Текст книги "Fortress of Eagles"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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“I much doubt it.”

“A man knows there may be blood. These women will shed someone else’s, blithe as jays. Even their fathers they hate. But hate me more. And I endurethem. They carry on their Elwynim war with every look, every stitch they sew: ill-wish me? Oh, if they could. And cannot. Clatter, clatter, clatter, the wicked, wicked, foreignwoman, and just onepetticoat, la! whatis one to think?” He heard her second indrawn breath. “If they could sew harm into my wedding gown, they would, ever so gladly. Every one of them disappointed in their hopes for you, and here am I, the stranger. I should fear the cups I drink if not for Dame Margolis.“

“ Sheis a good woman.”

“A good and a brave woman, but her they despise as common. I can do nothing.” The voice he loved, the voice that lifted his spirits, trembled. “Nothing to defend her or myself.”

“After the wedding,” he said in regret. “Then– then they will have affronted me. They should take sober note. Is there no one else you can rely on?”

“None. No one but Margolis. —Perhaps, in small ways, Cleisynde.” There was still a perilous little quaver in her voice, which was a knife in his heart. They had played at ignoring their enemies. He had thought her safe, serene in her wit and her own worth in amongst such little, niggling attacks. He had thought she had ridden above it all, unassailable within the ladies’ court, a battle of petticoats and pearls irrelevant to the damage men did one another in war. She had ridden and camped with soldiers, faced sorcery and ghosts. Needed she guard herself from Ryssand’s sixteen-year-old daughter?

From Artisane’s sallies of wit, good gods? Ninévrisë was Regent of Elwynor.

“Ilefínian,” Ninévrisë said, then, the outwelling of her deepest, most painful thoughts, and her hand felt cold as ice. “Oh, gods save them, gods save them. Ilefínian.”

CHAPTER 10

In a quick succession of moves, Emuin took three pieces.

Tristen looked at opportunity… regretted winning. It seemed somehow discourteous to the old man. The whole night, since that dreadful shock of thunder, seemed uneasy, tottering with chance and overthrow.

“So?” Emuin asked. The two of them were poised above the scarred board of white wood and red, with counters of opposing colon. And the necessity became clear.

Regretfully Tristen skipped his counter from one to the other of Emuin’s pieces, taking every one.

“Oh, pish!” Emuin cried.

“I think you wished me to win,” Tristen said.

“No such thing,” Emuin said peevishly, and drank a sip more autumn ale. “Set up, set up. Another round.”

Tristen set up the counters again.

“Clever of you,” Emuin said, sounding unhappy. “Vastly clever.”

“If you had rather set aside—”

“No, no, no, I enjoy a challenge.”

Emuin was peeved, all the same. And had not seemed entirely surprised until the fifth, sixth, and seventh captures all in one: at that finish, the old man had sat back in his chair, glaring at the board with a slight squint, as he did at times at his scrying bowl.

Tristen set up quickly, and let master Emuin take the red side this time.

“Learning quickly, we are,” master Emuin muttered, making his initial moves.

“I do try, sir.”

Emuin shot him one of those looks from under his brows. The noise from the square below the Guelesfort had been quite loud during the game. Now it had fallen away to a hush. Their candle had burned to the half and the fire sunk in the grate. It was a moment in which all the world seemed to be the round walls, the table, the light on Emuin’s face.

“So do we all, lad,” Emuin said to him. “So do we all make honest effort, but you are a clever lad in spite of us all.”

“I had no wish to win, sir.”

It made Emuin laugh, the crashing together of a thousand wrinkles, and then a quick settling. “It is no contest, else. I know my measure. Learn yours. You will not learn it by cheating for myside, young lord. Play your own.”

He felt a heaviness in the air then, as if the room had swung round, as if the heavens had wheeled full about, not that a thing was true now that had not been true a moment before, but that he sat at a further remove from the world, looking on a small stone room, piled high with clutter, at a young man and an old one, with a board on the table between them, and all at once the banging of the door below, the clatter of his guards getting to their feet outside and challenging someone.

Emuin looked toward the door with a playing piece in his hand, and paused. Whoever had come had engaged Uwen and the guards quietly, after clumping up the stairs, and then the latch of the door moved.

An officer had arrived: Pryas was his name, a king’s messenger.

