Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03 (31 page)

“We may not reach the camp,” Cevulirn said, “but Anwyll must have gotten there. He’s had good luck with the carts.”

The oxcarts carried a great deal, but moved excruciatingly slowly: would move slowly on their way to Guelessar, too, and the weather was a question. Tristen considered the matter of Cefwyn’s carts, gazing out above red Gery’s ears. Sometimes he thought he rode black Dys, which was foolish: Dys was at home.

Sometimes, too, he heard the rumble of armor, which was surely the recollection of Lewenbrook: the noise of the muster of the south and the heavy horse at full charge, armor a-rattle and hooves beating on late-summer sod. Had this place ever seen a battle?

But underfoot this evening was the soft, crisp fracture of unblemished snow under Gery’s feet, a walking pace beside Cevulirn’s gray, the banners all furled now that they were in desolate territory, with no eye to see.

He shivered despite the thick cloak. Perhaps it was like the wall, like the Book, and Mauryl’s spell that had Called him into the Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

world was written everywhere across the land, ready to Unfold to him with frightening immediacy.

There was little time, something kept saying to him: there was so little time to seize this Pattern and make it move as he wished.

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

Chapter 3

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To the royal desk came all the accustomed trivia and the daily urgencies that faced the Crown: the proposed fishing weirs across Lissenbrook, among the accounting of fletchers requesting goose quills, which Cefwyn saw no reason should rise above the level of concern of the Commander of the Guard, except he had asked to be informed of any deficiency in the preparations or the movement of carts.

Besides that small crisis of goose feathers, he had a report from the royal forester regarding the condition and take of deer from the royal preserve, in a winter not as bitter as feared, the condition of the forest and the abundance of hare.

And from a tenant the usual complaint of foxes making depredations into domestic stores, and a request to hunt them.

Besides there was a wall wanting mending in Imor, on royal lands he had not seen since taking the throne and which he despaired of seeing in the future: he loved that hunting lodge and its command of the southern hills.

He thought of the woods near Wys, saw in his mind’s eye the afternoon light coming through winter branches. He smelled the moist, sweet air after a snowfall… and envied the life of the Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

foresters who had the care of it for their sole duty, hunting deer, when his own task was, endlessly, fruitlessly, hunting Elwynim rebels.

What would it be, to know on rising for the day, that one’s duty was to walk in the woods, take account of deer and hare and badger, watch the flight of the birds and understand the weather?

He was sure the office was somewhat more troublesome than that: no life was as simple as it seemed. But what did the forester think? Did he think how splendid it would be to be the king, and rise leisured to the worship of countless courtiers, dine from a golden service, and be fawned upon continually?

The golden service was true, but golden cups made hot tea go cold. He preferred humble pottery, thought it luxurious for a king otherwise damned to cold tea, and maintained a set of the cheapest by the fireside. As for the fawning… ask Ryssand. A morning where the letters abounded with nothing more grievous than fishing rights or requests for petty permissions was itself luxury, compared to the convolute dealings of his lords, and gods save him, his almoner, who he knew was only waiting his chance for complaint.

He did not hold audiences often enough. Men had no choice but to approach him with letters, and Emuin reproached him for it.

But it was far quicker to read about the foxes than to hear about them from some dyspeptic squire who’d had to wait his turn in a cold audience hall. The Sihhë-lords themselves had insisted on written petition, and had had an immense archive of records…

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

which had flamed up mightily in the fall of Althalen, so he supposed: all that efficiency and good order sent up in smoke in an hour by his grandfather, who came of a sturdy people whose farmers felt entitled to complain to the king and send him gifts.

Denied, they sent him letters, and more letters, paying a clerk, or worse, a priest, to write them up fair if they had no skill to do so.

And if the High King of Althalen had heard his common farmers and paid attention, Emuin had said peevishly, he might have heard what would have saved him and his realm from your grandfather, who at least listened to
his
farmers, for all his other faults. Paper and parchment are no substitute for faces and the sight of fields.

