Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles (46 page)

“Then he must have rid hard,” Uwen said, “and left soon’s the word Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles was out. The king’s messengers is steady on the road, but they most times stop a’ nights. I’ll wager His Majesty wouldn’t like that letter-writin’ in the least. Sendin’ a message to somebody ahead of a king’s herald, about the king’s business? It ain’t right, and probably it ain’t lawful.”

“So Corswyndam has been dealing directly with the viceroy, not telling Cefwyn,” Tristen said, and was uneasy in that thought. “If Corswyndam needs to talk to the viceroy so urgently and privately as that, I think I should send this letter to Cefwyn to read as soon as possible.”

“I think that were a very good thought,” Uwen said. “An’ I’ll guess his lordship’ll be prayin’ to the blessed gods Liss ran home or strayed into thieves. He won’t guess she run back to us. —But he
will
be meetin’ wi’ master Emuin an’ the wagons on the road, now, won’t he? And he’ll be askin’ master Emuin for help and tellin’

master Emuin all sorts of lies, won’t he, then? Master Emuin might delay the lord viceroy if he knew the man’s doin’s, m’lord, just, you know, gi’ ’im a touch o’ colic.”

It was a clever notion. The wagons held potions and powders enough to give a troop of men indigestion. But Tristen had ceased to think master Emuin would prevent anything. There was little hope there.

And if he were to send the message straight to Cefwyn, various hands would handle it, or at least attempt to handle it, from the front gate to the Lord Chamberlain, Annas. Annas was very much to trust… but the other hands he did not know, and suspected.

Idrys on the other hand was experienced in matters of misdeed, and Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles the path to the Lord Commander through soldiers’ hands he estimated as far less contested.

“This case and the message must reach Idrys,” he said to Uwen.

“Not His Majesty. And it must go as quickly as possible. The man should only say to Idrys that I thought he should see it. Ryssand doesn’t know it’s in our hands. He won’t know until the viceroy arrives in Guelemara, he may not be sure of it even then, as you say, and by then Idrys will have made plans.”

“We might prevent the lord viceroy gettin’ there at all, which is surer still. We can send men out after ’im, arrest ’im an’ hold ’m against His Majesty’s sendin’ for ’im.”

That, too, was worth a thought. But he decided otherwise. “No.

Idrys may prefer to do something else.” He wished he were more sure of that opinion; Uwen gave sound advice, on what Uwen knew.

“Send the message straight to Idrys. It’s the best thing.”

“Aye, m’lord,” Uwen said, and took the case. “I’ll send it, fast as these legs can find a likely man.”

Uwen left. The door shut.

Treason, that letter said without a doubt. Any baron of Ylesuin might freely quarrel with a Marhanen king’s policy… and had done so. But they were
not
free to have private dealings with a man who should report first to Cefwyn, an invitation issued in such haste the duke of Ryssand’s messenger had outridden a king’s herald.

Did dinner invitations come with such desperate measures?

And was forewarning Parsynan only for the sake of the jewels and other pilferage, or what other thing might a forewarning have Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles advised Parsynan to do?

To pack… and to arrange things for his absence…

To lay traps? To remove certain things? Parsynan had tried to take the jewels, surely for his own benefit; had taken a sizable sum of gold;
and
a message, perhaps to prove to servants and guards his right to access Lord Ryssand without delay and perhaps in secret, or to prove to others Lord Ryssand had written to him. That was the only use he could construe for it; and his own working had surely snarled Lord Parsynan’s affairs, top to bottom. He wished he might do the same for Lord Ryssand.

He watched his pigeons, lately combatants on the ledge, green-coat and violet-breast walking separately, having chased off the others, and thought that he never should have left Cefwyn. He thought it so desperately he almost dared attempt to reach Her Grace herself with a message, but Ninévrisë’s gift was so small, the distance so great, the danger in the gray space so insistent that he backed away from the attempt in haste. No, that was not wise.

By now the barons Cefwyn detested had compelled Cefwyn to take back Sulriggan. Dared he hope a horse threw the lord of Llymaryn as well as the lord viceroy? Perhaps Lord Corswyndam, too… a kingdomwide plague of ill-behaving horses, perhaps… was it wicked to imagine it? It was certainly to his liking. To Cefwyn’s good he could wish all the barons’ horses might be wild and unbiddable. So with all Cefwyn’s troublesome lords.

