There was a knot in his throat. It was a hurt, he thought, to which he told himself he had no right, since their being married was long since arranged.

Meanwhile they were going to war against the men that Hasufin brought against them—which, with the skill he had at arms, must be something Mauryl had intended, at least it seemed so now, in the evidence of things tumbling about him.

But Mauryl had been in a hurry, and had brought him for a purpose that mattered, and not thought much, he supposed, about anything else, such as things he might discover and things he might come to want for himself that had no place in Mauryl’s purpose. He remembered in little things it had been that way: he might have been exploring the loft or discovering something he had never seen before—he might just have found the most wonderful thing in Ynefel; but if Mauryl wanted him, he had to leave it at once and answer when Mauryl called, that was what Mauryl had always insisted; and it mattered not that he was older and that both his distractions and his self-will were stronger—it was still true.

He would go where Mauryl had wished. He had gone to Althalen. He had come back again. He could see no one and nothing standing against Mauryl’s purpose for him—not standing against it successfully, or scathelessly: such were his deepest fears for what he loved—and he dared not let them try to oppose what Mauryl had intended.

It was not Mauryl’s fault, of course: he was brought into the world because of Mauryl’s need, and that he inclined in other directions was not Mauryl’s fault. He wished he could speak with someone who understood Mauryl. But he could not reach into the gray space after Emuin tonight: he feared he could not touch the gray space without troubling Ninévrisé’s dreams, and he would not do that. Most of all, he dared not risk that tonight, and with the strange things he was feeling toward her.

He lay watching the fire-shadows dance around the edges of the walls, and once he heard a thump and rattle, as if the latch of the window were disturbed.

If that was Hasufin, he said to himself, well that Hasufin did not trouble him tonight, because he was suddenly very angry—and wished he had somewhere to put that anger.

But no one else he remotely knew deserved it, except Orien. And he had been close enough to wizards he was afraid to stay as angry as he was. He was afraid to dream, or to skim close to that gray place so long as he was in a state of hurt, and anger.

So he got up and tried to read, sitting on the hearth, long into the night, until he fell asleep over his Book, and waked with his neck stiff and his legs cramped and the fire long since gone to glowing ashes.

He waked—with a sense of apprehension. Not the window, he thought. There had been no sound. There had been no breath of wind.

But something had changed while he slept, he thought. Something-perhaps in the gray space he dared not visit, what other men called dreams—had become much more dangerous and much more urgent tonight, and that change seemed to have a sharp edge to it, a point at which it suddenly became true. He did not know whether it was because of his mistake with Orien, or perhaps something Emuin had done in his prayers, or something Ninévrisé herself might have done in the gray space, with him all unaware-    But he was increasingly afraid, and knew no one he dared tell. He thought of waking Emuin—and knew if he did, he might say and hear things that might make him more disturbed and more in danger of making a mistake than he was now. He sat there still in the dark with the embers aglow beside him and with the dry, blind parchment of Mauryl’s book in his hands, and he thought to himself with sudden realization:

Orien wanted to harm Cefwyn.

It wasn’t myself she wanted. It was Revenge.

I was very, very foolish to go there.

Chapter 29  

In the press of time, as regarded what the King himself willed, the King would gladly have drawn the barons aside for a few moments last evening before the ceremony, and held moderately sober council in the other chamber, considering the situation on the borders, and considering that moderate drinking might even assure a certain harmony in his diverse council—he had worked that ploy before.

But it would have intruded on the dignity of the betrothal, it would have slighted the Elwynim and the lady’s feelings, for whom he was surprised to realize he did have a tender consideration in the matter.

So he was further along the rose-strewn path than he had thought he would ever come for a lady he would for state reasons be obliged to marry. He was amazed to realize that he had spent an unaccountable amount of time today already thinking about the Regent’s daughter and far too little time committing to memory details of the riverside fortifications, which did the Regent’s daughter no practical service, and far too little memorizing the other matters on which he must not make a slip of the tongue, and, gods help him, he kept thinking about her face, her voice, her eyes. Which were gray. Again, gods help him—the Quinalt would not like that, and the Quinalt thought it had a right to be spiritual guides to the queens of Ylesuin—which his affianced bride refused to be, and that news was going to cause a clatter the like of which his father’s approval of Emuin as his tutor had never remotely touched.

But they would not daunt him, not for the principle of the thing (he had sought ways to diminish their influence) and not for his personal choices. He knew his foolish faults, that he was easily infatuated, that it lasted a time, and vanished some unpredictable morning in total disillusion. He never wanted such affairs to end, but end they would, and yet, this morning after a commitment which should have been the most calculated and reasoned decision of his reign, he was appalled to find himself slipping closer and closer to that passionate mark with a woman who, first, was capable of launching war on his kingdom and who, second, had maddening and attractive personal qualities he had to admit his light-of-loves had never had.

He perceived himself in real danger, waking with Ninévrisé in his mind, and being entirely unable to recall the number of wagons he had already dispatched to the river—or to remember the third point he had to make in argument as, dressed in his regal best (except the crown) he walked with his guard and his household around him (except Idrys and Emuin) to meet Ninévrisé and her small household, with her sworn men, on her way down the stairs.

“My lady,” he said to her.

“Your Majesty,” she said. There were bows. There was pleasantness.

Lord Tasien was glum as they continued down the stairs.

Gods, it was three months until the wedding—three months of handholding and chaste kisses on the cheek, such as he had had last night.

And he could not be thinking about a wedding. He had a ceremony to get through, a ceremony he had had to throw together, the next thing to a battlefield coronation on the day he was sending men to hold the Lenfialim against invaders—but he had seen increasingly even with Idrys that he could not continue as he was, not knowing clearly where the most loyal of his barons’ loyalties were. As importantly, he had to swear them assurances of his behavior, in the shifting of all familiar points of reference, his father gone, the Elwynim marriage—and Tristen arriving.

What he had to do and say this morning, he was certain was going to provoke controversy. Men still in some points enemies to each other had politely reserved opinions behind their teeth last night, knowing they were drunk. Today, politics would out, most coldly sober, equally as dangerous, and Lord Tasien had come here with strong reservations about any alliance. He was a relative on Ninévrisé’s mother’s side, married himself, and sonless, so he had had no designs on Ninévrisé—Lord Tasien was decidedly to win.