Текст книги "Fortress of Owls"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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“Aye, m’lord. Word’s passed.”

He had been remiss in letter-writing. Idrys had bidden him write often, very often; and now in Uwen’s report he thought he should write that days-delayed letter.

“Go do what you can do,” he said, “but be back when I go down to the hall.”

“Aye, m’lord.”

So Uwen went off to find those he was now sure were unavailable and well away, and Tristen sat down at the desk with dragon legs and under the brazen loom of dragon jaws, and took up pen to warn Idrys directly of all that had happened. He was all too aware now that along with the Dragons he had dismissed all his most reliable Guelen messengers, except his private guard. The Amefin guard would not be able to traverse Guelessar unquestioned or unremarked, and might not so easily reach Idrys. He had retained not a one of the Dragons at hand; and under the circumstances, trusting the Guelens to report ill of their own officers seemed folly. There was Gedd. He might well send Gedd.

Uwen, however, might well find an honest man or two in the unit of which he had been a part as late as midsummer. Not all of them had marched home, of those who had fought at Lewenbrook; and, Cevulirn’s help notwithstanding, he could not afford to dismiss the Guelen Guard. Honest men must be the heart of what he should have done by now and must now urgently do with the Guelens: depose or assign elsewhere officers who had carried out the massacre. Now that the sergeant and the captain had fled, if that was indeed their course, then all the harm their reports could do would have been done… and he was increasingly convinced that they had fled, and that the Quinalt had warned them.

Overtake the fugitive officers on the road, frighten the horses from under them… thathe might do, as he had done to Parsynan.

But it had not prevented Parsynan getting to Guelessar, as he was well sure Parsynan had done; and he found himself more than reluctant to invade the gray space with such a reckless assault.

And when he realized that in himself, he let the pen pause, asking himself why he did hesitate.

Fear of killing: there was that. There was no guarantee how they would fall, and a fall was chance and chance was the realm of wizards.

There was no guarantee such an act would in any wise prevent the gossip arriving at a bad time; when it arrived was now a matter of a horse’s strength, reasonably certain. But to bring it into the realm of chance also laid things as open as a window flung wide to whatever influences might be seething just out of reach of his inquiries.

There was Ivanor… arrived the very day he sent the Dragons to the border.

And arrived on the heels of portents and omens, word of lords and aethelings, himself and Crissand and prophecy.

Now Paisi, a waif detestable to the Guelens and sheltered by the Amefin gate-guard, had become the cause of upheaval in the Guelen Guard, the garrison that was Amefel’s surest and readiest defense.

His hand trembled somewhat as he dipped the quill in ink. The thoughts that came to him were not quiet ones, nor assured in their direction. Emuin’s sudden spate of advice to him and to Uwen assumed the character of a milestone reached, a point at which Emuin would speak; and now, now he was aware of Emuin’s eavesdropping.

—You know, he said to Emuin, and had nothing but Emuin’s retreating presence, refusing to utter a thing.

Anger came back, a blinding anger, and he smothered it, quickly, as some foreign and hostile thing.

To find Emuin standing at distance, watching him.

Watching, saying nothing, power intact.

Emuin couldstill keep secrets from him.

Had not Emuin always said he would not stand in the path of his intentions? Yet Emuin did exactly that, refusing his demands, keeping him from leaping from one stepping-stone of advice to the next, distracting him… leadinghim, by his frustrated questions, to examine things for himself, letting things Unfold to him. And leading him yet again, by his affection, by his anger, by his very conviction that Emuin held secrets from him…

While he had no answers from Emuin… he delayed acting. While he delayed acting…

He found other courses to take.

The anger subsided, grew cool. Master Emuin still said not a word to him, but he stood in the winds of the gray space and detected a certain small satisfaction wafting on the winds.

—Is that your tactic, sir?

Emuin did not ignore him, rather watched him warily, and he ignored Emuin, mostly, at least, aware that time was short and the earls would be gathering.

