“Aye, sir.”

“And, young lord, duke of Amefel, until you assemble your court and rule it with a firm hand, I look for you to be a profound concern to your captain, who knows your kind civility with fools. Lordship does not bind you to give away the treasury or to consent to every request. I saw hope in Lewen’s-son last night; I see it today. What of you?”

“Is that why now you advise me, when since summer Cefwyn and I alike have asked and asked and gotten nothing? Can you fault me, sir, when of youradvice I’ve had precious little come down from the tower? You say I should leave my chambers and sit in hall. Cannot you come down and stand by me?”

That drew a tilt of Emuin’s head and a wary look. “I advise as I see to advise. Now I see a stirring of will, young lord, in you and in your honest captain. Employ it.”

“I have the earls’ goodwill. The Guelen Guard is a harder matter.”

“Parsynan appointed their officers, m’lord,” Uwen said, “an’ master Emuin’s right, best we can do to keep ’em out of mischief is march ’em up an’ down. Ye daren’t send a man of ’em home: they’d be straight to Parsynan wi’ gods know what tale. If ye wisht my soldierly opinion, it’s the captain an’ the seniormost sergeant is the poison in the cup, him in the hall last night. Gellyn’s the sergeant’s name. I suspect he was the one went to the patriarch: and maybe ye can put the fear in the sergeant, but small hope for the captain, say I, who’s a Quinalt man, an’ a hard-nosed Quinalt at that. ’E won’t change, an’ it ain’t right you talk to ’im before me. You want the men that leapt right quick to Parsynan’s order to slaughter the prisoners, m’lord, it was this captain an’ this sergeant, an’ the rest was swept along wi’ what they had no heart for, otherwise.”

Emuin had come forward with advice, and now Uwen was stirred to report to him, when before he had been swathed in silence.

And it was no shocking news, what Uwen said about difficulties with the Guelen officers: he had heard it before in bits and pieces. But now Anwyll was out of the town, and his learned and lettered Guelen efficiency was neither a restraint on the Guard officers of the garrison nor on Uwen’s command of them. He had worked for a fortnight to have Anwyll out the gates; and lo! now all the stones that had refused to move tumbled at once.

“I do hear,” he said, “and I’ll take your advice, yours and master Emuin’s. I’ll have Tassand teach Paisi how to beg the soldier’s pardon, for the soldiers’ sake, so they understand and he understands. He mustn’t do it again.”

“That comforts me,” Emuin said. “By this afternoon, do you say, Tassand is to have wrought this miracle?”

“I take your advice, sir,” he said, for it seemed to him a little salve for the soldiers’ pride and for grudges might mend something of what was amiss with the Guelen Guard: a better lord, Uwen had said the night of the slaughter, might let these men regain their honor.

But gaining what he had of advice, and being told to establish a court, he pressed further on forbidden ground, this time with Emuin. “What of Auld Syes, then, sir, if advice is possible today?” He abandoned fear of asking or saying anything at all before Uwen, or even Lusin. “Have you advice on that, sir, and what when one of the earls asks me who she was or signifying what? I know the men have spread it about. And what do youthink I should do about the sergeant?”

“Advice? Advice now, when you’ve gone out and stirred up the spirits of this land? Gods save us, say I, gods save us all. Discipline your sergeant or march him and his captain out to join Anwyll; set up a second camp with the discontents and leave Uwensole captain here.”

“Can they?”

“Can they what?”

“Can the gods save us? I’ve found nothing in Efanor’s book to say so.”

“Oh, young lord,” Emuin said with a sober look and a shake of his head, “that is notthe question. Certainly not in this matter. Set things in order. That’s what you’re here to do. Set all things in order that Parsynan and Cuthan disordered. All you know should tell you the danger in disorder. And with that, I’m back to my tower andmy shuttered and warded windows, young lord. I’ve said enough. Orderis what’s needed. Orderis the only saving of us. I pray you, establish one soon, any sort of order you like, so long as it’s no one else’s order.”

Something in that, touching on what they both understood, breathed a cold breath out of the gray space.

“Do yousee sorcery, sir? Or have you seen it?”

Emuin turned again and looked at him, but it was in the gray space that answer came to him, not aloud.

— Does it not always seek the crack in the wall, young lord?

So ruin had begun at Ynefel, subtly, an old, familiar crack beneath his own small window; and from that small fracture of the stone, grown greater, all calamity came. He could not but remember it, for the thunderclap that had riven the Quinalt roof could have shaken him no worse than did Emuin with that one word.

Yes, the Zeide’s heart had many cracks, of every sort, not least the bloody rift between Meiden and the Guelen Guard.

Now the Quinalt, at a Guard sergeant’s instigation, came lodging complaints aimed at Amefin.

“No more dare I say,” Emuin proclaimed, and began to go his way.

Emuin denied him again, again stopped short of the whole truth; or perhaps it was all the truth Emuin had now to give him.

Uwen gave a twitch of his shoulders and a shake of his head, and began to say something. But all the light had gone to brass, and the gray space was all but with them.

He could reach out and have Emuin’s attention from here. He asked himself what he would say when he did, what authority he would seize unto himself, and do whatwith it?

Invade Elwynor? He had Cefwyn’s authority to raise an army unprecedented in the dealings of Ylesuin with Amefel; but Crissand pleaded the summer war had left the province bereft as was. Yet Cevulirn happenedto come to him.

Who has done this? he asked the unresponsive void, and the old man who was by now walking back to his tower, with feeble and arthritic steps.

— Who has done this, Emuin? Haveyou called Ivanor to me?

“Wizards is pricklish folk at best,” Uwen was saying, in the world of substance and color and the smell of candles, cold stone, and the incense that lingered where the Quinalt had been. “I’ll find the boy an’ I’ll find the one who talked to the priests, as ye say, m’lord. Master Emuin’s entirely right to chide me: busy soldiers is better soldiers, an’ the sergeant and the captain’s better shoveling snow in the river camp. Ye’ve given ’em fair trial since they went again’ your given word; an’ if they’ve been behind your back a second time, don’t gi’ ’em a third chance. The river’s the place for ’em, an’ a warnin’ to Captain Anwyll to go with ’em.”

“What orders you see fit. At any time you see fit.” Yet it seemed unfair to him, to damn a man unheard. “But before that, I’ll hear the sergeant’s reasons, and if I have no good answer from him, then send them all to Anwyll’s camp.”

“’At’s just,” Uwen agreed. “I’ll bring ’im, sayin’ ye want to have a word wi’ ’im. And I’d ask did his captain approve what he did, m’lord, that I would, but I suspect I’d already know the answer. The poison there ain’t all the sergeant. The sergeant wouldn’t be what he is, ’cept for the captain.”

“I trust your advice,” he said. “Bid the sergeant come to my chambers, and after him, the captain, in private. And send to the earls. Say I’ll hold court today.”

Such was the plan; and so the sergeant was due to come at midafternoon, and the captain of the garrison directly after him, but by somewhat past the expected time, Uwen came to his apartment to say personally that there was no sight nor report of either man.