"Lying dishonors both the liar and the one lied to. I have no wish to dishonor myself or you."

"Is Eadmund among them?"

"You would have to ask Eadmund, sir. He is a quiet man."

Ealad-hach curled his lip. "He is a weak man. Has he left yet for the Assembly in Creiddylad?"

"He's in his chambers packing. Shall I have him called?"

Ealad-hach peered up at Wyth through the brilliant rainbow haze of sunlit dust motes that surrounded him. "Such a strange lad, you are, even now ... especially now."

"Shall I-?"

"No. I will find him myself." He pushed back his chair then, with a difficulty he refused to show, and left the scene of his humiliation behind.

Wyth put his feet up on the hearth fender and listened to the complete quiet of the house. He imagined that on most evenings it was full of laughter and life and duans. Taminy singing and Gwyet Weaving and Bevol telling tales and Skeet ... doing whatever it was Skeet did. Playing tricks, Wyth thought. He surely played tricks upon the girls and his Master, making laughter bubble from their lips and souls. But now ...

He stretched in Bevol's chair and found it fit his lanky frame quite well. Bevol and Skeet and Taminy were miles downriver floating toward the Jewel, while poor Gwynet cried herself to sleep upstairs, alone. They were alone together. Gwynet had no family and Wyth's had all but disowned him after he'd come home and announced he'd be taking up Bevol's residence and guardianship of Gwynet until the older Osraed's return.

His mother had begged him to bring Gwynet and stay under her roof at first and, flattered, he considered it ... until it became clear that she intended to treat Gwynet like a unwanted pet and himself like a trophy. On Osraed Council, now, by God; member pro-tem of the Triumvirate; nominally in charge of Halig-liath. She wanted to invite the entire province to come gawk at him.

The one evening they'd spent at Arundel, she'd tried to send Gwynet to the kitchen for dinner, making asides about the taint of "that Wicke girl," and Wyth, more furious than he thought he could ever be, took the little girl and went to Gled Manor.

He gazed around at the high ceiling, cob-webbed and spattered with firelight. And here I will stay. And wait.

CHAPTER 15.

Excerpt from A History of the Royal House by Osraed Tynedale Cyne Siolta was dead. At the age of nine, Riagan Thearl was made Cyneric and set before the Stone. His Regents were three-his mother, Cwen Goscelin; her dead husband's Durweard, Harac; and the Chancellor, Diomasach Claeg. This arrangement caused some perplexity of government since the Cwen's co-partners were given to over-stepping the bounds of their respective stations ...

The subtle battle between Harac and Diomasach grew more earnest until, finally, the Claeg contrived to separate the Cyneric from his mother. It took a time of pretending to bow to the Chancellor's will before Goscelin was even allowed to speak to her boy. She made no attempt to subvert him, but instead bided her time. Then, under the guise of taking a pilgrimage to Ochanshrine, the Cwen left Castle Mertuile with her son concealed in a clothing chest. But, instead of heading for the Shrine, she made upriver for Halig-liath.

Leal awoke from troubling dreams to a troubling reality. Before breakfast, Buach had spread the tell throughout Care House: The Cyne was bringing the Nairnian Wicke to Creiddylad.

Lealbhallain was astonished, not because of the news, but because he'd already known, bone deep, that Taminy-a-Gled was on her way here and that Osraed Bevol was with her. He was disturbed by the news, disturbed that it came by way of popular rumor. The streets literally buzzed, according to Buach, despite the fact that the Cyne had left Nairne only the evening before, despite the fact that he and his party would not arrive in Creiddylad until the day after next.

It was as if the entire city of Creiddylad had been made party to Leal's aislinn-a vision thrust on him in some way by Wyth Arundel, and which seemed to invade his thoughts further, moment by moment. That was impossible, of course, and Leal couldn't help but wonder: Where had the rumors arisen? According to Buach's testimony, they were all over the Cyne's Market.

Duty drew Leal there in the late morning, where he shopped for medicinal herbs and where he heard the same tell repeated ad infinitum with various permutations: The Wicke had been near death at the hands of the Nairnian villagers when the Cyne had rescued her-he'd saved her right from the Cirke chime tower where they'd planned to hang her; or he'd saved her from the Council Chamber where the Osraed were planning to burn her; or he'd come across her abandoned in a wooded glen and been bewicked by her beauty; or ...

Curious, Leal asked a vegetable-pinching merchant where he'd heard the story, and was pointed toward a fish vendor. That was it, then, Leal thought. The story must have floated down river on the weeklies from Nairne. He asked the fish vendor, anyway, and got an unexpected reply.

"Ah, that! Why the Gatekeep told me when I came in this morning. 'Have you heard,' he says, 'about the doings in Nairne?' Well, I'd heard plenty of Nairne these last weeks, I'd say, with all this about cailin taking the Kiss-Lord! what a stew! But you'd know about all that, young Osraed."

"The Wicke?" prompted Leal.

"Oh, aye, that. Saucy bit of news, isn't it? Gatekeep had it the poor girl was headed for the gallows when the Cyne stepped in and took her out of Osraed hands." He paused, looking suddenly uncomfortable. "No offense, Osraed, but that's the tell. They'll be here day after tomorrow. It's going to the Hall, or so I've heard."

