What did a man do with such a woman? His lady mother had not answered his father in such terms. “I see I have years of discovery ahead.” Clearly a man dared not let Ninévrisë gain an ell. “—And I commend your zeal to know, my lady, but were you any man of my association, and you had not commanded in the field, you would stand on that hill with no men but your personal guard.”

He expected a spark. He received a calm nod. “Very well.”

“I am adamant,” he said.

“Justly so, my lord. Do you take advice?”

“From my captains, my armorer, my grooms, my servants and my pages, my lady, where warranted.”

“And your wife?”

“Oh, I do. I do. See — thatʼs Sagany Road ahead, Sagany and Pacewys villages, their standards.” He waved as a peasant contingent joined them — he reached down from Danvyʼs back and waved to the men, nodded to acknowledge their bows, and, a custom which had appalled the Guelen Guard early on in his tenure, offered his hand to a bright-eyed young man on horseback, their local gentry, the Thane of Sagany, the only horseman in their company. Fingers touched, and horses drifted apart again. “Lord Ardwys. Fall in behind Lysalinʼs pennon.”

“Your Majesty,” Ardwys said, said, “Your Grace,” to Ninévrisë and, “Mʼlord,” to Tristen; and drew off to join his men in waiting.

At every major side-road, now and again at mere sheep-paths, boys and men had been joining their march. Behind the men of Sagany Road, a handful of women and grandfathers wept and waved handkerchiefs — and, Cefwyn thought, things which afforded the pious less comfort. Countryfolk pointed at the banners and waved. A clutch of old men with their dogs and their sheep stood by the ditch along the road and doffed their hats and stood respectfully.

“We are outnumbered,” Idrys said under his breath.

“Hush, crow,” Cefwyn said in thickest Guelen accent. “Manners.”

“Gods, I would you were safe in the capital.”

“I would I had more Guelen. But the countryside had no special love of the Aswydds and their taxes. They cheer us, do you hear, Idrys?”

“So far, my lord,” Idrys said. “Well that the page has your shield, I say. I wish you would not do that.”

“Pish,” he said, and grimaced and rubbed his leg, which had ached in that reach after the young thaneʼs hand.

“Shall we rest?” Ninévrisë asked.

He shook his head. “Not yet.” He had the marked places in his head as he had learned the village lordsʼ names, each and all. He had come to know this cursed road in his sleep and in his bad dreams. “Tristen.”

“My lord King.”

“How do we fare?”

“My lord?”

“In time?”

“I see nothing worse, my lord. I see nothing. I would not look. It would tell him where we are.”

“Aséyneddin,” Cefwyn said.

“Through him, yes, Aséyneddin.”

Tristen had said very little; and wished not to, he thought. He could not escape the notion that Tristen was listening, if not — doing — whatever wizards did. Uwen dozed in the saddle at times. The King, unfortunately, could not.

Nor would Tristen, it seemed. But cheerful converse with him was impossible — and if wizardry of some kind was going on, either with his gray-eyed bride, who kept rolling a set of beads and silver amulets through her fingers, or with Tristen, who simply rode scanning the horizons of this world or some other, he had no wish to disturb them.

Their column lengthened constantly with such arrivals. By noon, so Tristen heard, the hindmost must finally be clear of the town walls, but they would be obliged to stop in midafternoon, only to assure that the hindmost wagons made it in before full dark, the hindmost being the grain-transports that would go all the way to Emwy. The lordsʼ equipment, the warhorses, and the weapons were interspersed into the infantry marching order in the entirely unlikely event of an attack while they were well within their own territory: the tents for each unit came in wagons not far removed from those units.

It was a fair day, a light wind, by afternoon, and by midafternoon, as the plan was, they made camp on a high spot beside the road — Massitbrook, the map showed running along the road, a ford that might be, the drivers said, a hard pull for the heavy wagons that came hindmost: the order went out after the first of them had crossed it and the first wagons had come up the far side, for arriving contingents to take shovels and move rock and ease the slope on both sides. Men grumbled, but the assigned units set to work, while sergeants paced off the aisles of the camp and men drove spears into the ground to mark the lanes.

