Fortress in the Eye of Time (28 page)

“Your brother has unhappy precedent. Your uncle's death—”

“Was chance.”

“His advisers believe not.”

“And Father loves Efanor. Let us say the truth. Father loves him and would not mourn overmuch if some Elwynim put a dagger in my back.”

“Fathers often dote on the lastborn. So I'm told. This does not make him first.”

“So my father set me this duty to teach me responsibility. So he said.”

“I heard.”

“Well, then, duty leads me to this measure, and my royal father knows he need have no fear of my diverting that army off the Elwynim border and against him or Efanor. Whatever he thinks of me, he does at least believe me sane, and my brother can learn so.”

“Your father is old, and it does not well agree with his years or your brother's anxious fears, my lord Prince, to have one son amassing troops in the countryside while the other son is living quietly in Llymaryn. Whatever your father knows or believes of your intentions, there will be concern about this among the northern barons. That is the plain truth.”

“I am the invested heir; if trouble comes of what I do, then let Father look to the ambitions of the barons whose advice he's leaned upon too much,—including Heryn Aswydd, chief among them, Heryn Aswydd. I don't know whether Father has me watching Heryn or Heryn watching me, and, damn it! I have nothing to gain that is not already mine.”

“It would still be more politic, my lord Prince, to use only Guelen troops.”

“And what will that say? Dear father, send me your armies? I promise not to bring them home?”

“I shall sharpen my sword.” Idrys made a second ironical bow. “You will have Heryn and his men buzzing about your ears when word of this flies free. You raise the wind, my lord Prince. And there may follow rain. Perhaps a frost.”

“Given this present situation, Idrys,—how would you secure the Zeide from disturbance, without reinforcements?”

“Disarm the Amefin—now, before they can hear what you have done. Put the Guelen on guard at all posts, and bar the Amefin guard from duty and from the armories.”

“Do it. Tonight.”

Idrys' brows lifted. “That is extreme, my lord Prince.”

“You claim to be my man. You give me advice. Then you
have my authority for whatever needs be done to make it clear to all Ylesuin where this mustering of forces is aimed—at Amefin treachery, not my brother's feverous fancies of an enmity I do not bear him. The one is a family matter. The other—is an order to me to hold a province with two hundred thirty men. Folly, Lord Commander, and letting Amefin fill out the posts after the business at Emwy—I think not. They cherish no thoughts of our good will, only hopes of our timidity. Hence my summons to the southern provinces, which my father may count his elder son's folly, or his elder son's premature ambition, but not if I turn up sufficient stones quickly enough. Lest you marvel, I do not believe Heryn—not his rescue, not his protestations.”

“Is this recent disbelief or longstanding?”

“Oh, growing apace. Nor patient of further incidents. I take to heart all your warnings about the Amefin. Say to all who ask that the armory is locked to prevent thefts. We have had recent thefts, have we not?”

“If you say so, m'lord.”

“Say, too, that we suspect an Elwynim spy among the guard. I should hate to offend the honest among them. Just let the next shift—be Guelen. Will that not make a quiet and quick transition? They won't know the replacement is general until they go back to their barracks. Review all rosters for patrols or issue of equipment. Better we have short patrols for a few days than lose our knowledge of what tidings have flowed to what place in Amefel.—And set up the sergeants
with
the scribes to take down a list of our loyal Amefin guard, man by man, accounting their villages, their residences, their relatives, persons who may vouch for their provenance and behavior, and question the men they name to vouch for them, and check back again. We are foreigners here. How else can we tell loyal men from trespassers?—Appoint Mesinis to the task.”

“Mesinis? Mesinis, do I hear correctly?”

“This should take sufficient time for a muster of foot out of Far Sassury, if we needed send so far.”

“My lord,” Idrys said, “Mesinis it is.”

“Wake me,” he said, “promptly—if it goes amiss.”

“My lord Prince, I am well certain, if our guard-change goes amiss, you will hear the alarms in the night.”

“But alarm among the Amefin will give my brother far sounder sleep. Will it not? And Heryn certainly less?”

