“We have to move as planned. The eastern and northern barons must come in…”

“No.”

“No?” Cefwyn looked wryly astonished, not angry; but only then did Tristen recall that no one said no to Cefwyn these days.

“No, sir,” he said doggedly, compounding the offense, such as it was, out of his friendship and the fact that for a month he had had no chance to give his views. “Move Ivanor in from the south, out of Amefel. That would save Ilefïnian. It lies far closer to that border. Tasmôrden would knowa force out of Amefel could come at his back at the river, and he would race to reach the capital to prevent us taking it. We could move faster, with only the light horse, out of his east. If he besieged the town, that would put him between two and even three forces if you brought in the heavy cavalry from the north and the Lanfarnessemen came in from the southwest.”

He thought that Cefwyn would agree. The resolution seemed there for an instant, the fierce enthusiasm of the summer. But worry and doubt worked there, too, and he saw Cefwyn’s deep unhappiness and disbelief in his own answer.

“We cannot.”

“But if we had the Guelen cavalry and the Ivanim, moving quickly—before the snow—would the north object to winning the war, sir?”

“The south must not be the source for a move across the river.”

“It only makes sense—”

“The south is tainted with sorcery, do you see?”

“Not since Lewen field—”

“In Guelen minds it is tainted with sorcery. Amefel is full of heretics—in Guelen minds. Her Grace must win based in the east. In the eastof Elwynor are folk strongly kin to Guelessar and Murandys, Guelen in all but name, and even some Ryssandim. I know, I know you see the way clear, you do have a strong argument, and if it were all a soldier’s reasoning, Tristen, I would entirely agree with you. It would save lives, and very precious ones, particularly of Her Grace’s best advisers. But it is not a soldier’s reckoning; it never was. It is a king’s reckoning, and a new king’s at that. I must come at this war from the north and east for the same reason I ask Efanor to make a staunch Quinaltine out of the least likely man in my kingdom. It is appearances, Tristen, all appearances. For very good reasons the northmust win significant victories in this war. Then it will be their victory, not the south’s, and because it is their victory, and their northernglory, they will support the agreements we make and help me forge a peace out of this long war. No. It is not all a soldierly reckoning. But it is the one that will have a peace at the end of it.“

Not if Ilefínian falls first, Tristen thought to himself, seeing a walled city, a towered city as vividly as he saw it in his dreams. And for this instant he dreamed of it in hostile hands, and saw the war dragging on in what might notbe easy victories for the Guelenfolk. He saw blood flowing, and knew that the satisfaction of the northern barons would wait into summer, and into greater and greater hazard.

“Does Her Grace agree with the plan?” he asked Cefwyn pointedly; and Cefwyn frowned darkly.

“No,” Cefwyn said. “She does not agree. But the plain fact is, we simply must not seem to encourage the tainted south. The entire question regards Elwynor’s fate, Elwynor’s freedom, and the treaty. It’s not a great war, it’s a little war, and we must run the risk to give the north its importance.”

He was entirely appalled. The tainted south, as of Cevulirn, and Sovrag, and Pelumer, even proper and rigidly Quinalt Umanon, who had stood with them at Lewenbrook? The tainted south? Cefwyn spoke in disparagement of others’ opinions of it, he was sure of that. And, a little war? Men would die, and the longer they drew this out, the more men would die.

“The same as the penny,” Cefwyn said, “the same as our agreement with the Quinalt. It is appearances. And, forgive me, I have to command and lead the northern barons in the field. Because of appearances, since the Aswydds, I have appointed no lord in Amefel and left the province vacant. I will elevate noneof the Amefin earls to power on that southern border, because I will not have the entire south, with an Amefin duke, playing ducks and drakes with policy by urging their views, meddling with those bridges—or leading armies and forcing a fight. I have a viceroy there, and I keep it so. I will nothave help from the south, above all else.”

“Yet you had Cevulirn stay at court. Is he the tainted south?”

“Never! Never in my heart. I trust him. I do trust him. He knows the game. He knows what I have to contend with. As Idrys knows. As you are most surely learning. We cannot always do what is most soldierly. We have to do what is politic. And what is politic is a northern victory, and an advance through these specific villages that will settle appearancesfor the Guelenmen I lead; gods help me.”

He was not done with questions. Too much was cast in doubt. “You trust Lanfarnesse. And Olmern.”

“Lanfarnesse commits to nothing. Olmern… fartoo unsubtle.”

Sovrag was only recently a lord, and indeed, would not be at home in the Guelen court. Sovrag had nearly caused a duel in his few days here, except the king had forbidden it. Lanfarnesse, old Duke Pelumer, would protect his own folk first, but even so, Pelumer would have been a strong support to Cefwyn, stronger by far than Murandys.

“No,” Cefwyn said further. “Believe me in this.

Hard enough that I swore all the south to me before I took the northern oaths, hard enough that I came back with a wedding sworn, sealed, and sure before the north ever had wind of it. And this last I say to you in secret, a thing that only Idrys knows… only Idrys. Once the wedding is done, once we have the Quinalt seal on that document, we shall indeed advance to the river and set up martial camps, not only on this side, following exactlythe path you suggest, and threaten Tasmôrden before the snow lies deep.”

“And shall we move in Amefel as well?”

“Not in Amefel. We’ll have men under canvas in the snow, come what may, making sure of those eastern bridges, distracting Tasmôrden and his conspirators from Ilefínian.”

Driving him inevitably toward Ilefínian, Tristen thought unhappily. Pushing him toward the south. Denying him the bridges made it sure he would go against Ilefínian. And if onlysomeone were there to face him—

“—bitter work,” Cefwyn said, “hardship for the men; but if we could bring the eastern provinces of Elwynor to welcome Her Grace next spring and rise against Tasmôrden, she might sweep unchecked across the east like a triumphal procession. Thenwe might cross from the south shore of the river, too, and come from two directions, up and down, to Definian. It would fall in a moment.”

“I might go to the Amefin shore when the army goes to the river,” Tristen said. The prospect of winter in tents did not seem so impossible or so unpleasant to him as a winter idle in Guelemara, taking lessons from the Patriarch. He had longed for employment, for some reason for his existence, and still the notion of next fallwafted in front of him, the thinnest of promises. There were so many mistaken decisions in the wind, any one of which could rise up to bring disaster to Cefwyn’s fortunes. Cefwyn said he must be here, and learn religion, and appear to be Quinalt—but if the army was, in fact, to move, he should be ready to move as soon as the wedding was done. The northern barons’ vanity, their quarrels with each other thus far had not fielded an army, but rather kept the one they did have home until a wider bloodshed of Elwynim and Guelenfolk alike was all but inevitable. On his life he tried not to wish for things, and he distrusted his own desires, but he wished Cevulirn to the fore and Murandys in obscurity. “Far more gladly would I sit in a tent than in the Quinaltine, sir. If it were possible, this I would ask to do, myself, more than anything.”