Текст книги "Fortress of Dragons "

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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"I do," Tristen said quietly. "That's the simplest thing of all to answer."

"My lord?"

"Danger entered the house—and having the gift, you moved. The gift moves you. It's wizardry. That's what it is."

"To be on the road to Bryn before I had my wits clear? To be such a fool? Is that wizardry?"

"Yes."

"Master Emuin didn't take horse in the middle of the night."

"He might have, once, when he was new to it. I've been such a fool," Tristen said, "very often, in the beginning. At times I found myself in very unlikely places… the guardhouse at the stable-court gate, for one: Her Grace's camp for another, and in the next moment surrounded by her soldiers, which led me to think I'd been a very great fool. Things Unfold. Wizardry moved you, beyond your thinking about it. My wish brought you back, perhaps, and not against your will, but perhaps faster than you needed come. Perhaps it governed your choice which way to ride and when to leave. I wished you safe at the same time I wished you back, and then I feared– too late—that my very wish might put you in danger. You see? You aren't the only fool. I regret Lord Drusenan's horse. I wish the horse well, with all my might."

"Thank you for that, my lord. I'll return him with one of my father's best mares, and my utmost gratitude; but if you have a hand in it, then he'll mend better than he was foaled."

"I hope that's so," he said. "I hope the arrow troubles you little. I wish you might let Emuin see it."

"It's nothing," Crissand said, and flushed, even while he put a hand to the wound. "It's nothing at all."

Yet the fear persisted, the retreat within the gray space. Nothing they had said had drawn Crissand out of it.

"Yet it is something," Tristen said. "It's a warning. But don't think it was all Orien's doing. Wizardry isn't anyone's. It's patterns. There and here are the same thing. Now and then are the same thing—left and right to the same design."

"I don't understand."

"Why did you go to Drusenan?"

Crissand blinked.

"Why to Drusenan," Tristen asked, "and not to, say, Levey, or somewhere within your own lands?"

Crissand shook his head slowly. "It seemed that was where I had to go."

'So we look instead for those who might have sent you there." listen said. "Emuin might have had something to do with your going there. I might. For that matter, Paisi has the gift, and Cevulirn.

Even Drusenan himself does, though very little; and certainly Lady

Orien and Lady Tarien have gift enough, but I doubt Drusenan was in their thoughts at all. You didn't fall in a ditch in the drifts and you escaped alive, and you come back with news about Tasmôrden's movements, which is something we all desire. So however it was– it wasn't that bad a venture."

A wry smile touched Crissand's mouth, and that knot in the gray eased the slightest hint. "As always, my lord sees the pure snow, not the mire."

"I see the mud, too. But it's the snow that's marvelous. Isn't it? I see the mud, and the ill my wishes can cause; but I wish better than that.—Yet leave wishing to me. I ask you believe me in this, and think about it at your leisure: what brought me to Henas'amef isn't a little pattern, and that means a great many men move to it. All the lords camped outside the walls, and Lady Orien in her nunnery before it burned, and Cuthan and all the rest… Everything. Everything is in the pattern around me, for good for ill, help or harm. My coming here—harmed your household. It was nothing I wished. But it happened."

"Even my father dying?"

It was a thought on which he had spent no little pain, and no little doubt.

"It might have been… because youhave to be where you are. It's nothing I willed or intended. It's nothing you willed. That's the point. Orien wanted to be here, I very much believe it. Cuthan wished harm; both of them have the gift. Most of all Mauryl Gestaurien did, and he set me on the Road I followed. The pattern sent me here. Do you see? I wished nothing but my safety and Cefwyn's friendship. Nothing was intended. But your father was in the pattern, and when it moved… he drank from Lady Orien's cup. There's danger in my company. There's dangerin my wishes. And because you stand near me—with the gift—there's danger in what you do, and danger in what you wish."

Crissand left his seat as if the vicinity had grown too close, action preferable to the pain his wound cost him. Or perhaps it was the distraction of the pain he sought.

"Parsynan killing my men and my cousins, and Orien's cup poisoning my father… and Cuthan betraying him… these were all foredoomed?"