They were not a substitute. And when he thought of it, he had rather look at turnip fields than the face of Lord Murandys. But common farmers did not easily get past the guards of the Guelesfort these days. The great barons had ceased to rub sleeves with such common fellows, during his father’s reign, except on feast days.

“Your Majesty.” A page flitted near. “The Lord Commander is here.”

A page had kept the Lord Commander standing in the foyer. His staff had taken his admonition to preserve the king’s privacy for his slugabed bride a shade too literally.

The page proffered a sealed letter, with Ryssand’s colors.

All the ease went out of him. “I’ll see the Lord Commander,” he Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

said, and in the same moment his bride came through the door from the inner chambers, a second dawn in his day. He had read, waiting for her; and now…

“Idrys is on his way in,” he said. “Forgive me.”

“Ilefínian,” she surmised in immediate concern.

“No. I don’t think so. But Ryssand is no good news. Sit by me.”

Idrys arrived in the room before she had quite seated herself, Idrys, Lord Commander of the household, the black harbinger of disaster.

“Ryssand dares send to me,” Cefwyn said, taking up his knife to loose the seal. “Do you know what the matter is?”

The seal proved breached. Idrys regularly did so. It was his duty to know.

“I confess so,” Idrys said. “But Your Majesty should read it.”

A moderately bland missive, until his eye struck the line:

seeking Your Majesty’s understanding regarding the actions of

Your Majesty’s obedient subject in Amefel, in the protection of

Your Majesty’s interests…

and then:

I seek an early audience for a man Your Majesty once favored

with his trust on matters of utmost urgency…

He looked up at Idrys, already angry… not at the news, which was not news to him, but at the brazenness of it. “He’s speaking for
Parsynan
… I sent him from court on that account. How dare Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

he?”

“Oh, read to the end.”

He read further, finding a formal complaint of Tristen’s theft of Parsynan’s property and charges of threats against a Crown officer’s life.

“Am I surprised? Recount to me the causes whereby I am surprised at this sweet union of purpose, master crow. Parsynan and Ryssand! I’m only astonished at my credulity, taking this man’s recommendations to put that damned thief in office in the first place! Good loving
gods!
”

“The gods are allied with His Holiness, one would suppose…

and that devotion is still firmly bought. I do keep an ear to it.”

“Gods hope.” He scanned the letter. “Abuse of his person.

Sorcery
aiming at Parsynan’s life?”

“His horse threw him.”

That was there to read. Indeed, oh, and the innocent horse had been ensorcelled to do murder on Lord Parsynan, as the rioting Amefin, encouraged by Bryalt priests, had assaulted a king’s officer in the streets of Henas’amef.

That could be believed. So, for that matter, could the actions of the horse, but it was not sorcery, if Tristen had done it: Emuin, his old tutor, had taught him that fine distinction.

“And Ryssand commits his honor to this complaint,” he asked Idrys.

“Oh, more, more than that, my lord king. Read on.”

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

…
the urgent representation of Your Majesty’s loyal officers

who will swear to these facts, as we who have honorably and

loyally supported the Crown and the gods are greatly alarmed
.

We
seek redress of grievances and, putting aside our own bitter

mourning, wish to consult with Your Majesty regarding

measures that may lead to greater, not less, unity of purpose
.

“Bother and damnation. Unity of purpose. Bitter mourning. Hell!”

Your Majesty witnessed the circumstances that have left

Ryssand bereft, and casting now all our care upon our

remaining treasure, our daughter, whose alliance with a

powerful house will shield Your Majesty’s Ryssandish province,

accordingly we have thought of various alliances. But we deem

no union more glorious and none more beneficial to the

tranquillity of Ylesuin than to join the Marhanen line to that of

Ryssand, forging an alliance that will bring us to the spring in

one mind and with one purpose. Accordingly I have written to

His Highness…

“Good loving gods! He’s lost all his wits!”

