It was not all she preferred to exile: death here, death in her Place, as the Zeide was: foreseeing that danger, even then, he had advised Cefwyn to banish her and the Aswydds of the name. Both dead and alive they had gone out the gate, to prison and burial elsewhere.
"And Cuthan is in Elwynor," Orien said, "with the latest usurper. And yousit here. The mooncalf, they called you. The fool. Mauryl's hatchling."
"I was," he said.
"And Bryn?" she asked.
She knew, he was sure now, that Tasmôrden had promised invasion: she likely knew everything Cuthan had done. Messages hadgotten to Anwyfar, and she hadexpected a rising against the Crown. But she had not known anything since Cuthan's flight: that said something of her sources, and of Cuthan's slight wizard-gift, remote now from her. It was clear that whispers had gone on in the gray space that neither he nor Emuin had heard. In Guelessar, in the autumn, he had rarely reached out to Amefel. Emuin had forbidden it.
"What of Bryn?" she demanded to know. 'Drusenan of Modeyneth is Lord Bryn now." It did not please her. But she turned her face elsewhere and wrapped her wishes inward, tightly held, and he left them unpursued.
"So busy you've been," she said, gazing into distance. "Gathering an army in Amefel, all those tents arrayed outside my walls… a winter campaign, is it to be? All for Cefwyn. For Cefwyn's heir." Her eyes lanced toward him, direct and challenging. "For his firstborn son—his firstborn Aswyddson—a kingdom."
"It is a son," he said, for Tarien's child was male, and would be firstborn. That was the truth, and only then knew with full force how it would hurt Ninévrisë.
And that son, not Ninévrisë's, would harm the treaty with Elwynor.
It would harm Cefwyn—the northern lords would reject a child of Aswydd and Marhanen blood out of hand. So would the Elwynim.
"A son," Orien said. One set of plans dashed in what he told her, she gathered up others, and recovered herself. "A bastard, he may be, but a royal, firstbornbastard."
Bastardwas a child without ceremony, unrecognized. Bastard was a child no one would own.
But that was not so. Someone owned this child. Tariendid. Ta-rien already held it protected in her arms, her eyes wide with alarm while Orien's flashed with defiance of him. They were twins, of one mind until that moment: of one ambition, until that heartbeat. He had divided them. The child had. Cefwynhad, for Tarien's feeling was not Orien's, and the realization of that shivered through the gray space with the kiss of a knife's sharp edge.
He was sorry for their pain, but he was not sorry for Orien.
And he sealed himself against all their entreaties and their objec-tions. If anyone could bend Orien Aswydd, it might be Tarien. If anyone could sway her, it might be her twin, given time, and a quieter hour. There was the hope for them: Cefwyn's son he could not reach, not now, not without harm.
"I'll ask about the gowns," he said, intending to leave.
"Servants," Orien said. Her lips made a thin white line. Her eyes held storm that, prudently, did not break.
"Respect the wards," he said, "and respect the guards."
"And if we don't? Would you harm my sister and the child?" she asked, with the clear expectation he would not.
It was the truth. She expected to have won the argument, and to have her way, and she would not.
"I don't intend her harm," he said with a glance toward Tarien, whose eyes met his in dread. "I can't say what shemeans to do," he said directly to Tarien. "Take care. Take care for yourself."
And with that he walked out, sealed against the roiling confusion they made in the gray space.
He realized now that Emuin had been listening for the last few moments, subtle and stealthy as Emuin was. But he did not acknowledge that he knew, not this close to the twins' apartment. He gathered up Uwen and his own guard, who had been talking with the Guelens at the nearer station.
"They ask for their gowns," he said to Uwen. "Do you know what happened to them?"
"I fear they've gone, m'lord, I'd imagine they have."
"The servants?"
"I'd say. His Majesty was at Lewenbrook, His Highness bein' here didn't know one man from another, comin' an' goin'—" When Efanor had been in charge of Henas'amef, Uwen meant, and sure enough there had been no few of the servants fled when Cefwyn came back. "I'll imagine the pearls an' such on those gowns just walked out o' town in purses and tucked in bosoms, and went all the way to Elwynor, or even into noble ladies' dower chests, closer to home."
There had been ladies of various houses near enough the As-wydds to have had access to a wardrobe.
Without the Aswydd sisters in their red-haired glory, the gowns, the jeweled cups, the gold plate on the tables, the hall would never be as fine or as glorious as he had seen it in Heryn Aswydd's reign. He was sad to miss the beauty of it, but not at all sad about the grain it bought for the hungry families, or the army it fed, until hands could let go the bow in favor of the shepherd's staff. Cefwyn had used to say Lord Heryn's court outdid Guelemara for luxury… and that was not true in size, but in sheer brightness, it might well have been so.
"I did promise them jewelry, at least. I thought of the necklaces we found in Parsynan's room. I think those were likely theirs."
" 'At were generous," Uwen said. "But a woman's jewelry is money if she took to the road, an' off to Elwynor, as these two might if one of the guards don't watch sharp. An' one of them jewels is three years' wage to these men."
"They won't leave this place," he said, and it had the ring of truth in it as the words came out. "Tarien's afraid." He considered who was near them, and knew of a certainty that Emuin was listening, remote in his tower as he told Uwen the simple, the important truth. "Tarien's child is Cefwyn's son."
"Gods save us, I was afeared so. Ye're sure?"
"A son, and a wizard."
"… An' His Majesty's. Gods save us all."
"They think the nuns didn't know anything, not even that Tarien was with child… but if the nuns did know, word might have gotten to the Quinalt, and to Ryssand, mightn't it?"
Uwen gave a soft whistle. "A chain of ifs, m'lord, but it's a damn short chain, and none of 'em's impossible."
"Ryssand would want them."
"Damn sure he would."
— To say the least, Emuin said within the gray space, where he had been lurking the last several moments in utter quiet. Cefwyn took chances. Now one of them's come home.
— What should I do? Tristen asked Emuin, since Emuin had remarked on the situation. And: "What shall I do?" he asked Uwen, aloud, attention divided, distracted in two conversations at once.
"Tell His Majesty," Uwen said. "This 'un's worth a letter."
— Write to Cefwyn, Emuin said, in the same instant. If Ryssand is behind the raid on Amvyfar, gods save us all, then he's gone far beyond retreat. This is deadly, if he alleges it. And above all else, Cefwyn needs to know before the rumor reaches the streets.
He had no wish to bear that news—but Emuin was right: the rumor spreading was inevitable. The babe would be born in its due course, with all that he was and might become, and would no one know? It was impossible to keep that secret, impossible to keep it with all the wizardous currents running through the world. Tarien, with her sister, had tried to kill Cefwyn this summer—but was that in fact all they had aimed at?