But not without interception. A black-clad guardsman checked him with a hand on his arm, right near his brother’s door.
Idrys.
“Your Grace,” the Lord Commander said in a low voice. “I take it that it was not without disturbance.”
“No,” he said, “it was not.”
ii
IT WAS A VISITATION OF ILL OMEN: CEFWYN SAW IT COMING——EFANOR, PASSING the guard at his chamber doors with no lingering courtesies, went straight to the point, just when the Lord Chamberlain had begun a report, and asked for complete privacy.
“The mark is back,” Efanor said directly.
“No such thing!” Cefwyn said. “I looked. I saw nothing at all.”
“Some see it. Some, among the priests, the Holy Father—as well as your Aswydd son—do. Isee it. It will manifest again. I’ve ordered the doors shut, the stone replaced. Your miracle, brother, has failed; worse, it’s gone wrong. All through the service, I was with the boy…”
“Who did nothing!”
“I will warrant myself, by deed or word or invocation, he did nothing— but what he saw, and what I saw, brother—”
“These Lines.”
“You’ve seen them yourself. I know you can see them.”
“I agree they’re there. Once and twice, yes, I’ve seen them elsewhere, in darkest night. Why should we be so blessed this time? And why should it be the boy’s fault? Why not one of the priests doing this?”
“I don’t at all deny that it could be. But the fact is, other things manifest when the boy is there. They frighten him, and what I saw there this morning frightens me. Listen this time, brother. Whatever the cause, for the boy’s sake, for yours, the boy must not go through those doors again.”
Master Crow had come in, sole exception to the request for utter privacy, and stood by, arms folded, the last man on earth who might see mysterious Lines or give way to superstition; but he, like Efanor, had seen far more unaccountable things in his life.
“My lord king,” Idrys said unbidden, “consider, not alone the boy’s mother, but the mother’s sister. Born at a sorceress’s will—”
“You are about to offend me, Crow.”
“Sorcery brought you into the Aswydd’s bed, sorcery conceived a son you will not now disavow—on what advice, yes, has generally been good advice, but Lord Tristen never counseled you to bring that boy into the Quinalt, my lord king. I would wager heavily on that. This was your own notion.”
“Damn you, Crow!”
“Oh, I’ll deserve it more before I’m done speaking. What you do, you do broad and far. You were a wild and froward boy. You are a generous and occasionally excessive man, where it touches your demonstrations of the gentler sentiments: love me, love my boys, or be damned to you all. Do I mistake your intent to press popular sentiment to the wall? You appointed the Holy Father: you can unseat him if he crosses you—but you’ll come to me to do the deed. Oh, I do serve you, my lord king, but His Grace has warned you, and I warn you. I missMaster Grayfrock. He’d mince no words. You find yourself hell-bent on a course that will destroy you—wizards are in it. And is there not a smell of wizardry about this boy? Say no, and I’ll know for a certainty you’re bespelled, my lord king.”
It was one of Crow’s better speeches. It left Cefwyn silent, except to say:
“You advised me drown him at birth.”
“I don’t think I specified the method, my lord king, but I did foresee this moment.”
“So did His Majesty,” Efanor said, “or he’d not have been so stubborn in this matter.”
“Damn both of you! This is not for jest!”
“You brought this boy in,” Idrys said in measured tones, “while I was otherwise occupied. You had no wish to hear my opinions on the matter. But being here now, I give them, gratis.”
“If I’m ever cut, Idrys will bring salt, will he not?”
“The boy,” Efanor said, “has no ill will, nor malice in him, nor practices anything unwholesome. He is innocent, and as Emuin would say, worse than that, he is ignorant. That said, this morning proves he has the Gift, in what measure I cannot tell—but enough: enough to make him a door through which Tarien Aswydd can look into this place, if not enter. The Quinaltine dead are roused… to what, I cannot say. It was no simple sneeze that hurled that censer to the stones. It was a struggle between what thin line protects the Quinaltine and what forces would bring utmost harm on you, on the queen, and on both your sons.”
“No.”
“Hear me. In him, Tarien has what she still lusts after: power. You always meant to take him from his mother. You snatched him from her at birth, you instructed him to fear her. But you had no power to break her desire for him.”
“What would I, kill her and loose another ghost?”
“What will you? Disinherit Crissand’s sons and install this boy as the Aswydd?”
“No. That is not my intent.”
“No place for him, then, in Amefel, where he might live. What shall you teach him to be, then? A captain of the Guard? He can’t ride, or fence. A cleric, perhaps! An Aswydd cleric!”
“If I wanted him a cleric, I’d send him to the Teranthines.”
“If we could find one. Their shrines stand vacant. And even they would fear him. For what do you prepare this boy?”
“I am making a lasting peace between my sons, exactly the reverse of our father’s intent for us.”
“Sons defy their fathers’ wishes. What, when your sons defy yours?”
He could argue with Master Crow. Crow only vexed him. Efanor had a way of cutting deeper, touching his fear for Nevris, for his daughter, and his son, in for the likelihood that Aswydd sorcery had indeed some purpose for his long-ago misdeeds, and revenge as its object. His stomach was upset, and for a moment he averted his face from the arguments, standing, arms folded, face to the windows.
“The boy should go home,” Idrys said.
“Crow.” The Marhanen temper threatened to get the better of him. “Time you left.”
“He’s done all you wished,” Efanor said. “He’s forgiven and blessed, and written in the holy record. And if his gran, as we have now established with Brother Trassin, is ill—if she should get worse—if there were a messenger to arrive with dire news, if the boy were simply to fly home to his gran, as a consequence of such a missive, it would be a great success he has achieved here. Would it not? There would be an explanation for his departure. And talk would die down.”
Cefwyn let go a long, difficult breath.
“I like the boy,” Efanor said. “He has admirable qualities.”
“We are not burying him, damn it all! He will be back!”
“Indeed.” Idrys had not gone away as requested. Cefwyn looked at him, where Idrys leaned, long arms folded, against the royal writing desk. “The stench of fire in the sanctuary is too evident, my lord king. And if we strip another stone from the chapel, and another, why, the priests will pray on bare earth by snowmelt.”
“Aewyn will be in mourning,” Cefwyn said.
“And what ever endeared itself to a boy’s heart like the forbidden?” Efanor asked. “Separate them, and they’ll fly together.”
“And hate me for it.”
“The boy is worried about his gran. This is my advice. Satisfy that. Let a message call the boy home now. Then bring him back in fat, lazy summer, when the streets are dusty and people are in more generous humor. Let the people see him out in the country, hunting with Aewyn, attending harvest dances, and playing pranks like boys, not—not visiting the Quinaltine at the hinge of the year, when everything is at odds. Let the people see his better qualities.”
“Shall I tell you how he misled the stablemaster?” Idrys said smoothly. “Wit and guile together. Those are important qualities.”