“Which part in particular has caught my lord king’s eye?”

“Is he proposing
marriage
? Marriage?”

Ninévrisë leaned to see.

“Artisane,” Cefwyn said, “loving gods! To my brother Efanor…”

“I suspect His Highness will be here shortly,” Idrys said in his low voice. “The courier carried two letters to court. And how will Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

my lord king respond to this sage and selfless proposal of peace?”

He lacked words. Launching the army not at Tasmôrden’s forces, but at Ryssand, was ever so fleetingly the wish of his heart. “I detest this man. I truly detest him.”

“Efanor surely doesn’t favor him,” Ninévrisë said. “And Artisane is clever, but not wise.”

“Much like all that house.” The blood ran calmer in Cefwyn’s veins by now, on two further breaths and the consideration that, on the one hand, it was a calculated piece of effrontery, set to make him angry, and on the other hand… that Efanor, while gullible where it came to priests, was nonetheless Marhanen in blood and bone. Efanor was not clever, but he was wise: gentler, but not dull-witted, nor, once the Marhanen temper had slipped the bounds of religious restraint… was gentle Efanor necessarily slow to offense.

And if Ryssand took this insolent letter as a sort of threat, a not so subtle reminder of the scope of his power in Ylesuin, Ryssand sadly mistook both the sons of Ináreddrin.

In fact the commotion at the hall door, which opened to some visitor without overmuch ado of pages, led him to suggest, visitor as yet unseen, that they repair to the adjacent room and the table there. “Your counsel will be welcome,” he said to Idrys, and signaled a page. “Wine and a number of cups. Gods know how far this conference will extend. We may have half the kingdom here before all’s done.” The commotion was imminent in the hallway. Cefwyn rose at some leisure, taking Ninévrisë’s hand, Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

and had not quite settled at the table when Efanor arrived in the room, color high in his face.

Cefwyn sat, Ninévrisë sat, and Idrys, who rarely sat with his king, bowed.

“Brother,” said Efanor. “Your Grace, Lord Commander.” Efanor had a rolled parchment in his fist.

“Brother, good morning,” Cefwyn said. “I take it you’ve received the match of this correspondence.”

“I have,” Efanor said, and took the gestured invitation to join their small council. “I doubt it was in any hope of favorable consideration.”

“And?” Cefwyn asked.

“And I take it as a gibe at you. He clearly expects no good of it,”

Efanor said.

“I take it for an outrage,” Ninévrisë said. “The man is your bitter enemy.”

“He is my royal brother’s bitter enemy,” said Efanor airily, which was to say he was angry and pretending calm. “I have fallen from his consideration, and therefore he writes such a large stroke, caring nothing for my opinion. There is Ryssand’s gage, if you will, cast in our faces.”

“Unfortunately,” said Idrys, “we have no adequate reply.”

“I know I have a certain reputation among the northern barons, which I never sought.”

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

Their father had wished Efanor to rule, but never found the means to secure the throne to his younger, more placid, son. So had Ryssand wished it, once, estimating Efanor would be biddable, lost in his contemplations and his studies. All the world estimated Efanor as a monkish sort, inclined to celibacy and scholarship, and the religiosity that had dominated their grandfather’s later years, in his excessive fear of hell. In Selwyn the court had seen the utmost of religious terror, in his last year.

The truth was that Efanor did not so much fear hell as love his expectations and imaginations of the gods, and yet… and yet at this moment, the clear, steady look Efanor had, the color high in his face, recalled the impish brother who had helped filch sweets from the banquet trays, the brother who had hidden with him in a haystack, frustrating the captain of the Dragon Guard.

“So what if I were to be so gullible as to write to him,” Efanor asked, “as if I believed every word, and considered his offer?”

There
was
the Efanor who had conspired with him, the Efanor his bride had never met, in the few months of a new kingship.