“Tristen is exactly right in his advice, you know. Plague on the northern barons. These dithering fools will cost us lives, they will cost my lady’s men lives, and by the Five if an incursion out of Elwynor lands boats on Murandys’ shore, I’ll send troops to Prichwarrin’s relief by way of Ivanor. Lord Maudyn sends me anguished letters. Damnation! Men will diebecause Lord Prichwarrin insists on delays and Lord Brysaulin mistakes my reports.”
“If it was a mistake.”
“Do you say it isn’t?”
“I would never accuse the Lord Chancellor as to the reason he sent that report to Prichwarrin. It would hardly be politic. And I have become a politic man. I must be, else I will surely offend you.”
“Politic.” He drank a mouthful and found it flavorless, the result of too many cups before. He set the cup down, gently, this time. “Damn him.”
“Damn Prichwarrin? Or the Lord Chancellor? Or Mauryl Gestaurien?”
“Leave Tristen out of this damning. He is not a political man.”
“He is Sihhë,” Idrys said, “he is Mauryl’s heir, he is most indubitably Mauryl’s parting gift to the house of the Marhanen and the house of Syrillas…”
“All these things we admit.”
“And dare I say you have had my advice, but you follow master grayrobe’s by preference. Now what will Your Majesty do?”
Win his love, Emuin had said, regarding the danger Tristen posed. Win his love.
“Now are we afraid?” Idrys asked. “Now do we wish we had done otherwise?”
“No, we do not!” He cast Idrys a scowling look. “Mauryl prevented harm to us once. And twice. Tristen is my friend. They are rare in this climate. Exceeding rare.”
“Mauryl Gestaurien, Mauryl of Ynefel, Mauryl Kingsbane, Mauryl Kingmaker…”
“Crow, what point are you making?”
“I wonder what point my king is making. You will win Her Grace her throne back. And then what? Twice on a week, boats will ply the Lenúalim to bring the king his bride, his bride the king…”
Idrys came very near the mark. Dangerously near. Cefwyn looked elsewhere, into the shadows, of a mind to forbid the topic, but wondering how much the man closest to him had assembled out of bits and pieces.
“Go on.”
“Because she will not sit the throne?” Idrys ventured. “Because you havethe Elwynim King to Come sworn and sealed to you in fealty?”
Things had such a dull sheen in Idrys’ hands, sheen of gray iron, sheen of well-oiled metal, knives, and swords, and sharp-edged daggers. He could turn even friendship to base, cutting metal.
“The oath between us is fealty, not homage. I left him free. Ignorant that he was at the time, I left him free!”
“How ignorant is he now, more to the point, Majesty? How much does he fail to guess? And while we discuss the intricacies of Her Grace’s oaths and pledges, promises and prayers… by what is Lord Tristen sworn, and how is he bound?”
“By friendship if nothing else!” He answered in haste, because he was stung; but it echoed of Emuin’s advice. Win his love. Win his love, because nothing a king wielded would ever constrain him.
That which a wizard wielded… perhaps. Perhaps it could. But Emuin could not.
Idrys lifted his cup with a quizzical expression, a tilt of his head. “Forgive the northern barons a certain bewilderment: you are the king of Ylesuin, and do not agree that the throne of Elwynor is a Regency? And if a Regency, for what king? And if not for a Guelen king, for whichking, pray? Has Your Majesty explained that point to Her Grace?”
“You tread now where you have no welcome.”
“But he is your friend,” Idrys said, “and so all things can be resolved.”
“Yes, they can. They canand they will be.”
“The barons of Ylesuin will not accept him as a leader on the field. It will create dissension. And the commons of Elwynor rally to Lady Ninévrisë? Some may. Some may not. How will you restrain Guelen soldiery from provocations? There will be bloody battle, my lord king, far bloodier than you wish to contemplate. There will be slaughter. You rely on the northern barons as you are determined to do, and look to it: there will be slaughter when Guelenmen march across those bridges. Do not delude yourself. There is no gentle war. Aye, yes, Tristen is right: come from the south, come from the south because you will have such allies, you will make such bargains, and you will do better to parade your allies in front of southern troops, not northern.“
It was not the first time for that argument. Cefwyn still held to the other side, the one that sought to reconcile Murandys and Ryssand to the war, and not to split the kingdom in bitter division… as perhaps he could not avoid; but he tried to prevent it. Looking to the day of an allied Elwynor, he tried to avoid it.
“And if we have the north opposed, that slaughter will go on. There will be other provocations. There will be other chances for war. We can both foresee them. We must have war stopped, crow. We must fight a little war acrossthe river to avoid a more grievous war here, among our own barons. We must have no more, no more fighting to give wizards a foothold in our lands. No more, crow.”
“Then remember you sent your royal father advisement regarding the lord of Ynefel. Did you not, my lord, advise your father regarding him and the Elwynim prophecy? And if to your father, thento your father’s intimates, andto Lord Brysaulin?”
Dire thought. Chilling thought. “Brysaulin is an honorable man.”
“For the welfare of the realm… to what other guides would an honorable man resort with his king dead and the Prince consorting with wizards? My lord king will have to inform me. As we all know, I am from time to time uninformed on points of honor.”
To the Quinalt, to Murandys, to Llymaryn, to Efanor, if Lord Brysaulin had ever relied on anyone. And Efanor had been choleric and convinced of perfidy in the days after their father’s death.
“Remember that Lord Heryn Aswydd was the purveyor of truths to your royal father,” Idrys said, “and I would not begin to imagine the fervid imagination of Heryn Aswydd.”
“Or the scope of his lying tongue.”
“Nor all imaginings. He had substance on which to practice, my lord king. And you yourself sent that message, which your father’s natural suspicion would have taken for ten times less than Heryn’s loyaltruth.”
“And thus my father relied on Heryn, and thus died. Add to it the work of wizards, the work of priests, which I count little different…”
“Oh, never say thatin council.”
“There are many truths I don’t say in council, crow.”
“And to me?”
He gave a bitter laugh. “Perhaps I have a secret. Perhaps not. If I answered that you’d know, would you not?”
“If I answered that, my lord king, I would serve my lord king less well than I do. Tristen of Ynefel is far too potent a wizard to loose in this war of petticoats and pennies. He cannot become Quinalt.”
“Yet he must appear, must appearin public. The more he stays hidden the more rumors fly about him, and better him now than Her Grace. That… that, I cannot allow.”
“It is a risk.”
“All things are a risk, master crow. Let my brother practice persuasion on him. Let the Quinalt do its best. Efanor is not a fool… he if anyone knows what was said that provoked my father to ride to Amefel, into Heryn’s trap, and all he will say to me is that Father distrusted me and Heryn fed the fire. Efanor himself burnsto atone for believing it and for not dissuading our father; that compels him. He isfaithful to me. Say that he’s faithful, master crow.“
“To my observation, he is.”
Cefwyn let go a heavy breath. “There is no great love, now, in our brotherhood; but guilt, that we have, each of us, each for not loving the other, I suspect. He loves the notion of loving me. But Tristen ismy brother. And that galls him. Is he jealous?”