Текст книги "Fortress of Eagles"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

Tristen wore dark brown and Uwen wore green, no badges at all of Ynefel’s dark repute (which he escaped whenever he could) and this time no weight of mail or defense of weapons. The guards—there were always at least four at the king’s private chambers, besides the score up and down the hall outside—knew them and let them in without their having to say a word.

“The lord of Ynefel and Althalen,” the guard informed a hurrying page, and the page bowed and led them quickly down the reception hall to the smaller banquet hall—past Annas, hurrying about as usual, then past Idrys, who was never far from the king. Idrys had a seemingly lazy attention for them, as sharp-edged as ever—Idrys missed nothing at all, and seemed uncommonly amused.

The page showed them into the hall. Gratefully, it was not to be one of those state affairs, with tables reaching from the front of the hall to the back, in double rows, a din of voices and lute players in which no one could hear what happened a table away: those affairs could never be arranged in a single day. The invitation tonight had been a surprise, and set in the Blue Hall, which was actually mostly gilt, with only touches of blue in the ceiling. Tristen had been here once before, just after the oath-taking, in what Cefwyn called the coziest hall in the king’s apartments.

There was Emuin looking scrubbed and like his old self; and Ninévrisë was talking freely with Efanor, who was smiling, tonight, and without the doleful priest who often came with him. Even the pages were those who had attended Cefwyn in Amefel and whom he had kept in service, though other lords had besieged the throne with offers of eligible sons and nephews.

Best of all, Cefwyn came and clapped him on the shoulder, bidding him welcome; and for a few distracted moments Cefwyn talked to him about the weather and the wedding and the harvest.

“I hear the barley is exceptional,” Tristen said, and Cefwyn gave him a wondering look.

“Uwen told me today,” he confessed, and Cefwyn laughed.

“It is a fine harvest,” Cefwyn said. “Come, come, are you too warm with that cloak? Boy! —Gods, they’ve heated the hall like a forge.”

Tristen surrendered his cloak. Uwen had deserted him for the outer hall and would have his supper there, Tristen was sure, where Uwen would be far more comfortable with the Ivanim guard, and with Idrys’ lieutenant, than among lords.

Meanwhile it was impossible to follow anything Cefwyn said; Tristen’s thoughts flew entirely asunder. He had come in from riding all unsuspecting. He had taken to eavesdropping on his own guards for the sheer comfort of voices and here he was, snatched into a gathering of all his own old friends. He felt his heart more than fill; he felt it loosen from its habitually guarded state, and he looked about him in sheer dangerous delight… aware of Ninévrisë as he was of Emuin.

He saw Emuin’s frown from across the room.

He ducked his head then and made his presence in this world and in the gray space instantly smaller and quieter.

But damp the happiness, no, it could not, and Ninévrisë crossed the room to meet him and take his hands.

“Tristen,” she said with great warmth.

“My lady Regent.”

“You look very well,” she said. He tried not to reach into the gray space. They could speak with no word spoken—alone of everyone but Emuin she could reach there, as her father had been able to do; but only scarcely, a wisp of a presence at the strongest: she was no wizard. She only had the heritage, and had consciously abandoned it.

“Here we all are,” Cefwyn was saying just then, summoning all of them to table. “Come, come, everyone, no standing on ceremony tonight. By royal decree among the lot of us, I make today a start on harvesttide, no great echoing halls and long speeches, no worries, not a care. So be at your ease, all my good friends, my dear soon-to-be-bride—sit by me. Emuin is a priest—he will keep the proprieties.”

“No priest,” Emuin said. “I am most carefully not a priest.”

“Close enough for propriety in this company: a cleric, a man of years and dignity. My lady to my left, Efanor to my right hand—Cevulirn, next Efanor, Tristen, opposite, then my good master crow. Gods, what joy to see you.“

They talked a moment. Efanor delivered a very long supper prayer, and after serving and conversations began again, Cefwyn talking of horses, of the weather, the prospects for the winter… and the spring, Idrys reminded them.

“No,” Cefwyn said, then, “no, not a word on that matter. I did not bring you here for any council of war, only for the pleasure of seeing you. Friends, look you, a gathering of friends. That is all my pleasure tonight.”

“My lord king,” said Cevulirn, and Emuin lifted his cup.

“Friends,” Cefwyn said again, “with whom I can say with particular significance that this has been both a bitter year and a good year.”

“Aye to that,” Idrys said.