It was all, all like a Word, Tristen thought. Everything that was done found place and fitness in his mind: the Kingʼs pavilion went up; and the Regentʼs; and his wagon turned up with two Amefin boys, who, casting themselves at his feet, swore they would wash pots and fetch and carry, as they said, for the great lord.

“We want to be soldiers, mʼlord,” one said. “Iʼm fifteen. Me cousinʼs the same.”

“They seem very small,” he said to Uwen.

“Aye,” said Uwen. And gruffly, “If you steal a damn thing, you little fools, Iʼll feed you to the fishes. Haul that tent down! Spread the canvas out! — Thirteen summers. At very most. And theyʼd not go home if we sent them.”

“Do you know them?”

“Oh, gods, I know them,” Uwen said with a shake of his head. “I sees ʼem in the mirror ʼa morninʼs. And like enough theyʼll come home if any of us do. — Look sharp, there. Stand back and watch how the tent is folded. If yeʼd be soldiers yeʼll do it just the same in the dark of the morninʼ or a sergeantʼll take ʼis boot to ye and yeʼll carry it on your bleedinʼ backs a dayʼs march. — Ye need ʼem, mʼlord. Your servants has got too many to provide for to be heftinʼ the canvas or the water-pots.”

I cannot bear two more lives, he thought with a rising sense of panic. But he said nothing. He went to see to Petelly and Dys, but Aswys and his boys had Petelly unsaddled and already led away to the edge of the camp, so he strayed back again to watch the spectacle of the tent being raised, with the two boys now joined by two others, hammering at stakes and pulling at guy-ropes and poles.

Uwen and the guards had the business of the tent in hand, and needed no advice from someone who had never seen a tent raised. So he stood with arms folded, as more wagons rolled in and disgorged canvas in a measured cascade of bundles down the row between two spears. Amefin guardsmen cheered and catcalled, and seized their tents and began at once to unfold them, with a marvelous economy of effort.

He was not the only lord to have importunate help: boys of the town and the villages had come with the wagons, and even a stray dog that refused all attempts to drive it off — it belonged to a boy and it would not go.

Another wagon deposited firewood at the intersections of lanes in the camp. Men and boys ran and seized up armfuls, as if there would not be enough.

His two boys came back with sufficient, and began to make a fire. So in the newly raised tent he sat in a folding chair from his own apartment, and had a leisurely cup of tea while the wagons came in.

The camp grew very soon in directions he could not see, as if the pace of the order of march had translated directly to the pace of the distribution and raising of tents. The outer edge and the horse-camp would continue growing as the supply wagons rolled in, but they would have the most of the men in camp and those who had walked farthest with the army camping earliest, and those who had joined them latest camping last. The camp had taken shape first around the spears marking the rows, then in a division established next by standards, those of the lords set by quarter, and those of villages set as they came in proper intervals, so that men would know where tents were to be set. Campfires were lit, men were having tea, preparing their own meals by units, a block of tents together.

So were the lords in command: there was one mess for the combined guard, the Kingʼs Dragon Guard with a tent of their own adjacent to the three lordsʼ tents, with Lord Commander Gwywyn, and Lord Captain Kerdin directly in charge not only of the regulars but of such of the Princeʼs Guard as had come with them. By Annasʼ direction his servants took themselves in with the Kingʼs staff and the high command to prepare supper.

By the time the sun approached the horizon it was only the heavy wagons coming in, and the first of the distributions of grain was being made, sacks dumped off a wagon beginning not with the Kingʼs tent, but from the established edge of the camp and on, as the wagon rolled and the men aboard heaved grain sacks off into the waiting arms of men belonging to those tents, and a youthful scribe sat atop the stacks at the front of the wagon ticking off the sacks on a tablet.