“Your lordship,” the man said, and already Tristen had begun to rise from his chair, with the sure foreboding that something had changed in his quiet existence, and that some disaster had befallen. “Your lordship, His Majesty bids you know, although he has had no time to set his seal to it as yet, your lordship is made duke of Amefel, and set over that province, your lordship to be provided troops and staff, wagons and guards, horses to a sufficient number, and all honor. Your lordship must swear to His Majesty tomorrow noon for Amefel, with public ceremony, and depart for your lordship’s capital the same hour.”

He heard. He felt the wood of the chair under his right hand. He was aware of Emuin getting to his feet. Of Uwen regarding him with fear. There was no hint now that Uwen might have drunk any great deal, neither he nor Lusin nor his other guards.

“How shall I answer?” he asked Emuin, not that he was unwilling to obey Cefwyn, but that the implications of the moment stretched beyond his understanding.

For two months Amefel had been under the king’s viceroy, Lord Parsynan, and Cefwyn had declined to depose Lady Aswydd in her exile, refusing to change that arrangement to a permanent grant of the province, refusing to decide on any claimant.

And what of Lady Orien Aswydd? Some had said she should be beheaded. Her brother had been beheaded and burned for his crimes, and Lady Orien was far from innocent of malice against the Crown. Had Cefwyn decided, then, she should die? He would be very sorry if that were so.

“I shall not advise you,” Emuin said.

At the same time there arose a great deal more clatter below. More men were coming up the winding stairs, and there was no way for more than two men to occupy any step or for more than three to stand in the doorway, even sideways.

“There’s Annas come in below, m’lord,” Uwen said. “An’ two of His Majesty’s pages.”

“His Majesty’s staff,” Pryas said, “His Majesty’s officers to arrange the wagons and all, as many as necessary, all His Majesty’s household to assist your lordship in the particulars and orders tonight.”

“I shall pack, then,” Tristen said, envisioning taking Petelly and Gery, his two light horses, and a bundle of clothes, with Uwen—Uwen would go with him, he was sure of that. But troops and staff, wagons and guards? The enormity of the undertaking began to dawn on him. Should he have Tassand, then? Would he have to leave his servants behind? They were a presence he had come to rely on, even to enjoy for their wit and their company.

And what would he tell the viceroy in Amefel? That he was dismissed? Or what wouldbecome of Orien Aswydd and her sister?

“Pack, is it?” Emuin said in a faint voice. “Pack, should we?”

“Shall you go, sir?”

“Pack. Pack for the gods’ love! Yes, I shall go. How should I not go? Sends us to Guelessar for two months and sends us back again in a thunderstorm… what in the gods’ good mercy is the boy doing?”

He meant Cefwyn. Emuin was never much on protocols.

“Do you know why we’re sent, sir?” Tristen asked of the king’s herald, and the man answered quietly,

“On account of the Quinalt roof, your lordship, as seems likely, but I have no word from His Majesty, except that we need a count of wagons from your lordship, how many your lordship may require.”

The Quinalt roof, Tristen thought, and when he asked himself what might involve both the Quinalt roof and his sudden dispatch to Amefel, as Emuin had said, in a thunderstorm, then he knew indeed that the great clap of thunder had been more than noise.

Amefel, then. But it was not as bad as could be. The king was safe. He could not feel any joy in his appointment, nor quite sorrow, either, at being sent south. But Men said winter was a season of little traveling. He contemplated the pieces on the board, thinking that the king had just moved pieces, too, in a strategy directed steadfastly at freeing Elwynor and defeating Tasmôrden. And that was well, too, and he was glad of it. He saw movement as on a battlefield. Danger came clear to him, danger in his separation from Cefwyn, and that distressed him; yet there was nothing he could do. He had deluded himself two nights ago with hope of change back to the way things had been, with hope of being invited again into closeness with Cefwyn, and with Ninévrisë, and now, unexpectedly—this.

But as on a battlefield or a gaming board, not every movement needed be straight to the mark. Many games could come of a fixed number of squares. And not all moves were down a straight line.

“I shall have your answers, sir,” he said to Pryas, “at least I shall send word about the wagons when I’ve asked my staff.”

“Your lordship,” Pryas said, and took his leave, as quietly as a man could on a stairs crowded with his guard.

But Annas came up then to fill the vacancy, informing him of a thousand things that had to be done immediately. Emuin was clearly distressed, fussing about, putting charts into stacks.