But he checked himself abruptly, asking himself what would Mauryl say? What would Emuin? Yet, yet if men conspired behind their lawful monarch’s back… did a sworn friend’s virtue dictate Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles letting them pursue their harmful work unscathed? If men must take harm, Ryssand and Parsynan were deserving of it, were they not? If Duke Corswyndam slipped on the stairs and no worse than went to his bed for a fortnight, Cefwyn might have a chance to read this letter and deal with Parsynan, and do justice for the house of Meiden.

Had he not sworn to do justice when he swore fealty to Cefwyn?

And would that not satisfy it?

But to wish harm on others was wicked even to think of, was it not?

When he thought of it, he had left Mauryl’s care and walked into the world with no real knowledge of Wickedness, and Emuin had taught him very little of it. When the dark doings of ordinary Men Unfolded to him, they Unfolded not so much a blazoned banner of Evil as a tattered quilt of Misdeed, all far from the clear understanding he would have wished to gain of Good and Evil.

Hasufin might have been evil… but did not lords prosper their own folk and strive against rivals quite commonly? He failed to see wherein Hasufin was worse than Cefwyn’s grandfather.

And while Wickedness and Evil were abundant in Efanor’s little book, and he could read that the gods disliked both, whence came Wickedness in the first place, if the gods created all the world? Did they create something they detested, along with the mountains and the rivers? Efanor’s book informed him of nothing on that score, except to say that Men and their works were wholly evil, but some were good… very like Emuin’s defining the length of autumn to him. So it seemed to come down to Efanor’s advice, and Efanor’s little book and an amulet of silver and sheep’s blood… which was Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles to say, nothing.

Perhaps he should have taken Uwen’s advice in the absence of wizardly counsel. Perhaps he should yet show Emuin that document, and ask Emuin what to do, before it ever came to Idrys’

grim actions.

Yet dared he cast responsibility on Emuin, who spent so much effort avoiding it?

No, that was not fair, or true. Emuin spent his effort avoiding responsibility for
him
, and that was a far, far different thing. Emuin wanted little done. There was a certain wisdom in doing little, when one was obliged to act in ignorance.

His own ignorance, however, was not so wide as it once had been…

and his will to act, accordingly, was wider than it had been this summer.

He waited, watching the roofs of Henas’amef from the window bordered in frost and green curtains, watching the pigeons. In time Uwen came back from his mission.

“The captain’s sendin’ Lyn, who’s a reliable man, won’t be no stoppin’ in the High Street tavern wi’ Lyn; and Haman’s picked a fine pair of horses from the stables for ’im. He’ll be dust again’ the sky soon as ye can wish, and I give him orders to ride right past th’

viceroy like a bird on the wing. But are ye sure about master Emuin? Shouldn’t ye warn ’im, lad, at least instruct ’im’t’ gi’ that man the worst horse he can lay hands on?”

Uwen was a clever man, and in part he thought yes. At least enlist Emuin’s help whether he saw the message or not.

Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles But to tempt Emuin to act against his judgment…

“No,” he said. “No. Ride through. The viceroy will lie. If Emuin will not hear
me
in the gray space, he will hardly be happier to have a message other men can see. Lyn should ride past and not stop.

That may worry master Emuin,” he added on a sober thought; and then said in some lingering vexation, “But if it does, perhaps he’ll suspect the viceroy’s story entirely and make some haste to reach us.”

“Aye, m’lord.”

Uwen left again in great haste and in no long space after Uwen had had time to reach the front stairs came the clatter of a rider headed out across the South Courtyard and out the South Gate.

So Liss had brought them a gift the lord viceroy would pay all his gold not to have in Idrys’ hands. And master Haman had turned up.

That was good, too, though Tristen found himself not in the least surprised, only a little fearful for the broad scope of his decisions and at the same time expecting more such threads of Amefel-as-it-was to come into his hands.

Petelly had his old stall back, Tristen found as he walked into the stables in a quieter hour of the midafternoon. There were no apples in the barrel, there was dirty straw and manure scattered in the aisle, a disgraceful state of affairs, and Haman, newly arrived back in his domain, was shouting about horse brushes and pilfered halters when he and Uwen came in. “Bandits!” Haman cried.

