Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles (29 page)

“They’ll sink to the axles if they slow down,” Uwen judged. “Get

’em into line will they, nill they, m’lord, an’ no stopping. That lane’s a damn bog.”

“Say so,” he bade Uwen, after which Uwen rode immediately aside to talk to Captain Anwyll, and after that, back in line to shout orders to move the standards and the Guard ahead at a trot, making room for the wagons. In that way the vehicles came in with no hindrance and no slowing down.

“All the wagons are here, except master Emuin’s,” Captain Anwyll reported then, riding up in the line from the crossroads. “He sends word he’ll join us at our lodgings tonight.”

Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles

“Tonight.”

“As best he can, Your Grace. He said he was served by fools.”

Emuin had not come to the swearing this noon, nor remotely wished to, Tristen was sure. He had last seen master Emuin raving at the servants who carried his chests of fragile phials and his aged and brittle-edged piles of documents, his stacks of codices and venerable scroll-cases down the perilously winding stairs to the upper hall, where his baggage waited. Emuin had sworn all his borrowed help was feckless, vowed that he could move no faster by the king’s whim or any other, and threatened, when last he had seen him to inquire, that if the servants or the king’s officers came one more time to ask when he wanted the carts and mules assigned to him to be in the courtyard, he would invent a spell for toads. Emuin had not finished packing by daybreak, nor by midmorning, and now that Anwyll reported his carts had not made it down the hill during the lull in street traffic during the ceremony, as they had last arranged, Tristen began to be more concerned.

“I set ten guards to escort the good father at whatever time he sets out,” Anwyll said, “in event that the night might overtake him on the road. They have a tent.”

For that forethought he forgave the captain his presence. “Did he have the parchments down?”

“I didn’t go up, Your Grace. The way was clogged with baskets.

There was no moving on the stairs.”

“Well you did leave men with him,” Tristen said.

Six mules, an oxcart and a wagon were allotted for master Emuin’s Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles baggage alone, and if their effort were to come raveled, if there were any adverse Working, it struck him as ominous, that Emuin was late.

But on the other hand it was certainly no wonder that the old man had fallen behind in his packing when it was a miracle the rest had gotten on the road. He, who had no scrolls or codices or boxes of powders, had three mules only to carry his armor and his clothing and an ox-drawn heavy wagon for his tent and field equipage. He had thought down to the last, when they told him it had indeed gone onto the wagon, that he might leave the heavy tent and chest stored in the armory, since that equipage would only have to be transported back again to Guelessar when the army marched in the spring—but he had a sometimes restive province to defend, and now more than a remote chance that Tasmôrden might breach the long river border, or attempt his defenses this winter—and if he had to go into the field in the cold of winter, then it was better to do it under canvas.

And that meant he had to have the tent which would serve as a headquarters; and if he had that, then all the tents that belonged to a company of two hundred, with their gear, had to come: more carts, more oxen, more gear. The Dragon Guard, Anwyll informed him, did not camp in the field like the rangers of Lanfarnesse. There were horses, tents, cooking pots.

And since they had that encumbrance, then came Dysarys’ and Cassam’s caparison and armor in their heavy canvas weather casings, the horse-armor not being for ordinary wearing; and if those, why, then other things. The horse gear made a considerable Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles bulk in itself, not only that belonging to Dys and Cassam, but also the spare saddles for Gery and Petelly, Uwen’s Gia and now Liss: the brushes, the ointments, the warming blankets, all of that, and the personal gear belonging to the horse grooms. Then because the mounted guards had their own farrier and his equipment, and the medicines, spare tack, tools and blankets for all the four hundred horses of the troop of two hundred men—they added sacks of grain, since they had no time for the wide grazing otherwise needful for the horses and the oxen over the several days they would be on the road. They hoped for hay or easy grazing at least two of their nightly stops, else they would have carted that with them, too.

There was also the company physician and the store of bandages and physic for all the guardsmen themselves; and two hundred men’s winter gear and clothing.