“A year of ending and beginning, a year of loss and finding… and all of you were with me through the storm. I drink your health, your wealth, your fortune for long years to come, and I hope for many more days in which we can gather like this.”

Cefwyn drank. Then Efanor got up from his chair. “Gods rest our father,” Efanor said then, lifting his cup, “and gods rest them all who died, and gods save the king and the Holy Father.”

Everyone drank to that, too, though Cefwyn did not seem entirely pleased. It was like Efanor to bring the gods and the dead into everything, and he was not quite sure Efanor should in all propriety have paired the Patriarch with the king.

“Gods save the Lady Regent,” Cevulirn said, in his turn, “and all her faithful men.”

That meant Elwynim and heretics. Everyone drank, and that did please Cefwyn, but not quite so well Efanor. Tristen began to fear he might have to say something himself, and all wit immediately escaped him. He decided if he had to say something he must bless the king and all present, which was no great difficulty; but fortunately it seemed the gods-saving was done, and the rest of them were spared having to invent something.

Instead they began to talk and eat until they had done for the soup and bread. Annas supervised the pages bringing in another course, and they sat and ate, not overmuch, and drank, not heavily. Tristen found himself thinking of the noisy lords of the south—thinking with a lightening of spirits how Sovrag would take to the autumn ale. The lord of Olmern would be very drunk and very loud by now, and inevitably talk of matters no one would approach head-on with the king—but Sovrag would always go straight to necessary matters, and most of the time people would laugh, or pretend to laugh, even if they were offended. In fact he liked the man as he liked Cevulirn; and he found only the dimmest joy in Efanor’s pious prayers, for which he was very sorry.

But it was a warm, good gathering. They talked about the harvest, and the festival, and whether the scarcity of cloth was a matter of merchants downriver getting rumors of war from Imor and holding back goods: Cevulirn thought not. His dukedom of Ivanor was more southerly than Imor, though entirely lacking a riverport. Cevulirn, who usually spoke very little, succinctly told what he knew regarding the downriver merchants and their quarrels, and why he thought they were not shipping cloth—which lay rather in a quarrel between two lords. Then the talk wended to the grain harvest, and almost inevitably to horses, and finally to the duke of Murandys, Lord Prichwarrin, who wished to breed the northern Spestinan horse (it was almost a Word, a sturdy sort of horse Tristen did not think he had ever seen, but he imagined such horses as stocky and winter-bearded like Petelly) crossing them to the southern Byssandin breed, the native horse of the Ivor plains, not to the Crysin breed that the Ivanim rode, a type which they had bred up from the Byssandin. It was horses, hounds, and hunting where Guelenfolk gathered in numbers, and Tristen listened to his second discourse on horse-breeding for the day.

Cevulirn, with Cefwyn, opined that Murandys was likely to lose the strength of the Spestinan and add all the faults of the Byssandin shoulder, which produced a notoriously unpleasant gait. That led them to a mare Ninévrisë had brought from Elwynor, that Cefwyn much recommended and that Cevulirn greatly approved; and thus back to the spring campaign, and the ill-made tallies, which Ninévrisë declared they should not discuss tonight, no, firmly, no.

So back to the breeding of horses and the plenitude of hay this fall, a good last cutting. The conversation all was light and pleasant, until at last Emuin enjoyed too much ale himself, fell asleep, and two pages had to see him off to his tower. Ninévrisë made her departure at the same time. So did Cevulirn and then Efanor; and Tristen thought it clearly time to go.

But when Cevulirn and Efanor were out the door of the Blue Hall, Cefwyn stayed him for a moment with a hand on his arm, and offered him, of all things, a purse heavy with coin.

“Sir?” he asked, perplexed.

“Penny day, we call it. A custom. The day after this, folk high and low repair to the Quinalt, either at high services or any hour of the day after noon, if they will, and drop the harvest penny into the collection box. Supposing that you have no great abundance of pennies, I give you these, for yourself, for Uwen, for your household, to give to the Quinalt.”

“Yes, sir,” he said. He was unaccustomed to handling money. He wondered what a sack of pennies might buy, and he was already planning to go later rather than early and to do the deed quickly. He did not like the thought of the Quinaltine roof over his head. He wondered if he might send Uwen to do it for him, and whether there might be coins left over.

“For each of your servants and Uwen and yourself. It is important,” Cefwyn added, “that each man make his gift with his own hand. The harvest penny repairs the Quinalt roof.”

