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"My lord," Crissand said in a thread of a voice.
"Sit down," Tristen urged him, and scurrying about at the back of his mind was the realization that Crissand was never yet a presence in the gray space: he simply could not find him; and had not found him, even with him here, in the same room. Thatalarmed him. "Tassand, hot tea and bricks."
Crissand had surely come straight up from his arrival, coming to him still in mud-flecked boots, lacking a cloak which might have been sorrier than the boots, and all but out of strength.
"Forgive me. Forgive me, my lord. I knew before I was the first night on the road that I was doing something foolish."
"Where wereyou?" Crissand was a candleflame of a wizard as yet, and he had known and master Emuin had known where Crissand was… but not precisely wherehe was.
But still not to know wherehe was when he was in the same room with him: that was the inconceivable thing.
He searched with great care, investigated more and more of the gray space in concern for Crissand's welfare, and at last found a very quiet, very small presence, all wrapped in on itself, all knotted up and resisting.
In that condition, Crissand had ridden home again, through this weather.
"I thought it better for Amefel," Crissand said in the voice he had left, "if I went to Lord Drusenan and spoke to him directly."
It was a minuscule part of the reason Crissand had gone and a minuscule part of what must have sent him back in such a state, but at least it was a start on the rest of the tale, and now that he was safe and here, Tristen was willing to use infinite patience. He sat down opposite Crissand beside the warm fire, waiting for the part that might explain why Crissand had left on such a journey on the tyght his remote cousins—and Drusenan's—had suddenly turned up estitute, escaped from Guelen vengeance, one of them with child… and both of them breaking the terms of their exile.
He understood entirely what Crissand had likely wanted to do, which was to set distance between himself and Orien Aswydd. He even understood why Crissand had gone to speak to the new Lord
Bryn, successor to the man who had done so much harm to Cris -
and's father and his people. But the silence in the gray space even now kept Crissand at distance from him, and he waited to hear those reasons from Crissand's own lips.
And waited, and waited. The silence went on between them what seemed an eternity; so he ventured his own opening.
"So did you make peace with Drusenan?" Tristen asked.
"With a will." Crissand seemed relieved to be asked that question and not others: his whole body relaxed toward his habitual easy grace… but that motion ended in a wince, an injury he had not made otherwise evident. "He was as glad as I was, to settle at! grudges. He wasn't glad to hear the news about Lady Orien and her sister being here. He's not her man. We agreed together, that our quarrel is all with Cuthan, across the river, and I know now in my own heart and for certain he's not Cuthan's man, nor ever was or will be. He received me very graciously, he and his lady."
Crissand finished. The silence resumed.
Then with a deep breath, Crissand added, "My lord, my patient, good lord, I should have asked leave, considering the state of things. Other men come and go. But you've given me duties; I thought I was seeing to those duties—I persuaded myself I was doing that—but before I was halfway to Modeyneth I knew I was a fool."
"I would have granted leave for you to go anywhere. But you left without your guard, and without my hearing you. You were a night on the road before I knew you were gone," Tristen said, "and then I dared not call you too loudly, not with the Aswydds so close. If theyurged you to do such a thing, they were very quiet about it."
"I'd do nothing they asked!"
"If you knew they asked it."
Crissand was silent, and troubled of countenance, thinking on that, and at no time had he unfurled from the tight, small presence he was.
"I searched for you," Tristen said.
"I didn't hear you, my lord. Unless you were telling me I was a fool—I knew before the night was half-done that that was the truth. I came the rest of the way to my senses when the sun came up and I was trying to find the road in the snowfall. But by then I realized Modeyneth was hardly over the next hill, and my poor horse couldn't have carried me back without foundering. So I went ahead, hoping to borrow a horse, and I presented myself to Lord Drusenan. I wanted to bring you someprofit for my foolishness."
"I needed no gifts," Tristen said. "I need nothing but your loyalty—and your safety."
It was not his intent to cause pain, only to urge caution, but
Crissand's color rose and he looked away, surely knowing how he had risked all that they hoped to accomplish.
gut it was not just foolishness, and that he had somehow to make Crissand understand… and that he could not avow a clear reason for his actions made a frighteningly clear sense, for Crissand had ridden out in the very hour the Aswydd sisters had ridden into Henas'amef, and while on the one hand he did not know what exact thought had seized Crissand to send him out, he was as sure now as he was sure of the next sunrise that Crissand's actions had directly to do with the sisters' arrival, and all of it directly to do with the currents in the magical wind—for Crissand was Aswydd.
And Crissand being Aswydd, head of that lineage in Henas'amef until Orien set foot in the town, he had a strong sense for those currents in the wind. He might have left under direct urging of his own wizard-gift, protecting him or leading him astray… completely without understanding it, completely without directing it.
It was no straight course—the last lord of Bryn, Earl Cuthan, who had betrayed Crissand's father, was Orien Aswydd's man, exiled now and the lands gone to Lord Drusenan, but Cuthan was in Elwynor—in Elwynor, where their enemy sat.
And with Orien back under the roof where she had been duchess of Amefel, small wonder if that presence stirred the winds of the gray space, and small wonder a man with the gift had done reckless acts, not knowing why they did them. That Crissand had rushed in some direction was entirely understandable.
But that it was toward Bryn, and toward Elwynor, and that, in the gray space, Crissand remained that tight, unassailable ball… that alarmed him.
To their mutual relief, Tassand brought the tea, and made some little ado over it. One of the servants pulled a heated brick from the hearth, and Crissand set one booted, sodden foot on it and tucked the other against it for the warmth.
"You might do with dry boots," Tristen said. "You've not yet been home?"
"I met with my guard on the road. They know; they've passed the word to my household. But no, I came straight here."
Tassand, send a page for another pair of His Grace's boots. And tell his servants make his bed ready."
'Yes, m'lord." Tassand was off, at a good clip.
'So tell me what you did," Tristen said then, and bent another small thought into the gray space. Still it told him nothing. But his eyes had seen. "You're hurt."
"Nothing mortal."
"A fall?"
"Elwynim. I—" Crissand took a sip of the tea and his hands shook. "I should set it out in order."
"Do," Tristen urged him..
"I left without a word to my guard—just rode away from the camp in the night. And I rode, as I've told you—I reached Modeyneth… I think sometime after midday, by the time I dealt with the drifts. I took a light meal. I met with Lord Drusenan—that was a long matter; but he was gracious—more than gracious. I slept only a few hours, then left my horse there and took another, by his good will, his best and favorite… I owe him the worth of that beast. And I was coming home, as soon as I could, my lord. I took your warning about venturing into the wizard-place, and I feared to try to reach you there, but I knew I'd been a fool, and I feared that concern for a fool might divert you from far more important matters. I'm sorry, my lord. I can't express how I regret it."