At least, he said to himself, at least and in spite of his tardiness even to think what assumptions must change once he knew what Orien had done—Cefwyn had implicitly believed him. But wizardry had failed him, or he had failed, perhaps because of failing with the Book, perhaps simply that the wizardry working against them was stronger, he had no idea.
Chapter 32
It was a night impossible to sleep, the courtyard rumbling with heavy wheels—and on a short and fitful rest, Tristen rose well before daylight, with the whole Zeide awake at that unaccustomed hour. He took a cold breakfast while the servants gathered up the leather bag of armor, which he would not have to wear until things were more dangerous than Henas’amef’s streets. A wagon was supposedly in the courtyard, at the west stairs, and it and three others made such trips with whatever of the lords’ baggage had to be gotten down the hill in the dark. His servants and his guards took turn about carrying items down the stairs: one of the guards already on horseback and Tassand, who did read, at least as far as lists, would ride the wagon down and check everything against the tally-tablet, being sure the men helping loaded it off into the right wagon in the line.
It was their last load, his personal equipment and Uwen’s. He put on his mail, and a padded black coat, new, since the night at Althalen-gathered up his Book with the mirror tucked into it, put it where he reckoned it most safe, next his belt, and laced up the coat. He took the sword from beside the fireplace, where it had rested since he had brought it home, except Uwen had taken its measure and the armory had sent a sheath for it, with a good leather belt, which he buckled on.
Last of all he slung a heavy cloak about his shoulders, and put on his riding-gloves, of which Uwen had said he would be very glad in the chill air.
There was nothing to do, then, but to watch the servants put out all the candles and put out the fire, and for all of them to take a last look at a home no one knew if they would see again, in a gathering that might never come together again.
Then it was down the stairs amongst the servants with Uwen and Lusin, one of the guards who had been with him longest, to the courtyard, where they were bringing horses up, by precedence.
Outside the town walls, on the lords’ former campground, was where their personal wagon and their drivers would be waiting, also in their order of precedence—a long line, since the Guelen guard and the Amefin contingent had not only their own baggage, but also the baggage train of the absent lords and their armies under their escort.
Their wagon was already loaded with the gear and trappings from the pasture-stable, which Aswys himself had accounted for, and seen loaded—at least that was the prearrangement, if Aswys had been able to get to the wagon.
“He’ll be there,” Uwen said. “He’s a King’s man. They’ll let him through. Hain’t no trouble at all, m’lord, compared with the ranks tryin’ to find their gear in a thunderstorm.”
Heavy-axled wagons had been rolling for half the night, as anyone trying to sleep could attest, the most of them loading once, at the granary, as they understood, and not to unload again until they reached their final encampment: a certain number would distribute grain to the individual wagons at the first camp, and immediately turn back to Henas’amef, to reload and go out again. Supply for that many horses when the hazard of attack precluded letting the horses out to graze was a very great difficulty; and feeding that number of men over the same number of days, plus the supply of firewood when foraging might be dangerous made necessary another number of wagons—and heavy wagons traveled at the same speed as a man could leisurely walk, no faster, often slower. That meant that the ground a man on a light horse could cover in a day was three to five times the rate at which loaded wagons would travel, and if an experienced rider on a well-conditioned horse needed make the distance only once rather than three or four days’ sustained effort, the rider might push it to six times the distance a wagon might cover over a number of days, granted the day-after-day wear on the wagon teams, the wheels, and the axles did not create further delays.
The supply had to be there: it was no good for scattered units of horse to arrive and run into battle without the infantry, or for the infantry without their weapons or food to eat or shelter from the chilling rains. It was, Cefwyn had said it, and the words had made absolute sense, not a skirmish, but full-scale war: and that was right, in his own thinking.
So the Guelen and the Amefin went necessarily at the speed of the baggage train and the Amefin foot. With the signal fires flaring out across the land, they counted on Amefin villages coming to the muster, and all of them counted for their very lives on the southern light horse in particular being able to use their speed—counting that each lighthorseman had two horses. Umanon, with the other heavy horse contingent, would not make Cevulirn’s speed overland, but the Imorim heavy horse had good roads, and Lanfaruesse, which had primarily infantry and longbowmen, had the shortest distance to come.
That, at least, was the reckoning they had made in their session with Cefwyn as late as yesterday, with a detailed list of every wagon, with the wagon-bed measured and the wagons and their teams rated as heavy or light, horse or ox. They had hoped for dry roads. They did not have them—but the rains had been light.
But if he was right, if he was right, the faster they could reach the river, the greater were Lord Tasien’s chances of survival and of their holding the bridge. They had already reinforced Tasien’s garrison; and if they could hold the bridge, as Lady Ninévrisé had said in council, the greater were the chances her partisans across the river might rise against Asdyneddin and make it a civil war, not a war between Elwynor and Ylesuin: that was their best hope, the one that shed the least blood on either side and ended the war before winter set in. Those were Cefwyn’s hopes, at least, and Ninévrisé’s.
But Tristen did not, himself, believe that they had that chance—not with the likelihood that Hasufin had found more than Aséyneddin to listen to him; one did not know that there were no wizards in Elwynor—there very likely were.
Orien would have told their enemy everything, by means he should have days ago accounted of. And that meant there could be far worse happening: Sovrag’s nephew had escorted lord Haurydd into Elwynor-and possibly Aséyneddin had discovered that indirectly from Orien.
Aséyneddin could locate Haurydd and discover the names of those people Haurydd had relied on meeting.
In that event, there would be no chance of Ninévrisé’s friends inside Elwynor laying any sort of plans before Asayneddin came against them.
And there might be no help for Cefwyn from that quarter, if ever there might have been.
The wagons rumbled on iron-shod wheels over the cobbles, and dogs yapped and men shouted at each other.
Uwen was in his own. He was able to sort out the horses for Lady Ninévrisé’s borrowed staff, two young Amefin ladies of good reputation and their fathers, very minor nobles, who had been given good horses of the King’s stable, to bear the four of them—the King’s servants managed the lady’s tents, baggage, and provisions, and the ladies and their fathers, who would, with Ninévrisé’s four guards, take charge of her establishment in the camp, had no staff to manage and very little to do but find the horses with which none of the four, town gentry, had any skill whatsoever, the ladies being there for Ninévrisé’s reputation and the ladies’ fathers being there to set the seal of noble propriety on the household.