Текст книги "Fortress in the Eye of Time"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 30 (всего у книги 47 страниц)

It settled the question of Elwynim preparation for war in Cefwyn’s mind. It did not say where they might strike—perhaps, which the Olmernmen had not had time to investigate, not into Amefel at all, but to the north. The Elwynim had the flexibility to do anything, to challenge Ylesuin at its weakest point, or to feint and strike in several attacks.

Grim news. Arys-Emwy’s bridge was definitely involved, and others, and very suspect was another bridgehead lying within the haunted bounds of Marna Wood, of which neither Olmernmen nor Elwynim were as cautious as other venturers—where, in fact, Olmernmen had lately had Mauryl’s leave to be: it had been no surprise to him, certainly, Sovrag’s admission of trade with Ynefel, and he would not be surprised at all to find Elwynim rangers and engineers venturing into Marna. If there were, it cast still a darker hint of Elwynor’s allies in their actions-and on Tristen’s flight. Cefwyn did not want to think ill in that regard-but the thought was there: he could not help it.

The extent and advanced progress of the matter advised him that he had been complacent in assuming his spies were loyal and well-paid enough; and in assuming they were receiving valid information. More-the concealment and the extent of the preparations indicated affairs some months in organization under a firm hand, at a time when he had been receiving marriage-offers and taking them as possibly sincere.

Fool, a small voice was saying to him, and urging that in some way he might have managed this province more wisely—that, if he had, his father might then not have died, though gods knew his father had not done wisely, either.

“We should have men up there and break those stoneworks down,” was Efanor’s conclusion, and Cefwyn did not agree, on several accounts; but he said only, “That is certainly one thing we might do,” to avoid starting a public argument with Efanor before the wounds of the last unfortunately well-witnessed dispute had healed, and before his own thoughts were in order. Wine was involved. One could obtain consent of the lords on a matter not requiring debate under such conditions. He did not want to discuss this news until there were clear heads and straighter thinking.

But perhaps he should not even have hinted of contrary thoughts.

Efanor went glum and stared at him, and spoke quietly with the priest.

Clearly Efanor’s pride was still getting before his reason—one certainly saw who stood high in Efanor’s personal council, and it truly threatened to annoy him.

Cefwyn let the page refill his cup again, and ordered Sovrag’s two scouts set at table and served with the rest: it had been a far trip for two exhausted travelers, and plague take the skittish Amefin diners lowermost at the tables, who were far enough in their cups to be fearful of piracy—at the tables, did they think? Two weary rivermen were going to make off with the Aswydds’ gold dinner-plates?

They served enough ale and wine to make the company merry—except Efanor and his priest. The Olmern scouts fell asleep not quite in the gravy, and Sovrag sent men to carry the lads away, while the lordly Imorim were discussing gods-knew-what with Sulriggan. Cefwyn had yet one more cup, and vowed to himself he would go to bed forthwith, on half of it. Efanor was withdrawing, with his priest, doubtless to godly and sober contemplation.

But on a peal of thunder Idrys, who had been at the doors, came down the narrow aisle between the chairs and the wall, and bent beside Cefwyn’s chair to say, in the quietest voice that would carry:

“Master grayfrock’s at the gates, m’lord. It’s a storm wind tonight, blowing in all manner of wrack and flotsam.”

“Would it had blown Tristen in with him,” he muttered in ill humor.

He had drunk rather too much since the scouts had come in. He was not in a mood, in this collapse of things he had hoped were safe, to face his old tutor, the arbiter of his greener judgment, the rescuer of his less wellthought adventures—and to inform Emuin that, no, he had not outstandingly succeeded in his charge to keep Tristen out of difficulty.

But Emuin had been conspicuously absent in his advice as well as his presence, and had fled for clerkly shelter when he remotely comprehended the potential for hazard in the visitor Emuin counseled him keep—and love.

So he swore under his breath, and arose as he had already intended, to take his leave. There was a clap of thunder. Men looked for omen in such things. “Give you good night and good rest, gentlemen. It sounds as if heavy weather has moved in. A good night to be in a warm hall with friends. Drink at your pleasure and respect my guards and the premises, sirs. I shall hope for clear heads by midday, and good counsel. Good night, good night.”

Cevulirn rose to excuse himself as well, early and sober, though his lieutenant would remain; Sovrag and his lieutenants would tax the staff’s good humor, and Umanon and Pelumer were drinking in quiet consultation on the far side of the room with glances in Sovrag’s direction, while Sulriggan and his man were likewise departing. They gathered themselves to order and rose and bowed, on their way to the door.

