Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03 (30 page)

And if Modeyneth was the village with connection to them, Modeyneth would still willingly feed them, Auld Syes’

sparrows…

And what better refuge than in Emwy district, which was in Auld Syes’ hands and under her potent wards, hers, and the late Lord Regent’s? Ninévrisë’s father, though a Shadow now, would know the true from the false.

“West of Modeyneth, in the hills,” he said, “the war will not so likely come. There are walls and vaults at Althalen that would keep the wind out, and if we sent canvas and timbers, the old walls could well shelter them. I know the place is well warded against harm from the outside.” He did not add that he himself would know sure as a shout and as instantly if any untoward thing happened there… he did not think there could be any intrusion at Althalen without his knowing it.

“Your Grace,” Drusenan protested. “It’s forbidden even to set foot in that place.”

“So much the safer.
I
don’t forbid it, and I’m lord of the place.”

“The king forbade it, as he forbade—” It was to Drusenan’s credit that he forbore to say,
the wall
.

“The king is my friend, and I know he’d bring these folk to Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

Althalen himself if trouble threatened. There’s nothing harmful there, not to the harmless. A little girl rules it, and the Lord Regent. If you can manage only canvas and straw, they’ll be safe and warm within the walls. The stone there is thick, and reflects warmth if they have a fire.”

“If they had leave to cut wood…” Drusenan said.

“Plenty grows there.”

“If we had your leave to cut it, my lord.”

Why should you need it? he all but asked, but from Guelessar’s example, he understood the jealousy with which lords guarded their wooded lands… and he knew the reason of it, that indiscriminate cutting would ruin the land and kill the game.

“You have my leave,” he said, looking at the women, “and if there should be haunts, don’t fear them. Uleman’s grave is there.

The wards of that place are stronger than any common place.”

The Regent’s name greatly affected the women. One seized his hand, pressing her brow to it, hugging it to her.

“Gods bless Your Grace.” The woman’s wounded hands clasped on his so he could not force them off without touching seared flesh. She bore amulets, he saw as her shawl fell open, much like Auld Syes. She was a witch, but had no power, or none that he could feel. Cevulirn had far more, and glowed softly in the gray space. He touched her hands, wished her flesh to heal as soon as possible, and with no more hardship. She pressed her tearful face against his hand, and fell to her knees… he hoped because he had Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

done some good.

“The king’s law forbids settlement at Althalen,” Cevulirn said in a hushed voice, at his other hand, “so you should know, Amefel, though I agree His Majesty would ride right over that law at his need. The king’s law also forbids the raising of walls and defenses in Amefel.”

“Is it all
Cefwyn’s
law?”

“His grandfather’s.”

That was very different. “His giving me the banner of Althalen was against his grandfather’s law, too, but he did, all the same.

And he told me do justice, and I swore to him to do it. So I have to find these people a place.” Tristen cast a look at Drusenan.

“Settle them there tomorrow. Quickly as you may.” It struck him between the lordship, the wall, and the fugitives that he had settled a double and a triple burden on Modeyneth. “Don’t bear it alone. Call on the help of all Bryn’s resources, up to the walls of Henas’amef and inside, and tomorrow send to all of Bryn and say this is my instruction, and the council decree says the same.”

“My lord.” There was fervent intent in Drusenan’s voice. “I swear it. And your wall you shall have, my lord.”

“With a gate in it, and two towers for archers.” He had in mind exactly how he wished it would look, smooth white stone, with great towers; but he knew sensibly that in haste and with unskilled labor, it would be rough stone and wood.

“There is the ruin there,” said Drusenan. “There, shall we build?

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

Of the old stone?”

He was confounded for a moment, and then Cevulirn said,

“Whatever serves to raise that wall faster, I think His Grace will approve.”

They went inside, and back up to their chilled blankets, he and Cevulirn, while the men settled in the lower hall, with understanding, now, of the village secrets and the loyalty of Bryn, alike.

“A wall has stood there,” Cevulirn said, “where you direct the wall to be. It’s on the oldest maps. Did you know?”

