Текст книги "Fortress of Owls"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 26 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

Tristen himself stole a morsel from a platter, and Uwen had one, too.

“Not to spoil supper,” Uwen said with a wink, “only to stave off the pangs, and make sure the ale don’t land in an empty spot. All’s ready. Be easy, m’lord.”

The timely arrivals were, as he had heard from Lord Umanon by way of Tassand, no accident: Cevulirn had prudently appointed the day before Midwinter Eve as the day by which they all should arrive… and on Cevulirn’s word these lords had set forces on the road and traveled ahead, themselves, trusting that there would be a camp, there would be stabling, there would be food and firewood and all such things as they needed without their transporting it over winter roads.

All these men had trusted him, and committed men to be encamped here in the uncertain weather. More, the men with them were separated from their homes during the festive season, either here with their lords or still out on the roads, and by Uwen’s attentive management the earliest come had their feast: the garrison set up a tent for the lords’ men the same as the festive tents for the town, and under it the garrison’s cooks prepared to serve kettles of uncommonly thick stew and baskets of bread, and kegs of ale bought from every tavern.

That was to last all through the holiday, and to repeat for every contingent to arrive. It set the men in good cheer.

And just as the sun was at its last, the gate bell rang, heralding their last, most welcome visitors.

“The White Horse!” one of Haman’s lads ran in to say, wide-eyed. “The Lord of Ivanor, and all his men!”

It was not all the men of Ivanor, but certainly a goodly number, bringing their tents on packhorses. They set to work making camp on last summer’s site even as their lord, in a fine gray cloak, and dressed fit for a lord’s hall, rode up through the town.

Cevulirn had not failed the day, after all, but had come exactly at the last of the daylight. In the dusk one of Haman’s lads set the White Horse of Ivanor in its place on the wall, and in the firelight from below the creatures of the banners tricked the eye, as if they were bespelled to life.

Crissand arrived, and Drumman and Azant, all the lords who had come to the shrines and the tombs of the East Court, and now trooped in, all in modest finery—no extravagance in these days—and met the lords of the south with open arms and honest delight.

It was the best, the most wonderful sight. Tristen came to Crissand in particular, for Crissand had ridden out to his villages and made it back again, hard riding, for this night before Midwinter Eve.

“You came,” Tristen said, and Crissand:

“I’d have ridden through drifts, my lord: as it was, I followed tracks on a fair road and fell in with Ivanor.”

The old keep rang with voices. Outside, the several courtyards were all packed with guests and their entourages going here, going there, with horses being brought uphill and down and food being sent out.

It felt as lively as it had felt in the summer… but then had been days of dust and sweat. Now the nip of winter was still potent enough at night to sting cheeks of arriving guests to ruddy color.

And the smell of spices, rich meats and bread baking wafted through the gathering, while the pungent scent of juniper fought that of horses and leather and wool… all these things were in the air when Cevulirn, arriving last in the hall, accepted the embrace of brother lords, both Amefin and otherwise.

“We are all here,” Tristen said, and felt something settling, solid as stone and almost as old, into place. He had his hands one on Cevulirn’s shoulder and one on Crissand’s, as he turned and faced his guests.

The gray space flared before him, a bright flash of light. We are all here, rang through the wizardous air and touched Emuin in his tower, and rang all the way to Assurnbrook.

Chapter 4

The morning of Midwinter Eve dawned pearl and pink, fit for a wedding… and that well-omened weather together with the event was a relief so great Cefwyn had difficulty to keep a silly cheerfulness from his face, even with the necessity of wearing the Crown and the royal regalia.

They were marrying off Luriel of Murandys. He wished to smile at everyone.

Most of all he smiled at his royal wife, likewise bedight in her regal finery, with the circlet crown of the Regent of Elwynor on her brow… for they had reached this day without a rift between them and in good sorts. And by his order, Ninévrisë, whose small court all attended the bride this morning, went attended not by ladies, but by the martial display of Dragon Guard, the whole power of the Crown, and a very clear statement for all witnesses both that the king held her very dear… and that she did not attend Luriel this morning.

It was for the lesser lights, the maids and matrons of the court, to be sure all the requisite things, the book of devotions, the sprig of broom, the small packet of salt, and the pinch of grain, found their way into the bride’s possession, disposed about her person in various traditions old as time.

“I’ve made her gown,” Ninévrisë had said with acerbity, in deciding not to attend the bride’s robing. “Her kin may see her into it.”

