Ninévrisë's hand sought his, and her fingers pressed on his as if she would drive her own good sense into his hot-tempered Marhanen head: nothing precipitate, nothing foolish, she silently counseled him. The baron foolish enough to challenge his grandfather to that degree would have gone to the block, so he said to himself, but those raw, rough times of beginning a kingdom were done: his own reign was a rule of reason—so he hoped. Yet he asked himself now how the populace saw him, whether he had won this encounter or whether Ryssand had.
But on the thought of his grandfather's methods he left Ninévrisë, took the bride's hand, and brusquely led her to the groom and seized his hand. He held up their joined hands then to the witness of all the crowd, many of whom had by now forgotten they had come to witness a wedding.
That was what they had come to see. Had they forgotten it?
"A king's penny apiece!" he shouted. It was the third penny the Wedding had cost the treasury, but it was a grand gesture, it distracted the crowd into wild cheering, and he left it to Idrys and his capable staff to marshal the crowd into order and to the treasury to nnd pennies enough.
It was cheaper than bloodshed and the entanglements of a ducal execution.
Kiss the bride," he ordered young Rusyn, the groom, and as
Rusyn obliged, there rose cheers and laughter from the crowd. The union of two young nobles was far more understandable to the people, far closer to their hearts than the constant feuds close to the throne. "Give us a diversion," he added, for the young man's ears alone, and Rusyn, nothing loath, gave him that and more, leaving his new bride breathless, to the utter and noisy delight of the crowd. The traditional cheers went up, and when Cefwyn left the bride and groom to their moment of public display, and reached his intimates and his wife, he passed only a glance to Idrys, who understood every order implicit in that moment's stare and went to be sure all the necessary things happened.
The duke of Ryssand's little entourage had meanwhile had time to clear the square by now, the crowd had been entertained, and now the bridal procession could get under way without looking like the tail of Ryssand's.
"Ring the bells!" he said, realizing that the bells were the source of the silence, and a lay brother ran to relay that order.
"Trumpeters!" the Guard sergeant shouted. "Way for His Majesty an' Her Grace!"
They descended the icy steps without mishap, save one of the lay brothers went sliding in unseemly fashion, to the rough laughter of a now good-humored crowd.
For those who gathered omens from ceremonies, however, this one had not had the best beginning. Everything about the marriage of Luriel and Rusyn was second-best, from the choice of mates to the once-worn wedding finery, which had had to be recovered from soot and, one suspected, even traces of blood the common folk now called sacred.
Not the best-omened wedding, but gods, it was a relief all the same to have the matter done with. Panys was assured of a foothold in Murandys, where the Crown needed a loyal man. Ryssand had timed his arrival for after the ceremony, thank the gods, not to have disrupted the wedding altogether, and Lord Murandys was likely of mixed feelings about the choice of Luriel's wedding for Ryssand's return—Ryssand correctly predicting there would be no bloody confrontation and no arrest to mar a wedding.
But since Murandys had made the alliance with Panys as the way out of royal displeasure, during Ryssand's forced retreat from the court… Murandys might be asking himself now whether Ryssand's choice of moments might be a veiled threat against him. It might have been premature, Murandys might now think, to have made an alliance with a friend of the monarch: Ryssand must have some secret behind this move.
So Cefwyn thought, too; and that was the otherreason not to order Ryssand's arrest. There was more to it than appeared, and its name was very likely Cuthan of Bryn, and Tristen, gods save them all.
And peace with Tasmôrden? He began to guess the sum of matters, and said not a word to Ninévrisë on the matter of this peaceRyssand spoke of. She had heard as well as he, and knew no more than he, but neither of them could like the source of it: there was no agreement possible with Tasmôrden in Elwynor that did not preclude Ninévrisë's return as lady Regent—and that condition was entirely unacceptable.
Beyond unacceptable—it was foolish even to contemplate it. Tasmôrden was forsworn, a rebel against Ninévrisë's father. What faith could they put in another oath?
Not mentioning the faith in Ryssand.
So they walked over the now well-trampled snow, with evidence of horses roused out from a well-fed evening before: they walked, a royal procession, a wedding, over snow no longer clean, thanks to Ryssand—but becoming so, in the steady fall of white.
Snow veiled the Guelesfort gates into an illusion of distance and mystery.
Snow lay on the ironwork, a magical outlining of the dragons that were the center of the work, on the gates that lay before the second, oaken set of gates.
"He has something," Ninévrisë said in a hushed voice, as they passed outside the hearing of the crowd. "And it's not good."
"I know damned well he has," Cefwyn answered her. "And I know it's not good."
CHAPTER 7
There was no haste to deal with Ryssand… no chance, however, to exchange the royal finery for plainer garb, or to bathe away the incense that clung to the Quinaltine and everyone that had been within its walls.
Efanor came on the unspoken understanding that they had matters to discuss—urgent matters.
"Had you foreknowledge of this?" Cefwyn asked, drawing him into the privacy of the Blue Hall, where Ninévrisë waited, and added as he shut the door: "Superfluous to ask, but had you the least hint of this move?"
"None," Efanor said, and Ninévrisë sank down at the small round table where they often sat in their deliberations. "There was in fact every indication he would remain in his province at least until matters were settled between us. And yet he's brought the lady Artisane, when he certainly knows she's not welcome with Her Grace."
"Unwelcome," Ninévrisë said, "indeed, and so she is. But that's not saying I hold that sentiment to the last. If needs be, needs must. If Ryssand regrets the offer he made in favor of this peacehe talks about—perhaps that alliance with Artisane is that much more important."
"My very wise lady," Cefwyn said, touching her fingers. "I've no doubt. None of you, either, brother." He withdrew his hand from Ninévrisë"'s and found that hand wished very much to become a fist, which movement he resisted, as he resisted the absolute order he could give at any moment, any hour, on any given day, to arrest the man. Second thoughts were always possible. As the people's blood cooled, they were less and less wise. "Damn him! the effrontery of the man!"
But common sense, which even a monarch possessed, insisted that this man, this extravagantly provocative man, had come with somethingbeyond the ordinary, something so strong Ryssand was willing to cast his life and the survival of his house on its validity… and Cefwyn was relatively sure of the nature of it.
It was no surprise, the news that Lord Cuthan had come to Ryssand's lands: he had known that already; he had known Parsynan was there, too, both supping at Ryssand's table, Parsynan nightly regaling the man with Tristen's affronts to Quinalt decency, Cuthan complaining of high-handed abuse of power.
Conservative, noble-born Quinaltine in Parsynan's case, and—at most charitable guess in Cuthan's case—liberal Bryaltine, if Cuthan's private beliefs were even that close to the Quinalt. They were an unusual pair of advisors for any northern baron, to say the very least. Cefwyn wondered, did those watching that pair on horseback consider that curiosity? Did the commons have any least idea they were in the presence of an Aswydd, however remote in blood—advising orthodox Lord Ryssand?