He knew Orien would not take them. He saw, however, that Tarien wanted them, and he set them on the table near him. "At your convenience," he said.
"Where are our servants?" Orien asked in ringing tones. "Surely the great Marhanen won't have been so petty as to harm them. Where are my sister's maids?"
"Most of your servants fled across the river when Cefwyn came. The others are my servants now… or the gods'."
"I demand my servants!"
"And I say they aren't here any longer."
"And our gowns?" Tarien asked. " SurelyYour Grace has no use for our gowns."
"I've no idea where they are." In fact he had never wondered where the ladies' wardrobe had gone: he had supposed it had gone with them to Anwyfar, in all the chests. The gowns they had worn in their days of power here had been gloriously beautiful, and with all the jewels, he supposed they were as valuable as Lord Heryn's dinner plates—which he had in the treasury. "I've seen no store of clothes, not a stitch of them."
"And our jewels?"
The whereabouts of certain of the Aswydd jewelry he did know, and was sure in his heart that the province's need for grain was far greater than their need for adornment. But he regretted the beauty and the sparkle of the stones, too, all shut up in the dark treasury.
"I shall send up some of the jewels," he said, and then added, because they took every gift as their right: "I lend them, understand, until we need them for grain."
"For grain!" Orien cried. "These are the history, the glory of Amefel! These are the treasure of the Aswydds, my property! How dare you sell them for grain?"
"If you were duchess of Amefel, I would agree you own them. But you aren't. And I give them to the treasury."
"I am stillduchess of Amefel, and damn the Marhanen! If you hold me here prisoner in my own hall, then look to yourself, sir!"
"I'm sorry about the gowns. I don't know where they went. I'll ask; and if I can't find them, I'll find you others. It's all I can do."
Orien drew a deep breath, and perhaps reconsidered her position. "You were always good-hearted, always kind to us before. I see you still have a kind heart."
"I wish you no harm, and ask you wish none."
"Harm to the bloody Marhanen!"
"I ask you not do that." He felt her anger in the gray space and rebuffed it strongly, refusing to encounter her there. In the world her face seemed all eyes, and the eyes a window into a place he chose not to go. He remembered how Cefwyn had wished to kill the twins, at least Lady Orien, and he had pleaded otherwise—not even so much out of mercy, although that had been in his heart—but rather the fear of Orien's spirit let loose among the Shadows in the Zeide, set unbarriered within the wards and the Lines of Henas'amef, in those days when the sorcerous ally she had dealt with still threatened them.
Now they had defeated that ally of hers, at Lewenbrook. And if Cefwyn had now proposed it, he did not know whether he would have been so quick to save her life, or Cefwyn to hear him: to that extent they both had changed.
—Is it so? Orien asked him, a voice as sharp and cold as a dagger. Is it so? Did you save us? And had the bloody Marhanen not a shred of remorse?
"Can you keep us in this prison?" Tarien asked, assailing him from the other side. "We have nothing, not even a change of clothes. My sister is the aetheling. Whatever else, she is the aetheling, and no one should forget it, least of all under this roof!" Tarien's eyes glistened as she confronted him. A handkerchief suffered murder in her clenched hands.
"Aethelings, yes," Tristen corrected her gently. "Both of you. But Crissand of Meiden is theaetheling now, and there's no changing that."
Orien's eyes flared. "By whose appointment? Cefwyn's? He has no right!"
"By mine, lady." He could be obstinate. He had learned it of Emuin. And he had every right, beyond Cefwyn's grant of power to him. He was suddenly as sure of that as if it had Unfolded to him: their power had ebbed here, and ebbed further as he gave it away to others.
More, Orien knew it, and fear insinuated itself into all her dealings.
"For my sister's sake," Orien said, past tight lips, "we require a lady or two—a lady, mind you. Shall a lady of our rank give birth with the cook and the scullery maids in attendance?"
That was unkind. Cook had never affronted Orien that he knew of. But he had no wish to provoke a quarrel that might bring harm to someone. "If you object to Cook, I might ask Lord Drumman's sister to assist you."
"Lady Criselle? That preening crow!"
Now it was Crissand's mother Orien slandered. "Lady Orien," Tristen said with measured patience. "No one pleases you. You may not have your servants. You refuse all others. I don't know what more there is."
"I wish my own nurse," Tarien cried, and burst into tears. "They murderedher, at Anwyfar. They killed all the nuns, and Dosyll with them. She was sixty years old, and she never threatened them!"
"I'm sorry." He was honestly afflicted by her report. "Who did it, and why?"
"Brave soldiers of the Guelen Guard," Orien interposed harshly. Heroes of the same company the bloody Marhanen garrisoned in my town, the same company as these hulking men you post at my door! The Marhanen's best bandits! Murderers! Mercenaries!"
"Are you sure they were of the Guard?"
"And should I not be sure, with the Guelens garrisoned at Amefel all my life? I know what I saw. I know their badges and their ranks and of one of them I knew the face!"
"Do you know the name?" he asked, with a sinking heart recalling the men he had dismissed home because of their discontent in his service, men guilty of malfeasance and murders that should have sent them to the hangman, if they had not acted under Crown authority, in the person of Lord Parsynan.
"Essan," she said, and he had to bow to the truth.
"I doubt your eyes deceived you, then," he said, "since I dismissed him, with a handful of others, for crimes here. The others, I sent to Cefwyn. He and his sergeant slipped away rather than answer my summons to accounting."
"Gods bless the Holy Quinalt, then! They shouted that, you know, while they burned down a Teranthine shrine, and murdered old women! I don't know what they were looking for besides the wine and the treasury, but they weren't shy about their cause."
"No," he said, "clearly not. I'm sorry for your nurse and I'm sorry for the nuns. And I know Cefwyn didn't send them."
"You know nothing. You said yourself, you sent these murderers to him! He sent them back again, to Anwyfar!"
"Not Captain Essan. He and his sergeant took shelter in the Quinaltine, so I understand."
"Oh, so it was the Patriarch himself who sent them to burn Teranthine nuns!"
"I doubt it, and you doubt it, lady. And if you'll give me answers, I can send to Cefwyn. I know he'll find these men. Can you tell me any reason for what they did? Were they looking for you? Were they angry with the nuns?"
"Look to yourself, Tristen of Ynefel! Look to yourself! Yes, it was us they wanted, and do you think common soldiers imagined this? Do you think the drunkards and ne'er-do-wells of the garrison traveled all the way to Anwyfar to raid the wine cellars in the nunnery and assault old women? It was hate for us, and these were soldiers! Someone sent them! Someone put the idea in their heads, and it was the hate they bear all of us who have wizard-gift—it was fear of my sister and me! So look to yourself, Tristen of Ynefel. If they hate us, a hundred times more they hate you, and now you shelter us!"