“He discharged the grayfrock brothers,” Idrys said. “Some time ago.”

“All of them?”

“Both of them. There were two, my lord king. He faulted their clumsiness with inkpots.”

He had not known. He was appalled. “Does no one attend him?”

“The Lord Warden has seen him at least twice in a sennight, and sent to him daily.”

“Tristen has seen him.” Tristen would never neglect the old man, so, there, he had not neglected his old friend and tutor: Tristenhad been seeing to him.

“The Lord Warden’s servants have seen to his linens and his meals,” Idrys said. “But master grayrobe is less among us mortals than among the stars lately, so it seems. I do think he might do with more blankets in that tower.”

That Idrysevinced concern was troubling. Idrys, the darker eminence of his household, had been his father’s man, then his, a man who would stick at very little, and who was not restrained by any pity or scruples from the deeds a prince had to do. He supposed that in some sense even Emuin had been his father’s man, but that was so long ago it scarcely signified. Master Emuin had been histutor and his brother’s: Emuin was his most trusted councillor of the last few years, a man all in grays: gray of purposes, of arguments, grays of the Teranthine order, which cloaked Emuin’s confessed unorthodoxy. There was never a question in which Emuin could not deliver a perhaps or an if, never an issue in which Idrys could not find a counterinterest and a suspect motive.

Master grayrobe and master crow, Teranthine cleric and Guard captain, the guides of his misspent youth. Each, Annas making the third leg of a stable tripod, had presided in his separate authority over a young, notoriously wastrel prince: but now that he had been crowned king, and especially since he was facing a war in Elwynor, taking census of his resources and arranging the movement of men, why, he supposed he had been far more in Idrys’ company than in Emuin’s the last month. He had not known his old teacher was living in need of blankets.

The man counseled the king of Ylesuin, for the gods’ sake. How could he not find two more servants? Or browbeat the palace staff into service? Or at least complain. Why had Annas not told him?

His pen had dried out, and he discovered he had spotted his fingers with ink. The staff had by now found his second-favorite doublet immaculate and acceptable… he had surprised the pages by his choice of the shabby favorite, when so much lately had been the court finery. But tonight he wanted his comfortable clothing, not even the lightest hint of martial defense— no leather coat, no bezaint shirt, none of the weight that habitually bore on his shoulders, his ribs, his stomach, and his disposition. The few souls he had called to his table were, among all their other virtues, the friends of his heart, the friends on whom he relied.

He had included his brother Efanor in that number, after anguished thought, after wavering yea and nay for an hour, and finally deciding that, yes, he must. He simply must. Efanor had little in common with his friends and companions. Efanor, Duke of Guelessar now, since Efanor had become next in line for the throne, had not shared in those difficult and dangerous days in Amefel, except the very last, and Efanor’s piety was a discouragement to any levity, even in a lady’s company. But Efanor’s feelings would be extremely hurt if he left him out. He most earnestly did not want to hurt his brother, and he had invited him, but he dearly, fondly, foolishly hoped Efanor would not pray over supper.

In the welter of attempts to sway his judgment, he needed the assurance that he could still reach his true friends. A new king in Guelemara, attempting to maintain his own will against the entrenched powers of the northern baronies, had very many concerns in the establishment of his household, the management of which was Annas’ job; and had vital interests in finding out things some barons might have hoped to hide from a less active successor—that was Idrys’ purview. And in searching the stars, his faithful counselor Emuin was seeking out the fortunes of his reign: he saw that as needful, considering what they had faced at Lewenbrook, a practice in which he feared that the Holy Father—and his own extravagantly pious brother—would find some dangerously righteous objection.

But he knew how to defend Annas and Idrys and Emuin, who had long records of service. Since the barons could not prevail there, it was Ninévrisë about whom the objections circled. Ninévrisë, and, gods help him, Tristen, Warden of Ynefel. The last Lord Warden had not left his tower. Tristen had. That there was reason he should have done so, that Ynefel stood in ruins, none of these considerations sufficed to deter religious objection. The Quinaltine had no wish to hear of wizardry on the battlefield, no wish to know that sorcery had confronted the army and that wizardry, not piety, had turned the attack—and neither had the northern barons, notably absent from the field, any wish to hear about Lewenbrook.

He had most urgently to marry, remove any potential leverage priests might have on him, and then to hell with the religious quibbles: he would do as he pleased then and be damned to the barons. He had to produce a victory, make heroes, create precedents that would settle all this tangle, bribe a few key barons with grants that would make them betray their brother lords, and most of all he had to do the deed quickly, trample over custom, shorten the mourning for his royal father no matter how Efanor frowned and cast him anguished looks. He had to marry soon and very suddenly to dash the hopes of Ylesuin’s assorted nobles and eligible daughters: his marriage would place all hope of a daughter crowned out of reach of any of the baronies… most notably out of me reach of me duke of Murandys, Prichwarrin, who had been counting heavily on snaring him into a familial bond diat would make Prichwarrin ultimately kinsman to kings.

But hot-tempered, self-assured Luriel, Prichwarrin’s lovely niece, had abandoned her prince when he was governing Amefel, a province rife with assassins and on the edge of rebellion. She had gone to Henas’amef when her prince was made viceroy in Amefel quite clearly expecting to reign like a queen consort and had been so certain of him that she had set herself in his bed to win his undying love. But she had grown bored with the lack of festivities in that rustic province, and because there were no more suitable, more beautiful, more favored ducal daughters in all Ylesuin, why, she had no fear of his looking elsewhere and she had flounced out of Amefel. Her uncle Prichwarrin, after all, was the most important baron, the most necessary ally to a king-to-be, and her position seemed secure.

She had not considered outsidethe bounds of Ylesuin, however, since no Guelen lady had ever had to consider outside the bounds of Ylesuin for a rival— and now Luriel languished in Aslaney, with no marriage, no husband, and no prospects. Luriel, greedy Luriel, so sure she was clever, had certainly suffered the most pitifully in his plans, and was certainly a grievous disappointment to her uncle… who doubtless clung to hope and prayed for an outbreak of sorcery, treachery, even a breath of scandal or a trip on the stairs that might at the last moment prevent the king marrying the foreign Regent.

Lately Cefwyn felt sorry for Luriel, truth be told, and took her plight as something he would have to deal with in some honorable way… a title, a handsome husband. He had one in mind. Meanwhile marry he would, and marry Ninévrisë he would, and in fifteen days he would have made clear to all of Elwynor that the Regent of Elwynor was not his prisoner, but the ally of a Marhanen king with a potent army, a king withthe Quinalt’s blessing, a king able to fight the rebels (all this a powerful blow to rebel claims) before the situation across the river grew more dire, and able to set Ninévrisë on her throne and march away without claiming Elwynor as his own.