“Ah, Pelumer, how good to see you!”
“Gods bless,” said Pelumer, his frown-lines cracking into a broad smile. “And how weary you look.”
“You are the shield at my back, Pelumer. The only man in the realm who has, I can say before them all, no feud with any other. And I need your rangers out along the border; I need their furtive watch over the river and the woods.”
“I’ve had reports, m’lord Prince. Some of which you should be made aware of. And my rangers are already out.”
“I will hear. I will most gladly hear them.—My page will guide you to quarters for yourself and whatever guard you feel sufficient—many of them, if you please. Guard yourself as you see fit. Warn your men as I know you do. And we meet tonight in hall. In an hour. Time for you and yours to settle, but only that.”
“No word of the cause?”
“Not yet.”
“Your Highness,” Pelumer said, and bowed, and withdrew.
In all of this the malefactors remained. And counting that the prince had yet to dress for hall, and that he had need to make some disposition of the case before him to make a hard point with dissent among the common men:
“Olmernman, your name.”
“Denyn, m’lor’.”
“Yours, Ivanim?”
“Erion Netha, my lord Prince, of Tas Arin.—But, I assure Your Highness, I was not the one who—”
“Be still!” he snapped, and the men stayed motionless as fawns in a thicket.
“Who draws in despite of the Crown or the Crown’s officer, dies. That is the law, for lord and man. Erion and Denyn, you have disrespected my hospitality. I claim your persons from your lords for my justice. That is the King’s law.”
They were pale, those two, but no word came from them. They were alike in stature, but the Ivanim Erion was a slim, hard-eyed man in his prime, and the stocky Olmernman Denyn was a youth whose beard had hardly started.
“A hanging offense, no honorable death there, none that your kindred could cherish for their comfort. Is it, sirs?”
The boy’s lips trembled, but the boy set his jaw. From the Ivanim there was a tightening of the jaw but no more protest, no bravado either.
And the waste of such men—one young enough to be on his first muster, and perhaps too young to restrain his temper or his foolishness, and one old enough to know better than the fight he’d gotten into—filled his mouth with distaste.
“You are mine,” he said, “and for your mockery of my law you will learn to serve it, both of you. You will stand guard at my door.” “My lord,” the guard sergeant protested.
“Dead, they avail nothing. You will stand that duty, sirs, until Idrys sees fit to relieve you. You will eat with that Guelen unit and bed with them together, chained as you are. No one will remove that chain for any cause, and should one of you die for any cause but in my service, I will flay the survivor alive and burn his father’s house. Do you hear me, Erion and Denyn?”
Tears brimmed in the boy’s eyes, and the Ivanim’s bloodless face looked numb as he nodded.
“Then take up your post,” Cefwyn said, and they bowed and went, limping and bloody and unwashed as they were, and still chained together.
He passed them that evening as they stood among the Guelen who would watch the room and not attend him to hall. Blood had dried on their wounds and their faces were ashen with pain and fatigue. He lingered and looked on them, and they gazed on him with apprehension.
“The Guelen do not love their company,” Idrys said as they walked together.
“Does any province of this realm love another?” Cefwyn asked. “This is the third generation since the Sihhé kings. Look you back at them. Is this not a perfect type of my father’s kingdom?”
“Will you mend it by being murdered by them?”
“You will not move me, Idrys.”
“By your own will, you risk your life.”
“Go. You know what I will have you to do.”
“My lord.” Idrys stopped at the stairs. Cefwyn did not look back. The guards that stayed with him were sufficient, and failing those, there was still the bezainted leather and the dagger and sword at his belt.
Chapter 19
There was formal display in the grand hall, which was Heryn’s, like all else; and Cefwyn had not used it since his formal reception by the Aswydds last falclass="underline" Heryn’s gold and lavish ornamentations were most evident here, the wealth of the province on bold display. So was Heryn himself, with his Guelen-imposed guard, and with Orien and Tarien, joined by a thin surly scattering of Amefin earls and thanes of Heryn’s retinue among the crowd of visitors and ealdormen of the town itself.., the Amefin now being outnumbered by the guests and their attendant bodyguards who crowded the guest quarters and who would soon crowd the hall for the banquet to follow. The tables for that affair were not yet brought in. It was all a standing crowd.
Cefwyn drew a deep breath and walked that center carpet, not looking to the sides, and wondering the while about the safety of his back, on which he felt Heryn’s stare, not unaccompanied by the stare of outraged Amefin nobles.
He reached the middle level of the dais and turned, seated himself in the right-hand seat of the throne set there. Then, stiff with hatred, Heryn advanced as far as the third step from the top, bowed to him, and took that place which the Duke of the Amefin had to accept with the prince-viceroy occupying the throne above him.
“My lords,” Cefwyn hailed them, and the Amefin chamberlain rapped the floor with his staff until silence reigned.
One by one the lords were proclaimed, in order of honors and precedence—himself, Heryn, Pelumer, Cevulirn, Umanon, and Sovrag, with trumpet flourishes and unfurling of banners from their standards, pronouncements of lengthy titles and proclamations of ancestral rights, an ordinarily tedious business, one through which the Crown Prince, and likely the lord being named, might watch the candles, or add chains of figures, or parse antique verbs, or do any number of things to maintain himself awake.
But tonight was an uncommonly late assembly, beneath huge chain-anchored circles of oil-filled lamps, which lent their own odd pungency to the war of perfumes and the aroma of foods waiting in the east hall.
Tonight there was a perilous rivalry of voices, of display, of elaboration and martial character, each trying to outdo the other. Cefwyn sat still and watchful throughout, acknowledging compliments and appeals to his personal attention as required, his eyes straying often about the vast ornate hall—easy to become distracted in the forest of serpentine columns and the flash of banners of lords and minor lords. The crowd of Amefin and outsiders alike shifted at each new name, anxiously to estimate each other, to see who was named and who was not, and with what honors. His eyes were not for that detail so much as for the strategic location of his guardsmen, the steel glint of businesslike weapons, the movement of Amefin servants and messengers about the room on, one assumed, needful errands.
As prince, he had to face this assemblage. As prince, he had to hope that no one trod on disputed titles or territory that might bring the knives out. —Sovrag was the one to watch for outright provocation, Umanon for a test of the prince’s authority to summon them—but grant Umanon would be here among the first if he thought that business might be discussed that could work against him. Wild bulls, his father was wont to call the lords of Imor; and having them in yoke meant contentions his father was accustomed to handle. Watch them, he thought: the barons would try him, they damned well would try him.
“My lords,” he said at last, when all ceremony was done, “we bid you welcome in the hall.”