Had not his own letter had a part in it—his revelation to his father that he had found in Tristen the Elwynim King To Come… and had bound him in fealty?
Gods, did Ryssand know thatmatter, and could Ryssand keep silent on it if he did?
Doubtless not.
Patently not.
But of causes that had brought Inareddrin to that fatal battlefield, it was not his letter. It was nothis letter, but Ryssand's undermining his father's trust, it was Heryn Aswydd's feeding that fear, secretly reporting to his father…
He felt the numbness growing in his back, as pain passed beyond limits. And pain in his heart diminished. He was not his father's murderer. He had almost saved him. Almost. Fate, or wizardry, or whatever guided the affairs of Ylesuin these days, had snatched responsibility out of his hands, and then snatched Tristen, too.
Unfair, but necessary, perhaps. There was no one less blamable for the ills of the court—ills that would not even reach Tristen's understanding in Amefel—or that might have reached it, to Cuthan's discomfort.
Tristen, unlike his king, had not a second's hesitation in dealing with the unwholesome. Tristen had never learned to negotiate: there was the difference, while He had grown up negotiatingfor his fa-ther's affection. Emuin had another boy now. He was glad of that jealous, but glad; and swore if the boy was not grateful, he would' bring the wrath down on the lad.
He had had the benefit of Emuin's teaching. Of Annas' patient management. They had saved him from going down Efanor's road.
And there was Idrys. Thinking on it, in this long meditation on those who had shaped his life and brought him to this moment, he was not sure he was fond of Idrys. It was hard to be fond of the man, in the way it was hard to love a honed blade—but rely on it? Absolutely.
One need not grow maudlin, over Idrys least of all.
Yet… was there nothing for all the years, all the trust, all the hard duty, and all the concentration of a life bent only on saving his? The Crown and the kingdom owed this man more than he had ever gotten… he relied on Idrys, repository of all the unpleasant confidences a monarch could make to no one else, not his pious brother, not his wife, not his best friend's gray-eyed innocence; and thinking on it, damn it all, he wasfond of Idrys, though he could never say so.
Idrys was out at this very moment, having necessarily extracted his last reliable spy and resource from within Ryssand's house, trying to find out what Ryssand was up to from less dependable, external sources. While the king was at his prayers the king's right hand was at work steering the events his order had set in motion, and if things outside this chamber had been going contrary to his orders, Cefwyn had every confidence that no sanctuary would deter Idrys from reporting.
Efanor came and went, however. As near kin, Efanor brought him the water custom allowed… and brought his own reports of the barons' answer to his call to arms, barons who, deprived of access to the king, sought alternative routes of information and protest, barons who, still uncertain as to where Efanor himself stood, revealed more than they knew.
And on this day, too, Efanor came in very softly, still making quiet echoes, and sat down near him on a prayer bench.
"Marisal will march," Efanor relayed to him. "Osanan is contriving excuses and wishes to hear the peace treaty."
Cefwyn heaved a sigh. Of the nineteen provinces of Ylesuin, five were indisputably with Tristen, four were marginally with him, five at least dared stand with Ryssand, and the rest… danced an intricate step in place.
"Guelessar?" he asked. Efanor himself was duke of Guelessar.
Efanor hesitated the space of a breath, head bowed. "Guelessar is a title," Efanor said, the truth both of them knew: that his power was not the real power in the province, only a title that gave him estates and honor. He had very little governance over the lesser lords who administered the districts. "The lords inGuelessar are meeting and have been meeting and two at least have sent messages to Ryssand. For my word, at my order, they will march, will they, nil they." Then Efanor added, the bitter truth, but honest: "How reliable they will be to go to the fore of a battle, and how reliable to stand… that remains to be seen."
"Will we know that of any men on the field, until the moment comes? Relieve yourself of guilt on that account. Gods, gods, that I ever dismissed the south!"
"If you'd kept the southern barons here in court, there'd have been civil war, and you know it."
All too well, though he hadn't known it when he'd called on the south to defend their border before his father's body was cold in his grave.
He had soared at the height of his power when he had stood on Lewen field, victorious over the sorcerous enemy. He had had a tattered and battered army, but five provinces of the nineteen all devoted to a newly crowned king, the likelihood Panys and Marisal and Marisyn would join him in a drive north, and the blessing of the Lady Regent of Elwynor into the bargain, not to mention the likelihood some of her provinces would join them an effort to go straight to her capital and end all the war.
But his southern army had been tired, winter threatened… and he had been king in deed only to half his kingdom.
Crowned in the south, heady with the support of barons ready for action, filled with the desire to restore his newfound beloved to her throne—and, he had to admit, to impress her—he had instead come north to claim the heart of his kingdom, this, in the foolish confidence he could take up all his father's alliances intact. Then, he had thought, he would have had power enough in his hands to assure a well-conducted campaign in the spring with minimal losses on either side.
But he had discovered that his father's compromises with the north had been more extensive and more damaging to the Crown's authority than ever he had suspected. Earliest, he, too, had taken the advice of Murandys and Ryssand, his father's trusted advisors, first of all in appointing Parsynan as viceroy over Amefel, and in so doing, he had fallen into the pattern and embroiled himself in his father's compromises.
He had, with the aid of his friends and advisors, old and new, worked his way to real power: he had wagered everything on the matter of his marriage and gained the Quinalt's approval. He had lessened Ryssand's influence. Now after handling the rebel barons roughly, he set a test for all the north: march in a blizzard, march in defiance of all sanity, march in defiance of the enemy's lying peace offer… or refuse and stand in rebellion to the Crown while the battle flag was flying.
He would be king in truth, or not at all—that was his determination. He would not spend a lifetime catering to fools or compromising his way into his father's situation. He grew aware of his silence, aware of Efanor's eyes studying him, and when their eyes met, Efa-nor said:
"They did listen, Cefwyn. They did hear you. Whatever they decide, your arguments for this action were not wasted."
Efanor knew what he gambled, as perhaps no other could—Efanor who, if he went down, would have to deal with Ryssand in his own way—a different way, perhaps, with a necessarily diminished force, in a vastly changed kingdom.
Thus far he had Tristen uniting five provinces in his name, while he as king could claim only three as solid, one of them Llymaryn— Sulriggan's province, gods save him, Sulriggan, as self-serving a pious prig as ever drew breath, a man with no stomach for fighting—but even less for being left without royal protection: he sided with the Crown because Ryssand hated him for his weathercock swings of loyalty. Therewas his sudden source of courage.
Panys he could trust absolutely. He suspected that Marisal might have moved more quickly to join him because Sulriggan had, being a neighbor, but he still gave the lord of Marisal all due credit, as a man who would not break his oath of fealty. It was a sparsely populated province, with fewer men under arms, but the lord being a devout man and a decent one, he gathered himself and marched.