He wrote, in the time he had. And paused, the feather brushing his lips, and gazed at the candleflame, recalling how, in the mysterious ways of wizards, once at Mauryl’s hearth he had been allured by fire. His hand still bore that small scar. He never forgot that he could not grasp the flame, only feed it or extinguish it.

Such was wizardry. Such had been Mauryl.

Such was Emuin, uncatchable, even by such a power as he had in himself. If his power was the wind and the whirlwind, Emuin’s, like Mauryl’s, was the fire, small as a spark, leaping up to consume whole houses, and moving aside from a curious finger.

And had not Mauryl been very like that? Mauryl, whose half-burned letters still contained only requests for supply and observations on the weather? A murderer had thought to find far more in Mauryl’s writings, and yet… what could they learn of Mauryl or any wizard in the small exchanges? It was the long work that said more, the persistence of the little spark smoldering outside its hearth, the one, slight, unnoticed act of chance.

—I respect you, he said to one he was sure had his ears well stopped and his heart warded. I respect your working, sir, nor am such a fool as to ignore it. When I transgress, you will not tell me; but should I transgress againstyou, sir, I beg you continue to call me a fool. I fear the silence more than the shadows.

I will to do good, sir. But we are, are we not, something different one from the other? If I am the wind, you are the fire, and may burn, but mine is the stronger force.

I am Sihhë. Is that the lesson I am finally to learn, that I am not a Man and that I shouldnot practice wizardry?

If that’s so, sir, it would seem I need you. I need you very much.

The captain of the Guelens has very likely fled, and mischief will come of it, and wizardry might prevent him.

But do you say I should not wield it? Thatmagic is my skill, and I should avoid wizardry?

He listened until the ink dried on the quill tip, and he heard no answer, none, at least, in words.

But there was a sense of presence grown more peaceful, a touch softer than the feather and more subtle than a word. The dragons that loomed over this place threatened that peace: creatures of fire, reared in angry postures.

Yet was the carving oak, or horse?

Was the image bronze, or all that a dragon might be?

The nearest of them loomed, a spell in its own right, and warred against the peace. It leered across his shoulder, flanked him, stared outward with him, with its bronze and dreadful countenance, an Aswydd beast, witness of all that had happened here… and trying, so it seemed, to be his ally.

Do I command the dragons? he asked that silent, wizardly witness, with none but an afterthought to the king’s men who bore that name, or to the arms of the Marhanen, the golden dragon on the red field, which was the emblem of the kingdom as well. His immediate question was to what extent he could reach back into Aswydd power, and rely on it; but in the way of such questions, it answered itself differently.

The echo of understanding the question raised in him was that the Aswydd dragons extended their reach into Guelessar, and that they backed the Marhanen throne, not Sihhë emblems… never the Sihhë emblems. The dragons were solely the emblems of Men and kings and lords of Men. This room he had never felt he owned. This room he had warded by his presence, as much as lived in it. It was useful to everyone’s safety that he lived here and kept the wards.

Yet it came to him, yes, he did command the dragons, now, and only so long as these creatures of fire and passion failed to rouse his anger, or his passion, or his fear. That long, and only so long, did he command them, and only that long did he command those who were their masters.

The dragons and those who commanded them must not break that condition. They must never break it. With wind and fire alike they could deal, but never break that condition. He was writing a message to the Lord Commander, with the local garrison in disarray; he was facing a meeting of the lords of Amefel, to sit and do justice, and the dragons loomed above, reminding him their anger was fire, and his will was wind.

He felt that silent and wizardly witness to his musings, sealed as he was, and deliberately withdrawn from the soundless sound in the silence that lapped about this room of his refuge. This, too, Emuin witnessed.

The quill when he dipped it and wrote scratched like claws on stone, as if the dragons stirred on their perches. Shadows, the tame ones that had a right here, lurked and crept under tables and in the folds of green drapery, within cabinets and in corners as he shaped his report.