Peace had prevailed just down to the night before, so Cefwyn had heard, when Luriel had gone into a fit of temper about her shoes, which had turned out too small, despite careful measuring. Luriel’s feet hurt, and now the unfortunate shoemaker went in fear for his life and trade.

“She ate this sweet and that,” Ninévrisë said, “and she would have the shoes the finest, the daintiest when she had the measure taken, oh, no, no grace given, all advice disregarded. We heard a thousand times how all her house has dainty hands, dainty feet. Now the shoes pinch. Pray, shall I pity her, or the shoemaker?”

“Mark that man, and I’ll order a pair of boots,” Cefwyn vowed. Ninévrisë had extended the utmost of tolerance and kindness to Luriel of Murandys, and now when she should be most grateful, the bride had thrown a tantrum about the shoes and flung scissors and a sewing basket in Ninévrisë’s presence.

“Plague take Luriel,” he thought, and said. But he wished honest good fortune to the bridegroom, young Rusyn, and had sent him a prayer book, a kingly gift, and traditional for a young Quinalt groom. His friends, besides, would present him a silver dagger, and a sprig of rue, the groom’s other gifts. Young Panys would bathe in water brought in from Panys, without benefit of warming, and commit the first shavings of his beard, saved for this purpose, to a holy fire.

All these customs the groom bore with, and the pranks besides, which Rusyn was likely not spared: the king of Ylesuin at his wedding had had only a boot stuffed with stockings when he tried to put it on, Annas’ doing, he was sure… but to his disappointment no one else had ventured a wedding joke, not even his brother.

Now…

Only have us through the day, Cefwyn prayed as they went down the stairs from the royal apartments toward the lower hall. Holiday evergreen entwined the balustrades.

Midwinter Eve for a wedding night and Midwinter Day for a first morning, the night of changes and the morning of a new year… omens of ending one thing and beginning another made it not an unpopular day for weddings, and sure, there were two more to follow today in the Quinaltine, notable sons and daughters within the town and the outlying villages, which the Holy Father would also perform.

Cefwyn kept Ninévrisë’s hand in his as they descended into the gathering wedding party at the foot of the stairs—he smiled on the well-wishers, on Lord Maudyn, the father of the groom, and even on Prichwarrin Lord Murandys, who was trying to seem both cheerful and calm: the smile seemed entirely to unnerve him, and that was pleasant.

There was an exchange, stiffly formal, of courtesies and well-wishes, a small cup of fine wine all around, drunk standing, the cups a gift and a tradition of the midlands, Panys’ lands.

Then the entire party went down the outside steps and gathered up Efanor and his guards. The Lord Commander joined them, wearing his ordinary black, even for weddings.

Outside, where the processional formed, all the lords in the Guelesfort had turned out in their winter finery, ladies in wide skirts and no few of the simpler variety, in Ninévrisë’s fashion. Maidens bore juniper boughs and gave playful lashes to young gentlemen in their path, where amorous young gentlemen deliberately contrived to be: there was marriage-luck in the exchange.

Trumpets sounded thinly and a little sharp in the cold air, but the pearl and pink of the sky had given way to a bright, fair, glorious blue, and outside the iron gates of the Guelesfort and all along the way, puddles reflected that sky on scrubbed limestone pavings—at least in the aisle the guards kept safe, for the whole town had come for the festivities, the food, and the sights. Tradesmen and sweeps alike rubbed elbows—maids crowded close, to have a glimpse of the passing show. Custom had it that seeing a bride and groom was lucky… and this one, so far-famed a scandal of royalty and nobility, brought onlookers to a frenzy of excitement, waving kerchiefs through the grillwork and shouting out wishes of a sort to make a bride blush.

Those cheers rang off the high walls of the Quinaltine across the way, more fervent wishes than when their king had married a foreign bride: Cefwyn prayed Ninévrisë failed to make that comparison.

The quantity of ale flowing by now had something to do with it, surely—not an extravagance, yet, for they wanted no drunken truth affronting the peace. The penny largesse had found wild favor, so Annas had said, and the crowd now was in a giving mood. Cups spilling ale froth lifted high among the crowd as the royal banners swept by—the king and his consort must by law walk before all others. Then Efanor must follow; and only after the royal family came the bride and groom, who were honored for their day above all the lords of Ylesuin.

So they walked amid cheers and the press of the crowd, on the short precessional course that wound along the wall of the Quinaltine and around to the right, to the center of its now pigeonless steps.