"No. Nothing was foredoomed. But we two have to be here, as we are right now, in this room." It was a terrible truth that he had to tell, but he trusted Crissand to withstand it, as he trusted only his closest and dearest friends. "Emuin says that what I will and will not is dangerous. It took me a long while to understand that, but I do. He's very much afraid of me, and he ought to be. He tells me very little, I suspect so I won't make up my mind too early. He says I don't have wizard-gift, but magic. And that means I don't depend on times and seasons: I can wish at any time, for anything. And that's terrible. That is terrible, do you see? No seasons govern me. No timeslimit me. I learn wizardry not because I have those limits, but because I want to learn what those limits are—of my friends, and of my enemies. You are the Aswydd, and you will be the Aswydd, no matter Lady Orien's demands. Auld Syes said it; and you aremy ally."

"Beyond a doubt in that, my lord."

"Yet everyone I love, everyone who loves me, is in danger… from my wishes, my mistakes, my idlest thoughts… and most of all, in danger from my enemies, especially when they venture outside the bounds. Tasmôrden has the gift. If he can't strike me, the wizard-gift that helps him will try to harm something dear to me. I can protect only what's close to me. Like warding a window. Like making the Lines on the earth. Inside is safe. Outside is dangerous.– Don't leave me again."

In the world of Men the things he tried to explain were all but inexplicable, difficult even for a man with his wits about him. Cris-sand trembled with exhaustion, and his fear of the gray space and what was Unfolding within him even now kept him balled and silent there… small wonder he had a distracted look, and seemed lost.

Tristen reached to the tea tray and moved one cup, which nudged the pot, the other cups, and the spirit bottle.

"Move this, it moves that. That's wizardry. It's that simple."

"It's mad!" Crissand protested. "How do you know what moves the right thing? How does anyone deal with it?"

"I left on such a ride as yours," Tristen said, "and came back with Ninévrisë. I didn't know she was there. But someonehad to bring her to Cefwyn. I was able to, and I was there. But she would have come, by one way or another. When things need to happen, they happen."

"Yet you say it's not foredoomed."

It's not. She would have come not because it was foredoomed, but because wizards wished her to be with Cefwyn. Even I, perhaps, since I wished Cefwyn well, and certainly he's happiest with Niné-vrisë. The wishes of all those with the gift wishing at once shape Patterns, and within those patterns we can move. Within the design, we can choose what we do, and by our choices, shift the pattern that is and change the choices of what can be." So he hoped, who had met himself in Marna Wood, and again at Ynefel, or at least had come fearfully close to it: how mutable time-to-come might be was of vital interest to him. "Only, being Sihhë, as Emuin supposes, it seems I can go counter to that pattern and throw it all into confusion again. I can change what wizards have set and I can do it even contrary to the pattern of the world itself. That's magic, as best I understand it. Magic, as opposed to wizardry. And I think that frightens wizards most of all. Ask Emuin. He explained these things to me. I learn wizardry, because it shows me how to work within the patterns Emuin sees, and not overthrow things. It's hard to be patient. But it's safest for everyone."

"I don't understand," Crissand said earnestly. "But I do hear, my lord, with all my heart, and I do know I do my lord no service by acting the fool—least of all by flinging myself into Tasmôrden's hands. But—"

"But?"

"I thought I was right!"

"Within the pattern, you were."

"But how—if these fits come on blindly… how can I know what's truly right? How can I say no to them?"

It was a question, one he had had to answer for himself, by having Emuin in his tower, and always within reach.

"Come to me. Not to Uwen, not to Tassand, no messages by way of Lusin. Come to me and tell me what you feel in the least moved to do, at whatever hour. That's the only way."

He had flaws of his own, he knew: latest of them, he had brought the Aswyddim into Henas'amef, endangering people who loved and trusted him, and never consulted Emuin. It was much the same as Crissand's riding off to the river. He found no difference, at least.

But Crissand was too weary to reason further. The ball that he had made of himself stayed tightly furled. There was only hope he would remember it.

"Go home," Tristen said, "sleep. Come back. I need you."

It echoed through the gray space, that truth that overrode all others. In the Pattern magic made, Crissand's presence was no matter of chance: it was a necessity to him, and Crissand did not remotely comprehend his danger.

– Crissand! be said, and startled that knot into unfurling, at least a little. Crissand! he said again, and this time the knot came undone.

–My lord! Crissand said, and faced him uncertainly. But the gray winds blew and blew, and that grayness about him whitened to pearl, if not to the sun of his presence before.

