“Thrives,” said Emuin. “The lady dotes on him, will not leave him; I ask Your Grace bear with her and the child under this roof, awkward as it is. There’s no place else safe to send them.”
The gray space seethed with Ninévrisë’s troubled presence, and with a well-banked anger. “She tried to kill Cefwyn; wished me dead; has my husband’s son—I take these things, understand, with what feeling you might expect. But likewise I take your meaning. I understand Orien is dead. But dead here, within the wards. Is that safe?”
“Warded,” Emuin said, “as warded as we can manage. But you should know the babe is gifted. And his dreams we also ward and treat gently.”
“I bear the baby no ill will at all,” Ninévrisë said faintly, a breath across the teacup. She emptied it. “Might there be another cup, if you please? I’ve suffered from thirst as much as cold—the wind was bitter.”
Tristen poured it for her himself, and she warmed her hands with it, after a sip.
“Did you fear anything?” Emuin asked her pointedly. “On the road, did anything threaten you?”
“Not in that way. It was a harder ride than I thought. I wouldn’t stop, and Idrys wouldn’t, and between us, and as much as the horses could bear, we just kept going.” She lifted the cup in both dirty, trembling hands and had a sip. “The women’s court in Guelemara had Ryssand’s daughter and Murandys’ niece. I assure you Tarien Aswydd doesn’t daunt me in the least.”
“Her Grace also,” Tristen said, lest Emuin have failed to know, “has Cefwyn’s son.”
Ninévrisë cast him up a sudden, sharp glance, the cup clutched between her hands. “A son. I think so. Is it certain?”
It was nothing he could define, but he still thought so, and did not even perceive a presence yet. It was in the currents of wizardry that ran strong and deep in all he saw, everywhere about the place. A child of Orien’s wizardry had come to be in this place: here was one of the other side—
And yet neither was necessarily an enemy to the other. It was not utter misfortune that he had delayed here to safeguard the one child, instead of waiting for Cefwyn’s message with Cevulirn, at the river… a message that they now feared was lost. Three months ago he had had difficulty imagining things to come, and now he had diverted the enemy’s current into his own hands, and seen far enough down the river he could say—yes, a son, another son, and to know that was acceptable. There was nothing else he could say of it, no word he could use, but acceptable, against all other forces loose in the world.
It said nothing, however, of Cefwyn’s safety, and Idrys’ fear. If Cefwyn had an enemy closer to him than Tasmôrden or Ryssand, that was outside his reach—and inside someone else’s, where the old, old current that was Hasufin might after all prove stronger, or quicker, or simply overwhelm him and all he protected there.
He had first discovered fear in Ynefel’s maze of walks and shadows. He had first met nameless terror in the loft where he had found Owl, and explored apprehension and unease under Mama’s shadow. None of these Words was new to him—but the knowledge that ruin could be so absolute and so sweep everything he loved with it, in one stroke, against one man—this indignation, this anger wrapped in fear he had never felt in all his life. Moderation had no place in what he felt, and he did not know the depths in himself this might reach.
But two sets of eyes read more of him than he might wish—both with the gift, both of them reaching into the gray space, and wishing his restraint.
“Young lord,” Emuin said, the only man but Mauryl who could chide him and call him a fool, “don’t forget yourself. I fear there’s more and worse to find. But you know more now than then. You may be more now than before. The Year of Years is at its beginning this time. This is your age. The last, I fear, wasn’t Mauryl’s after all. It wasn’t Hasufin’s, either, by the narrowest of escapes.—And damned certain, this one isn’t mine.”
Ninévrisë looked bewildered at this exchange… her lineage endmost of all those who had ruled in these lands, the Elwynim and the Guelenfolk.
The Amefin aethelings, Crissand’s folk, were older… not by much, but older than the Sihhë’s presence in the south, Tristen knew it not alone from his books, but from the dark that kept Unfolding under his feet.
Emuin himself in his studies had reached as far as the stars could show him, as far as Mauryl had taught him.
There was Auld Syes, who warded Althalen. She was old as the hills were old, and said almost as little—what could one say, who watched the currents move, for whom the years were a vast and endless stream?
All… all of that stream flowed past him in the blink of an eye.
“Pity Orien,” he said, strangely moved, and drew a breath too large for his body. “She had no knowledge. She never knew anything at all.”
Emuin laid a hand on his shoulder, only that.
Ninévrisë said nothing, only looked at both of them, the teacup forgotten in her hands. She was there, in the gray space, and heard, but whether any of it at all fell within her understanding Tristen could not tell.
He only had to go, now, and be sure of his defenses, around what he left. He feared more than ever in his life. The enemy had no mercy, and no alternative but to meet him: the enemy feared the same as he, and would strike at anything outside his wards.
The enemy would strike first at those the loss of whom would most damage, most wound him, most drive him to anger.
The enemy, like Cefwyn, had already moved.
CHAPTER 6
Ninévrisë slept. That was best,
Tristen thought. Uwen was on his way to the river with Idrys, and that was well, too, for Uwen could only worry, otherwise… although in the task at hand he missed Uwen’s sure hands and his calming steadiness.
Instead he called on Lusin and Gweyl to arm him. It was an upside-down order of things, arming him before the guard in the barracks was under arms, before midnight, but his bodyguard never questioned, sure that they were riding to the river before dawn, sure that the stable was gathering up horses and that messengers were out to the barracks and the fires were lit on the hills, advising every Amefin lord. It was the call they all had expected since Cevulirn had marched, and expected hourly since Ninévrisë and her party had arrived.
Lusin, who would not go to war with him, looked regretful in that knowledge; but he had his duties. “You’ll command the garrison that remains,” Tristen said to him. “Prushan will give you all the help you may need,” Prushan, a reasonable and sensible man, was too old to ride to the river, even to sit a horse behind the lines, and would provide the lordly authority in town. “And he’ll need your advice. Give it to him as you do to me.”
“I wish to the gods I was going with ye, m’lord. All of us. We still hoped we would.”
“I need you here more than in the line,” Tristen said. “You know that I do. Emuin will be at his wizardry and maybe here and maybe there… I fear Paisi will know more of what’s happening downstairs than he will. Worst, if there’s danger of wizardry… of sorcery breaking out, Emuin will know what to do for that, but he can’t watch his own back and he can’t settle disputes in the hall. Her Grace is here. She’s wise in most things and she has wizardry of her own… ask her if you find yourself at a loss, but she mustn’t risk herself or draw attention. There’s Lady Tarien and the baby, both with the gift… you’ll have them to watch, and don’t trust her: she’s an open doorway. Anything can walk through it, and you have only master Emuin and Her Grace to deal with what does. Lord Prushan’s able to deal with the town, but the Zeide itself—you understand it.”