So all that the two of them had done or thought of doing was upended, every plan set aside. He would not march with the king to the riverside this winter, or even in the spring. No. Far from it, he would be in Heryn Aswydd’s place. He would be in charge of the province the Guelenfolk least trusted—and he knew the histories of lords, the bloody necessities, the cruel certainties. He had felt them Unfold to his comprehension as war and the use of a sword had Unfolded to his hand, and he knewthe duty that was set on him. It rose up like dark waters, it flowed over him, a necessity, a charge from a friend, a duty to the Amefin villages, the people of the town. Cefwyn made this duty his. And could he do otherwise, now, than go to Amefel?

Annas talked to him of the necessity for provisions, clothing, the ordering of his servants, the staff that he should take with him, rather than relying on the Amefin, who had been restive and uncooperative with the king’s viceroy. He should have his own cook, his own pages, all these people brought in from Guelessar. So Annas said.

“The cook in the Zeide was very kind to me,” he said quietly and in absolute certainty. “I have no wish for any other. And if I am duke of Amefel,” he said to Annas, “should not the pages all be Amefin?”

Annas fell silent then a moment, as if he were thinking and rethinking his needs. And remeasuring him. “Still,” Annas said, “you will keep Tassand.”

“I would wish to keep Tassand,” he said, heartfelt truth. “And Uwen will go with me. I would wish Uwen to go.”

“No question of that, m’lord,” Uwen said, and he had had no doubt of it. But as regarded the rest, Tristen stood in the mad whirl of change and preparation, feeling by no means as lost or as desperate as he had been in the fall of Ynefel, but feeling that bits and pieces were falling about him all the same, the second home he had had, as it were, falling in ruin and broken timbers—but this time he was no lostling, bewildered by the world. This time he knew where he was going and what his resources were.

He went down to his apartment, Uwen and Lusin and Syllan with him, to find it in as great an upheaval.

“Your lordship,” one of his night guards said, red-coated men of the King’s Guard, whom they had left to stand duty by the doors, “there’s His Majesty’s servants here, sir.” This last to Uwen, who was in charge, and sobered but reeking of holiday ale.

The door was by that time open. “M’lord,” Tassand said, at the door, and by Tassand’s tone and the presence of the king’s servants going to and fro in the apartment, along with the disarrangement of clothes out of the bedroom and onto the chairs, packing was in progress. Clearly the message had reached his servants.

He sat after that in an apartment rapidly ceasing to be his, in every bundle carried out to the wagons. His tenure in the Guelesfort and his safety in Cefwyn’s company was likewise ending… piece by piece, like the fall of the stones, the little ones, the great ones. It still felt like ruin, and everything he had planned had to be questioned.

Then Idrys came, slipped right through his defenses and into the apartment, and turned up leaning in the doorway to his bedchamber.

“Sir,” Tristen said, all attention, and rose to deal with him, for Idrys was always on the king’s business, whether or not Cefwyn knew about it.

“Your Grace,” Idrys said. “His Majesty will not come here, must not see you, you understand. There are those who will notice, if he should.”

“I understand, sir. Bear him my goodwill.”

“I shall. By my orders you will have Captain Anwyll with you. Rely on him.”

Tristen frowned, no disrespect of Captain Anwyll, who was an honest, good man; but for Uwen’s sake. “Uwen will be enough, sir. He will be entirely enough.”

“For Uwen’s sake, take Anwyll to command the Guard at least through the winter. This is my advice, and no slight to your man.”

Idrys asked nothing for personal reasons, and had no reason to prefer Anwyll for his own advantage. But it was still unacceptable.

“Uwen is my captain,” Tristen said, “if I am to have a household. I shall take Captain Anwyll only if he respects Uwen, sir.”

“Who is a sergeant come captain in a great hurry and who has done very well in all of it. I say nothing against Uwen Lewen’s-son. But to keep accounts you will need men, both military and civil clerks; you will need a quartermaster; an armorer—master Peygan can recommend a man.”

“I shall take master Peygan’s advice,” he said. He ill liked to dispute Cefwyn’s word. But he had arranged in his own mind how things should be. “The rest will be Amefin, sir.”

There was a small silence in which Idrys looked him up and down. Idrys had taken his measure before this, and spoke to him frankly, as he would never discourage Idrys from doing. But he did not wish Uwen countermanded by a newly appointed Guard captain who was, he was sure, Idrys’ man.

“His Majesty has appointed a duke of Amefel, then,” Idrys said with a look that did not disapprove him, but that was much more guarded than before. “His Majesty regards you as his friend, sir. I trust that remains true, and will remain so.”

“With all my heart, sir. I should never do anything to displease him.”

“His friends mustdisplease him,” Idrys said. “Few others will. Say rather that you will keep your oath to him, and that says all. It even explains why you must leave court and the likes of Sulriggan may return.”

