Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03 (35 page)

neither here nor there for you or me, here in the south. But it’s a reason Umanon doesn’t stand with Ryssand and Murandys. He detests the priests that espouse it, since the orthodoxy, mark you, faults Umanon’s birth.”

“How might they do that?”

“Oh, that Umanon’s mother and her folk are Teranthines, and stiff in their faith as Umanon is in his. He won’t condemn his mother and his aunt and her house, nor his cousins, who are wealthy men and the owners of a great deal of the grainfields that are Imor’s wealth: he trades grain for northern cattle and the cattle for southern gold, to the seafarers, down the Lenúalim. His dukedom may be Guelen and Quinalt as you please, but the Teranthines are best at dealing with foreign folk and best at trade.

They fear nothing, accept the most outrageous of foreign ways.”

“And wizards? They accept them.”

“Look at Emuin.”

“Are there wizards in the wild lands south?” He had never read so.

“Assuredly. Perhaps even fugitive remnants of the Sihhë. We Ivanim trade along the border in silk and horses, with the Chomaggari, and farther still. And a modicum of wizardry has never troubled us.”

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

“You yourself have some gift,” Tristen observed with deliberate bluntness, and Cevulirn regarded him with a sidelong glance.

“You use it. You used it during the business at Modeyneth. I think you know you have it.”

“Our house is admittedly fey,” said Cevulirn, “and I confess it, to one I think will never betray that confidence. We aren’t wizards.

But the gift for it is there.”

“Between the two of us,” Tristen said, “we might have no need of signal fires. I think you would hear me even in Toj Embrel.”

Cevulirn regarded him a long few moments in silence, and the gray space seethed with Cevulirn’s strong forbidding.

“I will not,” Cevulirn said, “not unless at great need. I have trusted you, Amefel, as never I have trusted, outside Ivanor. And so if you need me, call by any means you can.”

“I think that I did call you,” Tristen said after a moment of thought on that point, “though not by intent and not by name. I needed an adviser, and here you are. And you’ll come back, that I believe, too.” It was in his mind that even his own wish might not be all the reason for Cevulirn’s coming to him, for there were many wizards, Emuin had said, wizards living and dead, their threads crossed and woven, and hard to say which juncture mattered most to the fabric.

Wizardous elements came together in his vicinity, gathered by common purpose, common loyalties, common necessity…

Emuin in his tower, he and Cevulirn; Crissand and Paisi; Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

Ninévrisë in Guelemara and Uleman in his grave at Althalen.

Not discounting Mauryl… or Hasufin, though both were dispelled.

We are all here, Tristen thought to himself.

And all through the journey the sky stayed brilliant blue and the land gleaming white, except to the north, where clouds gathered dark and troubled, and pregnant with winter.

The sun was low when their reduced band drew in sight of Henas’amef, and it was a welcome sight, with lights beginning to show, peaceful and familiar with its skirt of snowy fields. A curiously warm feeling, Tristen thought, and how many faces it had, in summer, in winter, by day and by twilight.

Most of all he felt a warm expectation when he saw the Zeide’s tower and knew that a friend lived there, and other friends waited for him and that his own bed was in that upper floor, and that Uwen would welcome him, and Tassand, and all the ones who cared for him. They would do thus, and thus, he imagined, weary of body but happy in the anticipation. All the comforts of his household would fold him in and care for him, knowing him as he knew them. Crissand might be back, might well be back, from his riding out. They would talk, sitting comfortably by the fire.

This was homecoming, he said to himself, a homecoming such as ordinary Men felt, a touch of things remembered and familiar after days of difficulty and strange faces and cold fingers and Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

toes, of chancy food and watching sharply the movements of men he did not know.

They rode through the streets to the easy greetings of craftsmen, with the tolling of the bell at the gate to advise all the town and the height of the hill that the lord of Amefel had come back.

They had come back with far fewer Ivanim than before, it might be, but home safe and sound, all the same, and likely to the gossip and interest of every townsmen that beheld them and the banners.

