Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03 (23 page)

That drew a tilt of Emuin’s head and a wary look. “I advise as I see to advise. Now I see a stirring of will, young lord, in you and in your honest captain. Employ it.”

“I have the earls’ goodwill. The Guelen Guard is a harder matter.”

“Parsynan appointed their officers, m’lord,” Uwen said, “an’

master Emuin’s right, best we can do to keep ’em out of mischief is march ’em up an’ down. Ye daren’t send a man of ’em home: Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

they’d be straight to Parsynan wi’ gods know what tale. If ye wisht my soldierly opinion, it’s the captain an’ the seniormost sergeant is the poison in the cup, him in the hall last night.

Gellyn’s the sergeant’s name. I suspect he was the one went to the patriarch: and maybe ye can put the fear in the sergeant, but small hope for the captain, say I, who’s a Quinalt man, an’ a hard-nosed Quinalt at that. ’E won’t change, an’ it ain’t right you talk to ’im before me. You want the men that leapt right quick to Parsynan’s order to slaughter the prisoners, m’lord, it was this captain an’ this sergeant, an’ the rest was swept along wi’ what they had no heart for, otherwise.”

Emuin had come forward with advice, and now Uwen was stirred to report to him, when before he had been swathed in silence.

And it was no shocking news, what Uwen said about difficulties with the Guelen officers: he had heard it before in bits and pieces. But now Anwyll was out of the town, and his learned and lettered Guelen efficiency was neither a restraint on the Guard officers of the garrison nor on Uwen’s command of them. He had worked for a fortnight to have Anwyll out the gates; and lo! now all the stones that had refused to move tumbled at once.

“I do hear,” he said, “and I’ll take your advice, yours and master Emuin’s. I’ll have Tassand teach Paisi how to beg the soldier’s pardon, for the soldiers’ sake, so they understand and he understands. He mustn’t do it again.”

“That comforts me,” Emuin said. “By this afternoon, do you say, Tassand is to have wrought this miracle?”

Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

“I take your advice, sir,” he said, for it seemed to him a little salve for the soldiers’ pride and for grudges might mend something of what was amiss with the Guelen Guard: a better lord, Uwen had said the night of the slaughter, might let these men regain their honor.

But gaining what he had of advice, and being told to establish a court, he pressed further on forbidden ground, this time with Emuin. “What of Auld Syes, then, sir, if advice is possible today?” He abandoned fear of asking or saying anything at all before Uwen, or even Lusin. “Have you advice on that, sir, and what when one of the earls asks me who she was or signifying what? I know the men have spread it about. And what do
you

think I should do about the sergeant?”

“Advice? Advice now, when you’ve gone out and stirred up the spirits of this land? Gods save us, say I, gods save us all.

Discipline your sergeant or march him and his captain out to join Anwyll; set up a second camp with the discontents and leave

Uwen
sole captain here.”

“Can they?”

“Can they what?”

“Can the gods save us? I’ve found nothing in Efanor’s book to say so.”

“Oh, young lord,” Emuin said with a sober look and a shake of his head, “that is
not
the question. Certainly not in this matter.

Set things in order. That’s what you’re here to do. Set all things Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

in order that Parsynan and Cuthan disordered. All you know should tell you the danger in disorder. And with that, I’m back to my tower
and
my shuttered and warded windows, young lord.

I’ve said enough.
Order
is what’s needed.
Order
is the only saving of us. I pray you, establish one soon, any sort of order you like, so long as it’s no one else’s order.”

Something in that, touching on what they both understood, breathed a cold breath out of the gray space.

“Do
you
see sorcery, sir? Or have you seen it?”

Emuin turned again and looked at him, but it was in the gray space that answer came to him, not aloud.

—
Does it not always seek the crack in the wall, young lord
?

So ruin had begun at Ynefel, subtly, an old, familiar crack beneath his own small window; and from that small fracture of the stone, grown greater, all calamity came. He could not but remember it, for the thunderclap that had riven the Quinalt roof could have shaken him no worse than did Emuin with that one word.

Yes, the Zeide’s heart had many cracks, of every sort, not least the bloody rift between Meiden and the Guelen Guard.