“
If
success tonight goes to our side, m'lord, and not to Heryn's. The man might take action, my lord Prince.”

“See it does go to our side.—
And
, and, Idrys,…have master Tamurin take yet one more look at Heryn's tax accounts, past years as well as this. Have master Tamurin go directly into archive without warning, and appoint him pages to carry all relevant books to his premises, no matter the protests of those dotards Heryn appointed. Including the books of the town accountants, this time.
That
will divert m'lord Heryn from his petty grievances over Emwy and his guard appointments, and set the rumors flying among his earls and his thanes and his what-nots, some of whom may come to us in their distress.”

Idrys actually lifted a brow, looking pleased and amused. “As you will, m'lord Prince.”

“Good night, Lord Commander.”

Idrys went without further objection. Cheerfully. That was rare.

 

Afterward Cefwyn lay in the broad bed, threw a coverlet over himself against the breeze from the window, and stared at an unrevealing mural on the ceiling, a trooping of fairy and a breaking-forth of blossoms, wherein smaller fay lurked under leaves and made love in the branches. A star was in the painted sky. A gray tower—or was it silver?—was on the hill. A star and a tower were the arms of the Sihhë, alike the arms of Mauryl, the Warden of Ynefel, were they not banned throughout Ylesuin. But surely Heryn would not lodge his prince in this chamber, under that painting, if they were more than chance elements of the piece. Perhaps the prince was
suspicious and uncharitable even to suspect Amefin humor in the arrangement—as he was suspicious and uncharitable to suspect Amefin humor in Heryn's riding, oh, in hall velvet, and lightly cloaked, with the guard, risking danger—

—only in his tardiness to make his claim of innocence. Heryn had faced no danger of alleged outlaw weapons, the real nature of which he would wager his royal stipend Heryn knew.

He had laid out his riding clothes, his sword and his leather coat on the bench nearest the bed, without advising Annas or asking the servants' or the pages' help. He wanted no rumors running the halls until a bolt was on the armory door.

He did not take for granted at all that he could, without a blow struck and with but a handful of loyal guard, collar Heryn Aswydd—who was no novice in deceit and who had far cannier and hereunto unknown advisors. Even relying on Idrys' skills to avoid surprise, he knew Idrys' failings in diplomacy toward recalcitrant outsiders, and knew he risked stirring resentment where none had existed—at least where none existed to any extent that would prompt Amefin to assail the prince of a realm that had been, if not loved, at least peacefully and reasonably obeyed.

It seemed to him urgent, however, to act. His household officers generally had thought it best to tiptoe about the secrets of Amefin disaffection and map all the edges of it before making any move, all for fear of starting something far larger than Heryn from cover—meaning Amefin collusion with their ancient allies the Elwynim—and stirring themselves up a far wider conflict than a bandit or two in Emwy's bushes.

Disarm the Amefin by night, simply by moving them off watch as they turned in their weapons at the armory. That in itself would provoke outcry and dismay by morning, but it would frighten the Amefin, who had seen Marhanen vengeance in prior generations. And to confound their wildest terrors, the scribe he had assigned to the questioning and registry was far from vengeful—a kindly and grandfatherly old fellow, fine for small details. Mesinis was the absolute soul of patience,…and incapable, one suspected, of taking accurate
notes long before he became slightly deaf. Moreover, Mesinis did
not
deal well with Amefin names or the Amefin brogue.

He liked that stroke; he truly did. If one was bound to create consternation among one's enemies, it seemed, after outright terror was established, best to aim that consternation at small, maddening obstacles like Mesinis, which obscured the more outrageous acts—small, maddening obstacles in which the prince could graciously create exemption and ease the way, making Amefin
grateful
for Marhanen intervention on their behalf.

Hourly he expected some alarm from the halls, some wild threat from Heryn and his minions, or worse, some rising in the town at large that would invade the halls and tear them all limb from limb.

They were not thoughts on which a man could sleep. But when the hour for the guard change passed without alarm, that matter at least seemed settled. The one patrol was out by now, riding by night, and his messengers would leave that column and spread out to the barons of the adjoining provinces, who in their lordship of their provinces did not directly owe him fealty.