Hands reached continually past the guards. Cefwyn reached out his own right hand, and Ninévrisë her left, brushing unwashed fingertips, and this brought a great surge forward, of sick folk seeking cures, of common folk seeking luck for their ventures. So they would wish to be touched by the bride and groom, as well, for good fortune and a cure for childlessness on this auspicious day.

The Quinalt doors, too, were decked out with evergreen and berries, and as they walked up into the great shrine the place was alight with hundreds of white candles and echoing with high, pure voices. The panoply of Murandys and that of Panys were both in evidence all about, the colors of both noble houses draping the altar and the rails, and wound about the columns to which the banner-bearers customarily retreated.

Cefwyn reached his place in the first row of seats with Ninévrisë and Efanor. The trumpets continued to peal as lord after lord behind them found their way into the shrine, each one with a flourish of trumpets.

Idrys joined them, privilege of the Lord Commander to slip into the first row from the side, and without ceremony: he was within the royal party. Then came the groom’s relatives, with Lord Maudyn of Panys, and the sole representatives from Murandys, Lord Prichwarrin, with young Lady Odrinian.

Above all the pageantry was the patched hole where rain no longer found an entry… not an elegant patch, but sufficient to winter weather: after the workers had risked life and limb, the Quinalt was dry and free of drafts, and the weather fair, even warmish for the season, making the air close, candle-scented, perfumed with warring perfumes, and the smell of incense which never quite left the place.

Cefwyn braced his knees back against the seat and stood, and stood, through all the filing-in. It was the tiresome protocol which dictated that, contrary to the custom of the court, in the Quinalt the king, who could not kneel, stood or sat, and since the nobles were still filing in and the king’s back was to the company, it was therefore the duty of royalty and the high nobles to stand… and stand, under the heavy royal regalia. Cefwyn’s eyes wandered, while he kept his face straight ahead. As the benches filled, the air grew warmer and the echoes changed from the hollow quaver of an empty vault to the soft muted stir of many bodies. One learned to judge, even counting the flourishes or watching the signal of the preceptor, that the benches were approaching full.

It was enough waiting. Cefwyn made his decision, and sat, and Ninévrisë sat, and Idrys and Efanor sat, and then the court, with a general rustling and sighing.

Cefwyn looked beside him, found that wonderful small smile and that dimple at the edge of Ninévrisë’s mouth that told him she was in exceedingly fine humor even yet, anxious to be through this. Beyond her, Efanor was resolute and brooding in profile, beyond Idrys’ dark-mustached visage… Efanor was thinking, perhaps, on Ryssand’s daughter and his own prospective marriage: that was reason enough for a grim, worried countenance.

He had not told Efanor yet about Cuthan, but he had moved to make a breach with Ryssand devastating, and his displeasure clear. Once Luriel was a happy bride, with a firm footing in the friendly house of Panys, let master crow fly, not of passion, but of clearheaded policy: the infamous Marhanen temper would do very foolish things in that regard; but because there was , he thought twice about everything.

Because there was Ninévrisë he did so many things more wisely this year than last… and he was not fearful of Ryssand’s doctrinist priests: he had walked the processional with his hands touching the people’s hands, unshielded, and unwilling to give up any of the tradition that brought him out among his own.

There was one less priest haranguing at tavern corners this morning. Likely no one even noticed the lack. The absence ofa thing was harder to notice than its presence, and Idrys had created no stir at all. Well-done, he thought, deft and silent, and no deaths, no accusatory bodies.

Now trumpets hailed the processional of the groom. Young Rusyn marched up the aisle. Junior priests lit candles and swung censers, sending up blue-gray clouds of incense around the golden glow of the lamps. Rusyn arrived in the tail of Cefwyn’s eye, resplendent in Panys’ colors, and Lord Maudyn, back from the riverside where he had done faithful duty, was clearly aglow with pride.

The gathering applauded the groom as he took his place at the altar. A second sounding of trumpets, and now highborn young maidens came with lamps, so Cefwyn imagined without turning his head. The choir sang at their utmost range as Luriel of Murandys walked down the aisle.

But within the crowd a stunned silence fell, and almost Cefwyn did turn his head, asking himself what distressful thing might be going on.

Luriel arrived in the edge of his sight, and then he saw what everyone had seen, the ironic and unintended similarity in the two notable brides of the season. The heraldry of Ninévrisë’s house and that of Murandys were alike blue and white, and that was the inevitable similarity: no, it was the slim gown, the lack of the cursed petticoats—so that, for a moment Cefwyn saw two Ninévrisë’s.

