Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles (22 page)

More, he would leave a roomful of the very lords and ladies no other event of the season would assemble until the wedding, lords and ladies who would talk, of course, about the only thing worth their speculation: what the Patriarch had wanted that was so urgent.

And about his bride. And about the country dance. And about Tristen… and the coin. And the weather. Give them the space of a single dance to have the news out of some servant and give them two dances more to have the tale embroidered into sorcerous manifestations over in the Quinaltine, with the smell of Althalen’s haunted fire and his grandfather’s ghost.

He beckoned with a crooked finger, a finger that bore his father’s ring, now his, as the whole burden of Ylesuin was his, and only his.

Efanor supported him, yes, had come to him in this, but Efanor had not used his wits to keep the Holy Father from bringing the matter
here
, oh, gods, no, Efanor’s ordinarily keen wits scattered to the several winds when His Holiness willed this or wanted that…
yes,
Your Holiness
, gods preserve Your Holiness… kiss your
robe
, Your Holiness. A year younger than he, Efanor was in his period of youthful credulity, of piety, of devout belief riding hard for a fall: he had spent his own time of easy belief, thank the gods, chasing Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles women and believing himself all-wise, to far greater profit to the realm.

“Your Majesty,” the Patriarch said, trembling: well he might tremble.

“Your Holiness.” He kept his voice low. Even yet, despite the hush, only the servants might hear; and Efanor, leaning close; and Ninévrisë, whose hand he must abandon, sitting beside him, she could hear it all.

“There was…” A monk had attended His Holiness as far as the dais, unbidden, and the Patriarch summoned him—which was no one’s damned
right
, to summon someone else into the king’s presence; but His Holiness, being overwrought, had the gods to excuse his lèse-majesté. His face remained white and thin-lipped as the monk came near and unfolded a small white cloth which, indeed, contained not the king’s bronze penny, but a silver coin of some age and, indeed, Sihhë origin. The Star and Tower were quite clear to see, age-worn and bright on tarnished metal.

“Distressing,” Cefwyn agreed, “but in nowise attributable to the lightning.”

“The coin appears as what it truly
is
, Your Majesty. It could not maintain a sorcerous guise in the offering box. The gods—”

“The gods have raised a seasonal storm over our heads, and the banner-tower has been hit at least six times in
my
recollection, so why
not
the Quinalt roof? That it coincides with a sly act of treason

— which is what this is, Holy Father—is happenstance. It was a terrible crack—we heard it here, and more than one; but you are not Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles a man to jump at a stroke of thunder. I’ve known you far steadier.

Bear up. ”

“Someone has worked
sorcery
, Your Majesty. The penny is the offering for the
roof
and the lightning blasted a great hole in it! ”

“And whom do you accuse? Make an accusation, Holy Father. Or are we to assume what the dastard that did this
wished
us to assume? I am defender of the faith. Before you invoke
me
, be sure, I charge you be sure, or say you do not know.”

The Holy Father knew exactly what was meant on every hand. And there was deep silence.

Cefwyn waved his hand, dismissing monk and coin. “It is not his. I don’t know whose it is, but it is not Tristen’s.”

“Your Majesty—”

“We
gave
the Warden of Ynefel a penny, a good
Guelen
penny.”

“The coin then—”

“
Dare
you say it? Again,
be sure
.”

The Patriarch took in his breath. “The meaning of it I can name, Your Highness. It’s a
curse
, a working against the Quinaltine, a strike at the very sanctity of the holy precinct.”

“The
meaning
is someone who would gain by it, someone wishing to harm me, harm the Lord Warden,
and
mislead Your Holiness, if it were possible, which I trust it is not, Your Holiness being no gullible or common man.” He spoke sharply, harshly, his tone exactly his father’s when he was crossed: he had that gift, he had the stare, he had been informed of its use since his boyhood, and he used it now like a weapon, knowing with a sinking heart that Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles whatever he did in this hall, gossip was already flying between the Quinalt precinct to the Guelesfort kitchens and it was a short step to every noble house in every province—by fast riders, if they believed the whole of it. The music stopped. The dancers stood waiting, listening, all but leaning forward, awaiting some definition of the moment, some characterization of the news from him and from the Patriarch, the temporal and the spiritual pillars of their lives.

