Emuin arrived a week late, in a gust of snow, toward the mid-afternoon. The bell rang, advising of an important visitor, and Ness, from the gate, arrived to say so; and soon the train of ox-drawn carts and wagons and pack-bearing mules began to make a commotion in the stable yard. Master Emuin would not leave it despite the falling snow, which did not surprise Tristen in the least. Every bird’s nest and bottle would find its way to master Emuin’s tower, which was vacant, and swept: Tristen had foreseen that necessity, and that master Emuin would simply begin sending baggage upstairs, or go himself, expecting it.
“Good day, sir,” Tristen said from the west outside stairs, looking down, and finding master Emuin in the midst of chaos. All of the cobbles except the patch where master Emuin stood were trampled snow obscured with offset baggage. Some, off-loaded, were going out the open ironwork gate; more were coming in, including a wagon, which was having difficulty.
“There you are!” Emuin said sharply. “Do we find the town burned down? The cellars plundered?”
Tristen came down the steps, with Lusin and the guards behind him. “Did the lord viceroy say so?”
“He gave me dire reports of disorder. I expect ashes, at least active conflagration.”
“The town is quiet,” he said. “The Bryaltine abbot came this afternoon. The Quinaltine father here is far friendlier than the Patriarch in Guelessar. He sent a basket of apples.”
“A relief, a decided relief.”
“Earl Edwyll is dead. His son has the earldom. Earl Cuthan fled to Elwynor, by boat; we found Mauryl’s papers in his possession, little use he could make of them. I think he only meant me not to have them.”
Emuin gave him a sharp look, and looked longer.
“I had to make decisions,” Tristen said, “and made them, sir.” It was no place to discuss details of policy, this swirling, bawling yard, but it was common knowledge now through all the town.
“Well,” Emuin said, seeming only moderately surprised. “Well,” he said again, and said no more about it, choosing instead to shout at a servant to be careful with the boxes.
“You would not advise me, sir,” Tristen said, not without asperity.
“So I did not,” Emuin said. “Stand in the path of Mauryl’s working? I? I have come to provide counsel— not direction, young lord, as lord you are.”
“ Mauryl’sworking? Dare you say so, sir?”
“That is all I dare. You have made your path, young lord. NowI am here. Not before.”
The wagon finally gained the courtyard, with Tassand and the others of his servants, whom he was glad to see, and to whom he only needed say, “Orien’s apartment,” to have Tassand completely informed, and immediately busy, and his baggage and belongings destined for upstairs.
He went inside, then, into the noise and confusion of arriving baggage, of a hundred more Guelen troops to be housed, and clerks finding their accommodations. Boxes and bundles passed him. He retreated to the safety of the upper floors, leaving master Emuin to call on him when he pleased, since he knew he could never persuade master Emuin to leave his precious boxes—only two months removed from the tower, and now coming back again— in the hands of servants.
His household was complete, wizard, wardrobe, and all.
He settled again to the table on which the appeals and petitions waited, and took up those he hoped to accept. Master Rosyn, the tailor, was one who had served Cefwyn, and who now begged to deliver “werk of most excellent qualitie.” Master Rosyn had written the letter in his own hand. And he was a good and diligent man. Tristen put that down as something he might simply give to Tassand to arrange. Red and black was the banner under which the commons of Amefel had marched to Lewen field, and red was, in one of those small definite notions of his mind, the color of Amefel, the Aswydds only holders of it by conquest.
And whence that knowledge? For a moment he saw the hill on which the fortress of the Zeide sat as girded by winter wilderness, only the smallest hint of the town, and the sense of direction said that that town, almost a village, had stood where now the more remote stables were, exactly there. It was a night, and lights showed at the Zeide gate; and where the long, sprawling streets of the town went down now to the outer walls of a populous town, now there were only a few trees, a road that wended up to a wall little different from that which stood today, but gates of iron and oak.
“My lord duke,” Tassand said, arriving with another load of baggage, snow in his disheveled hair. “Will ye mind the comin’ an’ goin’?”
“Not in the least,” he said. The stir of servants dispelled the vision, wrought its own magic. Tassand went to the window, drew the green draperies wide, let in both sun and chill. The light outside was white, white the adjacent roof, and blinding white the sky.
He had warded the window. But Tassand and the servants warded him. Uwen came up with a load of his own baggage, refusing the servants who offered to carry it. All the men were seeking out baggage that had arrived, belongings parted with, simple things they had done without.
He went back to his writing, sat down at Lady Orien’s desk, and took up his pen.
I have taken Henas’amef and dislodged the lord viceroy, who killed unarmed men against my orders. Tasmôrden promised the earl of Meiden assistance against your army if the earl would seize and hold Amefel, which he had begun to do. Cuthan, warned by the letter from Ryssand which I sent Your Majesty, dissuaded the others at the last moment. Tasmôrden is occupied with Ilefinian, I am well sure, and would never have provided the help he promised: his aim was for Edwyll’s action here to distract you from the eastern approach you might make against his forces and to discourage Ylesuin from any relief that you might send to Ilefinian. So Tasmôrden would have time to take firmer hold of the town before the spring, and meanwhile Edwyll would wear down your forces and engage you to the south. His attempt has failed. I have exiled Lord Cuthan.
The town has been quiet for four days. I have taken the oaths from all the earls, and I have confirmed Meiden’s heir, Crissand, who will fill his father’s place. I regret the deaths of the earl’s men, as well as your honest messenger.
Meanwhile I have secured the archives, and I am learning what I need to know.
I wish Your Majesty very well and Her Grace also, and do not forget His Highness’s kindness.
A dragon sat on the desk beside it, a dragon that held the inkpot, and spread wings wide on either hand. On all sides were the green draperies, the Aswydd colors, and he did not know when, in the need for more important things, they might contrive to change them.
He set the quill back into the dragon’s claw, rolled the message and tied it with cord. Then he tipped red wax, red for Amefel, onto the cord and stamped it with the ring Cefwyn knew, no ducal seal. It was enough.
The apartment was very quiet, very still, in a lull of the servants’ traffic, the bronze-and-gilt dragons looming dark against the light of the window.
It was foolish, perhaps, to be afraid of them. They were metal. But he thought of the oak and the carving, and the constraint of the wood to be what it was not.
He thought of wings, and of his silly pigeons, and of Owl abroad in a snowy, winter world. At least he found his household in some order today, if he might say as much of master Emuin, of whom he could detect cold feet, cold hands, a cold nose, and the taste of tea.
EPILOGUE
Pearls shone in candlelight, and the bride looked up, a hint of violets. Cefwyn closed warm fingers in his own, half heard the droning of the Holy Father, the promised blessing. It was Ninévrisë that filled his eyes and shortly filled his arms. It was the custom to kiss a Guelen bride.
And Cefwyn soundly did.