He held a firm, angry grip on the rail in front, and thanked the gods when Luriel and Rusyn joined hands, with no ill omens, no hindrance. The trumpets sounded, the priests swung censers. The rising white smoke all but obscured the altar, which was the magical moment the Holy Father would appear through the smoke, a moment of high mystery and candlelit miracle.

But the Holy Father did not come through the smoke. The moment’s expectant silence began to fade in a crepitation of small movements, shifting of feet, then small laughter and whispers.

The trumpets sounded again. The censers swung furiously, maintaining the smoke.

There was still no Holy Father, and now the pause after the fanfare filled immediately with a murmur of consternation, and the bride and groom faltered, likewise uncertain.

Some laughed, but Cefwyn looked at Idrys, in the center of the row, and necessarily at Lord Panys and Lord Murandys and Efanor, all of whom had worried frowns. Idrys quickly signed to someone off among the columns, then turned to Cefwyn and excused his armored way past Ninévrisë in the narrow space between the benches and the rail, to reach him.

On the dais a figure hurried through the smoke, and Cefwyn turned his head as all the congregation gave a relieved laugh, thinking the Holy Father was late. But it was only a hurrying priest, who spied authority past the railing and came desperately off the platform toward the royal bench.

“The Holy Father,” the priest gasped out, “the Holy Father…”

A tumult had begun, sbme talking aloud, some trying to hush the hindmost. The bride and groom stood staring as, from confidence and security, now bodyguards began to move quickly to their lords, crowding in from the sides.

“… dead,” the priest said. “With evil things, evilthings around him! And the blood… oh, the blood—”

“Stand in your places!” Lord Maudyn shouted out, that voice accustomed to ordering soldiers in battle. “Everyone stand in his place! Let no one move! The choir may sing! Sing!”

Even a king might find himself jumping at that voice; and a heartbeat more Cefwyn hesitated as the priest took off into the smoke, and priests and lay brothers ran after him. Ninévrisë was by him, in whatever danger existed in the place, and where assassination had at the highest of all priests it would surely not scruple to strike down a foreign consort at the center of the storm.

Cefwyn had no true weapon but his dagger, the ceremonial sword more show than blade. Efanor was at Ninévrisë’s other side, armed with somewhat better, at least; and Idrys shouted out orders to the Dragons, who had been halfway to their king when Maudyn’s order had halted them in confusion.

“ Guardsmen! Here! Now!”

“This way!” Cefwyn shouted, seeing the rush of priests and acolytes around them, men he did not trust rushing this way and that and row after row of guests behind the nobles, and the doors open to the outside.

Immediately the Dragons came around them, curtaining them from the crowd and whatever danger might come from the outside. Cefwyn drew Ninévrisë by the hand, leaving the benches, passing the rail beyond the altar with Ninévrisë close before a second, desperate thought informed him no women went past that holy boundary.

But neither should murder pass it, and behind that rail, Cefwyn well knew, was no mystery of the faith, rather a maze of robing rooms and closets and storages, apt concealment for one assassin, but not for what he more feared, a movement of the crowd itself—passions were dry tinder in the town, and in narrow halls he had the advantage, places one could hold, places Dragon Guard shields could make a wall, and did, as Idrys shouted the order, “Stand fast! Let no one through!”

That sealed off the tumult from the great shrine, and left them that of priests within, wailing and crying, themselves smeared with blood. They were near that small room, Cefwyn knew from his own investiture, where the Holy Father robed.

Idrys and Efanor stayed with them, Idrys with sword bared, Efanor cautiously keeping his hand at his belt. Priests were taking no account they jostled the royal party as they advanced or retreated, one after another straining to see, then turning away in horror at the first glance inside.

Cefwyn was driven, the same, and elbowed his way past weeping, praying priests, still with Ninévrisë’s hand safely in his, and armored men pushing others aside.

His Holiness lay sprawled in his vestments, and if any blood was left in him, between the walls and his vestments, it was a wonder. Feathered cords were bound about the chair, run to the candle-sconce, back again to the chair as if some spider had done it, and the Sihhë star was painted in blood on the far wall.

“This is sorcery!” a priest,breathed.

“This is murder,”Idrys said sharply. “Stay to your praying, priest, and leave judgment of cowardly, murdering mento your king and the rightful authorities! Do spirits wear boots?”

Indeed, and Cefwyn saw it: there were footprints in the blood, leading out under their very feet.