– Wake! Tristen said, and the light shone through, and Crissand shone in the gray space, clear and pale as the morning sun. There you are, Tristen said then. There you are. Look at me. Keep looking at me, he said as Crissand began to cast a look over his shoulder. Here is where you need to be.

The Edge was beyond them, that dangerous slide into dark. He knew, and perhaps Crissand had seen it, but Crissand had his bearings now, and stood beside him and turned a calm face outward, toward the deeper shadows.

– Don't go there alone, Tristen said to him. Promise me.

– I swear it, Crissand said to him, and drew another, a whole breath. The things he could not learn in the world of Men he seemed to learn by seeing, and feeling the currents of the wind, where it blew, and where it tried to take him.

So Tristen led him out of the gray and into the candlelight of the room in which they sat.

And a small portion of the light Tristen kept with him, and held in his hand, and let it slowly fade.

"Gods," Crissand said.

"So you know it's not that far," Tristen said. "So you know I can always reach that place, wherever I am. And you can. You don't need to ride to the river to find it, or to inquire what our enemy is doing. Go home. Go to bed."

"My lord." Crissand was at the end of his strength, and yet moved to the wish he made: he rose, and took his leave, regretting what he had done… but the need to have done it was stronger than all regret, as if a fire burned, and only going and moving could extinguish it: and it was a true fire. Tristen knew it, as he knew the Aswydd, and only hoped to govern it, for Crissand's sake.

But as Crissand stumbled home, safe in the hands of his own guard, the gray space was clear at last, the tie that was between them was safe, and the warmth that was Crissand shone again on his right hand.

He had gotten Crissand back—in spite of the weather and in spite of all ill wishes to the contrary, he had recovered Crissand, in all senses, and that was a victory.

As for what Crissand had learned at such risk—he already knew, Tasmôrden feared what was going on at his southern frontier, and hoped to slip his own men in among the Amefin, where they could mingle with like speech and stature and coloring.

And now that Tasmôrden knew about Aeself's band of expatriates at Althalen, he surely hoped to lodge his own men among them, to betray them at some advantageous moment. That was the risk inherent in mercy: he read it in his books, but had no need to read it: common sense advised him that he had run that risk in allowing the fugitives to cross and to establish a force there.

He felt the currents Crissand had felt without ever going to the river, as he had said. And for Aeself's sake, for so many other reasons he yearned to draw the main attack south, where he could reach it. But Cefwyn had expressly forbidden him to do that, saying that the northern barons of Ylesuin must have their moment of glory—the very barons that betrayed their king. Yet Cefwyn's orders stood, and the situation within Ylesuin had reached a complexity which had somehow to reach its own resolution: when the south was part of the action, then the northern barons acted together, jealously, against the south. Whenever they had to act together, they also acted separately, jealously, against one another. It was Cefwyn's attempt to! make them act together that had done this—and bringing the south; in to steal their war and present them a victory could never do whats Cefwyn dreamed of doing: that was the difficulty in all this, and: considering the attack on his messenger and the attack on the nuns at Anwyfar, he saw the state of affairs in Ylesuin, as clearly as if it, too, were within the gray space.

Tasmôrden's ventures south, this arrow launched at Crissand, offered him an excuse: he might strike back, within the scope of Cefwyn's orders. But if he did move, no small strike would serve; any purpose but to draw another small assault, and more harm.; What would deal with Tasmôrden's incursions was a hammerblow; no mere chase from a border camp and back, but an answering presence at the edge of Elwynor, on Elwynim soil. Thathe could construe as within his orders… while Cefwyn was in danger from within his own kingdom.

His message regarding Tarien had sped, but other messages might have gone astray.

And what then? What then, when the north divided itself again into quarreling factions?

What when the news broke, that Cefwyn had, not an Elwynim heir, but an Aswydd son—a southernheir, and a wizard to boot?

Tasmôrden likely knew: Cuthan would have told him. And he would hear about the arrival of Orien and Tarien: it was in the gray space, as the child was, once one knew to look; and would the birth of such a child be silent? Tristen thought not.

Captain Anwyll, wintered in at the riverside garrison, would know once the rumor limped its narrow channels to reach him. And then what must Anwyll think, a Guelenman, loyal to his king?

Why should Tasmôrden move east, against the heart of Ylesuin, where scandal might do the work of armies, dividing his enemies?

