And Cossell had shut the gate again at his back, keeping that way barred from all comers. That wall of Dragon Guard shields was absolute and unyielding.
The silence grew as even smaller movements stopped, throughout, attackers and defenders alike.
CHAPTER 6
Where is Earl Edwyll?” Tristen asked the earl’s men from atop the steps. His voice echoed in the quiet of the yard, and he looked on men who could do nothing other than what their lord bade them. He settled no blame there. He was, among other matters, anxious to see the officer who had managed the defense, who, if he had had battle-hardened men, would have made matters far worse than he had. “Who stands for these men?”
There was some little hesitation, and then swords slanted down disconsolately. But one young man grounded his shield forward of the others, took off his helm one-handed and cast him a defiant look. “Crissand Adiran, thane of Tas Aden, son of Edwyll son of Crissand, son of Edwylls before there ever were Aswyddim in Henas’amef! Istand for my father’s men, of the house of Meiden! ”
A strange feeling went through Tristen’s heart then, as if he had heard a spell uttered in the words, in the names, in the Unfolding of a history he might, at some time, in a life before this life, have known, in the titles of a young man who had for a time stood successfully against him.
“And why do you oppose me?” he asked this defiant young man. And that, too, he seemed to remember saying.
There was quiet, in which the flame of torches thumped and a step grated on stone, and men on every hand, fresh from their exertions and in danger still, breathed deep and hard.
“For justice,” the young thane said. “For justice!”
He said then the third thing it seemed he had once said:
“And do you think I shall not be a just lord?”
Again the silence, in which a man of his own company coughed, a dry, exhausted sound, as of a man who had been running. From the South Court was a distant tumult that sounded as if the townsfolk might be at the gates, no further. Here the young thane faced him in stony silence.
“What would you say justice should be?” Tristen asked in that hush.
“Pardon for them,” the young thane said, with a haughty nod toward the men behind him. But an older man moved forward then, with a clatter of metal and a heavy step. “No, m’lord,” the man said, “none of that for me. I stand with my lord the earl and with my lord’s son.”
Tristen thought of Uwen, seeing that man, a soldier, who would not leave the earl’s son to save his life. Other men moved then, four of them, the earl’s men, standing with the young man, defying him and his offer of justice. In the same moment and with no animosity at all, Uwen moved a little closer to him, and had his shield up and his sword ready for any attack.
Another man joined the five, and then another, all expecting to die, Tristen thought, and every man in the lot surely yearning to join them, and every man else in the courtyard either glad he had no such choice to make or envying the courage they saw.
“I pardon you,” Tristen said. “I pardon you all.”
“M’lord,” Uwen said under his breath, “don’t let ’em free, not that easy.”
“And I forgive the earl, if he will swear to me.” He knew it set him against the viceroy’s opinion, and perhaps against the law, but he had no desire to harm such men as the young thane and the men who defended him. “And provided he has not harmed the king’s messenger.”
“We have the king’s herald a prisoner,” the young thane said, with this time a small tremor in his voice and a fear in his eyes… or it was the uncertain torchlight and the bitter wind. “We have not harmed him. And I will wait to see what this promise is worth.”
“This is a dangerous young man.” It was Anwyll who stood just behind: Tristen knew the voice. “Lewen’s-son’s advice is also the law. Do not release these men, Your Grace. You must not.”
“I have already given my promise,” Tristen said. “And the king will regard it.”
Again a silence, and slowly the young man let down his sword, as he had already let down the shield.
“What my father wills,” Crissand said. “That I will, with my men, so you keep your word, sir.”
“Where is your father?”
Crissand cast a glance up the height of the Zeide itself, and that seemed his answer.
“Have them all lay down their weapons, Your Grace,” Anwyll said. “I beg you don’t offer any more assurances.”
He had no need of Anwyll’s advice at the moment. He wished Anwyll silent, but:
“Do as he asks,” Crissand said to his men, and slowly the ranks came and cast down their weapons, a clang of iron and a thump of shields cast one onto the other. Crissand added his own, among the last.
“Lusin,” Uwen said quietly, “His Grace will have that young man handled wi’ due respect, and the seven of them”—Uwen surely meant the men who had joined the thane—“under special guard. —Ye’re on m’lord’s word, young lord. Ye come up here.”
The seven were not willing, but the young man cast a forbidding glance and went of his own accord as far as the steps.
“Your lordship,” Crissand said. “I rest on your word, I and the men with me, and my father, sir, I ask that.”
“And where is the king’s messenger?”
“In the Aswydds’ apartment. With my father.”
To have taken that set of rooms was entirely understandable in a man who claimed the Aswydds’ place and titles. It was equally within Tristen’s understanding that he could not permit that situation to go on, whether or not it mattered a whit to him: it mattered greatly to Cefwyn and it certainly mattered to the Amefin earls. Edwyll was the nearest kin to the Aswydds Cefwyn had allowed to remain in Henas’amef when he exiled Lady Orien and her sister, and that mercy was now repaid by a gesture every Amefin understood. More, removing the earl with any force would entail damage that itself was significant to the Amefin.
And removing him even by persuasion and the good offices of the man’s son would entail going into that place and claiming it for the night, when he had as lief camp in the courtyard tonight, or sleep in the stables, rather than that cursed premises. He wished he had a choice, and he wanted nothing more now than to sit down where he stood.
“Let him come out with no harm and we will settle all the rest by daylight.”
“I will go up and try to persuade him, by your leave,” the young thane said, much as if it were something he had tried before, even many times, to no avail, and so saying, Crissand looked suddenly overwhelmed, more than he had when faced with weapons. “Or my father’s men might, where I cannot. Let them speak to him, sir, on your good word.”
The men Crissand proposed were the seven men Uwen had ordered under special guard, he well guessed. And they were not the men he would set free with the earl in reach.
But he had promised, and no good came of breaking his word at the outset.
“You will try. Come with me. We shall both try. Bring a torch.”
“Your Grace,” Anwyll began as he reached the uppermost step, and he found himself very weary of hearing those words in that tone of voice. “Your Grace,” Anwyll persisted. “These men haveno pardon. I must urge your lordship—”
“Am I duke of Amefel?” he asked shortly, “And did not Lord Heryn do as he pleased in his own hall?”
“Far too much,” Anwyll said on a breath. “And died for it, Your Grace.”
He knew that it was heart-sent advice. Anwyll had done nothing amiss and a great deal right, and faced him with dogged courage and no ill will.
“I hear all you say,” he said, the two of them paused, he on the upper step. “And I take it much to heart, sir. But I will pardon them, all the same. Take them and these other men under guard and under my protection and hold them some safe place elsewhere. How does it stand in the South Court?”