Tristen had no doubt who it was. He knew Uwen by his riding and Gedd by his company. They came up on one another with all deliberate speed, and as they met, Uwen swung in close with him and Crissand.
“The Lord Commander’s on ‘is way,” Uwen said first, “an’ sent us back before he got to the river, but we told ‘im all what he was set to hear, an’ we come back fast as fast.”
“The fires are lit,” Tristen said. “I’ve taken precautions and left Emuin and Her Grace in charge, with Lusin. The Amefin that will march are marching.”
“No delays as I can see, m’lord. I rode as far as Modeyneth. Lord Drusenan’s gone to the wall, and roused out a good lot of archers to riverside, as ain’t been needed yet, thank the gods, nor will be, if Lord Cevulirn’s across.”
“Good news,” Tristen said, for Drusenan had promised archers, and if Cefwyn pressed too hard and fast from the east or if the enemy came south from the beginning without that encouragement, then archers on the southern bridges might serve them well.
But wizardry had now a third place to attack, and that was Idrys, riding hard toward the river… while Cefwyn, blind and deaf to magic, knew to watch Ryssand but not men closer to him. Still, the advantages wizardry had in Cefwyn’s direction were all too attractive—for it was to protect Cefwyn that Tristen found himself constrained to take actions he would not of his own will take, when his heart told him to cast everything to the winds and follow Idrys to Cefwyn’s camp.
He could not go as fast as his thoughts could fly: if magic alone would serve, he could have gone to Ilefínian before dawn, and stood face-to-face with Tasmôrden and the enemy. He could, he was sure, go aside now to the ruins of Althalen and have a way from there. Oh, there were ways and ways to reach Ilefínian, but only one to reach it with an army; and as much confidence as he had in his own strength, it was not enough to fling himself alone into the heart of his enemy’s power: the temptation was there, the urge was there, but he trusted neither, fearing traps, not yet seeing enough into Ilefínian to know what he might face.
So he kept his pace at Uwen’s side and at Crissand’s, and they whiled away the time as they rode with Uwen’s account and Uwen’s questions, what had they done, who was in authority in Henas’amef and what time they hoped to make. Idrys had questioned Uwen and Gedd very closely, elicited every detail from Gedd, where he had lodged in town, when he had moved, when he had known men were following him and what he had done.
“Yet he gave no names,” Crissand asked. “He gave no indication who it might be that he fears.”
“Not a one,” Uwen said. “Naught that we can do, ‘cept by wish-in’, which m’lord does, I’m sure.”
“That I do,” Tristen said fervently, “and wish him speed.”
“Speed to us, too,” Uwen said, and, turning in his saddle to glance back at the Amefin troop he had driven uphill and down, until men and horses alike had grown used to hard moving. “Ho, ye men, not so sore as ye’d ha’ been wi’out ye rid through them hills, is’t?”
“No, sir,” the answer came back with many voices. “No, Captain, sir.”
“Ain’t sorry now.”
“No, sir. No, Captain, sir.”
“‘At’s the good word, an’ gods bless!”
“Gods bless, sir!”
Tristen found himself moved to laughter despite the troubles of the night. So was Crissand. The sun was up, and the banners flew no matter the difficulty of flying them in the steady wind, for there were men on the move and on guard all across the land. To a man, they wore the red badges of Amefel, having no wish to run afoul of their own watchers in the hills.
And true enough, it was not so very long after that a copse of woods gave up two shadowy watchers who stepped out into the road.
“Lanfarnessemen,” Crissand guessed, and Tristen was sure of it. The two went in forest colors and gray cloaks, and might as easily fade into the trees where they stood.
He was glad to see them, however, and drew rein where the rangers waited.
“Lord Tristen,” the foremost said with all respect, and indeed, it was a man he had seen with Pelumer, once upon a time. “The El-wynim have moved from Althalen, all but a handful, who’ve raised an archer-tower there. The most have gone toward Modeyneth and toward the river.”
Aeself had followed his orders. Auld Syes had culled her flock, he was sure, no less than the frozen bodies in the snow, but having Aeself’s men out early and ranging into the rough lands gave him some trepidation… not least for Idrys, whose presence within their lines he had not anticipated. He hoped Idrys had gone as he planned, to the river, to Sovrag: but Idrys was a man apt to change his plans on the instant and do things no one foresaw… to his hazard, in a province ready to defend itself against Tasmôrden’s men.
“The Lord Commander of Ylesuin is on the roads,” Tristen said to the two Lanfarnessemen, “and he may take any sort of clothing and go by himself. No one should harm him.”
“A number of men with the red cloth rode out on this road and two rode back to you,” the silent man said. “There was a dark man of rank, who stayed with the main body, and where they went is under others’ watch. We’ll pass that word as quickly as we can.”
“Nothin’ faster ‘n the Lord Commander’s apt to move,” Uwen said under his breath.
“Do what you can,” Tristen said to the rangers, who retreated back into the woods, a trickery of the eye the moment they were within the underbrush.
“Gods send he don’t run into Aeself,” Uwen said. “We told him about the red bands, and I saw to it he were wearin’ one. Whether he’ll keep it…”
That the signal they had agreed on, Amefin colors, a costly dye, none an intruder could find so easily in his pack or a piece of a common blanket: either cloak or coat, pennon or a scrap of cloth about the helm. It was Pelumer’s canny notion, and even his rangers, colorless against the land, wore that one bright badge, scraps of red they showed about the wrist, no more, for Pelumer’s men counted on going unseen.
“I shan’t wish,” Tristen said, fearful of intruding on Idrys’ choices, whatever they were: he knew how stealthily the Lord Commander moved in the court and in the field, and there was a real chance that Idrys might at any moment change his mind and his direction and his apparent allegiance, either because the boats might not be where they hoped or because Idrys simply rode the currents of his own unmagical wizardry, and chose not even to have friends and allies know what he would do next. The one thing certain about him was that he was Cefwyn’s man, and answered only to Cefwyn.
And on that resolution not to intervene Tristen set the company moving at the same steady pace, as much as they could prudently ask of the horses and still keep them fit for days of effort afterward.
If he wished anything, it was that Cevulirn might have the bridge open and a secure footing on the other side of the river, but that was as much as he wanted, and he wanted that very quietly, with the least possible disturbance of the gray space, emulating, as he could, master Emuin, who could go unseen there.
He had learned from master Emuin, how to be curious without wishing any particular outcome, and thereby how to go more quietly in that place. He had learned by comparison to Emuin how very great a disturbance he could make.
More, he realized now, from Crissand and Efanor and others with the gift unrealized, but who touched the gray space with their innocent wishes, that, even before he knew that the gray space existed, before Emuin had shown it to him, he had been a troubling influence within it, boisterous and self-willed and obstinate.
So he must have been to Mauryl as well.
And had Mauryl not shown him the gray place because Mauryl feared his ignorance would lead him into danger? Or might access to that place have made him a danger, to himself, to Mauryl, to all around him?