And Uwen was very pleased with Cass, as he himself was with Dys, though he was still taken with Petelly, and made it clear to Petelly, as they rode up to the gates again, that he was still in good favor. Uwen said, regarding Cass, that he was the best horse he’d ever had under him.
“I do like the big ’uns,” Uwen remarked as they rode through the streets.
“There ain’t no foolery about ’em. But if you ever get one hard-mouthed, gods, I rode one once in my foolish youth, the grooms was tryin’ to saddle and he took down a shed with both heels and dragged me an’ four boys through the fence. Gods, I hated that horse. I rode him four years, till a damn Chomaggari ran him through the heart. And I cried me eyes out.”
It was, Tristen believed, all the truth. And they went up to the hill for baths and a change of clothes, and talked horses for hours.
Uwen was the happiest he had ever known him. And Tristen sat down while Uwen watched and wrote a note to Cefwyn, saying how pleased they were, and how fine the horses were. The door guards when Uwen delivered it said that Cefwyn was sleeping, which was good, and that Emuin had given him a sleeping-potion to achieve it—which was not good.
But Tristen thought that Cefwyn would be glad to have the note, or any other expression of cheer, and for what it was worth, he sat down by the fire and wished Cefwyn well, as hard as he could.
That evening he shut his inner doors again, wanting quiet—and leaving Uwen the chance to come and go on his own business. He had saved a little bread from yesterday, and set it out for the pigeons that frequented his window—but they were shyer than usual, and perhaps afraid. There might be the smell of blood about the window, for all he knew. He waited a little while, then gave up and in the fading sunlight laid out both his Book and Mauryl’s little kit on the table.
It had occurred to him that Mauryl had given him both gifts, and that more than the Book might be magical—or, a new thought, it might take both gifts together.
But the mirror was only a mirror, silver polished bright; and it reflected only himself, Tristen no-one’s son, and not any dreadful Sihhé lord, and certainly no potent magician.
He mused over perhaps going to Emuin with Book and mirror in hand and asking him—if he knew precisely what he would ask, or in what way the two might be connected. He had been foolish once today, although Uwen had laughed at him very gently about the falling leaves. Certainly he couldn’t take for granted that he understood things as ordinary folk did.
But no understanding came to him—and the mirror, reflecting the evening sun, made no sense. He stared at the Book, and he leafed through it, and all it did was call back, in its aged parchment and battered, worn leather, memories of Ynefel, which he told himself were dangerous in the extreme.
He caught then what he thought was Emuin’s presence, although Emuin had been very strict and at him instantly if he transgressed into the gray space. He had an impression of many candles, and of pain in the joints, and thought that Emuin might be at his prayers, somewhere nearby, perhaps just a slippage.
But underlying that, he caught the touch of some other presence, and guessed that it was Ninévrisé thinking on what he was not sure, but he feared she was thinking of Althalen, which was dangerous.
—Be careful, he wished her.
And the presence went away, either afraid or guilty.
She was very beautiful. She was very sensible, for as young as she was, and she was brave. He wanted to see her. He wanted to talk with her, even to tell her about the horses, and—to talk to her about the gray place, and about discovering the hazards there, because he knew that she had good sense, and he wanted the opinion of someone else who had something in common with him. He found her his safe doorway to the mysteries women posed him—he wanted just to sit and look at her very closely, as he had begun, today, to look at the autumn; he wanted to listen to her, and let unfold to him, in what seemed a far kinder, more truthful person than Orien Aswydd, all the things she was.
But he could not go visit her. Propriety did not allow that: he was a man, and she was the King’s betrothed; and that was the way things would be—men could not, apparently, be alone with the lady. Even Cefwyn could not be, until they were married; and after that, he was not certain. She would always be Cefwyn’s: that was the way of men and women getting together—natural men, he said to himself with a wounded feeling of which he could not rid himself. Natural men—not, as Sulriggan had said, grave-dust and cobwebs.
And what could Ninévrisé or anyone really see in him but that? What could anyone see, who did not, for reasons of what he knew, like Cefwyn, or for reasons of being ordered to attend him, like Uwen, forgive what he was first off? Those who knew him long enough seemed to get over their fear; but all men were afraid of him. Ninévrisé had been afraid at first.
And once she was with Cefwyn—Cefwyn had so little time, he would surely give a great deal of it to her. So possibly he would lose both of them—or at least they would have very little time to spare. So Cefwyn was giving him gifts and making it possible for him to be on his own.
It was good that he would have Uwen. But did everybody go away, always, in an abundance of gifts, just when things seemed most settled and happy?
Maybe it was the morose and distracting character of that thought, maybe it was just general distraction, but something was nagging at him as he tried to read, and he could not make up his mind what it was.
It did not feel quite like Ninévrisé. He feared it was something much more to do with Ynefel and Althalen, and he tried on that account to ignore it—although—if he could judge at all, it came from the east rather than the west, where Althalen was: it felt easterly the way Emuin had always seemed to have direction in his thoughts.
Then—quite a sharp hurt pierced his skull, right at the base of his neck, and he clapped a hand there, jolted forward against the table-edge by what became a sickening pain. He had never felt anything quite the like. He felt ill, and smelled candle-wax, as if candles had spilled over. He felt hazed, and scarcely able to breathe.
There was stone. Gray stone. A silver eight-pointed star.
—Master Emuin, he asked, daring the gray space, for it was not ordinary, what was happening to him, and it involved candles. He seemed to hear voices echoing. He saw blue lights fixed at intervals. He saw the Sihhé star blaze with a white, ominous light, and he heard footsteps echoing in some stairwell.
He caught breath enough to stand, steadied himself against the table, and went out to the other room, past the startled servants, and to the foyer. Uwen had gone down to the kitchens, the guards said, when he went outside and inquired.
“Is something wrong, m’lord?” one asked.
“I don’t know. Do you know where master Emuin is?”
“He hain’t been by here, m’lord. The brothers was about, but they went back downstairs and he wasn’t with ’im.”
Emuin had no constant guard, such as he and Cefwyn did. Emuin’s rooms were just down the hall, under at least the watch of the guards at his and Cefwyn’s doors, and he went and rattled the latch, hoping the old man was all right, perhaps only having a bad dream. But no one came to the door, and he opened it, his own guard quickly getting before him to make a quick search of the premises.
“Ain’t no sign of ’im, m’lord,” the guard said.
By then he was very concerned. “I think we should set the downstairs staff to looking.”
“Is summat wrong, m’lord?”
“A pain. A hurt. —A place with candles, many candles.”
“A shrine,” one said, which was perfectly reasonable. “We can send down to the Teranthines, m’lord.”
“Do,” he said. “Ask the brothers. They might know.”
The brothers did not know. The Teranthines in the courtyard shrine didn’t know. By the time the guards had come back with that upsetting report he had long since asked the guards at Cefwyn’s door what they had seen, and, none of them wishing to rouse Cefwyn from his scant rest, one of them had gone to Lord Captain Kerdin, who set a more general search underway, and who came to ask questions of him as to what he had seen or heard or what reason he had to fear for Emuin’s well-being.