Текст книги "Fortress of Eagles"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

His father Ináreddrin had learned only two tactics: playing one rival against another, which his grandfather had done very skillfully, and compromising—compromising constantly to secure his own safety: he saw it very plainly from the vantage of this bitter morning, this window he had looked out since childhood. Ináreddrin had set northern Quinalt against southern Teranthines, northern barons against southern barons, son against son and devised a clever path through their objections—but, again, he had always resolved matters not by decision but by compromising what he wanted. Son against son on the other hand had been easier game—give the elder son no love. Give the younger son, Efanor, all honor, all credit with the northern barons, knowing very well he was robbing his own heir of support. What was it to him? He’d be dead and in his tomb when the account came due.

And lo! his father indeed died and here was he, standing at the same window, facing the same decisions, making choices his father should have made with an iron hand.

But not entirely recklessly. He longed to go down and at least bid Emuin safe journey as the old man was setting out. But then the very point of sending Tristen away was to still the rumors, and if the barons thought him weak and biddable, let them think it only for another dozen days. He should not go to Emuin.

Quiet the rumors, give Tristen the winter in Amefel, give the realm the feeling of real danger on the border, oh, and then the Quinalt would see magic much differently. Gods, gods, but he looked forward to sending a few lords on horseback through the mud and brambles and into the range of bowmen and see whether they did not soon view Tristen of Ynefel as their very savior.

The king being angry, the king’s servants would not come near him. But the tread that crossed the floor behind him now, soft and with the whispered grate of armor, he knew: he took no alarm, and saw a grim, dark-mustached reflection in the glass.

“Well?” he asked that reflection.

“Things are as well done as may be,” Idrys said, “m’lordking.”

“Satisfied, are we?”

“Mauryl’s heir has grown far cannier, and more adept than many think. Send him back to the nest and he will grow indeed again. But he is still the innocent, in many ways. I authorized forty silver, by the by, for Uwen a horse.”

“A horse.” In the depth of his melancholy, in the tottering of Marhanen rule in Guelessar, he found an act of Tristen’s still to astound and amuse him.

“A mare. A surplus of the guard mounts. A fine horse, as happens. I applaud Uwen’s eye.”

He almost found it in him to laugh. “Good gods, I give him a province and thatwas his concern.”

“Oh, I daresay he had many concerns, but this was the one he could reach, to please a man he trusts. I approve his reasoning.”

Idrys’ speech was sometimes barbed, sometimes indirect, rarely straight to the point. For Idrys, this was blunt. And Cefwyn was less amused.

“I take your lesson, master crow.”

“You confound your enemies, Majesty. They never foresaw his appointment to Amefel, I do agree. And the fools among them imagine Ynefel will go quietly to his tower and become absent for a few decades of years, like Mauryl.”

“Tristen will not,” he found himself saying, and in the ghostly reflection saw Idrys’ implacable visage. “Should I fear him?” he asked, perhaps because in the strangeness of the day and the stripping away of his resources, fear did occur to him, the barons’ fear, the fear of Guelenfolk, of all the north… and his own fear, deep and little confessed. “I don’tfear him, master crow. There is no malice in him, nor ever has been. And what I’ve done, Ichoose. The hell with them all.”

“I should be remiss if I did not point out—”

“ Damn your pointing out, Idrys!” He spun to face his Lord Commander. He had by no means meant such an outburst. It had been waiting all night and all morning.

And Idrys looked not at all surprised to receive it, saying smoothly, imperturbably, “Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Neither ambition, nor self-will, nor greed for land. None of these things move him, Idrys. He is the best man ever I knew.”

“He is not a man,” Idrys countered him. “As m’lord king may well remember.”

“A man in all points but birth.”

“Oh, aye, a birth… thatsmall matter.”

“Damn you, I say.”

“As Your Majesty may please,” Idrys said, and for some few moments they stood side by side, overlooking the workers who assayed the Quinalt roof, like the movement of ants in the sunlight.

It might have been any ride they had ever taken in Guelessar, though at a slow and plodding pace, the banners comfortably furled and cased now that they were out of sight of other men. The banner-bearers talked together in quiet voices, alike .the Guard, riding behind them, Captain Anwyll with his aides.

At their first rest Uwen changed off to Liss to ride, and gave Gia a rest.

“Two fine horses,” Uwen said, in delight at the mare, fairly beaming. And then, soberly, and blushing, “M’lord, it were still very good of ye.”

“If I can please no one else,” Tristen said, “I would please you.”