He owned magic as his birthright. Having it, he knew he must be careful of it. He never loosed the shadows that belonged here, never, in fact, allowed the lights to be extinguished: candles always burned here, and he never shut the drapes by day. The ones who had died in this room were not wholly his men; but they were faithful to Amefel, and he willingly lived under their witness, conscious of their leanings, and sure now, as in Auld Syes’ salutation to him and Crissand, that he held what would not forever be his.

Emuin heard that, too, and tried very quietly to slip away. But Emuin could not elude him now: often as Emuin might have watched, unseen, mistrustful of him before this, he was not unseen now, and might never be again.

—Know that, Tristen said, wounded, and know I have heard at least one and two of your lessons, master Emuin. And because I have heard, I’m about to hear the demands of stonemasons and of the earls. I wish the Guelens and the house of Meiden will not go at each other’s throats.

Why, why, master Emuin, do wicked purposes seem to slide by so easily, and these men escape me to do mischief and Mauryl’s letters burn, and reasons for all this wickedness slip through my fingers? Is this the way of things in the world? Or is there cause aside from me and you?

Is that the reason of your mistrust?

And is that mistrust of me the reason you came here, after all?

Chapter 7

There was no miraculous word of the fugitives by the hour the court convened… and that was not to Tristen’s surprise or Uwen’s. The readiness with which the court assembled did somewhat surprise Tristen: the summons had gone out to the earls to come early and present their petitions, such as they had, before the banquet… a feast which had already been planned for their guest for the evening, and on which Cook had labored since yesterday evening, to a mighty shouting and commotion around the kitchens. That event Tristen expected would see no tardiness.

But the earls all came, every one, even earlier than the requested hour; and so Cevulirn attended the audience of his neighbor province, dressed in his plain, serviceable gray and white, yet no lord in the hall was more dignified by his finery than Cevulirn by his demeanor. He drew every eye by his mere presence in hall, and stood at the side of the steps of the dais to give his account of doings at the court, the marriage of His Majesty and Her Grace, and the death of Brugan, son of Corswyndam, Lord Ryssand. There was no restlessness at all in his hearers, and all hung on the account of a man who doled words out like coin, well weighed and sparingly.

“What shall we do?” Drumman was quick to ask, when he had heard Cevulirn’s account of his dismissal from the king’s court. “This is an attack on the south and on all of us, our privileges, our rights, soon enough our land. We have in king Cefwyn a monarch who at least respects our soil and look how these damned northerners deal with him!”

“Aye,” said no few, from among the ealdormen of the town, too, for Cefwyn had ruled Ylesuin from Henas’amef for some few weeks.

“Let ’im favor us in the least and here’s the barons with their noses out of joint!” someone shouted out of turn. “Earl Drumman has the right of it. We fought wizards and the Elwynim at Lewenbrook, and buried our sons, where we could find ’em, an’ where’s bloody Ryssand?”

“Safe,” said Cevulirn, in a fleeting still moment of the shock of that forwardness. “Safe, sir, and hopeful of comfort and power for himself, which does notcome with a marriage to Ninévrisë of Elwynor, who will strengthen Cefwyn Marhanen. You see very clearly. Ryssand is my enemy. I assure you he is the enemy of your lord as well.”

“Lord Sihhë!” someone was bold enough to call out. “Lord Sihhë can teach Ryssand a lesson or two!”

It was not what Tristen wished, this stir about the northern lords, and he saw matters sliding away from his hand in the very first moments of the audience Emuin had advised him to hold. He knew that was not by intent, nor by Cevulirn’s intent, and he lifted his hand from the arm of the chair to seize a breathwide silence.

“I am the king’s friend. All I’ve done is to establish Amefel’s borders, and prevent war from coming here again… which I don’t permit and which I don’t think Cevulirn will permit.”

