"And camp that night in Elwynor!" Sovrag shouted out. "There's the word! In Elwynor!"
"In Elwynor," others echoed, and, In Elwynorbecame the word throughout the hall.
Then Owl let out an eerie cry that came from every place and no place. Some laughed nervously. Umanon blessed himself.
Tristen wished the recreant bird back to him, and Owl plummeted down and settled onto his arm, turning his head backward to look at the assembly.
He had intended to quiet Owl and make him less a disturbance.
But he doubted his effort had had that effect.
As for the lords' wishes for the weather to improve, he hoped, no, wished with all his might for fair skies and a warm wind out of the south—and he wished that Cefwyn might begin to move against Tasmôrden sooner if the weather bettered itself.
It was time. It was indeed time.
And Sovrag was right: a camp just the other side, by the riverside and still within the compass of his orders not to undertake to win the war, could discomfit Tasmôrden.
More than that, considering rumors of internal weakness in the steady arrival of fugitives at Althalen… he hoped his disturbance at the edge of Elwynor might search out the hollow heart in Tasmor-den's power, the ones only marginally loyal to the usurper, most in fear for their lives. Those Elwynim who would turn again and swear to Ninévrisë Syrillas as liege lady might in such a presence find a place to stand, and Tasmôrden then would find his strength melting away, as the commons found the Lady Regent more to their liking.
In point of fact, it was not alone the weather he wished to change, and had no compunction at all about wishing Elwynim to serve Ninévrisë Syrillas. She had the right to their allegiance, and the good heart to mend the land after its years of war and waiting. There could be no better fate for the Elwynim.
"Time, then," he said aloud, "time for us all to set to work."
So the lords agreed. They were pleased when they left. He had accomplished that.
He remained seated a moment, Owl spreading his broad wings and settling claws into his flesh. "Go," he wished the recalcitrant bird, and encouraged him with a toss, but Owl only moved to his hand, and drew blood, and clung.
"You were very plain, young lord," Emuin advised him, neither approving nor disapproving. Emuin had stayed, along with Uwen; and Lusin and his men. "Some of your army might be afraid. Not the great lords, perhaps, but some of your ealdormen looked green as new apples."
"Cefwyn says I'm a poor liar." Wind brushed his cheek, distracting him with a flap of wings as Owl flew up to his other favored perch, up on the cornice. "When should they discover the danger, master Emuin? On the field?"
"And what will you? When will you make up your own mind?"
"To what?" He was genuinely bewildered.
Emuin's glance followed Owl's course, and came back to him, dark and direct under his snowy brows. "That you lead this army."
"I know I lead it."
"That you rule this province."
"The man who shouldrule is freezing in a snowdrift right now, between here and Modeyneth."
"Crissand."
"Yes, Crissand. In this one thing I'm certain. About the war itself I won't wish. I observe caution. I learn, you see, I do learn, master Emuin."
"That you do." Emuin walked a few paces to the left, and turned again. "So now the truth is out. Cefwyn's child. Gods save us. A Marhanen Aswydd. A white crow. A black dove. And ours to deal with."
"Ours. And hers." He still felt Emuin's disapproval. "I did the best I knew, bringing them here. I still think it's safest. I think it was best to tell the lords."
"Safest, yes. Safer than most dispositions."
"We could notsend Cefwyn's son to Elwynor. Nor have him in Ryssand's hands."
"I agree. He'll be born here, under all the auspices of this place— and if I read the stars aright—he aims for your birth night."
"For mine." He had not remotely thought.
"Wizardry, wizardry, wizardry, young lord! Wizardry is an art of timeand place. We have the place, we've missed the turn of the Great Year… what timeshall we suspect is coming?"
He was appalled. It cast everything in a new and threatening light.
"And we need a midwife," Emuin said. "A woman skilled in childbirth—a woman with the gift—and proof against Orien Aswydd."
"Are there such women in the Zeide?"
"The best is in town. Sedlyn. Paisi's gran, so he calls her, though no more kin to our young jackanapes than Cefwyn is. And she may serve. The date of birth is the question. Sedlyn might help us. A child can be encouraged to come into the world, or held out of it."
He had only book knowledge of births. He sat on the ducal throne of Amefel, empowered to dispose life and death over a province.
But to change a birth, to hasten, to delay, to meddle with what a child in his very existence wanted to be—the sort of meddling Emuin proposed troubled him.
"Was I wise or unwise to obey Mauryl?" the old man asked him, apropos of no question he had asked aloud, and walked away without another word—more, left without a whisper or a breath of wind in the gray space.
No one else could be so silent, or so secret.
No one in his knowledge had done such a deed as Emuin had done—no one carried such a wound as Emuin carried, having murdered the last prince of Althalen, a child he knew… or had known. That was what Emuin meant.
And in the silence Emuin wrapped about him like a mantle, in his secret going, cloaked even from him, for the first time Tristen knew why Mauryl must have chosen this one wizard, of all the others, and sent him to kill Hasufin Heltain—for the silence Emuin could wrap about himself was so great, so deep, that he had never realized it was uncommon among wizards.
He had never truly known, in his reckless, innate magic, that not every wizard could tell him no.
And now that he saw into that silence, he found himself grateful for master Emuin, deeply, profoundly grateful that his first venture into the world had brought him into Emuin's hands. It seemed now no chance had directed him.
And all this time there had been a warm, soft blanket wrapped about him, protecting him, shielding him, containing him in every sense.
Now, in this moment, Emuin quietly folded it and took it away, and left him feeling the cold winds of wizardry in all its reach.
Behold the world, young lord.
Behold the choices of those who choose for others, and who hold life and death of thousands in their hands.
"Ye ain't quarrelin' wi' master Emuin," Uwen said uneasily.
"No," he said, finding it difficult even to speak in master Emuin's silence. But the mortal world went on. "He just now challenged me. A lesson."
"A wee bit late for learnin'," Uwen said, "by me."
"He contains the Aswydds. They can't work while he holds them in. I don't know they even know it. He contains what Ican do. I see now how much harder that is. And now he's let me go, to do what I wish to do."
A clatter startled the silence, right by him. Syllan had dropped a spear, and was red-faced, gathering it up.
Dropped, perhaps. There were small, darting movements, as the servants quietly snuffed all candles on the far side. Darkness advanced, flowed along the channels of the pavings, spread soft grays from its harsher dominion over the deep, curtained corners of the hall. It chased under tables, at the side of the hall. It divided itself and extended tendrils of dark along the joining of wall with floor, and ran between the paving stones, reminding one that 'within the wall, all was dark.