Another murmur broke out, with no few pious gestures against harm. Blow after blow he had delivered to the alliance, with no amelioration, and he had nothing good to offer except that the lady and Cefwyn's son were not at this moment in Elwynor, in Tasmô-den's hands.
"There's some as'd drop the Aswyddim both down a deep well," Sovrag said. "And solve our problems at one stroke."
Tristen shook his head, lifted his hand to appeal for silence, and Owl bated and settled again on his shoulder. "No," he said in the stillness he obtained.
'Ye're too good," Sovrag said. "Give 'me to my charge. My lads'll take 'em downriver, an' they'll go overboard with no qualms at all."
'No," Tristen said again, and the gray space came to life. The hall seemed a hall of statues, everything set, the very pillars of the roof and the occupants of the hall one substance, set and sure and warded against the queasiness just next to this hall, that one place of slippage and weakness in the wards which he could not continue to ignore. "I've thought of our choices. I've asked myself whether it's wise to be good, or good to be wise and, aside from all I can think of, or all I can do, the truth is that the Aswydds built this place. Their wizardry is in these stones. It makes them part of the defenses of the Zeide and Henas'amef. Emuin can tell you so."
"Woven into its defenses like ribs in a basket," Emuin said in the attention that came to him. "The stay and support of it, and every chink and weakness in it, they know in their bones. Wisest was what Cefwyn did, sending them to Anwyfar. They were as safe there as it was possible for them to be, given it was nuns watching them and not an armed guard or a half a dozen wizards. Now someone's made a move to free them, and they've come here not only because they had tocome here rather than Guelemara, but because they know the same as I their protections are here. They're bound to Henas'amef. That's one point, and never forget it. The second: Ryssand may have burned down a Teranthine shrine, but if Ryssand, not onlyRyssand was in on it. The man's too canny to do something like this openly, or recklessly. He has concealment he believes will hold, or he has overwhelming reason to do something so rash."
"What reason, then?" Umanon asked.
Tristen tried to answer, and in Emuin's silence he could only shake his head, eyes widely focused, taking in all the room at once, on all levels, as the gray winds tugged and pulled at his attention. "A wizard doesn't even need to be alive," he said, determined to be honest with his hearers as Emuin had never been honest with him.
But once he had said it he felt fear coursing through his hearers. He felt the courage of some, the apprehension of most. Hasufinwas his fear; it had now to be theirs, and every man who had stood at Lewenbrook knew what he meant: that a wizard need not be alive. Hasufin Heltain had not been alive when he had cost so many lives, when the dark had rolled down on the field like a living wave, and no man among them forgot that hour.
In that general dismay Emuin came to the center of the steps and stood with arms folded in his sleeves, waiting, waiting, silently commanding the assembly's attention.
"His Grace is telling you difficult things," Emuin said when quiet came and every eye was on him. "He means to say that the Aswydd sisters aren't strong enough to have released themselvesfrom the bindings I set on them—yes, I! But if they move with currents already moving they might well have done it themselves, and without the knowledge or help of our enemy. But be assured there aresuch currents. There are currents in waters that have been moving for some time, and now these two have cast themselves and Cefwyn's son into that flow, if not with their attempt to free themselves—which hasn't, in fact, gained them their freedom—then certainly early last summer, when they worked petty hedge-witchery to get a child."
"Saying what?" old Prushan asked. "What does your honor mean? That there's some other wizard? The wizard from last summer?"
"Do you mean this is all foredoomed?" Umanon asked uneasily.
Emuin held up a finger. "Not foredoomed as to outcome." The hand flourished, vanished again into tucked sleeves, to reappear with a silver ball, that again vanished. "Say that a wizardous river is in spring flood, and the shore's become damned uncertain. The As-wydds and the usurper are deep in the waters. Hear the lord of Amefel. Hear him! He's the only swimmer in the lot."
Tristen cast Emuin an uneasy look of his own in the murmur of the assembly, not wishing to hear what he had heard, not taking it for any more solid truth than the maneuvering of the ball, and wondering why at long last Emuin, who shied from discussing wizardry directly even with him, had suddenly spoken in council and employed this trickery of the eye.
Was it because hehad resolved to speak out the truth to these men, and Emuin followed him?
Emuin made a final flourish, hurled the ball at the wall, making the assembly at that side flinch.
Nothing hit. Nothing happened.
"Don't trust your eyes," Emuin said, serenely passing the silver ball from finger to finger, to the assembly's disquiet. A glow possessed his hand, which vanished. So did the ball. "Don't believe what you see. Don't believe what you suspect. Listen to your lord."
A stillness followed.
"Your Grace," old Pelumer said then, "what about Orien Aswydd in our midst, telling whoever might want to know all she can see here? There's the depths of cellars. I'm sure the town itself has a number of them that could host the lady. I'm sure the Zeide has."
"I'd rather have her here," Tristen said, "over all, I'd rather have her where master Emuin can keep an eye on her."
Master Emuin snorted. "Great good that will do."
"But while they're here, Tasmôrden can't get his hands on His Majesty's child," Cevulirn said, "which would be disaster if it happened. And if we place the Aswydds somewhere we can't watch, there's a greater chance he might reach them."
"When he does know," Umanon said, "he's bound to be sure the whole world knows. Her Grace of Elwynor a bride, and a queen without a title, and now there's a bastard in the Marhanen line, out of an Aswydd sorceress, no less, and will the Quinalt abide it? I don't think so."
"Sink 'er," Sovrag said. "I tell ye, that's the way out o' this muddle."
"Oh, aye," Emuin said. "We have that choice: kill the child, or let it live: two choices more: kill the sisters or let them live; and again, two choices: keep them prisoner or let them free. The child is male, and has the wizard-gift, and she claimsit's His Majesty's. Again two choices: believe her or don't believe. Those are your choices, lords of the south, eight choices we all have, but not a precious one else can I think of."
"Do you doubt her?" Umanon asked.
"I believe her," Tristen said, "and I know her son has the gift. In the storm I thought there were three; and there were only Orien and Tarien when I found them. I felt it again when I spoke with them. I have no doubt at all."
"And doubt as to the father?"
"I never felt they were lying." Tristen watched Owl wander down to his hand and he lifted it to oblige Owl, as claws pricked uncomfortably through the fabric of his sleeve. Owl arrived at his fingers, and swiveled his head about to regard him with a mad, ruffled stare, as if utterly astonished by the things he heard—before he bent and bit, cruelly hard.
He tossed Owl aloft, and Owl fluttered and flew for a ledge.
The eight choices Emuin named, whether those present thought of it or not, were the same choices Emuin had had in Selwyn's time— the choices Emuin had had when he killed a prince of the house of Elfwyn, the last High King, the last reigning descendant of the Sihhë.