Where in
hell
was Idrys? His captain had stepped out of the hall, as he was in the habit of coming and going in his duties. And damned ill timed, this absence.

“I will tell you,” he said to the Patriarch in deadly calm, and the utter stillness as the nobles as one body, on one breath, attempted to overhear their voices. “Some enemy has done this, and if he has employed sorcery—” He gathered all his wits, seeing a hole in the Quinalt roof as not subject to denial, only interpretation. He reaimed the lightning bolt, in a word. “—it came from across the river,
as
has the hand that did this
, no friend of Her Grace, but her bitter enemy. Considering there is Sihhë coinage scattered in hoards all over whatever lands the Sihhë-lords once ruled, why, no great difficulty obtaining such things. But who would do such a thing?”

Quiet as his voice was, he let it rise just a little, to give some well-judged reward to the eavesdroppers. “Who would practice sorcery against us? Who stands to gain?” Oh, he had his own notions on that score, pious Ryssand not excluded, but he named the ones that served his purpose. “All that might gain by preventing us are
across
the river, fomenting rebellion against Her Grace and harm against Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles our people, which I will not countenance. The Lord Warden gave the penny
I
gave him to give, nor has any store of coin at all. I am sure of him. I am sure of my lady. We need look further, to someone both cunning and with something to gain.”

Murmuring broke out, the hindmost of the eavesdroppers wanting to know what was said, drowning all voices.
Idrys
had come back, thank the gods, using that small door beside the throne by which the king and his intimates might come and go in other than formal entrances; and that look and slight lift of Idrys’ head told him that Idrys had news he should hear immediately, and aside, in that room.

Damn.
Damn
the timing. There was danger here, grave danger: and the heart of Guelessar was
not
the simple court of Amefel, where the king could do very much as he pleased and know himself upheld by the five barons of the south and the lord viceroy of Amefel, if not by the Amefin peasantry.

But the barons of the north had been his father’s men and would far more gladly have been pious Efanor’s. Here, in extremity, he had to call, not on Cevulirn, who would stand by him with a clear loyalty, but on such pillars of the Quinalt faith as the duke of Murandys, Lord Prichwarrin, accustomed to having his father’s ear for every triviality and resenting him bitterly for refusing to grant him all the favors his father had granted. His grandfather had known how uneasy the crown rested on a usurper; his father had held it more legitimately, but had placated the lords of the north in his reign.

Now they were accustomed to being cajoled, led by their desires and their purses, their pride coddled, their ambitions satisfied, often by the one power that
could
rule Guelenfolk and Ryssandim alike, Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles the one unifying element in all the provinces.

And that one unifying element was
not
the Marhanen kings. It was, and ever had been, the Quinalt, and the Patriarch.

And
damned
if all the Patriarch’s disposition had not hied him here on the genuine fright of a levin bolt and the mountebank slip of a coin. His Holiness had
Efanor
unnerved. He could see his brother’s face— insanely gullible where it came to the Quinalt and religion.

Where, oh, where, was the brother he had plotted with as a child?

But the lightning stroke, Efanor had said again and again.
But the
lightning stroke
—

He had to answer the matter. “Your Holiness,” he said, “I shall see you in the privy chamber directly. —Your Grace,” he said to Ninévrisë, reaching his hand to hers, where it rested on the arm of her chair. “I shall have the roof patched and someone
hanged
, if I find the culprit. We have guards to set, and messengers to send to the bridges and the riverward villages in case your enemies have any remote gain in this circumstance. We will not require any long conference to do that. —Ivanor.” He had all attention, and had used it, summoning Cevulirn forward. “At the king’s pleasure, you pipers. Play, play.” He rose, drew Ninévrisë by the hand as Efanor and the priest cleared a seemly path. “Dance. Sip wine. Trust Cevulirn.” He passed Ninévrisë’s hand into Cevulirn’s, a gesture not wasted on the jealous northern barons; and by that transit all the display of finery and all the scores of days of women’s work was saved, in his
not
curtailing the evening. Certainly it was a breach of custom for the festivities to continue without the king, and certainly he dared not set Ninévrise in any authority over the hall… but the Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles confidence that the matter the Patriarch brought was being answered without an inconvenience to the court brought a relief and if not a mood of outright celebration in the wiser lords present, at least a willingness in the company to maintain themselves assembled and within reach of information. The young, whose whole consideration was very much the dancing, might take the floor with Her Grace and Ivanor.

