Will you?”

“I would be very glad to.”

“Then—” Cefwyn gathered himself up, leaning on the table, and Tristen understood it was dismissal, perhaps business disposed of with that. But unaccountably Cefwyn embraced him, and held him at arms’ length and looked him close in the face. “My friend. Whatever happens, whatever you hear of me, whatever I hear of you, no one will ever make us distrust one another. You’ll take another oath, do you see, in a few days—but I shall not ask you this time to swear to obey me. Only tell me now you’ll take me into your confidence. Kings should not be surprised. Kings should never be surprised. That’s all I ask.”

“I have promised Uwen, too. But I might have to go.”

“Do you know that already? Damn it, what do you know?”

He didn’t know how to answer. Cefwyn reached toward him, toward his collar, and pulled at the chain he wore, of that amulet Cefwyn had given him.

“Does this,” Cefwyn asked, “—does this give you comfort?”

“That you gave it comforts me.”

“Does it protect you?”

“I haven’t felt so.” He had never looked for it to do so. “But I’ve never looked at it in the gray place.”

“The gray place.”

“Where Shadows live.”

“Tell me. You can tell me. What gods do you serve? Emuin’s?”

O0ds should, perhaps, be a Word. Men seemed to hold it so. But he found nothing to shape it for him. He reached for the chain and slid the amulet back within his collar. “I don’t know. I don’t know, Cefwyn.”

“And, with you, not knowing encompasses much, does it not? Can you say what the Elwynim are doing, up by Emwy?”

He shook his head. “But they will know that the lady is here. Aséyneddin listens to Hasufin. I am sure he does. He will dream it. He most likely knows.”

“Is he a wizard?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t met him.”

“I heed you,” Cefwyn said at last. “You are free. But I ask you, wait and ride with us. Will you? —We shall ride to Emwy and deal with the Elwynim rebels. If you learn anything, by whatever means, you will tell me. Promise me that.”  “I promise it.”

“And don’t keep me wondering where you are, or what you think. I am fond of you, damn you. I need you. I shall be sad all my life if you leave me.” Cefwyn shook at him a little. “I shall have to be a King. I’m obliged to. It’s a damned boring thing to be. —Join me tonight. Will you?”

It was a dismissal. But Cefwyn embraced him a second time, and with a fierceness that said he was welcome, and wanted, and would not be abandoned, and he held tightly to that embrace, his heart beating hard even while he asked himself was it only kind, what Cefwyn did, and did it hide what Cefwyn knew he would do.

There had been a time he would have been sure that Cefwyn would know what to do. There had been a time he had been sure that Cefwyn would protect him.

Now, if nothing else, it seemed quite the other way about. In the lord Regent he had lost someone who might have stood with him against Hasufin, had his Road led him there instead of here—so certainly so he had to ask himself whether he had indeed mistaken his way in the world; for he knew now with clearest sight that Emuin had the knowledge, but lacked the courage to begin a fight, and that Cefwyn, who did have all the courage anyone could ask, was helpless against this enemy as they all were helpless to stop Cefwyn’s pain, or turn aside the danger that was coming against him.

Mauryl might have helped Cefwyn. Mauryl could have worked a healing on him, and Cefwyn would not been in such unremitting pain as was beginning to mark his face.

But none of them, not Uleman, not Emuin, not Cefwyn, were what Mauryl had been. He himself knew reading and writing and horsemanship; he knew the use of a sword. He knew things about buildings that no longer were, like what he now knew was an older state of the lower hall.

But he knew nothing of what he most wanted, which was to be what Mauryl had wished him to be, and to make Cefwyn happy and safe and free from his wound.

“Thank you,” he said to Cefwyn in leaving, and wished to the bottom of his heart that he were better than he was, and stronger than he was, and wiser than he was; and he wished that there were indeed some wise old man to take care of him and tell him his fears were empty.

The fact was they were not empty. And would not be. He had to do something. He did not imagine what that was. But that was what Mauryl had left him to do—even if his worst fears were true, and he had been mistaken in coming to Cefwyn, he had to find a way to make things right; or, if he had been right, to turn things as they were.., into what they had to be.

The stables had sent in their accounts—Haman did not write well, and the scribe who had taken them down from Haman’s dictation had a florid hand clearly Bryalt in style, which he was trying to puzzle out, when Idrys came to say that the lady had answered his last missive, among missives they had been exchanging with increasing frequency since breakfast.

In fact, the lady was at the door.

“Damn!” Cefwyn cried, and looked for a place to bestow the border reports, the maps. “Here.” He shoved maps at a passing page. “In the map-cabinet, for the good gods’ sake. —Annas!” More pages were running. He handed them the maps and the sensitive documents. “Put them in the bedchamber.”

“Where in the bedchamber, Your Majesty?”

“On the bed! Put them somewhere. —Idrys, let the lady in.”

He did not want to use the stick. He set that in the corner. He had put on the cursed bezaint shirt under the russet velvet, as Idrys insisted, and carried a dagger, which was not his habit: he counted that precaution enough against murderous Elwynim intentions and subterfuges of marriage.

“Are you quite ready, m’lord?”

“Open the damned door, Idrys!” He forced the leg to bear his weight naturally. It would do so once the initial pain passed. He walked toward the door, and was prepared for an informal meeting such as he had requested in the last note he had sent upstairs.

Ninévrisé wore darkest blue velvet, with silver cord—was in mourning, by the quiet black sash she wore; she wore velvet sleeves, and wore the Regent’s crown. Her hair was modestly braided now, with a black ribbon—and answering the provenance of it, Margolis was with her, Margolis, the armorer’s wife, a matronly woman of a constitution undaunted by relocation to the least civil province in the realm; Margolis could bring order to any situation—and if that gown had not been in the packs the Elwynim had brought, he could well believe that Margolis had stitched it up on a moment’s notice. He did not know who had enlisted her to Ninévrisé’s aid, but he was grateful.

“Welcome,” he said. “Your Grace of Elwynor.” He took Ninévrisé’s offered hand, and after it, Margolis’ stout one. “Dear Margolis. Thank you. Gracious as always.” The last was for Margolis; but his eyes were for Ninévrisé whose demeanor was reserved, and whose mourning sash was a reminder to sober propriety. “After a day of messages—thank you for coming. I would by no means press your attendance—”

“My father is not lost,” Ninévrisé said firmly, and walked past him to look about the room. “Lord Tristen said so. So I do not mourn him for lost. Nor do I count my war lost before it begins. May we dismiss our guards, Your Majesty, and speak frankly?”

“Lady,” he said to Margolis. “Lord Commander.” The latter to Idrys, who offered the armsmaster’s wife a gracious retreat, likely no farther than the outside room.

The lady of Elwynor was so beautiful, so—unreachable, so unattainable by any wile or grace he had ever used for any other infatuation he had had, offering herself to him—and yet not to be had, ever, if he made her despise him. He had felt as attracted to a lady, but never so unsure of the lady’s reasons in accepting, and never so unsure of acceptance when he had committed himself this extravagantly.