Yet dared he cast responsibility on Emuin, who spent so much effort avoiding it?

No, that was not fair, or true. Emuin spent his effort avoiding responsibility for him, and that was a far, far different thing. Emuin wanted little done. There was a certain wisdom in doing little, when one was obliged to act in ignorance.

His own ignorance, however, was not so wide as it once had been… and his will to act, accordingly, was wider than it had been this summer.

He waited, watching the roofs of Henas’amef from the window bordered in frost and green curtains, watching the pigeons. In time Uwen came back from his mission.

“The captain’s sendin’ Lyn, who’s a reliable man, won’t be no stoppin’ in the High Street tavern wi’ Lyn; and Haman’s picked a fine pair of horses from the stables for ’im. He’ll be dust again’ the sky soon as ye can wish, and I give him orders to ride right past th’ viceroy like a bird on the wing. But are ye sure about master Emuin? Shouldn’t ye warn ’im, lad, at least instruct ’im’t’ gi’ that man the worst horse he can lay hands on?”

Uwen was a clever man, and in part he thought yes. At least enlist Emuin’s help whether he saw the message or not.

But to tempt Emuin to act against his judgment…

“No,” he said. “No. Ride through. The viceroy will lie. If Emuin will not hear mein the gray space, he will hardly be happier to have a message other men can see. Lyn should ride past and not stop. That may worry master Emuin,” he added on a sober thought; and then said in some lingering vexation, “But if it does, perhaps he’ll suspect the viceroy’s story entirely and make some haste to reach us.”

“Aye, m’lord.”

Uwen left again in great haste and in no long space after Uwen had had time to reach the front stairs came the clatter of a rider headed out across the South Courtyard and out the South Gate.

So Liss had brought them a gift the lord viceroy would pay all his gold not to have in Idrys’ hands. And master Haman had turned up. That was good, too, though Tristen found himself not in the least surprised, only a little fearful for the broad scope of his decisions and at the same time expecting more such threads of Amefel-as-it-was to come into his hands.

Petelly had his old stall back, Tristen found as he walked into the stables in a quieter hour of the midafternoon. There were no apples in the barrel, there was dirty straw and manure scattered in the aisle, a disgraceful state of affairs, and Haman, newly arrived back in his domain, was shouting about horse brushes and pilfered halters when he and Uwen came in. “Bandits!” Haman cried.

But master Haman hurried over to him as he patted Petelly’s offered nose, Gia thrusting her head out of her next-door stall to watch. “Your Grace,” Haman said. “Gods bless Your Grace, these stables will be back in order as quick as we can move. We were never so glad in our lives, m’lord, as when we heard ye’d remembered us.”

Master Haman was greatly moved, his weathered face showing more tender passion than its habitual lines had graven in it, and meanwhile boys with buckets and manure forks and barrows were in rapid movement up and down the aisle, evidence that with master Haman in charge the horses’ welfare would never be a concern. Uwen reported Dys was down in the lower stables with Aswys. So was Cassam. Gia was down, too, for rest, with Gery. But Liss had a red ribbon braided into her forelock, and was curried so she shone.

“Well-done,” he said, “very well done.” And as he was walking out with Uwen, to the inspection of the rest of the yard, lo! there was Cook marching in by the West Gate bearing a ladle in her fist like a battle mace, and in her train, a number of the scullery maids bearing along pots and kettles. Two of the Dragon Guard, on horseback, improbably brought up the rear.

“The cook and the three maids was all found at Silver Street, m’lord,” a guardsman said with a salute. “The pots were hidden in the gatehouse cistern.”

“M’lord!” Cook said with a deep curtsy, and so all the maids bobbed down and up in rapid succession, their faces all consternation.

“Why were the pots hidden?” Tristen could not forbear asking.

“So’s they weren’t stolen, m’lord,” Cook said with another curtsy, “as the viceroy turned us out for puttin’ his Guard layabouts out o’ the scullery.” This with a fierce look. “They turn’t me out, an’ the lads, too, an’ so we hid the good copper pots in the cistern, an’ since then they hain’t had a kettle but the great one that’s hard to shift. Here’s all the fine spoons, too.” At that a maid tipped the pot she carried, and there were, indeed, spoons. “We come back ourselves like honest folk an’ reported to the Guard about the pots.”

“You’ll take great care,” Tristen said. “Earl Edwyll died of poison Lady Orien left. Be very careful of the stores. And I have missed the pies.”

“That I will, m’lord! That I will indeed! An’ pies you shall have, m’lord!” Cook’s broad face splotched when she was distraught, or now when she seemed happy. “Gods bless, gods bless, an’ a long life to Your Grace.”

He feared she had broken the law by taking the pots and the spoons, but justice required his not seeing it. “Let them free,” he instructed the guards. “They’ll set the kitchen in order. —I suppose the scullery lads will turn up in due course,” he said to Uwen.

“I’ve no doubt. Word’s out that ye want the old staff, an’ they’re turnin’ up by twos and threes an’ by troops and regiments. We sent word out, too, that ye want the gate wardens o’ th’ West back, but Ness says they’re fair scairt, on account of layin’ violent hands on ye this summer.”

“Say they should come. I’m not angry.”

“’At’s what I said to Ness.” Uwen shook his head. “An’ I’ll say again. We’ll find ’em.”

“Your Grace. ” A clerk had been hovering at the edge of his vision for the last several moments, the clerk who had ridden with them, distressed and in the company of a Guelen guardsman. “Your Grace. If Your Grace could spare a moment…”

Tristen paused to listen, and the clerk bowed again. But it was the guardsman who spoke:

“There’s letters burnt, your lordship, and a dead man in the library.”

He had asked himself what such a man as Parsynan would choose to do, given advance warning. He delayed not at all, but strode off, himself, Uwen, Syllan, and Tawwys with him. “What sort of letters? ” he asked the clerk. “Are they entirely burned? Can you make anything of them?”

“A book of record, a record of some kind, perhaps of the very letters.” The man was all but trembling. “And a man who may be the archivist, dead, beneath a table. No one had been in there with the fighting and all, and I came in to build a fire myself, the servants not answering; I never even saw the dead man, Your Grace, until I saw the scroll ends in the fireplace, and he was right beside me. Right beside me!”

“Stabbed? ”Uwen asked.

“No blood,” the guardsman said. “An’ the book in the fireplace, m’lord, and the scroll ends. It seemed your lordship should know.”

“We ain’t let anyone into any place we ain’t searched,” Uwen said, “even yet. Have ye seen the archivists, either one, man?”

“Neither.” The clerk hitched a double step keeping up with them as they climbed the stable-court stairs. “Unless this is one. It’s an old man.”

“It might be,” Tristen said, as they passed the doors. The way to the archive took them past the lesser hall, and behind the central stairs, into the back hallway.

There were two guards posted over the archive, which ended that hallway, past the garden windows, guards who came to attention and opened the door without question.

Codices were not shelved, but piled on tables. Scrolls were stacked, not in their columbaria, and when he walked to the far side of the room the fireplace that provided warmth to the library indeed held the ends of scrolls and the burned spine of a codex.