He had not given Idrys, he thought, what Idrys looked to have. “Persistent, you mean.”

“Sir, as best I understand—she is less a wizard than Auld Syes up at Emwy. Very much less. I think she did very little but let Hasufin in, and perhaps helped him a little. I think she hates us. But I would not let those women together. I would send them all apart, and send them all away from here.”

“Does it run in families?” Idrys asked. “Heryn is buried here.”

It was a disturbing thought. “I have no idea, sir. He’d always have a Place here, if I understand it. But I would move him. Bury him among good men. Holy men.”

“Holy men.”

“I think so, sir. That is my advice.”

“Digging up corpses,” Idrys muttered. “Holy men. This is not to my liking, young sir. Not at all. —So wizard me who did this. Who set the fire? Who cracked master Emuin’s head?”  “I’m not a wizard, sir.”

“Just like Emuin. Never the hard questions.” Idrys began to walk away.

“Sir,” Tristen said as an odd recollection came to him. He had spoken.

He had Idrys’ attention. He hesitated, then said: “Lord Sulriggan’s dish was salty, at the dinner. He was furious at his cook.”  “Was he, now?”

“Cook’s boys played a prank.” It seemed incredible to him that so small a thing—could do so much harm. “He would have been very angry.

And Sulriggan was leaving.”

Idrys drew a long breath. “An angry cook. Well. Well. Sulriggan.

And what of the other, lord of Ynefel? Who struck master Emuin?”  “I don’t know, sir. That, I truly don’t know.”

“An Amefin shrine,” Idrys said. “Lord Heryn had his connections. So has Orien. Of various sorts. You’ve given me enough, lord of Ynefel.

Quite enough to serve.”

“But—” A terrible thought came to him. And he had not thought.

Idrys had started a third time to leave, and stopped again. “Sir. Orien knows about the lords leaving. She knows about Lewen plain and the full moon—she must have found out.”

“Sulriggan’s cook, carrying lady Aswydd’s messages?” Idrys asked.

“Hardly likely. And in the wrong direction. A Bryalt priest, now, —or someone connected to him—”

“No, sir. That’s not the point. Lady Aswydd doesn’t need a messenger.

Hasufin needs none. She could have told Hasufin. Hasufin will have told As6yneddin, across the river. As6yneddin knows the place. He knows the day. He will move before that, sir. He will cross at Emwy and take Lord Tasien’s camp. I said it would be the new moon.”

Idrys’ face had gone very still, expressionless. “Say nothing of this. m However you wizard-folk say such things, keep it to yourself.”

“Sir,” Tristen said, thinking of the bird, and the cook, and how very small things could move, even against their will. “Sir, it’s as well the lord physician went with Sulriggan.”  “Another damn witch?”

“No, sir. An angry man. Things do what they want to do. But the bird didn’t want to fly into the glass. If it had wanted to, it would have been easier.”

Idrys did go away, then, quickly, to Cefwyn, he was sure.

He thought that they had very little time, now. For no particular reason he had thought of the new moon.

He remembered Mauryl’s cipherings. The moon-plottings. He had never understood them. But no more did he understand the work of masons or wizards than he ever had. He only knew that something very dire was coming at Amefel, and at Cefwyn, and, now, purposefully, he realized, —at him.

“He said—it would be sooner,” Cefwyn said, and sat down. “Damn.

Damn the woman.”

“That would have been my inclination,” Idrys said.

“It would not have prevented this,” Cefwyn said, with all they had been talking about in council—all the figures and estimates of supply and logistics—tumbling through his head. “Why did Emuin not perceive this going on, if Tristen didn’t?”

“I could not possibly guess,” Idrys said, “save that master grayfrock showed no enthusiasm for wizarding. Perhaps he didn’t—whatever wizards do. Perhaps lady Orien didn’t—whatever m’lord Tristen thinks she did: whatever Tristen does: talk to passing birds, or hear it from the frogs, or whatever. This is far beyond my competency, m’lord King, but Tristen’s chancy warnings have in the past been of some weight.”

“I should have heard this one,” Cefwyn said. “I told him not to speak.

I tried to silence him in council, thinking him—”  “Feckless?”

“Innocent.” The room seemed stifling. He rubbed the leg, which was both sore and itched devilishly with healing, asking himself whether he was remotely fit, and distractedly adding in the back of his mind the same figures they had added in council, and wondering if three days was enough to see him more fit than he was—and the baggage train delivered to Lewenside. Fear crept in—the sensible sort, that said there were additional troubles, of the sort he could have expected.  “Did I not say—” Idrys began.

“Oh, you often said, master crow. And I listened too little.”

“He is still the mooncalf. But on the field he seems to have a very clear understanding. He comprehends in council. He says Orien alive or dead should not remain here. That her brother should not be buried here. Nor anyone of great animosity. He seems to imply—though I was already past my understanding—that anyone of animosity, wizard or not, could be moved by a wizard to act against us.”

“Good loving gods, there are grudges. There will be grudges.”

“That was my impression. It may be incorrect. But he was definite about two things: first, that, through Orien, Aséyneddin knows our plans, which may include, I would surmise, lord Haurydd’s mission into Elwynor, and that fortification at Emwy, and the day on which we plan to move. And second, that Orien Aswydd and Heryn must move—Heryn to holy ground.”

“Holy ground. Heryn!”

Idrys held up a languid hand. “I assure my lord, it is not my fancy.”

“He said the lord Regent had to remain at Althalen. That he came there to die.”

“We are contending with the dead, m’lord King. I’d take the advice of one who should know.”

Cefwyn drew a deep breath and shook his head. And had a chilling thought. “The skulls from over the gates. Send those with Heryn Aswydd—to the same interment. Tonight.”

“What a wagonload,” Idrys said. “The Aswydds—and their victims.”

“It seems due. Light the signal fires and pass the word. I’ll have written messages—for my brother, for Tristen, for my lady, —for Sovrag, on the river. They should go out together. But meanwhile, light the fires.”

Tristen sat by the window in the early night, with the Book shut in his hands and saw the fires—one after the other, on the hills. A single glance at the writing had shown him he knew no more than before. Then the fires had begun to go. And Uwen came in, his face aglow with the cold wind, cheerful—until Uwen looked at him.  “M’lord?” Uwen asked.

“We are moving,” Tristen said. “It’s come.”

Uwen caught a breath, shrugged off his cloak, and tucked it over his arm. “Has His Majesty said?”

“The fires. Do you see them?”

Uwen came near the window and looked out into the dark. “Seems as if the lords is hardly had time to take their boots off,” Uwen said, and went and put his cloak on the bench. “So there ain’t no putting that away.”

“I told Cefwyn what I should have realized sooner—when I knew about Orien Aswydd—that they would know. I should have seen it. I should have understood.”

“They. They—the Elwynim.”

“Asdyneddin.”

“Ye’re saying Aséyneddin knows.”

“The day. The place. Lord Tasien is in very great danger.”

“Can ye—warn him, wizardlike?”

“I don’t think even Emuin could. And he—far more likely. I should have known, Uwen. I should have seen it.”

“Ye’re had summat to occupy your thoughts, m’lord.”

It was Uwen’s duty to cheer him. It was his to take Uwen into more danger than Uwen knew how to reckon, and it was his not to upset Uwen, or to spread fear around him to his staff and the army. He tried to gather his wits, and his composure.