Mesinis? Mesinis, do I hear correctly?
This should take sufficient time for a muster of foot out of Far Sassury, if we needed send so far.
My lord, Idrys said, Mesinis it is.
Wake me, he said, promptly if it goes amiss.
My lord Prince, I am well certain, if our guard-change goes amiss, you will hear the alarms in the night.
But alarm among the Amefin will give my brother far sounder sleep. Will it not? And Heryn certainly less?
If success tonight goes to our side, mʼlord, and not to Herynʼs. The man might take action, my lord Prince.
See it does go to our side. And, and, Idrys,have master Tamurin take yet one more look at Herynʼs tax accounts, past years as well as this. Have master Tamurin go directly into archive without warning, and appoint him pages to carry all relevant books to his premises, no matter the protests of those dotards Heryn appointed. Including the books of the town accountants, this time.That will divert mʼlord Heryn from his petty grievances over Emwy and his guard appointments, and set the rumors flying among his earls and his thanes and his what-nots, some of whom may come to us in their distress.
Idrys actually lifted a brow, looking pleased and amused. As you will, mʼlord Prince.
Good night, Lord Commander.
Idrys went without further objection. Cheerfully. That was rare.
Afterward Cefwyn lay in the broad bed, threw a coverlet over himself against the breeze from the window, and stared at an unrevealing mural on the ceiling, a trooping of fairy and a breaking-forth of blossoms, wherein smaller fay lurked under leaves and made love in the branches. A star was in the painted sky. A gray tower or was it silver? was on the hill. A star and a tower were the arms of the Sihh, alike the arms of Mauryl, the Warden of Ynefel, were they not banned throughout Ylesuin. But surely Heryn would not lodge his prince in this chamber, under that painting, if they were more than chance elements of the piece. Perhaps the prince was suspicious and uncharitable even to suspect Amefin humor in the arrangement as he was suspicious and uncharitable to suspect Amefin humor in Herynʼs riding, oh, in hall velvet, and lightly cloaked, with the guard, risking danger
only in his tardiness to make his claim of innocence. Heryn had faced no danger of alleged outlaw weapons, the real nature of which he would wager his royal stipend Heryn knew.
He had laid out his riding clothes, his sword and his leather coat on the bench nearest the bed, without advising Annas or asking the servantsʼ or the pagesʼ help. He wanted no rumors running the halls until a bolt was on the armory door.
He did not take for granted at all that he could, without a blow struck and with but a handful of loyal guard, collar Heryn Aswydd who was no novice in deceit and who had far cannier and hereunto unknown advisors. Even relying on Idrysʼ skills to avoid surprise, he knew Idrysʼ failings in diplomacy toward recalcitrant outsiders, and knew he risked stirring resentment where none had existed at least where none existed to any extent that would prompt Amefin to assail the prince of a realm that had been, if not loved, at least peacefully and reasonably obeyed.
It seemed to him urgent, however, to act. His household officers generally had thought it best to tiptoe about the secrets of Amefin disaffection and map all the edges of it before making any move, all for fear of starting something far larger than Heryn from cover meaning Amefin collusion with their ancient allies the Elwynim and stirring themselves up a far wider conflict than a bandit or two in Emwyʼs bushes.
Disarm the Amefin by night, simply by moving them off watch as they turned in their weapons at the armory. That in itself would provoke outcry and dismay by morning, but it would frighten the Amefin, who had seen Marhanen vengeance in prior generations. And to confound their wildest terrors, the scribe he had assigned to the questioning and registry was far from vengeful a kindly and grandfatherly old fellow, fine for small details. Mesinis was the absolute soul of patience,and incapable, one suspected, of taking accurate notes long before he became slightly deaf. Moreover, Mesinis did not deal well with Amefin names or the Amefin brogue.
He liked that stroke; he truly did. If one was bound to create consternation among oneʼs enemies, it seemed, after outright terror was established, best to aim that consternation at small, maddening obstacles like Mesinis, which obscured the more outrageous acts small, maddening obstacles in which the prince could graciously create exemption and ease the way, making Amefin grateful for Marhanen intervention on their behalf.
Hourly he expected some alarm from the halls, some wild threat from Heryn and his minions, or worse, some rising in the town at large that would invade the halls and tear them all limb from limb.
They were not thoughts on which a man could sleep. But when the hour for the guard change passed without alarm, that matter at least seemed settled. The one patrol was out by now, riding by night, and his messengers would leave that column and spread out to the barons of the adjoining provinces, who in their lordship of their provinces did not directly owe him fealty.
But if His Grace of Amefel were allied with some Elwynim lord slipping hisRegentʼs leash (as well Amefel had once been, with Elwynor, ruled from Althalen), and general war broke out, then be certain that His Royal Highness Cefwyn Marhanen would bear the lifelong reputation for losing a province, and be certain that his royal father would regain it, to his fatherʼs credit but to his own lifelong disgrace and lasting trouble in his own reign. His father had set him here to prove himself or fail, with hopes, at least on the part of certain barons in Guelessar, Llymaryn, and elsewhere in the realm, that the elder prince of Ylesuin, known for debauch, might most spectacularly fail in the temptations of Herynʼs court or die and never sit the Dragon throne.
But those were northern lords who opposed him, while the barons of the more religiously diverse south readily distrusted that coalition of established and orthodox Quinalt interests that had moved into the court at Guelemara during his fatherʼs reign. Even in heretic Amefel, he suspected, many hoped for Good King Log to establish his rule in Inreddrinʼs quieter younger son Efanor.
While if there was any personal advantage he himself had in undertaking this oversight of Amefel, it was the expectation of the southern barons that the Crown Prince, having ruled in the south, supported by the south, might reward the south and send such influences packing. Efanor never saw it. Efanor had lately become piously Quinalt. Efanor, turning to the gods, had no real heart for conspiracy. It was why the northern barons so loved him.
It was the reason hewas so desperate as to send those messages.
And twice in the night he roused poor Annas to go inform himself how Tristen fared. Each time the answer was the same: He has not wakened, my lord Prince; and, reliably, His man is with him.
Maurylʼs gift.That cuckoo in the Amefin nest was yet to fledge and a frightened small portion of his heart wished the wizard-gift might come to nothing, while the greater, the nobler part of him feared losing that gift, whatever it might mean, whatever uncertainties it brought him.
Came a noise somewhere that caught him with his eyes shut and his thoughts drifting. He was not certain he had not dreamed it. The fire in the hearth had burned down; he roused himself to tend it, not troubling Annas, and looked and found gray daylight in the windows.