"I'll speak to Jormys," Efanor said. And a moment later: "I'll go speak to Ryssand and his daughter, and smooth his feathers."

"Mind your own," Cefwyn said and, with great misgiving, watched his brother descend the steps.

Ryssand wanted that royal alliance, oh, indeed Ryssand wanted it. It must give him indigestion, considering the situation he was in now.

Clever men could become great fools when what they most wanted dangled in reach of their fingers. And Ryssand might well enter into conspiracy with Efanor, who posed himself to draw the lightning of all the discontents in the court.

"If that marriage goes forward," Ninévrisë said faintly, beneath the music, "that man will wish Efanor to be king. Have you taken account of that?"

It was a thought. It was certainly a thought. But his trust in Efanor was oldest of all trust in the world. Efanorwould countenance no move against him: that was solid as the rock under the throne.

"The army will move to the river on the first clear day," he said, "and let Tasmôrden make you another offer when you're standing in Ilefínian. When there's no enemy across the river, and the worry of the war is past, thenlet Ryssand consider his position with me, and speak me fair again."

"My lord king." Idrys had moved close, after brief absence, and had that edge to his voice that meant urgency.

Cefwyn turned his head, saw the black eminence of his reign bearing a grim look indeed.

"What is it?" he asked in honest alarm, and Idrys came close, closer, to his very ear, and whispered a handful of words:

"A letter from Amefel: the Aswydds did reach Tristen. Lady Tarien's with child and claims it's yours."

Cefwyn was not certain whether his heart beat the next moment. He did not let his face change: royal demeanor was schooled from far too early to betray him now. He was aware of all the room, all the reach of consequences, and of his lady sitting at his side.

It was possible, on all counts. He had been a fool, defying his father, disdaining his responsibilities. He had done things he now regretted.

"One of Tristen's letters?" he asked, fey attempt at humor, for they all agreed Tristen wrote the worst letters any of them had ever read, letters utterly lacking in detail. If that was the case he truly despaired of learning more than Idrys had just said.

"Master grayfrock wrote, too," Idrys said with uncommon gentleness. "I have the letters safe with me. I don't know how long this will go unrumored. There are witnesses enough in Amefel, where I fear it won't be secret by now."

Cefwyn's fingers were numb. He rubbed fingertips together, feeling very little, and looked at Ninévrisë, who had heard some of it, but not all.

They won the joust with Ryssand, damn the luck, and were hit from ambush—his own doing.

CHAPTER 9

I advise you so that you may decide the advantageous time to report the news to your court…

So Emuin had written.

There was no advantageous time to report such news to his bride of not many weeks. Cefwyn was painfully conscious of Ninévrisë beside him, in this intimate grouping in the Blue Hall, in privacy even from the pages. She listened as Idrys read the letter aloud. Her face grave and pale, her eyes no longer dancing, but set on her hands in her lap.

"Forgive me," Cefwyn said, taking her hand in his. "Nevris,—I did a great many things in those days, and always escaped the consequences. This one… this one… with Tarien Aswydd, of all people… gods save me… I can't explain it to you."

"She has the gift," Ninévrisë said in low voice, and as if she could no longer contain herself, disengaged her hand, rose from her chair, and walked briskly away to a place remote from him, from Idrys, from Annas, whom they had gathered to share this calamity.

There was no real privacy for a reigning monarch. In very fact, there was nothing he did that failed to impinge on others' lives and fortunes, and gods knew he had not done wisely in this.

"She has the gift," Ninévrisë repeated, and turned to face him, fingers laced together before her. "As will ourchild."

In the depths of self-accusation Cefwyn heard it, and heard it twice, and rose to his feet, asking almost silently: "Our child?"

"I don't know," Ninévrisë said. "I've wished. What more can one do with the gift? A great deal more, it seems."

What more might Tarien Aswydd have done? What might you have expected of these women, fool? Those questions she kindly held unasked.

"At that hour, in those days," he said quietly, not knowing how to interpret her wounded silence, "I had no good appreciation of what wizardry might do or not do. I was used to Emuin. He worked tricks. He refused to do magic. I didn't know what I was dealing with.—And, no, damn it all, that's not true, either. I knew. In my heart I knew. I didn't believe it would come near me. Nothing else did. I was young and damnably foolish, a year ago."

Her face was a regal mask. Did a guilty heart only imagine the sheen of tears in the candlelight?

It was after the festivities, late. All fires in the hearths should have burned down and the servants should be down to one candle, ' replacing the old ones upstairs and down.

But for this late conference, on his order, the servants had built up the fire in the little hearth and lit every sconce, so pretense and falsehood should have no place to hide, and so that afterward he could not hope he had dreamt this night. It was bright as day, and neither of them were likely to sleep afterward.

"I was a fool," Cefwyn repeated heavily. "There's no more to say for it."

Ninévrisë gave a great sigh and looked elsewhere for a space, then lifted her chin and looked at him squarely.

"We'd not even met," she said.

"You're far too kind."

"Can I be otherwise?" Ninévrisë said sharply. "And can I not pity the child? No one loves it. Its mother has no heart. How will it fare in the world?"

"I don't know," he said. Her question struck memories of his own severance from his father, who had never loved him, his mother, who, dying, had not had the chance.

He had not even thought of that burden, had not, in that sense, thought of the child at all, beyond an embarrassment and a disaster.

"And what will be his inheritance?" Ninévrisë pursued him relentlessly. "And who will be his father?"

"I don't know," he said again, left with no other answer. He found himself with no pity to spare for another boy with no father and no hint of a father's love.

"Folly, to give his first years to Tarien Aswydd," Ninévrisë said, counting the difficulties of a child's existence before he was born. "And yet what shallwe do? Bring him here? Let your gods-fearing Guelenfolk see a son of yours with wizard-gift… as Emuin and Tristen alike think he has? Tristen has no doubt at all it's a son." She folded her arms beneath her breast, hugged tightly. "I have only a suspicion and a hope of a child, as yet, one I can't even tell you is real, and now he'll not be your firstborn."

She had told him they were to have a child, and he had let that precious moment slide by in an argument over a royal bastard. It was an unforgivable, irrevocable lapse.

"Our child. To me—"

"Don't disallow this child of the Aswydd woman! He exists!"

"It's none I care to acknowledge!"

"Yet he exists."