“He will need all his friends,” Idrys said soberly, “but tell me, Amefel, since Amefel you will be, and Ynefel you are, and I certainly do not forget the latter, these days—what little shall I do, against lightning bolts? How does one defend him against wizardry?”
“Latch the windows,” he said, then remembered a Man could rarely see the Lines on the earth, and smiled, as Men did at foolishness. “Leave nothing unattended. It comes most by carelessness, most especially when the wizard is far away or weak.”
“ Whichwizard?”
It was an entirely apt question. “I don’t know, sir. I truly don’t. Never forget to do what you always do. That’s the important thing. It makes Lines.”
“Doing what I always do… makes lines.”
“Very faintly so, yes, sir. Most of all, it makes wards. All over this vast building, latch windows, latch doors, set a watch. Especially, sir, —especially over Emuin’s tower.”
“Why would you say so?”
“Master Emuin might say. But a latch isa ward. Windows are whole when they’re latched. Doors are whole when they’re shut. And Emuin’s tower has not been shut, not for a long time.”
Idrys regarded him gravely. And heard him, he hoped, even with a thousand other things to attend.
“Have you need of anything yourself, then?”
“Forty silver.”
“Forty silver. Precisely forty?” Idrys seemed bemused. “Among all else His Majesty’s accounts can manage forty silver. Why, may I inquire?”
“To buy a horse, sir. The stable wants forty silver. And I have none. And there’s a mare Uwen favors. I think he should have her.”
Idrys loosed the purse at his belt and solemnly gave it to him, but with a slight wry smile. “You will have a quartermaster to handle the accounts, Your Grace, for which we may all be relieved of worry, myself not least. He will manage the rather large box and the pay for the troops, who do expect funds on a regular schedule. I pray you, put the horse and its equipage to His Majesty’s funds and save this rather considerable purse for yourself, for your own personal needs. There are at least sixteen gold crowns in it, which are each eighty silver, which should keep Your Grace in honest coin of the realm at least until you come into your own lands, whereafter you may levy taxes and keep a portion for your own use with whatever mercy you see fit. Count Uwen’s horse among the army purchases, in His Majesty’s name. If anyone along the road says you gave them Sihhë coinage, Iam here to swear about this purse and so says His Majesty, and His Highness, who wishes you good and godly progress.”
“It is very kind, sir.”
“I shall miss you, lord of Ynefel, most unlikely, but I shall miss you. I shall not see you until the spring, if all goes well. But the lord of a province has couriers at his disposal. Don’t fail to use them, at need. Keep me informed, and keep His Majesty informed, at whatever need.“
It was not at all surprising that Idrys set himself first in that account, not surprising and not at all against Cefwyn’s interest. Tristen firmly believed so, and held the heavy purse in both his hands, rich in gold, in all material things Cefwyn could give him. But the protections all of them had woven about themselves were, like Lines on the earth, stretching very thin, worrisomely thin. “I shall, sir. For his sake, I shall, most of all.”
“Fare you well,” Idrys said solemnly, and again, in that low, deep voice of his: “Fare you very well, Your Grace.”
BOOK TWO
CHAPTER 1
Water dripped from the rafters, falling plop! plop! on the benches and making sooty puddles on the paving stones all during the ceremony, but no one affected to notice.
The building was shaken. The roof had been breached. The lightning might have loosed a considerable force within the world of shadows. But, to Tristen’s critical eye, that mismade Line on the earth had held fast… and the faltering magical barrier behind the Patriarch gave forth no troublesome shadows.
Still, when he stood to take the Holy Father’s blessing and when he knelt before Cefwyn to swear as the new duke of Amefel he heard little of what the Patriarch said, in his general unease and in his sense that if anything could go wrong, it had its best chance then and there, to the peril of him and Cefwyn and the peace all at once. Kneeling in his armor and surcoat, he stared balefully at that roiling mass of shadow while he affected to keep his eyes on the pavings. He willed it not to advance, and plop! went the water, a puddle collecting on the altar, right beside the Patriarch.
The shadows made him giddy. He concentrated on the intricate carvings of the panels below the railing and willed thatto be the Line.
Plop-plop! The dirty water threatened everyone’s fine robes, and a big sooty drop had landed on the Patriarch’s shoulder, the stain of a hundred years of candles that had sent their smoke up to the rafters now coming down, washed free, like burned sins returning.
He wished the rain outside would stop.
And just then the light began to increase, the shrine and its statues and its columns growing brighter and brighter around him as if the sun had just broken through the clouds outside.
The Patriarch’s hand came near his head, failed to touch him, and the Patriarch himself looked up: Cefwyn looked up, and since all those present did, Tristen turned his head and looked for the source of that light, which was indeed the sun coming full through the canvas patch they had put on the roof.
The return of the sun had made a momentary silence in the ceremony. He thought it a hopeful thing, himself, but Murandys and Ryssand and no few of the lords made signs against harm.
“The gods smile at us,” Cefwyn said sternly, standing beside the Patriarch. “And on this hour.”
“A blessing on the hour,” the Patriarch said in haste, “and on the realm.” The soot had stained his robe, but in his anxiousness he had not seemed to notice.
“Rise,” Cefwyn said, and Tristen rose. The trumpets sounded. The Patriarch stretched out his arms in dismissal, and chanted a blessing on the assembled lords of the realm. Confusion to our enemies, the Patriarch said. A plague on the infidel and a blessing on His Majesty…
Words echoed around and about the columns. Tristen looked up again on his way out, where the sunlit patch of canvas covered the ample hole. The rafters aloft had caught a great deal of rain, and puddles stood on the stone pavings and on the benches. The shadows among the columns seemed more absolute in that strange light from above, some put to flight, others grown more terrible.
Yet the breach had not damaged the wards, as Ynefel’s loft had had a great hole in it, which Mauryl had said was negligible. Such was the nature of bindings, and wards, and magic.
The shrine let them go safely into the early-afternoon sun, the banners first: the Dragon banner of the Marhanen kings lifted, gold and red. Then, in the precedence of the hour, Amefel, red, with the black Eagle outspread, flew for the first time on a gusting wind, Amefel between the two black standards of Ynefel and of Althalen. Cefwyn stopped beneath the banners, under the clear sky, in the witness of the town, at the top of the Quinalt steps, and held out his hand, staying Tristen at his side.
The people of the town had turned out as they would for any occasion bringing out the clattering pageantry of soldiery, lords and banners. The joyous ringing of Quinalt bells startled the hapless pigeons from the roofs of the Guelesfort and they took flight in a great upward beating of wings against the sun.
I am leaving, Tristen wished the maligned birds to know. He had never yet worked any magic to forbid them the place. He remembered that now, and was concerned for their fate. I am going from this place, he wished to tell them.