It had been sealed in the manner of a letter, but the seal was cut, so it was not a message the viceroy had prepared to take on his journey. It was someone else’s letter in Lord Parsynan’s possession, presumably already read, but not disposed of.
It said:
The vacancy of Amefel is filled. His Majesty has seen fit to appoint the Marshal of Althalen to the post. Pray advantage yourself of my hospitality when you reach godly lands.
Godly lands were, in the Quinalt’s way of speaking, any place in Ylesuin but Amefel. And the Marshal of Althalen was himself.
The letter bore the seal and name of Lord Ryssand, Corswyndam, least beloved and most troublesome of Cefwyn’s northern lords. He had been close enough to the court in Guelemara to have seen Lord Corswyndam’s countenance andhis work, and to be very sure he was not Ninévrisë’s friend or Cefwyn’s, for that matter.
“Lord Ryssand would seem to invite the viceroy to stay with him when he comes home to Guelemara, ” he remarked to Uwen. “Or possibly to lodge in his hold in Ryssand, since he invites the viceroy to enjoy his hospitality: Ryssand’s lodgings in Guelemara are under Cefwyn’s roof. The letter also seems to advise the viceroy of exactly what we came to say, but it had to come before we did and perhaps even before the king’s messenger.”
“Then he must have rid hard,” Uwen said, “and left soon’s the word was out. The king’s messengers is steady on the road, but they most times stop a’ nights. I’ll wager His Majesty wouldn’t like that letter-writin’ in the least. Sendin’ a message to somebody ahead of a king’s herald, about the king’s business? It ain’t right, and probably it ain’t lawful.”
“So Corswyndam has been dealing directly with the viceroy, not telling Cefwyn,” Tristen said, and was uneasy in that thought. “If Corswyndam needs to talk to the viceroy so urgently and privately as that, I think I should send this letter to Cefwyn to read as soon as possible.”
“I think that were a very good thought,” Uwen said. “An’ I’ll guess his lordship’ll be prayin’ to the blessed gods Liss ran home or strayed into thieves. He won’t guess she run back to us. —But he willbe meetin’ wi’ master Emuin an’ the wagons on the road, now, won’t he? And he’ll be askin’ master Emuin for help and tellin’ master Emuin all sorts of lies, won’t he, then? Master Emuin might delay the lord viceroy if he knew the man’s doin’s, m’lord, just, you know, gi’ ’im a touch o’ colic.”
It was a clever notion. The wagons held potions and powders enough to give a troop of men indigestion. But Tristen had ceased to think master Emuin would prevent anything. There was little hope there.
And if he were to send the message straight to Cefwyn, various hands would handle it, or at least attempt to handle it, from the front gate to the Lord Chamberlain, Annas. Annas was very much to trust… but the other hands he did not know, and suspected.
Idrys on the other hand was experienced in matters of misdeed, and the path to the Lord Commander through soldiers’ hands he estimated as far less contested.
“This case and the message must reach Idrys,” he said to Uwen. “Not His Majesty. And it must go as quickly as possible. The man should only say to Idrys that I thought he should see it. Ryssand doesn’t know it’s in our hands. He won’t know until the viceroy arrives in Guelemara, he may not be sure of it even then, as you say, and by then Idrys will have made plans.”
“We might prevent the lord viceroy gettin’ there at all, which is surer still. We can send men out after ’im, arrest ’im an’ hold ’m against His Majesty’s sendin’ for ’im.”
That, too, was worth a thought. But he decided otherwise. “No. Idrys may prefer to do something else.” He wished he were more sure of that opinion; Uwen gave sound advice, on what Uwen knew. “Send the message straight to Idrys. It’s the best thing.”
“Aye, m’lord,” Uwen said, and took the case. “I’ll send it, fast as these legs can find a likely man.”
Uwen left. The door shut.
Treason, that letter said without a doubt. Any baron of Ylesuin might freely quarrel with a Marhanen king’s policy… and had done so. But they were notfree to have private dealings with a man who should report first to Cefwyn, an invitation issued in such haste the duke of Ryssand’s messenger had outridden a king’s herald.
Did dinner invitations come with such desperate measures?
And was forewarning Parsynan only for the sake of the jewels and other pilferage, or what other thing might a forewarning have advised Parsynan to do?
To pack… and to arrange things for his absence…
To lay traps? To remove certain things? Parsynan had tried to take the jewels, surely for his own benefit; had taken a sizable sum of gold; anda message, perhaps to prove to servants and guards his right to access Lord Ryssand without delay and perhaps in secret, or to prove to others Lord Ryssand had written to him. That was the only use he could construe for it; and his own working had surely snarled Lord Parsynan’s affairs, top to bottom. He wished he might do the same for Lord Ryssand.
He watched his pigeons, lately combatants on the ledge, green-coat and violet-breast walking separately, having chased off the others, and thought that he never should have left Cefwyn. He thought it so desperately he almost dared attempt to reach Her Grace herself with a message, but Ninévrisë’s gift was so small, the distance so great, the danger in the gray space so insistent that he backed away from the attempt in haste. No, that was not wise.
By now the barons Cefwyn detested had compelled Cefwyn to take back Sulriggan. Dared he hope a horse threw the lord of Llymaryn as well as the lord viceroy? Perhaps Lord Corswyndam, too… a kingdomwide plague of ill-behaving horses, perhaps… was it wicked to imagine it? It was certainly to his liking. To Cefwyn’s good he could wish all the barons’ horses might be wild and unbiddable. So with all Cefwyn’s troublesome lords.
But he checked himself abruptly, asking himself what would Mauryl say? What would Emuin? Yet, yet if men conspired behind their lawful monarch’s back… did a sworn friend’s virtue dictate letting them pursue their harmful work unscathed? If men must take harm, Ryssand and Parsynan were deserving of it, were they not? If Duke Corswyndam slipped on the stairs and no worse than went to his bed for a fortnight, Cefwyn might have a chance to read this letter and deal with Parsynan, and do justice for the house of Meiden.
Had he not sworn to do justice when he swore fealty to Cefwyn? And would that not satisfy it?
But to wish harm on others was wicked even to think of, was it not?
When he thought of it, he had left Mauryl’s care and walked into the world with no real knowledge of Wickedness, and Emuin had taught him very little of it. When the dark doings of ordinary Men Unfolded to him, they Unfolded not so much a blazoned banner of Evil as a tattered quilt of Misdeed, all far from the clear understanding he would have wished to gain of Good and Evil. Hasufin might have been evil… but did not lords prosper their own folk and strive against rivals quite commonly? He failed to see wherein Hasufin was worse than Cefwyn’s grandfather.
And while Wickedness and Evil were abundant in Efanor’s little book, and he could read that the gods disliked both, whence came Wickedness in the first place, if the gods created all the world? Did they create something they detested, along with the mountains and the rivers? Efanor’s book informed him of nothing on that score, except to say that Men and their works were wholly evil, but some were good… very like Emuin’s defining the length of autumn to him. So it seemed to come down to Efanor’s advice, and Efanor’s little book and an amulet of silver and sheep’s blood… which was to say, nothing.
Perhaps he should have taken Uwen’s advice in the absence of wizardly counsel. Perhaps he should yet show Emuin that document, and ask Emuin what to do, before it ever came to Idrys’ grim actions.