Текст книги "Fortress of Owls"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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“I understand everything you say, sir,” Tristen said. “And I agree.”

“So share a second cup, and I’ll go tamely to my bed, having committed treason enough for an evening. I’ll stay with you the few more days, go home to set things in order, and by Midwinter… ride back here again, with all necessary force if you aren’t in jest.”

“I am not in jest. Henas’amef will supply you with every need, firewood, canvas, grain, whatever you will have. I have a hundred of the Guelen Guard and two hundred of the Dragons, who must go back when spring comes. In the meantime they’re at my orders. Lord Parsynan did nothing to raise a muster, and he did nothing to replace the weapons and equipage after Lewenbrook.” He had not intended to enumerate Parsynan’s failings, and went instead to his point. “My promise to Cefwyn didn’t mean letting Tasmôrden cross before we stopped him. We’ll have the bridges in our hands.”

Something in the exchange pricked Cevulirn’s odd humor. “Indeed,” Cevulirn said. “And before I go… perhaps I should have a view of those bridges myself.”

Tristen had no idea whether Emuin had listened to what he and Cevulirn said, but it was his impression the old man had withdrawn from all of it in truth, shut the door to his tower and held aloof from lords making plans he would not advise.

Uwen, however, had heard everything.

“Is it folly?” he asked Uwen, in consequence, after Cevulirn had left and when Tassand and the servants were disrobing him for bed. “I think he means nothing but good to Cefwyn, and I don’t think he’s a fool. I trust him.”

Uwen had long since inured himself to questions of that nature, and passing judgment on what Uwen called his betters. Uwen would do it, in private, and quietly. “He ain’t a fool, that ’un, never was.” But the look Uwen gave him after was still troubled, something unsaid, and Uwen waited, gazing into the small fire in the bedchamber, until Tassand and the servants, trusted as they were, had left the room.

So Uwen would do, if he had something to say in absolute privacy, and Tristen gathered a robe about himself for warmth and went to the fireside. The light cast a fire glow over Uwen’s face, brightest on the silver of his hair, which nowadays he wore clubbed, growing longer after the fashion of a man of rank.

“’At boy, an’ his lordship the earl, an’ Cevulirn,” Uwen said, “is all of a piece, m’lord, that woman an’ all… the witch.”

“Wise or not wise?”

Uwen’s face turned profile to him, eyes set on the fire. “Wisht I knew, lad. I ain’t th’ man to advise a duke.”

“You called me lad.”

“That I did, an’ beg pardon. I shouldn’t have done’t.”

“Call me that, and tell me the truth. Am I a fool?”

Uwen’s gaze swung back to him, earnest, surreal in the firelight and shadow. “I ain’t th’ one to say that, m’lord.”

“Uleman called me king. Auld Syes said the lord of Amefel andthe aetheling; and the second she meant was Crissand. I know it was. Crissandis the aethelings’ heir. She meant he should be lord here. And what should I be? What should Ibe, Uwen?”

“What she said was a lot muddled,” Uwen said soberly, “but there ain’t but one king in Ylesuin, and anything else is treason, lad, just so’s ye know’t. I’d follow ye at any odds, but so’s ye know, I don’t think His Majesty wants to hear any kingin Amefel. I don’t think His Grace of Ivanor wants to hear it either, and His Grace of Ivanor won’t follow you over that brink. Iwould, but he won’t.”

It was dire to think of any king but Cefwyn; and he would not think it. “I knowthat. And I would never do anything against Cefwyn.”

“Yet I think His Majesty has his own idea what ye are, lad, an’ His Majesty’s Commander ain’t in doubt.”

“Has Idrys talked to you? Can you say?”

“Oh, I’ll say, m’lord. Ye’re my lord, an’ the Lord Commander don’t expect otherwise when he talks to me, as I confess he did, before we left Guelemara.”

“What did he say?”