The King cared little. The King had his old tutor to deal with, and withdrew to a private door that led to a hall that led again to the main corridor, in the convolute way of this largest of the Zeide’s halls of state.

Idrys followed him; so did his guard—not to the stairway which led to his apartments, where he would have received most visitors, but down the corridor to the outer west doors, which, before they reached them, opened to the night and the rain, and a gray-frocked trio of rain-drenched religious.

One of them was Emuin, white beard and hair pouring water onto his shoulders, cloak sodden, standing like a common mendicant.

“M’lord,” Emuin said, and to the doubtful servants, who arrived from their stations, began giving orders. “Find somewhere for the good brothers. Take them to the kitchen. Feed them. They’re famished.”

“High time you came,” Cefwyn said, in the rumble of thunder aloft.

Idrys said nothing at all.

“High time,” Emuin echoed him, wiping dripping hair out of his eyes, and followed as Idrys led the way to the secluded passage. “I came,”

Emuin said, “as fast as old bones could bear, m’lord.”

“Since which of my messages?” He was temperous and felt the wine impede his speech. Emuin had not yet acknowledged him as King: he did not miss that small point.

“With all speed, my lord. As it was I came without escort.”

“Tristen left without escort. He took to the road. He eluded all my guards. He’s gone toward the west.”

“The lad’s doing what he sees fit,” Emuin said. “The lad is in deep and dangerous trouble. I could not prevent it, either.”

“Did I call you here only to hear that, master grayfrock? We need more advice!”

“I gave my advice,” Emuin said. “Did anyone regard it? Did he? I am not an oracle, young King. I never was.”

Young King. There was, finally, the acknowledgment. With the young, setting them again in the old relationship: it vastly nettled him.

“And what shall we do now?” Idrys asked. “Is there advice, sir—or only lamentation?”

“Advice,” Emuin said. “Advice. Everyone wants it once the string is loosed, not when the bow is bent. Advice I have, m’lord, advice for him if I can lay hands on him, gods send they find him before matters grow desperate.”

“What, they? Who should find him?” Cefwyn asked, and Emuin:

“The men you sent. Who else? Who else should be looking for Mauryl’s handiwork—besides an enemy he cannot deal with and men too desperate for better sense? The Regent is dead, m’lord King, and our Shaping is standing at this hour amid more than he knows how to cipher, by all I can determine.”

“How, determine?”

“By slipping about the edges of the matter, by means I do not want to discuss and you, my lord King, do not want to know. Ask me again for advice, by the gods’ good grace. No one yet has heeded the advice I have given, but I give it nonetheless—Mauryl’s spell is still Summoning, still working, and gods know what more it may do. I cannot rule him.”

“You came all the way here to tell me that?”

“Find him for me. Bring him here. Then I have hope to reason with him. But he is not what I first thought. He is—”

“What, master grayfrock? He is Sihhé? We have no doubt of that!

That he is the King-to-Come of the Elwynim? We know it.”

“More than that, m’lord King.” Emuin’s face was rain-chilled and pale.

Perhaps it was only that. But the man seemed to have aged a dozen years in the time he had been gone. His mouth trembled. When had it ever done that? “I fear what else he is. So should we all—fear—what he is.”

Men went into the tent, and Tristen watched their shadows on the canvas walls. He saw the lady’s shadow, as she sat in a chair, and bowed her face momentarily into her hands before she sat back and dealt with the men who came to speak with her. He was sorry to eavesdrop on such a private moment; but all who came and went became shadows against that wall, as the night had been full of Shadows, and was still full of them: the movements of men through the camp; the play of light and dark against the canvas; and, always, the prowling of the greater, more ominous Shadows beyond their encampment, of which he was constantly aware. So far, these had stayed at bay, perhaps weary from the struggle that had ended in the Regent’s death, perhaps satisfied, or perhaps restricted from entering this place by the Lines that still, though glowing more and more faintly, defined the walls—he was not certain. He knew far less than he ought of the gray realm and things that had effect there—he chased his surmises, seeking them to unfold like a Word, but they eluded him.

Hasufin had said he himself was buried here—curious thought, and yet, in the way of Words, he would have thought if that was so, he should at least be able to find that place—as his place. But perhaps he did not understand such things. Perhaps something very terrible would befall him if he did find it.