"The Gatekeep told you?" asked Leal and the vendor nodded.

He didn't talk to the Gatekeep himself, but dispatched one of the Care House orphans to it. He wasn't sure the man would be quite so open with an Osraed, and he was more than open with the ragged little urchin who asked him, wide-eyed, all about the Wicke-lady coming from the east.

"Pigeons," said the child, dark eyes like saucers in her pale face. "They got the tell by pigeons late last night."

Leal frowned, puzzled. "The gatekeepers?"

"No, no! In the castle. At Mertuile. Gatekeep said the Cyne's Steward told him before he opened up the Market grounds this morning. Pigeons!" she repeated, awfully impressed. "Be they magical pigeons d'you think, Osraed Leal?"

He shook his head absently. "I don't suppose so ..." The child's face rippled with obvious disappointment. "Then, again, I suppose they could be magical pigeons."

The little girl brightened. "Well, at least they be royal ones. That's almost magical."

She went off to play among the bright market stalls then, leaving Leal surrounded with his own uneasy thoughts. Royal courier pigeons, magical or not, had brought the rumor of Nairne's Wicke to Creiddylad-a rumor it seemed Cyne Colfre had some interest in spreading.

She stood in the galley's prow looking as if she had been carved there-a living, breathing figurehead. That was appropriate, he thought, for a figurehead she would become. He shook the cynical thoughts aside and settled himself near her along the starboard rail, where he could see her in full profile. He took out a graphus and, balancing his drawing pad on one knee, he began to sketch her.

She was wearing green for her entry into Creiddylad; he had made certain of it. The dress was simple-sinfully so, when one considered who wore it-but of the most vivid green he could imagine. It was a color he could not capture, for his oilsticks were in his studio at Mertuile and he had only graphus and smudges. Against that green, her yard or so of pale gold hair was a banner of precious metal silk and her eyes, if she would only look at him, would be emeralds.

His graphus stilled. She was looking at him. His thumb moved reflexively to rub the chalcedony set into the gold band on his middle finger-proof against Wicke. He resisted the reflex and nearly dropped the graphus.

"Good morning," he said and smiled. He had a dazzling smile and knew it; many women had told him. "Please don't move. I wanted to capture you just as you were."

She responded with an almost courtly bowing of her head (although it was hardly deep enough to be awarded a Cyne), and turned her face down river again, not quite hiding her smile.

Tease, he thought, and continued his sketch. "What were you thinking before I interrupted you?"

"I was listening to the duans the river sings."

That raised an eyebrow. "Duans? So, the mighty Halig-tyne is a Weaver of inyx, is it?"

"Of course. Listen. You can hear it."

He did listen and heard the rush of the water beneath the keel, the lapping of wavelets as they curled away from the galley's bluff prow, the soft, silken sound of wind in the trees along the shore, the flutter of the loose sails on their spars.

"Duans, eh? And what do they Weave?"

"Peace. Contentment. Solace. Whatever inyx is needed."

"Perhaps I think they are just the inarticulate yammerings of nature. Saying nothing; meaning nothing."

She didn't rise to his bait. "Your ancestors would disagree with you, Cyne Colfre."

"My ancestors?"

"Aye. Cyne Paeccs, for example. Where would he have been without the yammerings of the river? Imagine him, the brave young man, leading his little family out of besieged Mertuile, down the steep cliff path, out to his galley on the Halig-tyne. What chance would he have had to glide unseen past his enemies if Ochan and the river hadn't sung to each other? Dorchaidhe Feich was a mighty warrior and peerlessly cunning. What else but a Weaving could cause those sharp eyes to miss such a thing as the Malcuim's royal galley creeping through his blockade?"

"Legend," said Colfre. "Myth. It was a fog. A simple river mist."

"Quite a fog. And was it a simple river mist that concealed Cwen Goscelin the Just when she spirited little Thearl away from his kidnappers?"

"A simple river mist," he repeated, smiling.

"'To muffle the sound of oars in their locks? To quiet the cry of a babe in a box?'"

Colfre chuckled. "I know the old lay. And you obviously know your legends. But they are only legends." She didn't answer, so he continued, applying a smudge to the penciled lines of her dress. "And you believe in them, don't you?"

"Aye."

"Aren't you afraid your Cyne will think you a simpleton?"

"Do you fear me thinking you a jade?"

He did fear it. "Do you think me a jade?" She didn't answer, so he asked, "Do you also believe in your own mythology, Taminy-a-Cuinn?" He watched her face closely, but it gave up nothing.

"My mythology," she repeated.

"Do you believe you are one hundred thirty-some-odd-years-old?"

"I have little choice."

"And that you spent one hundred fifteen of those years ... beneath the Sea?"

"In the Sea," she said. "In the Sea of Life. The spiritual fact underlies the physical one."

"You were a silkie."

"I was not."

"Ah, no. You were the Meri."

"I was."

"And what is that? Explain it to me."

"When I cannot explain it to myself?"

"You perplex me."