“Oh, reasonable things. Sayin’ I should have a care, an’ not let ye do anything rash, an’ to watch your back, m’lord. The Lord Commander wishes ye better ’n ye might think. Ye may be what ye are, but ye ain’t Lord Ryssand, an’ ye ain’t ever askedfor Amefel: it was His Majesty give it to ye, wi’ His blessing an’ His Holiness’s blessing to boot, so, aye, His Majesty was the one who made the Holy Father willin’. It weren’t the other way around. And ye can rest a’ nights knowin’ His Majesty knows what ye are, an’ still stands by ye, ’gainst Ryssand an’ the Quinalt and all of ’em.”

The low music of Uwen’s voice was sweet to him, stilling fears, allaying anxieties and doubts, and telling him things he longed with all his heart to believe.

“You don’t fear me, Uwen.”

“Ye keep askin’, an’ it’s the same answer, m’lord. Ye should have answered master Emuin a wee bit softer, but ’e understands, same as me, it’s a man’s weight ye carry now, an’ a burdensome weight it is: small wonder if ye feel it. Yet ye should answer him softer.”

“I know. I repent of it. I repented the moment I’d done it.”

“M’lord, I ain’t findin’ fault.”

“No. Fool. Foolis what Idrys would say. AndMauryl. Auld Syes frightened Emuin. And yet, yet she only warns, by all I know. What wizards do… that’s another question.”

“It’s above me, m’lord. Far above me… what wizards do.”

“What Ido, what Mauryl’s done, what Emuin’s done… all these things… tie one to the other. Cevulirn didn’t come because Auld Syes wished it. And who raised the storm, Uwen? Who raised the storm?”

“It damn sure weren’t natural, m’lord. An’ whatever happened at that place, it ain’t what it was when we rode in. That great tree uprooted… like whatever were there, was all done, old as it was: ’at was what I thought of. It was old, an’ it was all done and broke.”

“That it was.” He saw in memory the ancient tree, its roots ripped from shadow to light, out of whatever secret places they had grown, deep in the earth, under it, among the old stones. Shadows might well have broken out. They might have followed Auld Syes, or her daughter. That, too, Emuin must have seen, as he had seen it.

He shivered, barefoot on the warm stones, beset by the draft in the room. The dragons loomed above them, and cast fire-shadow of dragons on the ceiling, all points and coils, enveloping all they did.

“I should write soon,” he said. It was scarcely a fortnight since the last letter, which must move by courier over snowy roads, and at hardship to man and horse.

“To His Majesty?”

“To Cefwyn, yes. Idrys said as often as I wished, I should write. The last I wrote was about Cuthan.”

“Letters has a way of strayin’, m’lord. And for the sweet gods’ sake don’t write about meetin’ wi’ Ivanor.”

“I know.” He was not so new to the world he did not imagine what Ryssand would do with such a letter in his hands. “I expected Cefwyn would write to me.”

“A man new-married don’t think o’ writin’ letters, m’lord. On the other hand… maybe he has. The last king’s messenger didn’t have all that luck, did he?”

It was true. Edwyll’s men had killed him. Edwyll, Crissand’s father.

But with Cevulirn here, and the other lords to come… he found himself wondering what he could say, or should say, and knew no one he could send who would get a spoken confidence assuredly to Cefwyn. Even among the king’s heralds… some had been the old king’s men; and those could as well be Ryssand’s, even if they came to him. Fool he might be, but he had understood that.

“I’ll write,” he said, “such as I can, and wish him to understand what I can’t set down by pen. I’ll write, when I know how things stand at the river.”

Chapter 6

Cefwyn’s head hurt, where the crown had pressed on it. On this bleak, cold morning he sat at solitary breakfast at a small table near windows which gave far too much light, and craned his neck painfully askew to look at his black-humored Lord Commander of the Guard.

“Tea,” he muttered to the nearest page. “Now. For the Lord Commander as well. Sit down, master crow, you’re a spot against the sun.”

Idrys drew back one of the three chairs and settled his armored body carefully on brocade and painted wood. Idrys had appeared like toadstools in the morning, showing no evidence of headache or other inconvenience… a countenance that rarely changed, be it calamity or triumph Idrys had to relay.