“A Sihhë one?” He had not known. He was troubled to think so, but not altogether so.

“Barrakkêth raised it, and at other…”

…
points in the hills
, Cevulirn said, but he already knew what Cevulirn would say. He could see his wall as he had seen it in planning, a string of small outposts which in some degree corresponded with the villages that stood there now, linking a series of steep-faced hills.

These villages had once been a source of supply to powerful garrisons.
That
had been the importance of Bryn, their ancient duty to the Sihhë kings. That was the source of their prominence in Amefel. The system of defenses Unfolded to him, with unwalled Althalen in the heart of such a bristle of defenses no enemy could prevail…

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

Instead Althalen had rotted at the heart, and the interest of the halfling kings in the people that toiled in uninteresting peace in the countryside had failed: long peace, and stability, and long, long dearth of ambition or purpose in existence.

Had it been good… or otherwise… for the villages under their rule?

Crissand spoke for the villages, and understood the farmers, and pleaded for attention to them. Crissand… aetheling, by the same blood Cuthan shared, that might even run in Drusenan of Bryn.

He said nothing after that, only felt a chill through the blankets and his clothing and despite the body lying next to him.

What had he done, in ordering these things? One moment he had been sure; and now he lay close to shivering at the thought of what he had commanded to exist, and at a title he had all but promised to bestow.

He, who had read the Book that Mauryl had given him… or that Mauryl had
returned
to him, whichever was the case: Barrakkêth’s book, outlining the principles of magic, the fluid character of time and place, on which wizards so profoundly depended and which they attempted to nail in place.

False, Barrakkêth would say: nothing is so certain. The patterns were what mattered. The patterns and not the substance. A village
is
the realm, the realm a village, and the kingdom fares as well as any of its parts.

Might he then heal Althalen?

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

In a morning aglow with clouds, they brought out their horses, disturbing the sleep of the exiles from Elwynor. The village wives had made a great pot of porridge in the open air, and every man and every villager and the fugitives as well had hot porridge steaming in the wintry breeze. Faces stung red with cold all bore smiles this morning.

“Fare well,” everyone called after them when they set out, and

“Gods keep Your Lordship and Your Grace!” wafted after them as they rode out. “Gods save Amefel and gods save Ivanor! And gods save the lord of Bryn!”

The new lord of Bryn rode with them a short way to the two hills in the distance. It was a stream-riven cut through a wall of similar hills, and a shallow ford near two graceful, winter-bare beeches.

And there, too, icicled and snow-bedight, stood the ruin of two towers, one on either side, rock cut from the two hills. The quarry, too, was picked out in snow on the nearer hill.

“My wall,” Tristen said, amazed at how exactly it answered to his vision. He could imagine the fallen blocks in place, and the gates of bronze, figured with forbidding faces.

“Gates to let honest comers through,” he said to Drusenan. “And men to stand guard.”

“With the old stone already cut,” the new earl said, “by spring your towers will stand.” Then Drusenan added, “As a boy I Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

played among these hills, in and out these towers. So with every boy in Modeyneth. We made troops and fought battles.”

“Against whom?” Having never been a boy, he could scarcely imagine what boys knew or did.

“Oh, the sheep. Scores of enemies.”

“Guelens,” Cevulirn supplied wryly, not a Guelen himself, and drew a chagrined look from the young lord of Bryn.

“I think so we imagined,” Drusenan said.

“This time, against Tasmôrden,” Tristen said quietly, uncertain of the currents that flowed here. “But not against the like of those folk you shelter. I’ll give orders to Captain Anwyll at the river to watch out for others. He’s a good man, and if he comes here, as he and his messengers must, trust him. His reports will do you no harm.”

“I take your word, my lord, with all goodwill. As I give you mine. What more can words do?”

In such small exchanges of politeness Tristen found himself lost more than not, but in this saying, in this moment between himself and the new lord of Bryn, he felt the currents in the gray space moving and roiled, and the very stones so tinged with power he could draw it into his nostrils along with the scent of snow and cold rock.

