He thought, too, that Idrys must have spoken sternly to his guards, because they were very quiet and had kept their eyes downcast when he walked back with them from the garden.
The next and the next days were as lonely, and as silent. He truly needed speak to no one. The servants brought him food, in which he had no choice, nor knew how to ask it was delicate fare, on which he was certain the kitchen had spent much effort, but he picked over the plates with diminishing appetite, and on the third evening after Emuinʼs departure he rejected his supper entirely save for a bit of bread, which seemed enough.
Servants cared for his clothing. Servants renewed the candles. When, in his desperate loneliness, he ventured to bid a servant good day, that man flinched and bowed and turned away; knowing he had caused his guards a reprimand, he feared to speak to the guards more than to say where he would go, and they kept very silent now, even among themselves.
Owl had never come. That was better for the pigeons, but he was sad to lose Owl. He reckoned Owl probably hung about where he had seen Owl last, at the edge of Marna, where the bridge was. There were birds and small creatures on the shore, on which Owl could make his suppers, and Owl had likely become a terror about the bridge, Shadow that he was. He hoped that Owl was well.
Came a fourth morning, when he went down the stairs to begin his day of wandering about, in the escort of his guards, and he stopped and lingered at the foot of the stairs, lost and wholly out of heart this morning for the ordinary course of his walks, finding nowhere to go, nowhere at all he cared to go, nothing that he cared any longer to do, or see, or ask of anyone.
He walked down the hall, watching the patterns in the marble at his feet, finding shapes in them, knowing his guards trailed him as always, protected him as always, deterred conversation as always.
Sir Tristen, a soft, light voice hailed him a forbidden voice, ahead of him in the hall.
He had no choice but look up his heart having skipped a beat and reprised with dread of Idrysʼ displeasure. It was, as he feared, Lady Orien; but now he saw two Oriens, the very same, hair quite as red, both alike in green velvet corded with gold, and both smiling at him.
I mustnʼt speak with you, he said, and started to go down the hall away from them, but with a rustle of her skirts, Orien or was it truly Orien? closed the gap between them and hung on his shoulder, smiling at him.
Tristen, she said. Where, in such a hurry? Musty books?
Mauryl bade me
Oh, Mauryl, the lady said. Pish.
And the other, exactly like Orien: So sad of countenance, Sir Tristen.
Mʼladies, he said, trying to brush first the one and now the other lady from his arms, I have explained. Please: I am not permitted to speak to anyone.
Such cruel hospitality. How have you offended the prince?
Please, Tristen said, and broke from them and walked quickly through his disturbed guards, back the way he had come. He had offended Orien Aswydd, he thought, yet Emuin had said she was to be avoided. And magic had made two of her. He did not look back. He hurried to climb the stairs.
Face to face with a pair of the gate-guards.
One he knew, a face out of his bad dreams; he met the manʼs eyes without willing it, and turned and fled down the steps, taking the side hallway toward the garden.
No one but his own guard followed. On the bench near the pond he sat down and clenched his hands behind his bowed head until he could draw a calm breath.
The gate-guards, he told himself, would not come for him. They had not seen his misbehavior. They had not reported him. His own guards would not. They stood silent, as they must, now, but they were his own, such as he had, and they would have rescued him from the encounter if they had had time, he told himself so, as they had intervened before to save him from untoward encounters, and he hoped that they themselves would meet no reprimand.
He stayed by the pond all the day, save once going to the kitchen to ask a bit of bread, of which he fed half to the birds and the fish, who never knew his foolishness or his failures or his indiscretions.
And in the afternoon he tucked up his knees and rested his head on his arms, risking a little sleep finally in the sunʼs warmth, for he had ceased to sleep well of nights. Breezes blew through his dreams. Wings fluttered in panic, and beams and timbers creaked. Stones fell from arches. Shadows crept among the trees, soundless and menacing, and the wind roared through the treetops, rattling dry twigs and leafy boughs alike, making them speak in voices.
Here the wind was pent in garden walls, the trees were trimmed by gardeners, the voices were all of passers-by who cared nothing for him.
But someone walked near on the gravel poolside.
And stopped.
He looked up into Idrysʼ grim face and started to his feet. He stood with heart pounding, for never had Idrys approved anything he did.
Prince Cefwyn has sent for you, Idrys said, then, the shape of his worst fears.
Guards stood at the door of Cefwynʼs apartments, downstairs from his room, grim red-cloaked men with gold and red coats and a gold dragon for their insignia: the Guelen guard, they were, which attended the prince. Idrys went through their midst without a glance, and Tristen followed him through the doors they guarded, through an anteroom and into a place of luxury such as, even imagining the ornament of his room done thrice over, he had never imagined existed.
Patterned carpets, gilt embellishments across a ceiling that was itself adorned with countless pictures, furnishings carved over in curling leaves, a fireplace faced in gold and dark green tiles and burnished brass. Idrys took up his station by that fire, arms folded, waiting, and Tristen stood still, not daring stare, only darting his eyes about while pretending to look down.
There were windows, tall glass windows such as he had seen in the solar downstairs, clear in the centermost panes and amber and green in the diamonded margins amber and green that recalled, most inappropriately for his conscience, the ladiesʼ gowns. The windows looked down, he saw, upon the roofs of the town below the wall, varishadowed angles of black slates and chimneys from which individual plumes arose to mass into a haze of smoke smudging the evening sky.
A door opened to the left, next that alcove in which the windows were. Cefwyn came into the room, stopped, looked at him
Tristen bowed, as he knew men should with Cefwyn.
Good day, Cefwyn bade him, walking to the table.
Good day, lord Prince.
Emuin asked me to see to you.
It was not, then, the discovery of his wrongdoing that he had feared.
But now, after Emuinʼs departure, now the prince unwillingly took direct governance of him? He supposed that was the way things had to be.
He had far, far rather Emuin.
Do you want for anything? Cefwyn asked.
No, sir.
Anything? Cefwyn repeated, although clearly Cefwyn was not pleased to be concerned about him, and clearly he might best please Cefwyn by making himself very little trouble. He knew such moods. Cefwyn threatened him. He had lost Emuin. He was content himself if Cefwyn forgot him for days and days.
No, sir, he said dutifully.
If there is ever anything you need, you will tell me.
Yes, mʼlord Prince. He thought perhaps that that last was his dismissal, and he should go, but Cefwyn was staring at him in such a way as said there might be something more.
You have remembered your condition, Cefwyn said, to speak to no one in the halls.