“So what’s amiss?” he asked Idrys.

“Did I say aught was amiss?” Idrys countered. “There might be good news.”

“And horses will learn carpentry,” Cefwyn said, “before master crow bears allgood news. Spill it. Out with it. Where’s Tasmôrden this morning?”

“Freezing outside Ilefínian, to this hour, if luck holds. No, my news is not Tasmôrden. Nor even Lord Tristen.”

“Thank the gods.”

“Luriel.”

“I make my thanksgiving provisional.”

“No, no, quite appropriate, my lord king. The lady established herself very well with Panys last night.”

“Established.”

“Spent the night in his chambers.”

Cefwyn arched a brow, in spite of the sun, and meanwhile the page arrived with the new pot and a second cup. He let the lad pour, waggled fingers, sent him out of the range of gossip.

“She certainly wasted no time in that siege. Tasmôrdenshould employ her.”

“Half the men in the hall last night entertained similar ambitions.”

“Only half?”

“The rest know Prichwarrin.”

“And doubtless some have known Luriel.—In his chambers, you say. Playing at draughts, you say? Discussing sanctity?”

“She does have a certain forwardness,” Idrys remarked drily.

“Gods. How could I have been so blind?”

“As what? To have entertained a notion of marriage?”

“As to have had the vixen in my bed, gods save me, and gods save Ylesuin.”

“Panys doesn’t mind. The lady’s dowry will be Murandys, her uncle’s detestation notwithstanding, so long as she keeps her head.”

“That lovely head is very well protected,” Cefwyn muttered, and grimaced at the bitterness of the tea. Or was it the headache? “A wedding is almost certainly in the future, then, and agreeable to the lady as well.”

“It would seem so.”

“So master crow becomes the messenger of weddings.” He furrowed his brow against the glare of sun. “I thought it was a dove.”

“A crow is quite enough for Murandys,” Idrys said, buttering a bit of bread. “The lady’s dear uncle is not utterly pleased. His niece won’t easily forgive him her sojourn in disgrace… little likelihood of any reconciliation there until it’s to the lady’s clear advantage, as we both know of this lady. There’s every likelihood that the lady will divulge all manner of his secrets to her new love, who, though young, is no fool. He’ll bring them all to his father, and his father will most likely approach Your Majesty or Your Majesty’s duly appointed representative, with all manner of these tidbits, in due course. This, granted Murandys finds no way to buy his niece’s silence. Yet what can Murandys do but put a good face on it? His one offspring gets only daughters. And he’ll no more beget another heir himself than horses will fly. Once Luriel produces a son, he’ll put as good a face on it as the lady will allow.”

“She’ll spend Panys dry and move on to her uncle’s treasury.”

“Your Majesty’s support would, of course, sustain Panys against the lady’s depredations… and make sure whose ear those early reports find.”

She would not spend rustic Panys completely dry, to be sure: their wealth was in apples, not gold, and her tastes were extravagant, requiring other than cider barrels: the orchards were Crown grant and could not be sold. But she would drive Panys’ offspring to an importance within the royal councils and a passion for trade and gold that Panys could never otherwise hope to attain… and that was good for the monarchy, for Murandys linked with rustic Panys instead of Ryssand would guarantee him a far more tranquil reign.

Could he justify the expense of a gift to Panys, say, an establishment of some additional income, and cloak it from Murandys’ objections?

“The lady herself is no fool,” Cefwyn said. His own liaison with the lady had been, at that time, a practical necessity, the heir of Ylesuin with the niece of a powerful baron of that unholy Ryssandish alliance, until the marriage had shipwrecked on a riskier, more advantageous match with a better-dowered woman he also loved, deeply and passionately. “What more can we ask?”

Idrys took a sip of tea, put the cup down, set his forearms before him on the table, and looked very sober. “Shall I answer that, my lord king?”

