“Oh, you often said, master crow. And I listened too little.”
“He is still the mooncalf. But on the field he seems to have a very clear understanding. He comprehends in council. He says Orien alive or dead should not remain here. That her brother should not be buried here. Nor anyone of great animosity. He seems to imply—though I was already past my understanding—that anyone of animosity, wizard or not, could be moved by a wizard to act against us.”
“Good loving gods, there are grudges. There will be grudges.”
“That was my impression. It may be incorrect. But he was definite about two things: first, that, through Orien, Aséyneddin knows our plans, which may include, I would surmise, lord Haurydd’s mission into Elwynor, and that fortification at Emwy, and the day on which we plan to move. And second, that Orien Aswydd and Heryn must move—Heryn to holy ground.”
“Holy ground. Heryn!”
Idrys held up a languid hand. “I assure my lord, it is not my fancy.”
“He said the lord Regent had to remain at Althalen. That he came there to die.”
“We are contending with the dead, m’lord King. I’d take the advice of one who should know.”
Cefwyn drew a deep breath and shook his head. And had a chilling thought. “The skulls from over the gates. Send those with Heryn Aswydd—to the same interment. Tonight.”
“What a wagonload,” Idrys said. “The Aswydds—and their victims.”
“It seems due. Light the signal fires and pass the word. I’ll have written messages—for my brother, for Tristen, for my lady, —for Sovrag, on the river. They should go out together. But meanwhile, light the fires.”
Tristen sat by the window in the early night, with the Book shut in his hands and saw the fires—one after the other, on the hills. A single glance at the writing had shown him he knew no more than before. Then the fires had begun to go. And Uwen came in, his face aglow with the cold wind, cheerful—until Uwen looked at him. “M’lord?” Uwen asked.
“We are moving,” Tristen said. “It’s come.”
Uwen caught a breath, shrugged off his cloak, and tucked it over his arm. “Has His Majesty said?”
“The fires. Do you see them?”
Uwen came near the window and looked out into the dark. “Seems as if the lords is hardly had time to take their boots off,” Uwen said, and went and put his cloak on the bench. “So there ain’t no putting that away.”
“I told Cefwyn what I should have realized sooner—when I knew about Orien Aswydd—that they would know. I should have seen it. I should have understood.”
“They. They—the Elwynim.”
“Asdyneddin.”
“Ye’re saying Aséyneddin knows.”
“The day. The place. Lord Tasien is in very great danger.”
“Can ye—warn him, wizardlike?”
“I don’t think even Emuin could. And he—far more likely. I should have known, Uwen. I should have seen it.”
“Ye’re had summat to occupy your thoughts, m’lord.”
It was Uwen’s duty to cheer him. It was his to take Uwen into more danger than Uwen knew how to reckon, and it was his not to upset Uwen, or to spread fear around him to his staff and the army. He tried to gather his wits, and his composure.
But that he did not know, and had not known in a timely way indicated more than the reason Uwen gave; wizardry had not provided him the answer in a timely way, and Words had not unfolded to him. The blind, trusting way in which he had ridden off to Althalen, expecting things to become clear, had not worked, with devastating implication that they might not work in future. He felt betrayed, in some measure, betrayed and not knowing what else might fall out from under him.
But, moved to fling the Book with violence onto the table—he did not.
He laid it down carefully. “I must take this. Above all, Uwen. Don’t let me leave it behind. I give nothing for my ability to remember anything.”
His hands were trembling. He rested the one on the table, hoping Uwen failed to notice. “I have let slip very important things. Or important things have escaped me.”
“Fact is,” Uwen said, “we’re mostly ready, m’lord. I don’t deny I’m a little surprised. I expected a few more days, perhaps, but not beyond. And you watch: we’ll get up there and we’ll sit and wait. I’ve seen the like of this before. —Ye could do with a cup of tea, maybe.”
“I might,” he said, and Uwen went over, poked up the embers, and swung the kettle over.
But while he was doing it, the servants let in one of Cefwyn’s young pages, a grave-faced boy with a sealed note for him.
It said, in a hasty hand, My dear friend, we are going. Wagons move tonight. The signal fires are lit, on your advisement. Do not hesitate to give me further thoughts you may have. I should have heeded your warning in council. Do not think that I shall fail to heed another one. Advise your household. In the second watch, be prepared to bring baggage down to the wagon at the west doors.
My Household, he thought—like a Word showing itself in all its shapes. His Household was Uwen, and the servants, all of whom had declared they would go into the field with him; and the guards of several watches, that were assigned to him. There were the horses and their accouterments, and the staff that managed all that. Master Peygan’s boys had brought his armor and shield and Uwen’s to the apartment a day ago as they had brought all the lords’ gear to have it handled by the lords’ own staffs; and they were supposed to have sent all horse-gear down to Aswys this afternoon, to store in the pasture-stables’ armory, where there was more room than up on the citadel; but the citadel armory kept the lances and other such in its adjacent buildings. There had to be one wagon, he had discovered, only to carry his servants, his tent, his equipment, and there had to be drivers, which Uwen had added only yesterday, whose names he did not even know; and besides all that, besides the horses they would ride, and their gear, and Dys and Cass, that Aswys cared for—there were water-buckets and grain for the horses, including the horses to pull the wagon, and everything sufficient for the number of days it took to send and resupply them from Henas’amef—the whole tally was enormous. He knew all the pieces of it.
Except finding a standard-bearer. And the standard was important, even if he had only seventeen soldiers, counting Uwen, in all his company, who needed to find it on the field. He knew Cefwyn intended it be carried conspicuously, because of what it was—and someone had to carry it, which was not far different from a death sentence. Asayneddin would want to bring it down early.
“The standard,” he said on a deep breath. And Uwen said, with his ordinary calm, “Not your trouble, m’lord. We’ll find somebody. Is that the order?”
“We are going, my lord?” Tassand asked—the servants had come into the bedchamber doorway, following the page, and stood there, four solemn faces, as gentle, as modest, as kind-hearted a set of men as he had ever dealt with. “Is it now?”
“Yes,” he said. It seemed that the floor dropped away from under him, as, with that one word—he ordered everything into motion, and every choice that he had, or imagined he had had—was gone. Or begun. He was not certain.
“No sleep for us tonight,” Uwen said cheerfully. “Doze in the wagon, we will, or ahorse, or wherever, tomorrow. I’ll tell Lusin he can go down in the cold and the wind and rouse out the drivers. This damn little courtyard, we’ll have wagons atop each other if we don’t move fast. Tassand, let’s get it moving. —Lad,” he said to the page, who still waited, “I don’t think m’lord has a reply, except he’s ready and we’re going.”
The fires are lit, the note had said, because Idrys had told Cefwyn his fears regarding Orien—and on that surmise the message to summon the lords and the villages was flaring across the land not as quickly as wizards could warn one another, but still as fast as men could light fires, and as fast as the lords could turn around and come back again, only scarcely arrived and with no time to prepare—but this time traveling without wagons.