“I don’t think so,” said Amberglas to one of the chairs. “There’s no reason why he couldn’t have been someone else, except, of course, that he isn’t, which is a very good thing for him. Being someone else is very difficult for most people because, you see, they aren’t used to it, particularly if they aren’t sure who they are to begin with. It makes things difficult for other people, too, because they don’t know whom they’re talking to, which tends to be confusing. Do you know whom we’re talking to?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Amberglas,” Crystalorn said. “This is Captain Balandare Forrain.” She scowled at him briefly, then apparently decided to continue the introductions. “Balandare, this is Amberglas, and his name’s Trevannon. He was just telling me about Sevairn when you interrupted.”
Balandare gave Jermain a sharp look as Crystalorn finished. “I apologize for cutting short your conversation,” he said slowly.
Crystalorn answered before Jermain could reply. “Well, you ought to. I thought Salentor would send Kayth to bring me back; I could have talked for hours before he would have found me. Why’d they have to pick you instead?”
“As far as I know, Lord Salentor has never willingly chosen me for anything,” Balandare said.
“Then what are you doing here?” Crystalorn demanded. “Didn’t he send you after me?”
“I believe Lord Salentor is not yet aware that you have left the caravan, Your Highness,” Balandare said quietly. “Should he ask, Torfil will tell him you are out riding, with myself and a suitable escort.”
Crystalorn looked at him speculatively. “That was very nice of you, but are you sure Salentor will believe it?”
“Why should he doubt it, when he sees you return with us, Your Highness?”
“But—” Crystalorn stopped short and looked at the Captain for a long moment. Then she smiled reluctantly. “All right, you win. I can’t let you get into trouble for trying to keep me out of it.”
“I am relieved to hear you say so, Your Highness,” Balandare said, smiling.
“Ha! You planned it!” Crystalorn said. “Sometimes I wish I had someone stupid in charge of my personal guard; it would be a lot easier for me to do what I want.”
“Of course, Your Highness; I’ll see to it as soon as we get back to the caravan. Would Captain Kayth be satisfactory? I’m sure Lord Salentor would be willing to reassign him if you wished it.”
“Yes, and I’m sure I’d stick a knife in him within two days. I can’t stand Kayth, and you know it. And I don’t want anyone else in charge of my guard, and you know that, too, so stop teasing.”
“As you command,” Balandare said, bowing deeply, and Crystalorn giggled. “Now, shall we go, Your Highness?”
“I suppose I must,” Crystalorn said with a sigh. She looked at Amberglas, who had been observing the interchange with an air of vague interest, and sighed. “Good-bye, Amberglas. I hope I can come back soon, but if I really do get married to this prince I don’t know whether I’ll be able to. Leshiya is a long way away.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Amberglas said. “Though one can’t always tell from descriptions, and a great many places are closer than most people think. Still, I haven’t been anywhere in a long time, and perhaps things have changed, though they don’t usually, at least not much. That is, I’ve been here, which is obviously somewhere, but isn’t anywhere else. At least I think it isn’t. So I shall quite enjoy it, I’m sure.”
“Amberglas, what are you talking about?” Crystalorn said.
“Visiting Sevairn,” said Amberglas. “I thought I explained that. I’m coming with you.”
Balandare looked startled; Crystalorn’s face lit up. “You are? Amberglas, that’s wonderful! I won’t mind going nearly as much if you’re going to be there for me to talk to. Will you stay for the wedding?”
“I would rather expect to, though it’s hard to be quite positive. So many things can happen, particularly when one isn’t expecting them.”
“Oh, wonderful.” Crystalorn turned to Jermain. “Will you come, too? I still want to hear about Sevairn.”
For a moment, Jermain was tempted; then he shook his head. “I fear I cannot accept your invitation, Your Highness. I am not welcome in Sevairn, and I have no wish to cause trouble between you and Prince Eltiron.”
Crystalorn looked puzzled, but Balandare nodded. “Then you are Lord Jermain Trevannon, King Marreth’s adviser,” he said. “I wondered, when I heard the name.”
“I once held the position you name,” Jermain admitted. “As matters now are, I can only ask that you do not mention my whereabouts when you reach Leshiya; it is not my advice Marreth wants now.”
