Fortress in the Eye of Time

  Our father’s death will be repaid. I do not say it will be repaid tomorrow, but that it will be repaid—give me this much trust.

  Give me your affection, if you have it to give. But I shall take your duty, if you offer at least that.”

  Efanor’s eyes wandered to Tristen and back again. “Whatever influences work here have mellowed you—or your experience in this land has vastly increased your subtlety.”

  “I am tired.” Cefwyn eased a chair behind him, extended his wounded leg, and sat down, holding it. “Gods.”

  “Better you had followed your physicians’ advice, Majesty,”

  said Idrys. “The guards should bear you up to bed.”

  “No.” Cefwyn reached to the crown about his brow, rubbed it, where it left a mark and bloodied a cut. He settled it on again.

  For a moment he rested his eyes against his hand, wiped at them, looked up again. “I have no subtlety left at all, Efanor. This province has undone it. I pray you be my loyal brother, nothing less.”

  “I am astonished,” Efanor said dryly. “I am truly astonished.

  But bear you good faith, I shall, if you bear it to me. I had not expected your trust, Cefwyn.”

  “I need all such allies as I can trust. We are under attack.

  Mauryl—was a grievous loss.—Tristen.”

  “Sir.”

  “You were out there. Tonight.”

  “I saw, sir.”

  “It was justice,” Cefwyn said.

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  “I believe you,” Tristen said, knowing nothing else to say.

  “You had news of Emuin. A messenger? To you and not to me? Or what?”

  It was not Cefwyn and himself, it was not Cefwyn who could be his friend and bear with his imprecisions and his foolishness.

  Nor was he the same as he had been, even days ago. He said, with cold at heart, “No, sir. Emuin does speak to me. He tries to help me. But he can’t, always. I think that’s why he went away.”

  “Wizardry,” Efanor said.

  “No, sir,” Tristen said, “I don’t think so. I don’t feel so.

  Just—he hears me.”

  “How can you dispute such things?” Efanor demanded, not of him, but of Cefwyn. “How can you countenance such arguments—wizardry and not wizardry? Do natural men hear wizards?”

  “We had no natural man at issue in Mauryl,” Cefwyn said in a hard voice, “and damned well we should consult, brother, both Tristen and Emuin, where they have something of significance to say.”

  “Consult as you like, then. I’ll none of it!”

  “I’ll warrant you’ll hear nothing to imperil your delicate holiness. Stay. As a wizard, Tristen is gentler than Emuin is.”

  “I saw his gentility on the field.”

  “And he ours, and yours tonight, brother! Forbear. Father gave me a province next a wizard and Emuin for a counselor to help hold it. Now Mauryl’s fallen, and left me Tristen for a ward—whom Emuin approved. Tristen swore to be my defender, and kept his oath like a good and godly man, or this realm would have no king, not you, nor me, nor Marhanen at all—and Heryn would lord it over a realm of his own tonight, snugged right close to Elwynor. Wherewith the Regent would go down, some pretender would rise up with the marriageable daughter, and Heryn would become bulwark of an Elwynor no longer held at bay by a river that Mauryl, I have long suspected, defined as their border until his overdue but

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  unwelcome departure from these mortal bounds. That is my fear—that whatever stricture the old man laid on the Elwynim no longer holds. But it is not a fear I wish to rehearse before the Amefin lords—”

  “Whom I would not have admitted to counsel, let me tell you.”

  “Brother, I know these men, that some are in dire fear of being tied to Heryn’s sins, and others hated Heryn bitterly for reasons of their own and thought until today that he had had unquestioned Marhanen support. As perhaps Father did find him useful, Father not well knowing the inner workings of Amefel—but, to be quite pragmatic about Heryn Aswydd, I have been in this province long enough to have known too much about his excesses in office and to have received at least tentative approaches from the lords most desperate of those excesses, so that I no longer needed him. Therefore his head will adorn the gate.”

  “And in your manipulations you drew Father into this—”

  “Do not you dare say that to me!” Cefwyn brought his hand down on the maps, hard. “Father chose to believe Heryn instead of me. Ask Father’s councillors if they could dissuade him, or whether they fed the fires. Ask them! I do not ask where you stood.”