Uwen blushed, bright red. “M’lord.”

He wished he had not said that. He knew not what to say to soften it.

“His Majesty’s given ye a province, m’lord. And in the Quinalt’s eye. The northern lords’, too. We’ll be back again. Ye’ll see His Majesty by spring, and ’twixt me and you, the town will be cheered up by then.”

“He had to take Sulriggan back.”

“Oh, well, but sooner or later he’d have to, and His Majesty knew it an’ Sulriggan knew it. It was sooner, is all, by about a couple of months, and ye can lay to it his lordship Sulriggan’ll catch cold before any battle. He probably wishes His Majesty had stayed choleric until after the war and never would call on him at all, but there wasn’t a chance of that, anyway, so all he gets is a few months to work his way back into better graces. The Holy Father has a rotten weak reed of a cousin in Sulriggan, that’s the truth, and whoever relies on him, His Majesty’ll chew him up bones and all.”

“Perhaps he will,” Tristen said. “At least I doubt Efanor will believe Sulriggan again.”

“His Highness has his eyes open more than some thinks,” Uwen said, and for a time they rode talking of Efanor, and then recalling Amefel and thereby the stables in Amefel, and wondering whether they could improve the drainage in the stables sitting at the bottom of the hill.

Perhaps, Tristen thought, Cefwyn had not been entirely unwise to send him south. Very near Cefwyn’s apartment, amid all the gathering of the court, he dared not even wonder what Cefwyn was doing, or how he fared or whether the land was safe… dared not until he was far from the walls. But today, at this distance from the men around him and in command of the column as it was, he simply drew a deep breath, reached, and the world was wider by half again. He was aware of Uwen, of the horses, of all the men and all the patient oxen, even of the wheeling hawks that soared, fearless of the chill autumn winds, looking for mice or sparrows.

Poor creatures, he thought, seeing a hawk stoop beyond a leafless copse of trees. He forever pitied the hunted, and thought of Owl, and wondered where he laired, nowadays, whether he had gone back to Ynefel now that it was free of threat.

He was thinking like a boy again, and making wild and foolish conjecture, as he had done on the hilltop. But, oh, he could dare more. He could draw the gray light to the sunlit world, he could do battle with shadows if he found them—

But he had far rather simply be aware of the lives, the living, the loyal and the loved. He had proposed to sleep in the saddle, but unexpectedly found his thoughts too rapid, racing ahead of the slow wagons. He was unavoidably morose at the thought of leaving Cefwyn and Ninévrisë, but he breathed with increasing anticipation of the road and the freedom ahead.

The sun was warm enough to raise a slight sweat on his shoulders when the wind slacked, and the wind did fall and stayed still in late afternoon. They rested from time to time, changed horses, for the horses’ ease; and Uwen, trading Liss for Gia again, looked well content, a man with an old friend and a new and trying to assure one of his affection without slighting the other: all at once it Unfolded what Uwen was doing, and how he loved both, but Gia more, the other being all to discover. Was not a king much the same, when he had to consider who sat next him at table?

And the world, in widening, slowly widened behind them, too, to the subtle feeling of cold water, the smell of sweat, the shapes of stones.

“Master Emuin is finally on his way,” Tristen said, drawing Uwen’s curious glance.

“He’s leavin’the gate?”

“Oh, farther. By the little stream we crossed, the one near the rocks, with the old tree with the hole in it.”

“Does he come so far on the road and ye not see?”

“He can slip about when he wishes,” Tristen said, “better than I, I think. He’s quite clever. I think it comes of being old.”

“And what does he say?” Uwen asked, and Tristen wondered that at once. A sting of displeasure came back.

“He bids me mind my business,” Tristen said, laughing.

Uwen cast him a sidelong glance. His gray hair blew in rising wind as the sunlight found it, all against a blue sky. Light touched Uwen’s weathered, cold-stung face with perfect cheerfulness.

This is where I must be, Tristen thought then, absolutely certain of it, for no reason. This is where Uwen must be, with me. We belong on this road… and all is well.

Other men are where they needto be. But Uwen and I are where we mustbe… there is a difference.

Then came, with the cold chill of water, with that clarity of sun on stones, the uncertainty of certainties that seeped out of the gray place, but it was Emuin’s troubled doubt that owned this fear. Come rain, come lightning, come spells or wizards’ wishes, this muddy road was a thread stretched out strongly toward Ynefel… it ran there, Tristen thought, and thought of his window at night, the rain crawling across the horn panes. But that was but one place of all the places it led.