"I perplex myself," she said. "In that Form I contained all things and comprehended all things. In this form, I am merely aware that I once comprehended them. I am memories and yearnings and bright flashes of meaning. But I know what I was and why. I was Caraid-land's Beloved ... . I was your Beloved, Colfre Malcuim. Why did you not return My love?"

He stopped sketching and stared at the beautiful profile, sudden desire struggling with that niggling sense of dread. He laughed, falsely. "I should have you thrown overside for that heretical outburst, young woman, but I've not finished my sketch." He returned to it, then, but the graphus refused to behave.

"Will you make a mural of me, Cyne Colfre?" she asked. "Will I share a wall with your kinswoman, Goscelin, and little Thearl in his clothes chest? Will you paint me as a legend, also?"

The dread doubled. "How do you know I have painted the Flight of Thearl?"

In answer she merely turned her face to him and smiled. It was a girl's smile, innocent and perverse and enigmatic.

He closed the drawing pad. "We'll arrive soon. I must go below and prepare."

"Cyne Colfre." She stopped him before he reached the forward cabin. "Why do you bring me to Creiddylad?"

"You don't know?"

"Why?"

His smile did not fit his lips well. "To make a mural of you, perhaps. Or perhaps, a legend."

He went below then, only to half-collide with Osraed Bevol, whose insolent smile and barely appropriate greeting set his teeth on edge. Damn the man, he thought, for he knew that to his late father's spiritual advisor, he would forever be "Ciarda's little boy". He ground his teeth and swore again, consoling himself that to Creiddylad, he would soon be Cyne Colfre Malcuim, Peacemaker, Savior of the Innocent, by the grace of God, Divine Ruler of Caraid-land.

"Osric." He whispered the word lovingly. Divine Ruler. He would be that. All eyes would see him as that. All hearts would love him as that. Only one obstacle remained between him and that blessed title-the Osraed of Halig-liath.

Taminy, whoever or whatever she was, would help him remove it.

The shore, the docks, the riverside promenades, all teemed with agitated bits of color. Skeet made a deft little sign over his heart. "All the people!" He glanced up at Taminy. "You've an audience again today, mistress."

She quivered inside-quivered like that thrumming mass of curiosity onshore. Osraed Bevol's hand tightened on hers; she squeezed it back, anchoring upon it. They debarked under the scrutiny of countless eyes. Necks craned, fingers pointed, mouths babbled. The "Wicke of Nairne" was now "the Cyne's Wicke," and Colfre let his stewardship be known by personally escorting her ashore and to the open carriages awaiting them on the dock. He seated her on the high rear seat of the first carriage and took up a place beside her. The Durweard Feich took the second carriage with Bevol and Skeet, while guards kept the crowds at bay.

From her high perch, Taminy looked down into a sea of faces, curiosity eddying around her in rising waves, threatening to overwhelm. She pulled her senses away and glanced aside at Cyne Colfre. Without, he was the essence of calm dignity, regal savior of the maligned village girl, upholder of Caraidin justice. Within, the gleeful boy paraded, waving, growing drunk on the inquisitive stares. His eyes burned with a fire so hot Taminy could not bear to look at it. She turned her head away and sought the spires of Mertuile. She found them, held them with her eyes until the carriage hove onto the Cyne's Way. Its cobbled miles were lined with more citizens from every level of society. Beggars rubbed shoulders with Eiric and forgot to beg; merchants pressed close to paupers and neglected to disapprove. Taminy scanned the faces in wonder, then turned her eyes to her destination.

Ahead, high up on its jag of rock, Mertuile sat enthroned, awaiting her arrival. Towers soared above their protective walls, wearing sheaths of pale marble and crowns of precious metals, beaten smooth and gleaming by craftsmen's skill. Gold, silver, copper shone in a diadem of blinding splendor beneath the blue Malcuim banners.

Colfre looked down at her and murmured, "Welcome to my Jewel, Taminy."

The staring crowds did not dwindle until the entourage was secure within the castle's inner ward. Only then, when the inner portcullis fell to behind them, were they without hordes of onlookers. But there were watchers, still; servants peered from their doorways and children from their corners; soldiers threw sly glances from a pretense of disinterest. And somewhere, high up, a pair of eyes-no, two-looked down in curiosity and suspicion, respectively.

Taminy raised her eyes to the facade of the great edifice. There, in that window ...The watchers withdrew-suspicion, then curiosity-and Durweard Feich came to hand her down from the carriage.

They placed her in rooms off a broad, muraled corridor far removed from the chambers Osraed Bevol shared with Skeet. It was the royal wing, the Durweard assured her, and left her alone in a bedroom the size of the entire upper floor of the manse at Nairnecirke. There was a long balcony on which to stroll, but Taminy quickly discovered it was open to the view of a large portion of both the inner and outer wards of the castle. She sat-in the window seat, because the couches and bed would have swallowed her-and waited for Mertuile to make a move.

"I wouldn't blame you if you didn't believe me," Leal said, willing his feet to move faster up the cobbled way.

"I believe you, Osraed Leal!" Fhada panted and glanced up at Mertuile's towering flank. "God bless me, I think I even knew he was here. I dreamed last night for the first time in years."