So he persuaded himself that Cefwyn did not will him to be miserable.

Cefwyn had no wish at all but to give him fine clothes and to see him take his place among skilled and competent men.

And he thought he had done, last night, everything they wanted of him.

Except—he had not at all liked the undertones of anger; or Heryn’s cold defiance of Cefwyn. He had been set aback by Sovrag’s roughness, and by Cevulirn’s coldness. He was not accustomed to meet such contrary behavior. He saw no one to call them to task—except Cefwyn. Or perhaps the King, whom he had never met.

He did not think Cefwyn had been entirely happy when he left the hall. He did not think the evening had been successful in all regards. He knew that Cefwyn did not like Heryn, and he wondered why Cefwyn had asked him there, or why Heryn had been so provocative of Cefwyn’s anger. There were a good many things about the gathering he did not understand, and he hoped that he had, at least for his own part, done what Cefwyn wished.

Defend Cefwyn. Perhaps he should objected as he had. He thought that he have spoken when Heryn had might have been remiss in that.

But he had not been certain at the first that Heryn was doing anything amiss. He was always slow to understand such things.

He stood still gazing off into the distance while Uwen was offering him his shirt, and he realized it and pulled it on.

“I don’t like the black,” he said, regarding what Uwen laid out for him on the bed.

Uwen shrugged helplessly. Uwen had a black surcoat that bore the Sihhé! arms minuscule in silver. Gray mail was under it, and the old, worn dagger was at Uwen’s belt. Uwen’s person was, if not as immaculate as last night, passably so this morning; his scarred face was close-shaven, his gray hair was clipped and combed.

That transformation he had not expected to last, and he knew Uwen was not comfortable or happy in the new finery. So he accepted the offered clothing—he was ordered to wear his mail shirt constantly, another misery that seemed excessive, particularly since he had no permission to leave his apartment. He sat down to pull on his boots, stopped with one on, and stared into the distance, thinking on Ynefel and his own room, and wondering what had become of the pigeons, and where Owl hunted now, and whether, if he went to that river shore, and the bridge, he could find Owl.

The other boot. Uwen stood waiting. He smelled food. It came unwelcome, arriving with an opening and closing of doors and a clatter of servants in the anteroom.

He thought despondently of sending a direct appeal to Cefwyn, asking to be allowed at least to walk about and see these newcomer lords.

Perhaps they did interesting and lively things.

Perhaps there was someone of the many people who had come in with them who would talk to him.

But he supposed that was exactly what Cefwyn wished him not to do.

Olmern, that name was new to him. But Toj Embrel, Imor, they were Names fraught with curious import in his mind. He recalled the face of the lord of Toj Embrel, the Duke of Ivanor, and wondered if he liked the Duke of Imor—he suspected not, but he had no grounds for that opinion, except Umanon’s generally frowning countenance and disdainful expression.

And the men that Cefwyn had chained outside his door: that also had come with these strangers, this unaccustomed touch of cruelty in Cefwyn, an image which frightened him, and had haunted him to bed last night. He wondered if the men were still standing their post in the hall.

“M’lord, are ye well?”

He looked up at Uwen’s anxious face. “Well enough.” He rose and let Uwen help him on with the coat, the one from last night, with the Tower and the Star on it. Uwen said they would take off the sleeve and the velvet pauldron with the arms, but they had no plain sleeve ready yet.

He cared nothing for whether or not his sleeve had the Sihhé arms.

It mattered nothing to him what it did and did not bear. He belted it; he slipped into this belt the silver-hilted dagger that had arrived with the clothing. He stood a moment looking toward the window, until he realized Uwen was still waiting, and that Uwen wanted his own breakfast.

“Have them serve,” he said, weighted with mail, smothered in velvet.

He wanted most to go outside and into cool air—perhaps down to archive. They might permit that.

“Yes, m’lord,” Uwen said solemnly. And winked. “And if ye eat your breakfast proper, His Highness said ye could fly free of tutors and tailors the while. That the garden was safe, and they’ve led Gery up from the pasture. Thought ye might wish to ride down to the east stables, outside the walls. If ye eat your breakfast, m’lord.”

“Do they promise?” he said. He had gotten used to they. His heart had leapt up, all the same.

“Sure as a holy oath,” Uwen said. “You come sit down to breakfast and drink your tea, m’lord. None of this eating standing up like a horse.”

The gate bells pealed out. It was far from noon. Such off-hours ringing had previously marked strangers’ arrivals.

“I thought all the lords were here,” he said.

“I thought they was,” Uwen said. “But you have your breakfast. No runnin’ off. I have my orders.”

He dutifully sat down and let the servants serve him. “Sit down,” he wished Uwen, too, and Uwen did, gingerly, and not truly comfortable with the notion.

He had morning tea, he had eggs and fresh rolls and honey. He did not, as Annas had taught him to be careful, spill a drop. But his thoughts were on the bell, as well as the stables, and seeing if he could find the pigeons later today. He slipped a roll into a napkin, and thought to go down to the garden after he came in from his ride.

But then came the Zeide bell itself, that announced arrivals at the fortress gates. “I’ve finished,” he announced, and went to the window to watch that little space that he could see of the aisle toward the stables, just between the west tower and the stable wall.

He heard the clatter of horses on the cobbles, excited, reckoning when they should pass, that he not blink and miss the foremost. Grooms were running, flinging open the gate. There were well-dressed men, too, from the hall.

“Ain’t no patrol, m’lord,” Uwen murmured. “They don’t make no commotion for that. More visitors is coming.”

He waited, and just when he thought they would, there was a flash of riders passing the gap, red banners flying.

“Guelen,” Uwen exclaimed. “Good me gods, they be Guelen riders coming in, and under the Dragon. ’At’s the King’s men.”  “From Guelemara?” Tristen asked.

“Aye,” Uwen said. “Have to be, someone of the King’s own household at the least.”  “Emuin.”

“It might well be.”

Tristen turned in haste from the window, and hurried for the door.

“Lad!” Uwen called after him.

But he was past the servants taking away the breakfast dishes, past the startled door guards with such speed that the two who were duty-bound to follow him were hardly quicker than Uwen to overtake him. He raced down the marble stairs as nimbly as he had run the wooden steps of Ynefel, startling every sentry along the lower hall, but only those at the outer steps moved to bar his way.

“Let me through!” he said, and Uwen and his own guards overtook him just then.

“Let be,” Uwen said to the guards, who gave way in confusion, and while Uwen was negotiating himself and the two house guards past the door guards in different colors, Tristen was down the steps.

It was an astonishing commotion in the yard, the red banners, the fine horses, and the finely dressed men he had not had leave to be down in the yard when the other lords were arriving. He was overwhelmed with the color and the movement, and looked for familiar faces, for soldiers he might recognize, most of all for Emuin.

—Emuin, be thought, reaching for him in that gray space.