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Uwen did not answer him at once. “Ghosts,” Uwen said finally, which was a Word of death and grief and anger. It disturbed him. He looked at the trees on either hand as they rode into that green shade, and so did the men, who said very little, and seemed anxious.
But he looked to the green branches, even hoping to see a feathery brown lump somewhere perched on a limb. Since their excursion pla
Henas’amef. But the men around him looked not to be comforted at all by what they saw or heard.
“It’s not so dark as Marna,” he said, to make Uwen feel safer. “Few places would be,” Uwen said, and made a sign folk made when they grew frightened. So he did not think he dared say more than that.
But in a little more riding, the track they followed, leaf-strewn and hardly more substantial than the Road he had followed through Marna, brought them through a thi
“This is Arys-Emwy,” Uwen said. “They’re mostly shepherd-folk.”
So they were still in Amefel, Tristen decided. He remembered the pale lines on the map. He saw the Name in his memory. Sheep had left their tracks about the meadow and on the road, although they saw none grazing.
They came on stone-fenced fields beyond the next hill, and crops growing, and further on they could see the thatched roofs of a village—Emwy village, Uwen said, which seemed a pleasant place. It had no outer walls, just a collection of tow stone fences. The buildings were gray stone, two with slate roofs and a number with thatch. Shutters were open in most of the houses, and many of the doors likewise were open. Men and women were working in the fields closest to the village, and thin white smoke was going up from a few of the chimneys.
Folk stopped work as they saw what was riding down their road, folk came in from the fields, and dogs ran and barked alongside the horses, as slowly the people gathered.
“Hold,” Cefwyn said, and the column halted; he gave some order to Idrys about searching the houses, and Idrys and the men around him, with none of the ba
“Where are the young men?” Cefwyn asked of the silent villagers, who leaned on hoes and gathered behind their stone fences. And they were all old, or young women or children.
“Answer the Prince!” a man of the guard said, and lowered his spear toward the people.
“Off wi’ they sheep,” an old man said. “Off seekin’ after they sheep, m’lord.”
“Who is the head man, here?”
“Auld Syes. She is, m’lords.” The man nodded toward the village, and all the people pointed the same way.
Cefwyn drew his horse about and bade them ride on toward the village itself, where Idrys and his men going in advance of them had turned out a number of villagers from their houses, a number of children, Tristen saw. Dogs were barking.
“This ain’t good,” Uwen said. “If village lads is off searching for any sheep, they should have the dogs along. They’re lyin’, m’lord.”
What Uwen said to him echoed in Tristen’s head as they rode up on the village and into its street. There were two girls—a number of children, many very young. There were old folk. Cefwyn’s men, those afoot, who had been searching, and others sitting on their horses, were looking this way and that, hands on weapons. Idrys came riding slowly closer to them.
“Not a one of the youths on the rolls,” Idrys said, out of some far distance. “So much for Heryn’s law-keeping.”
Tristen drew a sharp, keen breath, feeling a shiver in the air. Dust moved aloud the street as a stray gust of wind blew toward them. The gust gathered bits of straw, whipped a frame of dyed yarn standing by a doorway, and one woman, one old woman was in that doorway. “Are you Auld Syes?” the sergeant asked.
“I am,” the old woman said, and lifted a bony arm, pointing straight at Cefwyn. “Marhanen! Bloody Marhanen! I see blood on the earth!
Blood to cleanse the land!” The wind danced around her rough-spun skirts, it skirled through the tassels of her gray shawl and the knots of her grayer hair. She wore necklaces not of jewels but of plain brown stones and knots of straw. She wore bracelets of knotted leather. Tristen looked at this woman, and the woman looked at him. She feared him. He knew that look. She stretched out her arm at him and pointed a finger, and cried a Word without a sound; and now in dreadful slowness Cefwyn’s men were making a hedge of their weapons.
The wind wrapped around and around the old woman, winding her skirts and shawl about her until she was a brown and gray bundle in the midst of the dust.
The Word was still there. He couldn’t hear it. People were screaming and ru
Dogs were growling and barking, but some had run away. A handful of old men and women and a boy with one foot all stood where they had, and Cefwyn was shouting at the riders—”Up the lane! Catch one!”
—Mauryl’s damnable tinkering, the Wind was saying, with a hundred voices. Mauryl’s meddling with the elements. Unwise. He would never take advice.
—Who are you? Tristen asked it, and thought of Emuin—it was like that gray place. But Gery was with him, Gery refused to go further, shied back and turned.
“Tristen!” Cefwyn was shouting at him, and the wind whipped about, blinded him with bits of straw that flew and stung. Gery jolted so strongly forward he hit the cantle, and he fought to hold her as old women hauled the sputtering woman out from under the hanks of yarn and young women bolted down the lane between the houses and fled.
“She—” Tristen began, but had no words to say what the wind had said to him—it was all fading in his mind the way dreams faded, except it had spoken of Mauryl, and home.
“M’lord Prince,” Idrys said, sword in hand, “this is no longer a ride for pleasure. Take an escort. Ride out. Now!”
Cefwyn was incensed. “Damn it! I’ll not be chased by a pot-wizard and a gust of wind!” Cefwyn’s horse was fighting the rein and he brought the animal full about in the midst of them. “She’s a foolish old woman!”
“Lost sheep be damned,” Idrys shouted at him. “It was a lure, m’lord Prince! They wished nothing but to draw you here. Your life is in danger.
No one dragged their sons across the river. They’ve gone, they’ve taken to your enemies. —No, Your Highness!” Cefwyn had gone aside from the road, and Idrys went so far as to ride in front of his horse. “Go up in those hills and you’ll be feathered like a goose. That’s their purpose.
That’s what they want!”
“Do not you dispute my decisions, sir! The women know where to go!”
“Straight to their brothers and husbands!” Idrys said. “Give over, m’lord Prince. This profits no one but your enemies! If there’s aught to learn, the patrol I’ve sent will find it!”
The wind came near them. The air seemed to buzz and hum like insects on a lazy day. Uwen caught Gery’s rein, and Cefwyn was still disputing Idrys, but Idrys seemed then to prevail.
Two riders who had left them were still chasing across the fields, jumping fences, but the ba