But master Haman hurried over to him as he patted Petelly’s offered Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles nose, Gia thrusting her head out of her next-door stall to watch.

“Your Grace,” Haman said. “Gods bless Your Grace, these stables will be back in order as quick as we can move. We were never so glad in our lives, m’lord, as when we heard ye’d remembered us.”

Master Haman was greatly moved, his weathered face showing more tender passion than its habitual lines had graven in it, and meanwhile boys with buckets and manure forks and barrows were in rapid movement up and down the aisle, evidence that with master Haman in charge the horses’ welfare would never be a concern.

Uwen reported Dys was down in the lower stables with Aswys. So was Cassam. Gia was down, too, for rest, with Gery. But Liss had a red ribbon braided into her forelock, and was curried so she shone.

“Well-done,” he said, “very well done.” And as he was walking out with Uwen, to the inspection of the rest of the yard, lo! there was Cook marching in by the West Gate bearing a ladle in her fist like a battle mace, and in her train, a number of the scullery maids bearing along pots and kettles. Two of the Dragon Guard, on horseback, improbably brought up the rear.

“The cook and the three maids was all found at Silver Street, m’lord,” a guardsman said with a salute. “The pots were hidden in the gatehouse cistern.”

“M’lord!” Cook said with a deep curtsy, and so all the maids bobbed down and up in rapid succession, their faces all consternation.

“Why were the pots hidden?” Tristen could not forbear asking.

“So’s they weren’t stolen, m’lord,” Cook said with another curtsy, Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles

“as the viceroy turned us out for puttin’ his Guard layabouts out o’

the scullery.” This with a fierce look. “They turn’t me out, an’ the lads, too, an’ so we hid the good copper pots in the cistern, an’ since then they hain’t had a kettle but the great one that’s hard to shift.

Here’s all the fine spoons, too.” At that a maid tipped the pot she carried, and there were, indeed, spoons. “We come back ourselves like honest folk an’ reported to the Guard about the pots.”

“You’ll take great care,” Tristen said. “Earl Edwyll died of poison Lady Orien left. Be very careful of the stores. And I have missed the pies.”

“That I will, m’lord! That I will indeed! An’ pies you shall have, m’lord!” Cook’s broad face splotched when she was distraught, or now when she seemed happy. “Gods bless, gods bless, an’ a long life to Your Grace.”

He feared she had broken the law by taking the pots and the spoons, but justice required his not seeing it. “Let them free,” he instructed the guards. “They’ll set the kitchen in order. —I suppose the scullery lads will turn up in due course,” he said to Uwen.

“I’ve no doubt. Word’s out that ye want the old staff, an’ they’re turnin’ up by twos and threes an’ by troops and regiments. We sent word out, too, that ye want the gate wardens o’ th’ West back, but Ness says they’re fair scairt, on account of layin’ violent hands on ye this summer.”

“Say they should come. I’m not angry.”

“’At’s what I said to Ness.” Uwen shook his head. “An’ I’ll say again. We’ll find ’em.”

Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles

“Your Grace. ” A clerk had been hovering at the edge of his vision for the last several moments, the clerk who had ridden with them, distressed and in the company of a Guelen guardsman. “Your Grace. If Your Grace could spare a moment…”

Tristen paused to listen, and the clerk bowed again. But it was the guardsman who spoke:

“There’s letters burnt, your lordship, and a dead man in the library.”

He had asked himself what such a man as Parsynan would choose to do, given advance warning. He delayed not at all, but strode off, himself, Uwen, Syllan, and Tawwys with him. “What sort of letters? ” he asked the clerk. “Are they entirely burned? Can you make anything of them?”

“A book of record, a record of some kind, perhaps of the very letters.” The man was all but trembling. “And a man who may be the archivist, dead, beneath a table. No one had been in there with the fighting and all, and I came in to build a fire myself, the servants not answering; I never even saw the dead man, Your Grace, until I saw the scroll ends in the fireplace, and he was right beside me.

Right beside me!”

“Stabbed? ”Uwen asked.

“No blood,” the guardsman said. “An’ the book in the fireplace, m’lord, and the scroll ends. It seemed your lordship should know.”

“We ain’t let anyone into any place we ain’t searched,” Uwen said,