He felt an unease at the very pit of his stomach when he thought that. He had not been ambitious. He had not even thought of thatGift. He had wanted something he didn’t think he owned, not really. Wizard-gift. Not sorcery.
He almost did look up.
But Paisi rode toward the stables, where strange horses had to stay, and Feiny turned that way, too, away from the tower, and a wall curtained the sight of it. Elfwyn got down where Paisi had and turned Feiny over to the stableboy, too, while Paisi informed the boy the horses should have water but needed no grain.
“As we ain’t stayin’ long, that we know,” Paisi said.
Elfwyn flung his cloak off his arm as they approached the side of the keep, so as to show the door guards he carried no weapon, only the knife he used for meals, and Paisi flung his all the way back. The guards did challenge them at the side door, atop the stairs, but only for a moment, and one of the men walked with them down the hall inside, as far as his captain, in a little office.
“The boy’s come in,” Elfwyn heard that man say, as if it were evident to all the world which boy, and the answer he didn’t hear, but the same man came out again and led them down the lower corridor to the great audience hall, beyond the central stairs.
He had hoped for something quieter than a public audience. It was early in the morning. Was it court day, with all the town coming in? That was the very last thing he wanted.
The man ushered him through, stopping Paisi at the door with a gesture, and at that Elfwyn looked back.
“It’s proper, m’lord,” Paisi said. M’lord again. The king’s son, again.
There had been a time Gran’s foster grandson would never have found his way into an audience, and he wished now he were bidden, like any ordinary countryman, wait until and if summoned.
As it was, he was bidden straight inside, his father’s son, into an echoing great hall, and he had to find a place for himself along the wall and stay quiet, while the guard went and added him, he supposed, to the official list a man kept at a table.
As if he were a man. A lord. At least of a rank with the angry merchant who was pressing his case with Duke Crissand at the moment. Crissand questioned the man patiently and quietly, from his chair at the head of the hall, being advised by various persons concerned in some way—Elfwyn understood, at least, that it involved the recent holidays, and a drunken brawl, and broken tables. The man was a tavern keeper, perhaps, not so high-flown as the list of people who came in with petitions for his father, over boundaries and marriages and blood feuds.
His was, it might be, the highest business, after all. He had to report to the duke that he visited Tristen with no leave to do so. He had to report that he had left the king’s palace, too, without leave—the soldiers had been here, telling as much as theyknew, and maybe making demands he be brought back again, for all heknew. And here he stood, a subject of Amefel again, wanting grain for two horses. He had no idea whether it was good or bad, from Lord Crissand’s view, that Lord Tristen was arriving soon: fool that he was, he had come here to confess the lost letter—it was not the happiest of appearances before this man, who generally had done very well for Gran and deserved better than a boy’s lame excuses.
He didn’t know what ground was under his feet, if he wondered about such matters: he didn’t know, he didn’t understand the business that had always flown over his head, or why bad dreams, which had turned out false, had drawn him back here, and sent him to Lord Tristen, where he had outright failed to ask clearly whose were the dreams, or why had he dreamed, or were they possibly a warning?
Fool, he said to himself, not to have asked, not to have put the letter where it wouldn’t drop away from him, not to have thought of it when he had taken his shirt off. He had probably flung it right into the brook, to boot.
Dreams. His mother’s work, he became more and more convinced. He’d believed what he’d seen and hadn’t looked past his initial fear.
Vision, Lord Tristen had said. Looking at things. Seeing what was. Seeing through things. Seeing through his mother’s wiles and the web of fear she flung up. Here he stood, terrified of her, while thinking she was the likely source of trouble that had separated him from his father and brought him here.
So who had gotten exactly what she wanted, after all?
And he still trembled at the thought that she was just upstairs. She was probably laughing, right now, probably delighted with her work, and no one challenged her. If he had the least smidge of Gift, himself, he would use it to face her and make her know the day was coming when she wouldn’t be so pleased with her son.
Children had come in, while the merchants were arguing, two curly-headed children and a third, in the arms of a lady, who sat down by Crissand’s side—his wife, his children, two boys and a little girl, happy children. The men fought, and the children sat and played quietly on the steps, the model of a family, such as he had almost had, in his father’s household—his father had bent every law to try to give him that.
While his mother—
He hadn’t Seen, had he? He hadn’t even thought about her, except to know he was escaping and going to Guelessar, and he had thought, when the tower set behind the hills, that her gaze was off him, for the first time in his life.
He had a sudden notion that even losing the letter might be his mother’s doing, his mother, wanting to prevent whatever Lord Tristen wanted, wanting to make all the trouble she could, and striking just as soon as he was far enough from Ynefel.
She had a habit of making the most trouble she could. He was here, within easy cast of her tower, and all of a sudden a great many things came clear to him, that it hadn’tbeen Gran’s worry, and it hadn’t been simple bad luck in the woods, and it was his mother’s great pleasure that he’d had to come here to take the blame for everything. That was the love she showed him.
Crissand served judgment on the tavern dispute, in a loud voice.
The baby began to cry at that, and the duke softened his face and his voice, and took the baby from his lady, kissing her and holding her in his arms until she quieted. “Clear the hall,” he said, which Elfwyn took for a general dismissal.
“Not you, lad.”
He turned. He saw Crissand beckon, one crooked finger beside the baby’s arm.
“Come here.”
He came down the long aisle. He presented himself and bowed deeply. “My lord duke.”
“Cakes and cream for the children,” Crissand said, with a snap of his fingers, and gave the baby back to his wife. “Otter, lad, I’m very glad to see you back.”
“I’m ever so sorry, m’lord. I came and I went, and I had a letter for you…”
“Your father sent letters,” Crissand said, “in great concern.”
“I—” He didn’t know what to say. “I’m very sorry. Lord Tristen sent, and I lost the letter.”
“Lost it?”
“In a brook,” he said, to have it done with. “But he says he’s coming here. Or at least, that he’s coming to Henas’amef.”
“Indeed,” Duke Crissand said, and got up and came down the steps to set a hand on his shoulder. He was a young man, for his office, and had a gentle face, a kindly manner. “Why, did he say?”
“I think—I think—I don’t know,” he finished in a rush, uncomfortable to have the duke treat him kindly, after all the trouble. “I wouldn’t venture to say. I told him what had happened—” No, that wasn’t quite true. “I asked him—I asked him to tell me what to do, because things hadn’t worked in Guelemara, and the Guelen priests were upset, m’lord, and I had your message about Gran being sick—”
“I sent no message.”
He was confused, confused, and a little dismayed, then limped on with his news. “I left, then. I came home. But I thought with all that’s wrong—I thought I should go to Lord Tristen. And Lord Tristen said he’d take a look at things, and after that, he wrote you a letter for me to carry, and said he’d come soon. But I lost it. I’m very sorry.”