Yet through such a connection Hasufin claimed Althalen and through such a connection the old man intended to contest him for possession of it. So there was ownership he should have if that were the case and if he knew what to do. And had he not fought the Shadows? Had he not done well at that?

–Emuin, he said, wishing to be both there and here. Emuin, I have found someone you should have known. Perhaps you did know him. I need you. I need to know things.

But he found no echo of Emuin, either, only a small furtive presence in the grayness, a presence that deliberately eluded him.

And quite suddenly he met those ill-meaning Shadows that circled and circled the perimeter of the walls, like birds looking for a place to light.

He retreated. He held his Place and tried to ignore them in theirs.

Silhouettes against the light within the tent, men filed out again, silent and grieving Men. He could see in the play of shadows against that canvas wall how each man bowed and took the hand of the old man’s daughter, who sat beside the light, and that they then passed into a confusion of images where the old man lay. This momentary distinction and subsequent confusion was very much what he had met in the gray realm, and he feared unwitting connection, one with the other: he feared resolution of images here and in the gray place, that might carry something of danger.

Men outside the spider-tent gathered in small sad knots, angers subdued in uncertainty as cloud rolled in above the brush and the ruins, taking even the starlight. The night had turned cold. His cloak was in the tent. He worked chilled hands, and could not feel his own fingers; but the velvet-covered mail pressing the damp padding and shirt against his body were some protection, so long as the wind stayed still. He was as weary as if he had walked all the distance he had traveled in the gray space, and as if he had grappled with substance, not Shadow.

He did not know what to do, except to wait. And that had its own dangers.

Then, the cap on all their discomfort, a cold mist began to fall. Men shifted off the stones in the midst of camp and clustered by a taller section of the ruined wall, looking at him or toward the tent and talking together in words he could not quite hear. They had come ill-prepared for anyone’s comfort but the old man’s, he thought. There should have been more tents. He had the feeling, he knew not where he had gotten it—perhaps from the old man—that they had been encamped here for some time, and he wondered what had already befallen them, whether they had been escaping something as he had, in his own lack of preparation; he wondered how they had lived, and thought that Emwy village might have helped them with some things—but Emwy was burned, now.

Things had surely changed for the worse for them with that. He wondered whether the men who attacked the King had known they were here, or what it had meant to them; and he wondered whether the men Idrys had out had simply missed this place, being afraid of it as men were, or whether the Regent, himself a wizard, had sent searchers astray.

But there were no answers in chance things he overheard, only curses of the weather and from a few, talk of whether they might go home now.

No, one said shortly. It seemed they might die. Or something dire would happen.

At last two men came to say the lady had sent for him. He rose from his place on the wall and went with them, trailed by a draggle of unhappy and suspicious men as far as the door.

He ducked his head and went inside, where the lady sat. Ninévrisé wore a coat of mail which compressed her slender shape. She wore the Regent’s crown, at least he supposed it was the same thin band holding her dark cloud of hair. Armed men stood beside her, among them, Lord Tasien.

At the other side of the tent, beyond a wall, the old man lay still and pale, with lamps at his head and his feet.

“They say you killed my father,” Ninévrisé said. “They say you bewitched him.”

“No, lady, no such thing. I tried to help him.”

“Why? Why should you help him?”

“He seemed kind,” he said, in all honesty, but it seemed not at all the answer that Ninévrisé had expected. Overcome, she clenched her fist and rested her mouth against it, her elbow on the chair arm and her face averted, while tears spilled down her face.

“I believe nothing that the Guelen prince sent,” said the man beside Tasien. “We should go back across the river tomorrow and seek a peace with the rebels as best we can.”

“I shall die before I go to Aséyneddin.” Ninévrisé brought her arm down hard against the chair and hardened her face, tear-damp as it was, as she looked back to Tristen. “You, sir! Are you another prospective bridegroom? Why should my father listen to you? Why, except that lie the Marhanen bade you wear, should my father hail you king? The Sihhé arms, wrapped in a Marhanen cloak? Give me grace, the gods did not make me so gullible! Someone knows where our camp is. Someone told you.”

“The cloak is Cefwyn’s, my lady. I was cold. He lent it to me, that’s all.”

“Lent it to you. And sent you to my father? The Tower and Star are outlawed, sir, by the Marhanen. And how dare you?”  “Cefwyn didn’t send me.”

“Do not play the simpleton, sir. Whence the arms you wear? Is this Prince Cefwyn’s joke? Does he think us fools? Or what does he wish?”

