“What do you wish to tell Cefwyn? I shall have no hesitation to tell him.”

“No! I will not beg him, sir, I shall not beg him. I only ask you come and see and listen to me and see a letter I have. Will you listen? I am desperate. I think he means to kill me as he killed Heryn, and I am not guilty! I am so afraid, sir. You can pass my guards. The King’s friend can walk through any door. And I trust you, but none of them. Please!”

He thought it was possible for Cefwyn to have made a mistake. The lady had smiled at him, from his earliest days in the Zeide. She had baffled him and puzzled him—though Emuin had said she was among the principal ones he should not speak to, in those days they had wished him not to speak to anyone. But he did not know that it was true now.

“Please,” she whispered urgently, and gave a glance sidelong and back.

“They are with me. My guards are always with me, do you see them?”

He did. They were standing where Orien glanced.

“Come with me. Come with me now. I’m afraid to go back to my rooms alone with them. They frighten me. They threaten me. Please come with me.”

“I should tell Uwen.”

“No!” she said fiercely, and pulled on his hand. “None of Cefwyn’s men. I will not talk with Cefwyn’s men. Only with you—please.”

He gave a step and two, and he saw the guards move, too, following them: they were Cefwyn’s guards, so there was very little trouble he could get into, and he followed the lady as she led him by the hand down the hall and up the stairs of the east wing, then down the corridor to a door where more of Cefwyn’s guards waited.

By then she was not leading him by the hand: she walked with her arm linked in his, as men and women walked together. It was pleasant to walk with a lady in that way—it made him like other men. It seemed right enough, and the guards without a word opened the door and let them in.

And when they were inside, in the foyer room where there was no one waiting, no light but a single candle, and very heavy perfume wafting from the inner rooms, Orien embraced him.

He was surprised, but he thought she was afraid, and embraced her gently in turn. But she put her arms about his neck and pulled his head down so their lips met. Then he realized what she intended, and they kissed, but not the way Cefwyn and Ninévrisé had kissed, on the cheek.

Lips met, and mouths met, at her instigation, which was a very strange and dizzying sensation. She was trying to undo his clothing, he realized, and Words came to him which had hovered about his awareness, disturbing Words, which had all to do with men and women.

But it seemed to him—it seemed to him that he was being rushed headlong toward a familiarity he did not feel with Lady Orien, and he had been warned, and she had spoken of proofs and messages none of which he saw in this darkened foyer.

He attempted to step back and remove her hands gently. She would not, and he caught her elusive hands and brought them down perforce.

“Are you my enemy?” she asked, with the tears welling up again. “Are you my enemy, too?”

“Where is this proof you wished to show me?” he asked.

“In there,” she said. He had her hands prisoned. She nodded her head toward the inner rooms. “I will show you.”

He was surer and surer that this was not as she had presented things to him in the hall. And he had no wish to go further than he had already gone, with feelings running through him that confused him. “I think,” he said, “that you have lied to me, Lady Orien.”

“I have not lied!” she said. “How can you treat me this way? How can you be so cruel?”

“Lady.” He found his breath short. “Show me your proof. Now.”

Immediately she began unlacing her bodice, which showed him a softness and whiteness he found quite disturbing and quite fascinating—he wished and did not wish to see more, which provoked the same feelings her hands had provoked, and he thought that it was the same attempt to confuse him. So he said, however difficult words were, “No, Your Grace,” and laid his hand on the latch and opened the outer door to leave.

“Damn you!” she cried, and other things besides, which he had only heard among the Guard.

The guards outside gave him a questioning look and, feeling somehow ashamed, he put his clothing to rights. “Her Grace said she had a message. But I don’t think it was true.”

“Lord Warden,” one guard said, “we heard the message story before.

We sent a man for the Lord Commander, begging your pardon, on account of we couldn’t stop you.”

“Thank you,” he said. “It was very kind of you. It was what you should have done.”

He walked down the hall, embarrassed and angry at himself. He met Idrys and Uwen both on the stairs coming up, and said to Idrys, glad at least that Idrys had not had to come in to rescue him:

“I excused myself, sir. I believe she was lying about a message.”

“I believe that she was, yes, Your Lordship.” Idrys was perfectly composed, perfectly sober. “Good evening, and good rest.”

Idrys continued up the stairs. Uwen turned and went back down with him, saying not a word. Tristen still felt foolish, and deeply embarrassed, and could feel the touch of the woman’s hands.

“You know,” Uwen said, “that widow, the nice-looking one? She dances nice, but I do think she’s in a mind to marry, and I damn well ain’t, m’lord. So I ’scaped, meself.”

“I shouldn’t have believed her. I knew better, Uwen. I did know better, and I’d sworn I wouldn’t go off like that, and there I did. I’m very sorry.”

“Oh,” Uwen said, “well, m’lord, I was worried, but ye had the rare good sense to come back. Remember me coming down the hill, a couple of nights back? I swear I was that glad to see ye coming down them stairs. I was sure me and the captain would have to go battering at the door, and gods know what all, and there ye was, bright as brass and onto her tricks.” Uwen put an arm about his shoulders, however briefly, before they entered the trafficked area where the musicians were still playing and the crowd was busy and thick. “There’s many a man wouldn’t have had the good sense, lad.”

He thought he should be pleased he had understood, but he felt disturbed all over, and wished in some sense that he had stayed and found out those mysteries, and was glad he had not, because he did not think he would have liked to have had such an experience with Orien.  “I think I shall go home, though,” he said.

“Seems a fine idea,” Uwen said. “I got me a flask of summat nice and warming, and we can sit by the fire, you and me, like the wise fellows we are, and have a drink and go to bed.”

So the two of them sat by a very comfortable fire in his apartment and had the drink, and Uwen told him about courting girls and his village and where he met his wife.

It was a very enlightening story. He became sure there were nicer ladies than Orien, but it made him feel a little lonely.

“I think your wife was a very fine lady,” he said, and Uwen grinned and said,

“A fine lady she weren’t, oh, but a damn fine woman and a brave one, a brave, brave woman.”

“I would wish to have met her,” he said, and Uwen wiped his eyes and coughed and said he was for bed, now.

So was he. He lay down in the cool sheets and shut his eyes, seeing first Orien, and feeling only discomfort in the memory; but seeing Ninévrisé too, how she had sparkled in the candlelight—how her face was when she laughed, how her eyes were when she was grave and listening. There was nothing about Ninévrisé that was not wonderful, and nothing about her heart that was not good.

He knew. He had touched it, in that gray place this evening. And Emuin had quickly intervened, and told him it was dangerous, and he must not.

He went on feeling what he had felt with Orien, who had lied to him, who was not in the least like Ninévrisé; he went on thinking of Ninévrisé and thinking that marriage meant that Cefwyn and Ninévrisé would share a bed and share their lives, and love each other. Cefwyn gave him gifts and asked him to be his friend—and perhaps he would not lose Cefwyn. Perhaps he would have a chance to speak often with Ninévrisé as he wished, and things would work out.