It was all quite remarkable to watch. It went very quickly, considering the number of men involved, many of whom had not had drill; but there were enough soldiers who did know, who yelled instructions or imprecations as appropriate.

Cefwyn offered supper to them in his own tent, and Uwen and Idrys, and the lady and her two ladies all came, which was a fair number for a tent to accommodate. They brought their own folding chairs, and the dining table was the map-case set on two chests, adequate only to hold the cooking-pots from which they served: the young ladies were very tentative, and had no idea at all how to manage, but Ninévrisë was well at home, and laid a slice of hard bread into a bowl and had Annas put the stew on it. Then the ladies thought that it was proper to do that, too.

They were, Tristen thought, as young as he had been when he arrived among the folk of Amefel.

It was a simple, hasty stew; but it came very welcome after no sleep and a day of leave-takings and moderate confusion. So did a cup or two of wine. Tristen marked how Cefwynʼs face was drawn and how his hand would steal surreptitiously to his leg. But after a little wine the pain seemed to ease.

Idrys came in, and had his supper; from outside came the smell of fires and cookery. Someone in the distance had a pipe, and played it quietly and well. They sat in warmth and pleasant company and discussed the day and the weather and their situation, while now and again reports came in — Gwywyn and Kerdin managed that, and Idrys, on whose shoulders a good deal of the effort of ordering the march had rested, stretched out his long legs in front of him, drank two cups of wine and relaxed. Gwywyn came in once to report that the outriders had met the returning messenger from the outpost at Emwy ruin, nearest Tasienʼs camp: and, their intelligence consequently extending all the way to the river, they could state with assurance that the field beyond Emwy was clear and their line of march toward Emwy and Lewen plain was secure: Aséyneddin had not crossed the river — and that was very good news.

That brought a third cup of wine, and there were far lighter expressions. The lady said then she was for bed, and so they all said.

“We shall break camp before light,” Cefwyn reminded them, and they were beginning to take their leave of him, and went out into the dark, Ninévrisë to the north and himself to the south.

But just then came a rider thundering down the road and, by the sound of it, to their very door. The guards shouted angrily outside, and the rider kept going past the tent, hoofbeats fading in the distance.

Cefwyn had started from his chair. Idrys had been quicker, and at the door of the tent a Guelen guardsman was on his way in.

“Your Majesty,” that man said, distraught and angry.

But in just that small interval — came another such rider thundering past, and another angry outcry from the guards, as the rider passed.

Cefwyn cursed and walked past Idrysʼ questions and the guardʼs attempt at explanation — and stopped still in the doorway of the tent.

Tristen came and stood at Cefwynʼs shoulder. The only oddity he could discover was his own banner, which had stood alone a short distance from the Marhanen Dragon and the Eagle of the Amefin of Henasʼamef.

Two poles now stood imbedded in the earth, bearing village standards of the Amefin, at angles crossing his own black banner.

Another rider came speeding through the camp, village standard flying from the spear he held.

“Damn,” said Idrys, and would have gone out.

“No,” said Cefwyn sharply; and to his guards, “No altercation.”

That man came by and flung his spear — and another standard joined the Sihhë banner.

Came a body of men afoot, right behind him, and four more of the Amefin standards went into place about the Tower and Star. Without seeming to notice the guards or them watching, they planted their standards, troubling themselves to straighten and make firm the standards hastily set. Then they turned and walked away.

“Plague on them!” Idrys muttered; and Tristen felt cold and isolate — somehow at fault for what he understood as a shifting of allegiances of the Amefin — to his banner, which he neither wanted, nor knew what to do with. He thought that he ought to say something, to protest that he was against it, but he did not know what had caused it, and the words stuck in his throat.

“Orien,” Cefwyn said. “Damn her!” There was another rider coming.

“We should stop this,” Idrys said, and by now Gwywyn and Kerdin and a number of the Guelen guard were near the door, from their tent at the rear. But Cefwyn said, “No, damn it, let them do as they will. Do nothing! Iʼll not break what unity we have!”

