And in rare luxury of absolute abandon he drew deep, grateful breaths into his chest, finding everything well under his roof, even given their guests, and Orien Aswydd, who would never own this bed again, and never rest where he had slept.
This part of the world he remade, too, and made it sure in his mind, for doubt was a breach, and doubts he refused to entertain. He was safe, abed, suffering the aches of last night's long ride.
His servants moved about. They needed nothing from him. Out in the yard the whole fortress had waked to life without him. The garrison had begun its drills. The town had spread open its shops and gone about its trades. The camp outside had waked, stirred its fires to life, and the tavern help from inside the walls had bustled out with hot porridge to feed the men gathered there. Far across the fields, in pens they had established for the army that would gather there, stablehands tended their charges. Down by Modeyneth men set to their day's work on a wall he had ordered restored, and as far as the Lenúalim's banks, soldiers watched and warded the border. All these things happened this morning without his guidance, or rather, within the compass of his care but without his oversight; and the progress of those unwatched matters reassured him that the sun reliably rose and the roof under which he slept was safe even when he let his attention fall.
He found great pleasure in unaccustomed idleness, in fact: in the small sounds of his servants laying out breakfast for him… things also happening quite without his guidance, quite pleasantly without his orders or his will. Indeed, the bulk of things that happened would go on without him, or around him, or in spite of his cautions—and he need not govern every drawing of breath as he had grown accustomed to do since Cefwyn had set him in charge of Amefel.
He had been giving too much, and managing too much, and over-seeing far too much.
Folly, he said to himself.
As if Uwen, who had guided him this summer, needed his guidance now.
As if Tassand, who had come along with him to manage his small household in campaign tents and in palaces alike, could not protect this place and manage the staff without his niggling daily concern and his abundant, constant questions.
He lay, deliciously imagining this morning what each sound meant, as he had seen them do the tasks scores of times.
He imagined that Uwen would be in soon, and that Uwen would be in his ordinary gear and ready to go about his peaceful business. He knew the look of Uwen Lewen's-son of a morning down to the gray of his hair and the freshly scrubbed look of his face… and when he rose and dressed, Uwen indeed had joined him in just such a condition, and declared he was going down to the stables and the camps as soon as they finished breakfast.
So despite his guests, he drew a leisured breath, and another one.
It was a fine morning, in very truth—a peaceful, a glorious, a safe morning, leisured instead of idle… he had never before understood the distinction in those two Words, until he had found time to draw breath.
"No alarms," Uwen said cheerfully, over buttered bread, "and Her Grace ain't seduced the guards yet."
Tristen knew the power of Orien's persuasions. She had bent her thoughts on him once, though to little result.
And it was indeed worth his concern, regarding anyone set to watch her.
Also the lords had all seen her arrival… and they had had few questions last night, considering his long ride, but they would have them before the morning was over. That Orien reported an assault on a shrine in Guelessar, just across the border, seemed credible, but it was still to doubt.
And they had not even heard the matter Tarien brought.
So, breakfasted, dressed, with Uwen off about his duties, he resolved to gain some of those answers from the question that was Orien. He was sure of himself, at least, that she could not charm him into compliance, or overwhelm him with sorcery: she had tried both when he was far more innocent, even then to no avail. If he had fear for his men, he had none at all for himself, nor in the least doubted he could deal with the ladies.
Emuin was asleep, like Owl. So was Paisi. Outside was snow, remnant of the storm that had blown white and thick while it lasted. Now the sun was bright, and the weather seemed to have spent its momentary tantrum. Midwinter, the hinge of the year, as Emuin called it, had passed with a fury.
And just last night they had finally gotten into shelter all the contingents of their muster that had been at risk on the road: Uma-non's heavy horse and Cevulirn's light horsemen, both accustomed to sleep under canvas: they were safe in the camp, while Pelumer's rangers out of Lanfarnesse would camp wherever they were. Lord Sovrag doubted the storm would have greatly delayed his boats on their journey south, for the storm wind had blown from the north, and his men, he declared, would manage come what might. So the storm that heralded Orien's return had done nothing to disarrange his plans, and things regarding the camp were in order.
He did not trust, however, that that was true in lands beyond his reach—clearly not so where men had assailed a nunnery and sent the twins toward his hospitality.
"News'd come welcome, out of Guelessar," Uwen had remarked at breakfast, and in putting it that way, laid his finger on the most worrisome thing: an attack on such harmless religious women under Cefwyn's rule, in Cefwyn's own central province, hinted at unrest in the heart of Guelen lands, perhaps even in the capital itself. Welcome, indeed, would be the knowledge that Cefwyn was safe and taking firm, swift action there.
There was the chance, of course, that Orien had made up the story. There remained a chance that she had done the damage to the nuns, or drawn baneful events to them for the sole purpose of setting herself and her sister free of Cefwyn's guards.
But whose if not Orien's was the storm that had so cast things into confusion, and posed Orien and him alike an obstacle? The snow had begun on Midwinter Day, had gathered strength and gathered violence for days—then vanished without fuss once he had found Orien and her sister. Was she so powerful as that? She never had been… not alone.
And whose was Owl? His, for what he could tell, but he had not planned Owl's arrival. He had not planned the storm. He had not planned Auld Syes' arrival in his hall on Midwinter, or the darkness and all the events and omens which had followed.
And most of all he had not planned Tarien's baby.
So what Uwen had said about Guelessar and the lack of news from Cefwyn settled into his heart with a cold, persistent worry… for there was no safe way to send or receive a message in that quarter. If Cefwyn had sent any message to him in recent days, he had not received it… and his last messenger had had to come back like a fugitive, in fear of his life from such elements as Orien blamed for the destruction of the nunnery: in fact, it all fit together in very disquieting agreement, the last messenger's story with Orien's tale of the nunnery burned.
And if the king's law did not prevail out into the countryside, not protecting the king's messages, and now, evidently, not protecting houses of worship, of a sect the Quinaltines accepted as respectable… as they did not deem respectable the Bryalt faith of the Amefin… how then did they regard the lady Regent, Cefwyn's bride? And how did they take their king's other orders?
And was Ninévrisësafe, if men were hunting the king's messengers and burning nunneries?
He wondered that with a great deal of concern—and furtively thought he might gain Ninévrisë's attention in the gray space, even at such great distance. She had the wizard-gift, a weak gift, unprac-ticed, but his certainly was not: after the dire news of last night and Uwen's remark this morning he found himself lingering over a last cup of tea and wondering if, one-sided in the effort, hemight reach her.