This was not good news. He foreknew it, and waved a hand in signal that Idrys should speak.

Idrys did. “We might ask discretion of Lord Tristen. He’s done very well in sending the letter that silenced Ryssand, in subduing the rebellion that prevented a southern war. But my very reliable informant says charms are sold in the market again, and that the people hail him Lord Sihhëwhenever he rides in the streets.”

“So they did when I rode with him. This is nothing new.”

“That the son of Meiden kneltto swear him allegiance and hailed him aetheling.”

That was worth a moment of silence, at least. “To spite Guelen authority. I did read your report.”

“The Quinalt there is distressed, and sent a letter to the Holy Father, who has notbrought it to my lord king.”

“I trust the Holy Father in Guelessar knows where his safety is and will reassure this priest. Good gods, the Quinalt in Amefel is used to witchery. Whence this complaint?”

“Whence, indeed?”

“Ryssand?”

“Oh, his letters also go to the Quinaltine.” Idrys took a sip of tea. “But far more feet than two leave the Quinalt every day, and I can’t follow all of them at once.”

“Those that go to Ryssand would be a benefit.”

“That I have done. Unfortunately, I cannot follow through the doors.”

“Well find the way! Where is your invention?”

“Time. Time, my lord king. One of Ryssand’s servants met with mischance, a kettle of oil in the kitchens. Another dead, a fall on the stairs. I’ve other ears there, but none so well placed, and I reserve them against greater need than my suspicion that priests from the Quinalt go to Ryssand’s priest. I know that conduit, and I assume that sewage flows. Beware Ryssand, I say. Beware his priests, and watch their actions.”

“The damned northern orthodoxy.”

“The northern orthodoxy, indeed. I’ve warned Lord Tristen. I warned him before he left, to make public gestures of favor to the Amefin Quinalt. More, I advised his advisers.”

“Well done in that.” The whole question of Tristen’s innocence wandering through the maze of Quinalt, Teranthine, and Bryalt ambitions in Amefel was enough to curdle milk. “I’d suspect Ryssand’s fingers are inside Amefel in more than Parsynan’s case. The Quinalt there I never did trust.”

“And Tristen is not utterly circumspect. I have also to report, unless something intervened, Parsynan’s baggage is still in Henas’amef, and the carts have gone to the river.”

“ My carts?”

“He sent all your carts to the river, whence reports may be more scant: he also sent my informant there, who could not, of course, protest the mission, except to dispatch a man to advise me about the orders. I assume they’ve gone.”

“And what does he think he’s doing?”

“Dispatching supply to the borders. He’s also declined to send home the Guelen Guard or Anwyll’s detachment of the Dragons. They are not delayed. He’s keptthem all, and it seems he’s reinforcing the river border. In all honesty, in my opinion, a service.”

Cefwyn heaved a heavy, a considerate sigh. “He’ll have my carts stranded in drifts, and then what will we do? But he doesn’t think of that.”

“Or he hopes to banish the snow. Conjure it from his path.”

He was unsure whether that was humor. “Reinforcing that border is no sin, I agree. Good for him, I say, carts and all. And he has no house guard but the Guelens in the garrison, and my troops. He’s not the mooncalf now. And regarding this mission to the river, pray, you never told me. I trust you told no one else.”

“At this moment, in Guelessar, Anwyll’s courier knows. But, of course, the Quinalt father in Amefel knows… which does add possibilities to the list of the knowledgeable.”

“Priests! Priests at every turn. I grow very weary of priests.”

“At least the Holy Father has remained constant to his best interests. But priests disaffected from Your Majesty will not go to the Holy Father, and I doubt ones alarmed by Tristen’s doings will go to him.”

“Where will they go?”

“Where indeed?”

“No wide guess, is it? I’ll tell you, master crow, the Holy Father fearsRyssand; so does Sulriggan.” He considered the alliances involved and heaved a sigh. “Damn him! —Why am I here, with all my friends exiled to the south, in favor of fools and grasping old men in the north whom I little love? Tell me that, crow.”