Ink followed the goose-quill tip, red wax dripped onto parchment under a window full of sunset. The royal seal made a scant, a listless imprint.

Cefwyn fixed the duke of Ryssand with a cold stare then and did not himself pick up the parchment, or invite the duke to do so. An anxious page fidgeted and failed to move.

The Patriarch himself slipped in and did the deed, picked up the rattling document and bowed without quite looking Cefwyn in the eye.

A disappointment.

I am coming to hate this man, Cefwyn thought of Corswyndam, Lord Ryssand. Corswyndam was a lank, hawk-nosed, wet rag of a man, the sort that smothered any enthusiasm, disapproved anything not to his advantage, used the Quinalt as sword and shield and purse of pennies, and had interest in nothing that did not serve his own interests.

He had not the luxury, now, to hate the Patriarch. The Patriarch was thus far too useful. Why, if there were no Patriarch, then that parchment might have rested on the table until the page called a servant to move it. As it was, the Patriarch clutched it in reward of services rendered and no one present mentioned exactly what those services were.

But the king met with the duke of Ryssand and the duke of Murandys, and officially settled the matter of Sulriggan’s return on the very evening the king’s friend was on his way to Amefel… and the king had the small satisfaction of seeing no triumph on any face exceptthe Patriarch’s.

The two lords had looked to enjoy this evening. They had looked, perhaps, to accusations of sorcery, and expected better of the Patriarch than they had gotten. But the Patriarch knew on what table his meals were served henceforth and forevermore, and knew that the two lords at his back felt betrayed, and therefore he had double reason to stand close by his king.

Sulriggan would return to court, the Patriarch’s cousin; and gods send the duke of Llymaryn would be prudent, now, having coasted so close to royal anger. Ironic, that the king’s two best allies in the troublesome north might turn out to be the Patriarch and his cousin Sulriggan. He never would have seen that as likely. But Emuin had left him in order to advise and restrain Tristen, a far chancier element. That left, of royal intimates, only Efanor, only the Regent, only the Lord Commander, several other officers, and Cevulirn—a gray, often silent presence.

So at present, in the court as it was now and for time foreseeable, yes, the Patriarch was his ally and Sulriggan was the Patriarch’s man… such as he was.

He smiled on the Patriarch, a warm, a proprietary sort of smile, the sort he denied the two lords. He meditated on the rewards of piety, on his new use of the gods, from a perspective he had not had until his enemies hewed down the tall tree that was Tristen… or at least, until he lengthened his view of the realm not as protecting a small, threatened circle of intimates but as reaching to his good neighbor Amefel, his good neighbor Cevulirn of Ivanor, his dearest love the Regent from across the river, and hell take these two barons. He had the Patriarch, and soon he would have Sulriggan, both in the center of his hand, clever as they had thought they were, and neither would be anxious to see that hand ever become a fist.

“I add,” he said to the Holy Father, “I add the welcome of the Marhanen house, and the use of the bedchamber lately in use by the duke of Amefel, for residence within the Guelesfort.” He said nothing about the cook, that unholy power in Sulriggan’s household. Within the Guelesfort, the lord of Llymaryn had to rely on the Guelesfort kitchens, and be damned to Sulriggan’s culinary tastes. There was a second thorn in that royal rose, too, that Sulriggan would not be guesting with, say, Ryssand or Murandys.

“Your Majesty,” the Patriarch said. And the dukes of Ryssand and Murandys looked out of countenance. Supper was preparing, and they all were invited, in a court composed exactly as they had wished, purifiedof wizards and their conjuring.

Barley soup tonight and so long as the harvest held out. Plain Amefin fare. The royal cook might rebel, but it would be barley soup every evening, not a Ryssand leek in evidence, Amefin venison and Llymarish beef, and not a fish, not a one, from Murandys’ weirs.

A taste for plain fare gave him an excuse for sending wagons and messages to Amefel. He was writing a letter in request of sausages and the state of affairs in a province that had never concerned his father except as a source of wool, taxes, and rural discontent mediated by a lord he had trusted far too much.

He recalled an Amefin tailor, a chandler, even the mason who had repaired the stable wall. Perhaps there were walls about the Guelesfort that wanted patching, or perhaps the king needed a winter cloak of fine Amefin wool. Oh, there might be spells sewn into it: the whole province of Amefel was rife with heresy.