No. It was Amefel Tasmôrden had to fear, where he knew walls were going up and fortifications were rising despite the bitter weather. Tasmôrden was not blind, Tristen was sure, nor ignorant of both trouble in Guelessar and threat to the south. If anything drove Tasmôrden east—it would not be Tasmôrden's own interests.

Did Tasmôrden know that?

Or would Tasmôrden go east, like Crissand toward the river, because irresistible currents moved him?

Tristen sat, the cup cooled in his hand.

Outside the windows, for some reason beyond his wishes, the snow continued to fall.

CHAPTER 6

A gentle snow veiled the banners, snow falling on snow, cooling the passions, hiding the blackened beams of the Bryalt shrine across the square from the Quinalt, so that Luriel's second wedding processional had no such ill-omened sight as it wended its way to the steps of the Quinaltine. Lay brothers swept the steps, which in Cefwyn's estimation only made them chancier, and he held his consort's hand with attentive caution on the climb. Trumpets blared about them, all the bright display of the houses of Panys and Murandys, colors of gold and green and blue and white billowing out in streamers from the drafty doorway above.

The choir began, eerie echoing of voices within the stone sanctuary. Cefwyn had always found it unnervingly evocative of funerals, of souls trapped in the shrine that was the holiest of all Quinalt shrines, all the dead buried in the vaults below. He had seen more funerals than festivals when he was a boy: the old guard of the Marhanen court had been dying; then his cousins dying; his mother and then Efanor's mother dying. He had come to detest the Quinalt liturgy, as he had come to detest the Quinalt's influence over his father. From boyhood he had far preferred the Teranthines… partly since it was his grandfather's choice and annoyed his father; but mostly because the Teranthines had more cheerful music and talked less about sin.

But that alliance had been a boy's liberty to choose. The man was king of Ylesuin, the Quinalt was the order that dominated the court and held most power in the kingdom, and to that faith the king must show due and solemn observance.

Especially that was so since he had appointed the new Patriarch, and had to uphold the man in his office. But on the brighter side, he had very good cause to expect cooperation: Father Jormys, now

Patriarch of the Holy Quinalt, was a devout religionist, but no fool, and not unaccustomed to politics, having been Efanor's spiritual advisor since Efanor had left the Teranthines. He had encouraged a little too much devotion on Efanor's part, perhaps, but that had been the extravagance of green youth—Efanor's—and the enthusiasm of a young priest with a willing hearer; and that, too, was settling to sober good sense as the boy became a man courted by dangerous men, and as the priest found himself enmeshed in the court.

And if there was a miracle to be had, some divine blessing to mark the accession of Jormys and the confirming vote in the Quinaltine, it was… thank the gods of both faiths… the snow. Riots and murder were far less likely when the weather closed in like this. Snow was more efficient than troops of the Guard in dispersing the crowds and lowering the voices that had lately cried out in anger. Men drunk on wine and the last Patriarch's murder had burned and looted the Bryaltines just across the square, convinced that the Bryaltines had sheltered assassins and wizards.

But now the populace had seen a body displayed as evidence of the king's justice on the impious—not that the man was guilty, to be sure. His sole recommendation was that he was already dead, unidentifiable, and a convenient recourse when the mob demanded justice. They had hung the unfortunate posthumously… and in that very hour the snow had started to fall, and fall, and fall with no letup.

Hard to maintain the will to riot when fingers and toes were numb. Hard to gather in great drunken numbers when the streets were slippery with ice.

Today, even for a court wedding, he had provided no unbounded largesse of ale in the square, and consequently the majority of those onlookers who came to watch this processional were sober, intent on the spectacle, not the excess of good cheer flowing in the Quinaltine square, which had been the most grievous mistake of the last attempt at this wedding.

And without the drunken crowd, the troublemakers in the town who had escaped having their crowns cracked by the Guard were lying low and quiet. The ordinary folk of the capital who were not standing to cheer the procession were busy sweeping the snow off their steps or struggling with frozen cisterns and ice dams on their roofs.

So in the safety of the snow Lady Luriel of Murandys could attempt again to be married. It was an indecently short time after the murder of the Patriarch to be holding a state wedding, but the affairs of state rushed on: the last Patriarch was three days in the vaults beneath the Quinaltine following a fortnight of extravagant ritual, the blood was cleared off the stones, the shrine was purified, and Lady Luriel and the second son of Panys were back for another attempt at married bliss.

