But why a white satin ribbon, the like of which the Holy Father used, and why was it not the red of the Marhanen?
He broke the seal and unrolled the little scroll in the stiff wind that came down the river.
I take the captain for a reliable man, Efanor had written, and send him on with the carts which I fear now are too late to serve. Tristen has been here in Guelemara and has banished some sort of darksome unpleasantness from the very altar of the Quinaltine.
Tristen in Guelemara, Cefwyn thought, dumbfounded and dismayed at once. Had Tristen marched for the capital? And darksome unpleasantness?
… Neither I nor the Holy Father fully understand the means of his visitation, but he pursued some irruption of evil influence daring the vicinity of the altar, and established a line of defense which he drew on the stones. He said that I must guard this place and walk this line and pray continually…
There were several wonders in this cramped, tightly written letter… not least of which others was the word pray within Tristen’s instructions. Pray, was it, now?
And Tristen had not marched in at the head of an army, either, if that failure to understand the means meant something magical.
Flitting hither and thither like the irreverent pigeons?
To Guelemara, was it now?
Then why not here, friend of my heart? Come to me here! Oh, gods, could I wish you by me!
And where have I sent Nevris? To what care?
But he had no magic, no wizardry: Emuin’s most careful questions in his boyhood had found not a trace, not a breath, not a whisper of wizard-gift in him. The Quinalt and Teranthine gods were the only recourse of a magic-blind man, and he had no faith Tristen would hear him or the gods.
Yet Tristen had flitted his way into the Quinaltine, had he? And surely Ninévrisë was safe with Emuin in Henas’amef, if Emuin had not taken to flying about the land in his company.
And praying? If it were not his brother who had written that word, he would not have believed the letter, but it was, and freely so, Efanor’s cursive hand.
This I do, Efanor had written, continually, with the Holy Father and a number of the priests on whom we rely. I fear to say in this letter all that I understand and even more so do I fear to say all that I suspect. Against what enemy we contend we remain largely uncertain. I fear this lonely watch exceedingly and at times feel there is indeed some looming threat behind that Line, although my eyes can plainly see the holy altar beyond it.
I ask myself whether the hallow here—if hallow it be—might have to do with the untimely death of the late Patriarch, so bloody and recent in these precincts.
Well enough, Cefwyn thought to himself: Efanor dared not lay in writing that they had knowingly hanged a corpse for another man’s sin; and for that reason might the old Patriarch be looking for his killer? Shadows, Tristen had called them.
But at other times, Efanor wrote, I have worse fears and recall all that I have heard regarding the events at Lewen field, as if this presages some attempt at sorcerous entry into Guelemara, at this holiest of sites, and some threat against the capital and the Holy Quinaltine itself. I have hesitated to write to you, knowing the immense concerns which face you in your undertaking, and indeed, you left me to attend such matters, as within my competency. I pray you know I shall continue to stand my watch.
Yet to advise you of these things should I fall, which gods forbid, I have my one opportune messenger at hand and dare not keep him. I have learned to trust my doubts and to make friends of them, and of all courses before me, I am most uneasy with the thought of remaining silent regarding Lord Tristen’s instruction and his actions here, whether by magic or wizardry or whatever agency. If wizardry comes against us here, we believe our task is to prevent it.
Meanwhile I have heard nothing from Ryssand nor of Ryssand.
The good gods bless you and Her Grace. The gods attend your steps and guide you day and night. The gracious gods bring you success and honor.
I send you my devotion and my love.
The last was crabbed into a bend around the edge of the parchment… Efanor had made the message scroll itself as small as he could, so that Anwyll might tuck it away unseen… remarkable, Cefwyn reflected… remarkable and shameful, that they were brought to this pass of secrecy, all for Ryssand and Ryssand’s daughter.
Wizardry, Efanor said. Wizardry. Tristen in Guelemara, when other and reliable reports, even Ninévrisë’s dream, he remembered now, though for a moment he had forgotten it, had said he was in Henas’amef.
What in hell was he to think?
“Did His Highness mention anything to you of Lord Tristen coming to Guelemara?” he asked Anwyll, and saw Anwyll’s surprise.
“No, Your Majesty, no such thing! It was Lord Tristen’s intent to go to the river.”
“To the river, but on the other side of that cursed rock,” Cefwyn said half to himself, for it was that impassable barrier which kept him from going aside to Tristen’s camp and making one their plan of assault on Ilefínian. Weathered knolls of barren stone and deep pockets of earth bearing tangled brush in the crevices made it land unfit for goats, let alone any hope of joining their forces either side of the river, not until they were most of the way to Ilefínian, which sat at the point of that spear of a ridge.
And had Tristen indeed followed his silly pigeons over that and appeared to Efanor in the capital?
Efanor had surely dreamed. Had a vision and convinced his priestly supporters. Tristen was on the other side of that great range of hills; and Ninévrisë would confirm Tristen in his plan to go to the river and cross and bring him whatever support he might need… to Tasmôrden’s extreme discomfiture. Pray for that, brother!
If there were that much force to this wizardous threat Efanor named, surely then Ninévrisë would have read it in her bespelled scrap of a letter and told him so: it was, then, nothing so extreme— only one of Efanor’s dreams, that before now had set him to religious excesses. The kingdom was in danger and his brother, with all his other excellent qualities, saw visions.
So whatever had happened in the capital, whatever unholy threat Efanor foresaw, whatever the truth of visions… he left that to priests as out of his reach and beyond his advice. What he had more to fear in his vicinity was the equally unholy union of enemies, Parsy-nan and Cuthan, Ryssand and Tasmôrden, all conniving together, and now Ryssand coming up behind him.
There was the thought to make him anxious. He very much doubted Ryssand would do anything so overt as to attack his own king’s baggage train, and it was equally difficult to think that Ryssand could plan anything so reckless as an assault on his back… but it was not impossible to think.
Ryssand had buried a son, dead at Cevulirn’s hand in this exchange of rancor and wedding proposals. Artisane still fluttered around Efanor and had still hoped, so appearances were, down to the day the army marched.
But considering how Ryssand came chasing after the army with his own muster… his own very large muster, which might have with it not only Murandys but Nelefreissan and Teymeryn and all the northern lands… did not fill him with confidence.