He should not favor Amefel alone. If there were fish, they should also come from Sovrag’s people, who caught them downstream of Murandys, when they were not engaged in petty brigandage. It was a poor province, when it was not raiding; and a royal purchase of fish might give relief to Sovrag’s neighbors, among whom was Cevulirn. If there was grain, the south had that. If there was timber and stone, there was sullen Imor. Damnedif he would sit helplessly nodding to the demands of the north. They had set him at odds with them and declared their war against his friends in pettiness and shadows. He knew them, and he knew their taxes and wherein they chose to pay the Crown in bags of grain and barrels of salt fish, which they took from the hands of their peasantry.

Refuse Murandys’ salt fish? Levy instead a demand for timber and labor? To glut the fisheries without warning would lower the price of fish, which the people could eat as well as sell, but it would threaten Murandys and force him to look to Ryssand for the timber. Diminish the requirement for timber the king could not: he needed it for bridges.

Best consider carefully which of his lords he wished to push at the other, and for what goods, and who would cheat whom, if he demanded, say, goldof Murandys, declaring a royal distaste for barrels of fish. And where would Murandys obtain gold? Selling that fish to Guelessar at, perhaps, a lower price.

Perhaps merely opening the discussion tonight of a distaste for fish would so alarm Murandys as to make him far more amenable. Or there was another possible topic of interest, which he had never mentioned, awaiting its usefulness.

“Do you know,” he remarked to Murandys, “Lady Lurielsent me a letter. Several of them, in fact.”

He saw the intake of breath, as Murandys, his mind set on the Patriarch’s cousin, realized he had an overlooked piece on the board, his niece, who did not love him, who had been writing letters on the eve of the king’s marriage and risking the king’s perhaps unfavorable interest. Cefwyn smiled his grandfather’s smile quite consciously, and rose from his chair.

“We’ll discuss it,” he said. “The tables are laid, I’m sure, gentlemen. We expect your company.”

Nestled between two hills, a Quinalt monastery occupied that small wedge of flatland created by the road’s branching to Marisal in the south and to Amefel to the west. Clusyn was its name. It was a waystop the king’s party had used on its way to Guelemara; and thanks to its provision for travelers at any season Tristen found no need to make a camp under canvas, a great benefit, which obviated the necessity of unloading a significant amount of canvas in a rising damp and, worse, loading all that canvas up again in the morning, when the air was bitterly cold.

Instead a traveler met safe walls, and their company even found meals waiting. The king’s messenger, on his way to Amefel by post-horse ahead of them, had advised the monks such a number of men would be following him by evening, and that news had had the honest monks baking up leavened bread, entire baskets of it coming hot from the oven right at sunset. Monks had swept out the sheds and the space along the south wall, provided hay for their horses, and managed their arrival as a marvelously efficient process, one monk directing their wagons to the end of the yard, where at another brother’s direction each set of drivers might unhitch its team on the spot and lead them to the appropriate area by the stables, oxen to one side, mules to this place, horses to that. The next wagon went beside that one, and the carts in the order of march, and so on, all by the wan light of a setting sun and shadows lengthening over the modest walls… walls the purpose of which seemed to fence out hungry deer, not hostile men.

The men of the Guard found their accommodation in a disused drying shed, where a fireplace provided a welcome warmth. The drivers shared canvas-sided lean-tos provided with a bonfire in front; but for the lord of Amefel and his captain and his servants, and for the king’s officers, there was the guesthouse, which boasted four proper rooms besides the warm common room. But supper was waiting for all of them, and they were able at last to put off the armor they had worn since before dawn, and to set aside their weapons and sit down to a hot meal. “These are countryfolk,” Uwen said approvingly of the monks. “These are good countryfolk, no rich city men. They put the soldiers and the muleteers and all right into walls, which with this wind startin’ up and the damp and all is a fine thing, a very fine thing.”’

The wind had become very bitter at the last, nipping noses and making riders’ toes cold as the sun went down, marking a night of small comfort for anyone beyond a safe fireside and in the open.

Master Emuin, on the road (asleep, as seemed, in a wagon, as Tristen felt from moment to moment a slight uneasy balance) would not fare half so well, and despite master Emuin’s tenancy in the drafty tower, the unfettered gusts outside were bitter and strong.

But there was nothing he could do to lend wings to oxen, and he knew no way he could hurry distant wagons. He only hoped the axles bore the weight of master Emuin’s load of baggage and brought him here as soon as might be.

With a waft of cold air from outside, Anwyll came in to join them midway through their supper, reporting everyone under cover and the soldiers exceedingly grateful for grain and water they had not had to carry for themselves—water which had healing virtues for man and beast.