And far from least came the quartermaster and the precious chest that contained the guardsmen’s pay and the funds for supply in the province.

Before all was done, that section of the train which supported the Guard and their light horses numbered no few ox-drawn wagons, each with its drivers and their modest amount of baggage. And last in the train of wagons and carts (he had seen it arrive) Tassand and the servants rode in a covered mule cart, the sort that ladies favored: the king’s household had provided it, none of the servants being inured to days in the saddle, and it lent the last quaint touch to what had indeed as well have been the movement of an entire army toward Amefel.

Too, he had accepted Idrys’ offer of an armorer to go with him, Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles Cossun, until last night the juniormost assistant of master Peygan himself. So he had promised that man, too, a living, besides providing him a horse, a cart for baggage, and two armorer’s apprentices and their personal equipment.

So many had proved unexpectedly willing to join him, of men who had known him in Amefel this summer… Gossan, a man who otherwise would never be a master of his craft, had surely weighed the dark repute of Amefel as well as the chance of war reaching the walls of Henas’amef this summer, and made a dangerous choice in a handful of hours. All who joined him had done so, perhaps in hopes of bettering their lots in life… a chance which came in war to soldiers, sometimes to craftsmen through hard work and good luck, and very, very scarcely in the case of a clerk.

He had so many hopes going with him today, even when every stride Gery made was carrying him away from Cefwyn’s close friendship. Cefwyn needed loyal men… and by utter chance or someone’s intent, he found very many of them going with him.

But Emuin, who had never doubted an instant he must come, but who would not advise him, delayed for powder pots and parchments.

Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles
CHAPTER 2

«
^
»

Your Majesty this, Your Majesty that,
yes
, Your Majesty,
as you
will
, Your Majesty… and watching from the upper floors, out the window, His ill-tempered Majesty had a perfect view of the Quinalt roof with its canvas patch… of monks struggling with ladders, of the Quinalt square with its ordinary scatter of business. No one minded the wrath of the gods and the dreadful omen of the lightning now that the imagined threat of the young Warden of Ynefel was gone from them. The barons no longer needed feel besieged or distanced from the throne. The stranger in their midst had departed back into Amefel, where almost any impiety might be tolerable, oh, and at long last, His Majesty’s wizard tutor was going with him, an untidy presence lingering from Selwyn’s harsh reign, lingering far past need, in certain opinions.

Tristen’s going had left a certain untidiness behind, a tower emptied, pouring bundles down the stairs, a fine set of apartments stripped of presence.

It had left another kind of emptiness behind, too, and Cefwyn’s heart ached for it. He discovered he had not taken advantage of the time he had had. He had not said to the barons, as he ought, Damn you all, and done as he pleased from the very beginning of his reign.

No, no, with all the wisdom he had observed in his father (and now Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles he questioned it) he had tried to keep alive his father’s alliances. He had come into his capital with a southern victory and a foreign bride, and let the attacks come at Tristen because he knew Ninévrisë had no defense.

But, gods, he had not understood the persistence of those attacks, or their cleverness, or that they would dare this much. He had made a clever move of his own, sending Tristen south—but he had not prepared himself for the look Tristen had given him when they stood apart, there on the Quinalt steps. He had not recalled the bitter lessons of his grandfather, of betrayals, and the harm that a word could do. He had not recalled the bitter lessons of his father, how absence could estrange two hearts… and now he worried about it.

But he would not be so set about hereafter. And he had not at all given up Tristen, or Emuin, or any of his friends. They were where they needed to be. If a king could push and prod wizardry into working for him, then he had made a necessary move, and moved wizards where fools would threaten them at their peril. Let him get the reins of power firmly in his hands, and then he would remember every favor and every score that wanted remembering. His grandfather, entombed in the Quinaltine yonder, had had the barons in fear of him when he was alive. He, like his grandfather, had faced armies. Could he not, in his turn, daunt a paltry handful of court gossips? The servants, the court, the Quinalt… no one would have dared tempt king Selwyn as his barons had tempted him. And they were not as clever as they hoped.