Cefwyn thrust past them back into the tent, and before Annas could intervene, Cefwyn poured himself more wine and flung himself down into his chair. A frown was on his face in the candle-light, and Tristen came back to stand uncertainly facing him.

“What shall I do?” Tristen asked. There was such anger and resentment in the look that Cefwyn gave him, a gnawing sort of anger, hurt and small and frightening to him. “Can I stop it? I will. I shall go and talk to them.”

A moment Cefwyn seemed unable even to speak to him, but sat with his hand clenched on his chair-arm. Then Cefwyn gave a great sigh and shook his head. “No.”

“I would go with Idrys.”

“No,” Cefwyn said again, and looked up at him with a wry expression, made strained, Tristen hoped, by the lantern-light. “This is a fact. I am Marhanen. I am not loved. And Orien Aswydd has chosen her proxy. Quite clearly she has gotten a message out somehow, to arrange this.”

“They are Amefin, all,” Idrys said from the door. “And my lord King will recall, the bond between the Amefin and Althalen. Well that they have allegiances they will follow.”

“And may follow on the field. If they will — if they will, then well enough. I said I would as lief have you lord of Amefel.”

“There are good men of Amefel,” Tristen said tentatively, “and if the Aswyddim are gone, still — one of them would expect, would he not—?”

“Then let the Amefin lords exert authority to prevent it,” Cefwyn said shortly, and with a glance at the two pale-faced Amefin ladies who attended Ninévrisë: “I see none of them doing so. The earls fear their own commons. — And what matter, as long as they attach themselves to a loyal man? Orien wished a rift between us, but it will work against her wishes, because I shall not be jealous and Tristen is my friend. Go, take your chairs, peaceful sleep. I shall sleep soundly, I assure you. They have answered my question, and if no Amefin earl durst step in, I shall appoint you over them. You should regard that as a threat, my friend, not a benefice. First I advise you appoint a taxman who is not a moneylender.”

“I know nothing of such things,” Tristen protested.

“So appoint men who do. You could do no worse than the Aswyddim.”

“I want no more men following me,” Tristen said. “I have enough, my lord King. I need no more.”

“Go to bed, I say.” Cefwyn moved his injured leg, and crossed his ankles before him. “I want my rest. — My gracious lady, forgive me. I am not a gentle host tonight.”

“We should go to our tents,” Ninévrisë said, and they went to the doors. Uwen gathered up their two chairs, the Amefin ladies took the others, in which Annas intervened and called a page to help them.

“Idrys,” Tristen said with trepidation, seeing Cefwyn had said he would not deal with the matter, “Idrys, how shall I deal with this?”

The man looked at him with all his usual coldness — and yet with a little change in his regard. “Make it clear to them that you are the Kingʼs friend.”

It seemed sound advice. Tristen nodded and went outside, giving place at the door to Ninévrisë.

Ninévrisë looked at him, a half-shadowed look in the firelight, near the standards, and said urgently, “Lord Tristen.”

“My lady.”

Ninévrisë seemed to have changed her mind about speaking, then changed it again and came carefully closer. “Our enemy,” she began, then said, “Your enemy. Is he there tonight?”

He did not so much fear the gray space, as distrust it. And he did not look. “Doubtless he is,” he said. “he always is.”

“And at Althalen?”

“I cannot say, mʼlady.” He thought then that was what she feared: she had said not a word when they chose one of their camps as a site near Althalen, but he had seen her face in the council where they had worked out such details, seen the small nip of her lips together, clamped on an anxiousness about the notion. “But I have no sense of trouble there — or I would have said. Cefwyn did ask me.” It had not been a question aloud, but at least a look, when they had measured the distances. “I would have spoken if I thought so.”

She looked reassured, then. And it came to him that, perhaps worse than being able to see to Ynefel, if he chose, was the inability to see far at all, only to feel the threats in the gray world. She was not a strong wizard — yet, or perhaps ever. She perhaps had only enough of the sight to frighten her.