“I understand,” Balandare said, “and I will not volunteer the information.” He smiled slightly. “Nor am I likely to be asked. Kings and princes normally do not question foreign guards.”
“Thank you,” Jermain said. He turned to Amberglas. “And thank you also, for your hospitality.” He noticed a faint line between her eyebrows as she gazed in his direction, and he went on, “I was intending to leave today in any case; I have already taken advantage of your kindness for too long.”
“Not at all,” Amberglas said, still frowning faintly. “It’s just that I’m not certain—But then, one hardly ever is, except about things like rocks and flowerpots and boots, which either are there or aren’t there, but are never almost there. I don’t suppose you’d care to reconsider?”
“Reconsider?” Jermain said.
“Yes, do!” Crystalorn said. “You could at least ride with us until we get to the border tomorrow, even if you won’t go on into Sevairn.”
Jermain felt an uneasy twinge at the enthusiasm in her voice. Not that she was unattractive; quite the contrary. But she was a princess, and much too young, and she was promised in marriage to a man who had been Jermain’s friend. Still, a day’s travel in her company would certainly be pleasant. . . . A day? He’d thought the border was closer than that! Jermain looked at Amberglas just as Balandare cleared his throat and began speaking.
“I’m afraid that Lord Trevannon’s presence would cause complications, Your Highness,” he said. “It would be difficult to explain his presence to Lord Salentor, for one thing. And I’m sure you’re aware of the political implications if anyone in Sevairn heard that you’d been associating with a man King Marreth exiled. I wouldn’t trust all of the caravaners to keep silent about it if they see him.”
From the look on Crystalorn’s face, that aspect of the situation had not occurred to her. “I suppose you’re right again,” she said after a moment. “But we’ll have to explain Amberglas to Salentor anyway, won’t we? It shouldn’t be any harder to explain two people than one.”
“Not necessarily,” said Amberglas. “You haven’t answered my question.”
“Question?” Crystalorn looked bewildered.
“About reconsidering,” Amberglas explained gently.
Jermain blinked, then shook his head. “I beg your pardon, but no, I can’t. It would be foolish for me to go back now, and it would only bring trouble to you as well.”
“People can be so inconsistent,” Amberglas said, smiling vaguely at him. “I knew a man once who wore half a mustache because he couldn’t make up his mind whether he liked mustaches or not. I believe it was the left half, though it wasn’t precisely inconsistent, now that I think of it. So perhaps it didn’t seem foolish to you to be in Sevairn three days ago.”
“If it hadn’t been a foolish thing to try, the Border Guard wouldn’t have come so close to killing me,” Jermain said, struggling to keep his temper. “In any case, I won’t go back until I know how they learned where I was so quickly. Do not try to persuade me.”
“Very well, I won’t,” said Amberglas.
Crystalorn was staring at Jermain with wide eyes. “You mean the Border Guard was ready to kill you just for going back into Sevairn? What did you
do,
anyway?”
Jermain shifted uncomfortably without speaking. Crystalorn opened her mouth to speak again, then stopped abruptly. Her eyes narrowed, and she turned to Balandare.
“Why haven’t I heard anything about this, whatever it is? Salentor was supposed to teach me everything important that’s happened in Sevairn in the past ten years, but he never mentioned anyone named Trevannon.”
“Perhaps Lord Salentor did not consider Lord Jermain’s dismissal important,” Balandare said. “Though I will admit, I am surprised.”
“When a King’s Adviser does something bad enough that he gets thrown out of the kingdom, it’s important,” Crystalorn said flatly. “Particularly if it happened recently. Salentor should have told me.”
“I agree, Your Highness,” Balandare said. “But no doubt Lord Salentor has good reasons.”
Jermain suppressed a snort. Lord Salentor Parel had spent two years as Barinash’s ambassador to Sevairn, just after Barinash’s abortive attempt at invasion. Jermain remembered him well, liked him little, and trusted him not at all. He was greedy, ambitious, and without conscience; Jermain found himself wondering suddenly just why Salentor was so interested in the marriage between Eltiron and Crystalorn. And why
hadn’t
the man mentioned Jermain’s exile? There was a pattern in this somewhere; there must be.
“People generally do,” Amberglas said, breaking Jermain’s concentration. “Or at least, they think they do, though quite often other people disagree, which isn’t at all surprising when you think of what odd ideas some people have. I wonder what Salentor’s odd ideas are?”
