Tristen shook his head. They were back to that, never resolved. "No. I know he wouldn't."

"What, a Marhanen king refuse a murder? To prevent an Amefin claim on the throne, to keep our secret a secret—come now, what might not our Cefwyn do?"

"He didn't do this," he said with unshaken confidence. "He doesn't know. He wouldn't harm you."

"Come now. If he knew—oh, indeed, if he knew. You," Orien said, "who aregood, and honest—all these things… you'd stick at murder. You have virtues. But three generations of the Marhanen has taught this province the Marhanen do not!"

"And this is his child."

She gave him a startled, uncertain look at that saying.

"A child with the wizard-gift," he added, for in the storm he had heard sometimes two lives, and sometimes and faintly, three.

"An Aswydd child," Orien said, "with Marhanenblood."

"My child." It was a small voice. A near whisper from Tarien, that still managed a hint of defiance. "And he's right. I think he isright; they didn't come from Cefwyn."

"Oh," Orien hissed, "now we believe him again. Now we think him full of virtue and chivalry, this lover of ours. A Marhanen kingwould not hesitate to rip that child from your womb and destroy it, never doubt it. But not here. Not from Lord Tristen's hands. Tristen would never allow it, our gentle Tristen…"

He liked nothing he heard, least of all Orien Aswydd appealing to his kindness, and now he wished he had called Emuin to this conference. But it was too late. He saw Orien's confidence far from diminished and her malevolence far from chastened.

"You think you'vedone all this," Tristen said, for she seemed to have no grasp of any other state of affairs. "You let Hasufin Heltain past the wards, you dealt with wizardry, and you think it was all yours? The child has the gift. If he's Cefwyn's, he might be king. And you dealt with Hasufin Heltain! You know what he did at Althalen, you know Emuin cast him out then, and you know what he wants most of all—is that what you want? This child is his best chance since Althalen!"

Tarien had her hand on her belly, and she understood his meaning—at last and very least one of the Aswydds heard his warning, she, who held within herself all the consequence of Hasufin's ambition, and could not escape it, could not on her own prevent Hasufin's taking the child as his way into the world of Men.

"Don't listen to him!" Orien said. "Pay no attention. It's only Cefwyn's interest he cares for, nothing, nothing at all for the babe's sake! Your child will be king!"

Tarien pulled away and leaned against her chair, arms folded protectively over her belly..

"Tarien!" Orien insisted, but Tristen drew Tarien's eyes to him.

"Don't listen," he said.

"Amefel is ours!" Orien hissed. " Weare the aethelings. We are the royals and we wereroyal before the Sihhë came down from the Hafsandyr! This land belongsto her son!"

It was indeed her claim, and a claim with some justice. Tristen considered that, considered the angry determination in Orien's eyes, and her wishes, and the strength they had. "You can't," he said, to all her wishes. "Not alone. I wish not. Emuin wishes not. Maurylwished not, and I don't think you can wish otherwise to any good at all, Lady Orien. Your servants have gone, Lord Cuthan's across the river—Lord Edwyll's dead, and his heir isthe aetheling now."

"Crissand!" The voice shuddered with scorn.

"The Witch of Emwy said it, and I say it. Did Tasmôrden promise you what he promised Cuthan? There was no army. There never was an army. He lied to Cuthan. He lied to all the earls, and Edwyll died of the cups in your cupboard… or was it your wish?"

Orien's eyes had widened somewhat, at least in some inner recognition.

"Was it your wish?" Tristen asked her. "Your wish, and not the cups?"

Orien's brows lifted somewhat. "The wine. My sister and I had no inclination to die as our brother died. We preferred thatto exile."

It was not all she preferred to exile: death here, death in her Place, as the Zeide was: foreseeing that danger, even then, he had advised Cefwyn to banish her and the Aswydds of the name. Both dead and alive they had gone out the gate, to prison and burial elsewhere.

"And Cuthan is in Elwynor," Orien said, "with the latest usurper. And yousit here. The mooncalf, they called you. The fool. Mauryl's hatchling."

"I was," he said.

"And Bryn?" she asked.

She knew, he was sure now, that Tasmôrden had promised invasion: she likely knew everything Cuthan had done. Messages hadgotten to Anwyfar, and she hadexpected a rising against the Crown. But she had not known anything since Cuthan's flight: that said something of her sources, and of Cuthan's slight wizard-gift, remote now from her. It was clear that whispers had gone on in the gray space that neither he nor Emuin had heard. In Guelessar, in the autumn, he had rarely reached out to Amefel. Emuin had forbidden it.

"What of Bryn?" she demanded to know. 'Drusenan of Modeyneth is Lord Bryn now." It did not please her. But she turned her face elsewhere and wrapped her wishes inward, tightly held, and he left them unpursued.

"So busy you've been," she said, gazing into distance. "Gathering an army in Amefel, all those tents arrayed outside my walls… a winter campaign, is it to be? All for Cefwyn. For Cefwyn's heir." Her eyes lanced toward him, direct and challenging. "For his firstborn son—his firstborn Aswyddson—a kingdom."

"It is a son," he said, for Tarien's child was male, and would be firstborn. That was the truth, and only then knew with full force how it would hurt Ninévrisë.

And that son, not Ninévrisë's, would harm the treaty with Elwynor.

It would harm Cefwyn—the northern lords would reject a child of Aswydd and Marhanen blood out of hand. So would the Elwynim.

"A son," Orien said. One set of plans dashed in what he told her, she gathered up others, and recovered herself. "A bastard, he may be, but a royal, firstbornbastard."

Bastardwas a child without ceremony, unrecognized. Bastard was a child no one would own.

But that was not so. Someone owned this child. Tariendid. Ta-rien already held it protected in her arms, her eyes wide with alarm while Orien's flashed with defiance of him. They were twins, of one mind until that moment: of one ambition, until that heartbeat. He had divided them. The child had. Cefwynhad, for Tarien's feeling was not Orien's, and the realization of that shivered through the gray space with the kiss of a knife's sharp edge.

He was sorry for their pain, but he was not sorry for Orien.

And he sealed himself against all their entreaties and their objec-tions. If anyone could bend Orien Aswydd, it might be Tarien. If anyone could sway her, it might be her twin, given time, and a quieter hour. There was the hope for them: Cefwyn's son he could not reach, not now, not without harm.

"I'll ask about the gowns," he said, intending to leave.

"Servants," Orien said. Her lips made a thin white line. Her eyes held storm that, prudently, did not break.

"Respect the wards," he said, "and respect the guards."

"And if we don't? Would you harm my sister and the child?" she asked, with the clear expectation he would not.