“We will not permit it,” Cevulirn said staunchly. “But that’s my tale, such as it is, sirs.”

“Long live the lord of Ivanor,” Crissand said, and everyone said the same.

It was a high beginning, the matters of kings and the doings of barons. But it was not all that waited attention: “My lord,” said Tassand, who had a list of things they should see to in the gathering, and brought it to the steps of the dais, “the matter of the Guard, the search after the officers. The dereliction of the command of the garrison: Your Grace’s captain’s come with his report.”

“Are they found?”

Tassand ascended a step to lean close. “The lord captain’s taken the sergeants,” Tassand whispered, while every ear in the hall attempted to overhear. “And has them all an’ some of the soldiers with him, an’ Paisi… all to come in the hall, my lord duke, at your order.”

“Bring them,” he said, reluctant to have all this spread before the earls and the chance carpenter with a request for supply: but so Emuin had advised him he should rule. He settled himself for a lengthy proposal of the case, and the debate of the earls on every point of it, including Paisi’s requisite apology.

But he had not reckoned with Uwen Lewen’s-son, who marched in the soldiers in proper military order, saw them stand smartly to attention, and had Paisi trailing all with a hangdog look and a bundle in his arms. And then he said to himself that by Emuin’s advice he should let his men speak, in public, and do business under everyone’s witness.

“Uwen,” Tristen said. “ CaptainUwen. What do you have to report?”

“First is the justice wi’ this lad,” Uwen said, not at all abashed, “m’lord. An’ he’s to give the property back to the man in good order. Jump, boy. Do it!”

“M’lord,” Paisi said in a faint voice, “I can’t. He ain’t here.”

“And where is he?” Uwen asked the foremost of the men.

“At the border,” said that man.

“Then give the kit to himin trust,” Uwen said, “and apologize like a man, on your lord’s order.”

Paisi all but ran to bestow the kit on the Guard officer, and blurt out: “On account of I was wrong, sir, an’ will never be a thief, an’ I beg your pardon, sir, for the captain’s sake and m’lor’s.”

“Given,” came the short response, not entirely in good grace.

“He’ll do duty for a fortnight,” Uwen said, “an’ stand wi’ the guard at night, besides ’is duties in the house. An’ when the Dragons march home again he’ll come an’ get that kit and beg pardon again, an’ lucky I don’t send ’im to the border to carry it.”

“Sir,” the soldier said, in far better humor. There was, as it were, a breath and a shifting in the ranks, even at attention, as if every man had found satisfaction in that.

“Yes, sir,” Paisi said.

“ ’At’s one thing,” Uwen said, and strode along the polished pavings in boots a little short of absolute polish, unlike the lords’, and with his silver hair windblown out of its tie. But in his broad, work-hardened body and use-scarred armor and the brisk sureness in the orders he gave, there was no doubt at all this was a man sure of his authority. “There’s honest men in this company. But, m’lord, the captain an’ the senior sergeant is very likely bound for Guelessar wi’out leave, which is a disgrace an’ a shame to these honest men, especially as they did it only hearin’ ye wisht’ t’ speak to ’em. An’ while it’s true there’s some good men find this a hard duty an’ ain’t happy in Amefel, and some has been forward in sayin’ so, I told ’em on my honor an’ your authority, m’lord, they was free to follow the captain an’ the master sergeant and take their horses an’ all an’ leave wi’ no let nor hindrance nor slight to their honor, on one condition: that they have the face to come here an’ stand on two feet an’ ask leave of the lord of this province like soldiers, not desertin’ like some damn band of brigands. So’s here’s a fair number o’ decent soldiers what ain’t content to be here, an’ if ye’ll grant ’em leave, they’ll go. An’ here’s others as is content and proud o’ this company, an’ will stay. Also, m’lord, here’s a sergeant I served with, Wynned, who’s come to ask leave on a different account, on account of his mother is ailin’, an’ he wants leave to see ’er, an’ he’ll come back soon’s he’s paid his respects an’ seen to her wants.”