“What are those cords?” a monk asked in all innocence.

Cefwyn had no need to wonder. He had seen the like holding charms in the market of Henas’amef, and dangling among the skirts of an Amefin witch, ghost, Shadow, whatever she was.

The star was for the less informed, who would not take the subtler clues the assassin had spread about like largesse.

“Dismiss the wedding party,” Cefwyn said, cudgeling his shaken wits into order. “See where the tracks lead before they’re trampled over! Efanor! Is Jormys here?”

“Yes,” Efanor said. “He’s here!”

“I appoint him to the Quinaltine for the interim and give him the Patriarch’s authority, temporal and spiritual, in the gods’ name!” He ran out of breath in the utterance of what was, always before, formula, and now was a weapon in his hands, the king’s power to appoint and dispose. “Advise him so! Set the robes on him! Meanwhile His Holiness is dead—show some reverence and cover him!”

“Gods save us, gods save us,” more than one priest kept saying, and another wailed, “It’s the gods’ judgment!”

“Gods’ wrath on fools!” Cefwyn became aware he had clenched Ninévrisë’s hand far too hard. “This is an assassin’s doing! And damned unlikely any of this gaudy display is real! There’s no sorcery here, it’s a planned assassination, and who’d hate His Holiness but those blackguard seditionists who prate their righteousness in the street! That’s the source of this!” With relief he saw Efanor appear again with his priest, Father Jormys, and seized on him, gentle, sensible Jormys signing himself in fear and distress at the horror in the room.

“Father,” Cefwyn said sharply, “take charge! I set you over the Quinaltine, as of this moment.”

“My lord king, I protest I am not worthy, or scholarly—”

“The king’s choice!” he shouted, his voice what he used on the field. “Our choice! Only the king is anointed to make that choice, and we make it, wepropose and dispose with the anointment of the gods on our head, and I set my seal on you as His Holiness held the office from my grandfather’s hand.” Damn youwas not auspicious, and he restrained the breath on which it rode. “ Take charge, I say!”

Outcries from the sanctuary drowned the murmur from the inner halls. Wood splintered, light wood. Priceless carved screens stood behind the rail and the altar, and it was an ominous sound.

“Get back!” a soldierly voice shouted, and then Idrys:

“Push them out!”

The Guard moved, and shrieks attended, dim, in the distance of the maze as the Guard pressed intruders back and back.

“ Out of here, Your Majesty!” Idrys shouted. “Take the West Door!”

“The East!” Cefwyn contradicted his Lord Commander, fully conscious Ninévrisë was in danger in any rising, and would not leave him, not the woman who had defended her father against rebels in the hills. He felt the firm grip of her hand and took his dagger from its sheath, pressing it on her with no difficulty at all, and not a word.

Idrys had taken the order, and cleared the halls before them, all the way out into the sanctuary, where the groom’s father, Lord Maudyn, had marshaled a defense that kept the guests to one side and the sanctuary, give or take a few men lying in the aisle, secured.

“Maudyn!” Cefwyn shouted out. “Dismiss the gathering out the maindoors! Proceed in the ordinary order! Sound the trumpets!”

“Your Majesty will not go out there!”

“Sound the trumpets, I say!” The populace was apt to wild rumors enough. The trumpets would carry, gain attention, inform them their lords were taking action and authority still stood. A tide of the common and curious pressed at the doors, against the house guards of half a dozen lords of the realm, wild with speculation and fear, and no slinking of the king to his gates could deal with it. “By precedences, behind me! Take your places!”

But in that same moment the priests, at Jormys’ ill-timed direction, bore the Patriarch’s bloody body out of the sanctum and into the fore of the sanctuary, a sight that brought shrieks from no few even of the nobles, and from wild-eyed lesser priests, who shouted entreaties to the gods. Benches overturned as a score of hands handled the bloody corpse over the rail to the altar itself… where they disposed it atop the wedding colors on the altar, staining them with blood.

“When shall I be married?” Luriel cried, from the assembly of nobles, as if it were some personal affront, and burst into tears. Rusyn was with her, and she slapped away his comfort, even struck at her uncle Lord Murandys when he attempted to quiet her outburst.

“Your Majesty, the procession,” Idrys said in utter, low-voiced calm. “Now. Your Highness, if you would be so good as to combine your guard with His Majesty’s…”

“Go,” Cefwyn said, and Idrys gave his orders, rapidly and by name, telling off the lords in their order, dispersing other men to archers stationed in secure places Idrys never yet revealed, but his couriers knew.

