“Gettin’ horses across in this weather,” Uwen said in amazement. “A hard thing, that.”

“A raft and rope, sir, all we had. We crossed to Bryn, but the lord in Modeyneth said we should go to Althalen, and so I sent the company there under a sergeant. But we four came to pay our courtesies and ask…” The officer had taken to trembling, there exposed to the cold, and the others slid down from their horses and caught him up, themselves in no better case. “To ask your lordship for relief for Elwynor,” the man reprised with a fierce effort, “and to swear to your banner, because we ‘twill never swear to the likes of Tasmôrden.”

“So all of us,” another said. “Lord, men, and horses, numbering near sixty, of ten houses, all to your service.”

“Such houses as they are now,” said the third. “And our lands all cinders and ash.”

They were no common soldiers, by the sound of their speech: Tristen had learned that distinction, little attention he paid to it when men were as brave as these seemed. They were noble by their actions and by their deeds, and while armed Elwynim were the very presence he had wanted to keep away from Henas’amef, considering his duty as duke of Amefel, here were Ninévrisë’s men, at war with Tasmôrden, carrying their quarrel into his borders.

But here, too, were horses near to foundering and men who had camped or ridden through the storm he had raised. He felt keen remorse for their hardship.

“There’s food and shelter ahead,” Tristen said, “for you and your horses.”

“I’ll walk, by your leave,” the foremost said faintly. “I can’t get up again, and my horse can do with the relief.”

Indeed the man set out walking, wading knee-deep through the water, unsteady in his steps and leading his horse, and so the others walked, leading theirs.

So Tristen and Uwen rode on either side of them, escorting them all the way to the paddock lane, and the muddy track there.

“Ho!” Uwen called out as they came down the lane. “Boys for these horses, an’ quick about it! See to ’em and mind them legs! These horses has come through that storm an’ through flood!”

Boys appeared from sheds and shelters, and so, too, did Lusin and the rest, from the grooms’ shelter, near the wall.

The bedraggled Elwynim managed to walk that far, where Aswys and other senior grooms marshaled a warm place, dry blankets, and a cup of warmed wine apiece, even fresh bread and butter… at which the grimy-handed visitors could only stare in exhaustion and desire, too weary even to eat more than a few bites.

But Tristen, wrapped in a warm cloak and having dry boots, as these men did not, sat by the fire and listened, with Uwen, to the account of men whose news was as they feared, that Ilefínian had gone down in looting and confusion, and that very little of Elfharyn’s force had escaped the walls at all.

These men’s company, losing touch with any coherent resistance, had run from east of Ilefínian to the river, and escaped with their weapons and their horses, by great resourcefulness, expecting to live like bandits in the hills of Amefel and to get a message to Ninévrisë, to learn whether they might have refuge.

“But from the new lord in Bryn we heard different things,” said the foremost, whose name proved to be Aeself, a lieutenant, a nephew of Elfharyn’s line. “We heard in Modeyneth about the old wall and Your Grace and Mauryl Gestaurien, and so we came to offer all we have, ourselves and our weapons and our fortunes such as they are.”

All they had was very little, except weapons and exhausted horses, but not of little account was the courage and the persistence that had carried them this far, to a town that, before, had seen the heads of Elwynim messengers adorn its gates.

“Sleep,” Tristen said, for he judged these men had had no rest last night. “Come to the Zeide when you have the strength, and borrow horses for the ride up. You’ll show me on maps where you crossed.” It was in his mind that what these men had managed, more might do, and not only Ninévrisë’s men. They lacked sure knowledge of such crossings as scattered intruders knew to use.

To Uwen he said: “Find two riders to carry a message to Althalen. Tell them their men came here safely.”

“Better send more grain from here,” Uwen said. “Wi’ horses to feed, they’ll need it, and it’s quicker than sendin’ to Modeyneth.”

“Do so,” he said.

“Tents,” said Uwen. “And axes and good rope; that too. ’At’s a whole damn village they’ve become, m’lord, and now there’s a company.”

No longer the domain of mice and owls, Tristen thought, and as he was taking his leave, Aeself, falling to his knees, insisted to swear, and gave his oath to him.

“Take my pledge,” Aeself said, “to be your man in life and death, and gods save Elwynor.”

“So with the rest of us,” said Uillasan, oldest of the three, and went to his knees and took his hand and swore.

But Angin, the last and youngest, said, “To the hope of the King To Come… for I’ve seen him.”

That brought sharp looks, even from Uwen.

“I’d have a care there, m’lord,” Uwen said for Tristen’s ear alone, “and not take that oath from him. It ain’t wise, an’ it ain’t loyal.”

“What Uwen says I regard,” he said to the young man.

“All of us think it,” said Aeself, “and damn us if you like, the boy’s said it for good and all, my lord. You areour lord.”

He saw the distressed looks of the Guelenmen who guarded him, and Uwen’s look, and the shocked faces of the grooms, Guelen and Amefin together.

“I was Shaped, not born,” he said bluntly, “and some say I’m Sihhë and some say I was Barrakkêth. That may be. But I say my name is Tristen, and while I say so, not even a wizard’s wish can turn me to any other creature.”

“What my lord wills,” Aeself said, and so the others said, in exhausted voices, wrung thin by cold and hardship, men sinking to the last of their strength.

“Take care of them,” Tristen said to the grooms, for it seemed added hardship to send them to horseback again, and up the hill, when they were only now warm and eased of sodden armor: here in the grooms’ quarters were men skilled in medicines and armed with salves and every comfort for men or horses. “Send them up the hill when they’re well and able.—Are our horses ready?”

“That they are, m’lord.”

“An’ as for what they said and what they wished to swear,” Uwen said gruffly, “an’ all ye witnessed, the wine come over ’em, is all. Talk, an’ ye’ll have me to deal with.”

“The wine came over ’em,” Aswys said. “’At were the case. Isn’t a man here heard aught else or remembers it, or I’llskin ’im, m’lord.”

Heated wine might have brought out the oaths, so Tristen said to himself, and held in his heart what Uleman had said of him, and what Auld Syes had said, and now these men.

But the Elwynim might hail him king or High King or whatever else they wished: things were true in a wizard’s way of speaking that were not true to ordinary Men, and the converse, as well. He had been Barrakkêth and he was not, while he was Tristen, Mauryl’s heir, and that was what he chose. Sihhë-lord Barrakkêth might have been, and lord of all the lands the High Kings ruled, but he had never been king, in the sense the later lords had been.

“If it were true I was Barrakkêth,” he said to Uwen and Lusin and the rest on the way back to the gates, while they were still outside the streets of the town and alone, “if that were true, still, Barrakkêth was never King. What the Elwynim think doesn’t change that.”

“Wine an’ truth,” Uwen said, riding bay Gia beside Tristen, on honest, shaggy Petelly. “They meant it wi’ their hearts, an’ think they’ve sworn. So thank the gods His Reverence isin Guelessar. Their lord dead, one an’ the other, an’ the Elwynim lookin’ for their King To Come for the last sixty years, so who’s to say? That old prophecy’s been rattlin’ about for sixty years lookin’ for a likely place.”