“You,” he said, “will at least feel danger if it comes. As you felt it that night. Then is the time to advise Cefwyn. And me. But I will very likely know.”

She looked at him, and put out her hand and touched his arm. “Be my friend, too,” she said. “I have this sight. I donʼt know when it will come or where, and I donʼt know what it will show me. I fear to sleep here — but Althalen may be worse, and I did not sleep last night—”

Tears were very close. Her lips trembled, and he touched her hand and let it fall.

A shadow had come in the doorway of the tent.

Idrys.

Tristen looked in his direction. “Sir,” Tristen said, feeling as caught in wrongdoing as ever he had with the man.

But Uwen was there, and Ninévrisëʼs ladies, and Tristen made a little bow and went away into his tent, where the servants had the lantern lit, and where Uwen helped him shed the wearying mail and the servants helped him with the boots and the clothing. Uwen lay down to rest then, on the cot in his division of the tent, and soon Uwen was snoring, in honest, hard-won exhaustion; and the servants became quieter and quieter.

Tristen sat a time and tried by lantern-light and until his eyes swam, to read anything in the Book, on page after page after page, seeking any letter that offered him anything understandable.

But now and again through the night his peace was broken, with men passing the tent.

And it was plain, after he had blown out the lantern and lay abed in his tent, what was continuing to happen outside. The guards were doing nothing to prevent it, on Cefwynʼs order — because Cefwyn did not want a quarrel within the army. They had already had a nearly disastrous encounter between the two Guelen guard forces in the affair of Orien Aswydd, a confrontation which had left uneasiness between the two units that Idrys and Gwywyn had only scarcely patched. They could least of all afford a second one between Guelenmen and Amefin.

He did not know what he should do. It seemed he had not done what he should have, on any account. It was well possible that the enemy was already reaching out to push and pull things — just little things — to make them fail; and he did not know how to stop the desertions that threatened Cefwyn…or the constant accumulation of followers of his own, that terrified and distracted him on every side.

In the morning as the first light touched the camp, forty or more of the village banners made a tight cluster about the Sihhë standard.

But the Dragon of the Marhanen did not stand alone either, for the unit pennons of the Guelen guard had been moved by their own men, and stood ranged about Cefwynʼs red and gold banner, defiance and challenge of the Amefin. Tristen knew what he saw, coming out of his tent at the first stirring about; and, “Well,” Cefwyn muttered, seeing that sight from the doorway of his own tent, and seemed greatly touched.

“Break camp!” Idrys ordered, and tents began, in that area, to come down, as they had already come down in the row next to them, in that dim light. Very quickly their guy-ropes and pegs formed a bundle on their several tents which became a bundle, and they were among the first laid out along the lane the wagons would travel picking them up. Cefwyn stood in the chill morning wind, and Tristen stood beside him. The grooms brought their horses to them, but Cefwyn did not offer to mount yet, so no one else did.

Eventually there were only men and horses standing where there had been tents, as far as the eye could see. They were behind their scheduled departure. They stood, and went on standing, and as it became evident to everyone that they were standing there on the Kingʼs will, and waiting for the Kingʼs order, there fell an unnatural quiet, on their personal guards first, and at last over all the camp.

“Guelen!” Idrys shouted, then, and there was a movement forward, the Guelen camped around the command tents, who massed toward their standards all in confusion. Idrys shouted angry orders; the standard-bearers took their standards to their respective units, and the Guelen fell into order.

Then, unbidden, but in rivalry, perhaps, not to be left behind, came a tide of Amefin surging forward, who noisily possessed their own standards, but they did not take any orderly form. There was shouting, there was pushing, and a fight broke out as men surged forward and began trying to rescue their standards, and as the Guelen shoved them and made space for the King and his company.

