“Two lords in rebellion. And what can we bring to counter it? Thirty-three men? Thirty-three men who followed my father however strange his folly? An investiture only you and these men witnessed? Answer me this, Tasien! How many of the lords will follow me without demanding marriage to themselves or their sons? And how will that sit with their brother lords? I divide the realm only by existing.” There was brief silence.
Then one said, “How many will follow you if you ally yourself with the Marhanen?”
“Will you desert me? Will you, Haurydd? Or you, Ysdan?”
“No,” one and the other said.
“But,” the lady said, “can you make me lord Regent, and raise the standard in Elwynor, and make men rally to me without each seeking to be my husband? Here are three of you, all driven from your lands, all with wives and children at great risk. Where is my choice, m’lords?
Tasien, you carried me on your back when I was little. Where can you carry me now?”
“My gracious lady,” Tasien said, and gave a shake of his head. “Wherever you wish. You are the Regent. I would take you to a safe place, in Elwynor. I would send to reliable men. I would not see you risk the Marhanen’s land another day—let alone ask him for refuge. Choose a consort from among like-minded men, and we will go back into Elwynor and fight any rebels that come against you, to the last of us. Aséyneddin cannot hold his alliances together if we return.”
“And if Asdyneddin found us? And if anyone betrayed our whereabouts?
Men die, who supported my father. Houses burn. Sheep are poisoned.
You may be too high-placed for that, so far, but act against him and he will move against you. That is what he can do. But—more than that.
There is this man—this visitor of ours, my lords, —” “You cannot believe him.”
“No. No, Tasien, —I cannot deny my father’s witness. I cannot deny what I’ve seen. I cannot deny that there is magic in this place. I cannot say now that I should be Regent ... or that there should be a Regency any longer at all. If my regency denies the King we’ve waited for, then—”
“My lady, you cannot accept his claim. A man cannot ride up to us, rain-bedraggled, and claim to be the King.”
“How else must he come, then?” Ninévrisé asked. “Ride out of Marna, with armies and trumpets? Rise out of the ground of Althalen? I don’t know, I don’t know! My father never told me how to know him.
My father only told us in plain words that this is the King and he recognized him. I have just been to that magic place Father claimed. I have just seen this man look as he looked to me. What other sign am I supposed to expect? How am I supposed to decide? I need time—I need to know the truth! And if there is a chance in the Marhanen, I will try that chance before I leave this land.”
“Are you,” lord Tasien asked him bluntly, “the King we look for?”
“Sir, I never heard so from Mauryl,” he said truthfully, and did not add to their confusion the fact that he did not want to be a king, nor that Cefwyn, who had given him title to Ynefel, knew a great deal more of kings and claims to kingship. But he did not think that Cefwyn’s belief in him would allay their suspicions, rescue him, or move them all to a point of safety. An unbearable feeling of danger had begun to press on him, in their dispute, a smothering fear more acute than he had felt since Marna Wood, and he wanted their argument over, with whatever issue, and the old man settled safe under stone—under stone!— where he wished to be.
He wanted them away, as soon as they might.
“We shall bury my father,” Ninévrisé said, “as he wished. Then we shall go to the Marhanen and ask for a treaty—by marriage if need be.
By oath, if we can secure it.”
“His father has just died,” Tasien cried, “at the hands of Elwynim!”
“So has mine!” Ninévrisé said sharply, “at the hands of gods know what, in this land of his, because of the same rebels who killed his father, and I will ride to the Marhanen and have a treaty or a fight of it!
Does not the gods’ law protect messengers? I am my father’s messenger from his deathbed, and I shall have the answer to my suit or I shall have war, sirs!”
“Gods save us, then,” Tasien said.
“The Marhanen will see me. He will deal fairly with me. My lord of Ynefel swears that he will. Does he not?”
“I shall ask him to,” Tristen said. “He is my friend.”
“And of course this is our King,” Tasien said, “who cedes Ynefel to his master the King of Ylesuin and takes it back again in fief—gods have mercy, m’lady! A friend of the Marhanen? This is a man owing homage to the Marhanen! Ask him!”
“Are you?” Ninévrisé asked, looking at Tristen. “Have you sworn homage to him?”
“I swore to defend Cefwyn and to be his friend.”
There was heavy silence in the tent. The men were not at all pleased, and did not intend to accept him, he was certain; but he would not lie to the lady, who would know the truth in that gray place—he at least had no skill to deceive her.
“Gentle lords,” Ninévrisé said, “at least let us try. Shall we sit here until they find us?”
“This is madness,” Tasien said.
“So you called my father mad,” Ninévrisé said, “yet you loved him with all your hearts. You came here to die for him notwithstanding your own lands, your own wives, your own children. I shall not lead you all back to Elwynor only to die, m’lords. I have another choice. I can seek alliance .... “
“With the Marhanen! Gods save us, my lady.”
“I will not see your heads on Ilefinian’s gates, sirs! Nor will I marry As6yneddin! You cannot ask that of me!”
“Will you marry this wandering fool and beg the lords of Elwynor swear oaths to the Marhanen? That is what they seem to suggest!”
“Have respect!” Ninévrisé said. “Have respect for my father, Tasien, if not for me. Lower your voices! Is the whole camp to hear?”
“Lord Tasien,” Tristen said quietly, overwhelmed with anxiety, though he feared that his suggesting anything at the moment was a cause for them to oppose it. “Sir, we are under threat, of wizardry if you call it that. This place feels worse and worse to me. —Lady, if your lord father can do anything, I think we should do exactly what he said, and soon.”
“Do we speak of wizardry?” the lord called Haurydd asked. “Is that what we have to hope for?”
“Yes, sir. So did the lord Regent hope for it. And if we wait we may lose all the hope he had. We should bury him and leave here.”
“My father,” Ninévrisé said, “warned us against going outside these walls after dark.”
“Yes, if there were safety to be had inside. But this place is losing its safety, as Ynefel became unsafe. I do feel so. We should go. Leave the wagon. There is no way to take it. There are men searching for me. There must be. We can find them on the road and they will protect us.” “Run like thieves, you mean. To Marhanen men.”
“Sir, this is very serious. You should do what the Regent asked. There is danger.”
“Read me no lessons in my lord’s service. And we can afford the decency of daylight,” Tasien said angrily, “for a man who, if you are our King, may have kept your throne safe, sir, little though you may love me for saying it and little though I think there is any likelihood.” “Tasien!” the lady said.
“My lady, I do not respect him. I do not respect a soft-handed man who bears every insult. He agrees to everything. He has no authority but his orders to bring us into ambush. Perhaps there is some sort of protection in this ruin. He certainly urges us away as hard as he can!”
“We must go, sir.” Arguments could easily confuse him. Words betrayed him. And danger was coming closer, a threat that distracted him, a threat changing and growing by the moment, as if the venture of himself and the lady into that gray place had attracted unwelcome attention, and now it had turned toward them and come to do them harm.