“I was at the gate. I asked to see the master.”

The Guelen guards were unhappy with that. They shook him and cuffed him, saying, “Mind your manners, man. Say, ‘yes, Your Highness’ and ‘no, Your Highness’, and ‘Your Highness, if you please’.”

Cefwyn winced, almost protested—but Aman, of the guard, added:

“‘E’s a wee bit daft, Your Highness. We had a notion he might be some

Elwynim wi’ that writing, if ye know, Your Highness, him and his clothes and his speech and all, and his being a stranger.”

“Who brought him in?” Cefwyn asked, and had a confused and apologetic muttering from an officer of the gate-guards, and an avowal from Idrys himself, to which he waved a negligent hand: he knew the chain of command, and by now so did the young man—too well, he was sure.

“And you think him Elwynim? Walking in by daylight, in those clothes?”

“Your Highness, he flew right by the town guards, like their eyes was blinded, Your Highness, and them good men. He said he had old Mauryl for his master. He says he come down the road out of Marna, right from the cursed tower.”

His heart skipped a beat, but it was only confirmation. He knew now that there was omen and worse in the young man. He had seen it in the book. He had been certain of it with never a breath of a name. And to judge by Emuin’s urging to come intervene in this matter—Emuin also had opinions, and fears to disturb his sleep, he could rely on that, too.

“From the old keep,” Cefwyn said, with the gooseflesh prickling on his arms, and a sense of peril and moment now to every move he made-not acute, not inescapable, but there. The young man was looking at him, and he avoided those eyes with a glance at his captain of the guard.

“And them knocking the man about. Hardly prudent. One might make him angry.”

“This is not a jesting matter, my lord Prince.”

And Emuin, unbidden: “Ask him his business, my lord Prince. He asked for you.”

That was not news he wished to hear. He rested his chin on his hand, assumed a stony indifference and slid a glance at the youth, trying—trying to see flaws and faults in that countenance, in that overwhelming force of the youth’s expectations.

That was what it was: expectation. Unmitigated. Unquestioning.

Faith. Appalling, utter faith, directed at him, in the gods’ mercy, who was not accustomed to such impositions.

“So. And what is your name, young stranger in my lands? And what are you to rouse me out of my well-earned bed at this midnight hour?”

“My name is Tristen, sir.”

“No other name?”

“None that I know, sir.”

“And do you live most times at Ynefel, or do you travel about the land, rattling gates and conversing with honest guards?”

Incomprehension grew, and fear became foremost in the youth’s eyes.

“I did live there, sir. But the wind came, and the roof slates fell, and Mauryl—” The youth’s voice faded altogether, not into tears, although the young man was distraught—simply into bewildered silence.

“So how does Mauryl fare?” Cefwyn asked him.

“I fear—he is not well.”

“.And the roof slates fell,” Cefwyn echoed him.

“Yes, sir. They did. Not all. But—”

“Because of the wind, they fell.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And what brought you here to my hall?”

“I wish a place to sleep, sir. And supper.”

There was anxious laughter among the guards. But the young man seemed quite, quite fragile. Childish of manner, now, and altogether overwhelmed.

Cefwyn did not laugh. “Supper,” he said. “Did you walk all that way for supper?”

“And a place to stay, sir.”

“Bringing one of Mauryl’s books.”

“I didn’t steal the book. Mauryl gave it to me. He said I should read it.”

“Did he?” He could not find in the young man’s face the innocence he had seen before. He might have deceived himself. It might be an Amefin-sent deception, challenging his dignity and his authority. So he challenged it in turn. “How many days did you walk from Mauryl’s tower?”

“Four. Five. Perhaps five.”

“Walking? One takes it for twice that many days. At least.”

“Days and nights, sir.”

“Days and nights.”

“I feared to sleep, sir.”

“One does doubt this,” Idrys said coldly, and a spell seemed broken-or provoked. Cefwyn felt uneasiness at what he heard, but although it seemed to him that, if his maps were true, the youth’s account was far short of the truth—still, the youth’s remembrance might be in question.

He felt more uneasiness at the habit Idrys had of provoking a situation.

He saw it building.

“He does seem unlikely simple, Your Highness,” the chief of the gate guard said, “from time to time. An’ then again, he don’t.”

“Well-acted, though,” Idrys said. “Quite well-acted, boy.”

“The book,” Emuin said, “the book.”

“Oh, the book.” Idrys waved his hand. “I’11 have you two its like by morning. Amefin maunderings. Lyrdish poetry. Gods know. Save it for the library. Some musty priest will make sense of it.”  “I think not.”

“Monastic pantry records,” Idrys said under his breath. “Household accounts.”

“A plague on you.”

“Enough,” Cefwyn said, watching the youth instead, whose glances traveled from one disputant to the other.

A Road there was indeed in Marna Wood, and legend held that no matter where one found that Road, it went to Ynefel, and not easily away again.

And by his speech, by his manner, by that unreadable book in his possession  Had Mauryl had a servant? Cefwyn asked himself.

Or, gods save them, an apprentice?

—Or—worse still, a successor?

Not even the Amefin locals, with the old Sihhé blood still, however thin, in their veins, would readily venture that Road, that forest, far less go asking admittance at Ynefel’s ancient gate. If an apprentice, surely no ordinary lad had come asking for the honor. But reputedly the old wizard had stirred forth, from time to time, though not to court, and reputedly the old wizard still dealt with those willing to risk the river—if indeed it was, as some credulous maintained, the same Mauryl who had dealt with his grandfather, still dealing in Sihhé gold and wizardly simples, and having Olmern lads bringing baskets of flour and oil and such like goods as far up that river as they dared go.

And never would Olmernmen cheat the old man, or short a measure.

In truth—so his spies’ reports had it, they made the measures as much as possible, and tucked gifts in as well.

So the Olmernmen, particularly those of the village of Capayneth, still honored the Nineteen, the wizards’ gods, as did the rural folk of Amefel,

—while the local Quinalt priests, for a share of the gold, looked the other way. As a deity, Mauryl had been demonstrably efficacious for centuries-at least, skeptics said, the many who had had the name of Mauryl and occupied the tower since the legendary rise of the Sihhé kings. More, on the medicines and spells the old man sold, Capayneth’s sheep bore twins, Capayneth’s women never miscarried, Capayneth’s crops somehow never quite headed-out and dried before hail that flattened other fields, and Capayneth’s folk lived long and healthy lives. So they said.

And mutter as the Quinalt would, it could not prevent the veneration that outlasted the Sihhé themselves.

Mauryl fallen? The sun had as well come up in the west. Comets should fill the heavens.

The youth’s acute attention had flagged now. The youth’s head had drooped under his study as if bearing himself on his feet was all that he could do. If this lad was local deity, heir to immortal Mauryl, he bore the wrong name and showed himself a mortal and weary godling, smudged with mud and traces of blood, wilting before his eyes. The spark that had leapt out of the youth for that moment seemed utterly irrecoverable now, the force all fled, —for which the Prince of Ylesuin could be grateful. Here was only a tired young man with an unkept look and a convincing innocence at least of pig-theft, wife-beating, and petty banditry.  “Tristen.”