  Tristen clenched his hands together, wishing he knew what to say to prevent a fight. But after a moment Cefwyn said, more quietly,

  “I do not ask, brother. I take your presence here as exactly what you said, coming here to make things look better than you feared they were. But I do not think you looked to find me in Henas’amef.”

  “I did not,” Efanor said, also quietly.

  “To what an extent we have left our childish trust. We swore, you and I—we swore not to let Grandfather divide us.”

  “I keep that oath,” Efanor said. “I do not know if you do, brother.”

  “I shall. Nor shall I believe the lies men tell. Heryn finally realized that small change in his affairs, tonight. I fear that 413

  Father did trust him. But I would not.—Tristen. Tristen, my friend. What do you need of me?”

  He was confused in the flow of Words, Words that made great sense in the instant he heard them, and faded the next, but that advised him that far more had passed than he knew, and that nothing in these chambers was so clear or unequivocal as matters had seemed on the battlefield. How alike these two lords were, he thought, Efanor and Cefwyn, alike in features, alike in stature, in small turns of expression—but for Efanor’s smooth chin and the crown on Cefwyn’s brow.

  “I came to say,” he began, and his thoughts were still chasing the matter of Heryn and the fire, and the hanged men, and Heryn beheaded because he was noble. And the Marhanens. “I came to say, sir, I fear—fear—”

  “Be at ease,” Cefwyn said.

  He could not but look at Efanor, who he knew disapproved him. At Idrys, who frowned. And, distractedly, last at Cefwyn.

  “I saw Ynefel,” he began. “I saw Mauryl’s enemy reaching out of it.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I saw it, sir.”

  “You were nowhere near Ynefel. You dreamed, you mean.”

  “I dreamed awake, sir. And I think the harm never left Ynefel when Mauryl—died. Mauryl said I should go, I think, to keep me from it. It’s not a good thing, to let his enemy stay there.

  His enemy is reaching out into Elwynor. Even here. My window rattled, more than once, and it did that in Ynefel. He did it.”

  “The man’s mad,” Efanor said in disgust.

  “No, now,” Cefwyn said. “Tristen. Go on. He, you say. This danger. What should we do about it?”

  “You ought to have shutters, sir. Mauryl closed them every night.”

  “Shutters,” Efanor said. “Of course. Shutters will save us. Good gods, brother!”

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  “Be still, Efanor. You are no help to his good sense.—Tristen.

  What about the windows? Are we speaking of magic, here? Is it something Mauryl did?”

  Efanor made it hard to remember things in order. Idrys was staring at him, listening to everything he said and ready to find fault with what he could scarcely explain in words. He tried to gather his points in order. “Mauryl’s enemy, m’lord King. He came to Ynefel, usually with storms. He rattled the shutters at night. Now the windows rattle here.”

  “Wind does that!” Efanor said, and Cefwyn: “Hush, brother.”

  “Mauryl said—Mauryl said that holes in the roof were no matter. That there are lines on the earth Men make when they build, and so long as you take care of them, the enemy can’t get in. You ought to close all the doors when the Shadows go a
cross the courtyard. You should have shutters, m’lord, and close them.

  Everyone in the town should. Doors and windows let a spirit in. It can’t cross at other places.”

  “And it seeks to come indoors.”

  “I don’t think it has, here. People are careless in town—but I don’t think it’s powerful here, yet. I think it could become powerful, if people started listening to it. I think Heryn was listening to it. I think that someone in Elwynor might be.”

  “Is this a god, this creature?” Idrys asked. “Or what?”

  “It was a man. I think it’s a ghost. A haunt. Emuin calls it Hasufin. But I’m not certain that’s its name.”

  “Hasufin,” Cefwyn said.

  “Gods forfend,” Efanor said, and he no longer sounded scornful. “I said there would no good come of this place. It’s the whole cursed province. But past the holy shrines, no ill will come.”