“Does it leak?” It seemed an odd way to deal with an urgent situation; and he made Cefwyn laugh and clap him on the shoulder.

“Not for at least fifty years, but a benefice once accorded never goes away, not where the priests are involved. Supposedly now the money goes for the widows of the town, which is a good work, but most of all, understand, it requires even the king to make pilgrimage up the Quinalt steps, and there to drop in the harvest penny to show his piety. You are not frequent in your observances… truth, you have not been, on my advice. This time, you must do this with your own hand sometime during the day. As I shall at the high ceremony.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” The warmth of the wine had deserted him in the chill of imagining that place of groined arches and pillars that stood like forbidding watchers. But Cefwyn clearly had some compelling reason for sending him there, a reason he was sure had nothing to do with the Quinalt roof, and Cefwyn’s hand on his shoulder drew him close as they walked the outside hall toward the doors.

“Efanor has warned me before this,” Cefwyn said. “You know the priests are discontent with Her Grace, and entirely distrust the southern barons, who are not Quinalt, excepting the lord of Imor Lenúalim. And that they are also very discontent with master Emuin, who is far, far closer to me than the Quinalt has ever found comfortable. They will wish to find fault.”

If they disapproved Emuin, it was very clear by extension that they disapproved him—which was no news at all, but troubling.

“For my sake, do this,” Cefwyn said. “Bring the penny. Scrupulously, on the day. Uwen will guide you. There will be a state procession, all due formality. You need not suffer that. You may go later. You may do me and my lady a great service, if only you can carry this off with no untoward events. Above all else, we mustn’t have an untoward event. Dare you? Can you? Will you?”

Uwen being a Guelenman, and Quinalt whenever he was asked, Tristen knew he could rely on Uwen to know at least about the general behavior expected with shrines and gods. He had never delved deeply into the question of gods, fearing that powers and magics which ordinary Men claimed to exist, and which he thus far could not find, might lead even their strong friendship into uncomfortable places. He had felt Uwen’s discomfort with the subject at any time they skirted near it. But it seemed circumstances now and at last called for him to deal with gods—and with priests, who said the gods naturally detested him.

Still, Cefwyn would never wish him harm, and if Cefwyn asked him, for his sake, to drop a penny in a box, that was after all a small thing, however foolish-seeming.

“I will,” he said.

“I have all confidence in you,” Cefwyn said, still with that sober look, the two of them walking slowly. “Understand, my enemies will try to catch you. The closer we come to the wedding, those who oppose me see themselves and their influence sitting farther and farther from the court, and themselves with no further means either to bend me or to change the treaty. The southern barons see the advantage to themselves of our treaty with Elwynor. But the northern barons have old grudges with Her Grace’s land. They wish nothing so much as to diminish Her Grace to a subject, her kingdom to a province. They have had two short months first to find the nuptial agreement will not permit that, then to wish me to break that agreement, marry Her Grace, then invade her kingdom and loose them so they can plunder it.”

“You would never.”

“I would never. That took them a few days of the two months to learn. Then they proposed forms for the ceremony that would accomplish the same thing: they wanted to insert clauses in our vows that would make my lady far less a sovereign than her husband, and then they would demand their king take advantage of them. But, another few days of scheming and composing, and they simply cannot find a chink in the betrothal documents we crafted in Amefel, do you see? So now they wish to insert other clauses to let them claim Elwynor for our heirs; but we have them there, too. The northern barons went to the priests, absolute in their belief that theymight find weakness in the documents. But that failed. Now with fifteen days left before the wedding, the only hope, their only hope, is to find some wickedness to charge against Her Grace. Their time is running out, and the harvesttide, when there is so much license and so much drunken behavior, and the public ceremonies, with the king and his friends on view, is their best chance to arrange some inconvenience.”

Had this something to do with pennies? He was not entirely enlightened.

“I asked Cevulirn to remain here in winter court,” Cefwyn said, “which is a great hardship for him; but with him here in Guelemara the northern barons know they cannot get personal agreements unwatched by the southern lords during the winter, and thatalso limits the mischief I have to deal with. They can put nothing past him in the way of agreements or decrees that would favor them and not the south—and they fear to propose anything too extravagantly against the treaty because they know the south favors it. But now, fifteen days left, recall it, they have discovered a new hare to chase. Under the agreements we have crafted most carefully, you understand, Ninévrisë will never be queen of Ylesuin, but a reigning Regent in Elwynor, a head of state equal to us, with—with! mind you, no state clergy except herself. Once the marriage is sealed, the barons may not alter that, nor insert men or priestsinto her councils, not demand she become Quinalt. Murandys, Corswyndam, Sulriggan… all oppose this clause.”

