nearest wizard he knew. Itâs snowed, have you noticed? Or did snow fall at all in town? I think it did not.
â Have you ever seen an oak overthrown, master Emuin? Some might take it for ominous, and surely the soldiers do. What shall I tell them?
No answer came to him, but that was, lately, no great surprise, though disheartening. At the same time he heard Lusin and Gedd saying to each other, with better cheer, well, that was a relief, no drifts between them and a warm fire.
It was a leaden sunset in the west and a blue evening in the northwest shot through with fire as they came up to the walls, over the tracks of farmers and the heavy tracks of the departed wagons.
They rode through the gates in close order, Lord Crissand making quiet, last-moment converse with Lord Cevulirn, explaining the streets were quiet and peaceful, and their visitor should fear no rebellion. They were well within the town, before the gatekeepers, caught by surprise, began to ring the bell that advised the hill fortress of visitors.
Then the curious began to peer out of shops and windows. The return of their party from a venture all the town had seen go out might not have drawn any but the hardiest out of doors on a frosty evening. But the bell drew attention, and the banners had unfurled, the White Horse of Ivanor among the banners belonging to the town and its own lords, and townsfolk threw on cloaks and mittens and came out into doorways, or peered out from well-situated windows, for not since summer had the White Horse banner been seen in the streets, when Cevulirn among other lords of the south had camped in that broad expanse outside.
Loaded carts had gone out for the border, where war was bruited about, a great lord had come guesting with their new lord and the new lord of Meiden⦠it surely made for talk, on an evening remarkable only for a light snowfall.
CHAPTER 3
T he herald trumpets faded tremulously from the air, the harpers harped, the pipers piped, and the king and Royal Consort, settling on their dais in the great hall, looked out over the assembled nobles of Ylesuin, as happy as a bride and groom might be, who knew what all their guests were thinking. The king sat above the stone Ryssand had installed under the Dragon Throne, a lasting and symbolic legacy of Ryssandâs attempts to prevent the wedding. That stone remained, though Ryssand was gone at least for a season; that stone would acquire the voice of baronial anguish if removed, for removing that handbreadth height would lower the king of Ylesuin to the height of his brideâs chair of state, and that would unravel all the convolute and, in the end, bloody agreements that had let the court accept the marriage.
In Cefwynâs glum reckoning, the presence of that stone would only grow more, not less, a necessity, wearing itself into habit and memory until the damned thing was all but sacred. The majesty of Ylesuin must sit higher than his wife Her Grace of Elwynor, or northern baronial noses would be sorely out of joint, and when the baronsâ noses were out of joint then the barons would gather in corners and whisper, which at the moment and only of very late date, they dared not do without careful smiles on their faces and occasional sweet-faced bows toward enthroned majesty.
So all in all, the cursed stone was likely to remain, preserving Guelen pride and making it clear that the woman beside the king, his wife, his consort, his bride, and the love of his heart, was not the queen of Ylesuin.
In fact ever since he had come back from Amefel and the fighting at Lewenbrook to inform the barons that his father was dead and he was king, and that he had, moreover, betrothed himself to the daughter and heir of their old enemy, the Regent of Elwynor, he had met a resistance not only greater than he had anticipated, but more clever and dangerous than he had imagined. He had thought these men simply agreeable to his late fatherâs unpleasant
â Have you ever seen an oak overthrown, master Emuin? Some might take it for ominous, and surely the soldiers do. What shall I tell them?
No answer came to him, but that was, lately, no great surprise, though disheartening. At the same time he heard Lusin and Gedd saying to each other, with better cheer, well, that was a relief, no drifts between them and a warm fire.
It was a leaden sunset in the west and a blue evening in the northwest shot through with fire as they came up to the walls, over the tracks of farmers and the heavy tracks of the departed wagons.
They rode through the gates in close order, Lord Crissand making quiet, last-moment converse with Lord Cevulirn, explaining the streets were quiet and peaceful, and their visitor should fear no rebellion. They were well within the town, before the gatekeepers, caught by surprise, began to ring the bell that advised the hill fortress of visitors.
Then the curious began to peer out of shops and windows. The return of their party from a venture all the town had seen go out might not have drawn any but the hardiest out of doors on a frosty evening. But the bell drew attention, and the banners had unfurled, the White Horse of Ivanor among the banners belonging to the town and its own lords, and townsfolk threw on cloaks and mittens and came out into doorways, or peered out from well-situated windows, for not since summer had the White Horse banner been seen in the streets, when Cevulirn among other lords of the south had camped in that broad expanse outside.
Loaded carts had gone out for the border, where war was bruited about, a great lord had come guesting with their new lord and the new lord of Meiden⦠it surely made for talk, on an evening remarkable only for a light snowfall.
CHAPTER 3
T he herald trumpets faded tremulously from the air, the harpers harped, the pipers piped, and the king and Royal Consort, settling on their dais in the great hall, looked out over the assembled nobles of Ylesuin, as happy as a bride and groom might be, who knew what all their guests were thinking. The king sat above the stone Ryssand had installed under the Dragon Throne, a lasting and symbolic legacy of Ryssandâs attempts to prevent the wedding. That stone remained, though Ryssand was gone at least for a season; that stone would acquire the voice of baronial anguish if removed, for removing that handbreadth height would lower the king of Ylesuin to the height of his brideâs chair of state, and that would unravel all the convolute and, in the end, bloody agreements that had let the court accept the marriage.
In Cefwynâs glum reckoning, the presence of that stone would only grow more, not less, a necessity, wearing itself into habit and memory until the damned thing was all but sacred. The majesty of Ylesuin must sit higher than his wife Her Grace of Elwynor, or northern baronial noses would be sorely out of joint, and when the baronsâ noses were out of joint then the barons would gather in corners and whisper, which at the moment and only of very late date, they dared not do without careful smiles on their faces and occasional sweet-faced bows toward enthroned majesty.
So all in all, the cursed stone was likely to remain, preserving Guelen pride and making it clear that the woman beside the king, his wife, his consort, his bride, and the love of his heart, was not the queen of Ylesuin.
In fact ever since he had come back from Amefel and the fighting at Lewenbrook to inform the barons that his father was dead and he was king, and that he had, moreover, betrothed himself to the daughter and heir of their old enemy, the Regent of Elwynor, he had met a resistance not only greater than he had anticipated, but more clever and dangerous than he had imagined. He had thought these men simply agreeable to his late fatherâs unpleasant
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