The musicians limped into unison and the drums struck up a modest paselle. The duke of the Ivanim bowed, Ninévrise bowed, and every head in the hall inclined, furnishing his moment of escape as Idrys held the door beside the dais, and his personal guard fell in, quickly.

Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles
CHAPTER 9

«
^
»

Where
were
you?” he asked Idrys in displeasure as they walked in the shadows of the passage, His Holiness, with Efanor, being obliged to a more circuitous route to the privy chamber. “More to the point,
where
is Tristen? Gods give us witnesses. Tell me he is with witnesses the last hour.”

“Tristen is closeted with
Emuin
,” Idrys hissed back. “Lusin and Syllan are with him. And Uwen.”

Cefwyn stopped so quickly that the guards behind them brought up desperately short. Idrys was a shadow against the few candles in the privy chamber beyond the tapestried passage, a dark and ominous shadow. It had always been Idrys’ business to know all that went on. And Idrys knew, within the Guelesfort, where Tristen was, and what was happening. But the Quinaltine and its doings were all but impenetrable territory to Idrys’ men.

“Tristen left his apartment,” Cefwyn reiterated.

“With a train of Your Majesty’s guards and his own man all the while. The guards are sitting outside Emuin’s door in his tower.

Tristen is inside.”

“Emuin himself is not pure in their eyes. We dare not have this break out.
Damn
! Where were you? Why did you permit this?”

Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles

“I heard the commotion with the Quinalt. The damage to the place is extensive. And I regret the Lord Warden went to the tower this evening. But that is not the worst. We have a courier from the river.

Tasmôrden has moved his army south at dawn today.”

Devastating news. He caught a deliberate, a difficult breath.

“Is
that
what you were about?”

“I was down in the guardroom, I beg Your Majesty’s pardon.” Idrys rarely had to. “The shore-fire was lit, one fire, after dawn this morning, and since that hour, a courier has come from the shore to us. We assume the direction of movement is toward Ilefínian, if the observers saw it clearly, if he was not hindered in lighting a second beacon.”

A partisan of Her Grace of Elwynor, on the far shore of the Lenúalim, had risked his life to bring them that much, lighting one of a combination of fires that their posts on this side could see. One fire, southerly, meant alarm and movement toward the south. Gods send mud, was his thought, thick mud with this downpour, on the roads between Tasmôrden and the capital of Elwynor. Gods send sleet and snow and ice to shield Her Grace’s capital. Her partisans would be slaughtered to a man once Tasmôrden breached the gates and got into the town: few of her supporters could maintain their secrecy, though the wiser ones would hie them out the gates and southward as fast as they could. And if the Elwynim rebels
had
moved and (considering Efanor’s damned levin bolt) if
sorcery
had risen in very fact, and ridden this storm—then gods save them.

Gods,
could
it
be
wizardry? If some wizard joined Tasmôrden, there would be the devil of a war.

Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles The candleflames in the sconces swayed: a door closed in the privy chamber. His Holiness had come in.

Damn, again. The Quinalt roof was far from his concern, balanced against this news; and yet it was the point of attack—and correctly so. Everything depended on a few scorched roof slates. Tristen’s safety was at issue because of it.
Ninévrisë’s
safety was. A charge of sorcery attached to his dearest, his most loyal, his most intimate friends… might be sorcery indeed. But
not
Tristen’s. And it was at least possible it was no more than ill-timed chance.