Tiuri’s Pursuit and False Accusation

Tiuri’s pursuit and false accusation turn his flight into a double ordeal: he must evade people who intend to kill him while also persuading others that he is not the murderer they believe him to be. The suspicion against him arises from real but misleading details—an unauthorized departure from his vigil, a stolen horse, the dead knight’s ring in his possession—and follows him even as he carries out the mission entrusted to him by the dying Edwinem.

How the Suspicion Took Shape

The Grey Knights were looking for Tiuri because they believed he had murdered the Black Knight with the White Shield, taken the knight’s ring, and escaped on his horse. When Ristridin finally disclosed the accusation, Tiuri recoiled as though struck. The thought that he could be regarded as Edwinem’s murderer seemed at once horrifying and absurd to him. His first response was disbelief at the charge; only afterward could he understand the Grey Knights’ behavior toward him, though he still did not know how the story had begun.

The suspicion had accumulated through a sequence of fragments. Red Riders who had been watching Edwinem found him dead and fled, afraid that they themselves would be blamed. One of them later told Ristridin that their master, the Black Knight with the Red Shield, had lost a duel with Edwinem and then ordered some of his riders to keep watch on his enemy. The riders who found the body had also seen a young man nearby. They had tried to stop him, but he ran. They knew he had been interested in Edwinem’s ring, although they could not explain why.

Reports heard at the Inn at Yikarvara seemed to identify that fugitive: a youth had stolen a horse, behaved strangely, and was now wearing the ring. He had escaped with Ardanwen, Edwinem’s horse. Later, news that a young man had left the chapel during the night before his knighting seemed to complete the pattern. Bendoe considered Tiuri’s departure disgraceful and against the rules, and suspected that Edwinem’s son was the same youth described in the reports. The facts were connected, but the conclusion was wrong: the ring had been given to Tiuri by the dying Edwinem, and Tiuri had been with him at the moment of his death.

Tiuri’s Account and Ristridin’s Reversal

At the meeting where the accusation was made explicit, the castle lord pressed Ristridin to tell Tiuri what the Grey Knights had believed. Ristridin hesitated, then said that he now considered the charge false. The change mattered, but it could not erase the shock of hearing the accusation from the man who had pursued him. Tiuri could understand more clearly why the Grey Knights had sought him, yet understanding their reasoning did not make the charge less painful.

Asked to explain himself, Tiuri stood before Bendoe and gave a compact account of the events that had made him appear guilty. He admitted that he had run from the chapel where he was supposed to keep vigil on the night before his knighting, taken a horse that was not his, and ridden away. He had found the Black Knight with the White Shield and been present when the knight died; Edwinem had told him who had attacked him and given him the ring. Soon afterward, the Red Riders had tried to kill Tiuri as well. He escaped them and rode west through the forest on Edwinem’s horse, Ardanwen.

Tiuri said that this was all he could tell Bendoe, because revealing more was impossible. He insisted that his conscience was clear and that the accusation was false and absurd. He would not sit down when Bendoe told him to: he wanted the assembled men to believe him first, although his legs were trembling beneath him. His account does not conceal the disobedience that began his journey; instead, it separates that breach of the vigil from the murder and theft attributed to him. His flight and his guilt are not the same thing.

Ristridin’s earlier doubt had come from the conflict between the rumors and what he knew of Tiuri. He considered Tiuri worthy, after his probation, of becoming a knight; that judgment did not fit the stories of a thief and murderer. Bendoe, by contrast, had first treated the chapel escape and the reports of the stolen horse and ring as a persuasive identification. The encounter forces those competing interpretations into the open: Tiuri’s circumstances explain why suspicion attached to him, while his direct account and Ristridin’s changed belief expose how little the circumstantial chain had established.

The Pursuit Continues

The false accusation is only one part of the danger surrounding Tiuri. During an attack near the river, the Red Riders used a group shouting in the woods as a diversion. Some of the Grey Knights had already crossed when the rest of the attackers sprang from the rocks and seized Tiuri. Their effort to hold off his companions failed, and the attackers fled across the river and into the forest. Ristridin could not tell how they had identified Tiuri. Tiuri suspected that Ardanwen had given him away: Leor had repeatedly watched the horse and spoken about it, and Tiuri believed Leor had warned the riders. Ristridin agreed that this was possible and supposed the enemy had spies.

Jaro later made clear that the danger was not limited to the group that attacked beside the river. He confessed that he had been sent to kill Tiuri and prevent the letter he carried from ever reaching King Unauwen. Tiuri had saved Jaro’s life, and that mercy changed what Jaro was willing to do: he said he could not kill Tiuri and did not want to. His admission turns the pursuit from an indistinct threat into a specific mission against both the messenger and the message.

Before leaving, Jaro returned to warn Tiuri that another pursuer had been sent after him. When the party had split, Jaro had followed Tiuri while the other agent pursued the Grey Knights’ group westward. Jaro had recognized Tiuri from the Red Riders who had followed him in Dagonaut’s forest. He expected the other pursuer to realize that he had followed the wrong people, but warned that the man would keep searching, might cross the mountains ahead of Tiuri, and would not rest until he found him. Jaro described him as a far more ruthless enemy than himself and identified him by the name Slupor, adding that no one knew his true name.

What the State Reveals

Tiuri’s predicament depends on the gap between what happened and what can be inferred from appearances. He did flee the vigil, ride a horse that was not his, and possess a dead knight’s ring; each detail was true, but together they produced a false story of murder and theft. The ring’s actual transfer from Edwinem to Tiuri reverses the meaning of the most incriminating object, while the reports passed between witnesses turn a frightened fugitive into a suspect. The accusation is therefore not baseless in its ingredients, but it is wrong in the conclusion drawn from them.

The episode also distinguishes two kinds of pursuit. The Grey Knights’ search begins in a mistaken belief about Edwinem’s death and can change when Ristridin confronts the evidence and hears Tiuri’s account. The Red Riders’ pursuit is deliberate: Jaro was explicitly tasked with killing Tiuri and stopping the letter, and Slupor remains a threat even after Jaro withdraws. Tiuri’s innocence can correct one accusation without making him safe. His journey is thus sustained by both the need to clear his name and the need to carry Edwinem’s warning past enemies who know exactly what he is carrying.