“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?
And did that matter now to the truth that grew inside her, a creature, like himself, with its own presence and own will within the gray space?
Mauryl had made him. What had Tarien Aswydd made?
—The child is a wizard, he said to Emuin. And has he not his own reasons?
—Weak yet, Emuin said, which in some measure comforted him.
But not wholly.
Not so much as to give him ease of mind or spirit.
And when they reached the stairs, he and Uwen together, and went down, as one must, to go up again to his wing, it cast him momentarily within reach of traffic in the lower hall—in sight, as it chanced, of the master carpenter, who hurried over with the report of a leak in the archive window, which must be dealt with.
“As it’s endangering the books, Your Lordship…”
“I’ll attend it,” Lusin said, Lusin, chief of his bodyguard, whose business had nothing to do with the master carpenter; but ice forced snowmelt through cracks, and the woes of the world went on.
He hourly—even at this hour—expected the report from Mo-deyneth, of grain headed for storage, safe from Tasmôrden’s reach.
He expected another report from Haman, tomorrow, of the horses in pasture. Cefwyn had a child of whom Cefwyn knew nothing, and grain moved, and the library window leaked.
Meanwhile the boy Paisi, who, a former felon, marshaled two servants to carry firewood for him, passed on his way to Master Emuin’s tower. Paisi bowed, and the servants bowed, but Tristen had already set his foot on the step before he even gave a thought to the courtesy, or thought of Paisi as a messenger to bear a quiet word to Emuin, one the twins would not hear.
“Tell him I’ll see him this afternoon,” he said, and Paisi turned, eyes wide, and bobbed a courtesy, knowing well which he he meant: his lord would meet with his master in what quiet and privacy they could arrange in the fortress, but hereafter such moments were difficult to achieve, and all they did in the gray space might flow through it to other interested souls.
Emuin was right. He had to write to Cefwyn. The more understanding of such a child Unfolded to him, the more he knew that Cefwyn must not be caught by surprise with this news. Cefwyn had to break it to Ninévrisë, and to the lords in his own court: Cefwyn had to tell his friends, and break it to them early and with all the facts in hand… before Ryssand heard it and whispered it piecemeal and had the lords forming a dozen different opinions, each at odds with the other.
To two lords at least he had no need to send a messenger. At the top of the stairs he slipped quietly into a gray space momentarily untroubled by the Aswydds and whispered to Cevulirn of Ivanor, — Come. Bring all the lords. There’s a matter to discuss.
Likewise he sought Crissand Adiran.
But he did not find him, not in the Zeide, nor in the confines of Henas’amef, or yet in the camp outside the walls. Perhaps he was asleep… but the hour argued against it.
He grew troubled, then, and made his presence bolder, and stronger, and went searching more noisily through the gray space, seeking whether Crissand was indeed simply sleeping, and near at hand, or whether something dire had befallen him.
He did not expect to find Crissand’s presence far, far north of the town, struggling through drifts. But there he was.
He did not expect, given all the untoward things that had happened last night, to meet evasions, or to know that Crissand had slipped his guards and risked his life escaping him and his notice.
He did not expect to meet the pitch of anguish, or the fear that shut Crissand off from him.
It was not the action of a reasonable man, but that of a man pressed to the limits of his endurance. And he knew nothing that might have sent Crissand out and away from him in that state— except his bringing Crissand’s cousins into Henas’amef, and settling them in the Zeide.
That was the fear. That was the anger and the anguish.
He stopped on the stairs, his hand clenched on the stonework, and looked away past the walls of the stairwell. He was heart-struck that Crissand had hidden his feelings from him so well until now,| and never disturbed him in leaving.