“Sulriggan is banished! How can he oppose it?”

“Not truly banished. In disfavor. Mark there is a difference. His nephew attends on my brother. Or attempts to attend. Here is my point: since we have the marriage agreement protecting Her Grace, they may try another way. They may attempt my friends. And of my friends, youare as likely an object of their plotting as my lady is. An accusation of sorcery, of any sort of impropriety, would create an immense storm, possibly a delay. Anything you do amiss. Or fail to do—or that she fails to do. It’s their last chance.“

“I understand.” He did. He knew the other lords disapproved of him, all except Cevulirn. “What must I do, then?”

“Be wise. Be wary.”

“I am, sir.” All the events of Lewenbrook were in that declaration—all that thunderous, terrible realization in which he had known a book without reading it; in which he had understood all that was in it. That was what lay between him and the fecklessness some, even Cefwyn, continually expected in him. Even Cefwyn had not known the moment he had changed, or in what odd ways. He had no idea how winter behaved. But he knew how to defend himself, and he knew spite when he saw it. He knew the workings of the court. Thus far, he evaded them.

Cefwyn’s hand rested on his shoulder as they walked. “I never take you for a fool. But be aware, most of all, that His Holiness is not a pious sort of priest. And I must explain one other thing to you. The Regent of Elwynor, Her Grace’s late father, always did the office of chief priest as well as king; and this is a matter of great concern to the Quinalt. They want to assign a priest to Her Grace and will not accept her acting in priestly ways.”

She is a wizard, he almost said. He was not sure how much of that truth Cefwyn knew, although he was sure Cefwyn had some notion. And was, it for that reason the Quinalt objected? Should he, in trust of Cefwyn, in good faith, tell all he knew and discuss the question? Saying could never be unsaid, and absent Emuin’s agreement, he dared not, when two people were happy and almost wedded, whatever that entailed.

“They want to assign a priest to Her Grace,” Cefwyn said. “They disapprove of women.”

“There are no women at all in the Quinaltine?” He remembered robed women, women in white, carrying candles.

“Not as priests. Not, therefore, as reigning kings, who have the function of priests, or to be lord of a province—”

“Lady Orien was.”

“—Lady Orien is a sorceress, good lack! They hardly approved of her in any respect! And I never consulted the Quinalt in the marriage agreement. Nor needed do so, in Amefel. The point is, they disapprove women in high places. But the marriage treaty, made and sworn to in Amefel, under Quinalt, Teranthine and Bryalt auspices, says Her Grace shall keep all her prerogatives. Allher prerogatives, without exception, it’s written in the treaty, and, lo! a meddling clerk in the Quinaltine discovered this aspect of the Elwynim Regency ten days ago—which I have not told Her Grace. Murandys and Ryssand came fawning up to me saying she cannot act as a priest, demanding she declare a faith, and for a certain number of days, messages have outnumbered the autumn leaves.”

So men and women being wed couldhave secrets one from the other. It relieved him somewhat of guilt. It was not wrong for Ninévrisë to have held secrets, nor for him to leave them be.

“Then,” Cefwyn said, “then, a few days ago, the Quinalt came with a new thought. If she has not accepted a priest, she cannot be sanctified, and if she is not sanctified, she cannot accept a creed. Without a creed the Quinalt recognizes as godly she cannot swear a godly oath or receive one, and without swearing there cannot have been a treaty ora betrothal.”

That would be disaster. “The Quinalt in Amefel said it was an oath and they certainly knew she was Elwynim.”

“The Quinalt here is higher and theyknow she is Elwynim, but if itsays there is no treaty, then we have no treaty. Or we have a dispute that will take two realms to war and bring down the king. I have sworn thatto His Holiness, who has no wish to see the Marhanen kings fall, though gods know Murandys and Ryssand would step into the breach in an instant. – The plain solution is, settled five days ago, Her Grace will declare she has always had a faith, her father was her priest, and therefore His Holiness will accept the treaty.”

