They had provided for five hundred men, as Cevulirn had said he would ask of each lord. But Pelumer at last came riding in under the West Gate of the Zeide, lord and men alike in modest gray and green, he came with only his banner-bearer and eight of his house guard.
They were likely rangers, these men, riding horses, as they did not when they fought… Pelumer’s was a foot contingent, far more comfortable in deep forest, even daring Marna’s edge… and on that thought, Tristen did not give up hope of Pelumer.
“Welcome,” he said.
“Ah,” Pelumer said as he stepped down and cast a glance to the banners in evidence, two lordly banners flying in equal honor with the Eagle of Amefel above the curtain wall. “Olmern and Imor.”
“Your own banner to join them, sir, and be welcome, as you were in the summer.”
“Good news out of Amefel, after a great deal of bad. I’ve watched this business since summer in no good heart. I was glad to hear the call. I have wagons, with the winterage of a company of a hundred, and other men disposed on various byways among the villages. My rangers know the intrusions to the west, and the gathering at Althalen, not spying, I trust you’ll know, but being aware you have forces there, sir, being aware is all.”
A hundred men, not five. Lanfarnesse fielded few men, and despite all assurances managed never to fight in the field.
What Lanfarnesse knew beforeany battle, however, might pay for all, and though Pelumer had fallen out of the favor he had once enjoyed with Cefwyn, perhaps, Tristen thought, his heart beating more quickly—perhaps these elusive few men never belonged on a battlefield.
“At Althalen,” Tristen said, “Elwynim have settled, and we supply them. But you know that, too.”
“Ah,” Pelumer said as if he were surprised. He turned evasive the moment anyone asked him his men’s doings, and that had repeatedly angered Cefwyn, to the point their alliance was in jeopardy.
But these were not heavily armored men who fought in the Guelen way.
“Settle your men where you will, sir. At Althalen or here, or any lands between.”‘
That did catch a glance, a second, even alarmed assessment.
“Where you will,” Tristen repeated. “For their best service to us.”
“I take you at your word,” Pelumer said, and earnestly so. In his youth Pelumer had been first to the taking of Althalen, Tristen recalled, and forever after had the right of precedence over all the lords of Ylesuin, north or south. SelwynMarhanen had valued him… but Ináreddrin and Cefwyn, steeped in the Guelen way of war, had ordered him.
“I need you,” Tristen said from the depths of his heart. “ Welcome, Lord Pelumer.”
“Amefel,” Pelumer said with uncommon warmth, and clasped his hand in both of his. “Well, well, we’re here with our finery, for a feast. Where shall we lodge?”
“Olmern is south and Imor is east. The west is free, and warmest. Come, if you will. I’ll bring you there.”
Pelumer had wounded him once, when he had overheard how Pelumer spoke of him, and then was friendly to his face. But Pelumer went in gray and green through a forest; he had no less skill to put on the right face with every man: so Tristen saw, and forgave him his past offense. Pelumer learned most from men who thought Pelumer was of their opinion, and what Pelumer didthen was the important thing.
There were only the horses, and them, Haman’s lads attended; Pelumer himself took up the light saddle kit he brought, and ordered his banner set beside the others on the wall.
“Olmern reported the forest darker and sadder than ever,” Tristen said, as they went up the steps together, his guard and Pelumer’s easy in company and admitted to confidences. “Did you see it so?”
“Remarkable if not,” Pelumer said. “It’s very law-abiding, Marna’s verge, at least in Crown law. The bandits all are dead. We’ve found them by ones and twos, fallen in hazards sane men would avoid. A rash of bad luck, or the like. I’ll not risk my men in the heart of it. I trust it does very well by itself.”
“Do you think it does well?”
“You would know that sooner than I, if it were otherwise, would you not, sir?”
“I think I would.”
“Ghosts aplenty walk that woods. The old trees have their roots amongst far too many bones.”
A gloomy sort of converse it was, but it lent a vision of the Pelumer who had served the first Marhanen… wary now, having saved his life when many another had died, and having lived long enough to be a repository of old lore, interesting tidbits—and warnings.
“We should have crossed this summer,” Pelumer said. “So I told the king.”
It wanted only Cevulirn. And the day went on toward dark, cloudless and still.
The lords had rested since their arrival. Now they began to ready themselves for the festivities of this day of welcoming, and servants ran to and fro with buckets of hot water for baths, buckets and towels, turning the stairs treacherous. Others mopped, lest someone slip, while still other servants laid fresh fragrant evergreen along the tables in the great hall.
The musicians warmed their instruments by the fire, sending up a disordered, somehow soothing sound. One tuned a drum.
Tristen walked the circuit of the great hall with Uwen at his heels, assuring himself that everything was in order to accommodate the guests that he did have, and trying not to worry for the one yet to come. Certainly he had no need to remind Emuin of the doings in hall. Tassand had taken Emuin his festive robe, and Paisi was in and out and among the preparations downstairs in a beatific anticipation of cakes.
Tristen himself stole a morsel from a platter, and Uwen had one, too.
“Not to spoil supper,” Uwen said with a wink, “only to stave off the pangs, and make sure the ale don’t land in an empty spot. All’s ready. Be easy, m’lord.”
The timely arrivals were, as he had heard from Lord Umanon by way of Tassand, no accident: Cevulirn had prudently appointed the day before Midwinter Eve as the day by which they all should arrive… and on Cevulirn’s word these lords had set forces on the road and traveled ahead, themselves, trusting that there would be a camp, there would be stabling, there would be food and firewood and all such things as they needed without their transporting it over winter roads.
All these men had trusted him, and committed men to be encamped here in the uncertain weather. More, the men with them were separated from their homes during the festive season, either here with their lords or still out on the roads, and by Uwen’s attentive management the earliest come had their feast: the garrison set up a tent for the lords’ men the same as the festive tents for the town, and under it the garrison’s cooks prepared to serve kettles of uncommonly thick stew and baskets of bread, and kegs of ale bought from every tavern.
That was to last all through the holiday, and to repeat for every contingent to arrive. It set the men in good cheer.
And just as the sun was at its last, the gate bell rang, heralding their last, most welcome visitors.
“The White Horse!” one of Haman’s lads ran in to say, wide-eyed. “The Lord of Ivanor, and all his men!”
It was not all the men of Ivanor, but certainly a goodly number, bringing their tents on packhorses. They set to work making camp on last summer’s site even as their lord, in a fine gray cloak, and dressed fit for a lord’s hall, rode up through the town.
Cevulirn had not failed the day, after all, but had come exactly at the last of the daylight. In the dusk one of Haman’s lads set the White Horse of Ivanor in its place on the wall, and in the firelight from below the creatures of the banners tricked the eye, as if they were bespelled to life.
Crissand arrived, and Drumman and Azant, all the lords who had come to the shrines and the tombs of the East Court, and now trooped in, all in modest finery—no extravagance in these days—and met the lords of the south with open arms and honest delight.