Where are the Ivanim? they might ask among themselves, and, Was there fighting? But they would see no signs of battle about them, and they would ask until the answer flowed downhill from those in a position to know.

Best of all was Uwen waiting in the stable-court when they had come in under the portcullis of the West Gate… to do no more than change horses in Cevulirn’s case, as Cevulirn had purposed to ride on even tonight. Master Haman would provide the lord of the Ivanim with horses, and Cevulirn would take a small, reliable escort of the best of the Guelen Guard as far as his hall in the south, at Toj Embrel.

So Tristen ordered.

“He’s left his own men at the river with Anwyll,” he added, speaking to Uwen on the matter. “He’ll camp on the road, and we can surely provide him all he needs going home.”

“Aye, m’lord,” was Uwen’s response to the request, and he Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

rattled off names and sent a boy smartly after horses. Just as quickly he sent a soldier after the men he wanted for the escort, naming them by name almost in one breath.

So the yard broke into great and cheerful confusion, Haman’s lads bringing out horses and gear, and assisting Lord Cevulirn, who saw to his own pair of grays, and who had precise requests for their feeding and watering, for he would take them on home with him, never parted from those horses.

But Uwen said, to Tristen alone and with a grim face, “M’lord, I ain’t done well, I suspect. His Reverence took off, an’ I couldn’t stop ’im.”

“Left?” Tristen asked in dismay. “His Reverence left Henas’amef? For Guelessar?”

“The hour you had the town at your back,” was Uwen’s answer.

“He ain’t no great rider, but I give him one of the men to see to

’im. I didn’t know what else to do.”

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

chapter 5

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Efanor’s letter had gone out. No answer as yet had had time to come back. There was only, for Cefwyn, the mingled dread of Efanor’s game and the delicious thought of Ryssand’s consternation—since Efanor had written in the same letter that he meant to announce the engagement at some unspecified time, unprecedented breach of mourning for the Lady Artisane, and worse, far worse for the lady’s reputation, if a royal match once announced were for any reason mysteriously broken off. Dared one suspect the lady’s virtue? Artisane had escaped Ninévrisë’s banishment by her immediate flight into mourning, and now dared she cast herself back into the affairs of the court, and expect immunity? Ryssand had a great deal to worry about.

He knew, and Efanor knew, that the betrothal Efanor pretended to accept would be lengthy in arrangement, fragile in character, and consummated in marriage only,
only
in the successful conclusion of the Elwynim war and in a moment of advantage: Cefwyn was still unconvinced that the house of the Marhanens could or should weave itself into Ryssand’s serpentine coils.

And if the news of a royal betrothal should get abroad, it might somewhat steal the fire from Luriel’s highly visible betrothal and hasty Midwinter marriage… that also would be regrettable if it Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

happened. But if it set the formidable Luriel at Artisane’s throat, so much the better.

That Lord Murandys wished audience with His Majesty in light of all this was no surprise at all, since the spies that lurked thick as icicles on the eaves had surely noticed this uncommon exchange of messages from both sides and might even have gotten wind of the content. Luriel’s uncle Murandys danced uncertainly these days between the hope of his own advantage in Luriel’s sudden amity with the Royal Consort and the king, on the one hand… and the more workaday hope of maintaining an alliance much as it had been with his old ally Ryssand. Ryssand was generally the planner and the schemer, having the keener wit by far… and Prichwarrin, who was not quite that clever, must feel very much on his own these days, very much prey to others’

gossip and vulnerable to the schemes of all those he had offended, a list so long he might not even remember all the possible offenses.

Now to have any exchange in progress between the royal house and Ryssand in which he was not a participant must necessarily make him very, very anxious.

To be refused audience with the king must make him even more so. In fact, Prichwarrin must be fairly frothing in his uninformed isolation.

But Cefwyn was not at all sorry. He stood at the frosty, half-fogged window nearest his desk in a rare moment of tranquillity, Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

a silence in his day, in fact, which his rejection of Prichwarrin’s approach had gained him. He contemplated with somewhat more equanimity the general audience in the offing… there were judicial cases, among others waiting his attention, one appeal for royal clemency, which he was in a mood to extend: he’d spared greater thieves and worse blackguards than some serving-maid who’d stolen a few measures of flour.

