They had not their full load of baggage: a good deal of it he had sent out to Lord Maudyn ahead of time, and all winter long, in the lack of carts, Maudyn had moved it by repeated trips, tempting the enemy to reach for it… but no such thing had happened.

So, indeed, now he committed them to the other side, and tempted fate and the gods twice by leaving his quartermaster to manage the crossing: trust the drivers not to hurl themselves and their teams into the river by too much haste, and his quartermaster not to crowd up on the bridge—he knew his quartermaster, a steady officer of the Dragons: that man was no fool, to bring more than one heavy wagon onto the bridge at a time, and would not, not if pikes had to prevent it. To cross in haste to defend Maudyn was a contingency they had foreseen: that the Elwynim enemy was not the reason of their crossing was beside the point—the man would not fail him.

And as he came off the bridge and onto the soil of Elwynor, he had clear view of the banners of Ylesuin and Panys set among the rocks and the height that bordered the road.

"Ride on!" he ordered Gwywyn, just behind him, and he drew himself and his bodyguard aside from the road, keeping view of the bridge, reassured in the orderly progress of disciplined troops, the Dragons setting the example and the quartermaster's guards marshaling those who came behind into a calm, rapid order.

It was the lords' contingents that worried him: there were the men who might grow anxious and press forward. An armored man that fell into those deep, cold waters was a dead man, no question about it; and he had worried for the provincial musters if they came to any trial at arms about this crossing. His cleverness in setting the army across and leaving Ryssand behind his cart train could bring disaster on them if some unit panicked.

But for the foremost hazard of their crossing, he was just as glad to move at speed: if ever Tasmôrden had a real chance at a hard, early strike at them, the best chance for him was during their crossing. He had needed to be very sure of Lord Maudyn's scouts to have camped as they had, with the army in sight, but Lord Maudyn's men in reach. He had expected an attack to come on Lord Maudyn in the winter, or again when the decking went on. He had most dreaded an attack at their arrival, but last night, when they had camped with Lord Maudyn on one side of the water and himself on Ylesuin's side, there had been no threat and they had seen no reason to press a crossing and encampment into the dark.

The forces of Ylesuin would have had the leisure to straggle onto Elwynim soil at a stroll had they wished. That in itself prompted a leader in opposition to question his own perceptions and Tasmôrden's qualities as a leader of men.

Dared they trust, as Maudyn reported, that Tasmôrden indeed still lingered among the plundered luxuries of Ilefínian, his troops ranging the wine shops, so dissipated they could not field a squad of cavalry?

Or dared he think that Tasmôrden's lack of response was because Tasmôrden chose to let Ryssandish and Guelens fight a war of their own… that he delayed in hope of Ryssand's arriving forces.

"Your Majesty."

Anwyll had found a horse and crossed among the Dragons, a man at loose ends, lacking a command and lacking orders.

"Stay close." Trusted men were rare, and by conscious decision he trusted Anwyll at the same level as he trusted his own guard: if there were perfidy in this man, he counted on Tristen to have smelled it out and never to have trusted him with messages. That was his first thought.

But his second asked whether Tristen was infallible. Had Tristen not sent him that precious lot of Guelens, and the head of the Amefin Quinalt, who had wreaked such havoc?

Then he recalled Efanor's letter, unregarded in his possession since Anwyll had brought it to him. He had tucked it into his belt, another abuse of the scroll, and when he drew it out he found its parchment and its seal alike cracked but not yet separated, a small roll almost overwhelmed by the honors of its seal and binding… no question of its origin as he pulled the ribbon free, for he knew the seal as he knew his own, Efanor's authentic seal, with a deliberate imperfection in it, a flaw at the edge, as his own gillyflower seal bore a small mark in one petal.

But why a white satin ribbon, the like of which the Holy Father used, and why was it not the red of the Marhanen?

He broke the seal and unrolled the little scroll in the stiff wind that came down the river.

I take the captain for a reliable man, Efanor had written, and send him on with the carts which I fear now are too late to serve. Tristen has been here in Guelemara and has banished some sort of darksome unpleasantness from the very altar of the Quinaltine.

Tristen in Guelemara, Cefwyn thought, dumbfounded and dismayed at once. Had Tristen marched for the capital? And darksome unpleasantness?

… Neither I nor the Holy Father fully understand the means of his visitation, but he pursued some irruption of evil influence daring the vicinity of the altar, and established a line of defense which he drew on the stones. He said that I must guard this place and walk this line and pray continually…

There were several wonders in this cramped, tightly written letter… not least of which others was the word praywithin Tristen's instructions. Pray, was it, now?

And Tristen had not marched in at the head of an army, either, if that failure to understand the meansmeant something magical.

Flitting hither and thither like the irreverent pigeons?

To Guelemara, was it now?

Then why not here, friend of my heart? Come to me here! Oh, gods, could I wish you by me!

And where have I sent Nevris? To what care?

But he had no magic, no wizardry: Emuin's most careful questions in his boyhood had found not a trace, not a breath, not a whisper of wizard-gift in him. The Quinalt and Teranthine gods were the only recourse of a magic-blind man, and he had no faith Tristen would hear him orthe gods.

Yet Tristen had flitted his way into the Quinaltine, had he? And surely Ninévrisë was safe with Emuin in Henas'amef, if Emuin had not taken to flying about the land in his company.

And praying? If it were not his brother who had written that word, he would not have believed the letter, but it was, and freely so, Efanor's cursive hand.

This I do, Efanor had written, continually, with the Holy Father and a number of the priests on whom we rely. I fear to say in this letter all that I understand and even more so do I fear to say all that I suspect. Against what enemy we contend we remain largely uncertain. I fear this lonely watch exceedingly and at times feel there is indeed some looming threat behind that Line, although my eyes can plainly see the holy altar beyond it.

I ask myself whether the hallow here— if hallow it be— might have to do with the untimely death of the late Patriarch, so bloody and recent in these precincts.

Well enough, Cefwyn thought to himself: Efanor dared not lay in writing that they had knowingly hanged a corpse for another man's sin; and for that reason might the old Patriarch be looking for his killer? Shadows, Tristen had called them.

But at other times, Efanor wrote, I have worse fears and recall all that I have heard regarding the events at Lewen field, as if this presages some attempt at sorcerous entry into Guelemara, at this holiest of sites, and some threat against the capital and the Holy Quinaltine itself. I have hesitated to write to you, knowing the immense concerns which face you in your undertaking, and indeed, you left me to attend such matters, as within my competency. I pray you know I shall continue to stand my watch.