The banners swept in, the procession followed, and in the pageantry of the banners and the trumpets to either hand, Cefwyn marched down the aisle and took his place in the first row of seats, standing with the Royal Consort to await the rest of the court.

His brother Efanor arrived next, and Lord Murandys and Lord Panys… the Lord Commander should have been there, too, but Idrys, he noted, had disappeared.

"Where is Idrys?" Ninévrisë whispered in some concern. When Idrys was not punctual, there was a reason, and Cefwyn's confidence in the safety of the place was just a little undermined, the sound of the trumpets gone just a little thin in his hearing.

"Seeing to the Guard," Cefwyn guessed, whispering, and thought to himself, I hope so.

The recent upheaval left all the land uneasy. Only yesterday came word of a Teranthine shrine attacked, plundered by bandits, rapine and murder on innocent nuns—disturbing enough in itself until he heard the name of the place so afflicted. Anwyfar was also where he had lodged the Aswydd women, and there was no especial word on their fate. He had the least uncomfortable suspicion it might not have been bandits, rather the actions of someone bent on causing trouble. Idrys had sent men to find out. That report might have come in, among other matters Idrys saw to.

The murder of the Patriarch had not settled the struggle inside the Quinalt, between the orthodoxy and the moderate wing. Far from it. The orthodoxy, which was almost certainly to blame for the death of the Patriarch, had tried to set the blame on the hapless Bryaltines, since the murder had left the Patriarch's murdered body in a room filled with heretic Bryaltine charms and imagery—it was far too obvious a lie, but not for the mob: the mob had set fire to the sole Bryaltine shrine in Guelessar, and hung its priest… bad enough if that were the end of it. But it was Ninévrisë'spriest.

She had attached herself to the Bryaltine sect to please the Quinaltine, who could by straining a little accept that faith, all to allay the popular fear of Elwynim as a people steeped in wizardry and godlessness.

So he did not take it for a coincidence that whoever had murdered the Patriarch, his ally in the skirmishes with the Faith, had blamed the Bryaltines, Ninévrisë's… no matter that hapless Father Benwyn, a bookish man and nearsighted to the extreme, had been the least likely murderer in all Ylesuin.

Cefwyn did not take any of it for a coincidence, he found it hard to take the business in Anwyfar as a coincidence, and now came the absence of his right-hand man when they were all met again in this place that had been the center of the previous incident in this first trial of the new Patriarchate and the second attempt at this marriage. It was the first major court function since the Holy Father's funeral and interment, and it was the apt occasion for trouble.

He hoped Idrys was only exercising caution—perhaps personally standing by the new Patriarch even as he robed for the event.

Please the gods they made it through this wedding without incident… and married off his former lover before she was herself the focus of trouble in the court.

He tightened his grip on the rail before him as, to the wailing of the choir, the bride and groom arrived in their places at the altar. Shortly after came the moment of previous disaster, the moment when the last attempt at matrimony had ended in blood-spattered priests running out to announce the Patriarch's murder. Cefwyn clenched his teeth as the smoke of censers increased, creating smoke through which the Holy Father should make his appearance—and relaxed with a sigh when the shadowy figure of the new Patriarch did appear out of that veil of smoke.

The entire congregation sighed and seemed easier as that fatal moment passed safely. The choir never ceased its haunting, haunted praise, and the new Patriarch lifted his heavily robed arms and pronounced an untrammeled blessing on the congregation and on the couple.

Cefwyn heaved a second and ultimate sigh of relief, feeling as if knotted ropes had loosened about his chest.

Murandys and Panys, two houses of great wealth, one troublesome, one loyal to the Crown, were now joining hands in this marriage. Luriel, who had looked to marry the heir of Ylesuin, and who had found herself instead in virtual exile in Murandys, was redeemed. Panys' second son, a good young man, had by the nuptial agreement secured himself the right of inheritance in Murandys—when heirless Murandys died, he would pass into the line of Murandys and become lord of the province… since Prichwarrin Lord Murandys had produced no male heir, and the sibling line had produced no male either. Luriel would inherit as far as the custom of her province allowed: that was to say, she had chosen her husband; and if she was canny and bided her time, she would be essential to her spouse in the administration of the province of her birth.

Patience was certainly not Luriel's best skill, lending some doubt to her help—but after the vows she became her husband's concern, and her uncle's… not to cross his path again until Prichwarrin should die (please the gods) a natural death abed, at a goodly and peaceful age.