“Your grandfather weeded his garden severely from time to time. Your father was too complacent. I’ve no idea what you will be, my lord king, but if you prove complacent, I fear for us.”

He knew precisely what Idrys counseled. “There’s Murandys, keystone of the entire effort in the spring, the staging point of our advance. Shall I remove him, pray, and have Luriellead my forces? Or young Panys, straight from his mother’s arms? I need these conniving old men, damn them. At least they’ve fought in the border war.”

“So has all the south.”

“Yet I rule here.”

“Move the capital.”

He gave a rueful, startled laugh. “You jest.”

“You say your power is in the south. Rule there.”

The Marhanen had no welcome in Henas’amef—to parade through its streets, perhaps. But to rule? “Not for living there,” he admitted. “Not possible.”

“Then rule here,” was Idrys’ succinct counsel, “and don’t look to do otherwise, my lord king.”

Idrys had a way of slipping past his guard with a telling argument. And therein he did. Rule here. Rule Ryssand. That was the point wherein Idrys thought he failed as a king. It stung.

Idrys meanwhile finished his cup and rose, unbidden. “I’ve business downstairs, my lord king. I beg your leave.”

“Go,” he said, but his stare was meanwhile at the white, wintry light, the frosted panes.

Rule, indeed. As if he did not. Rule here. As if he did not.

Was not Murandys in check, and Ryssand home, disabled? And had he not set the south firmly in order, with Cevulirn attending business and Tristen there, in charge.

Gods knew what Tristen would doin ruling Amefel, but he knew what things Tristen would notcountenance, one such being dishonesty in the taxes and the other being any hostile incursion into the territory he was set to guard. Any adventure of Elwynim across the river would turn out to Tasmôrden’s extreme regret, Cefwyn had every confidence. He had less in Tristen’s forbearance from magic, but at least it would be magic outside the witness of Guelenfolk; and by the time the rumors did get to common lips they would have the flavor of ordinary gossip, a little less credible by their remove from Guelen lands and ordinary sights and doings.

Idrys chided him, and advised him to harsh measures, but he had secured the southern frontier with two broad strokes, not an arrow expended. That was the very point of what he considered wise rule, that things happened quietly and without fuss. Was Idrys not the master of such strokes, and did Idrys decry his quiet management of the south, which had defied his father and ultimately killed him?

No. It was not the south where Idrys faulted him. It was the north where he had not covered himself with glory, and Idrys was right, at least in his observation. That Ryssand was home and out of mischief was thanks to Cevulirn’s sacrifice more than by his own cleverness; and by that stroke he might have been rid of Ryssand’s poisonous influence in court for the winter, but he had lost Cevulirn’s valuable presence, the last southern presence in his court, at least for the winter, and had a blood feud between two of his barons as a consequence. Luriel was holding Murandys in check and keeping him from uniting with Ryssand, but, gods, that was no stable situation, all teetering on the edge of Luriel’s whims, her uncle’s spite, and the cleverness of Panys’ young son.

Marry the baggage off in haste, he thought. An estate to Panys, a royal wedding present to dazzle Luriel and keep her happy. He had the house of Aysonel in Panys, royal lands his remote kin had held, fine land, a good, anciently maintained chase among the oldest oaks in the north. The Crown could ill afford to diminish its holdings, but the Crown had them precisely for gifts of state importance: Panys was sensible and loyal, at least in this generation… gods knew what Luriel’s example could make of their mutual offspring in the next.

But by the time Luriel’s descendants were old enough to commit their indiscretions, the Elwynim question would be settled, granted the gods’ goodwill.

And there was Panys’ older brother, who would inherit Panys itself, another sober, reasonable lad, gods save him and his sire from accidents and Ryssand’s ambition.

He supped down a cold remnant of tea, setting his thoughts on a second court wedding, as soon as practicable… and the couple not yet having presented themselves and their request.

