“I have men at risk at Emwy, —my lord! I owe it to them to come as far as I can!”
“As far as you can come is the camp, woman, without diverting precious reliable men to guard you! You will not give an order on the field!
Leave it to men of experience!”
It went on, several exchanges more, but nothing was resolved. Tristen agreed with Cefwyn: he wanted Ninévrisé safe in camp, too, and would have told her so, but resort to the gray space was dangerous, and he did not wish to do it—or to intervene between Ninévrisé and Cefwyn. It was another attachment he could not spare the thought to maintain now.
Ninévrisé was one more life to fling at the lives Hasufin flung at them.
But she was not Emuin, and whatever her father had been, Ninévrisé had nothing of his ability.
Nor had he. He had not had the strength to reinforce the old man at Althalen, and he was responsible for far more than just the fires being lit days earlier than Cefwyn had expected. He had swept up Cefwyn and all his men into Mauryl’s struggle and carried them from Nin6vrisi’s war into her father’s, and into Emuin’s, and into Mauryl’s.
He did not know, in fact, if Mauryl’s struggle would end on Lewen plain—and did not know, in fact, whether he himself would. It seemed he had little use to Mauryl after that was done, and for all that he knew the magic Mauryl had used to bring him here would be finished, too, win or lose, as Uwen would say.
He had had time to think of very many terrible things during the hours of preparation. Now he watched the road above Petelly’s ears and past the moving barrier of blowing silk—black, white, red and gold. And, Ninévrisé and Cefwyn being largely occupied in argument, he found it needful to say little at all, except to Uwen.
He won the dispute. Cefwyn thought so at least, since Ninévrisé conceded it might not be the wisest thing to advance with the line, but that she might take up an observation point, and be ready to send messengers to advise the officers immersed in battle of any unanticipated flanking movement: she did know whereof she spoke. She had studied, she said. She had read the same writers on the topic. She had read Tashfinen.
“I considered,” she said, “that it behooved me to know what I do and what I ask when I send men in certain numbers to certain tasks, my lord King.”
“You constantly amaze me,” he said.
“I trust you will never be amazed by my competency, my lord.”
What did a man do with such a woman? His lady mother had not answered his father in such terms. “I see I have years of discovery ahead.” Clearly a man dared not let Ninévrisé gain an ell. “—And I commend your zeal to know, my lady, but were you any man of my association, and you had not commanded in the field, you would stand on that hill with no men but your personal guard.”
He expected a spark. He received a calm nod. “Very well.”
“I am adamant,” he said.
“Justly so, my lord. Do you take advice?”
“From my captains, my armorer, my grooms, my servants and my pages, my lady, where warranted.” “And your wife?”
“Oh, I do. I do. See—that’s Sagany Road ahead, Sagany and Pacewys villages, their standards.” He waved as a peasant contingent joined them—he reached down from Danvy’s back and waved to the men, nodded to acknowledge their bows, and, a custom which had appalled the Guelen Guard early on in his tenure, offered his hand to a bright-eyed young man on horseback, their local gentry, the Thane of Sagany, the only horseman in their company. Fingers touched, and horses drifted apart again. “Lord Ardwys. Fall in behind Lysalin’s pennon.”
“Your Majesty,” Ardwys said, said, “Your Grace,” to Ninévrisé and,
“M’lord,” to Tristen; and drew off to join his men in waiting.
At every major side-road, now and again at mere sheep-paths, boys and men had been joining their march. Behind the men of Sagany Road, a handful of women and grandfathers wept and waved handkerchiefs-and, Cefwyn thought, things which afforded the pious less comfort.
Countryfolk pointed at the banners and waved. A clutch of old men with their dogs and their sheep stood by the ditch along the road and doffed their hats and stood respectfully.
“We are outnumbered,” Idrys said under his breath.
“Hush, crow,” Cefwyn said in thickest Guelen accent. “Manners.”
“Gods, I would you were safe in the capital.”
“I would I had more Guelen. But the countryside had no special love of the Aswydds and their taxes. They cheer us, do you hear, Idrys?”
“So far, my lord,” Idrys said. “Well that the page has your shield, I say.
I wish you would not do that.”
“Pish,” he said, and grimaced and rubbed his leg, which had ached in that reach after the young thane’s hand. “Shall we rest?” Ninévrisé asked.
He shook his head. “Not yet.” He had the marked places in his head as he had learned the village lords’ names, each and all. He had come to know this cursed road in his sleep and in his bad dreams. “Tristen.”
“My lord King.”
“How do we fare?”
“My lord?”
“In time?”
“I see nothing worse, my lord. I see nothing. I would not look. It would tell him where we are.”
“Aséyneddin,” Cefwyn said.
“Through him, yes, Aséyneddin.”
Tristen had said very little; and wished not to, he thought. He could not escape the notion that Tristen was listening, if not—doing—whatever wizards did. Uwen dozed in the saddle at times. The King, unfortunately, could not.
Nor would Tristen, it seemed. But cheerful converse with him was impossible—and if wizardry of some kind was going on, either with his gray-eyed bride, who kept rolling a set of beads and silver amulets through her fingers, or with Tristen, who simply rode scanning the horizons of this world or some other, he had no wish to disturb them.
Their column lengthened constantly with such arrivals. By noon, so Tristen heard, the hindmost must finally be clear of the town walls, but they would be obliged to stop in mid-afternoon, only to assure that the hindmost wagons made it in before full dark, the hindmost being the grain transports that would go all the way to Emwy. The lords’ equipment, the warhorses, and the weapons were interspersed into the infantry marching order in the entirely unlikely event of an attack while they were well within their own territory: the tents for each unit came in wagons not far removed from those units.
It was a fair day, a light wind, by afternoon, and by mid-afternoon, as the plan was, they made camp on a high spot beside the road—Massit-brook, the map showed running along the road, a ford that might be, the drivers said, a hard pull for the heavy wagons that came hindmost: the order went out after the first of them had crossed it and the first wagons had come up the far side, for arriving contingents to take shovels and move rock and ease the slope on both sides. Men grumbled, but the assigned units set to work, while sergeants paced off the aisles of the camp and men drove spears into the ground to mark the lanes.
It was all, all like a Word, Tristen thought. Everything that was done found place and fitness in his mind: the King’s pavilion went up; and the Regent’s; and his wagon turned up with two Amefin boys, who, casting themselves at his feet, swore they would wash pots and fetch and carry, as they said, for the great lord.
“We want to be soldiers, m’lord,” one said. “I’m fifteen. Me cousin’s the same.”
“They seem very small,” he said to Uwen.
“Aye,” said Uwen. And gruffly, “If you steal a damn thing, you little fools, I’ll feed you to the fishes. Haul that tent down! Spread the canvas out! —Thirteen summers. At very most. And they’d not go home if we sent them.”
“Do you know them?”
“Oh, gods, I know them,” Uwen said with a shake of his head. “I sees
‘em in the mirror ’a mornin’s. And like enough they’ll come home if any of us do. —Look sharp, there. Stand back and watch how the tent is folded. If ye’d be soldiers ye’ll do it just the same in the dark of the mornin’ or a sergeant’ll take ’is boot to ye and ye’ll carry it on your bleedin’ backs a day’s march. —Ye need ’era, m’lord. Your servants has got too many to provide for to be heftin’ the canvas or the water-pots.”