"The Sihhë-lords ruled. Ruled, with an iron hand. But do you see ambition in Emuin? Did you see it in Mauryl Gestaurien?"

"Kingmaker, they called Mauryl. And Kingsbane."

"But did you see him rule?"

"I saw the man not at all, Your Majesty."

"You see?"

"I don't see, Your Majesty."

"He didn't rule. Nor would Emuin. Gods, you couldn't persuade him to be king if you tossed in a shelf of books and a wagonload of parchment… when would a wizard practice his craft, if he ruled?"

"The Sihhë ruled."

"But that's just the point. The Sihhë don't have to study. Tristendoesn't have to study." The conclusions poured in on him like a fall of stars from the heavens—or levin bolts on a priestly roof. "Wizards spend their whole lives at it. So if Tasmôrden's sotted in Ilefínian and has to hire his soldiers, because the peasantry's run to Amefel and the other lords are in hiding, such as survive—is this wizardry? If I were a wizard, I'd do better than hire my troops. I'd bespell them to adore me."

"Yet does Emuin, Your Majesty, improve Ryssand?"

"I don't think it occurs to him to improve Ryssand."

"I think he would do what he could."

"Yet what he can do is limited by what he willdo, and what he willdo is bounded in the stars, and books, and charts, and seas of ink. He's the greatest wizard left alive, and I'd have him improve Ryssand, yes, if Emuin would, or could. On that score I know something, and the answer is that he can't, not really, not directly, not so a man couldn't rise up and march contrary to wizardry, else what chance would we have stood at Lewenbrook? Can you riddle me that?"

"I daresay," Maudyn said in a quiet voice, and by now they were coming among the tents of Maudyn's settled camp. "I daresay Your Majesty understands more of that than I do."

"Take it for the truth! There was no going into that shadow if a man didn't believe he could, and did, and those that went under it, died; but those that faced it never could have faced it except that cold iron and shed blood do avail something, sir, I swear they do. And I know by all the signs I see in the sky there's more than cold iron at work against me. I'm not mad. I see the trouble among us, and I see the lords who served my father acting like fools, and believing a man who can't charm his own peasantry into taking the field for him."

"I don't understand," Maudyn said.

"Wizard-work doesn't rule. Mauryl was Kingmaker, not a king. Emuin doesn't rule. Wizards don't. What they want is something more than earldoms."

"And what is that, Your Majesty?"

"That's the question, isn't it? What do they want? What does Emuin want?" What did Mauryl want when he sent me Tristen? That was the silent question, the one he failed to pose for Maudyn and Anwyll, the one he posed himself alone: Tristenhimself was that puzzle, Tristen who could scarcely fend for himself, now at the head of the southern army.

Tristen armored in black, on a black horse, his gift, and attended by that damned bird and a flock of pigeons… what did hewant?

That was one thing. What Mauryl might have wanted was another matter: Mauryl was an ally of convenience and a wizard's evident frustration with his Sihhë allies… or that thin blood to which the line had dwindled.

To prevent this Hasufin Heltainhaving any success: that was the evidence of Lewenbrook. He had no illusions it was any love of the Marhanen or fear for his continuance.

And what had happened, but this damned bolt of lightning that had sent Tristen from him, by his own order.

Cevulirn had gone.

Then Nevris… and Idrys. And now he was alone, between these two, Maudyn and Anwyll, good men, both; alone, with his guards. Alone, with the lords of the north… and Ryssand.

Mauryl had sent Tristen, Emuin had received him.

And what did this conspiracy of wizards want? What had it ever wanted? Something with which Tristen would agree?

If it was the calamity of the house of Marhanen, he much doubted Tristen would consent to it.

He was aware of silence around him, silence of his companions as well as his guards.

"You wonder what I dothink?"

"If it please Your Majesty to say."

"Tasmôrden's no wizard, but I'll lay odds someone is, within his court, someone who doesn't care a fig for Tasmôrden, whether he lives or dies." Tristen's fortified the Quinaltine, he thought to himself, with a little chill. He expects something: bloody hell, half a year ago he said there was something wrong about the place.

Aloud he said, to Maudyn and Anwyll: "And if wizards are in it, we've wizardry on ourside. Amefel and all the company of the south is at our left hand, if only we both ride past that wedge of rock that divides us one from the other."

"To join with Tristen, then," Lord Maudyn said.

"To join with the south if we can. If our enemy stands back that long." It came to him while he said it that the moment advantage shifted to one strategy or the other, wizardry would incline itself to use that advantage: if he tried to meet Tristen, then opposing wizardry would attempt to prevent him… and where it worked, men might bleed for it, in great numbers.

"And if not, Your Majesty?"

"If not…" Cefwyn looked at Anwyll, who as an undercaptain had offered not a word during all of this. "What do youthink,

Captain? You've dealt with the Lord of Amefel, latest. What do you expect of him?"

"That he will not desert Your Majesty," Anwyll said, and seemed to hold thoughts back, in diffidence or perhaps in knowledge of Tristen. What he held back seemed likely to exceed what he said.

"And does he remain true to us?" he asked Anwyll.

Anwyll's gaze flashed to him, wary as a hunted creature's.

"Does he?" He did not doubt. He refused to doubt. "I think so. I think so." He set Danvy to a quicker pace. They passed beyond the camp, and he relayed orders to Maudyn. "Your men to hold this ground, come what may."

"Shall we let Ryssand pass?"

There was the question, the question whether one province of Ylesuin should fight another. And that was, indeed, one answer to the challenge: set Maudyn as his rear guard, against his own troops.

"Let him pass," Cefwyn said. "Let him have his way for now. There'll be the day, not so long from now."

They had passed the camp and led on, so that all the men and vehicles behind them would follow.

They were on the march and would proceed a day's march north and west, with the blind hills to their left and a traitor at their backs.

"Ryssand can stew and fret," he added, "but it won't get him past the ox teams in the woods."

CHAPTER 2

Wind tore the morning's white clouds to ragged gray rags by noon, rain threatening but never falling. Wizardry? Crissand asked silently, with a worried look, knowing Tristen wished them fair weather, and Tristen refused to agree or disagree: whatever power willed storms to oppose his wishes seemed less mindful opposition than a negligent contrariness, a surly, preoccupied opposition in the north not even caring that it spilled into the heavens for all to see.

Worse thought, that power husbanded its self-restraint, not its strength, as if to hold back and shape its force was a greater effort than to loose it.

Emuin struggled with times and seasons and nudged, rather than commanded, his designs into the grand flow of nature. Emuin moved by knowledge and plan.