“Call Annas,” he said to a passing page, and when his chamberlain appeared, even in advance of Ninévrisë’s venture forth on the day: “Strongly suggest to the son of Panys that I suggest discretion and haste. Midwinter. Midwinter would not be too soon.”

There was no way to have held the men silent on the sights they had seen, not with the presence of the lord of Ivanor to inspire close questions: so Uwen said, and so Tristen gathered of the things that echoed back to him; by noon of the bright, blue day after their ride it was certain in every tavern in Amefel that the men had seen a witch at Levey crossing in flashes of lightning and claps of winter thunder, that immediately after, ghostly trumpets had heralded Lord Ivanor and his party, who had left Toj Embrel only that hour… folly, but the heart of the matter was the same: the lord of Amefel had ridden out with the earl of Meiden and come back attended as well by Ivanor and his men; and on the way a witch had appeared to them, with portents as yet disputable.

Meanwhile the earls were all astir to know the meaning of it, and anxious to see the lord of Ivanor and hear from his own lips the doings in the Guelen court, as they called it. So it was Cevulirn’s door they beset, one visitor and another, all of which Tristen knew, and none of which he prevented.

It left him oddly free of petitioners and questions, so that he quietly fed the pigeons that came to his window, and even had leisure to watch their antics for a time, their pressing and shoving one another, the silly waddle about the ledge when they were sated. Their wings had quite cleared the snow from the ledge in that area, and the place below was only the courtyard, which was free of hazard and remarkably clear.

Boys ran and flung snowballs where lately men had battled and murder had been done, against that very wall.

How careless they were, he thought; with what lightness of heart they stalked one another and arranged their ambushes, and how sorrowful that later age filled their hands with iron. They were innocent, and thought it all a matter for laughter.

Through their midst, however, came a dark and purposeful figure, in a course from the South Gate toward the main doors. An angry man, Tristen thought, and recognized the cloaked and bundled portliness of His Reverence of the Quinalt as snowballs flew perilously close and spattered across the track just behind the man, prankish disregard of priestly authority.

It could not have sweetened the man’s mood.

He had the least but growing premonition the matter would reach him. He could think of no excuse to avoid it, and no one to whom the patriarch of the Quinalt might apply in such anger but to him.

And within a very little time, indeed, he received word from Tassand that His Reverence had lodged a protest with the provost and with the guard, and called for the arrest not of the boys with the snowballs, but of certain women in the market.

He knew what it was, then, and surmised even that the small, furtive shaft he had launched in that direction had not gone unremarked by the priests. At very least he had released a prisoner of the Guelen Guard, he had known he left men discontent at his back; and Guelenmen discontent and now a Guelen priest manifestly angry and lodging charges against old women in the market did assume a certain strange relationship in his thoughts.

And dared he forget the rumors Uwen said were running the town? The priest seemed to have said nothing about witches and storms or the lord of Ivanor, only old women and trinkets.

“Tell Emuin,” he said, for Idrys in his leaving Guelemara had warned him about priests, and advised him to cultivate their favor with gifts. He had made the gifts. He still had an angry priest on his doorstep… and Emuin was, if somehow not a priest, at least a sort of one, among the Teranthine. By his own preference he would wish to draw in the Bryalt clergy as well, for the sake of having yet one more priestly opinion to spread thin the Quinalt sense of absolute power and right to command everyone. He was not sure Emuin would come, in point of fact, but no Bryaltine had been near the guard last night; Emuin had, and he wished he had made the summons more absolute and more urgent. Uwen was out and about the duties of the garrison, something to do with the armory, and he was otherwise alone, but for Lusin and his guard.

So Tassand sped, and dispatched word downstairs to His Reverence of the Quinalt that there would be an audience as he petitioned, and went himself to advise Emuin he was urgently requested.

Meanwhile Tristen called one of the younger servants and decided on ducal finery… not so much that he cared to appear in splendor, as that he wished to allow Tassand the time it took to rouse Emuin out… likely from sleep, for the old man waked more of nights than by day, and kept his hours topsy-turvy of habit. In consideration of the priest, he chose not the black of Ynefel, but his new coat, Amefin red—his only such coat, as happened, but he counted it wise not to receive the Quinalt bearing the colors and symbols of a Sihhë lordship he well knew were anathema to the Quinalt.

