Men outside the spider-tent gathered in small sad knots, angers subdued in uncertainty as cloud rolled in above the brush and the ruins, taking even the starlight. The night had turned cold. His cloak was in the tent. He worked chilled hands, and could not feel his own fingers; but the velvet-covered mail pressing the damp padding and shirt against his body were some protection, so long as the wind stayed still. He was as weary as if he had walked all the distance he had traveled in the gray space, and as if he had grappled with substance, not Shadow.

He did not know what to do, except to wait. And that had its own dangers.

Then, the cap on all their discomfort, a cold mist began to fall. Men shifted off the stones in the midst of camp and clustered by a taller section of the ruined wall, looking at him or toward the tent and talking together in words he could not quite hear. They had come ill-prepared for anyone’s comfort but the old man’s, he thought. There should have been more tents. He had the feeling, he knew not where he had gotten it—perhaps from the old man—that they had been encamped here for some time, and he wondered what had already befallen them, whether they had been escaping something as he had, in his own lack of preparation; he wondered how they had lived, and thought that Emwy village might have helped them with some things—but Emwy was burned, now.

Things had surely changed for the worse for them with that. He wondered whether the men who attacked the King had known they were here, or what it had meant to them; and he wondered whether the men Idrys had out had simply missed this place, being afraid of it as men were, or whether the Regent, himself a wizard, had sent searchers astray.

But there were no answers in chance things he overheard, only curses of the weather and from a few, talk of whether they might go home now.

No, one said shortly. It seemed they might die. Or something dire would happen.

At last two men came to say the lady had sent for him. He rose from his place on the wall and went with them, trailed by a draggle of unhappy and suspicious men as far as the door.

He ducked his head and went inside, where the lady sat. Ninévrisé wore a coat of mail which compressed her slender shape. She wore the Regent’s crown, at least he supposed it was the same thin band holding her dark cloud of hair. Armed men stood beside her, among them, Lord Tasien.

At the other side of the tent, beyond a wall, the old man lay still and pale, with lamps at his head and his feet.

“They say you killed my father,” Ninévrisé said. “They say you bewitched him.”

“No, lady, no such thing. I tried to help him.”

“Why? Why should you help him?”

“He seemed kind,” he said, in all honesty, but it seemed not at all the answer that Ninévrisé had expected. Overcome, she clenched her fist and rested her mouth against it, her elbow on the chair arm and her face averted, while tears spilled down her face.

“I believe nothing that the Guelen prince sent,” said the man beside Tasien. “We should go back across the river tomorrow and seek a peace with the rebels as best we can.”

“I shall die before I go to Aséyneddin.” Ninévrisé brought her arm down hard against the chair and hardened her face, tear-damp as it was, as she looked back to Tristen. “You, sir! Are you another prospective bridegroom? Why should my father listen to you? Why, except that lie the Marhanen bade you wear, should my father hail you king? The Sihhé arms, wrapped in a Marhanen cloak? Give me grace, the gods did not make me so gullible! Someone knows where our camp is. Someone told you.”

“The cloak is Cefwyn’s, my lady. I was cold. He lent it to me, that’s all.”

“Lent it to you. And sent you to my father? The Tower and Star are outlawed, sir, by the Marhanen. And how dare you?”  “Cefwyn didn’t send me.”

“Do not play the simpleton, sir. Whence the arms you wear? Is this Prince Cefwyn’s joke? Does he think us fools? Or what does he wish?”

“Cefwyn said I should be lord of Ynefel, because it was in his grant to give.”

“Ynefel? In the prince of Ylesuin’s grant?”

“The King of Ylesuin, lady, since his father died. But he was prince when he gave it.”

“Inereddrin is dead?” The lady and her men alike seemed shaken.

“Near Emwy village.” These were not the men that had attacked Cefwyn’s father, he was certain of it. The Regent certainly would not have done it; and he grew convinced they would not have done it without the old man knowing. “A day ago. I think it was a day. The time is so muddled ...”

“How did he die?”

“Men killed him before any of us could reach him. Cefwyn believes

37O that they were Elwynim. But he killed Lord Heryn for it. Heryn sent the message that brought the King there.”

He had not wanted to say the last: he thought that it might make trouble. But it seemed best to deal in the truth throughout, and not to have it come out later.

“Aséyneddin,” one man said.

“Or Caswyddian,” Tasien said, and Tristen, hearing that name, felt a coldness that might have been a breath of wind from the open vent.

Ninévrisé seemed to feel it, too. She folded her arms and frowned.

“You may tell King Cefwyn, from me,” Ninévrisé said, “granted we send you to him at all, that we had no knowledge of Caswyddian’s act.

The Earl of Lower Saissonnd has dealt with Lord Heryn in the past.

Heryn conspired with him and with Aséyneddin alike—and they drove my father out of Elwynor.”

That was not entirely so. The old man had said it otherwise; but he ignored that.

“I think you should go to Cefwyn,” he said. “I think he would wish to speak with you at length.”

“To speak with us? He killed our messengers!”

“No.” He knew he had no perfect knowledge of doings in Henas’amef, but he did not believe that. “No. He did no such thing.” He was not entirely clear on his reasons for believing so. And not everything fit in words, where it regarded the gray place, but something he did know, one certainty that the lady needed to know in regard to Cefwyn and the Regent: “Your father came here hoping to talk to him. But your father could not leave this place.”  That also disturbed them.

“My father is dead of this place,” Ninévrisé said. “He was in ill health. This ill-omened place—the running and the hiding.., he was not able. I grant, it took no wizardry to kill him. I know that. But your being here—brought it sooner. And I have held dear every hour of his life. I will have you to know that. Do not try my patience.”

“But it was wizardry that killed him, lady. He knew it would.

Hasufin has Ynefel. He has this place. He tried to harm your father. He was Mauryl’s enemy, he is mine and he is Cefwyn’s, and he was your father’s enemy all his life. That’s why your father came here, to be here, to remain and hold Hasufin, not to escape any of your lords.”

Ninévrisé was silent a moment. Her face had grown suddenly frightened and still. Then: “Tasien, leave me with him.”

“No, my lady,” Tasien said. “Not for any asking.”

Ninévrisé bit her lip, defied by her own men. Her face showed as pale as that ivory portrait.

“Then, sir, what do you know of my father’s dealings?” she asked.

“Go on. Tell me more wonders my father told you.”

“That he dealt with Hasufin—for which he was very sorry. —That he visited Mauryl in a dream.”

“Leave me, I say!” Ninévrisé’s fist struck the chair arm, and she cast a baleful look about her.  “My lady, —”

“I say go out! Go stand by the door. I have private questions to ask him.”

“Such as we could hear, we have already heard,” Tasien said. “Do we credit it, my lady, as the truth? Do you know anything of your lord father’s dealings with Mauryl?”

“It is true,” Ninévrisé said, and her voice trembled. “My father told his dream to me, but to none other, that I know, except my mother. And this Hasufin—where did you learn that name?”