Oh mercy, Vanye thought, are we doomed to stay-here a time more? He had hoped that they could retreat, and he looked at the thickness of the book and at all the bored lordlings sitting about them flushed with wine, looking like beasts thirsting for the kill, and reckoned uneasily how long their patience would last.
“We would be honored,” replied Kasedre. It was probably the first time in years that anyone had bothered with the musty tome of Leth, replete as it must be with murderings and incest. The rumors were dark enough, though little news came out of Leth.
“Here,” said Morgaine, and took into her lap the moldering book of the scribe, while the poor old scholar—a most wretched old man and reeking of drink—sat at her brocaded knee and looked up at her, wrinkle browed and squinting. His eyes and nose ran. He blotted at both with his sleeve. She cracked the book, disturbing pages moldered together, handling the old pages reverently, separating them with her nail, folding them down properly as she sought the years she wanted.
Somewhere at the back of the hall some of the less erudite members of the banquet were engaged in riotous conversation. It sounded as if a gambling game were in progress. She ignored it entirely, although Kasedre seemed irritated by it; the lord Leth himself squatted down to hear her, hanging upon her long silence in awe. Her forefinger traced words. Vanye’s view over her shoulder showed yellowed parchment and ink that had turned red-brown and faint. It was a wonder that one who lisped the language as uncertainly as she did could manage that ancient scrawl, but her lips moved as she thought the words.
“My dear old friend Edjnel,” she said softly. “Here is his death—what, murdered?” Kasedre craned his neck to see the word. “And his daughter—ah, little Linna—drowned upon the lakeshore. This is sad news. But Tohme did rule, surely—”
“My father,” interjected Kasedre, “was Tohme’s son.” His eyes kept darting to her face anxiously, as if he found fear of her condemnation.
“When I remember Tohme,” she said, “he was playing at his mother’s knee: the lady Aromwel, a most gracious, most lovely person. She was Chya. I rode to this hall upon a
night…” She eased the fragile pages backward. “Yes, here, you see:
“. . . came She even to Halle, bearing sad Tidings from the Road. Lorde Aralde … —brother to Edjnel and to my friend Lrie, who went with me to Men, and died there—Lorde Aralde had met with Mischance upon his faring in her Companie that attempted the Saving of Leth against the Darke, which ad-vanceth out of … Well, well, this was another sad business, that of lord Aralde. He was a good man. Unlucky. An arrow out of the forest had him; and the wolves were on my trail by then . . . herein she feared the Border were lost, that there would none rallye to the Saving of the Middle Realms, save only Chya and Leth, and they strippt of Men and sorely hurt. So gave she Farewell to Leth and left the Halle, much mourned … Well, that is neither here nor there. It touches me to think that I am missed at least in Leth.” Her fingers sought further pages. “Ah, here is news. My old friend Zri—he was counselor to Tiffwy, you know. Or do you not? Well… Chye Zri has come to Leth, he being friend to the Kings of Koris.” A feral grin was on her face, as if that mightily amused her. “Friend—she laughed softly—”aye, friend to Tiffwy’s wife, and thereon hung a tale.”
Kasedre twisted with both hands at his sleeve, his poor fevered eyes shifting nervously from here to the book and back again. “Zri was highly honored here,” he said. “But he died.”
“Zri was a fox,” said Morgaine. “Ah, clever, that man. It was surely like him not to have been at Irien after all, although he rode out with us. Zri had an ear to the ground constantly: he could smell disaster, Tiffwy always said. And Edjnel never trusted him. But unfortunately Tiffwy did. And I wonder indeed that Edjnel took him in when he appeared at the gates of Leth. . . . he has honored us b.y his Presence, tutor. . . to the younge Prince Leth Tohme … to guide in all divers manner of Statecraft and Publick Affaires, being Guardian also of the Lady Chya Aromwel and her daughter Linna, at the lamented Decease of Leth Edjnel…”