“Treason to do so, unquestioned.”

“More, the lord viceroy called in only one of the earls to warn him, Lord Cuthan, Earl of Bryn, and Cuthan also knew Edwyll was about to seize the citadel; but Cuthan was Edwyll’s rival. So when Parsynan warned Cuthan a change was coming Cuthan kept both sides’ secrets until afterEdwyll had attacked the viceroy’s forces. Then he told the rest of the earls. That way all Edwyll’s support failed, and no matter whether the Elwynim crossed the river to support the rebels or whether Cefwyn’s troops took the town back, Cuthan would be safe. Some of the others held back to see whether the Elwynim would in fact come in, but I don’t mention that to them, and they know now it was a bad notion. The other earls never hesitated to join me. They pretend they didn’t know they were supposed to be rebels, and I pretend I don’t know either, and so they feel safer about it. Crissand, too: he stood by his father, waiting for a message to let him do differently, but it never came. At the last he surrendered to save his men. Now he’s sworn to me, and I’ve had no cause to doubt him.” That lengthy report drew a long, a solemn look. “You’ve grown very wise, Amefel. I am impressed.”

“I hope so, sir.”

Cevulirn knew him to a degree Amefel did not, and knew his failures and his follies. And Tristen felt his heart beat hard at Cevulirn’s gray, assessing stare.

“Protect yourself. You must protect yourself,” Cevulirn said. “And recall that Aswydd blood runs in both young Crissand and in Cuthan, just outside the degree that would have seen them banished in Cefwyn’s order.”

He knew. He certainly knew; and Auld Syes’ salutation rang in his memory. Lord of Amefel and the aetheling…

“Too,” Cevulirn said, “the ladies Aswydd are still alive, just across the border in Guelessar, learning sanctity in a nunnery… messengers might go between here and there with no trouble at all.”

The Aswydd dragons looming over them and about them seemed ominous, and the very air grew close, full of foreboding. “I never forget it.” He gave a glance, a lift of his hand at the dragons. “They remind me.”

“That they do,” Cevulirn said. “In this very room Orien practiced her sorcery, wizardry, gods-know-what.”

“There’s a difference, sir.”

“I am aware there is. She began in one and set one foot in the other, gods send she tries no worse where she is. But that’s why we have you and master Emuin. —I trust Emuin is in good health. I trust that’s not behind his absence tonight.”

“In good health, but locked in his tower. He will not see us after all, it seems.” Tristen forbade himself the peevishness he felt about it. Anger was not safe for him: Emuin had warned him so, then provoked him, more than anyone else close to him. “I posed him questions, several questions. I don’t doubt he’s deep in his books. Or he’s forgotten what hour it is. Whether he will answer my questions, I’ve no idea.”

“A difficult post you’ve been given.”

“Difficult in every point. One I haven’t told you, sir. I’ve banished Lord Cuthan.”

“Banished him! Where? To Guelessar? To Cefwyn?”

“To Elwynor, which he accepted; but we found the archivist was dead during the commotion, and someone had both dug out and stolen Mauryl’s records… we suspect the second archivist. But Cuthan may have been to blame for it… at least some of the documents turned up in Cuthan’s house. We searched his goods that he removed to take with him, but the guards might well have missed a scroll or two.”

“Mauryl’s records?”

“Letters to Amefel. I have the pieces of what they burned, but they say very little. Others may have said more.”

Cevulirn drew a long, deep breath. “Wizard-work. Cuthan banished. Edwyll dead. Wagons bound for the border. And now records of Mauryl’s time. Unnatural storms. And you just a fortnight in office, lord of Amefel. An active neighbor you will be to my lands, I do foresee it. Well that I lost no more time in coming here.”

“M’lord,” Tassand said, arriving in the room, and Tristen became aware there had been doings at the outer door. He had supposed it was another course of their supper being brought; but behind Tassand, Emuin came trailing in, late, with one of the servants still fussing his robe onto his shoulders, and with Uwen briskly behind him.

“Well, well,” Emuin said, “all manner of birds before the storm, and a gray gull from the south, this time. News from the capital? They are wed?”

“So far as I do know,” Cevulirn said. “I rode up from the south, having visited my hall briefly, and turned north to present a neighbor’s greetings before the snow fell. —And to see whether Lord Tristen had levered His Majesty’s viceroy out the gates, or whether he might need help.” Cevulirn could be urbane and quick when he wished. Cevulirn also liked and trusted Emuin, Tristen had no doubt of it, but this was a very brief account, passing over more than it said. “I’d not bargained for deep winter in the hills.”

Emuin’s face changed, very subtly.

“So Uwen said,” Emuin replied, and settled at table. So did Uwen, diffidently, though less abashed in small company, and the servants served the next course, while the talk drifted momentarily to the fare before them.

“Auld Syes met me on my way,” Tristen said, “and advised me a friend was southward. Then the storm began, which I’m sure Uwen told you. It stopped when I called Seddiwy’s name.”

—I told you what Auld Syes said, he challenged the old man in the gray space, quietly and close at hand, disturbing as little as possible. This business about kings and aethelings. And friends to the south.

—With this great storm about. When wizardry stirs up forces, some other wizard may nip in and use them. I mislike it. I tell you I do.

—The storm came out of the west, sir.

—So does the evening sun, young lord. Does the heavenly orb belong to Mauryl or any other?

—But who sent the storm, then, sir?

—I’m sure I don’t know. Was I there? Did you consult me? You did not.

The servants had brought in their meat and served it, and Tristen, frowning, cut a bit of cheese, out of appetite for dead creatures.

“There is opposition to us,” Emuin said in a muted voice, aloud. “I have difficulty determining whence it comes, whether collective, of many interests, or whether single, directing all. I cannot say, nor see a way to determine what we face.”

“In the storm?” Cevulirn asked, who had heard nothing of the lightning flash of exchange they had just had.

“It may be,” Emuin said.

—Shelter my birds, Auld Syes told me, master Emuin. Yet I saw no birds. My pigeons flew out and back in safety. They were about the ledge this evening.

Emuin’s face was very solemn. One trusts those birds, if any, would return.

“Cevulirn was caught in the storm,” Tristen said. “He’s killed Lord Ryssand’s son, and left Guelemara, and come here to see whether I needed his help.”

“Storms aplenty in this season, between wars,” Emuin said. “But they are wed and done with protests, is it so?”

“Charges of unfaithfulness, sir,” Cevulirn said, “naming Tristen, which no sane man credits.”

“Sanity is not requisite in Guelemara,” Emuin said. “Only orthodoxy. So Brugan is dead. Small loss.”

“I was about to say,” Tristen said, “which Lord Cevulirn doesn’t know, about the letter.”

“Mauryl’s letters?” Cevulirn asked.

“Ryssand’s to Lord Parsynan,” Tristen said. “Ryssand sent warning Parsynan I was coming. What I did not say… I sent the letter to Idrys, in hope it would reach Cefwyn more quickly that way.”

Cevulirn arched a brow, and a slow pleasure spread across his face. “Oh, His Majesty will be very pleased to have that in his hands. He hasthem. He hasRyssand in a noose, by the gods; and Ryssand will not find this easy.”