Tristen stared helplessly for that instant, then — understanding the symbol of what these men were struggling for — he knew the only thing the Amefin and Guelen in that press might all see. He seized the Sihhë banner from Andas, who had moved to protect it, and carried it himself to the front of Cefwynʼs tent. The pole had a sharp end; and with a great thrust he planted it in the earth beside Cefwynʼs Dragon, aslant, as it settled the poles touching.

A murmur went up, and the fighting stopped. He was not capable of speech. He went to Cefwyn and they embraced before the army. A cheer went up around them, and Cefwyn laughed and grinned broadly, and embraced him again.

There was a cleaner feeling in the air. Tristen hugged Cefwyn a third time for gladness of that feeling, and Cefwynʼs eyes sparkled with tears, his lips drawn tight.

“To horse!” Idrys shouted, waving his sword. “Districts by order! Move! We are late, sirs! Move, move, move!”

It seemed to mean everyone. Cefwyn went toward his horse, and he went quickly to the groom that held Petelly, took the reins and swung up. The wagon had not been able to get through. Now it was coming, as men ran for their appropriate places, and Andas reclaimed the Sihhë standard, as the standard-bearers of the Dragon and the Regentʼs Tower took up their own.

A breeze lifted them. The morning sun streamed gold through light cloud. The King moved out and Ninévrisë joined him as their standard-bearers got to horse and moved out ahead. Tristen rode to join them and Andas took the Sihhë banner out to the left, where it belonged. Their guards mounted up, the Amefin lords came next, and before they had left the camp grounds, the Guelen Guard, both rival regiments and the regulars, had started up the same marching-song, shouting it out and going along at a brisk pace.

In no little time there was another song from the Amefin ranks behind, and that was the way the troops contended with each other.

He felt quite cheered. He had won something, he saw that, things seemed mended that had been broken, and Cefwyn laughed and joked with him and with Idrys and the lady. The morning lay like a sheen over the road, making their shadows long as they marched toward the west, casting that early-morning glamor on things that made ordinary colors seem different, and more magical. This morning they could do nothing wrong.

But then his eyes lifted to the horizon, toward the north and east, and the morning seemed not so bright there — he was tempted to look with the vision he did have, terribly tempted; but he thought it was exactly what he should not do.

They rode in that direction on a road that could not lose sight of that shadow, and it was impossible to forget it. It distracted him from the light mood the others set, and his distraction seemed at times to make them anxious. But they asked no questions, perhaps fearing the answer he might give.

“Do you see any shadowing on that horizon?” he asked of Uwen when they stopped for rest. He hoped that it might be some natural thing. If autumn could surprise him, then other things still might, and Words might arise he had never met.

But Uwen looked where he looked and said only that he saw a hint of cloud, but that it was not all that black.

He went to Ninévrisë while they were paused, and said, looking at the grass at their feet, “Mʼlady, if it comes to you today to have a look into that other place, resist it. Resist it with all your might.”

“Why?” Ninévrisë asked in alarm. “What do you see?”

“Nothing imminent,” he said. “Only be prudent.”

Natural men could not see it; and Cefwyn could not; and even Ninévrisë failed. So he rode with the knowledge to himself, alone, as slowly, subtly, to his eyes, a line of shadow began to reach along the horizon, like a smudge of smoke, a presentiment of night.

It seemed, to his eye, closer, and wider.

They met the contingents of four more villages. They were, Cefwyn said, approaching an end of Amefel where villages had been once, but where now were far fewer — where forest rimmed the horizon and where roads ran more scarcely.

By Cefwynʼs reckonings they should have begun to pick up the southern lords this morning. And they had not; the levity with which they had begun diminished through the day, and when they saw the sun pass mid-afternoon and they were neither at their campsite nor seeing any sign of their allies either ahead of them or to the south or behind them, concern began to work among them, and Cefwyn and Idrys cast frequent, anxious looks toward the south as he did to the west.

“We might wait a day for them,” Idrys said. “We might well, mʼlord King.”

But Ninévrisë said, “Lord Tasien cannot wait,” and Tristen added, “We dare not,” because that was the truth he could not doubt.