“What Uwen says,” Tristen answered quietly, and not without careful looks at the men, “I do agree to, and if you will go, go with whatever supply you need.” The gossip was already sped and the harm was done; and he was glad to know Uwen had sifted the garrison for chaff.

“Your lordship,” one said, “horses and lodging on our way.”

“Horses and lodgin’s is fair,” Uwen said. “Seein’ the weather. Tents an’ the packhorses is needed here.”

“What Uwen says, I support,” Tristen said.

“They stood their part an’ discharged their oath,” Uwen said, “an’ by me they’re free to go.”

“Go, then,” Tristen said, “and bear my goodwill to the Lord Commander. I wish you good weather.– And, Wynedd, I wish your mother well.”

“Your Grace,” the man named Wynedd said, blushing bright red, and Tristen thought to himself that in Wynedd Uwen might have found his messenger.

“They’ll be on their way in the hour,” Uwen said. “Face! An’ turn!An’ bear yoursel’s like soldiers, no farewells in the taverns!—Lewes!”

“Sir.” One man stood fast as the others left, and Uwen waved him forward.

“This here’s Corporal Lewes, who’s a likely man, and who I’d set in a sergeant’s place, among this list here. Lewes is Wynedd’s corporal; an’ I’ll name others, by your leave, m’lord.”

“As you see fit,” Tristen said. He was amazed. Uwen, so shy and soft-spoken with him and within lords’ gatherings was something else entirely in the field; and, it turned out, in a gathering of soldiers. He did recall that when Idrys had dealt with the Guard in Cefwyn’s court he had not quite summoned such a large troop of them, but he had seen very, little of court: he found the entire matter of the Guard dealt with and disposed of in far shorter a time than seemed the rule of things in council. His newly assembled earls looked with wonder at this public exchange and the trading of appointments in the garrison.

But had not Emuin said to proceed in public? There was good reason the province should know the quality of the men who kept order in the town, and no one looked displeased to witness the departure of the disaffected men; and not displeased at Wynedd’s reasons or Lewes’ recommendation, either, or with Uwen’s handling of matters. There had been talk behind hands, but more for politeness and quiet, it seemed, than hostility.

“’At’s my report, m’lord,” Uwen said in conclusion, as the noise of soldiers faded in the hall.

“Well-done,” Tristen said, and looked to the rest of Tassand’s list, which proved thereafter the small business of petitions, the sort that had overtaken him in the hall, and requests, one for a marriage of a ducal ward.

“Am I in charge of this person?” he asked, and truth, as Lord Azant explained, the ducal ward was a relative of Lord Cuthan, a young girl, as Tassand knew and interjected, left behind in Cuthan’s flight. Merilys was her name, and she was twelve years old.

“Twelve,” he said. Ages of Men eluded him, but this seemed young. “A child.”

“Indeed, my lord,” said another, elder man. “In need of guidance and direction, and protection of the estate she can in no wise manage.”

“And you, sir?”

“Thane of Ausey, Your Grace. Dueradd, thane of Ausey, betrothed to the lady in question.”

“My lord,” Earl Azant said, edging forward. “I stand remote kin to the child. In the absence of the earl, and his dispossession, all obligations of kinship are fallen on Your Grace. The marriage—”

“The marriage is contracted by the lady of Idas’aren,” said the groom, “and agreed and sealed by the earl of Bryn, as m’lord can see if he will be so kind…”

“All agreements by the earl are abrogated,” Azant said, “and this marriage is not in the girl’s interest.”

“Not all the earl’s agreements are abrogated. His market agreements are being honored…”

“The lady of Idas’aren is not a heifer at market, and her mother, my cousin, is against this union!”

“What does the lady of Idas’aren say?” Tristen asked, lost in the back-and-forth of rights and arguments.

