“He knows,” the Regent exclaimed. Breath was coming hard for him.

His eyes wandered from one to the other face hovering near him. “You see, he does know. He was there, just now, in my dream, —were you not, Lord of Ynefel? You drove Hasufin away!”

“I think it was quite the other way, sir. He fled when you appeared.”

“He fled you, young King! I dared tread further then, to find you. Oh, gods, I’ve found you, Majesty. I have found you!”

“Take him out!” the daughter cried, and men seized him by the arms to hasten him away, but the old man cried out, “No!” and motion ceased.

“I am Uleman Syrillas,” the old man said. “I am Regent till I die. And I have waited—I have waited all my life for my King. Are you not that King, Lord Sihhé?”

“Mauryl never said I was a king. Mauryl said I was not all he wanted.” He saw the dark closing about the man and tried to see only the gray light. He fought for it, desperately insisting to see it. “But when Hasufin came Mauryl knew I couldn’t help him. He said I was to leave Ynefel and follow the Road. And the Road led me to Cefwyn. But I think it led me here, too.”

“Mauryl called him,” the old man said. It was scarcely a voice.

“Ninévrisé, daughter, do you hear? Mauryl called him, and he has the Sihhé gift. I see him clearly in the light. I see him. He shines—look, look at him! He shines!”

“Father,” the woman said. “Father? —Tasien, please, please, take him out! He’s making him worse! He dreams. He doesn’t know—”

He wished to take the old man’s hand. He thought he could hold him.

The old man was all in shadow now. He reached, and the guards held him by force.

“He’s fading,” the one man said, looking at the Regent’s face; and the archer at Tristen’s ear said in a low voice, “Just you come along, Lord Sihhé or whatever you are, sir. You come along gently, now. We’ll find you somewhere to sit, something to drink, anything you like.”

They were afraid of him, and of their lord’s illness, and had no choice but to do what the lady said.

The lady. Ninévrisé Cefwyn’s offered bride.

“You granted her Amefel?”

It was very rare that one took Idrys entirely aback.

Cefwyn shook his head and started down the steps to the lower hall, Idrys in close accompaniment, with the other guards. “I see no other course. The lesser lords are all a tangle of Amefin allegiances we do not understand, of blood-relations, disputes of inheritance, jealousies and feuds, one district against another. Worse than a united Amefel is one fragmenting under us in civil strife, with this business on the border. The lady, of course, well knows that point.”

“Why not add Amefel to the grant of Ynefel?” Idrys muttered as they went down the stairs, banquet-bound.

“I did consider that. But Tristen’s off chasing moonbeams and Orien asked so prettily.”

“You jest in both, I hope, Your Majesty.”

“What? That she asked politely? —A basilisk, seeing that woman, would seek thicker cover. But I have a sure hold on her. When she weds, her title in Ylesuin passes to her husband, whatever the Amefin hold to be the case. I swear if she crosses me once, I’ll give her one who’ll cut her throat if she crosses me or him. Sovrag, perhaps. There would be a match.”

“Take my advice and unsay this thing.”

“I am looking for any excuse, I confess it.”

They came down together into the lower corridor, and, by the back door, in among the lords gathering and milling about in the Ivory Hall.

The herald required attention, the lords bowed and swept a path before him, a storm going through a field, more rapidly than recent habit—it was his dour countenance, Cefwyn thought, and, facing the lords, he tried to better that expression. He took his chair at table, in a room that smelled of food and ale waiting to be served. He still found his appetite lacking, not alone by reason of the Aswyddim: the leg was swelling again, and he looked askance at the food as pages and cooks’ helpers carried in two of the four meat courses, braided breads, dark beer, southern wine, and strong ale. There would be six cheeses, favoring the southern provinces, summer cabbage and sausages, pickled apples, broad beans and buttered turnips, green herbs and peas and pickled eggs. He did not favor the delicate fare of the east and north. He had a peasant’s taste for turnips and cabbage and inflicted it on the court—the King could decree such things. The Amefin lords held out for partridge stuffed with raisins and apricots—which he had ordered to please them and Umanon, who tended to such luxury; Cevulirn particularly favored the pickled apples, and figs from the southern Isles; Pelumer had a fondness for the famed partridge pies, and Sovrag for ham and sausages: cook had searched out their several weaknesses, and was under orders to keep them content.

While Efanor and his Quinalt priest dined by choice on Llymaryn beef and the locally disdained mutton; and Duke Sulriggan of Llymaryn-who had ridden in this afternoon with said priest, two cousins, six men-at-arms, twenty-nine stable-bred horses for which they had no stalls, and a useless handful of servants and grooms who had already antagonized master Haman’s staff—claimed distempers gained of an excess of red meat and brought his own supplies, his own cook, his own pots. Doubtless Duke Sulriggan was surprised to find Efanor not in possession of the province, and Efanor’s brother not in disfavor, but King.

The priest and Prince Efanor had closeted themselves in the Quinalt shrine for three hours of prayers and gods knew what excesses of mourning. Sulriggan had attached himself to the affair and there had been some sharp words between the priest and the local prelate over some niggling purchase of oil in unblessed jars.

Sulriggan’s cook prepared separate fare for Sulriggan and his Llymarish attendants under a canvas in the courtyard: small wonder, that self-established exile, considering the ire of the spurned Amefin-bred cook. It was fear of poisons, he was certain, that underlay Sulriggan’s pretensions of a delicate stomach, but murder all the southern lords at once? Annas was there, supervising all details, his defense in the kitchens, far more gracious than Sulriggan. Sulriggan perhaps suspected him. And did the offended Amefin aspire to poison Sulriggan and his supercilious cook and his high-handed servants—the King could willingly turn a blind eye if they only warned him of the dish involved.

The partridge pies and the bread and cheese found instant favor. So did the dark beer and the ale and two sorts of wine.

Another arrival—the King set his chin on fist, and stared with basilisk coldness of his own.

Late—and dramatic—came Her red-haired Grace, Lady Orien, not considered in the culinary selections, but, then, her tastes were wide. Her coming, with the first course served, startled the barons, who went from the pleasantry of ale and men deep in masculine converse, to stark silence, to a lower murmur in the hall, an assessment, an account-taking, even among the Amefin lords present and the servants about the edges of the hall.

She wore dark green velvet, the Amefin color, and had a bit of funereal black knotted about her right shoulder, like a man; more, she had cut her red hair shoulder-length, like a man’s. That despoilment shocked him as nothing else Orien had done. And the mourning—which by tradition of Selwyn Marhanen no Marhanen King wore—was a direct and silent insult, worn into this hall, at this time, in Heryn’s cause.

There were two empty places, Heryn’s being one, and she went to it, an empty seat at Efanor’s left, the place of the host province in council, court and feast-hall. Her eyes should have been downcast: they were not.

She stared round at each of the lords in turn as if measuring them as she spread her skirts and took that place.

“Her Grace Orien Aswydd will swear fealty in her brother’s place,”