“Cefwyn said I should be lord of Ynefel, because it was in his grant to give.”

“Ynefel? In the prince of Ylesuin’s grant?”

“The King of Ylesuin, lady, since his father died. But he was prince when he gave it.”

“Inereddrin is dead?” The lady and her men alike seemed shaken.

“Near Emwy village.” These were not the men that had attacked Cefwyn’s father, he was certain of it. The Regent certainly would not have done it; and he grew convinced they would not have done it without the old man knowing. “A day ago. I think it was a day. The time is so muddled ...”

“How did he die?”

“Men killed him before any of us could reach him. Cefwyn believes

37O that they were Elwynim. But he killed Lord Heryn for it. Heryn sent the message that brought the King there.”

He had not wanted to say the last: he thought that it might make trouble. But it seemed best to deal in the truth throughout, and not to have it come out later.

“Aséyneddin,” one man said.

“Or Caswyddian,” Tasien said, and Tristen, hearing that name, felt a coldness that might have been a breath of wind from the open vent.

Ninévrisé seemed to feel it, too. She folded her arms and frowned.

“You may tell King Cefwyn, from me,” Ninévrisé said, “granted we send you to him at all, that we had no knowledge of Caswyddian’s act.

The Earl of Lower Saissonnd has dealt with Lord Heryn in the past.

Heryn conspired with him and with Aséyneddin alike—and they drove my father out of Elwynor.”

That was not entirely so. The old man had said it otherwise; but he ignored that.

“I think you should go to Cefwyn,” he said. “I think he would wish to speak with you at length.”

“To speak with us? He killed our messengers!”

“No.” He knew he had no perfect knowledge of doings in Henas’amef, but he did not believe that. “No. He did no such thing.” He was not entirely clear on his reasons for believing so. And not everything fit in words, where it regarded the gray place, but something he did know, one certainty that the lady needed to know in regard to Cefwyn and the Regent: “Your father came here hoping to talk to him. But your father could not leave this place.”  That also disturbed them.

“My father is dead of this place,” Ninévrisé said. “He was in ill health. This ill-omened place—the running and the hiding.., he was not able. I grant, it took no wizardry to kill him. I know that. But your being here—brought it sooner. And I have held dear every hour of his life. I will have you to know that. Do not try my patience.”

“But it was wizardry that killed him, lady. He knew it would.

Hasufin has Ynefel. He has this place. He tried to harm your father. He was Mauryl’s enemy, he is mine and he is Cefwyn’s, and he was your father’s enemy all his life. That’s why your father came here, to be here, to remain and hold Hasufin, not to escape any of your lords.”

Ninévrisé was silent a moment. Her face had grown suddenly frightened and still. Then: “Tasien, leave me with him.”

“No, my lady,” Tasien said. “Not for any asking.”

Ninévrisé bit her lip, defied by her own men. Her face showed as pale as that ivory portrait.

“Then, sir, what do you know of my father’s dealings?” she asked.

“Go on. Tell me more wonders my father told you.”

“That he dealt with Hasufin—for which he was very sorry. —That he visited Mauryl in a dream.”

“Leave me, I say!” Ninévrisé’s fist struck the chair arm, and she cast a baleful look about her.  “My lady, —”

“I say go out! Go stand by the door. I have private questions to ask him.”

“Such as we could hear, we have already heard,” Tasien said. “Do we credit it, my lady, as the truth? Do you know anything of your lord father’s dealings with Mauryl?”

“It is true,” Ninévrisé said, and her voice trembled. “My father told his dream to me, but to none other, that I know, except my mother. And this Hasufin—where did you learn that name?”

“From before your father told me. Perhaps from Mauryl.”

“And where and when did my father bestow such confidences on you?”

“In that gray place.”

“My father’s dreaming. My father’s fond wishes. My father knew no magic!”

He felt a slippage of a sudden, toward that Place, but did not go. He did not know who or what might have called him, but something certainly had. The Place was troubled, rife with struggle.

“My father dreamed of Hasufin and Mauryl. He dreamed, I say! He never met them in his life! How can you know the things you claim?

You’ve been here. My father never left his bed.”

“Lady, your father wanted to be here. He fought Hasufin. He wishes—” In the unsettling of that Place, it became overwhelmingly important to say, “He wishes very much to be buried here. He said to me that Hasufin’s grave was here, and his must be.”

“I shall not bury him in this wretched place!” Ninévrisé cried. “I shall not!”