“How does one declare a faith?” A troubling thought came to him. “I have sworn to you, and I have never—”

“Hush, hush, hush! never say so. The short of it is that the barons have demanded of herto declare a faith, thinking she cannot satisfy the demand… and then they would be rid of the treaty and the marriage except on theirterms, which Her Grace would never accept. But the Bryalt faith such as they practice it in Amefel is verynear the Elwynim practice. So I understand. So a Bryalt priest has now sworn, my lady has had him for a priest since she came to Amefel and from beforethe treaty. It is, of course, a lie, but necessary to protect the treaty. You must never say so.”

He understood that much very clearly. “Then you havetold Her Grace about the barons.”

Cefwyn drew a breath. “Some days ago. And she agreed far more reasonably than I would have thought. She is so good a soul, Tristen. So brave.”

“I do admire her, sir. Very much.”

“She will accept the Bryalt priest to sign his name as her priest on the marriage documents. He will swear to continue to be her priest, that is, to stand at my lady’s elbow while she reigns in Elwynor, which he will, and meekly so, on his life. When he is there he is under her authority, and how much authority she accords him is by her will, not mine, and not the affair of His Holiness. His name is Benwyn, a man of little ambition, a scholar, a man who likes his table, a harmless sort. You have not met him. But you may.”

“The Quinalt accepts the Bryaltines as priests? I thought they refused to do that.”

“The Quinalt detests them as half heretics. But it isa recognized faith and it makes her no heretic, which is what His Holinesswants, now, because heknows I will press this to the uttermost, includingbreaking from the Quinalt myself if he denies me in this. My grandfather made the Quinalt what it is, my fatherpreferred them over the Teranthines, and by the gods I can do the same for the Teranthines over themif they cross me. —Which is neither here nor there with us—I see your frown. Say only that my lady has declared herself Bryalt, she has a priest who will disappear from significance once she stands on Elwynim soil, and she will, in that tangled understanding, pass under the Quinalt roof on penny day with no statement whether she is a priestly or unpriestly sovereign—damnable nonsense, all. But such words entail power in thisworld. The Holy Father must perform the marriage. This is the sticking point. This is the difficulty. I need the Quinalt’s goodwill, Tristen, or I must break the Quinaltine’s power, and I will, ifI must. But I have a war to fight. And I had far rather the Holy Father’s goodwill. We are almostto an understanding that will make the Holy Father myally for benefits I can accord him, and if you could, by will or wish or whatever small, very small wizardry you or Emuin together might manage… keep the pigeons away from the Quinalt porch.”

“The pigeons, sir?”

“I know, I know ’t is such a small matter. But I need the Holy Father in a giving mood, and they have fouled his porch, they have continually fouled his porch, and they make him think of wizardry, and of you, in a most unfavorable light. His dignity is threatened. Can you prevent them?”

He was utterly confused. “I can try. I shall try, sir.”

“I knew you would. I know you have a good heart.” Cefwyn after all seemed to have something more on his mind, and Tristen waited, silent, until Cefwyn plunged ahead. “Never let them seeyou work magic. Not with the pigeons. Not with anything. Ever.”

“It’s not a thing one could see, sir, will I or will I not. I will try.”

“If you could only observe the formsof orthodoxy, Tristen.” It was not at all about the pigeons, now, but all in a rush, the desire of Cefwyn’s heart, he thought. “If you could banish the pigeons, and come under the Quinalt roof, and make that offering, thus acknowledging the authority of the Quinalt…”

“Like Her Grace, do you mean? To tell a lie?”

Cefwyn looked confounded. And finally said, “Yes. A small, an accommodating lie. For appearances. To let an important old man feel that his dignityhas been respected and will be respected in future before witnesses he wishes to impress. Do I offend you?“

“No, sir. You can never offend me.”

“I have given you the pennies. And best you send yours by some other hand if you cannot come under that roof without some… without some manifestation. But I have seen you go into the shrine. I know that you can do it. Can you do it safely? Or will the… will the candles go out, or mice and bats break out, or any such thing?”

“I don’t think so, sir. About the mice and bats, at least. And the candles. I can go in.”

“Can you give the penny? Can you walk in, the place deserted, and drop a penny in the box? I do not ask you go in with the ceremony and the priests and all, in the morning, only to go alone in the afternoon, with your guard. And witnesses. Well that there be witnesses. I shall have to arrange someone to go in with you.”

“Witnesses.”

“In case they lie. The court goes in the morning, in a great ceremony, singing and trumpets, all of that…”

“As it did when the barons swore.”

“You were there.”

“I was there, sir. I watched from the door. I could attend with the court, if ’t would serve.”

“ Couldyou do that?”

