There the lady left them. Cevulirn never needed say aloud that he was ill at ease in this separation from his men… Cevulirn, who had a little of the wizard-gift, and perhaps a sense of things in the gray space, still was a troubled presence.

“I find no threat to us,” Tristen said aloud, and Cevulirn said nothing, but cast him a resolutely comforted glance and sat down and took off his boots.

Tristen did the same, all the while listening, listening, surmising the anxiousness he still felt was the villagers’ anxiety, and most of all the new-made lord’s and his lady’s, all disturbed at the storm that had swept down on their peace. Drusenan might be troubled at his lord’s banishment and fall; at his own accession to unexpected heights in the same brief space. He might be mulling over the instruction to muster and build. All these things were possibly in Drusenan’s agitated mind, and two wizard-gifts in their midst could only gather it up with unusual force. And their concern might cause others’ concern by their frowns.

Yet the house did settle, and the presences in the house went out one by one as the fire downstairs was banked. Tristen settled beside Cevulirn in the soft feather bed. For a short time they talked of the river and the bridges, and then fell away to a mutual silence, both of them courting sleep in a house which had grown quiet and dim around them.

Cevulirn at last dropped off to a faint, drowsing presence, a light sleep, it was: Tristen was aware of presence, and that meant some awareness lingered. He himself failed to rest quite as easily, still uneasy in the unfamiliarity around him and in his responsibility… and in his daylong separation from Uwen, who had been beside him or accessible to him almost since he had come among Men. He found himself wondering what Uwen Lewen’s-son might be up to in Henas’amef, how his first day of solitary command of the town might have gone; whether he was asleep, by now, in his bed, and whether Uwen also missed him.

Such questions he might satisfy. He might reach out to Emuin, from here, and through Emuin learn at least some things; but a thought prevented him: that they were a day closer to the river now, and that more powerful effort meant more exposure to wizardry than he liked.

He felt strangely unprotected, despite his access to wizardry, despite the sword on the floor next his bedside, despite the very formidable companion asleep at his side, one of the bravest and most skillful fighters in all Ylesuin, and despite all the guards below. He had not even brought Lusin and Syllan and his ordinary guard on this venture, but rather his night guard, good men, all, and brave and loyal to him, taking turn about bearing the ducal banner. Lusin and the rest of his day guard had come to have other duties more essential than standing at his door, and were more and more absent, one or the other managing the domestic things about the Zeide that they had come to manage very well, becoming the extra hands and eyes he had come to need so much in dealing with the ordinary business of the place.

Least of all could he withdraw those men at the very time Uwen might need them. And there was no reason to fear for himself, not with Cevulirn beside him, though the unaccustomed presence kept him from sleep.

So he rested, gazing at the eye-teasing glow of a distant banked fire on unfamiliar rafters, beams so low he could all but touch them. The same beams extended out over the hall where his men were sleeping, and he watched shadows move among the beams, tame and well-behaved shadows, as it happened, nothing ill feeling at all about the house itself.

He looked further into the shadows and saw the Lines that established the house, all well made, some brighter and older than others. That meant the house had known several changes, but each had observed the Lines of the one before, so far as his sleepy inquiry could ascertain.

He shut his eyes, courting sleep now with a determined wish, considering how long a ride they had on the morrow, on snowy roads.

But something else touched him, light as a summer breeze, awareness of lives, the way he was aware of a hawk aloft or a badger under a ledge, a horse in the stable, or men slipping about something very, very quietly out in the yard.

He listened to it, and asked himself was it innocent? And should he wake Cevulirn?

At the very thought, Cevulirn was awake, and a presence strong as a lit candle in the dark.

“Something’s outside,” Tristen whispered, and they both, having slept mostly dressed, put on their boots and took up their cloaks and their swords in the dimness of the loft.

There was not as yet any reason to call out an alarm to all the men below. They two came down the worn wooden stairs, the fire in the downstairs fireplace lighting the stairs just enough for night-accustomed eyes.

And just so the light showed a shadowy, cloaked figure, the new-made earl closing his front door, after a look or a venture into the yard outside.

Young Drusenan looked around, and up, saw them both, and stood stricken and still, on all sides of him a carpet of Ivanim guard sleeping, but not ale-dulled enough a spoken word would not rouse them.

Tristen came the rest of the way down the steps, sword bare in his hand, and Cevulirn joined him. No one had made a sound. The wife was awake, and had come out of her curtained nook, her braids all undone.

The earl might have been seeing to a horse, or himself investigating the unease outside, but the stricken look on his face said otherwise, and he had not the face to lie.

And now, roused by the faint sounds of their movements, one man of the guard stirred, and after that two, and half a dozen, and all the rest, reaching after arms and rising to cast long shadows around the walls.

Drusenan’s face showed a pale sweat in the firelight. His wife wove her way through the guards, her hair unbound, a shawl about her, and reached her husband’s side.

“I hear something,” Tristen said, for there was a stirring, remote from him. Others looked puzzled, and Cevulirn looked doubtful. But Drusenan drew a breath like a man meeting cold water.

“My lord, the truth: I have other visitors… fugitives, helpless fugitives out of Elwynor. I should have confessed it, but I’d sworn to keep them secret, on my honor, my lord, and how could I break my oath? They’re by no means enemies of yours. Women and children, old men. We’ve fed them, given them warmth in the cold.”

“Hardly a surprise,” muttered Cevulirn. “So I’m sure the borderers do and have always done.”

So Ninévrisë’s father’s company had found Amefel their natural recourse, and gained help from the village of Emwy. Likewise the rebel Caswyddian had crossed, pursuing, and foraged off Amefin land, bringing death with him. There was no way to tell Elwynim friend from Elwynim foe when they all came for shelter and killed one another on Amefin soil.

“I beg my lord’s mercy,” the wife said, and added, faintly, “Lord, I am Elwynim, and have a cousin with them. How could I turn her away?”

“Blood is mixed here,” Drusenan said. “And kinship binds us, even with other loyalties we keep. Your Grace, in your own good heart, help them. Shelter them. Feed them.”

Feed my sparrows, Auld Syes had said.

These were Auld Syes’ birds. The gray space echoed with the memory, the witch of Emwy, the uprooted oak.

“Show me these fugitives,” he said.

Chapter 2

There were indeed mostly women with small children, bundled against the cold, and very frightened to be hunted out of their refuge in the stable. They had been warm and snug among the many horses that had filled the stalls and the aisle. Now they stood exposed to view of armed men, roused out into the wind and shivering with fright.