But if His Grace of Amefel were allied with some Elwynim lord slipping
his
Regent's leash (as well Amefel
had
once been, with Elwynor, ruled from Althalen), and general war broke out, then be certain that His Royal Highness Cefwyn Marhanen would bear the lifelong reputation for losing a province, and be certain that his royal father would regain it, to his father's credit but to his own lifelong disgrace—and lasting trouble in his own reign. His father had set him here to prove himself or fail, with hopes, at least on the part of certain barons in Guelessar, Llymaryn, and elsewhere in the realm, that the elder prince of Ylesuin, known for debauch, might most spectacularly fail in the temptations of Heryn's court—or die and never sit the Dragon throne.

But those were northern lords who opposed him, while the barons of the more religiously diverse south readily distrusted that coalition of established and orthodox Quinalt interests
that had moved into the court at Guelemara during his father's reign. Even in heretic Amefel, he suspected, many hoped for Good King Log to establish his rule in Ináreddrin's quieter younger son Efanor.

While if there was any personal advantage he himself had in undertaking this oversight of Amefel, it was the expectation of the southern barons that the Crown Prince, having ruled in the south, supported by the south, might reward the south and send such influences packing. Efanor never saw it. Efanor had lately become piously Quinalt. Efanor, turning to the gods, had no real heart for conspiracy. It was why the northern barons so loved him.

It was the reason
he
was so desperate as to send those messages.

And twice in the night he roused poor Annas to go inform himself how Tristen fared. Each time the answer was the same: He has not wakened, my lord Prince; and, reliably, His man is with him.

Mauryl's gift.
That
cuckoo in the Amefin nest was yet to fledge—and a frightened small portion of his heart wished the wizard-gift might come to nothing, while the greater, the nobler part of him feared losing that gift, whatever it might mean, whatever uncertainties it brought him.

Came a noise somewhere that caught him with his eyes shut and his thoughts drifting. He was not certain he had not dreamed it. The fire in the hearth had burned down; he roused himself to tend it, not troubling Annas, and looked and found gray daylight in the windows.

The noise repeated itself.
Thump
. The guard was admitting someone to his chambers, and he cast a thought toward his sword. He rubbed his eyes and his face and reassured himself with the remembrance that the guard had changed at least once in the night, and nothing had raised alarms or rung the muster bell.

The inner door opened, that from the foyer; and it was Idrys, shadow-eyed and unshaven, but fully armored and bearing his sword.

Idrys bowed with his usual grace. “My lord Prince. Amefel applies to see you. He frets in his disfavor.”

“And my orders?”

“Executed. While the Zeide slept, at the watch change, as you ordered, the Guelen forces took the Zeide gates, the armory, the stables, the storerooms and the kitchens, and stand guard outside Heryn's and the twins' rooms. The Amefin guard is disturbed, needless to report, but awaits its orders from Heryn, and Heryn…is awaiting your pleasure, my lord.”

Idrys had rarely looked so pleased with a situation.

“Well done,” Cefwyn said.

“My lord.”

“I think,” Cefwyn began, and nudged the brass kettle and last night's tea water over last night's coals to heat. He tossed on a few sticks of wood from the heap beside the hearth, while Idrys took up watch over him, arms folded. “I think that Heryn may seethe in his own juices a time. How long, do you think, is prudent?”

“Enough time to see Your Highness breakfasted and well sated with tea.”

“Perhaps I shall invite him to breakfast.”

“Shall I relay that invitation, Your Highness?”

“Carry it yourself. He fears you.”

“Most gladly, my lord Prince.”

Idrys departed, and Cefwyn thoughtfully investigated the kettle of water, hesitating still, in the weariness of a long night, to call in the clatter and conversation of servants and pages.

But he rang the bell, and when Annas turned up from his bed nearby: “Breakfast,” he ordered, “for myself and Heryn Aswydd. A guard will escort you, the cook, the pages, with every pot and every cup and source. There is dissent and division afoot.”

“I shall take good care,” the old man murmured, “my lord Prince.”