And at his own pace and hoping for Emuin’s swift arrival, he came downstairs with Uwen, to the little audience hall, the old one, where servants had lit candles. It had been cold when Cefwyn had it and it was cold now, where the patriarch waited in his outdoor cloak, tucked up like an angry winter sparrow. To Tristen’s great relief Emuin had arrived in greater haste than he had shown for any business since his arrival in Amefel, appearing in spotless gray robes and orderly, except the wind had caught his white-streaked hair and had it standing wispily on end.

“Your Grace,” said the patriarch in no good cheer.

Tristen walked to the ducal throne and sat down. “Sir.”

“I have come from the market.”

“I am aware, sir. And from the provost and with a complaint of some nature regarding women in the market.”

That might have cut short half an hour’s oration. At least having his business set in sum caused the patriarch’s mouth to open and shut and reset itself, while Emuin tucked his hands in his wide sleeves and looked for all the world like an owl roused by daylight.

“Your Grace, Your Grace, not merelyold women, but a danger to the town, and I pray Your Grace’s sober attention to this matter. These otherwise laughable trinket-sellers are out openly in the square in daylight, with forbidden goods, flouting His Majesty’s law and canon law alike, and selling poisons and other noxious powders in the open. I ask Your Grace order the provost to act on it forthwith.”

“Poisons,” he said. He had expected nothing of poisons.

—So do I sell them, said Emuin quietly, for rats and mice, given the snows do drive the creatures out of the fields and into granaries. They’re generally better than charms, even mine.

“I have come here in all seriousness, Your Grace, expecting a hearing from a man reputed the friend of His Majesty!”

“I am listening, sir.” It was, in fact, a small lapse he had committed, in wondering, and master Emuin in answering. He saw a peril in seeming distracted; but he had no intention of arresting the grandmothers with their small traffic: if there were magic, it was nothing that afflicted anyone that he could tell.

“These women, Your Grace, generally they are women of dubious station and practice…”

“Widows,” said Emuin. “Earning a small living from herbs and cures, and the poisoning of rats.”

“If it please you,” the patriarch said sharply, “allow me to speak in my turn and you in yours, brother cleric.”

“I take your reproof,” Emuin said, hand on the Teranthine sigil which hung in view on his breast. He made a respectful little bow, or half of one. “Pray inform His Grace about the poisons. He has no knowledge of rat-killing.”

“For rats or whatever they be!” the patriarch said in great vexation. “The good gods know how they’re commonly used, to rid wives of unwanted husbands, or granaries of mice. Mice are not in question here. Witchcraft is.”

It had been fair weather in Henas’amef, given the cold. The trinket-sellers he had seen in his limited faring out in the town braved the cold in far thinner cloaks than His Reverence wore for this room. And His Reverence had walked down the hill the morning after he had set Paisi at liberty. That coincidence seemed less strange beneath than on the surface of matters.

“Wizardry is not forbidden, either by king’s law or by the gods’ law,” Emuin said. “Your Reverence mistakes the law.”

“We speak here of witchcraft, of sorcery…”

“Witchcraft and wizardry are one; it’s Guelenfolk, not wizards, who’ve made that division, and the king will support me in it, I well know the law and the rule of my order, Your Reverence: trust that I and my order know whereof we speak. And sorcery? These pitiful women couldn’t raise a sot from his slumbers, let alone master a shadow of any potency.”

“They trade in forbidden coinage, in which His Majesty surely has an interest.”

“Only in seeing good silver come out of hoards and into his revenues, ifit were traded, which it is not. The amulets are half at least fraudulent, copper, brother, mere copper, which raises the worth of the copper, but the silver when they do find it is commonly melted and worn for bangles and rings here, as by your long tenure you might know.”