He looked up the snowy rock face, and at the towers, and at the skeletal beeches, which were not part of his vision.

Green things had come here and grown in peace; and a barren Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

place looming with threat had existed only for the games of children and the pasturage of sheep for decades.

His orders changed it back. It would stand and threaten again, and children would not play here: soldiers would stand guard; and a forbidden wall would stand here as it had stood before. He rode along it, eyes at times shut to the wall as it was, but old Lines answered him, old Lines leapt up at his touch, and would grow stronger with the work of Men’s hands.

Cefwyn would forgive him. Cefwyn forgave him and would forgive, no matter the mind of his northern barons.

“I had not thought,” Tristen said to Cevulirn as they rode away to the north, leaving the lord of Bryn to his task, “I had not even known stones had stood there when I ordered it. What brought it down? Do you know?”

“Oh, easily. Selwyn Marhanen,ordered the Amefin fortresses cast down… and the northern defenses went with them. Folly,”

Cevulirn said to the brisk rhythm of the horses at a walk, “folly to have dismantled the defenses with Elwynor continually at war, but the prospect of having the wall held from the other side doubtless entered into the king’s decision.”

If that were so, the Elwynim would have seized territory far into Amefel… and by the Red Chronicle, there had been Amefin who hoped for that, many of them.

“You’ve given leave for the raising of walls,” Cevulirn said. “But Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

Cefwyn will agree, I think, and best the word of it reach him quietly. The northern barons certainly won’t like it. And His Majesty should know beforehand and not be surprised by your breaches of law.”

“Yes,” he said, determined to send a messenger on the heels of the last, as soon as he reached home and the most direct route.

But his wall, he was resolved, should stand, and even in its early stages, would check any advance by way of the main road toward Henas’amef.

And with small intrusions stopped, and only the sheepwalks and the meadows and stony hillsides for a route into the land, no large force could move with any speed, certainly none with the great engines Cefwyn feared. Henas’amef’s old walls were not fit for modern war, so Cefwyn had said; and unhappily, neither was Ilefínian across the river, so Ninévrisë had said.

Walls built for magic, Cefwyn had also said. In those days, in their pride, the halfling Sihhë had had even Althalen as an unwalled city, and trusted to their magic.

So he had done, and whether Cevulirn had guessed what he did, he had no knowledge. All wishes aided the wards, and he thought he had had wishes from that quarter, such as they were.

Oh, he longed for leave to be riding this road with a troop of light cavalry, more than followed them now… as he would, if Cefwyn had simply failed to forbid him.

And all along the way his eyes swept the snow-bleached hills for Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

likely routes and lookouts.

Cevulirn, too, saw more than spoke.

They paused to change about horses in due course, and by noon, at a place where signs said Anwyll had camped even last night, they shared the bread and cheese the village had sent with them, Cevulirn’s men grown easier, and more inclined to laughter in the evident success of their venture in this snowy land.

By afternoon the road had passed through that ridge of hills that contained the Lenúalim’s broad stream; their riding began to be generally downhill, easier on the horses. From one last rise they could see far and wide across the land, to the sunset and white hills and the small woods, and the smoke of village fires somewhat to the darkening east.

Here, too, was a sight that Unfolded names and places: Asfiad, and Edlinnadd, but when he asked Cevulirn whether the names were thus, Cevulirn said Aswyth and Ellinan were the names.

So it was like reading the Book, written in a hand he had not recognized until the words themselves came back, and then it seemed he had known not alone the hand, but every flaw in the pages, every place where the hand had compromised a letter to avoid a roughness.

So when he thought of Asfiad, he thought of a well and a dark-eyed woman, as if it were yesterday, and he shivered in the cold wind the evening sent, under a gray and fading sky. All the Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

colors of the sunset had faded.

Yet he knew this land, and so the river shore Unfolded to him, never seen but there in his heart of hearts… indeed he had pored over maps before this, and had sure knowledge of some of the places; but now it spread out, winterbound, and white, dulled with evening, and full of names not in the maps, memories of springtime and summer and autumn so vivid they took his breath.