And being far too heated from the desire to cut the Holy Father off short, he had smiled, and had a second dessert, which he regretted more than the wine.
“Tedious old man, the Holy Father,” he said to his queen, with a kiss on the cheek and a long embrace, which somehow alleviated the weariness. “I wish we were both in Elwynor. Or he was.”
“Oh, never afflict my kingdom with your priest,” Ninévrisë said, her hands slipping to his arms. Those wonderful eyes stared straight into his. “You tolerate him.”
“He’s an old, old man. There’s no mending him at this point. And the Crown needs no contests. Not now.”
“With this son of yours visiting, no, by no means.”
“Are you at ease with this? Are you truly at ease with him going to services?”
Those great eyes blinked, once, twice. And never wavered. “I held him when he was born. He had no choice in mothers. Of pity for her, however—I have little.”
“I have none at all. Nor would ever, ever offend you in bringing him to Festival. He could have gone home. He still might. Be sure. Be sure, now. Later—would be very hard.”
“I held him, I say. He looked like any baby.”
“The gods know what he is. He’s quick. He’s clever.”
“He’s Otter. And he could go on being Otter, if you sent him back… but that would be hard, now. What you do—what you do, be ever so sure of. For my own part—”
“What, for your part?” He had yearned for Ninévrisë’s true opinion on the matter of this son of his—and never felt he had it.
“He’s respectful, and modest. A good Bryalt lad.”
“If only he were only that.”
“Whatever he is, he makes our son laugh.”
“I have greatest reliance on the old woman. I believe her. But what I risk by believing this much in her—”
“It’s Tristen you believe in,” Ninévrisë said. “Isn’t it, after all? And Tristen said you should spare that woman, and he said you should take care of this boy. Me, he never advised in that regard… so I think my part is simply to watch you both and be on my guard. And I find he has a good face.”
“His mother’s eyes.”
“Oh, no such thing. They’re gray. Sihhë gray.”
“That didn’t come from my house.”
“That may be. But he has none of her wicked ways. Not a lie, not a prank—”
“Except our own son instigated them.”
Ninévrisë laughed the laugh that could cure his darkest mood and laid her head against his shoulder. “Daily,” she said, and looked up. “Wit and grace, both. Have you noticed? Aewyn has taken to books, under his influence.”
“More than his tutors ever managed. The last, I hear, went into cloister.”
“A good place for him.” Ninévrisë cast herself down in the chair by the fire, looking up at him. “He was dull and far too full of catechism. And the one before that was ambitious.”
“Ambitious, do you say?”
“Trust my word. Ambitious. I never liked him. Now he eels his way into the Patriarch’s service. He may be a good clerk, but what he writes I would never trust.”
“Efanor is too clever for him.”
“So was Aewyn.”
“That I have always maintained.” Cefwyn sank into the other chair, with the warmth of the fire instant on his outstretched feet as he folded his hands across his middle. “Otter. Elfwyn, as he is and will be—what would you think, Nevris, were I to send him to Elwynor to study?”
Brows lifted. “Take him from the old woman and our son?”
“A difficulty. An admitted difficulty. But he’s at that age. He has to find his way in the world. And he could rise in scholarly ranks, he well could. He has the wit, he has the skill, and he has the discretion to be very valuable to our son someday. Or to our daughter.”
Ninévrisë frowned, thinking on it—before a distant baby’s cry rose above the crackling of the fire. Aemaryen had waked. The nurse was with the baby, in the next room. But Ninévrisë rose from her chair to open the door and bade the nurse bring in the little princess—a red-faced and angry little bundle, who wanted her mother and generally got her way in the world.
Ninévrisë took the baby, and Cefwyn got up to touch the little face, which frowned at the light and squinted up at him—not half a year old, and already with her own notions of royal prerogatives. She was Elwynor’s longed-for heir. He would lose her entirely to Elwynor when she gained her majority, and she would spend more and more time in that land as she grew. Already he mourned that future, but it was for the peace, and for the future of both his children… all his children.
The tiny princess collected a kiss from her father and screwed up her face in protest, wanting less light and her mother’s attention.
“He might certainly go to Elwynor,” Ninévrisë said, finishing their former conversation. “With my blessing.” She offered a bent finger to the baby’s furious grasp. Pink, tiny fingers turned white, holding tight. “Hush, hush, Maryen. There’s a dear.”
Aemaryen shrieked.
“The Marhanen temper,” her father said ruefully.
“And Syrillas stubbornness in one,” Ninévrisë said, hugging the baby against her shoulder, which produced no diminution of the cries. “La, Saleyn, open the door.”
Conversation was over. Ninévrisë carried the Princess away, diminishing into quiet, and Saleyn shut the door, restoring peace, at least in the king’s chambers.
He missed the quiet evenings. He looked forward to the time, however brief, when the little princess would be up and about, eyes shining, finding wonder in everything new—he had had fifteen, now sixteen years between children, and Aemaryen their second and likely last, born when Aewyn was about to be a man. Everything they had learned with Aewyn they attempted with Aemaryen, and nothing quite applied. Aewyn had been so deceptively placid, well, until his young feet hit the ground, and this one—this one had come into the world demanding her way.
Perhaps she would become sweet-tempered once she could walk and do things with her own hands. Perhaps she would be the model of her mother, and that anger would be only at what she could not yet do.
Did it ever apply? he wondered. Were ever two infants quite the same?
This one would never, he feared, be a complacent child—this babe destined to be Regent in Elwynor, as her brother would be king over Ylesuin… and when this child reigned, Ylesuin might well award her the title of queen, the first ruler in her own name since the Sihhë kings. The peace he and Ninévrisë had tried to make would be all at risk in the generations to come, and everything rested on these two children and their affection for each other.
He hoped for reason. He hoped for a generation, in his two legitimate children, to knit their two kingdoms closer, so that there would never again be war between Quinalt and Bryalt, between eastern, fair-haired Guelenish folk, and the stubborn remnants of the Sihhë reign over the west.
And maybe, in this illegitimate son of his, this son whom Lord Tristen had advised him to hold easily in reach and treat generously—there was some unguessed key to the matter. If the boy they called Otter did make a good scholar, he might become an advisor, traveling between Elwynor and Ylesuin, to counsel both a queen of Elwynor and a king of Ylesuin how to make that peace.
Maybe, with that honest goodwill of his, Otter who was Elfwyn, that unlucky name, would gain the trust of both kingdoms, or at least learn to walk the sword’s edge of policy and politics. Tristen’s advice always ran deeper than seemed. It came of seeing connections most eyes never saw, Seeing into things yet to come.