His gnarled hands clenched. So easy it was, if he willed, to fall into the old thoughts, the way of wizardly power so easy to a man once practiced.

Hasufin had been very old, very evil, Mauryl’s student once in Galasien, who had aimed at power nine centuries ago and come back from the grave to have it: it was still necessary to believe what Mauryl had told them, and not that they, in the circle of Mauryl’s disciples, might conceivably have destroyed a wizard who could have restored the art to its former, enlightened glory—and given all the world to them.

Refraining from power is, he thought, gazing at the eight-pointed star shining on the altar shelf, the sole virtue I have achieved in all these years. Mauryl would not have lied to us. I believe that. But ...

Doubting is my sole defense, the only effective barrier against the unequivocal dark. I am all grays.

And the safest, wisest thing to do now is to go into retreat at Anwyfar and to have nothing to do, for good or for ill, with this thing of Mauryl’s.

I shall die soon, —soon, at least, as men reckon years. I have seen to my own soul. I need not risk it in Mauryl’s service. I need not fling myself into Mauryl’s designs, against Mauryl’s enemy, ancient—unknowable to my age.

How dare he? How dare he do this to me?

Then he thought of his own students, of Cefwyn and others that were young, without understanding of the deeds he had done, without defense against the enemy Mauryl had himself fostered, and against whom once before Mauryl had enlisted his unthanked help; and in that thought he clenched his hands and wept for sheer pent-up rage.

The servant passed from sconce to sconce, touching a waxed straw to a new set of candles, others, half-consumed and long-unused when they had arrived at the room, having been taken from their sockets and replaced.

Which Tristen thought profligate, and entirely unneeded.

There was a large table at one side of this room, nearest the fire, which he thought was a table for food and for study. Beyond a slight sort of archway was the bed, where, if he were at home, he would have gone and simply flung himself down with or without the sheets, daring even Mauryl’s displeasure.

But he feared now even to move without the leave of Idrys, who waited, armed and grimly patient, in a hard chair near the door.

It seemed forever that the servants had worked—the room would have done very well for him, dusty as it was. Ynefel had been dusty. He would not have cared for dust on the tables or even on the bedclothes, as he would not have cared that the candles were old and half-burned. There was dark behind the unshuttered windows, long since, and the knowledge that a bed awaited him—with servants arranging new sheets, new comforters—made him nod toward sleep even sitting and trying to be on his best manners.

They had laid a small fire in the hearth, they said, to burn freshening evergreen and to take the mustiness away. If there had been any, it must have long since done that. They fussed over candles that were perfectly good. Before that, they had kept him waiting in the hall an unendurable time, arranging this and that, bringing in stacks of linen. Now he sat by the fireside warming the shivers and the aches of travel from his bones and growing sleepier and sleepier as they found still more things to dust and polish.

But, oh, at last, at last, now, the servants looked to be finishing their business and looked to be leaving. With eyes that burned with exhaustion and a hope that like the rest of him trembled with repeated demands, he watched them all gather by the door as if they were about to leave.  He hoped that Idrys would go, too, but he did not.

And servants left, but at the same time more servants came in bearing a huge brass tub, which they set in a corner behind a screen, and filled, maninterminable wait, with successive pails of steaming water. Then they told him they would help him with his bath.

“I can bathe, sirs,” he said to them. He would bear with anything they wished, only to get to bed, but he had had enough of strangers laying hands on him, and he was bruised and sore.

“Do as they ask,” Idrys said darkly, Idrys seeming weary himself and out of patience. So he did as they wished, stripped off his filthy clothing and settled into the bath—wonderfully warm water which smelled strongly of pleasant herbs. He bent and ducked even his head. Offered pungent soap, he washed his hair and scrubbed the lines of dirt from his hands and everywhere above and below the water.

Idrys came and stood over the tub, hands on hips. “Wash well. There are doubtless vermin.”

“Yes, sir,” Tristen said, taking it, on reflection, for some sort of a peacemaking, and a very reasonable request from Idrys. He scrubbed until his skin turned red, the cloudy water turned brown, and he felt himself at last entirely clean and acceptable.

Idrys walked away, apparently satisfied—while Tristen almost lacked the strength afterward to rise from the tub. But with two servants’ unanticipated help he managed it, and wrapped gratefully in the sheet they offered, shaking from head to foot in the cold air, but, oh, so much relieved.

He sat where they wished then, and they toweled his hair, during which he nearly slipped from the bench asleep.

“Here,” said Idrys, pushing at him to make him lift his head, as the door opened and yet more servants came in, and one pattered closer. He saw food offered him, he put out a hand and took a wedge of cheese as from the other side a second servant offered him a cup both pungent and sweet. It seemed when he tasted it much finer than the ale Mauryl had given him sparingly. He drank, and ate a mouthful of the cheese, and tears began to flow down his face, reasonless and vain. He wiped at them with the back of the hand that held the cheese, gulped the wine down, because he was thirsty.

Then his fingers went numb, so that he could hardly hold the cup from falling.

Idrys caught it before it hit the floor, the servants caught him before he did—but he was still aware as they carried him to a soft, silky and very cold bed.

Then he slept, truly slept, for the first time since his own bed in Ynefel.

Chapter 10

Idrys occupied the chair opposite him when he waked—Idrys sat with arms folded about his ribs, head bowed. But not asleep. Tristen caught a sharp glance from that black shape near the light of the diamond-glass window and recalled uneasily both how he had come to this bed, and why this man sat watch over him.

Idrys did not move. Even with no cause but his waking, Idrys’ lean, black-mustached countenance held no expression toward him but disapproval, a coldness that seemed to him far greater and far more fearsome than that of the gate-guards or the Guelen soldiers, who had toward the last of his ordeal sometimes laughed, or touched his shoulder kindly, or offered him a cup of water. He imagined that he smelled food. But mostly he smelled burnt evergreen. He supposed that, over all, this room was far finer than the guards’ quarters, and that the things over which Idrys presided were far more extravagant than the soldiers had offered—but he had, he thought, far rather the Guelen soldiers, if he could only have the bath and the bed, too.

He pretended to sleep a while longer, in the vain hope that Idrys would lose patience and leave, or call someone else to watch him sleep. Idrys had to be bored. He hoped to outlast him.

“There is food and clothing,” Idrys said finally, undeceived, “whenever you feel so inclined.”

“Yes, sir.” Thus discovered, Tristen dutifully sat up, aching and sore, and followed with his eyes Idrys’ consequent nod toward the table in the other room, where a breakfast was laid—he saw from where he sat—on large silver platters.

He was chagrined to have slept through so much coming and going.