“Well, I’m going to ask him about his reasons when we get back,” Crystalorn said. “And they’d better be good ones.”
“Then, Your Highness, I believe we should start back soon,” Balandare said. “Or Lord Salentor may be more interested in asking questions than in answering them. Torfil cannot make excuses for us forever.”
“Oh, all right,” Crystalorn said. “Amberglas, are you ready to leave? You haven’t packed anything.”
“I think perhaps you had better start without me,” Amberglas said. “A great many things do—start without someone, I mean—and it makes very little difference to most of them. In fact, I believe the seventh Queen of Mournwal’s coronation started without her, though one can’t always be certain that the historians are correct about things. Of course, it would be rather difficult to
finish
a coronation without someone to crown, but that is an entirely different thing, and there are always a great many people willing to be crowned if one can’t find the proper person at the right moment. Still, it would be rather awkward. So you had better go on, and I will join you in a little while.”
Crystalorn attempted to argue, but Balandare’s diplomatic insistence and Amberglas’s rambling refusals were more than she could handle at the same time. Finally she abandoned the effort, and in a few minutes more, she and Balandare took their leave. Amberglas watched from the doorway until the sound of the horses’ hooves had died away. Then she turned back to look at Jermain.
Jermain bowed. “Once again, I thank you for your hospitality and bid you farewell.”
He stepped forward, then stopped. Amberglas had not moved out of the doorway. “That’s quite unnecessary, though of course very courteous; still, it would be far more helpful if you would tell me whom to speak to in Sevairn.”
“Speak to?”
“Certainly. How can I deliver a message for you if I don’t speak to someone? Unless you write it down, which is perfectly possible; at least it would be if I had anything for you to write on. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything just at the moment, which is very inconvenient, unless of course you don’t wish to write your message, in which case it doesn’t matter.”
With an effort, Jermain fought down a sudden, wild hope and forced himself to think clearly. A moment later, he shook his head. “Lady, I know King Marreth well, and I suspect that the mere mention of my name at court is now cause for suspicion of treason. Delivering a message for me . . . I cannot ask you to take such a risk.”
“You didn’t ask me,” Amberglas said. “I daresay you’ve forgotten, or else you didn’t notice, though I don’t see how you managed to be a King’s Adviser for six years if your memory is as bad as that.”
“This has nothing to do with my memory!” Jermain said. “Don’t you realize how dangerous it could be?”
“Do you think so?” said Amberglas, looking faintly interested. “But then, a great many things can be dangerous, especially if one is careless, and some of them are quite ordinary. Walking down wet stairs, for instance, or chopping carrots, or juggling someone else’s Dangil china cups. So it won’t necessarily be particularly exciting.”
“Exciting!” Jermain took two deliberately slow breaths. “No. I can’t. I won’t. Marreth’s been executing spies; one mistake and he’d have your head. Not to mention exiling whomever he caught you talking to.”
Amberglas blinked at him. “Dear me. Perhaps you had better write it down after all.”
“I am not,” Jermain said carefully, “going to give you a message.”
“Well, I suppose I will have to manage without one, then. Still, it’s a pity; mistakes can be so very awkward.”
For a moment, Jermain stood staring, utterly taken aback. Amberglas could not possibly mean to deliver a nonexistent message from Jermain to some unknown person in Leshiya. He looked at her again and changed his mind; that was exactly what she meant to do, and the only way he could prevent her was to give her a real message. Either way, she would be taking a grave risk. Unless . . . There was one person in Leshiya who would not be penalized for receiving a message from Jermain; Marreth could hardly exile his own son.
“I’ll give you a message, then,” Jermain said in a voice he barely recognized as his own. “Tell Prince Eltiron that all his dissembling will not keep the Hoven-Thalar from overrunning Sevairn. And tell him . . . tell him I will not forget what he and Terrel did.”
“I will tell him.” Amberglas remained where she was, regarding Jermain with an air of great preoccupation. “I don’t suppose you’ve decided where you’re going next?”
“To Gramwood, and then to Mournwal,” Jermain said. “They have little hope of withstanding such a horde as the Hoven-Thalar can raise, but I must at least warn them.”