His father Ináreddrin had learned only two tactics: playing one rival against another, which his grandfather had done very skillfully, and Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles compromising—compromising constantly to secure his own safety: he saw it very plainly from the vantage of this bitter morning, this window he had looked out since childhood. Ináreddrin had set northern Quinalt against southern Teranthines, northern barons against southern barons, son against son and devised a clever path through their objections—but, again, he had always resolved matters not by decision but by compromising what he wanted. Son against son on the other hand had been easier game—give the elder son no love. Give the younger son, Efanor, all honor, all credit with the northern barons, knowing very well he was robbing his own heir of support. What was it to him? He’d be dead and in his tomb when the account came due.

And lo! his father indeed died and here was he, standing at the same window, facing the same decisions, making choices his father should have made with an iron hand.

But not entirely recklessly. He longed to go down and at least bid Emuin safe journey as the old man was setting out. But then the very point of sending Tristen away was to still the rumors, and if the barons thought him weak and biddable, let them think it only for another dozen days. He should not go to Emuin.

Quiet the rumors, give Tristen the winter in Amefel, give the realm the feeling of real danger on the border, oh, and then the Quinalt would see magic much differently. Gods, gods, but he looked forward to sending a few lords on horseback through the mud and brambles and into the range of bowmen and see whether they did not soon view Tristen of Ynefel as their very savior.

The king being angry, the king’s servants would not come near him.

Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles But the tread that crossed the floor behind him now, soft and with the whispered grate of armor, he knew: he took no alarm, and saw a grim, dark-mustached reflection in the glass.

“Well?” he asked that reflection.

“Things are as well done as may be,” Idrys said, “m’lordking.”

“Satisfied, are we?”

“Mauryl’s heir has grown far cannier, and more adept than many think. Send him back to the nest and he will grow indeed again. But he is still the innocent, in many ways. I authorized forty silver, by the by, for Uwen a horse.”

“A horse.” In the depth of his melancholy, in the tottering of Marhanen rule in Guelessar, he found an act of Tristen’s still to astound and amuse him.

“A mare. A surplus of the guard mounts. A fine horse, as happens. I applaud Uwen’s eye.”

He almost found it in him to laugh. “Good gods, I give him a province and
that
was his concern.”

“Oh, I daresay he had many concerns, but this was the one he could reach, to please a man he trusts. I approve his reasoning.”

Idrys’ speech was sometimes barbed, sometimes indirect, rarely straight to the point. For Idrys, this was blunt. And Cefwyn was less amused.

“I take your lesson, master crow.”

“You confound your enemies, Majesty. They never foresaw his appointment to Amefel, I do agree. And the fools among them Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles imagine Ynefel will go quietly to his tower and become absent for a few decades of years, like Mauryl.”

“Tristen will not,” he found himself saying, and in the ghostly reflection saw Idrys’ implacable visage. “Should I fear him?” he asked, perhaps because in the strangeness of the day and the stripping away of his resources, fear did occur to him, the barons’

fear, the fear of Guelenfolk, of all the north… and his own fear, deep and little confessed. “I
don’t
fear him, master crow. There is no malice in him, nor ever has been. And what I’ve done,
I
choose.

The hell with them all.”

“I should be remiss if I did not point out—”

“
Damn your pointing out, Idrys
!” He spun to face his Lord Commander. He had by no means meant such an outburst. It had been waiting all night and all morning.

And Idrys looked not at all surprised to receive it, saying smoothly, imperturbably, “Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Neither ambition, nor self-will, nor greed for land. None of these things move him, Idrys. He is the best man ever I knew.”

“He is not a man,” Idrys countered him. “As m’lord king may well remember.”

“A man in all points but birth.”

“Oh, aye, a birth…
that
small matter.”

“Damn you, I say.”

“As Your Majesty may please,” Idrys said, and for some few moments they stood side by side, overlooking the workers who assayed the Quinalt roof, like the movement of ants in the sunlight.