Now the Quinalt, at a Guard sergeant’s instigation, came lodging complaints aimed at Amefin.

“No more dare I say,” Emuin proclaimed, and began to go his way.

Emuin denied him again, again stopped short of the whole truth; Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

or perhaps it was all the truth Emuin had now to give him.

Uwen gave a twitch of his shoulders and a shake of his head, and began to say something. But all the light had gone to brass, and the gray space was all but with them.

He could reach out and have Emuin’s attention from here. He asked himself what he would say when he did, what authority he would seize unto himself, and do
what
with it?

Invade Elwynor? He had Cefwyn’s authority to raise an army unprecedented in the dealings of Ylesuin with Amefel; but Crissand pleaded the summer war had left the province bereft as was. Yet Cevulirn
happened
to come to him.

Who has done this
? he asked the unresponsive void, and the old man who was by now walking back to his tower, with feeble and arthritic steps.

—
Who has done this, Emuin? Have
you
called Ivanor to me
?

“Wizards is pricklish folk at best,” Uwen was saying, in the world of substance and color and the smell of candles, cold stone, and the incense that lingered where the Quinalt had been. “I’ll find the boy an’ I’ll find the one who talked to the priests, as ye say, m’lord. Master Emuin’s entirely right to chide me: busy soldiers is better soldiers, an’ the sergeant and the captain’s better shoveling snow in the river camp. Ye’ve given ’em fair trial since they went again’ your given word; an’ if they’ve been behind your back a second time, don’t gi’ ’em a third chance. The river’s the place for ’em, an’ a warnin’ to Captain Anwyll to go with Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

’em.”

“What orders you see fit. At any time you see fit.” Yet it seemed unfair to him, to damn a man unheard. “But before that, I’ll hear the sergeant’s reasons, and if I have no good answer from him, then send them all to Anwyll’s camp.”

“’At’s just,” Uwen agreed. “I’ll bring ’im, sayin’ ye want to have a word wi’ ’im. And I’d ask did his captain approve what he did, m’lord, that I would, but I suspect I’d already know the answer.

The poison there ain’t all the sergeant. The sergeant wouldn’t be what he is, ’cept for the captain.”

“I trust your advice,” he said. “Bid the sergeant come to my chambers, and after him, the captain, in private. And send to the earls. Say I’ll hold court today.”

Such was the plan; and so the sergeant was due to come at midafternoon, and the captain of the garrison directly after him, but by somewhat past the expected time, Uwen came to his apartment to say personally that there was no sight nor report of either man.

“It ain’t ordinary the captain should be unfind-able,” Uwen said,

“and right now I’m inquirin’ in the lower stables.”

“As if they should have fled?”

“Or should be attendin’ of their horses or pretendin’ so,” Uwen said. “It’s the only thing a soldier’s got need of, wi’out orders to be out an’ away from the garrison. If they ain’t drinkin’ or about Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

the town… an’ if they ain’t at the stables, there’s the whole damn town to search.”

“Inquire,” he said. The gray space might have told him something, if he had well known the men they were searching for. Ranging through the whole population of the town and finding soldiers was like searching for certain kinds of pebbles in a pile of them… it would mean sorting a good many other pebbles in the process, disturbing them and discovering more of their privacy and peace than seemed just, and taking time, that, too.

“Do you have the Guard searching for them?” he asked.

“I ain’t ask’t it, let alone ordered. It’s their officers, m’lord. I’m inquirin’ by way o’ the Amefin guard an’ the staff. An’ talkin’ to the undersergeants, the while, just getting the look o’ men I used to know, m’lord, an’ I do know some of ’em.”

“But not all?”

“The Guelen Guard comes from more ’n Guelessar, m’lord.

Panys, Murandys.
Murandys’
province. Any second and third son, as ain’t apt to inherit, that man’s apt to come to the standing companies. The lords’ kin’ll go to the Dragons or the Prince’s Guard, but the common lads… an’ them as ain’t quite lads, like me… they’re for the Guelen Guard. An’, aye, some of these I marched to Amefel with; an’ some I knew when His Majesty was here; an’ some I knew for scoundrels, too, the senior sergeant bein’ no better.”

Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

“But some you don’t know?”

“A good many’s come in since summer’s end, when His Majesty marched home to Guelessar an’ Parsynan came in. Some are good men an’ one an’ the other I’ve me doubts of. All’s Quinalt, but some’s too Quinalt, if ye take my meanin’, m’lord, an’ don’t like Amefin.”

“Set the garrison in order,” he said. “Marching them to the river’s not all the answer. Have the captain and the highest sergeant gone off and left
no one
word where they are? Or are men not telling?”

“Seems, m’lord, they left no instructions of who is in command,

’cept as there’s seniority. The man who’s second senior,
he
ain’t informed where they are, an’ I think I believe ’im. An’ Your Grace is right: it ain’t the way it ought to be.”

“Did Anwyll allow such things?”

“Captain Anwyll didn’t interfere much.”

“You command the garrison,” Tristen said. “And all the Zeide.

Set them in order.”

“Them’s His Majesty’s troops,” Uwen said distressedly. “I can’t just dismiss His Majesty’s officers, m’lord. I ha’nt the authority, wi’ all goodwill. I begun in the Guelens and came to the Dragons, unlikely as ever was; and then I could ha’ ordered ’em: a Dragon sergeant can order a captain of the common companies.

But I left the Dragons an’ come wi’ you, m’lord, which means I’m provincial an’ not a king’s man anymore. An’ if them troops Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

hadn’t got a captain, I could, if you ordered, in your province.

But not so long’s there’s a king’s captain in charge.
Anwyll
could have ordered ’em. But ye sent him to the border.”

That His Majesty’s troops did as they pleased and did wrong to Amefin folk within a stone’s cast of the Zeide was not tolerable to him; in his mind the captain had forfeited his command the night he had obeyed Parsynan’s word against his. When he and the senior sergeant disappeared at the same time, leaving no orders behind them he knew what to call it: irresponsibility was a Word he had learned in one place and another. Treason, he had learned very well, here in Amefel.

And with the town’s well-being and Amefin justice resting on the garrison’s proper conduct, Anger rushed up, twice in two days, now.

Uncommon, he thought. And
that
, the anger, he carefully lifted out of its place to examine later, in some quietness of heart. To have anger give the next orders was unwise, even if it was just.

—
Do you hear
? he asked Emuin, across the insulating weight of stone.
Do you know that the captain and the sergeant have

disappeared, and do you count it coincidence, good sir? Shall I

be angry about it
?

There was no answer, as he had in his heart expected none. Oh, Emuin heard. Unquestionably he heard. Emuin was settling into his chamber, poking up the fire, which had gone to embers, and gave him attention, but no answer.

Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

He had, he recalled, said to the patriarch himself that he guessed the source of the advisement about the trinket-sellers.

And was it unreasonable that the patriarch should have sent word to the sergeant, who might have told his captain? He himself had had little dealing with either man, and it was still the matter of a search after pebbles among pebbles; but he began to suspect that the pebbles in question were no longer in this heap.

“Perhaps they’ve taken horses,” he said to Uwen, who waited quietly for his answer, “and then you would have authority.”

“I am askin’ that,” Uwen said, “an’ word ain’t come yet.”

“Only from the bottom of the hill?”

“There’s a lot of shiftin’ about, especially wi’ the Ivanim in wi’

sixty-odd horses an’ them needin’ room; master Haman’s got lads movin’ horses out to the far meadows and makin’ winter shelter. It’s over an hour’s ride out an’ back to some of them places, an’ till we’ve counted, an’ horses tendin’ to wander off in copses an’ stream cuts for windbreaks, even when ye built ’em a fair shelter…”

“We won’t know by evening,” he said, “unless the captain turns up before that.”

“I asked the gate-guards, too. An’ they just ain’t sure whether the men is in or out. They don’t much notice the soldiers comin’ and goin’. I put it to ’em they should notice such things an’ look sharper. They
are
under my command, and I apologize for that, m’lord.”

Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

If
the captain had taken horse and gone, there was no question

where
he had gone: to Guelessar, to Parsynan, to unfriendly ears.