He took that for severest rebuke, and a sign that he was not himself a man, in Cefwyn’s opinion.

He had found the kitchen, a ready source of food at any hour, Cefwyn’s orders refusing him no luxury.

There were Barracks which he avoided, where the guards exchanged long and easy conversation with their fellows, but he could not speak, and he found it tedious and uncomfortable, and full of harsh and disquieting Words.

There was the Armory, which smelled and echoed of Weapons, and his guards said that was no place for him. But there was the Forge not so far from it, where the master Smith and his helpers worked metal glowing bright and almost transparent, making it grow and change, and where sparks flew like stars.

There were Stables, which excited his interest the moment he saw them, but soldiers barred him and his guards from that yard, saying they had had orders. So there were exceptions to Cefwyn’s grant of freedom, and one involved Weapons, which did not appeal, and the other involved Horses, which were a Word of Freedom itself, a Word of Hay, and Leather, and soft noses. They were a cascade of Words—Heavy Horse, and Light; Mare and Foal; Hoof and Hock and Pastern, and he could have stayed and watched for a long time and drunk in those Words, but the guards had their orders, and he had no more than a glimpse of creatures that set his heart to racing and his hands itching to touch and know.

There was a long wing of Warehouses dusty with grain, a place of pleasant smells and an occasional furtive rat; he liked to be there, and he had discovered it on the third day, but the records keepers of that place seemed likewise anxious to have him gone, and the guards were bored, so after the fifth day he came no more to the granaries.

In all his explorations, he found no loft, only upper floors, and they said there was nothing higher, no place better than his own windows from which he could see the other roofs and a narrow space of courtyard. His windows could not be opened, except the small square that could let a breeze in; he supposed that was for safety.

He did not like it that the windows had no inside shutters to latch, and reading by candlelight or lying abed in the dark, he cast looks askance at that glistening dark glass on nights when the wind blew and sighed about the eaves, but evidently the Zeide had less fear of Shadows, and no one but he seemed worried about the matter. He even opened the window one night and left a bit of sausage out on the ledge, closing the little window quickly. He hoped Owl would find it and he would know by its being gone in the morning that Owl had been there—but it was still there when the sun rose, and by the next afternoon it was gone, after the servants had been there tidying up, so he thought that they and nothing baneful had found it.

One sanctuary he discovered where he could walk and sit at will: the west garden—which he came upon quite by accident, and which he most loved of all the places he could go. It was like a small, safe woods grown within walls, the trees carefully trimmed, even the pond neatly bordered.

Birds from beyond the walls came and perched in the trees and hedges as he could not imagine they would do in the cobbled streets of the town down the hill. His pigeons came down, too, five at least that he recognized from his ledge on the other side of the building, and with the freedom of the garden and no opening pane to scare them, they began to take bread quite fearlessly from his hand.

But others disapproved the pigeon-feeding, and showed it by their looks. The lords and ladies of the Court resorted to the garden in the shady hours, jeweled and beautiful to see, at distance, in clothing with gilt threads that flashed and sparked in small patches of sun; but their stares at him were disdainful when he sat on the ground feeding the birds, which, when he thought about it, they, in their fine clothes, could never do.

The pigeons came to him now when he simply sat on the bench by the pond—there was a pair of titmice that grew more and more clever, and he fed them and fed the fish that lived there, while the lords and ladies (for those were the titles one did call them) along with earls and ealdormen and such, simply ignored his presence, and he theirs. He read his Book in the bright sunlight—or dutifully tried to read it—and on further days tempted the birds with grain that he asked the servants to bring him.

They were, he said to himself, mostly town birds, never so trusting as the birds of Ynefel, and would not bear a sudden movement, except the tits and the pigeons, who became entirely sure of him and very daring.

No one in all these days had broken Cefwyn’s rule and spoken to him.

He watched the lords and ladies in the assurance of safety here and studied their manners and their better graces such as he could puzzle them out, thinking that if he were more like them, he would become more acceptable in this place. Since in all these days, neither Cefwyn nor Emuin had troubled to call him, and the servants, the cooks, the archivists, and the granary keepers all dealt with him as quickly as possible and in silence, it did seem to him that it might please Cefwyn if he were more mannerly, and more like the people who lived here.

But he would not abandon the birds, who chattered to him, and buffeted his ears with their wings.

Came a day he sat, as often he would, by the pond, once he had exhausted the birds’ appetites; and he had two books to read—one being Mauryl’s, of course, which he would try every day until his eyes grew tired. But the other was a book he could truly read, and which spoke about Truth, and Happiness, and he daily lost himself in that, once the birds were well fed and the fish in the pond were sated. Each afternoon, now that his guards had found occupation to themselves in the old stone arch, a comfortable place where they sat and tossed knives idly at the dirt and talked freely to each other, he read, laboring over the Words that concerned the manners of men and of Philosophy and right and wrong, tangled reasonings, not all of which made sense to him. Words came but slowly out of that maze. But they seemed to be very important Words, and he chased them where he could.

He was thinking of Justice when a shadow across the page startled him, and made him look up in alarm.

He had not been listening for any approach. He looked around at brocade skirts and dainty slippers and up into a fair lady’s face that smiled on him, red lips and dark eyes, and masses of auburn hair. It was the lady who had smiled at him before.  “Good day,” she said.

He laid his book aside and quickly gathered himself up, having now to look down at her, for she was not so tall as he. She was beautiful, bright and dainty, with a light in her eyes that seemed mirth just about to break forth. He was entranced, delighted—and dismayed, because he very well remembered the condition of his freedom, and spread his hands in apology.

“I cannot,” he said.

“Cannot what, sir?”

“Talk with you. Cefwyn forbade it.”

“Did he, indeed?”

“Forgive me. Please go. My guards will be unhappy.”

Auburn lashes swept over dark eyes and lifted again, restoring an intimate moment. She smiled at him, such a smile as held friendship and mockery at once. “Your guards will be unhappy. —I am Often Aswydd.

And who are you, sir, that Prince Cefwyn keeps so isolate in my house?”

“Your house?” It upset all the order he had made of things; and his question immediately brought a frown from her.

“My house, indeed, sir, and what is your name?”

“Tristen,” he murmured, and m’lady was what he thought one called a lady, be she a thane’s lady or an earl’s, but he feared offending her, having made one mistake already.

“Tristen of Ynefel? Do I hear true? Mauryl’s—what? Apprentice?”

“Student, m’lady. I was his student.”