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“Aye, m’lord,” Uwen said, and went and gave that order to the Guelen sergeant.
Tristen, meanwhile, stared out low windows that overlooked a walk that led to a gate, and through that gate was the other place he treasured, seen dimly, through inside glass no servant had cleaned in years. He saw leafless trees, brown, weed-choked beds on the approach to that gate. And he thought of summer.
“Bury the man,” he said, turning about. “Have the windows cleaned.” They looked never to have been, in the regular upkeep of the Zeide, as if servants were forbidden here. “You,” he said to the Guelen clerk, “stand in charge of the archive. Set all this to rights. Account of what’s here, books of record and books of knowledge, letters, deeds, and whatever else exists here.”
“Your lordship,” the man said. The clerk stood still and stu
Tristen walked out the doors then, to the thump of a guard salute at the doors. Uwen and Tawwys trod close at his heels, never asking what he had read, or why he had ordered the ashes taken upstairs. He invited neither converse nor solace. He was distressed—knew he was angry, but not at whom: at the vanished archivist, perhaps; at Parsynan’s destruction, assuredly; at Emuin, possibly; even at Mauryl, remotely; knew he was afraid—of the scope of the disorder he perceived, certainly; of the disturbance he felt in the gray space, very much so; and of wizardly desertions, absolutely and helplessly.
It was not a conscious thought that sent him toward the doors midway of the short corridor: it was the desire of his heart; it was a flight for rescue in the place that had always given him shelter. The opening of that door brought a flood of icy outside air; and the few steps set him and his guards under a sky clouded and changed from the dawn.
He had come back to the garden… at last, was back in the place that he most enjoyed of all places, a place of winding paths, low evergreen, well-shaped trees, and summer shade.
Indeed, he found in its heart the same neglect he had seen from the library windows, the herbs and flowers brown and dead as everything in the countryside… but he was not surprised. The trees were bare. That was only autumn. Understandably the walks were deserted: the wind blew cold across the walls, two of which were the building itself, and one of which was the library walk; and the other, a low one, it shared with the stable-court. It, at least, was not plundered, and held no dead men or vengeful shadows nor scars of yesterday’s fighting. He had found one thing unharmed, untouched, undamaged. And itwas the most priceless thing of all.
He walked to the edge of the pond. Fragments of leaves studded the gravel rim, but the tame fish that lived in the pond were still there, still safe… thi
“No one’s fed them,” he said.
“They sleep in th’ cold,” Uwen said. “But I’ll ask, m’lord. There’s things to tidy here.”
“Will they die if the water freezes?”
“I’ll imagine they stay here all the year,” Uwen said, looking around him, “but these beds is to dig an’ turn two months ago, says this man what was once a farmer, and that says to me there’s gardeners gone wi’ the rest of the servants and not yet at work here, maybe gone back to kinfolk an’ farms ’round about. We’ll find ’em, don’t ye fret, lad.”
He was very glad Uwen called him that. Uwen was as distressed about the library as Uwen could imagine to be, and after a breath or two of watching the water Tristen put aside all anger with the guard, or with the clerk, or anyone remotely involved with the disaster. The brightly clad ladies and lords of the summer would come back like the singing birds, when the days grew warm again. Things that he remembered wouldcome again and the year-circle would meet itself in this place of all places.
Here he could believe in his summer of i
In this place, most of all, he cherished fragile things. And was it a loss, that of Mauryl’s letters? It likely was. It likely was a great loss. But in a way it kept things orderly… kept lives in their own places, as Mauryl’s place and time was Ynefel, where everything was brown and full of dust, cobwebs, and ruin. It had held such a secret place, in the loft… but that was gone; and with it went Ynefel, and Mauryl.
Now, standing in this garden brown with autumn, he wished this place to be again the way he had seen it, a green heart in the ancient stones. It came to him that something of the kind had always been here, must be here, from the time the Masons laid down the Lines of the garden wall and built the building.
But, too… he had never understood until he had seen the Holy Father misconstruing a Line… there had been the gardeners’ work, patient over centuries, and the servants’ work, and all the people who had laid loving hands on the earth and the walls of the Zeide… all of them had gone on establishing those Lines by their simple acts, daily repeated, and strong as any wizard’s ward.
Were not Masons common Men? And did not they work magic? And might not gardeners?
He had come here to Rule, and to Defend a land against harm, and within its limits as within this garden, he realized himself defended by all these living hands, all these servants, this people, these guards. And when he wished it safe, strength underlay it as dry, deserted Ynefel had had none of that within it at all but the mice, the pigeons, and Owl. He had not expected to bedefended, but he was. He breathed it in, he felt it under his feet and around him and he sat down on the stone bench, the Unfolding was that strong. To disguise his confusion he bent and tossed in a pebble from the side of the pond. The fish, chilled as Uwen said, scarcely moved, but the ripples went out. Under the gray-shining surface, even through winter ice, the fish would live and wait, enduring through the death that was around them.
Crissand, he thought. Crissand. Crissand.
He will come here, he thought for no reason. Not today, perhaps, but he will come in his own time. He must. He is mine, as no one, even Uwen, even Cefwyn, has ever been… as this place is mine, and all who have their lives here.
The wind, meanwhile, was cold, and riffled the surface of the pond, blew at their cloaks and chilled to the bone.
A wisp of something flew on the wind. It was ash from the kitchen fire, he thought at first as he looked up. But he saw another, and another.
“Snow,” Syllan remarked, looking up at the gray sky. “Here’s snow, m’lord.”
He looked up, too, and saw the snow fly across the dark evergreens. He saw one snowflake land on his sleeve, and marveled at it, how delicate it was.
Delicate and beautiful, and many, many of them would turn all the land white. He caught them on his glove, jewels of differing structure, and it Unfolded to him that the shapes were numberless and nameless. They melted to nothing, but more kept falling.
He was aware almost at the same instant of a pitching wagon, and a trace of snow across the backs of oxen, and it was gone like a wisp of a thought, with a surly unpleasantness.