“My lord, she’s too young to know her advantage.”

“Then until she’s old enough to know her advantage…” Tristen said. He found all sympathy for a young soul tossed and bartered about without her understanding or her consent. He had no idea of marriages. But he did, of being set about and ordered here and there. “… may I have the marriage wait?”

There was a murmur, and Tassand, a mere servant in Guelessar, and now in charge of the household, said quietly: “I’m sure Your Grace can do whatever Your Grace pleases.”

“Then I say let the marriage wait until she’s older and can say what she wishes.”

Azant made a small ha! of triumph, and the thane of Ausey retreated with a mutter of angry protest, drowned in the murmur of the hall. No one else looked unhappy, and no few looked well satisfied.

Meanwhile Tassand read out the next matter, stone for repair near the gate, “… requiring,” Tassand said, “only Your Grace’s word to pay the workmen, which seems justified here.”

“I give it,” he said, as he had agreed to a hundred such requests.

Had he done justice to the young girl? He felt a motion of his heart and he did as seemed right to him. He assented to what for some reason needed his assent. The other matters were as mundane as the request for payment… a request of the town clerks for Zeide records, and that, he knew was impossible.

“They’re likely lost,” he said, and saw the Guelen-born clerk who had come with him from the capital come forward, just to the edge of the gathering. “Are they not?”

The clerk gave a little bow. “M’lord, there’s progress, but I beg to say, no, my lord, we still can’t provide all the records. It’s property and inheritance the magistrates want, and it’s all a muddle, for reasons Your Grace knows.”

The archives had been kept in disorder, or at least the semblance of it, even during Lord Heryn’s life, so no king’s clerk could find proof of Heryn’s doings, that was what Cefwyn had said. Now the disorder was real, for Parsynan had done nothing to set the place in order that he could detect; and the senior archivist who might have kept the whereabouts of important papers and books set in memory was dead, murdered by the younger, who had fled.

“We make lists as quickly as we can,” the clerk said, “but to tell the very truth, Your Grace, two more clerks or even a boy to carry and climb would speed the work; and Your Grace to rule on disputes, supplanting records.”

“Tassand,” Tristen said, out of his own competence.

“I’ll inquire, m’lord,” Tassand said, and he trusted it would come to some good issue, or Tassand would report to him. He had no idea what it cost to pay clerks, but he knew the books, which now were jumbled in towering stacks on tables, exceeding the shelves that existed, needed better care than Heryn had given them: not only inheritance and tax records, but works of philosophy, of history, of poetry, all gathered into one confused pile. There were treasures still in that place, he was convinced of it, and no knowing what Lord Cuthan might have destroyed or taken. As he understood, they had hardly a list of what the king of Ylesuin might have taken… nothing would Cefwyn destroy, no question there. But Cefwyn had certainly taken the tax records, and a history or two.

Cuthan had done the worst.

And wondering about Cuthan’s dealings with the library led to other questions, and the welfare of Cuthan’s people, which, if he had arranged the matters under discussion, would have been the foremost thing to do. But it seemed a discussion more appropriate to the lords alone, not to this hour when burghers from the town and clerks and common soldiers rubbed shoulders.

So when Tassand reported the list of petitioners exhausted and asked whether he would say anything he found nothing in particular to say. Now that he had taken up the broom to sweep difficulties and cobwebs off his doorstep, there was one paving stone missing from a complete and unscarred structure in Amefel: there was one outstanding fault, and he had thought of the man in two problems which had come before him, even in one audience.

Cuthan. Cuthan, Lord of Bryn.

Cuthan, Edwyll’s betrayer.

Cuthan, Crissand’s enemy, who had fled to Tasmôrden.

–«♦«♦»♦»—

Interlude

–«♦«♦»♦»—

In the old scriptorium that served as solar in these cold winter days the consort’s court stitched and gossiped. Lady Luriel was a primary subject of interest; but Ninévrisë said nothing, only attended her small, precise stitches, gathering news of Luriel’s previous and current indiscretions, sure that in her own absence the subject of gossip was herself, and Father Benwyn, and Cefwyn.

