There was doubt they could draw Tasmôrden across the bridge to encounter them on their chosen ground. So did he doubt it, and he little liked to practice the acts that might tempt a lord out of his citadeclass="underline" burning fields and forests would not serve the peasant farmers they hoped to save, nor would it leave anything at all worth stealing after the bandits had had their way in the countryside. He did not say that he hoped for help when he crossed beyond the ridge. He never mentioned so curious a thing as a flight of pigeons in the wood.
But he went to his cot when the conference was done having had at last a satisfactory session with his entire command—and having had even Sulriggan, not the swiftest wit in the company, comprehend what he was to do, and what the signal was that would prompt him to advance. He had Sulriggan to the farthest right wing, Osanan to the left with Panys, and himself in the center… with Ryssand.
He had not anticipated to be so well pleased in dealing with Ryssand. He had been grudging with Ryssand, then enthusiastic; he thought it a masterful use of persuasion. In the end, he hoped Ryssand had believed desperation had made them allies, and that if Ryssand was the traitor he thought, Ryssand would lie abed tonight smug in the belief he had gotten what he wanted and that revenge for his ox of a son was not so distant.
Cefwyn had not expected to find it so, but with the council disposed of, under the weight of thick blankets, under canvas in comfort, while many of the men slept triple and quadruple in their tents, and with the day’s difficulties past, he heaved a deep sigh and found himself freed of his concerns of time and place and treachery. He let his imaginings drift southward and west to more pleasant thoughts and safer places.
He wondered what Ninévrisë thought tonight and whether she was asleep… whether the gift she had could make her aware of his thinking of her. Some claimed to know when a loved one was in difficulty, or when some great thing had happened completely over the horizon—so the peasants thought, at least, and them good Quinalt men.
Could not a true wizard-gift manage as much?
I love you, he said to the dark.
She was with Emuin, and master grayrobe would have his ear to the earth for very certain: his ear to the earth and his eyes to the sky for portents or whatever wizards looked for. If there was a magical breath stirring in the world, Emuin might know it, and pass it to Ninévrisë. He himself might be as deaf as his horse to such whispers out of the winds. But in the Zeide wizards and wizardry were constantly aware what went on. The old man likely knew exactly where Tristen was tonight, and where he was: that he was deaf to wizard-work might not help a wizard find him, but it had never seemed to hinder the ones he knew, either.
Had Ninévrisë met Tarien Aswydd? Almost certainly. He ached to think how she would have to face his cast-off lover and an unacknowledged child.
And when Ninévrisë and Tarien had met, had there been warfare? He imagined it, at least, but told himself Emuin would mute the quarrel and keep knives from the midst of it.
Might Ninévrisë forgive her? There was a question, too. He thought she might, for Ninévrisë could be astonishingly generous, but he feared that generosity.
And was Ninévrisë with child? He was sure of it as he was sure nothing else would have persuaded her to leave him. She was with child… gods help them both… for nothing wizards had a hand in could proceed without convolutions and calamities.
Her child… Tarien’s son… both his. He deserved the consequences of his own folly, but he had never thought a bastard or two mattered; he had never counted on loving the woman he married, or loving the offspring he had—how could he have planned on it? The mother of his son was supposed to have been Luriel, and that Luriel might take exception to his sleeping elsewhere had simply been a quarrel to save for the right moment in the perpetual warfare of a state marriage.
He thanked all the gods he had escaped Luriel of Murandys.
And he wished to the good gods he had not taken to the Aswydd twins to spite Luriel, to set her in her place as one woman among his many.
Folly, folly, utter folly, and the result of it reached Ninévrisë, at Tristen’s sending, of all unlikely sources. When he had gotten Tarien Aswydd a son he had not even known Tristen’s name, nor met the woman he would truly marry.
And on that thought he heaved himself onto his other side.
An object slid atop the bedclothes.
He blinked, eased the covers off his arm, and reached for it.
His hand met a well-worn hilt, a scabbard, and a small roll of some sort attached to it.
His heart skipped a beat. Whatever it meant, it was not his, and it likely was not his guards’.
Who had come so close while he drowsed? How had a sheathed dagger gotten atop his covers while he lay protected by four trusted guards, one at each corner of his tent?
It was stealth bordering on wizard-work, but he could not account for it. If Ryssand or one of Ryssand’s men had gotten in, why should they forbear killing him? In the battle there was far less certainty.
Whatever it was, there was not a light to be had in the tent; and he rolled out of bed and went out to his guard. “Bring a torch,” he said, and waited with his hands on that leather-bound hilt and the small tight roll of paper. The hilt was cross-laced. It came to him even as he held it in his hands that he knew this dagger, having seen it day after day.
At Idrys’ belt.
And was Idrys back? And was this some ill-timed jest at his expense?
Where are you? he asked the unresponsive air. Damn you, what game is this?
Surely, surely Idrys had left him this grim gift, and no enemy had done it: no one could have taken it from Idrys, surely not.
But if Idrys was back in camp—why not stay for questions? What in very hell was this nonsense of daggers and messages?
The guard brought a torch to the door, not inside, beneath the canvas. But even at that range the light confirmed what his fingers knew, that it was Idrys’ dagger.
He had to step outside into the full torchlight to read the crabbed small note tied to the hilt.
My lord king, it began, and that was indeed Idrys. She is safe. The
south has crossed the Lenúalim. Keep your own counsel. Ryssand is not the only danger. Someone within the inmost circles, yours or mine, intends to betray us. Be sure I am near, but say nothing regarding me. I fear lest we make this person desperate.
Is that all? he asked his Lord Commander in silence. He was indignant, wildly angry with the man.
Standing at the door of his tent, blinded by the torchlight, he looked outward into a circle of bleached canvas, all of which informed him nothing, none of which revealed a traitor in his councils.
Was it one he had already excluded? Or was it one he still trusted?
Is that all you can say, crow?
Gods, give me more than this!
—Oh, gods, what have I said in council—and to which of my trusted officers?
CHAPTER 5
They marched, an army now, and gathered scattered bands from woods and hills as they came. “The King!” the newcomers shouted, undeniable in Auld Syes’ declaration and the witness of the Shadows that moved with them, a waft of wind, a chill and a movement in thickets.