“He will not, sir!” He was appalled. “Has His Majesty recalled Sulriggan?”

“The final price for His Holiness’s blessing tomorrow. Sulriggan will return into the sunlight of His Majesty’s favor…” Idrys’ sarcasm was rarely so evident, and Idrys’ grim look rarely so transparent. “His Majesty might pack off the lot of them, ten to a bundle, and keep you by him, but that would mean war with the Quinalt, which is not to any advantage just now. I’m giving Captain Anwyll strict orders, and all honor to Uwen Lewen’s-son, whom I may not order, I am giving him the benefit of my opinion relayed through a man I trust. I would have kept Emuin here, next to His Majesty. My choice was not regarded. His Majesty must not have any loud commotion arising out of Amefel, and, I entreat Your Grace, there must be no dealings across that border with Elwynor. Satisfy those two conditions and you will do His Majesty a very great service.”

“Earnestly so, sir. He explained to me the reasons for proceeding next spring with an advance from Guelessar. You did overhear.”

“I did. Gods know there are worse choices to set over Amefel, far worse. Beware of Aswydd influences, have none of that house near you, have your food tasted, and do not be misled by plausible villains. Spend modestly, but for the gods’ good grace, attend Bryalt ceremonies faithfully and speak with all courtesy to the Quinalt patriarch in Henas’amef. Give a donation to the Quinalt shrine. The man’s a sullen prig, but you’ll serve His Majesty if the reports that go back from that priest to the Holy Father contain no wild speculations on sorcery. Don’t let the hedge-wizards sell their charms in the market. It sets the Quinalt’s teeth on edge. I ask all this for His Majesty’s sake. Neither I nor His Majesty care how many charms against toothache the old women sell. Only don’t have them hung openly in the market, or worn on the street, or the rumors will fly that you promote Sihhë wizardry and practice gods-know-what in private. Take master grayfrock’s advice in all things. His Majesty will sorely miss it. Someoneshould use it.”

“Emuin will not give it me when I ask.” He understood what Idrys was telling him, and earnestly agreed with the sense of his advice; but it was a point of frustration with him that he had no advice from master Emuin, and yet the man was up in his tower sending down bundles, baskets, and crates, protesting that the night was too short and never offering to stay in Guelemara to safeguard Cefwyn. “I never asked him to go with me. Yet he will. He will not advise me. Yet insists on going.”

Idrys frowned, hearing that. “Well,” he said, “well, at noon tomorrow, in the Quinalt, roof or no roof, advice or no advice, you will swear for Amefel. There will be appropriate ceremony, the town turned out. His Majesty is doing this in full witness of the barons, compelling His Holiness to hold the ceremony and the barons to stand and pray over it. If you have any governance over the lightning, Your Grace, I pray you keep the roof from further damage tonight. We already have Sulriggan back among us. His Majesty pleads with you to assure no untoward events between now and the ceremony. And let us enjoy clear weather if you can manage it.”

“I have no governance over the weather.”

“A jest, if you please.”

“Yes, sir. But you should know—you must know: the Lines in the place are set amiss.” He wished to keep no secrets from Idrys, whose opinion of him had survived the direst suspicion, and he knew he could not affright the man. “And there are shadows, many of them. But I have no sense that they have broken out. The lightning bolt will have been a disturbance to them, but I have no sense that it made matters worse.”

“The lines are set amiss,” Idrys repeated.

“The Lines that keep shadows in their places. All that keeps a place safe.”

“Is it urgent?” Idrys, of all men, was ready to listen to his estimation of threat, and he was careful, accordingly, not to give a false sense of alarm.

“I don’t think so. I have no sense that they’ve gotten out, or that they might, easily. The walls are intact. Ynefel had many holes in the roof, and they never mattered.”

“AtYnefel, you say.”

“Only the windows. And the doors. When it fell…” He never liked to remember that, the wind and the wailing and the groaning of timbers. And the silence after, with the occasional fall of heavy beams. “But the shrine will not fall. I don’t feel there’s danger of that. I shall swear to Cefwyn. I shall be his friend. I shall hope—” He had not said it aloud since he had heard the news. “I shall hope he will call me back again, in the spring.”

“He will need all his friends,” Idrys said soberly, “but tell me, Amefel, since Amefel you will be, and Ynefel you are, and I certainly do not forget the latter, these days—what little shall I do, against lightning bolts? How does one defend him against wizardry?”