Mostly, in this stolen moment of privacy, he watched the pigeons on the adjacent ledge.

Dared he think they were Tristen’s few spies, remaining in Guelessar? Most of the offending birds had gone, miraculously, the very day Tristen left, and the Quinalt steps were sadly pure.

He wished the birds back again, with their master, and wished with all the force of a man whose wishes only came true when Tristen willed it… useful talent, that.

No Emuin, no Tristen. His life was far easier without them drawing the lightning down, literally, on the rooftops. But it was far lonelier. He deluded himself that he had time on his hands, even that he could find the time to take to riding again, with Tristen, with Idrys… oh, not to hunt the deer: Tristen would be appalled. No, they would ride out simply to see the winter and to hear what Tristen would say of it, how he would wonder at things Men simply failed to look at, past their childhoods.

But, oh, how precious those things were! To look at the sky, breathe the cold wind, have fingers nipped by chill and skin stung red and heart stirred to life, gods, he had been dead until Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

Tristen arrived and asked him the first vexing question, and posed him the first insoluble puzzle, and marveled at hailstones and mourned over falling leaves. What miracles there were all around, when Tristen was beside him… and damn Ryssand! that he had had no choice.

He had Tristen’s letter. Gods damn Ryssand, gods bless Tristen, he had good news out of Amefel… and Ryssand dared make only small and cautious moves, a man on precarious ground.

Likewise precarious, atop the snowy roofing slates on a pitch the height of four ordinary houses, small, dogged figures had heaved up ladders across from the royal windows and tied scaffoldings aslant the steep, icy slope of the Quinalt roof, attempting to mend the lightning stroke that had assaulted the gods’ home on earth.

Carts moved below, bringing timbers… carts which might well serve getting supply to the troops, except His Holiness owned these few, and guarded them jealously.

Odd, how avariciously he had begun to look at such mundane things. The carts Tristen had still not returned to him might not come back at all if the weather set in hard, and gods knew what Tristen thought he was doing with them.

Not moving Parsynan’s belongings back to Guelessar, that was clear.

But being a resourceful king and understanding that trying to keep Tristen to a predictable, even a sensible course was like chasing water uphill, he had found ways, and with carts such as Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

he could lay hands on, even those of the minor houses of Guelemara and the trades, he had moved men in greater numbers to the river bridges, using his personal guard and the Guelen Guard, men of Guelessar, not yet calling on the provinces for their levies.

He was merely setting the stage, putting necessary elements in place… keeping a watch on the river the while.

The weather had been surprisingly good, clouds dark to the west during the last two days, darkness over Elwynor, and fat gray-bottomed clouds speeding for the second frantic day across the skies of Guelessar, failing to drop snow or even to shade the sun.

The whole season had been warmer than usual… and late as it was, and despite a few evening and morning snowfalls, winter had not set in hard this side of the river. He, who had learned to count wizards among the possible causes, looked at the situation in the west and wondered how much of the good weather was natural.

It was natural, however, that unseasonable warmth, otherwise pleasant, produced its own miseries… for blight had entered a set of granaries in Nelefreissan, royal stores he had planned for support of the army. Mice were fat and prosperous, mites afflicted the mews and the poultry yard alike, fleas had become the kennelmaster’s bane and, worst of all, had spread to the barracks, where they were execrated but not exorcised…

remedies of burning sulfur and priests’ blessings had done far less for the men’s relief than a wizard might have done, Cefwyn Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

was sure of it, and he perversely hoped that fleas afflicted all the pious, good Quinaltines who had contributed to Tristen’s and Emuin’s exile this winter.

If Emuin were here, there would not be fleas, and he had remarked that to the clerks and officers, failing to add, if Tristen were here, since wizardry in Emuin was faintly respectable, but wizardry in Tristen reminded everyone why Tristen and Emuin were
not
here this winter.