  “It wants a Place, sir, that’s what I know. But it’s not just staying there. I’m afraid it’s not. I don’t know if it has help to go outside Ynefel, or even if it wants to. If you’d give me soldiers, sir, I’d go find out.”

  “No,” Cefwyn said, “no such thing. I’ve sent for Emuin. I expect him soon. He’ll deal with whatever it is.”

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  “I don’t think so. Emuin can’t deal with it by himself. I think Mauryl did. But he was so old. He wasn’t strong enough. I think—” He was trembling, and folded his hands under his arms to hide it. “I think that’s what I was brought here to do. But I can’t read the Book, and I don’t know how.”

  “Gods bless,” Efanor muttered.

  “I would go,” Tristen said. “I would go back to Ynefel. If you would give me soldiers. I would go there and find out what the trouble is.”

  “Well offered, Tristen, but what would they do?”

  “I don’t know, sir. But I would try to send it away.”

  “Try you would. But it’s not a task for soldiers.”

  “A task for priests,” Efanor said.

  “No, sir,” Tristen said. “Soldiers are more apt than priests. I do think they are.”

  “Against unholy magic?”

  “Against whatever this is, sir.”

  “Tristen,” Cefwyn said, “I fear no men would follow you. You ask far too much of them.”

  “Uwen said so. But I think—sometimes—I shouldn’t have left there. I think—if I were what Mauryl wished me to be—I should have known what to do.”

  “Believe Uwen in this. Leave it to experienced men.”

  “To priests,” Efanor said.

  “I don’t find any strength in them, sir. They seem more afraid than helpful. I’ve seen this thing. I saw it in the courtyard.”

  “Here?”

  “No, sir, at Ynefel. It was a man made of dust. And it fell down into leaves.”

  There was long silence. “Sihhë,” Efanor muttered finally. “And here we are, brother. The old ills, the magic, the wizardry, are all returned with him. What next?”

  “Tristen,” Cefwyn said, “you will not work against me.

  Whatever you do, you will not work against me or against the realm of Ylesuin.”

  “No, sir, I would not.”

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  “You saw nothing of my father’s death, by fact, hearing, rumor, or conjury before it happened. You would have told me if you had any warning at all.”

  “No, lord King. I never saw it. I would have told you.”

  “Nor have you plotted with Heryn.”

  “No, sir. I would not. I would have stopped him if I could.”

  Cefwyn had seemed to believe him all along. He thought that Cefwyn wanted him to say all these things for Efanor’s sake.

  “Heryn named two names,” Cefwyn said. “Those when pressed may name others. In the meanwhile,—in the meanwhile—we can hope the Elwynim will not dare another move, since none has come by now. I say we go to bed, brother. And, Tristen, I say you leave matters to Emuin. He will come. And you can ask him what to do.” Cefwyn stood, favoring his injured leg, and embraced him. “I never thanked you. I do that now, from the heart. Go back to your bed and have better dreams. We’ll talk on this again when Emuin comes.”

  But, Tristen thought, but—Cefwyn had never yet understood him. Cefwyn had never understood there was imminent danger, and Efanor certainly had not. He looked to Idrys, who was holding the door, as first Cefwyn then Efanor, left the room.

  “Sir,” he said to Idrys, “sir, please tell him—”

  “M’lord King has his father lying dead,” Idrys said coldly. “He has his pious brother to deal with, no easy matter. He has fractious lords chafing to establish their influence, and to add to his problems he has the Quinalt aghast over your influence as it is, m’lord of Ynefel. I suggest for the moment and in days following you keep very quiet and do not offer advice on priests again in Prince Efanor’s hearing. This is a religious man, to whom priests mean much. I would not, not, sir, say again what you said to him about the ineffectuality of priests.”

  “But it is true, sir. If they could have kept me out of the shrine they would have, this morning. And they could not.”

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  “M’lord of the Sihhë, if you persist, you may find what priests can do in this world. They can move princes to do the bloody things you saw in the courtyard, and they can move lords to speak and act against your King, to whom you swore fealty and obedience, sir. That you saved my lord on the field counts much with me and I honor that. But you will do as much harm to Cefwyn as you did good today if you turn the Quinalt priests against him with your talk, and well you might. I shall oppose you in that, I do warn you.”

