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Guelesfort over his choice of plainer fare for the harvesttide feast, a scandal for the cooks and for the lords who fancied their stomachs too delicate for Amefin barley soup instead of the traditional leek. He consented to both on the table, but by the great gods’ indifference, he would have the barley soup, himself, providing the Guelen cooks could produce it unscorched.
    A new king inevitably met such complaints and such resistance to change. Traditions opposed him, even in soup bowls. He could not please the fisher-and farmerfolk of Murandys to the north of Guelessar if he pleased the apple-growing province of Panys to the east of Guelessar: his choice of harvesttide fare had political and economic symbolism, and his father had done thus, and promised this, and so on, and so on. As with soup, so with religion: he could not maintain his ties to his old tutor Emuin and at the same time please the Patriarch of the Quinalt, the sect which had risen and prospered under his father. He had already drafted a reply to His Holiness… we shall consider measures which may suffice, regarding the good appearance of the steps …And meanwhile his longed-for informal supper with his bride was all but on the tables and word arrived on the lips of a page that they had indeed located Tristen within the town, late, unseemly, but advised. In a calmer state of mind he began a reasoned missive to Lord Brysaulin… we command you send this day to all the villages specifically to ask …
    Then, another commotion of the pages, alas and alack, his own intended russet velvet was discovered in better light to have a stain on it. The senior page, with him since Amefel, and now Master of the Wardrobe, was devastated: Annas went off to settle the matter and there was peace as far as… tally of carts …
    â€œThe bats and the owls are out of sorts this evening,” Idrys remarked dryly, quietly shadowing the light above his desk, “and master Emuin will attend. Annas has provided him clothes. We have waked him.”
    â€œProvided clothes?” He was mildly dismayed, and looked up at his captain, quill stopped. He had not seen his old teacher in…it must be a fortnight, perhaps a little more. Well, perhaps since the oath-taking and festivities of the court last month—or was it more than a month now? But the old man had looked quite well. Emuin seemed admirably content, having reclaimed his former choice of residences, the Old West Tower, and since he was a Teranthine father, he had been served, quite handsomely served, by respectable, soft-spoken Teranthine monks. He had naturally assumed his old master was well, if nocturnal in his pursuits.
    â€œWherefore is Annas now providing his clothes, pray tell? Where are his own servants?”
    â€œHe discharged the grayfrock brothers,” Idrys said. “Some time ago.”
    â€œAll of them?”
    â€œBoth of them. There were two, my lord king. He faulted their clumsiness with inkpots.”
    He had not known. He was appalled. “Does no one attend him?”
    â€œThe Lord Warden has seen him at least twice in a sennight, and sent to him daily.”
    â€œTristen has seen him.” Tristen would never neglect the old man, so, there, he had not neglected his old friend and tutor: Tristen had been seeing to him.
    â€œThe Lord Warden’s servants have seen to his linens and his meals,” Idrys said. “But master grayrobe is less among us mortals than among the stars lately, so it seems. I do think he might do with more blankets in that tower.”
    That Idrys evinced concern was troubling. Idrys, the darker eminence of his household, had been his father’s man, then his, a man who would stick at very little, and who was not restrained by any pity or scruples from the deeds a prince had to do. He supposed that in some sense even Emuin had been his father’s man, but that was so long ago it scarcely signified. Master Emuin had