“Your Majesty,” Idrys said, and left with satisfaction evident.
It was done. They were besieged, but the walls held firm. And with Sulriggan doubtless to arrive and with Idrys bound to send letters to Murandys’ niece, one might trust intervention might precede the snows… trifling snows, Cefwyn judged, looking out the window he avoided, not enough to prevent Sulriggan reaching the trough of money and power, not enough to prevent Lady Luriel from reaching court… oh, the quandary the lady would be in: an invitation, and last year’s wardrobe.
Was it only last year that he had danced with Luriel?
The wax had poured thickly onto the little scroll and it was bound about with enough ribbon for a state document. He took his dagger to it, and scattered the rim of the map table with shattered sealing wax and bits of ribbon. It was wrapped about with a vengeance, no simple slitting of strings, Ninévrisë’s intent to necessitate destruction no spy could repair.
I love you, it began, as all her messages began. Then:
“His Highness,” a page said, a high, childish voice. “And the duke of Ivanor.”
Efanor, with Cevulirn?
There was consternation in the hall. Even the prince did not burst through into the king’s map room uninvited, and Efanor and Cevulirn trailed an outcry of pages.
Cefwyn waved a hand, permitted the intrusion, and the pages stopped.
Efanor shut the door in their faces, faced him, with Cevulirn, grim-faced.
“They have a petition against Her Grace.”
“Quinalt rights in Elwynor. Idrys informed me so.”
Efanor paused for two breaths, and his shoulders fell. “But did Idrys say what’s notin the petition?”
“What is notin the petition?”
Efanor caught a breath and failed to say.
“Infidelity,” Cevulirn said quietly.
“Cleisynde,” Efanor said. “Cevulirn had a message from Prichwarrin’s niece. They have a witness, and they will make the charge public.”
Efanor might have said more. He failed to hear it for the moment, turned away and remembered the letter in his hands.
Artisane does not scruple to lie. Henceforth she is my enemy. I am beset and alone, and trust not even the page who brings you this message, except Dame Margolis says he is an honest boy. I fear what may reach you. Be assured of my love.
“Damn them all!” He thrust the message into his belt and strode for the door.
“Brother!” Efanor said, attempting to block the door, to no avail. He ripped it open.
“Annas! Fetch Idrys!”
Pages ran.
“Your Majesty,” Cevulirn said, a low voice he regarded of past experience. “The proof rests with Ryssand’s daughter Artisane, who is prepared to swear. ”
Idrys failed to appear. Annas, however, was as quick as aged legs could carry him.
“The page.”
“Her Grace’s page?”
“The very.”
“Has left, my lord king, frightened out of his wits, to look at him. Was there a reply to be sent, after all? Shall a boy carry it?”
“No! Is Murandys still in the lower hall?”
“I’ve no idea, Your Majesty, but I’ll inquire.”
“If he’s left, find him! If he’s not left, I’llfind him! This will notstand! Gods blast that fox-faced girl!”
“Cefwyn! ” Efanor said. “Temper will not serve, here! ”
“It served our grandfather, and it will serve me!” He was out the door, and they followed, both. He walked through a startled scatter of pages and servants, past the tall windows, gathered on his coat and swept up the full complement of guards as he left, his, Efanor’s, and Cevulirn’s two men.
No furtive, ill-reported visitation, this, but a thumping, rattling collection of men and weapons as the king went downstairs. Guards at the stairs came to attention. The hall showed vacant.
“I’ll have the lord of Murandys!” he shouted to the hall in general, waking echoes. “And his damned petition! And Ryssand! Find him!”
Men ran. He stood on the steps, and Idrys arrived, saw the tenor of things and asked no questions of him, nor did a thing but stand to the side.
And in not many moments came the tread of Murandys and a ducal entourage from the east end of the hall, servants scattering like mice along their route, finding niches that took them aside from the course of confrontation.
Murandys had the petition, a parchment trailing ribbons. He had Brugan beside him.
“Your Majesty,” Murandys began, proffering the document. “Herein—”
Cefwyn struck it from Prichwarrin’s hand. It rattled some distance, and Prichwarrin stared at him in shock.
“Your Majesty surely is misled,” Prichwarrin said, tucking his hand against him. His face was white… he was not a young man. “This petition for the welfare of the realm and the Holy Quinalt…”
“… is a sham. And a treasonous sham to boot.”
“Never so, Your Majesty.”
“You press me much too far, Murandys. Have a care to your neck. A lord is not immune.”
“These things must be settled before the wedding. They are essential—”
“No. They are not. The pigs may enjoy your petition, and beware lest I send you to feed it to them.”
“Your Majesty ismisled,” Brugan said, looming over most of the guards in attendance, and full of confidence. “And if there’s misleading, my sister witnessed it. Midnight visitations. Her Grace calling out at night after the lord of Ynefel… the…”
“Liar,” Cevulirn said. And death—someone’s death—became inevitable.
Please the gods, Cefwyn thought, realizing to his dismay a fool, twice Cevulirn’s size and strength and half his age, had maneuvered himself into a direct challenge.
Brugan grinned.
The Elwynim marriage, the entire southern alliance stood in jeopardy. Cevulirn hadno heir.
“Your Majesty can sign the petition,” Murandys said, whey-faced, “and things might be hushed, for the good of the realm.”
A hiss of steel accompanied that into silence. Cevulirnhad drawn, against all law and custom, under the king’s roof. Brugan backed, drew, and Idrys came away from his posture near the wall, hand near his sword. Cefwyn inhaled deeply and lifted a hand, forbidding Idrys, and his guards, and the duke and his guards, as Cevulirn stepped down from the last step.
“Brother,” Efanor said faintly.
“Hush,” he said.
There was a tentative posturing on Brugan’s side, an attempt to draw Cevulirn after him. Cevulirn grounded his sword against his off-hand boot, and waited, an older man not attempting the young man’s game.
Brugan shouted and rushed with a sweep of his blade.
Blade grated off blade, Brugan went past toward the very steps and guards flung themselves in his path, an iron and determined wall. Cefwyn seized a sword from the nearest, and settled it in his own grip as Brugan reestimated the lord of the Ivanim, a slow circling, this time, a slower advance attended by the rattle and thump of other guards running to the scene, held at bay by a wall of onlookers.
“Stop this!” Prichwarrin cried. “Your Majesty!”
“Bid them stop, Prichwarrin! You incited this! Youstop them!”
“Ivanor!” was Prichwarrin’s next appeal, but Cevulirn paid him no heed, and Brugan, from a crouching, cautious stalking, sprang with a wild sweep of his blade.
A second time blades rang and grated past one another, and Cevulirn was not in the path.
Brugan spun around, straight into Cevulirn’s edge. Blood fountained, followed the weapon in its sweep, and described a delicate spatter on a carved white column across the hall. Brugan went down like the ox he resembled, and Cefwyn observed it in a sense of satisfaction unrelated to the catastrophe the act represented.