“I think—I think he means to oppose Hasufin, in this place. I think he is not done with fighting.”

“He says what serves his master,” one lord said harshly. “And the gods know who or what his master is.”

“My master,” Tristen said, “was Mauryl. He sent me to Cefwyn. And I think Mauryl also sent me here. —Your father is not gone, lady. I can’t reach him where he is, but the Shadows did not defeat him. Only if you take him away—then he would have lost all he struggled for.”

It was enough, only thinking about the old man. The gray place opened wide, and the light came around him. He could see faint stars, which hung in front of his face where the men stood—he could see the gray shape of Ninévrisé herself, growing brighter, and a cluster of stars around about, which he suddenly thought were men outside and near the tent. The darkness to dread was a vast, abrupt edge in one direction.

The walls, he thought then, made that abrupt edge, and he saw the lines on the earth glowing very dimly, one running right past the tent, which was the wall to which the ropes ran. Shadows leapt at that wall.

Shadows prowled desperately, just the other side of that line, trying to gain entry.

–Gods!

It was Ninévrisé’s voice, fearful and shaking.

–Lady. He reached out an offering of safety, amazed that Ninévrisé alone of all of them had followed him. She was overcome with fright as he caught her hand, a warm and solid touch, not the gossamer of her father’s hand. Around them, just across the wall, was threat gathering:

Shadows leapt at that barrier, seeking to get in. But the lady looked at him.

–This, she said, wide-eyed, this is what he saw!

He could not answer her: he did not know what she saw, but he knew she was afraid and he knew how to guide her back to safety. It was only a thought. It was that quick.

He found himself on his feet holding her hand, as startled as she. She drew back her hand in consternation and the men around her seemed not to know whether to lay hands on him or draw weapons. But she signaled them otherwise, unable, it seemed, to utter a word. “No,” she said, belatedly, and caught a breath. “No. Oh, merciful gods.” She pressed a fist against her lips and waved her other hand, as if seeking room to breathe.

“Tasien, Father knew, Father knew! There is another place. I was just there, and he—he was there, too!”

“Wizardry,” Tasien said. “Would our King come bringing Marhanen promises? Or bid us go to the Marhanen? Let him prove he comes from Mauryl—and not from this wizardous enemy he claims your father came here to fight.”

It was, Tristen thought, a very wise question to ask, as Tasien seemed a wise man. He wished he knew how to prove himself.  “What do you say?” the lady challenged him.

“That you should do as your father asked.” That was the wisest answer he could think of, and it seemed to strike home with the lady in particular.

“To bury him where he wished?”

“I don’t know that it will stop Hasufin. But your father thought it would prevent him taking this place.”

“So he says,” Tasien echoed scornfully, as if it was as much as he could bear. “And what care if some dead wizard takes this heap of stones?”

“It’s a dangerous place.” Tasien’s irreverence dismayed him. He saw things that had no Words, no breath, no outlet, and he couldn’t warn them. “It’s where Hasufin died.”

“And can stay dead,” Tasien said.

“But he hasn’t, sir. He can reach here and perhaps not to other places, at least not so easily as this. The lord Regent knew that. He said that Hasufin could reach him wherever he was. He wished to be here.”

“My lady,” Tasien said, “I’d ask some better proof than this man’s word.”

“What can we prove? And what choice have I, my lord? Go back to Elwynor? To Aséyneddin?”

“The lords in Elwynor would many of them rally to the Regent’s banner, my lady, —as they would have rallied to your lord father if he had stood fast and declared a rallying-point and not—not this war against ghosts, in hostile territory, without tents—without—hope. Lady, your lord father, whom I bore in all reverence, for whom I would have laid down my life, would not hear me. All of us that left our lands came here to die with him, or at least to prevent him from falling into hostile hands, but if you’ll only hear me, we can do more than that, by your will, and I beg you listen. Asdyneddin and his rebels do not have the other lords’ trust or their acceptance. Caswyddian has already raised another rebellion, against him. Elwynor will tear itself in pieces and Ylesuin will pick the bones if you do not go back, now. You are his invested heir. You have a duty, m’lady.”

“Two lords in rebellion. And what can we bring to counter it? Thirty-three men? Thirty-three men who followed my father however strange his folly? An investiture only you and these men witnessed? Answer me this, Tasien! How many of the lords will follow me without demanding marriage to themselves or their sons? And how will that sit with their brother lords? I divide the realm only by existing.”  There was brief silence.

