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Here was where the war began, and here was where he committed himself and other men to reach Cefwyn and keep his pledge to Her Grace.
Most of all… for a moment he could not draw his breath… ahead was the reason Mauryl had called him into the world, and he was sure now as at any Unfolding that a rebellious student was not the enemy that had driven Mauryl to the Hafsandyr or the Sihhë to leave their fortress in the high mountains.
He did not detect the danger as near them, nor was it the sort of threat that would have had him order shields uncased and the warhorses saddled. But danger there was. Their camp was on the other side of the river, and what he felt urged him to move on and quickly. It Unfolded to him not as a Word or a slight illumination but as a stroke of lightning across all the heavens, the ultimate reason for all Mauryl had done.
"Good day," he remembered to say, however, recalling Men and their courtesies and their due with the same awkwardness he had felt in Cefwyn's court. "Thank you."
Then he turned red Gery and rode at an easy pace toward the bridge, with Uwen and Crissand close on his heels and the company falling in behind them. The ba
"Never crossed the like in m' life," Uwen put it, "nor's Gia. This is a grand work, this."
"Grand work, indeed," Crissand said.
And at the end of the bridge, before they were halfway across: a handful of men stood forth from the woods, occupying the end of the bridge, waving to them, seeing the ba
"Welcome!" they said. "Well come, indeed. Go on, go on, our lord will expect you!"
They passed from that meeting into the woods, on a road long unused until the recent passage of oxen and horses. Last year's weeds, brown and limp from melted snows, lay trampled into the mire by shod hooves and pressed into the ruts left by cart wheels. Small brush was crushed down and broken, while the new track deviated around the occasional stout sapling that had sprung up in the old roadway, and others were hacked half through at the root, bent flat, so the carts could go over them.
And at the end of that course was the first of the gray-stone hills this side of the river, wooded and brushy and guarded by some furtive presence atop it: Tristen felt it rather than saw.
"Lanfarnessemen," he said to Uwen, directing him with a shift of his eyes, and Uwen looked up at the nearer hill. At that, the presence ebbed away, shy as any deer: it was a danger not to them, but to their enemies.
Just beyond that stony, forested outcrop, the brush gave way to brown, grassy meadow, and there white canvas had bloomed into a sizable camp, yet a discreet one, too, a surprise to come upon just past the forest and between the hills, and warded by watchers on the heights.
And still that presence on the hill tracked them, watching not them, perhaps, but any action that might oppose them. Intruders under any strange ba
A man ran ahead of them, and told an officer, and that man , hurried into the centermost tent as they rode up the aisle of this gathering of tents. Cevulirn came out with Umanon, and Pelumer came close behind, all cheerfully welcoming them in.
"His Grace's ba
Tristen dismounted, and of a sudden a night without sleep and the long day in the saddle caught him unawares, sending the world to shades of gray and causing him to hold his saddle leathers a moment as his feet met the ground. He tried to wish his sight clear again, but it was as if the gray insisted, and closed around him, a chute down which it was easy to fall.
But Uwen was there, a hand to his elbow, and Cevulirn named a man to guide the Amefin to their tents, which were pitched and ready for them, and a hot meal besides, while Crissand's voice in Tristen's left ear assured him he would personally see to the guard.
"Go in, my lord, rest."
"There's no rest," Tristen said, and drew a breath and managed to see the camp again, how it stretched off into the trees beyond, the horse pickets out under the branches, under the watchful eye of the rangers… he could not miss that presence, as he was aware of every heart that beat within the camp, the converse of men-at-arms, low and wondering at his lapse.
There was nothing so wrong with the place, Tristen said to himself; it was simply fatigue. Indeed the offer of a good meal and a rest from riding came very welcome… he might rid himself of the armor for a brief while… might sit with friends, a privilege rare in the world, and rarer still on the edge of losing everything. So much… so very much he loved; and it all seemed fragile at this moment, on the edge of the enemy's attention.
He drew a breath. He summoned his faculties away from that brink, and steadied himself away from Uwen's supporting hand. He gathered up the threads of things he had meant to say, and walked, and gathered strength with every step
"The Lord Commander," he was able to say to the other lords as he ducked through the tent flap, "brought Her Grace to Henas'amef, for safety's sake. Did he tell you why?"
"Not two words," Cevulirn said, "except it was your bidding…"
Another presence had joined them, filling the tent door when Tristen turned about, and that was Sovrag himself.
"Aye," the river lord said. "And all full of mystery he were, an' if the wind hadn't served, why, damn, he'd have driven them lads to row 'im there. What's toward?"
"Cefwyn's in danger." Words poured out of him, and he wished to sit down, but found nowhere. "One of Ryssand's men is beside him and Cefwyn doesn't know."
That brought somber looks.
"Gods save the Marhanen, then," Umanon said. "And a good wind to the Lord Commander's sails."
"So I wish," Tristen said in all earnestness. "And wish it twice and three times. Ryssand's coming to the muster, but he means no good to Cefwyn. Tasmôrden's promised him part of Elwynor for his own if he takes the crown."
"I should have stayed at court," Cevulirn said. "I might have stopped this."
Tristen shook his head. "Wizardry's in question. It reached past all of us."
"We can't reach him," Umanon said. "Gods speed the Lord Commander, indeed."
"Aye," came from Sovrag and Pelumer, with a nodding of heads.
"What says Amefel?" Cevulirn asked, grim-faced and with his arms folded. "If it's to ride this hour, we're ready."