The new Holy Father reached the final pronouncement of marriage. The trumpet fanfare rang out. The choir soared to hitherto unreached heights, all but painful to the ears, and the high, pure bells began to peal. The whole town seemed joined in relief that the deed was done, the ceremony had come off without an ill omen, and the Patriarchate had survived.

A second fanfare echoed among the shadowy pillars, the signal for the banner-bearers to file toward their departure. The king and royal family must leave first, with their various banners: then the married couple, in precedence over all other lords and ladies for this one day of their lives… though Murandys ranked high in the order of things under any circumstances.

The red Marhanen banner with its golden Dragon swept across the light from the doors, then the red banner of the Guelens, translucent against the sun, bearers fanning out to the side against the snow-laden light. The prince's standard followed.

Cefwyn and Ninévrisë swept to one side, with Efanor close beside them: Luriel and Rusyn of Panys swept to the other side in a flow of blue and white and gold and green banners astream in the ice-edged wind and the pure, clear daylight. The bells rang, the trumpets blew, and such of the town as had braved the cold to stand before the steps, respectable folk all, waved kerchiefs and cheered an event of hope in the affairs of their land.

It was a moment for smiles, and for an unrestrained breath and a sigh. Cefwyn lifted a hand and waved, and Ninévrisë waved. The populace waved handkerchiefs and scarves.

And in that moment a shadow slipped close to Cefwyn's side, as only the Lord Commander could without the quick reaction of the king's bodyguard.

"Ryssand's come to the wedding," Idrys said in half a whisper, and Cefwyn swung his head half-about, appalled.

"Here?"

"He's passed midtown… ridden Ivanim fashion to get here– doubtless for the wedding."

"Damn him!" Cefwyn's voice escaped discipline, but he lowered it quickly. "At risk of his beadhe comes here! And nothing from the gate-guards?"

"They reached me, my lord king. You were already in the processional. Hence my absence. I've alerted the Guard."

"Damn and damn!" Cefwyn said, and unwillingly caught Ninévrisë's attention. "Wave," he said, and did, smiling.

Ryssand risked everything on this return… of course before the weather worsened, of course at the worst moment, of course while the union of the Marhanen with his own troublesome but essential house was still under discussion. Here was the man likeliest at the root of all the realm's troubles, strongly urged to absent himself from the court for the season, and he daredcome back unbidden?

The timing was no accident. Ryssand was a master of public display for his provocations, and would never arrive to attend the wedding, no, but rather just in time take advantage of the crowd thus gathered to force his king to act or fail to act in public.

And a king who had just arranged this marriage at some personal investment and cost to the Crown had to wonder, did Lord Muran-dys, father of the bride, who had agreed to the wedding to secure his own unstable political ground, know of the return of his erstwhile partner in dissent? Had they possibly conspired to do this?

"Cuthan and Parsynan are with him, my lord king," was Idrys' final caution, as horsemen broke forth into the snowy square, the banner of Ryssand brazenly displayed. A clot of townsfolk accompanied the column, the curious of the lower town swept up in Ryssand's course through the streets. The celebrants who had been cheering Luriel and her groom saw it and deserted the space below the steps to gawk as the unannounced arrival made his procession toward the Quinaltine.

Corswyndam Lord Ryssand reined his fine chestnut in at the steps and made his bow. And with the banner of Ryssand was another, smaller banner, one which most of Ylesuin would not recognize: the banner of the earl of Bryn, out of Amefel.

Never mind the man, still in the saddle as if he headed some invading army—or trusted Ryssand gave him the ducal privilege of staying ahorse in his king's presence—had no longer any right to the display of those colors.

'My lord king," Corswyndam said loudly enough for half the square to hear. "My lady. My lord prince."

Oh, that was calculated, a salute to Ninévrisë, the Royal Consort. Corswyndam had moved heaven and earth to see Ninévrisë treated ^asan enemy instead of an honored and queenly bride. By the protocols, she being merely the Royal Consort, he might have omitted her from the reckoning entirely, and yet he did not. He saluted her, he saluted Prince Efanor, whom he courted for a son-in-law. There was no piece of mischief in Ylesuin that did not have Lord Ryssand somewhere involved, and all this public courtesy, all this show was a challenge to his king to accuse him of any of it—an attempt to interject the very scandal Cefwyn had avoided into this most happy of moments.