In that general dismay Emuin came to the center of the steps and stood with arms folded in his sleeves, waiting, waiting, silently commanding the assembly's attention.

"His Grace is telling you difficult things," Emuin said when quiet came and every eye was on him. "He means to say that the Aswydd sisters aren't strong enough to have released themselvesfrom the bindings I set on them—yes, I! But if they move with currents already moving they might well have done it themselves, and without the knowledge or help of our enemy. But be assured there aresuch currents. There are currents in waters that have been moving for some time, and now these two have cast themselves and Cefwyn's son into that flow, if not with their attempt to free themselves—which hasn't, in fact, gained them their freedom—then certainly early last summer, when they worked petty hedge-witchery to get a child."

"Saying what?" old Prushan asked. "What does your honor mean? That there's some other wizard? The wizard from last summer?"

"Do you mean this is all foredoomed?" Umanon asked uneasily.

Emuin held up a finger. "Not foredoomed as to outcome." The hand flourished, vanished again into tucked sleeves, to reappear with a silver ball, that again vanished. "Say that a wizardous river is in spring flood, and the shore's become damned uncertain. The As-wydds and the usurper are deep in the waters. Hear the lord of Amefel. Hear him! He's the only swimmer in the lot."

Tristen cast Emuin an uneasy look of his own in the murmur of the assembly, not wishing to hear what he had heard, not taking it for any more solid truth than the maneuvering of the ball, and wondering why at long last Emuin, who shied from discussing wizardry directly even with him, had suddenly spoken in council and employed this trickery of the eye.

Was it because hehad resolved to speak out the truth to these men, and Emuin followed him?

Emuin made a final flourish, hurled the ball at the wall, making the assembly at that side flinch.

Nothing hit. Nothing happened.

"Don't trust your eyes," Emuin said, serenely passing the silver ball from finger to finger, to the assembly's disquiet. A glow possessed his hand, which vanished. So did the ball. "Don't believe what you see. Don't believe what you suspect. Listen to your lord."

A stillness followed.

"Your Grace," old Pelumer said then, "what about Orien Aswydd in our midst, telling whoever might want to know all she can see here? There's the depths of cellars. I'm sure the town itself has a number of them that could host the lady. I'm sure the Zeide has."

"I'd rather have her here," Tristen said, "over all, I'd rather have her where master Emuin can keep an eye on her."

Master Emuin snorted. "Great good that will do."

"But while they're here, Tasmôrden can't get his hands on His Majesty's child," Cevulirn said, "which would be disaster if it happened. And if we place the Aswydds somewhere we can't watch, there's a greater chance he might reach them."

"When he does know," Umanon said, "he's bound to be sure the whole world knows. Her Grace of Elwynor a bride, and a queen without a title, and now there's a bastard in the Marhanen line, out of an Aswydd sorceress, no less, and will the Quinalt abide it? I don't think so."

"Sink 'er," Sovrag said. "I tell ye, that's the way out o' this muddle."

"Oh, aye," Emuin said. "We have that choice: kill the child, or let it live: two choices more: kill the sisters or let them live; and again, two choices: keep them prisoner or let them free. The child is male, and has the wizard-gift, and she claimsit's His Majesty's. Again two choices: believe her or don't believe. Those are your choices, lords of the south, eight choices we all have, but not a precious one else can I think of."

"Do you doubt her?" Umanon asked.

"I believe her," Tristen said, "and I know her son has the gift. In the storm I thought there were three; and there were only Orien and Tarien when I found them. I felt it again when I spoke with them. I have no doubt at all."

"And doubt as to the father?"

"I never felt they were lying." Tristen watched Owl wander down to his hand and he lifted it to oblige Owl, as claws pricked uncomfortably through the fabric of his sleeve. Owl arrived at his fingers, and swiveled his head about to regard him with a mad, ruffled stare, as if utterly astonished by the things he heard—before he bent and bit, cruelly hard.

He tossed Owl aloft, and Owl fluttered and flew for a ledge.

The eight choices Emuin named, whether those present thought of it or not, were the same choices Emuin had had in Selwyn's time— the choices Emuin had had when he killed a prince of the house of Elfwyn, the last High King, the last reigning descendant of the Sihhë.

Gentle Emuin had killed a child.

And Mauryl, the Mauryl who had fostered him, had ordered it.

He stared at the wound Owl had made, blood, that smeared his fingertips: he worked them back and forth, and looked up where Owl had settled.

Wake, Owl seemed to say to him. Rule. Decide. Blood will attend either choice.

He drew a breath, looked at the solemn, shocked faces of the assembly, with the blood sticky on his fingertips… and knew that the question was Orien Aswydd.

"She won't rule here again," he told the assembly. "Cefwyn set her aside. Now I do." And as he said it he made that doom certain with all his force, all the might that was in him. Emuin turned in alarm and mouthed a caution, half lifting a warding hand, for Emuin above allothers felt the currents shift, much as if he had cast a mountain into the flow.

And half the fortress removed and upstairs, Orien and Tarien surely felt it—for something like a cry went through the very stones of the Zeide and the rock of its hill.

Owl took to his wings, and flew off across the hall to settle on the finial of the ducal throne.

"Amefel," Cevulirn said—Cevulirn, who alone of all of them but Emuin could hear that protest of the wards—"What of the child? What for it?"

He was less sure of that. On few things he was certain. On the matter of Tarien's child and Amefel, he was not.

"I say what I can," he answered Cevulirn.

"So what does His Grace think is coming down on us?" Pelumer asked. "We've Marna on our borders, and an uneasy neighbor it always is, but this winter nothing goes right near it… fires die, bowstrings break, men who know the paths lose their way. Is something coming, the like of what we saw this summer?"

"Not only Marna," Sovrag said. "Haunts here. The servants in the halls is saying there's haunts in the downstairs and a cold spot right next the great hall—and in sight of all of us ye went into the dark and come out with that owl at that very spot, did ye not, Amefel? Spooks in Marna I can swear to, and so can my neighbor here who sailed in with me. We come here to fight Tasmôrden. So what are we makin' war on? I ask the same question. Is it Lewen-brook all over again?"

Emuin, too, had heard that shriek through the stones. In him was no fear of haunts in the hall, only a calm assessment that, yes, there was risk.

And it was his assessment.

And all these men knew now what sided with them, and if they were not willing to face what arrayed itself against them, they above all others, knew what it was to face it—they had stood on Lewen held. He did not count any man in this hall as other than brave.

And oh, he missed Crissand's presence now—missed the assessment of the other presence who might read the gray space and steady him.