Fortress of Dragons

  But Umanon, the stiff, Quinalt lord of Imor, had come with as great a haste, and so had Pelumer, who viewed schedules as mutable at need.

  Together with Amefel these four comprised the muster of the south. War was their agreement, war with the rebels in Elwynor, supporting Cefwyn’s intended attack from the east.

  And now with neither preface nor prologue the exiled duchess of Amefel had turned up and gained admittance to the center of their preparations?

  Folly, they might well be saying among themselves.

  Certainly they were due an accounting.

  In all sober consideration of that fact, Tristen took his seat on the dais that dominated the great hall, that seat which had been the throne of Amefel when Amefel had been a petty kingdom. Around him hung the tapestries that portrayed the triumphs of the Aswydd line, figures stitched in stiff rows, conspicuous in the Aswydd personal heraldry of gold and emerald. He was conscious of that, too: the Aswydds’ long dominance in this hall—and in that consciousness he wore the red of the province of Amefel itself, with the black Eagle crest, the colors of the people, not the Aswydd house.

  He had Uwen by him on the one side, Uwen being his captain of the guard, and he had Master Emuin, who generally held to his tower. That Emuin had come down was in itself remarkable, and a sure sign of the seriousness of the situation—but Crissand, who should have been here, on his right, was at least a day away by now, a perpetual, worrisome silence.

  Crissand was not the only absent earl of Amefel—there was in fact a general scarcity of local faces, not that the earldoms had no interest in the current matter: indeed, they had a more acute concern in Orien Aswydds’ return than did the dukes of the southern provinces, who had never been under her rule. But most of the Amefin court had gone out to see to their lands and villages after Midwinter Day, attending ordinary needs and necessities, and traditional observances—in truth, more than one of them simply disappearing from court much as Crissand had done, with no more leave: Tristen reminded himself it was the habit of the court, that no one had ever held them to any different courtesy, and that it was not so different with Crissand—but he knew and Crissand knew that there was an assumption between them that demanded a leave-taking, and that had not been satisfied.

  So, too, likely Crissand and likely the other absent earls would be slower returning than they had planned, thanks to the unexpectedly heavy snow: and there was serious business to do out in the villages, plans to make for the spring, justice to hear, even winter weddings…all such things the earls had under their hand, and reasonable enough they rode out after the Midwinter festival to see to their duties—if Crissand had ridden to his own lands, to Meiden.

  He had not.

  So now with Crissand and Drumman both out among the snowdrifts and the wretched roads, it fell to old Earl Prushan to stand by his duke’s right hand, an honor usually several degrees of precedence removed from that good old man…in fact, beside Prushan, next, were only a handful of the lesser earls and the ealdormen of the town, a set of faces all grave and curious, all come to hear the circumstances of Lady Orien’s uninvited return…but not the representation of the highest lords in Amefel that Tristen would have wished. It was instead the gathering from Lewenbrook, the southern army, the neighbors, who came to him at his call.

  How many of the earls had gotten wind of Orien Aswydd and absented themselves?

  Fearing what? Had they not seen Auld Syes enter the hall on Midwinter Eve? Had they not seen enough strange things in this turning of the year to send them uneasy sleep?

  A whisper of wind wafted past Tristen’s head. Owl swooped down and lit on his forearm, piercing his flesh with sharp talons, caring not a whit for his discomfort, it was certain. He was more and more distressed, and yet refrained from a general call into the gray space, a shout to rouse all that was his against all that was Orien Aswydd’s.

  “Last night,” Tristen began, addressing those who had come, the locals, and the southerners, “last night I heard travelers in the storm, and I found Orien and Tarien Aswydd walking toward the town. They say armed men burned the convent at Anwyfar, and killed their nurse along with the nuns there. They say they had a horse at first, and lost it, and walked the rest of the way, hoping for shelter here. I don’t think it’s a lie, how they came here. But they’re not welcome guests. They’re still under Cefwyn’s law. I had nowhere to send them, but I don’t set them free.”

  “Send them to Elwynor,” was the immediate suggestion, from more than one voice, and others had a more direct suggestion: “Better if they’d burned.”

  “Point o’ that—who burned Anwyfar?” Sovrag asked, above the rest, and that was the question.

  “Who burned Anwyfar?” Tristen echoed the question. “Orien said it was Guelen Guard, Cefwyn’s men—that it was Captain Essan.”

  “Essan!” old Prushan exclaimed, and no few with him. The earls knew the name, if the dukes of the south did not, and for a moment there was a general murmur.

  “There’s another should have hanged,” someone said. “Turned right to banditry.”