“Latch the windows,” he said, then remembered a Man could rarely see the Lines on the earth, and smiled, as Men did at foolishness. “Leave nothing unattended. It comes most by carelessness, most especially when the wizard is far away or weak.”

“ Whichwizard?”

It was an entirely apt question. “I don’t know, sir. I truly don’t. Never forget to do what you always do. That’s the important thing. It makes Lines.”

“Doing what I always do… makes lines.”

“Very faintly so, yes, sir. Most of all, it makes wards. All over this vast building, latch windows, latch doors, set a watch. Especially, sir, —especially over Emuin’s tower.”

“Why would you say so?”

“Master Emuin might say. But a latch isa ward. Windows are whole when they’re latched. Doors are whole when they’re shut. And Emuin’s tower has not been shut, not for a long time.”

Idrys regarded him gravely. And heard him, he hoped, even with a thousand other things to attend.

“Have you need of anything yourself, then?”

“Forty silver.”

“Forty silver. Precisely forty?” Idrys seemed bemused. “Among all else His Majesty’s accounts can manage forty silver. Why, may I inquire?”

“To buy a horse, sir. The stable wants forty silver. And I have none. And there’s a mare Uwen favors. I think he should have her.”

Idrys loosed the purse at his belt and solemnly gave it to him, but with a slight wry smile. “You will have a quartermaster to handle the accounts, Your Grace, for which we may all be relieved of worry, myself not least. He will manage the rather large box and the pay for the troops, who do expect funds on a regular schedule. I pray you, put the horse and its equipage to His Majesty’s funds and save this rather considerable purse for yourself, for your own personal needs. There are at least sixteen gold crowns in it, which are each eighty silver, which should keep Your Grace in honest coin of the realm at least until you come into your own lands, whereafter you may levy taxes and keep a portion for your own use with whatever mercy you see fit. Count Uwen’s horse among the army purchases, in His Majesty’s name. If anyone along the road says you gave them Sihhë coinage, Iam here to swear about this purse and so says His Majesty, and His Highness, who wishes you good and godly progress.”

“It is very kind, sir.”

“I shall miss you, lord of Ynefel, most unlikely, but I shall miss you. I shall not see you until the spring, if all goes well. But the lord of a province has couriers at his disposal. Don’t fail to use them, at need. Keep me informed, and keep His Majesty informed, at whatever need.“

It was not at all surprising that Idrys set himself first in that account, not surprising and not at all against Cefwyn’s interest. Tristen firmly believed so, and held the heavy purse in both his hands, rich in gold, in all material things Cefwyn could give him. But the protections all of them had woven about themselves were, like Lines on the earth, stretching very thin, worrisomely thin. “I shall, sir. For his sake, I shall, most of all.”

“Fare you well,” Idrys said solemnly, and again, in that low, deep voice of his: “Fare you very well, Your Grace.”

BOOK TWO

CHAPTER 1

Water dripped from the rafters, falling plop! plop! on the benches and making sooty puddles on the paving stones all during the ceremony, but no one affected to notice.

The building was shaken. The roof had been breached. The lightning might have loosed a considerable force within the world of shadows. But, to Tristen’s critical eye, that mismade Line on the earth had held fast… and the faltering magical barrier behind the Patriarch gave forth no troublesome shadows.

Still, when he stood to take the Holy Father’s blessing and when he knelt before Cefwyn to swear as the new duke of Amefel he heard little of what the Patriarch said, in his general unease and in his sense that if anything could go wrong, it had its best chance then and there, to the peril of him and Cefwyn and the peace all at once. Kneeling in his armor and surcoat, he stared balefully at that roiling mass of shadow while he affected to keep his eyes on the pavings. He willed it not to advance, and plop! went the water, a puddle collecting on the altar, right beside the Patriarch.

The shadows made him giddy. He concentrated on the intricate carvings of the panels below the railing and willed thatto be the Line.

Plop-plop! The dirty water threatened everyone’s fine robes, and a big sooty drop had landed on the Patriarch’s shoulder, the stain of a hundred years of candles that had sent their smoke up to the rafters now coming down, washed free, like burned sins returning.

He wished the rain outside would stop.

And just then the light began to increase, the shrine and its statues and its columns growing brighter and brighter around him as if the sun had just broken through the clouds outside.

The Patriarch’s hand came near his head, failed to touch him, and the Patriarch himself looked up: Cefwyn looked up, and since all those present did, Tristen turned his head and looked for the source of that light, which was indeed the sun coming full through the canvas patch they had put on the roof.