“The shrine is famous for the water,” Uwen explained in a low voice. “It heals, so it does, the stomach complaints. His Highness…” Uwen cleared his throat quietly. “His Highness’d set great store by it, on account of the holy precinct.”

The water tasted of sulfur, to a tongue familiar with the powders of a wizard’s workshop; but Uwen’s quiet tone and hushed reminder of His Highness advised him it was a matter of gods, which Efanor would revere.

“They sell amulets,” Captain Anwyll added, “which have the virtue of the water. And the local blessing.”

“This is a safe place,” Tristen said, since some acknowledgment of the virtues of it seemed called for. “It feels so.” And to the rescue of the moment, the monks brought ale, three pitchers of it. “From Marisyn,” the chief monk said, and they finished their supper, with sweet buttered cakes, and talked of safe things like wagon wheels and harness until Anwyll was through with his supper and left them.

The sulfur-tasting water satisfied thirst. Tristen much doubted the amulets, after Emuin’s dismissal of Efanor’s; but some mark of courtesy seemed due. The monks had done far more for his comfort than ever the great shrine in Guelemara had done.

“What shall we do to repay the monastery?” he asked Uwen at length. “Shall we give them gold?”

“It’s the custom to give a gift.”

“Then will you do that?” he asked, and gave Uwen the purse Idrys had given him, supposing that that was enough: the rest of their money was not in purses but in that great chest the company quartermaster guarded.

“ ’At were a good thought, ” Uwen said. “I’ll see to it. ”

“Do. But,” he added, “make sure of the coins as you give them. Idrys cautioned me strongly.”

“That I will,” Uwen said, “and have the lord abbot bless ever’ one of ’em as I deal it out.”

“A very good thought,” he said. He was here because of a Sihhë coin as well as a lightning bolt, he well understood so, and he no longer trusted everyone he met, even when he made a gesture of friendship and respect to them. It seemed a sad and sorry way to proceed. But he sent Uwen to pay a coin and test the balance of the heavens tonight, in the very unlikely chance that wizardry had truly transmuted his last one.

He sat sipping the remnant of his ale before the fire, aware of monks who tiptoed close among the columns to stare at him, and aware of Anwyll and his men, who in pursuing duties in the cold kept letting the wind in.

He was aware of Emuin, too, on the road and uncomfortable, and that venture into the gray space seemed riskier than in the daytime. Perhaps it wasthe weather, with the wind keening around the eaves of what was a strange lodging, even once visited. He had had his way today in sunlight, but the clouds were moving in again. The shadows which abounded in the cluttered edges of the common room leapt and flowed like the firelight as wind fluttered down the chimney… not wicked Shadows, but there were a few more dangerous ones, he suspected, among the natural ones.

He was glad when Uwen came back, after, it seemed to him, too long a time.

“The lord abbot’s right pleased, and the captain and all.”

“Why should the captain be pleased?”

Uwen ducked his head somewhat and seemed to have said a small word too much.

“On account of the luck. Havin’ a lord do things for luck, it makes a soldier happier.”

“The soldiers are unhappy?”

“Well, there’s some as is anxious about Your Grace, that’s the truth, with the lightning and all. But,” Uwen added, cheerfully, “they ain’t sorry to be here, counting ye a lord that wins his battles, m’lord, which is a long sight better ’n one that don’t.”

“It seems I hardly won the one against the Quinalt.”

“I don’t think it were the Quinalt that done ye wrong, m’lord, an’ so say others.”

He looked straight at Uwen, and Uwen, with something he had gathered himself to say, went on:

“Likeliest Murandys, maybe Ryssand, is what they’re sayin’ around the fire. Some thinks it was magical, but others says it’s again’ His Majesty on account of Her Grace, which the barons don’t like… Murandys is the name some say.”

Uwen had a knack for hearing things, in the kitchens, in the stables, with the common men wherever he was, and most particularly with grooms and soldiers. He paid attention when Uwen told him such things, and trusted Uwen’s estimations as much as he trusted Idrys’ warnings.

“Is Cefwyn in danger?” he asked. That had to be asked first.

“Not so’s ye’d say, in danger, m’lord, as folk think. It’s that the barons in the north was accustomed to goin’ on their own advice in the old king’s reign. I’m talking above myself, here, but the old king favored ’em and His Majesty don’t, and I pray to the gods His Majesty gets before ’em soon an’ checks ’em hard.”

Gods were much in his thinking lately, and unresolved. But he was entertaining less and less hope of them. “I wish he may. What more should I wish?”

