They walked down the shadowed hall to the stairs. The sun was just coming up. Servants were removing last nightʼs candles, hurrying about on early-morning errands, some bearing linens, some coming from the kitchens. Guards were changing watch downstairs, and a few early-morning clerks were on their way to archive.
Uwen led him down the outside steps, past guards who also knew Uwen, as it seemed, and down and around to the stable-court in the first light of dawn, where a troop of soldiers and another of stableboys were saddling horses, and pages were standing with banners and bringing other gear.
Uwen picked up weapons by the side of the stableyard, weapons which had a worn, well-used look; and Uwen buckled on a sword and a dagger as Tristen watched, queasy at his stomach and hoping no one expected him to go likewise armed.
The mail surrounded his breathing, reminding him constantly that there was danger as well as freedom in the outside. In Uwenʼs close company he walked among the red-cloaked guardsaw Cefwyn, who looked little different than his soldiers, with brown leather and a gold dragon, like that his guards wore, on his red coat. All, armor and arms alike, that distinguished him from the soldiers at all was the silver band on the plain steel helm.
Tristen, Cefwyn hailed him, and strode through the others to meet him.
Idrys walked like a dark shadow at Cefwynʼs back, hand on hilt, where that hand always, even indoors, seemed most comfortable.
And at Cefwynʼs orders a man brought up a horse, red from crown to feet, with a clipped mane and a look of stolid patience. She will bear you gently, Cefwyn said. Her name is Gery and the stablemaster swears sheʼs easy-gaited.
Tristen took the reins in his own hand, rubbed the red, warm shoulder and threw the reins over, set foot in the stirrup and swung up as he had seen, dizzy for a moment at the mareʼs shifting of weight a haze of sensations, of smells, of sounds. He looked down at Cefwynʼs anxious face, at Idrysʼ frowning one.
Well enough, Cefwyn said then, patting him on the boot, and patting Gery. Cefwyn turned away and a groom brought Cefwynʼs horse and held it as he swung up. It was dark Bay the Word came to him; it had black stockings and a black mane as bays did. Idrys mounted a big black; and Uwen another bay it was a color common in the guardʼs horses.
Idrys gave the order, the Zeideʼs iron gates swung open, and horses grouped together, stringing out as they passed the narrow gate.
Ride to the fore, Idrys ordered, passing by him, and Tristen set himself as near Cefwyn as he could, almost at the head of the column, save that Idrys and a handful of the guard rode before him; but suddenly a number of men thundered past on either side and increased that number in front. Shod hooves echoed down the cobbles of the hill, disturbing the streets, where townsfolk early from their beds scurried from their path. Shutters came open. It was strange to see the town from the height of a horseʼs back, and to ride swiftly down the very street over which he had walked, sore-footed and hungry.
A child ran from their path and a woman cried out. Tristen took Gery aside with his knee and turned in the saddle to look back, frightened by that cry of alarm, but the child had made the curb safely. And in that glance back
He saw Bones. Skulls above the gate. The bones of men.
He all but dropped the reins, and caught his breath as Cefwyn said sharply, Tristen! and Gery bumped Cefwynʼs horse his fault, he knew. His knee in Geryʼs ribs had caused Gery to drift; the uneven hand, the uneven seat he suddenly knew with exquisite precision where his hands were and where his knees were, and how Gery had understood every move, every shift of weight he made. He straightened around, found his balance, found the right stress on the reins that made Gery know where to be and Gery at once struck a different, confident stride.
Gery looked to him, he thought, as he looked to his teachers; Gery, like him, wanted to do right, and wanted to understand, and he was talking to her with his knees and the reins alike as they went clattering at a fair speed through the streets, past all the buildings, all the scaffoldings and the shuttered windows and the find buildings and the less fine, all the way down to the level courtyard by the main town gate, which he had once passed behind an idle cart, slipping past the guards.
But the gates stood wide for them and the guards there stood to attention as they went out with a rush onto the open and dusty road, out through the fields, toward his Road
But not onto it. They went along the wall, and they went past the town, toward the horizon of rolling fields.
Then Idrys and the men in front slacked their pace, and Cefwyn did, and all the column behind.
Men outside the walls were already at work, already walking the roads, carrying hoes or mattocks or other such. The countryside was awake far and wide as the light came stealing over the fields.
You ride well, Cefwyn said, Tristen.
Sir? He shook off the haze that had come on him, blinked and brought the morning into clarity again, the fields, the creak of leather and the ring of harness the give and substance of mail that surrounded him.
You ride well. In the streets, you rode well. And you say you have never sat a horse.
Some things come to me. He patted Geryʼs neck, overwhelmed with the feel of her, with the smells and the sounds around him. He was trembling. He wished to make little of it, but Cefwyn cast him such a look that he knew he had not succeeded in indifference; and he feared that calculation in Cefwynʼs eyes.
Maurylʼs doing, Cefwyn said. Is it?
I know things. I read and write. I ride. Geryʼs warmth comforted him. He kept his hand on her. He felt her strength and good will under him. I didnʼt know I knew, mʼlord Prince.
Cefwyn frowned. The horses kept their steady pace and if Idrys or Uwen heard what passed between them, they gave no sign of it.
You know it very damned well, Cefwyn said. For down a hill and out a gate.
Itʼs like Words. I know them, sir. I know things.
Am I to believe you? Cefwyn said at last.
Yes, sir, he said faintly, fearing to look at Cefwyn. Good things seemed always balanced on edge, always ready to leave. He did look, finally, as they rode, and Cefwyn stared at him in a way different from other people, even Mauryl, even Emuin afraid of him; but not angry with him, he thought, nor willing to abandon him.
He knew not what to do or say. He looked away, embarrassed, not knowing whether he should have perceived this fact of Cefwyn. They rode in silence a time, well past the walls, now, and out along a narrow track where men rode two by two as the road went around the west side of the town and toward the rolling fields and pastures. The Dragon banners fluttered and snapped ahead of them, carried by young men. The morning sun glanced silver off a small brook in the valley. Hills rose on the eastern horizon, just past their shoulders, and beyond them perhaps the Shadow Hills, perhaps even the mountains Mauryl had named to him, Ilenluin, drifted in morning haze.
In the west were lower hills. The forest was that way. Marna Wood lay that way, and south. He knew. He gazed in that direction, remembering that dark path, remembering the wind in the leaves.
A long walk. Cefwynʼs voice startled him.
Yes, mʼlord.
A fearsome walk.
It was, mʼlord.
Would it fright you now?
Yes, mʼlord. He did not think they would ride that way. He hoped they had no such plans. The horses could not cross the bridge. That thought came to him.