Страница 74 из 121
“I wouldn’t upset her with threats, young sir. You see her once a year. That’s likely far more than you really want to visit her. Isn’t it?”
“I do want to see her. I want to remember what she looks like. She keeps fading, in my thoughts. And I want to see her this time, really see her. I need to.”
A frown, a thinking frown. “She’s our prisoner. Lord Tristen’s prisoner. And your father’s. You certainly aren’t hers. And I advise you to think of her as I do, as little as possible. But my guards will admit you there, whenever you wish.” Crissand passed him a small finger ring. “I lend you this. See your gran has all her needs. This has every power I would entrust to a son, and the guards all know it. See your mother if and when you choose.”
“Your Grace,” he murmured.
“This ring is more than a ring. It comes from him. It will guard you as well as supply you. Do not let it leave your finger.”
“I shall take great care of it, Your Grace, and bring it back as soon as—”
“Wear it for your gran’s sake, until Lord Tristen comes, to be sure you want for nothing, nor meet any need or obstacle this small thing can clear. This I lend you, since we do not have his letter, or know his intent: this will keep you safe until he gives me better advice. But know that if you do any mischief, this ring will not be good to you. Dare you wear it?”
“I,” he began, the ring clenched in his fist and that fist held against his heart. “Bringing this near my mother—if she took it from me—”
Crissand smiled. “Let her try. Challenge Ynefel? That is what it would be. I think it will rest very safely on your hand in such circumstances. She will be of no mind to touch it, or you, while you wear it.”
He put it on with trepidation. His whole hand tingled. “My lord duke,” he said, still perturbed, and Duke Crissand patted his arm and held it close for a moment.
“Your father’s son,” Crissand said, “far more than hers. Head-on and headlong, reckless in all things. I love him, but I do advise him, and you, as much as I can—be careful.”
“I shall be, m’lord.”
Crissand let him go then, and he bowed, and walked away, and bowed again, as respectful in this grand hall as people would be in leaving his father’s presence. He went all the way out the double doors, where the guard was, and Paisi was waiting for him.
“He gave me a ring,” he said, and showed it to Paisi, a silver band worked in vines and grapes. The guard saw it at the same time, he was sure of that, and he was extraordinarily proud to be back in his father’s good graces, and to have a thing from the duke of Amefel that the priests in Guelessar would never, ever countenance his wearing. It was a vindication, the very power he had hoped for to defend himself and Gran and Paisi, and he by no means intended to misuse it or to let any accident befall it. “So I can see my mother, he says. So he’ll know where I am. With this I can bring Gran anything she needs.”
“Will ye really see your mum?” Paisi asked, who must have been listening.
That settled him to earth. Not yet, he decided, although the thought had taken root in him that he should do it before Lord Tristen came, and before she thought she’d scared him into lasting fear of her, and before he lost all chance to see her.
He just didn’t want to face her yet, while he was still so tired he wasn’t thinking clearly. Tomorrow, perhaps. Tomorrow, he might come back into town.
iv
YOUR SON HAS RETURNED SAFELY, CRISSAND WROTE THAT SAME MORNING. WHEN your ward reached his house, he indeed went west, and reports he has seen Lord Tristen, who he says has informed him he should carry the name Elfwyn. He reports that the lord of Ynefel will come as far as Henas’amef, how soon and in what intent, unfortunately, I do not know. He says that Ynefel gave him a message for me, but that he lost it on the way, in bad weather. This alarms me, as I am sure it will trouble us all.
In the loss of Ynefel’s message, I have lent your ward the ring which Ynefel gave me, the nature of which I have made clear to your ward, and which he did not fear to take, except that he feared its presence might incite his mother. He has indeed asked to visit her. He is convinced her ill will may have caused certain misfortunes, and he seems to believe that Ynefel’s arrival may deal with her. I am uneasy in his intention, but mindful of your request to allow him all former privileges, and considering that, indeed, things might be afoot in which my forbidding him might have consequences I ca
In all matters Amefel remains staunch and earnest in service of Your Majesty and Ylesuin. Likewise we remain confident our brother lords round about will be ready, as before, to support Your Majesty by all efforts, including our attendance in court in Guelemara, no matter the season, if requested. In this our brother lords surely concur.
Amefel salutes you and the Bryaltine fathers hold you in their prayers, against all harm, in constant intercession…
So it went, the usual formula at the end, with unusual force, considering. If he himself had leaned to any sect, it had been to the Teranthines, the sect of wizards, which had few rites, nineteen gods, a great deal of study, and not a single other adherent within all Amefel, that he knew. His hand felt naked without the ring he had lent the boy, and he felt less aware of the world than he had been. He had been long on the edge of wizardry and sorcery, he had the latter hanging quite literally over his head, and the absence of that trinket and its perceptions ought to be a relief, but it was not.
And the boy—the boy, another Aswydd, and now claiming that name—
He cared nothing for his own title. He had had no ambitions to be duke of Amefel, or aetheling, that peculiar honor that was, in history and in legality, a kingship in its own right. Amefel had wished to be like Elwynor, which was independent under Ninévrisë; but Amefel had become, by bloody murder, more closely bound; the aethelings, the Aswydd house, however, had continued to rule… payment for a bit of treachery.
No, he hadn’t wanted the title. But he had a wife, and the children, and his boys, other Aswydds, might remotely be in danger, if Otter—now Elfwyn Aswydd—found adherents to put forth a claim to set him in that office. He had faith in Cefwyn Marhanen—to say that any Aswydd had faith in a Marhanen king was unprecedented; but he did, in the man, if not in the lineage. He had faith that this Marhanen king was very unlike the last two, the first of whom had slaughtered the last remnant of the Sihhë-lords in Amefel, namely Elfwyn Sihhë…
Cefwyn Marhanen had taken a most uncommon friend, and, after all but wiping out the Aswydd lineage, had set him in power, and saved Lady Tarien, and kept his own Aswydd bastard alive—at Tristen’s behest, true, but also because Cefwyn was a new thing in that bloody line—a Marhanen king who stuck at murder…
An Aswydd duke with a family to protect ought rightly to take precautions now, establish ties to Bryalt priests, who always had been uneasy under Cefwyn’s rule… find others who chafed under what were essentially fair laws and fair taxes: but what would that make him if he followed his own father’s course?
He found no course for himself but to stay loyal, and care for the king’s son, and hope to the gods he so frequently offended that events would not come sliding down on his head, or worse, on his wife’s and his children’s heads. He trusted Cefwyn. He trusted Tristen. And the young Marhanen prince—Aewyn—himself half-Syrillas, which was to say, of the house of the Regents of Elwynor—with a sister, now, who would someday sit on the Regent’s throne… Aewyn seemed apt to be a good boy.