Uwen looked squarely at him, understanding what he meant, he was well sure. At times he longed for Uwen to know more than he did, and to be able to advise him, as Emuin refused to do.

But Uwen set his own limits. “I couldn’t judge, m’lord. Truly, don’t ye ask me. I can’t tell ye what’s right. All the same I trust your heart, m’lord; ye’ve done naught but good to me. And good to His Majesty. He’s on his throne, and I wouldn’t say His Grace of Murandys is safe if he crosses the Marhanen, not an hour.”

“Yet Cefwyn wouldn’t do any man harm. He has no wish to do it.”

“That’s so, m’lord, but he is a king. And kings ain’t common men, as goes wi’out saying.”

“Nor am I.”

“No, m’lord, ye ain’t.” Uwen gave a great breath, as that damning statement hung there, and they neither one could mend that, nor mend what had sundered him from the place he had longed to have.

“The whole household come wi’ ye, m’lord. Lusin and them has all left the king’s service for good an’ all, to come wi’ ye.”

“I am grateful,” he said, but had no idea what more to say, when men put themselves and all their substance at risk on the currents that swept him up and carried him here and there in the world. To follow him seemed an unreasonable choice in men who might have had peaceful lives. And at the moment he saw his servants and his guards alike waiting at the side of the room, on benches, some, or squatting down to talk to comrades, none asleep, none appearing impatient of the long day’s travel.

He found no gods in this place, no more than in the Quinaltine. He hoped for the safe rest and peaceful dreams of all the men with him. The Lines were well-ordered here, at the least, a greater comfort and source of strength than the famed water. “The household should go to their beds,” he said, “you among the first. I may sit here a while by the fire.”

“Yes, m’lord,” Uwen said quietly, and went and spoke to Lusin and Tassand. The staff moved quietly off to the hall.

But when Uwen came back alone and settled close by the fire, he was not surprised. Uwen maintained his solitary watch, armed, but not heavily so, wary, but nodding sometimes. “How’s Emuin farin’?” Uwen asked at last.

“Master Emuin has had to stop,” he said quietly.

Emuin was at least warm, if damp, and the cold wind was catching the canvas that sheltered him, an intermittent thumping. “Has Captain Anwyll gone to bed?”

“The captain’s turned in, aye. I said I’d watch.”

“You might make a pallet.”

“Ye might lie down on your own bed, young m’lord.”

“I shall. I shall, Uwen. But just now the fire is warm.”

“Aye, m’lord.”

A question nagged his peace. “Does he fear me, the captain?”

“He’s Quinalt, an’ ain’t never dealt with wizards. Ye do set a body back a little with your seein’ master Emuin, m’lord.”

“Doubtless so.”

Tristen watched the flames, wondering did he dare sleep, and asking himself whether they should simply wait here until tomorrow evening and until master Emuin might overtake them. He had let the captain go to his bed without discussing the notion. But he still might propose it at breakfast, which they did propose to have, before they hitched the wagons. Delaying another day could have risk, once the messenger had reached Amefel and let loose his news in a town known for unrest. If the town expected a thing to happen in a certain number of days and it failed, speculation started, and men did unwise things.

Meanwhile Uwen’s head nodded and his chin sank on his breast. And in the gray space, softly, subtly, as Tristen watched the fire, Emuin was with him, a wisp of a presence, a comfort in the shadowy dark.

A wind seemed to blow through the gray, tattering edges. Emuin’s presence grew more attenuated still, butwhether he was as thin and insubstantial to Emuin he could not say. He resisted all temptation to reach out and hold on to the old man by his own strength. There had been risk in speaking like this in Guelemara, the chance of being spied upon; and he was not sure, resting among so many priests and monks, whether it was entirely safe to make such an approach.

But there was also a decision to make.

— Shall I bid the company wait?he asked master Emuin. We might stay here tomorrow.

The wind blew stronger. And colder.

– Master Emuin? Are you well?

– Be careful!Emuin said, a mere wisp now. Beware, young lord!

Something crossed the wind, shadowed it for a moment, uncommon in his venturing here.

– What is that?he began to ask. And in alarm: Is someone there?

– No!Emuin caught at him, but wafted backward as if the wind had blown him, sailed away and down like the leaf from the hilltop. Don’t pursue me. Don’t look. Don’t ask, don’t wonder. I fear shadows in that direction, young lord. I do fear them. Perhaps I see them more clearly where I stand. But this is altogether an uneasy night. Go!