“What Uwen says,” Tristen answered quietly, and not without careful looks at the men, “I do agree to, and if you will go, go with whatever supply you need.” The gossip was already sped and the harm was done; and he was glad to know Uwen had sifted the garrison for chaff.

“Your lordship,” one said, “horses and lodging on our way.”

“Horses and lodgin’s is fair,” Uwen said. “Seein’ the weather. Tents an’ the packhorses is needed here.”

“What Uwen says, I support,” Tristen said.

“They stood their part an’ discharged their oath,” Uwen said, “an’ by me they’re free to go.”

“Go, then,” Tristen said, “and bear my goodwill to the Lord Commander. I wish you good weather.— And, Wynedd, I wish your mother well.”

“Your Grace,” the man named Wynedd said, blushing bright red, and Tristen thought to himself that in Wynedd Uwen might have found his messenger.

“They’ll be on their way in the hour,” Uwen said. “Face! An’ turn!An’ bear yoursel’s like soldiers, no farewells in the taverns!—Lewes!”

“Sir.” One man stood fast as the others left, and Uwen waved him forward.

“This here’s Corporal Lewes, who’s a likely man, and who I’d set in a sergeant’s place, among this list here. Lewes is Wynedd’s corporal; an’ I’ll name others, by your leave, m’lord.”

“As you see fit,” Tristen said. He was amazed. Uwen, so shy and soft-spoken with him and within lords’ gatherings was something else entirely in the field; and, it turned out, in a gathering of soldiers. He did recall that when Idrys had dealt with the Guard in Cefwyn’s court he had not quite summoned such a large troop of them, but he had seen very, little of court: he found the entire matter of the Guard dealt with and disposed of in far shorter a time than seemed the rule of things in council. His newly assembled earls looked with wonder at this public exchange and the trading of appointments in the garrison.

But had not Emuin said to proceed in public? There was good reason the province should know the quality of the men who kept order in the town, and no one looked displeased to witness the departure of the disaffected men; and not displeased at Wynedd’s reasons or Lewes’ recommendation, either, or with Uwen’s handling of matters. There had been talk behind hands, but more for politeness and quiet, it seemed, than hostility.

“’At’s my report, m’lord,” Uwen said in conclusion, as the noise of soldiers faded in the hall.

“Well-done,” Tristen said, and looked to the rest of Tassand’s list, which proved thereafter the small business of petitions, the sort that had overtaken him in the hall, and requests, one for a marriage of a ducal ward.

“Am I in charge of this person?” he asked, and truth, as Lord Azant explained, the ducal ward was a relative of Lord Cuthan, a young girl, as Tassand knew and interjected, left behind in Cuthan’s flight. Merilys was her name, and she was twelve years old.

“Twelve,” he said. Ages of Men eluded him, but this seemed young. “A child.”

“Indeed, my lord,” said another, elder man. “In need of guidance and direction, and protection of the estate she can in no wise manage.”

“And you, sir?”

“Thane of Ausey, Your Grace. Dueradd, thane of Ausey, betrothed to the lady in question.”

“My lord,” Earl Azant said, edging forward. “I stand remote kin to the child. In the absence of the earl, and his dispossession, all obligations of kinship are fallen on Your Grace. The marriage—”

“The marriage is contracted by the lady of Idas’aren,” said the groom, “and agreed and sealed by the earl of Bryn, as m’lord can see if he will be so kind…”

“All agreements by the earl are abrogated,” Azant said, “and this marriage is not in the girl’s interest.”

“Not all the earl’s agreements are abrogated. His market agreements are being honored…”

“The lady of Idas’aren is not a heifer at market, and her mother, my cousin, is against this union!”

“What does the lady of Idas’aren say?” Tristen asked, lost in the back-and-forth of rights and arguments.

“My lord, she’s too young to know her advantage.”

“Then until she’s old enough to know her advantage…” Tristen said. He found all sympathy for a young soul tossed and bartered about without her understanding or her consent. He had no idea of marriages. But he did, of being set about and ordered here and there. “… may I have the marriage wait?”

There was a murmur, and Tassand, a mere servant in Guelessar, and now in charge of the household, said quietly: “I’m sure Your Grace can do whatever Your Grace pleases.”

“Then I say let the marriage wait until she’s older and can say what she wishes.”

Azant made a small ha! of triumph, and the thane of Ausey retreated with a mutter of angry protest, drowned in the murmur of the hall. No one else looked unhappy, and no few looked well satisfied.

Meanwhile Tassand read out the next matter, stone for repair near the gate, “… requiring,” Tassand said, “only Your Grace’s word to pay the workmen, which seems justified here.”

“I give it,” he said, as he had agreed to a hundred such requests.

Had he done justice to the young girl? He felt a motion of his heart and he did as seemed right to him. He assented to what for some reason needed his assent. The other matters were as mundane as the request for payment… a request of the town clerks for Zeide records, and that, he knew was impossible.

“They’re likely lost,” he said, and saw the Guelen-born clerk who had come with him from the capital come forward, just to the edge of the gathering. “Are they not?”

The clerk gave a little bow. “M’lord, there’s progress, but I beg to say, no, my lord, we still can’t provide all the records. It’s property and inheritance the magistrates want, and it’s all a muddle, for reasons Your Grace knows.”

The archives had been kept in disorder, or at least the semblance of it, even during Lord Heryn’s life, so no king’s clerk could find proof of Heryn’s doings, that was what Cefwyn had said. Now the disorder was real, for Parsynan had done nothing to set the place in order that he could detect; and the senior archivist who might have kept the whereabouts of important papers and books set in memory was dead, murdered by the younger, who had fled.

“We make lists as quickly as we can,” the clerk said, “but to tell the very truth, Your Grace, two more clerks or even a boy to carry and climb would speed the work; and Your Grace to rule on disputes, supplanting records.”

“Tassand,” Tristen said, out of his own competence.

“I’ll inquire, m’lord,” Tassand said, and he trusted it would come to some good issue, or Tassand would report to him. He had no idea what it cost to pay clerks, but he knew the books, which now were jumbled in towering stacks on tables, exceeding the shelves that existed, needed better care than Heryn had given them: not only inheritance and tax records, but works of philosophy, of history, of poetry, all gathered into one confused pile. There were treasures still in that place, he was convinced of it, and no knowing what Lord Cuthan might have destroyed or taken. As he understood, they had hardly a list of what the king of Ylesuin might have taken… nothing would Cefwyn destroy, no question there. But Cefwyn had certainly taken the tax records, and a history or two.

Cuthan had done the worst.

And wondering about Cuthan’s dealings with the library led to other questions, and the welfare of Cuthan’s people, which, if he had arranged the matters under discussion, would have been the foremost thing to do. But it seemed a discussion more appropriate to the lords alone, not to this hour when burghers from the town and clerks and common soldiers rubbed shoulders.

So when Tassand reported the list of petitioners exhausted and asked whether he would say anything he found nothing in particular to say. Now that he had taken up the broom to sweep difficulties and cobwebs off his doorstep, there was one paving stone missing from a complete and unscarred structure in Amefel: there was one outstanding fault, and he had thought of the man in two problems which had come before him, even in one audience.