“The damned northern orthodoxy.”

“The northern orthodoxy, indeed. I’ve warned Lord Tristen. I warned him before he left, to make public gestures of favor to the Amefin Quinalt. More, I advised his advisers.”

“Well done in that.” The whole question of Tristen’s innocence wandering through the maze of Quinalt, Teranthine, and Bryalt ambitions in Amefel was enough to curdle milk. “I’d suspect Ryssand’s fingers are inside Amefel in more than Parsynan’s case. The Quinalt there I never did trust.”

“And Tristen is not utterly circumspect. I have also to report, unless something intervened, Parsynan’s baggage is still in Henas’amef, and the carts have gone to the river.”

“ My carts?”

“He sent all your carts to the river, whence reports may be more scant: he also sent my informant there, who could not, of course, protest the mission, except to dispatch a man to advise me about the orders. I assume they’ve gone.”

“And what does he think he’s doing?”

“Dispatching supply to the borders. He’s also declined to send home the Guelen Guard or Anwyll’s detachment of the Dragons. They are not delayed. He’s keptthem all, and it seems he’s reinforcing the river border. In all honesty, in my opinion, a service.”

Cefwyn heaved a heavy, a considerate sigh. “He’ll have my carts stranded in drifts, and then what will we do? But he doesn’t think of that.”

“Or he hopes to banish the snow. Conjure it from his path.”

He was unsure whether that was humor. “Reinforcing that border is no sin, I agree. Good for him, I say, carts and all. And he has no house guard but the Guelens in the garrison, and my troops. He’s not the mooncalf now. And regarding this mission to the river, pray, you never told me. I trust you told no one else.”

“At this moment, in Guelessar, Anwyll’s courier knows. But, of course, the Quinalt father in Amefel knows… which does add possibilities to the list of the knowledgeable.”

“Priests! Priests at every turn. I grow very weary of priests.”

“At least the Holy Father has remained constant to his best interests. But priests disaffected from Your Majesty will not go to the Holy Father, and I doubt ones alarmed by Tristen’s doings will go to him.”

“Where will they go?”

“Where indeed?”

“No wide guess, is it? I’ll tell you, master crow, the Holy Father fearsRyssand; so does Sulriggan.” He considered the alliances involved and heaved a sigh. “Damn him! —Why am I here, with all my friends exiled to the south, in favor of fools and grasping old men in the north whom I little love? Tell me that, crow.”

“Your grandfather weeded his garden severely from time to time. Your father was too complacent. I’ve no idea what you will be, my lord king, but if you prove complacent, I fear for us.”

He knew precisely what Idrys counseled. “There’s Murandys, keystone of the entire effort in the spring, the staging point of our advance. Shall I remove him, pray, and have Luriellead my forces? Or young Panys, straight from his mother’s arms? I need these conniving old men, damn them. At least they’ve fought in the border war.”

“So has all the south.”

“Yet I rule here.”

“Move the capital.”

He gave a rueful, startled laugh. “You jest.”

“You say your power is in the south. Rule there.”

The Marhanen had no welcome in Henas’amef—to parade through its streets, perhaps. But to rule? “Not for living there,” he admitted. “Not possible.”

“Then rule here,” was Idrys’ succinct counsel, “and don’t look to do otherwise, my lord king.”

Idrys had a way of slipping past his guard with a telling argument. And therein he did. Rule here. Rule Ryssand. That was the point wherein Idrys thought he failed as a king. It stung.

Idrys meanwhile finished his cup and rose, unbidden. “I’ve business downstairs, my lord king. I beg your leave.”

“Go,” he said, but his stare was meanwhile at the white, wintry light, the frosted panes.

Rule, indeed. As if he did not. Rule here. As if he did not.

Was not Murandys in check, and Ryssand home, disabled? And had he not set the south firmly in order, with Cevulirn attending business and Tristen there, in charge.

Gods knew what Tristen would doin ruling Amefel, but he knew what things Tristen would notcountenance, one such being dishonesty in the taxes and the other being any hostile incursion into the territory he was set to guard. Any adventure of Elwynim across the river would turn out to Tasmôrden’s extreme regret, Cefwyn had every confidence. He had less in Tristen’s forbearance from magic, but at least it would be magic outside the witness of Guelenfolk; and by the time the rumors did get to common lips they would have the flavor of ordinary gossip, a little less credible by their remove from Guelen lands and ordinary sights and doings.

Idrys chided him, and advised him to harsh measures, but he had secured the southern frontier with two broad strokes, not an arrow expended. That was the very point of what he considered wise rule, that things happened quietly and without fuss. Was Idrys not the master of such strokes, and did Idrys decry his quiet management of the south, which had defied his father and ultimately killed him?

No. It was not the south where Idrys faulted him. It was the north where he had not covered himself with glory, and Idrys was right, at least in his observation. That Ryssand was home and out of mischief was thanks to Cevulirn’s sacrifice more than by his own cleverness; and by that stroke he might have been rid of Ryssand’s poisonous influence in court for the winter, but he had lost Cevulirn’s valuable presence, the last southern presence in his court, at least for the winter, and had a blood feud between two of his barons as a consequence. Luriel was holding Murandys in check and keeping him from uniting with Ryssand, but, gods, that was no stable situation, all teetering on the edge of Luriel’s whims, her uncle’s spite, and the cleverness of Panys’ young son.

Marry the baggage off in haste, he thought. An estate to Panys, a royal wedding present to dazzle Luriel and keep her happy. He had the house of Aysonel in Panys, royal lands his remote kin had held, fine land, a good, anciently maintained chase among the oldest oaks in the north. The Crown could ill afford to diminish its holdings, but the Crown had them precisely for gifts of state importance: Panys was sensible and loyal, at least in this generation… gods knew what Luriel’s example could make of their mutual offspring in the next.

But by the time Luriel’s descendants were old enough to commit their indiscretions, the Elwynim question would be settled, granted the gods’ goodwill.

And there was Panys’ older brother, who would inherit Panys itself, another sober, reasonable lad, gods save him and his sire from accidents and Ryssand’s ambition.

He supped down a cold remnant of tea, setting his thoughts on a second court wedding, as soon as practicable… and the couple not yet having presented themselves and their request.

“Call Annas,” he said to a passing page, and when his chamberlain appeared, even in advance of Ninévrisë’s venture forth on the day: “Strongly suggest to the son of Panys that I suggest discretion and haste. Midwinter. Midwinter would not be too soon.”

There was no way to have held the men silent on the sights they had seen, not with the presence of the lord of Ivanor to inspire close questions: so Uwen said, and so Tristen gathered of the things that echoed back to him; by noon of the bright, blue day after their ride it was certain in every tavern in Amefel that the men had seen a witch at Levey crossing in flashes of lightning and claps of winter thunder, that immediately after, ghostly trumpets had heralded Lord Ivanor and his party, who had left Toj Embrel only that hour… folly, but the heart of the matter was the same: the lord of Amefel had ridden out with the earl of Meiden and come back attended as well by Ivanor and his men; and on the way a witch had appeared to them, with portents as yet disputable.