The return of the sun had made a momentary silence in the ceremony. He thought it a hopeful thing, himself, but Murandys and Ryssand and no few of the lords made signs against harm.

“The gods smile at us,” Cefwyn said sternly, standing beside the Patriarch. “And on this hour.”

“A blessing on the hour,” the Patriarch said in haste, “and on the realm.” The soot had stained his robe, but in his anxiousness he had not seemed to notice.

“Rise,” Cefwyn said, and Tristen rose. The trumpets sounded. The Patriarch stretched out his arms in dismissal, and chanted a blessing on the assembled lords of the realm. Confusion to our enemies, the Patriarch said. A plague on the infidel and a blessing on His Majesty…

Words echoed around and about the columns. Tristen looked up again on his way out, where the sunlit patch of canvas covered the ample hole. The rafters aloft had caught a great deal of rain, and puddles stood on the stone pavings and on the benches. The shadows among the columns seemed more absolute in that strange light from above, some put to flight, others grown more terrible.

Yet the breach had not damaged the wards, as Ynefel’s loft had had a great hole in it, which Mauryl had said was negligible. Such was the nature of bindings, and wards, and magic.

The shrine let them go safely into the early-afternoon sun, the banners first: the Dragon banner of the Marhanen kings lifted, gold and red. Then, in the precedence of the hour, Amefel, red, with the black Eagle outspread, flew for the first time on a gusting wind, Amefel between the two black standards of Ynefel and of Althalen. Cefwyn stopped beneath the banners, under the clear sky, in the witness of the town, at the top of the Quinalt steps, and held out his hand, staying Tristen at his side.

The people of the town had turned out as they would for any occasion bringing out the clattering pageantry of soldiery, lords and banners. The joyous ringing of Quinalt bells startled the hapless pigeons from the roofs of the Guelesfort and they took flight in a great upward beating of wings against the sun.

I am leaving, Tristen wished the maligned birds to know. He had never yet worked any magic to forbid them the place. He remembered that now, and was concerned for their fate. I am going from this place, he wished to tell them.

And then he thought, Will any among you fly to Amefel? Are you the same birds as I knew there? Can such small, frail birds fly so far as that?

Winter is coming, snow, and ice. So they tell me. Take care, take care. Find me in Amefel if you wish, if you can, if you dare. Come there safely and soon!

Pealing of the bells, flowing cloth, black and red, stretched across the wind, and the martial tramp of soldiers ringing back from the walls of the Guelesfort: such were the impressions of the moment. Uwen, he was sure, was at his back, and Lusin and the guards waited before him, all ahorse.

“Stay,” Cefwyn said to him, a hand on his arm. The bells, having rung out their chorus, left a numb silence and the last pigeons had fled. “My dear friend,” Cefwyn said publicly, loudly, and it echoed off every wall and house around the square. “ My dear friend. ”Cefwyn turned him and embraced him in full view of the people, as the very air grew still. “I did what I could,” Cefwyn said close against his ear. “Believe in me. Believe in me, Tristen. Trust me that nothing has changed in our friendship.”

“I do,” he said, in all earnestness. “I shall.” In such a silence it seemed even so that people might be listening, so he added as they broke apart: “Your Majesty.”

“Take care, Tristen. Take great care.” Cefwyn looked up, a glance at the windswept heavens. “We might have used the weather-luck last night,” he said, attempting a laugh. His grip bruised. Meanwhile the people waited, as all the banners hung limp in a momentary want of breeze, then snapped and thumped with a wayward gust. “The gods send you safe on all your journey. My brother, hear me, my brother dear as blood, you will always be in my heart. Never doubt it.”

Brother. He had looked for no such thing, and he held that word of all Words close to his heart, he who had had neither father nor mother nor mother’s love nor ever been, himself, a child. He had just had the Holy Father’s blessing, and the solemn words of his own oath of fealty and Cefwyn’s pledge to him still rang in his ears. Words, Words, and Words fell like hammer strokes, pealed like bells across the sky.

But undeniable truth was in the silence of the people in the square, the anxious faces, and most of all in the parting of Cefwyn’s hands from his arms. Cefwyn had no power to prevent this moment, and now as he moved from Cefwyn’s embrace, it felt as if someone had moved from between him and a cold, random wind, one that now would gust and blow and chill him to the bone. He refused to look back as he walked down the steps, nor did he look around as he met Uwen, who offered him Gery’s reins. They mounted up. All the rest of the column that would ride down and away with them began to move at his first start forward.