“I will.” He had attended in the shrine but he had not lingered. At summer’s end, Cefwyn had crowned himself, on the field, and that meant Cefwyn had not taken the Crown of Ylesuin from the hands of His Holiness. The Quinaltine Patriarch had wanted Cefwyn to come into the Quinaltine shrine and have the Patriarch set the crown on him all over again. But Cefwyn had not been willing to be crowned twice; so he had only taken the northern barons’ oaths of fealty in a Quinaltine ceremony, those who had not sworn already in the south. “Will it make the Patriarch happier?”

“If you could do that, if you could simply stand with the court, if we could quiet the general fears that the king and his house as well as his bride will go off to be Bryaltines or worse, that all the south will break out in magic like a pox, why, then, gods, yes, it would make him happier. If we win the Holy Father, then Murandys and Nelefreíssan, and finally even Ryssand must fall in line. The lords break every law of the Quinalt themselves almost every day and twice on holidays, but they fear heresy. They do honestly fear it… as if the gods being waked up by another man’s sins should then notice all that theydo amiss. The Holy Father has his own methods, the Quinalt being the holder of all treaties, and if he approves, then he will bring the rest of them into order.” Cefwyn drew a great breath and gave him a long, solemn stare. “You are the most unskilled liar ever I knew. But if you could take only a little instruction, learn what will be done, stand quietly, donothing wizardous…”

“I am no wizard, my lord. I am not.”

“No wizard as Emuin is no cleric. If someone were to show you what to do, and when to stand and when to appear to pray… make the gesture… make the people sure you are notof wizardous substance, that you will not burst into flame or break out in warts. You don’t have to convince the Holy Father. The Holy Father well understands political religiosity. He respects it—he frankly prefers it to devout faith in those he supports. What will win him is your making the offering, showing respect for his authority—publicly bowing to him.”

“Ought I?”

“For me. For Her Grace.”

“Then easily. I might go to the Quinaltine and meet the Patriarch and swear to him if you wished.”

“No. No. No. Know this. His Holiness is Sulriggan’s cousin. He will never be your friend. Never expect that. Say nothingbut good day to His Holiness or any priest, on any occasion.”

Sulriggan again. He was a very troublesome man, the lord of Llymaryn, not attending court this winter, in Cefwyn’s extreme displeasure, after he had left the court of Amefel in disfavor. He was never guilty of treason. When Cefwyn had had great need of every man he could muster, Sulriggan had not been there, had suffered no wounds at Lewenbrook, where the southern barons had proven their courage; and in shame, Sulriggan had sat all autumn in Llymaryn, with even Efanor angry at him. That much was no inconvenience to anyone.

But that His Holiness the Patriarch of the Quinalt was Sulriggan’s cousin, and the king must court him, that was terrible news. No one had told him that. It made matters very much more difficult.

“I would become Bryalt like Her Grace. I could do that. I could say I was Quinalt. If I am to lie, had I not as well swear to the Quinalt?”

Cefwyn looked as if he had swallowed something startling and uncomfortable. Idrys had lingered at the doors, throughout, and looked askance when he said that.

“As well slip a raven in amongst the doves,” Idrys said. “ Thatwould be a sight.”

“That, from master crow,” Cefwyn said, in the way he and Idrys were accustomed to trade barbs. “I slip yourblack presence in amongst the pious priests and they bear it.“

“I am no wizard,” Idrys said, “nor reputed to be dead.”

“Mind your tongue!” Cefwyn’s order was not humorous, now.

“Reputed, I say, my lord king. Reputedis the simple truth, which the lord of Althalen would by no means deny.”

“Dead, sir, I am not sure of.”

“Gods.” Cefwyn’s hand rested on Tristan’s back. “My good friend. My friend most innocent. And yet grown far more clever. Gods, if for fifteen days, a glossof piety… an instruction. Merely an instruction in the ceremonies. It would tantalize the barons with doubts… distract all gossip from Ninévrisë…”

“My lord king,” Idrys objected.

“No, now, a gloss, is all. Efanor will always discuss religion… would deliver him sermons for hours if Tristen were willing, at least to make him aware of the forms and the rites. If ’t would raise no apparitions, no blackening of the offerings, no souring of the wine…”

“No, my lord king,” Idrys said firmly. “No, no, and no.”

“The Patriarch is a practical man, a shrewd man. He knows what there is to gain and lose. A little gesture, no deception at all… simply a due respect…”