“How do you find the young lad?” Cefwyn asked, and Tristen perceived he meant the horse under him.
“Very fine.” He slapped Dys on the neck, and, in truth, if one had asked which was which horse, he could have told Dys from Kanwy, but most could not, he thought. “I do like him. And I do thank you.”
Cefwyn talked to him then about Dys’ breeding and his line, and how Dys had been foaled on a bitter cold morning. Their breath made clouds.
Cefwyn tired quickly, but it seemed to him that Cefwyn was very much better very quickly.
“His Majesty looked good,” Uwen said later, “almost so’s you’d say he didn’t need that stick.”
He was glad of it. But not glad when he visited Emuin directly on his return to the Zeide, and found Emuin scarcely able to wake. He took Emuin’s hand, and knelt down by him, and said, into Emuin’s ear, so the good brothers who tended him should not hear: “I know what you did, master Emuin. Cefwyn is mending ever so fast. But you must do something for yourself now. Do you hear me, sir?”
Emuin gave no sign of hearing him. He was very frightened. He thought he ought to be able to do more. He wanted both of them,
Cefwyn and Emuin, to be well. Emuin had grown so thin, and his hair was all white now, so that he looked very much like Mauryl. The faces were different, but there was something in him that touched those memories and said, though it was not exactly, every-day true, that there had always been something about Mauryl that shone, and that Emuin had that quality, now.
“Master Emuin,” he said. Emuin’s hand was very frail, very smooth in his, as if it were becoming like fine silk, like dust on old boards, the way home had felt under his hands, in Ynefel. “Master Emuin. I am here. If there is anything in me that you can use, if there’s anything I can give or you can take, and it won’t prevent me from what Mauryl sent me to do- I am here. Do you hear me, sir? I want you to mend yourself!”
—Easier said than done, the answer came to him. But it seemed to him then that things grew dimmer, and the lines of the Zeide showed around them, blue, and faint, and brighter, then. He still wants in.
—Inside? he asked. Why inside, sir? Why not do harm to us outside? It was so reasonable a question he wondered he had never asked Mauryl.
And why, he wondered, at evening? And why indoors?
—Curious question, Emuin said. What is there about buildings?
About houses? Dwellings?
—That people live in them. It was like sitting with Mauryl, the question, the answer. Foolish boy, Mauryl would say. But perhaps his questions had gotten wiser, if not his answers.
—That people live in them, Emuin said ever so faintly, and the lines glowed bright. That we invest something here. That it becomes a Place for us. And we cannot be harmed.., in certain ways.., while that Place exists for us, even in our dreams. We must violate our own sanctuary, to be harmed.., in those ways. But your Place is also his. And his is also yours.
—At Ynefel, you mean, sir.
—At Ynefel, Emuin said. He felt Emuin’s fingers move, and tighten. I shall hold fast. I have done what I can. I fear what you are. But I shall not cripple you by asking anything or by restraining you. Do what you were Summoned and Shaped to do.
—You fear what I am, sir,... Do you know what I am? Can you at least answer that? Can you warn me what I might do wrong?
—No, Emuin said. I don’t think I can. I can’t think of those things. I can’t foresee ....
I cannot begin to foresee the things you invent to do, Mauryl said.
Rain in puddles. Rain on the parapets. Flash of lightning. Can you not think of consequences, Tristen? And he had said ... I try.
—You have never admitted the enemy to your heart, Emuin said. You have never compromised with him. Never do it. Never do it, boy. Now go away. Don’t bother me. I have enough to do.
He was in the room again. His foot had gone to sleep. Emuin rested, no worse, no better than he had been. He thought he had heard Mauryl’s voice. Or that he touched what Mauryl was. Or had been.
He rose quietly. The brothers bowed to him in their dutiful way. He bowed to them, and felt the amulet beneath his shirt, the circle that Cefwyn had given him, that Emuin had given Cefwyn. It never showed in the other world. He was only conscious of it now because it had been Emuin’s, and was a wish for protection.
But he was Emuin’s protection. He had become Cefwyn’s.
I cannot begin to foresee, Mauryl had said, the things you invent to do.
Think of consequences, Tristen.
The next day likewise dawned with frosting breath and a slick spot in the courtyard where one of the servants slipped and fetched himself a crack on the head that master Haman had to attend, since the lord physician had left in angry disgrace—in attendance on Lord Sulriggan, the rumor was, who had left for his capital, and good riddance, most said.
Cefwyn called a war council for noon, in his apartments. Tristen was hesitant, but Idrys said he should be there, so he came. So did Efanor.
And Ninévrisé and Lord Captain Kerdin, and Lord Commander Gwywyn, but none of the Amefin lords, many of whom were at harvest, and no one from Sovrag’s men, who were all over on the river, Cefwyn said, in opening, but they were sending messages by way of the daily couriers from several points, and that he had sent dispatches to the villages and the lords of Amefel.
The dining board bore a stack of small maps, which Idrys said had just arrived last night, which recorded every large rock, every hillock, everything Ninévrisé’s few men had explored in the area of Lewen plain, north and west of Emwy’s ruin. Lord Tasien had sent a message to Ninévrisé by way of the Guelen messengers: Lord Tasien said that he had met with rivermen from Lord Sovrag, who had brought supplies downriver, and who had reported a quiet shore: that was the same as Sovrag’s messages had said.
Lord Tasien had also reported in his letter to Ninévrisé that they had made a wall and trench camp that was well begun, with the help of the Amefin peasants who had come up with the wagons. Tasien reported his men under canvas, digging their fortification, and awaiting word from inside Elwynor, and said they had seen no sign of hostile forces on this side of the river.
Efanor shook his head only slightly, perhaps in amazement that they were receiving such a report from the Earl of Cassissan—less charitably estimated, in personal disbelief that Lord Tasien’s word could be relied upon. But Efanor said nothing, only remarked later and very mildly, for Efanor, that it was very odd, very odd to have a woman in a council of war, but that the Elwynim were very efficient, and seemed to be experienced men—which made Tristen ask himself where the Elwynim had been fighting; but he kept that question to himself.
Efanor in general was on very good behavior. Gwywyn was very proper and made no allusion at all to the doings the night of the fire. He only seemed apprehensive, and increasingly relieved as the meeting went on and his counsel was taken with equal weight with others’.
“There’s a lot that’s ashamed of themselves,” Uwen said when he spoke of the meeting later. “What I hear, that night all that business got started there was a gathering over in the Quinaltine, praying and the like, and the lord physician having a tantrum and saying His Majesty was going to die. I think,” Uwen had added, “that the Prince thought His Majesty might have died, on account of the lord physician being sent out.
I don’t doubt the lord physician was a lot of the cause there. And there was priests out talking to the staff, saying that the King was bewitched.
Which I’d put to nothing, m’lord, but I don’t like much that gathers around that priest.”
Then Uwen added another thing that troubled him. “I’m Guelen,”
Uwen said. “And I seen just a touch too much of Quinalt priests and their politicking. Ain’t nothing to do with praying. They don’t like wizards.”
“Why?” Tristen asked.