“This is not that place.”

“Ye’re Sihhë an’ you’re a lord, an’ ye must say that’s uncommon in Ylesuin, m’lord.”

“Duke of Amefel, Cefwyn’s friend, and Her Grace’s. Mauryl’s heir. Emuin’s, someday. That’s enough.”

“Ye should say so often enough the Elwynim hear it,” Uwen said, “beggin’ pardon, m’lord, but I’d be damn careful to say so, because the Elwynim’s apt to get notions.”

The people who on festive days called him Lord Sihhë in the streets saw nothing unusual in his coming and going on this day, and lacking the signs of an official procession, they only paused in their business and bowed as he passed.

A handful of children ran along beside, untrustable and noisy, at which Petelly also looked askance. Such were the hazards of Henas’amef. It had assumed a beloved, homelike character, even its obstacles and hazards: he loved it, he decided, and the men in the stable threatened that love… threatened him as much as they helped Her Grace.

He had to make them understand that. They wanted from him what he could not give, and wanted to give him what was not his to hold… what he had never held. Thiswas his Place in the world, his, Crissand’s, the two of them, as Barrakkêth had valued Crissand’s remotest kinsman, long, long ago—so he fancied, yet remembered nothing, saw nothing further Unfold. Three riders from the north could threaten his peace this winter, and ride in on the wings of storm, but he drew a deep breath and willed his land quiet, and his visitors safe, and the war far from the people he battered with rain and wind—far gentler enemies than otherwise threatened them.

Deep let the snow lie on Ilefínian, deepest there, and give no relief to the enemy; and a blessing of wind on the south, drying the puddles, drying the fields. Let the river empty out the flood, and give easy passage to Olmern’s boats, and let them come to feed the hungry and to provision the defense of Amefel: thatwas his business, and he found in all he saw that he had not done badly.

So he wished. And when he reached the citadel again, and his own apartments, he gathered up his maps, he called in Crissand, and sent also to Azant, as the lords nearest to hand.

“We have guests,” he began, in the intimacy of what was, at other hours, his dining table. “We have guests in the downhill stables and others at Althalen. An Elwynim company escaped, with its weapons, and swears to our service.”

What the men had wished to swear to him, and what they might have sworn in their hearts, he did not say, nor did Uwen. By now he was sure the men were sleeping, and likely to remain asleep for hours.

In all of it since his return he was aware of Paisi slipping about, and running here and there for master Emuin, and by now he was aware that master Emuin was listening to all that happened.

It seemed superfluous to mount the stairs to master Emuin’s chamber, but when he had told Crissand and Azant all he knew, he took that belated course, quietly, even meekly.

“Well, well, well,” Emuin said when Tristen shut the door at his back and faced him, “and what have we done today, young lord?”

“I’ve settled Althalen with a village and had men swear to me as the King To Come.” He flung all of it out, the bald truth, and felt oddly abashed. He feared in the matter of inviting the Elwynim there was very much more than he had yet accounted of, and that he had been very much the fool Emuin called him. Done was done, yet not as widely or as publicly as might have been… or might yet be. He was at least forewarned.

“Well, well.” Emuin was seated at his table, charts spread far and wide and weighted with dubious small pots and a teacup. “And you say you’re distressed, young lord? But are you quite surprised?”

“I wish nothingto Cefwyn’s harm. And what shall I do?” His voice sank, so difficult was it suddenly to utter. “I find myself afraid, sir. The Elwynim are in the stable, with men who’ve sworn to me not to talk. But they said it, all the same. And they will say it, and the lords of the south will come here, and what will happen then? This army is Cefwyn’s army. Elwynor is Her Grace’s, not mine.”

Emuin rose from his table and turned his back, setting his face toward the window shutters. Paisi was out and about somewhere, for which Tristen was thankful: he could at least speak without another witness.

“Cefwyn knows,” Emuin said in a voice as quiet. “So did his father, for that matter.”

“Ináreddrin? About me?”

“Cefwyn wrote to him this summer saying he had found the Elwynim King To Come. Saying also he’d bound you by an oath of fealty—underhanded, since at the time you had no notion what you are, and presumptuous in the king’s way of thinking, his son and heir taking oaths from…” Emuin gave a long breath. “From the heir of the Sihhë. And directly after, Ináreddrin rode south in a fair frothing rage of suspicion… which sent him into the Aswydds’ ambush, failing a little of delivering allthe Marhanens to one battlefield. Therewas folly, if you wish an example of royal extravagance. He could have sent someone. Sending subordinates would have changed everything, a fact I’ve urged on Cefwyn most vehemently. And Ináreddrin died for that extravagance of passion.”

He heard it all in alarm. And one thing came clear to him. “Cefwyn knew.”

“Oh, no doubt.”

“He knew the prophecy when he gave me Althalen.”

“Oh, aye, indeed he did. For that matter, young lord, I thought long and hard on what he’d done. But do it he must, perhaps, one way or another, and chose the easiest course, with no blow struck.”

“I’d not strike any blow at him. Ever.”

“Of course not. You call him your friend. So now we may wrestle with prophecies, and wizardry. He’s your friend, and therefore has avoided the worst pitfalls. He knew from the first he laid eyes on you that he saw something uncommon in you, and yet he liked you well, and he made you his friend on myadvice. That wasmy advice to him, and it served him very well.”

He was struck to the heart. “I’m glad you gave it, sir. But only on your advice?”

Emuin shook his head. “No, not only on my advice. He does love you. That’s the truth of it, as you love him.”

The fear was no less. “What should I do? And do not you give me a glib answer this time, sir. Should I take horse and ride back to Ynefel and face his enemies? Perhaps…” The thought had come back to him, as he had thought this fall, that perhaps Mauryl had set a limit to his Summoning and Shaping, and that there was no time for him beyond this year, or some night this spring. “If Mauryl’s spell vanishes with some midnight this spring, that would solve it all, would it not? Will I vanish, with it? And should I?”

“I don’t know,” Emuin said. “As to wizardry, I see no reason the spell should end.”

“I do. I see very many reasons, if Mauryl had any care for the Marhanen.”

Emuin looked at him with the arch of a white brow. “Care for the Marhanen? None that Iknow.”

That gave him no cheer at all. It had begun as a remarkable day, and the day came down to dark in one frightening admission after another.

“Was Mauryl their enemy? What was in those letters to the Aswydds? This is where you lived, was it not? What was in the letters?”

“Ah. A good question.”

“Then answer it!”

“Mauryl used the Marhanens to bring down the Sihhë. They were not friends, but they saw the use in each other… as Selwyn Marhanen exempted two wizards from the Quinalt ban. I was one.”

“And Mauryl the other. What of the others who helped him at Althalen?”

“Dead. Three there, others over the years. One in Elwynor.”

“In Elwynor!”

“Dead, I say. An Aswydd. Taryn was his name. But if he were alive, I’d know it.”

“How can you not have told me this?”

“Perhaps because it doesn’t matter. Taryn Aswydd is irrelevant to you. The others—”