“He does regard your opinion.”

“Regard it he may. But His Majesty has had my good advice, Idrys’ good advice, Her Grace’s good advice, and your good advice, and ignored it for bad, all to please Corswyndam of Ryssand, who had a kinglike power in the last reign and to no one’s wonder is our monarch’s rival for authority in this one. Thereis the man who will yet do us greater harm than Tasmôrden, mark me. His Majesty believes he may subdue that man by wit, not force, and I say a stout fence is the only solution to an ass that will not keep its pasture.”

He had heard the truth. Everything he had himself observed said that Cevulirn told the matter fairly, and reached some conclusion of his own.

“What does a good lord do with the like of Ryssand, sir?”

“To whom is it necessary that a lord be good, Amefel?”

“To his people, sir.”

“So say I. And Cefwyn knows the answer. He only hopes the answer to Ryssand’s defiance will be something different if he can be more clever tomorrow. But the plain truth is, his good and loyal subjects should not be subject to Corswyndam’s spite today. The king has his bride and his treaty now. He has no more leisure to temporize with a self-seeking baron, and his people have none for him to do so.” Cevulirn set down an empty cup. “I’m well content to have Ryssand for an enemy. I prefer that man facing me, not at my back, for my people’s sake as well as my own. Would Cefwyn would come to his senses.”

“I understand everything you say, sir,” Tristen said. “And I agree.”

“So share a second cup, and I’ll go tamely to my bed, having committed treason enough for an evening. I’ll stay with you the few more days, go home to set things in order, and by Midwinter… ride back here again, with all necessary force if you aren’t in jest.”

“I am not in jest. Henas’amef will supply you with every need, firewood, canvas, grain, whatever you will have. I have a hundred of the Guelen Guard and two hundred of the Dragons, who must go back when spring comes. In the meantime they’re at my orders. Lord Parsynan did nothing to raise a muster, and he did nothing to replace the weapons and equipage after Lewenbrook.” He had not intended to enumerate Parsynan’s failings, and went instead to his point. “My promise to Cefwyn didn’t mean letting Tasmôrden cross before we stopped him. We’ll have the bridges in our hands.”

Something in the exchange pricked Cevulirn’s odd humor. “Indeed,” Cevulirn said. “And before I go… perhaps I should have a view of those bridges myself.”

Tristen had no idea whether Emuin had listened to what he and Cevulirn said, but it was his impression the old man had withdrawn from all of it in truth, shut the door to his tower and held aloof from lords making plans he would not advise.

Uwen, however, had heard everything.

“Is it folly?” he asked Uwen, in consequence, after Cevulirn had left and when Tassand and the servants were disrobing him for bed. “I think he means nothing but good to Cefwyn, and I don’t think he’s a fool. I trust him.”

Uwen had long since inured himself to questions of that nature, and passing judgment on what Uwen called his betters. Uwen would do it, in private, and quietly. “He ain’t a fool, that ’un, never was.” But the look Uwen gave him after was still troubled, something unsaid, and Uwen waited, gazing into the small fire in the bedchamber, until Tassand and the servants, trusted as they were, had left the room.

So Uwen would do, if he had something to say in absolute privacy, and Tristen gathered a robe about himself for warmth and went to the fireside. The light cast a fire glow over Uwen’s face, brightest on the silver of his hair, which nowadays he wore clubbed, growing longer after the fashion of a man of rank.

“’At boy, an’ his lordship the earl, an’ Cevulirn,” Uwen said, “is all of a piece, m’lord, that woman an’ all… the witch.”

“Wise or not wise?”

Uwen’s face turned profile to him, eyes set on the fire. “Wisht I knew, lad. I ain’t th’ man to advise a duke.”

“You called me lad.”

“That I did, an’ beg pardon. I shouldn’t have done’t.”

“Call me that, and tell me the truth. Am I a fool?”

Uwen’s gaze swung back to him, earnest, surreal in the firelight and shadow. “I ain’t th’ one to say that, m’lord.”

“Uleman called me king. Auld Syes said the lord of Amefel andthe aetheling; and the second she meant was Crissand. I know it was. Crissandis the aethelings’ heir. She meant he should be lord here. And what should I be? What should Ibe, Uwen?”

“What she said was a lot muddled,” Uwen said soberly, “but there ain’t but one king in Ylesuin, and anything else is treason, lad, just so’s ye know’t. I’d follow ye at any odds, but so’s ye know, I don’t think His Majesty wants to hear any kingin Amefel. I don’t think His Grace of Ivanor wants to hear it either, and His Grace of Ivanor won’t follow you over that brink. Iwould, but he won’t.”

It was dire to think of any king but Cefwyn; and he would not think it. “I knowthat. And I would never do anything against Cefwyn.”

“Yet I think His Majesty has his own idea what ye are, lad, an’ His Majesty’s Commander ain’t in doubt.”

“Has Idrys talked to you? Can you say?”

“Oh, I’ll say, m’lord. Ye’re my lord, an’ the Lord Commander don’t expect otherwise when he talks to me, as I confess he did, before we left Guelemara.”

“What did he say?”

“Oh, reasonable things. Sayin’ I should have a care, an’ not let ye do anything rash, an’ to watch your back, m’lord. The Lord Commander wishes ye better ’n ye might think. Ye may be what ye are, but ye ain’t Lord Ryssand, an’ ye ain’t ever askedfor Amefel: it was His Majesty give it to ye, wi’ His blessing an’ His Holiness’s blessing to boot, so, aye, His Majesty was the one who made the Holy Father willin’. It weren’t the other way around. And ye can rest a’ nights knowin’ His Majesty knows what ye are, an’ still stands by ye, ’gainst Ryssand an’ the Quinalt and all of ’em.”

The low music of Uwen’s voice was sweet to him, stilling fears, allaying anxieties and doubts, and telling him things he longed with all his heart to believe.

“You don’t fear me, Uwen.”

“Ye keep askin’, an’ it’s the same answer, m’lord. Ye should have answered master Emuin a wee bit softer, but ’e understands, same as me, it’s a man’s weight ye carry now, an’ a burdensome weight it is: small wonder if ye feel it. Yet ye should answer him softer.”

“I know. I repent of it. I repented the moment I’d done it.”

“M’lord, I ain’t findin’ fault.”

“No. Fool. Foolis what Idrys would say. AndMauryl. Auld Syes frightened Emuin. And yet, yet she only warns, by all I know. What wizards do… that’s another question.”

“It’s above me, m’lord. Far above me… what wizards do.”

“What Ido, what Mauryl’s done, what Emuin’s done… all these things… tie one to the other. Cevulirn didn’t come because Auld Syes wished it. And who raised the storm, Uwen? Who raised the storm?”

“It damn sure weren’t natural, m’lord. An’ whatever happened at that place, it ain’t what it was when we rode in. That great tree uprooted… like whatever were there, was all done, old as it was: ’at was what I thought of. It was old, an’ it was all done and broke.”

“That it was.” He saw in memory the ancient tree, its roots ripped from shadow to light, out of whatever secret places they had grown, deep in the earth, under it, among the old stones. Shadows might well have broken out. They might have followed Auld Syes, or her daughter. That, too, Emuin must have seen, as he had seen it.

He shivered, barefoot on the warm stones, beset by the draft in the room. The dragons loomed above them, and cast fire-shadow of dragons on the ceiling, all points and coils, enveloping all they did.