Hasufin had said he himself was buried here—curious thought, and yet, in the way of Words, he would have thought if that was so, he should at least be able to find that place—as his place. But perhaps he did not understand such things. Perhaps something very terrible would befall him if he did find it.
Yet through such a connection Hasufin claimed Althalen and through such a connection the old man intended to contest him for possession of it. So there was ownership he should have if that were the case and if he knew what to do. And had he not fought the Shadows? Had he not done well at that?
—Emuin, he said, wishing to be both there and here. Emuin, I have found someone you should have known. Perhaps you did know him. I need you. I need to know things.
But he found no echo of Emuin, either, only a small furtive presence in the grayness, a presence that deliberately eluded him.
And quite suddenly he met those ill-meaning Shadows that circled and circled the perimeter of the walls, like birds looking for a place to light.
He retreated. He held his Place and tried to ignore them in theirs.
Silhouettes against the light within the tent, men filed out again, silent and grieving Men. He could see in the play of shadows against that canvas wall how each man bowed and took the hand of the old man’s daughter, who sat beside the light, and that they then passed into a confusion of images where the old man lay. This momentary distinction and subsequent confusion was very much what he had met in the gray realm, and he feared unwitting connection, one with the other: he feared resolution of images here and in the gray place, that might carry something of danger.
Men outside the spider-tent gathered in small sad knots, angers subdued in uncertainty as cloud rolled in above the brush and the ruins, taking even the starlight. The night had turned cold. His cloak was in the tent. He worked chilled hands, and could not feel his own fingers; but the velvet-covered mail pressing the damp padding and shirt against his body were some protection, so long as the wind stayed still. He was as weary as if he had walked all the distance he had traveled in the gray space, and as if he had grappled with substance, not Shadow.
He did not know what to do, except to wait. And that had its own dangers.
Then, the cap on all their discomfort, a cold mist began to fall. Men shifted off the stones in the midst of camp and clustered by a taller section of the ruined wall, looking at him or toward the tent and talking together in words he could not quite hear. They had come ill-prepared for anyone’s comfort but the old man’s, he thought. There should have been more tents. He had the feeling, he knew not where he had gotten it—perhaps from the old man—that they had been encamped here for some time, and he wondered what had already befallen them, whether they had been escaping something as he had, in his own lack of preparation; he wondered how they had lived, and thought that Emwy village might have helped them with some things—but Emwy was burned, now.
Things had surely changed for the worse for them with that. He wondered whether the men who attacked the King had known they were here, or what it had meant to them; and he wondered whether the men Idrys had out had simply missed this place, being afraid of it as men were, or whether the Regent, himself a wizard, had sent searchers astray.
But there were no answers in chance things he overheard, only curses of the weather and from a few, talk of whether they might go home now.
No, one said shortly. It seemed they might die. Or something dire would happen.
At last two men came to say the lady had sent for him. He rose from his place on the wall and went with them, trailed by a draggle of unhappy and suspicious men as far as the door.
He ducked his head and went inside, where the lady sat. Ninévrisé wore a coat of mail which compressed her slender shape. She wore the Regent’s crown, at least he supposed it was the same thin band holding her dark cloud of hair. Armed men stood beside her, among them, Lord Tasien.
At the other side of the tent, beyond a wall, the old man lay still and pale, with lamps at his head and his feet.
“They say you killed my father,” Ninévrisé said. “They say you bewitched him.”
“No, lady, no such thing. I tried to help him.”
“Why? Why should you help him?”
“He seemed kind,” he said, in all honesty, but it seemed not at all the answer that Ninévrisé had expected. Overcome, she clenched her fist and rested her mouth against it, her elbow on the chair arm and her face averted, while tears spilled down her face.
“I believe nothing that the Guelen prince sent,” said the man beside Tasien. “We should go back across the river tomorrow and seek a peace with the rebels as best we can.”
“I shall die before I go to Aséyneddin.” Ninévrisé brought her arm down hard against the chair and hardened her face, tear-damp as it was, as she looked back to Tristen. “You, sir! Are you another prospective bridegroom? Why should my father listen to you? Why, except that lie the Marhanen bade you wear, should my father hail you king? The Sihhé arms, wrapped in a Marhanen cloak? Give me grace, the gods did not make me so gullible! Someone knows where our camp is. Someone told you.”
“The cloak is Cefwyn’s, my lady. I was cold. He lent it to me, that’s all.”
“Lent it to you. And sent you to my father? The Tower and Star are outlawed, sir, by the Marhanen. And how dare you?” “Cefwyn didn’t send me.”
“Do not play the simpleton, sir. Whence the arms you wear? Is this Prince Cefwyn’s joke? Does he think us fools? Or what does he wish?”
“Cefwyn said I should be lord of Ynefel, because it was in his grant to give.”
“Ynefel? In the prince of Ylesuin’s grant?”
“The King of Ylesuin, lady, since his father died. But he was prince when he gave it.”
“Inereddrin is dead?” The lady and her men alike seemed shaken.
“Near Emwy village.” These were not the men that had attacked Cefwyn’s father, he was certain of it. The Regent certainly would not have done it; and he grew convinced they would not have done it without the old man knowing. “A day ago. I think it was a day. The time is so muddled ...”
“How did he die?”
“Men killed him before any of us could reach him. Cefwyn believes
37O that they were Elwynim. But he killed Lord Heryn for it. Heryn sent the message that brought the King there.”
He had not wanted to say the last: he thought that it might make trouble. But it seemed best to deal in the truth throughout, and not to have it come out later.
“Aséyneddin,” one man said.
“Or Caswyddian,” Tasien said, and Tristen, hearing that name, felt a coldness that might have been a breath of wind from the open vent.
Ninévrisé seemed to feel it, too. She folded her arms and frowned.
“You may tell King Cefwyn, from me,” Ninévrisé said, “granted we send you to him at all, that we had no knowledge of Caswyddian’s act.
The Earl of Lower Saissonnd has dealt with Lord Heryn in the past.
Heryn conspired with him and with Aséyneddin alike—and they drove my father out of Elwynor.”
That was not entirely so. The old man had said it otherwise; but he ignored that.