"Point o' that—who burned Anwyfar?" Sovrag asked, above the rest, and that was the question.

"Who burned Anwyfar?" Tristen echoed the question. "Orien said it was Guelen Guard, Cefwyn's men—that it was Captain Essan."

"Essan!" old Prushan exclaimed, and no few with him. The earls knew the name, if the dukes of the south did not, and for a moment there was a general murmur.

"There's another should have hanged," someone said. "Turned right to banditry."

"I know Cefwyn didn't order it," Tristen said. "If he wanted to kill them, he certainly didn't need to send men to burn a Teranthine shrine and kill all the nuns, who never did him any harm."

"Ryssand," said the Bryaltine abbot, standing forward, hands tucked in sleeves. "Ryssandish, it might well be. Parsynan was Ryssand's man, and every other trouble he visited on us Captain Essan had a hand in. And why not this?"

The ealdormen thought so. There were nods of heads, a small, unhappy stir.

"And what when the king in Guelessar finds it out?" Prushan asked, and Earl Drusallyn, who was almost as old: "And what when the king blames us?"

"Send 'em to Elwynor!" an ealdorman said.

And Sovrag: "Hell, send 'em to the Marhanen, done up in ribbons!"

"No," Tristen said. "No. Not Elwynor, and not Guelessar." He drew a breath, not happy in what he had to tell. "Lady Tarien's with child. Cefwyn's."

"Blessed gods," Umanon said, under the gasp and murmur of the assembly, and a deep hush fell.

"I haven't told Cefwyn yet," Tristen said. "I have to write to him, and my last messenger to Guelemara came and went in fear of his life. I don't know what's happened there, with Guelen Guard burning shrines and killing nuns. I don't know if Cefwyn knows what they did."

"His Majesty doesn't know about the child?" asked Umanon.

"He last saw the lady this summer," Cevulirn said. "So did we all."

"There's the gift in both of them," Emuin said in the low murmur of voices. "What they didn't want noticed, even the ladies of the convent might not have noticed. The king doesn'tknow. But someone may."

"Cuthan," Tristen said, provoking another hush. "I think Cuthan kept her informed, and informed himself."

"Then Parsynan might know," Prushan said.

It was true. It was entirely possible.

"Marhanen issue with an Aswydd and a witch to boot," Pelumer murmured. "The Quinalt will be aghast."

"Not only the Quinaltine," Umanon said, who was Quinalt himself. "Any man of sense is aghast. How many months is she gone?"

"Eight," Emuin said.

"Gods save us," Umanon said, letting go his breath. "Gods save Ylesuin."

"And gods save Her Grace," Sovrag muttered, for Sovrag adored Ninévrisë. " There'sa damn tangle for us."

What indeed would Ninévrisë say? Tristen asked himself in deep distress. What indeed could she say? She loved Cefwyn, and eight months was before they were married and before Cefwyn ever laid eyes on her—from that far back a folly arrived to confound them all.

And folly it was. Cefwyn had not done it on his own, he was surer and surer of that: Cefwyn, who had not a shred of wizard-gift, was utterly deaf and blind to the workings of wizardry, but not immune: no man was immune, and there was every reason in the world these two women had worked to snare him and cause this.

"The legitimate succession in Ylesuin," Cevulirn said, "was already in question, with the Quinalt contesting Her Grace at every turn, and them wanting to refuse the war if they can't have the land they take. The unhappy result is that there is no settlement on an heir in the marriage agreement. And thatis unfortunate."

No one had thought of that. Tristen had not. The stares of those present were at first puzzled, then alarmed.

"We're to fight a war to bring the Elwynim under Her Grace's hand," Umanon said, "and now Tarien Aswydd bears a pretender to Ylesuin?"

"No legal claim," Pelumer said, "since there was no legal union, no matter the vagueness of the marriage treaty. In either case, there is an heir: Efanor."

"But the Aswydds claim royalty," Umanon said, "and royalty on both sides of the blanket, as it were. It's not as if our good king found some maid in a haystack. This is troublesome."

"A witch," Sovrag said, "no less; a sorceress. And what's our blessed chance it's a daughter?"

"Small," Emuin said, hedging the point.

"It is a son," Tristen said bluntly. "And he has the gift."

Another murmur broke out, with no few pious gestures against harm. Blow after blow he had delivered to the alliance, with no amelioration, and he had nothing good to offer except that the lady and Cefwyn's son were not at this moment in Elwynor, in Tasmô-den's hands.

"There's some as'd drop the Aswyddim both down a deep well," Sovrag said. "And solve our problems at one stroke."

Tristen shook his head, lifted his hand to appeal for silence, and Owl bated and settled again on his shoulder. "No," he said in the stillness he obtained.

'Ye're too good," Sovrag said. "Give 'me to my charge. My lads'll take 'em downriver, an' they'll go overboard with no qualms at all."

'No," Tristen said again, and the gray space came to life. The hall seemed a hall of statues, everything set, the very pillars of the roof and the occupants of the hall one substance, set and sure and warded against the queasiness just next to this hall, that one place of slippage and weakness in the wards which he could not continue to ignore. "I've thought of our choices. I've asked myself whether it's wise to be good, or good to be wise and, aside from all I can think of, or all I can do, the truth is that the Aswydds built this place. Their wizardry is in these stones. It makes them part of the defenses of the Zeide and Henas'amef. Emuin can tell you so."

"Woven into its defenses like ribs in a basket," Emuin said in the attention that came to him. "The stay and support of it, and every chink and weakness in it, they know in their bones. Wisest was what Cefwyn did, sending them to Anwyfar. They were as safe there as it was possible for them to be, given it was nuns watching them and not an armed guard or a half a dozen wizards. Now someone's made a move to free them, and they've come here not only because they had tocome here rather than Guelemara, but because they know the same as I their protections are here. They're bound to Henas'amef. That's one point, and never forget it. The second: Ryssand may have burned down a Teranthine shrine, but if Ryssand, not onlyRyssand was in on it. The man's too canny to do something like this openly, or recklessly. He has concealment he believes will hold, or he has overwhelming reason to do something so rash."

"What reason, then?" Umanon asked.

Tristen tried to answer, and in Emuin's silence he could only shake his head, eyes widely focused, taking in all the room at once, on all levels, as the gray winds tugged and pulled at his attention. "A wizard doesn't even need to be alive," he said, determined to be honest with his hearers as Emuin had never been honest with him.

But once he had said it he felt fear coursing through his hearers. He felt the courage of some, the apprehension of most. Hasufinwas his fear; it had now to be theirs, and every man who had stood at Lewenbrook knew what he meant: that a wizard need not be alive. Hasufin Heltain had not been alive when he had cost so many lives, when the dark had rolled down on the field like a living wave, and no man among them forgot that hour.