  “But the danger, sir,—”

  “Is in no wise as urgent as you have presented it. If you can prove otherwise, come to me with it and I shall batter His Majesty’s doors down to gain you audience with him. Otherwise admit that while you may know Emuin’s thoughts from afar you know nothing of Quinalt orthodoxy, on which rock you will founder if you persist in speaking such opinions, true or not.

  Good night, lord of Ynefel.”

  Cefwyn was going away with Efanor and with the guard, upstairs. Idrys left the door and followed, already well behind and hastening to overtake Cefwyn.

  There were men of the Guelen guard still about the council door who might take him to his room, separately. And he sensed that Idrys had listened to him, but Idrys was telling him that truth or falsehood did not matter, and against all Mauryl’s teachings—it did. There was no equivocating with thunderstorms and less with the Shadows.

  And least of all, he feared, with what he saw in that gray realm which Cefwyn did not see, which no one but Emuin seemed to travel with him.

  He did not know how to make Idrys understand, when he did not understand the threat himself. He did not know how to make Cefwyn believe what he himself could only half believe was so. He held Cefwyn’s cloak about him, thinking of doing as Cefwyn expected him to do, and asking the guard to escort him back to a place where he could be guarded, and kept, and, he feared on his experience with Men, locked more securely away from seeing unpleasant truths.

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  That meant that he should know less of Cefwyn’s affairs, not more, and he should have none of his questions answered, and none of his warnings heard: the more ignorant they kept him the less they would sensibly heed his warnings of what little he did see.

  He moved away from the doors and left the guard, who had not questioned him and perhaps did not think of doing something without someone asking them to move, for someone who was not their assigned duty—he had learned of Uwen how the guards thought, and what they were told to do.

  He walked to the massive central doors. The rain was still coming down, but the fire was not wholly drowned. It burned sullenly, and a handful of men, some well gone in wine or ale, stood in the shelter of the arches, watching the fires. There were guards, but they were watching the men, or talking with each other. And, he thought, he had Cefwyn’s cloak about
him, with the Marhanen Dragon blazoned on the leather edges.

  So it was no difficulty to walk out onto the steps in the drizzle, and to walk down the steps in the shadow of the wall, and then to walk around the corner of the wall, and to walk on in that shadow, along the puddled base of the wall, to a dividing wall and a gate that always stood open by day.

  It was open by night, too. He walked through, past the steps and the doors at the end of the wing, doors which were shut, their guards inside in the dry warm air, where sensible men had rather be.

  The gate to the stable court was latched, but not locked: he supposed there were so many guards about and there was so little place to take a horse without leave that, absent the chance the horses would stray from there, no one cared. The stable door was shut, but that had no lock, only a latch. He went inside, and heard a stirring in the straw.

  He thought at once of Shadows. Then he thought that the horses who lived here would not stand quietly if there was harm about; and it proved only a sleepy, half-scared stableboy who called out asking who was there.

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  “Tristen,” he said.

  “Me lord?” The child came as far as the door and shoved it open to the drizzly night. “They don’t ’low no lamps, m’lord, on account of fire. What would ye be wantin’?”

  “I need a horse,” he said.

  “Aye, m’lord.” The boy-shadow sounded doubtful, and scratched his ribs. Lightning lit the aisle, shone off the white-edged eye of a heavy-headed and dark horse that looked out of its stall, waked by the goings-on. “Ye want ’im f’ far or fast, m’lord?”

  “The best you have,” he said. “A horse that didn’t work today.”

  “’At sure ain’t many, m’lord. We brung Petelly here from pasture. He’s a big fellow, fair fast. ’E don’t mind th’ weather, but ’e’s a stubborn mouth, and ’e sure don’t like the spurs, m’lord, ’e pitches like a fool.”

  “I wouldn’t like them, either,” Tristen said. The boy went to the horse who had put his head out; and who regarded him with a wary eye as the boy led him out in the flickers of the lightning.