“Clear the doors!” Cefwyn shouted, and slowly, using pikes gripped along the shafts by several hands, the Guard and bodyguards of various lords opened a gap in the press, and progressively formed a barrier of the sort the crowd was used to at functions, pikes held crosswise, hand to hand.

Cefwyn came out into daylight, affording all the Quinaltine square the sight of a crowned head and the woman beside him. Down the steps he moved, with dispatch, as hundreds pressed against the Guard’s efforts to open a corridor.

“Quickly now, Your Majesty.” It was Gwywyn, commander of the Prince’s Guard, who reached him, a good man, and a brave one, if obstinate, and having six strong men with shields. Gwywyn’s sharp voice and the press of shields cleared a wider path along their exposure to the open square.

Then the largest Quinalt bell began to toll: the whole tower rang for weddings, feasts, and calamities, for fire, for proclamations, and for deaths—but there was none of the peal of the lighter bells that should have rung out the wedding party. The sound was only the deep-voiced Passage Bell, which tolled over all the voices, death and doom, death and doom. It chilled the tumult to a shocked stillness, and what might happen toward the steps was no longer in Cefwyn’s command. He could make no more haste than Gwywyn’s men, but the nobles behind him did not press, lords and ladies whose only armor in this passage was their unshakable dignity and the expectation that no hand would touch them, no weapon withstand their rank and their rights.

In the same way Ninévrisë moved beside him, a foreigner in their midst, her noble, unhurried bearing a bulwark to his demand for room. No battlefield had ever seemed wider than that dreadful processional ground, blindly around the corner of the Quinaltine, toward the gates of the Guelesfort, shut and secure, and, he prayed the gods, handled by some officer with more than ordinary sense, for there they could be trapped outside and crushed or those gates could open and stay open a moment too long, provoking the crowd to press in. It was hallowed ground, lordly ground: the commons ordinarily would not press them hard; but there were so many, the strength bearing against the guardsmen that of men being pushed and trampled themselves by those behind. Panic surged along beside them, ran like hounds, pushed with the force of a river in flood.

The gates opened. Cefwyn swept Ninévrisë and his brother to the side where he had immediate access to the men managing the gates, and when he recognized the very last of the procession approaching the gates, with the mob surging behind, he gave the order to shut the doors.

The gates began to swing, admitted the very last with a right to be there, and a scatter of dazed commons pushed in by the press, whom the Guard swiftly swept aside and placed under arrest.

Distraught questions abounded, as noble restraint gave way… Who had done it? Was it sorcery? Was it the Elwynim?

“A sword or a dagger,” Cefwyn shouted over the din. “Sorcery at Lewen field left no blood! I’ve seen the one, and this was no sorcery, by the gods, it was not! Look inside the Quinaltine for the assassin!—Boy!” Cefwyn said, spying one of his pages near him in the press. “Fetch down my armor, to this courtyard! Now! Don’t gawk! Call any servant who crosses your path, no excuses!– Captain Gwywyn, good men to see Her Grace upstairs to my chambers and stand watch outside!”

Ninévrisë was no fool, to cling to him when the whole of his kingdom shuddered to the brink of riot; he wanted every encumbrance gone and every weapon around him. But she seized his hand for one urgent warning.

“They’ve killed a priest. What will they stick at now?”

He stopped for the moment, struck with chagrin and guilt at once… for hehad struck at a priest: no one knew but Idrys, and Idrys’ men. But she accused him without knowing why the priestly authority was in ruin, and in front of the frightened, pious court, he could say nothing more than, “We’ll bring things to order. Father Jormys is in the Quinalt, and whatever else, he’s no common priest, and no fool.” Please the gods, he thought, that Jormys is not a fool. He seized on Efanor’s arm, fiercely. “Direct matters at the gate. Your guard, there. See no one passes. I’m going outside. The town needs to see its king.”

“They need him alive,” Efanor retorted fiercely, informing him this was folly; but it was the only course, folly for him or not, that might stem the riot before it swept into burning and looting and then to guardsmen dead and commons hanging. They were all safe behind an iron grill and an iron gate, but shouts and screams echoing off the walls outside informed him Idrys was in no such safety—and Cefwyn hurried, without running: a king must not run, must never run, never more than stride, he told himself all the way to the steps, where he thanked the gods a handful of guardsmen was marshaling some sort of order, sending the elderly and frail upstairs.