No question from Idrys ever sounded friendly. No question from Idrys was friendly.

“Do you read it?” Cefwyn asked. “Emuin said you made no sense of it.”

“I do try, sir,” Tristen said faintly, and swallowed a mouthful of bread, which he had made too large. A page had refilled his wine cup and he reached for it and washed the bite down. “But nothing comes to me.”

“Nothing comes to you,” Cefwyn echoed him.

“Not even the letters,” Tristen confessed, and saw Idrys look at him askance.

“Emuin said nothing?” Cefwyn asked. “Nor helped you with it.”

“No, sir, but I still try.”

“Sorcerous goings-on,” Idrys muttered. “Ask a priest, I say. The Bryalt might read it.”

“Damned certain best not ask the Quinalt,” Cefwyn said. “Eat. Plague on the book. It’s doubtless some wizardly cure for pox.”

“Mauryl said it was important, sir.”

“So is the pox.”

“If I learn anything of it—”

He saw by Cefwyn’s expression he had been foolish. Cefwyn had stopped eating, crooked finger planted across his lips, stopping laughter.

Tristen stopped eating, too. Cefwyn composed himself, but did not seem to be angry.

“Sometimes,” Tristen said, “I don’t know when people mean what they say.”

“Oh, you’ve come to a bad place for that,” Idrys said.

Cefwyn was still amused and tried not to show it. “Tristen. I care little for pox, except as I could apply it to Lord Heryn. —Which,” Cefwyn added, before Tristen found a need to say anything, “is a very boring matter and a very boring man. —Eat.”

“Yes, sir.” He felt foolish. But Cefwyn said nothing more about it, and the stew went away very quickly as Idrys and Cefwyn discussed the number of men they should have along on their proposed excursion.

But the Name of Elwynim nagged at him. So did the accusations the gate-guards had flung at him. So did his recollection of the men in the woods. He reached for wine. He recalled the guards that had thrust that Name at him amid blows. It was a Name that would not, as commoner things did, find the surface and explain itself. He pulled at it, as something deeply mired.

“Are not—” he ventured to ask finally. “Are not Elwynim and Amefin both under Heryn Aswydd?”

“Mauryl’s maps are vastly out of date,” Cefwyn said.

Idrys said, “Or perhaps the old man never quite accepted the outcome of matters.”

Cefwyn frowned. “Enough, sir.”

“They are no longer under one lord,” Idrys said. “The Aswyddim no longer kings. The capital has moved. Did Mauryl never say so, madwizardling?”

“You see why he does not sit at table,” Cefwyn said, leaning back w the wine cup in his hand as pages began to remove the dishes. “He provokes all my guests.”

“Only to the truth, my lord Prince.”

“But—” Tristen said, confused and not wishing to provoke a quarrel.

“Why should the Elwynim be crossing the river to steal sheep from Heryn Aswydd?”

“Easiest to show,” Cefwyn said, and thrust himself to his feet. Idrys pushed back his chair to rise, and Tristen did, in confusion, thinking they were leaving the table, and looked for a cue where to go next; but Cefwyn immediately found what he wanted among the parchments stacked on a sideboard and brought a large one back to the table, carelessly pushing dishes aside to give it room as pages frantically rescued the last plates. The salt-cellar became a corner weight. A wine pitcher did, moisture threatening the inks. There was an up and a down to the words, and Tristen diffidently moved closer as Cefwyn beckoned him to see.

In fair, faded colors and age-brown lines, it was a map; and Cefwyn’s finger and Cefwyn’s explanation to him pointed out a design that was subscribed Henas’amef; and a pattern that was the Forest of Amefel, and then, differently made, and darker—Marna, and the Lenfialim which wound through it.

“Here sits Ynefel and the river. There is the old Arys bridge. Our realm of Ylesuin ends here—” Cefwyn’s finger traveled up where the Lenfialim bent through forest, and Marna Wood stopped. In that large open land were divisions of land, drawings representing fortresses, and the whole was marked Elwynor. He saw one fortress, Ileffnian, that touched recognitions in him. Ashiym was the seat of a lord, a place with seven towers, but they had only drawn six ....  Names: Names, and names.

“This is Elwynor. Did Mauryl show you nothing of maps?”

Cefwyn’s voice came at a distance. He tried to pay attention, but the map poured Names in on him. “A few. I know he had them. He never showed me. But I know what they are, sir. They—”

A haze seemed to close about his vision.

“Tristen?” he heard.

“Elwynor was much larger once,” he said, because it seemed so to him, but that was not what he was seeing. His heart pounded. He felt the silence around him.

“Yes,” Cefwyn said, in that awkwardness.

He could easily find Emwy. It was where it seemed to him it should be.

He ventured to touch that Name, which he had not known, though Cefwyn and Idrys had spoken it, until he saw it written on the map-Words could be elusive like that: there, but not there, until of a sudden they unfolded with frightening suddenness and he saw them—he saw all of Amefel, and the air seemed close, and warm, and frightening.

“Emwy, indeed,” Cefwyn said. “That’s where the sheep go wandering.”

“More than near the river,” Idrys muttered. “The stones of that place are uneasy. I still would speak with you privately, m’lord, on this matter.”

“Pish. Sihhé kings. Before my grandfather. —Did Mauryl teach you the history of Althalen?”

“No, m’lord, nothing.” Tristen felt faint, overwhelmed with Places, and distances.

“Probably as well. It—are you well, Tristen?”

“Yes, sir.” The haze lifted as if a cold, clear wind had blown onto his face, and now the solidity of the table was under his hands. He caught a breath and set his wine cup farther away from him. “Mauryl said I should be careful of wine. I feel it a little warm, sir.”

“Gods, and us straitly charged not to corrupt you. —Annas, open the window. The fresh air will help him.”

“No,” Tristen said quickly. “No, I am well, m’lord Prince, but I have drunk altogether enough.” He made himself stand straight, though the dizziness still nagged him, a distance from all the world. “I’ve not eaten today. Not—eaten well—for several days.”

“So I had it reported. Cook is a spy, you know.”

“I had not known, sir.” He found Cefwyn’s humor barbed, sometimes real, sometimes not. He feared he was being foolish; but he truly had no strength and no steadiness left.

“A dangerous young man,” said Idrys. “My lord Prince, for his sake as well as yours, do not bring him into your society. His harmlessness is an access others can use. And will, to his harm and yours.”

Trust this man, Cefwyn had said. Yet Idrys called him dangerous, and spoke of harm, when he had only looked for a little freedom. Idrys might be right, by what Cefwyn said. It might well be that Idrys was right.

“I shall go to my room, sir, if you please, I want to lie down. Please, sir.”

“He has not drunk all that much,” said Idrys.

“Much for him, perhaps. Perhaps you should see him to bed.”

“Aye, my lord.”

Tristen turned, then, to go to the door, and had to lean on the table, bumping the salt-cellar. “Sometimes,” he tried to explain to them,

“sometimes—too many Words, too many things at once—”

“Too much of Amefin wine,” Cefwyn said with a shake of his head.

“Debauchery over maps. That you’ll sleep sound tonight I don’t doubt. Idrys, find some reliable Guelen man that can stand watch on him personally, someone he can confide in, and mind that the man is both kind and discreet. He’s utterly undone. Have care of him.”

“Sir,” Tristen murmured, yielded to Idrys’ firm grip and made the effort at least to walk, foolish as he had already made himself. He wondered if Cefwyn would after all take Idrys’ advice and send him back to solitude.