Then one said, “How many will follow you if you ally yourself with the Marhanen?”

“Will you desert me? Will you, Haurydd? Or you, Ysdan?”

“No,” one and the other said.

“But,” the lady said, “can you make me lord Regent, and raise the standard in Elwynor, and make men rally to me without each seeking to be my husband? Here are three of you, all driven from your lands, all with wives and children at great risk. Where is my choice, m’lords?

Tasien, you carried me on your back when I was little. Where can you carry me now?”

“My gracious lady,” Tasien said, and gave a shake of his head. “Wherever you wish. You are the Regent. I would take you to a safe place, in Elwynor. I would send to reliable men. I would not see you risk the Marhanen’s land another day—let alone ask him for refuge. Choose a consort from among like-minded men, and we will go back into Elwynor and fight any rebels that come against you, to the last of us. Aséyneddin cannot hold his alliances together if we return.”

“And if Asdyneddin found us? And if anyone betrayed our whereabouts?

Men die, who supported my father. Houses burn. Sheep are poisoned.

You may be too high-placed for that, so far, but act against him and he will move against you. That is what he can do. But—more than that.

There is this man—this visitor of ours, my lords, —”  “You cannot believe him.”

“No. No, Tasien, —I cannot deny my father’s witness. I cannot deny what I’ve seen. I cannot deny that there is magic in this place. I cannot say now that I should be Regent ... or that there should be a Regency any longer at all. If my regency denies the King we’ve waited for, then—”

“My lady, you cannot accept his claim. A man cannot ride up to us, rain-bedraggled, and claim to be the King.”

“How else must he come, then?” Ninévrisé asked. “Ride out of Marna, with armies and trumpets? Rise out of the ground of Althalen? I don’t know, I don’t know! My father never told me how to know him.

My father only told us in plain words that this is the King and he recognized him. I have just been to that magic place Father claimed. I have just seen this man look as he looked to me. What other sign am I supposed to expect? How am I supposed to decide? I need time—I need to know the truth! And if there is a chance in the Marhanen, I will try that chance before I leave this land.”

“Are you,” lord Tasien asked him bluntly, “the King we look for?”

“Sir, I never heard so from Mauryl,” he said truthfully, and did not add to their confusion the fact that he did not want to be a king, nor that Cefwyn, who had given him title to Ynefel, knew a great deal more of kings and claims to kingship. But he did not think that Cefwyn’s belief in him would allay their suspicions, rescue him, or move them all to a point of safety. An unbearable feeling of danger had begun to press on him, in their dispute, a smothering fear more acute than he had felt since Marna Wood, and he wanted their argument over, with whatever issue, and the old man settled safe under stone—under stone!– where he wished to be.

He wanted them away, as soon as they might.

“We shall bury my father,” Ninévrisé said, “as he wished. Then we shall go to the Marhanen and ask for a treaty—by marriage if need be.

By oath, if we can secure it.”

“His father has just died,” Tasien cried, “at the hands of Elwynim!”

“So has mine!” Ninévrisé said sharply, “at the hands of gods know what, in this land of his, because of the same rebels who killed his father, and I will ride to the Marhanen and have a treaty or a fight of it!

Does not the gods’ law protect messengers? I am my father’s messenger from his deathbed, and I shall have the answer to my suit or I shall have war, sirs!”

“Gods save us, then,” Tasien said.

“The Marhanen will see me. He will deal fairly with me. My lord of Ynefel swears that he will. Does he not?”

“I shall ask him to,” Tristen said. “He is my friend.”

“And of course this is our King,” Tasien said, “who cedes Ynefel to his master the King of Ylesuin and takes it back again in fief—gods have mercy, m’lady! A friend of the Marhanen? This is a man owing homage to the Marhanen! Ask him!”

“Are you?” Ninévrisé asked, looking at Tristen. “Have you sworn homage to him?”

“I swore to defend Cefwyn and to be his friend.”

There was heavy silence in the tent. The men were not at all pleased, and did not intend to accept him, he was certain; but he would not lie to the lady, who would know the truth in that gray place—he at least had no skill to deceive her.

“Gentle lords,” Ninévrisé said, “at least let us try. Shall we sit here until they find us?”

“This is madness,” Tasien said.

“So you called my father mad,” Ninévrisé said, “yet you loved him with all your hearts. You came here to die for him notwithstanding your own lands, your own wives, your own children. I shall not lead you all back to Elwynor only to die, m’lords. I have another choice. I can seek alliance .... “