Luriel found no mercy with these women. There was some whisper about “His Majesty,” which a matron swiftly hushed; but mostly the ladies buzzed like bees about Panys’ sister Brusanne, a plain, awkward, and myopic girl whose stitching always suffered from untimely knots. Brusanne was not accustomed to being the focus of attention, and said, clearly without thinking, regarding her brother, “His Majesty said he might have Eveny Forest and Aysonel if he married her.”

Every eye turned to Ninévrisë, quick as a lightning stroke, and they were all trapped, looking at one another, exposed and naked, on a point of common dismay.

Then Ninévrisë calmly snipped a thread. “What a nice notion,” she said blithely, feigning ignorance. “She’s been so unhappy. Murandys is a rocky place, is it not? And Panys is full of forests.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” Brusanne said, blushing deep red.

“I look forward to her joining us here,” Ninévrisë said. “She’s very well read, so I hear.”

“I think she’s sleeping late,” said the shameless widow of Bonden-on-Wyk, and there was a general stir.

“Madiden!” said the Lady Curalle, thoroughly Guelen, and staunchly virtuous.

“Well, so she may be,” said the widow. “She’ll be wed, never a doubt. That one’s set at marriage and escaping her uncle’s hand, and would not I? Would not you? Small wonder.”

“Well, I’d dance with Murandys himself!” said Byssalys with a wicked look. “Jewels can excuse every fault else, oh, and that man has treasury.”

“His last wife had a lovely funeral,” said the irrepressible widow Madiden.

Perhaps another lady of highest rank might have stilled the unseemly gossip, but Ninévrisë listened, and gathered knowledge, of Murandys, of Panys. It was a court far more tolerable, and more informative, with Lady Artisane in retreat. It informed her, as she listened, that Murandys was indispensable to Cefwyn’s plans, and yet was not a man worth leaning on or relying on. Here was a man whose treatment of three wives was in question, whose management of his tenants was notorious, and she was distressed that Cefwyn tolerated this man… habit, and his father’s policies, all that aside: if she were king of Ylesuin, she would not tolerate him.

But events had not made her a reigning monarch, nor even a reigning queen, and she could not claim that Elwynim nobility was in any regard better. A third of the lords of Elwynor had rejected her claim as a daughter to succeed her sonless father, Caswyddian and Aseyneddin had tried to marry her by force of arms, and if not all of the lords of Elwynor had rebelled, and if a brave handful had died in her defense and a brave handful more still held Ilefínian against Tasmôrden, still she could not say that Murandys or even Ryssand was a worse lord. She would have to take the Regent’s throne by blood and iron, with Guelen troops. It would not come to her on a waft of love and tossed roses.

Her needle pricked her finger and a spot of blood welled up. She evaded the bleached linen, but it stained the thread, and she sucked the finger clean and snipped the spoiled thread, tasting copper of blood in her mouth as she looked up to an arrival in the doorway.

Luriel had indeed come to her small court, and made a deep and formal curtsy.

“Your Grace,” said Luriel.

“Lady.” She impulsively extended the wounded hand with the damp finger, and Luriel came to take it and to bow again in a rustle of fashionable petticoats, a cushioning flower of velvet and wool blossoming about her. Ninévrisë smiled on purpose when Luriel lifted her gaze to meet hers; and, reminiscent of the night of the fox-hued gown, she saw a strong-chinned countenance with brows like soaring wings, eyes full of cautious wit and defense and hope.

“Welcome,” she said, not altogether a matter of duty to Cefwyn: in some part, in a dearth of sharp wits in her small gathering, she indeed held hope of this woman Cefwyn had once thought of marrying. “Have you brought your stitching? Make room, make room for the lady, all of you.”