  “I know Cefwyn didn’t order it,” Tristen said. “If he wanted to kill them, he certainly didn’t need to send men to burn a Teranthine shrine and kill all the nuns, who never did him any harm.”

  “Ryssand,” said the Bryaltine abbot, standing forward, hands tucked in sleeves. “Ryssandish, it might well be. Parsynan was Ryssand’s man, and every other trouble he visited on us Captain Essan had a hand in. And why not this?”

  The ealdormen thought so. There were nods of heads, a small, unhappy stir.

  “And what when the king in Guelessar finds it out?” Prushan asked, and Earl Drusallyn, who was almost as old: “And what when the king blames us?”

  “Send ’em to Elwynor!” an ealdorman said.

  And Sovrag: “Hell, send ’em to the Marhanen, done up in ribbons!”

  “No,” Tristen said. “No. Not Elwynor, and not Guelessar.” He drew a breath, not happy in what he had to tell. “Lady Tarien’s with child. Cefwyn’s.”

  “Blessed gods,” Umanon said, under the gasp and murmur of the assembly, and a deep hush fell.

  “I haven’t told Cefwyn yet,” Tristen said. “I have to write to him, and my last messenger to Guelemara came and went in fear of his life. I don’t know what’s happened there, with Guelen Guard burning shrines and killing nuns. I don’t know if Cefwyn knows what they did.”

  “His Majesty doesn’t know about the child?” asked Umanon.

  “He last saw the lady this summer,” Cevulirn said. “So did we all.”

  “There’s the gift in both of them,” Emuin said in the low murmur of voices. “What they didn’t want noticed, even the ladies of the convent might not have noticed. The king doesn’t know. But someone may.”

  “Cuthan,” Tristen said, provoking another hush. “I think Cuthan kept her informed, and informed himself.”

  “Then Parsynan might know,” Prushan said.

  It was true. It was entirely possible.

  “Marhanen issue with an Aswydd and a witch to boot,” Pelumer murmured. “The Quinalt will be aghast.”

  “Not only the Quinaltine,” Umanon said, who was Quinalt himself. “Any man of sense is aghast. How many months is she gone?”

  “Eight,” Emuin said.

  “Gods save us,” Umanon said, letting go his breath. “Gods save Ylesuin.”

  “And gods save Her Grace,” Sovrag muttered, for Sovrag adored Ninévrisë. “There’s a damn tangle for us.”

  What indeed would Ninévrisë say? Tristen asked himself in deep distress. What indeed could she say? She loved Cefwyn, and eight months was before they were married and before Cefwyn ever laid eyes on her—from that far back a folly arrived to confound them all.

  And folly it was. Cefwyn had not done it on his own, he was surer and surer of that: Cefwyn, who had not a shred of wizard-gift, was utterly deaf and blind to the workings of wizardry, but not immune: no man was immune, and there was
every reason in the world these two women had worked to snare him and cause this.

  “The legitimate succession in Ylesuin,” Cevulirn said, “was already in question, with the Quinalt contesting Her Grace at every turn, and them wanting to refuse the war if they can’t have the land they take. The unhappy result is that there is no settlement on an heir in the marriage agreement. And that is unfortunate.”

  No one had thought of that. Tristen had not. The stares of those present were at first puzzled, then alarmed.

  “We’re to fight a war to bring the Elwynim under Her Grace’s hand,” Umanon said, “and now Tarien Aswydd bears a pretender to Ylesuin?”

  “No legal claim,” Pelumer said, “since there was no legal union, no matter the vagueness of the marriage treaty. In either case, there is an heir: Efanor.”

  “But the Aswydds claim royalty,” Umanon said, “and royalty on both sides of the blanket, as it were. It’s not as if our good king found some maid in a haystack. This is troublesome.”

  “A witch,” Sovrag said, “no less; a sorceress. And what’s our blessed chance it’s a daughter?”

  “Small,” Emuin said, hedging the point.

  “It is a son,” Tristen said bluntly. “And he has the gift.”

  Another murmur broke out, with no few pious gestures against harm. Blow after blow he had delivered to the alliance, with no amelioration, and he had nothing good to offer except that the lady and Cefwyn’s son were not at this moment in Elwynor, in Tasmôrden’s hands.

  “There’s some as’d drop the Aswyddim both down a deep well,” Sovrag said. “And solve our problems at one stroke.”

  Tristen shook his head, lifted his hand to appeal for silence, and Owl bated and settled again on his shoulder. “No,” he said in the stillness he obtained.

  “Ye’re too good,” Sovrag said. “Give ’em to my charge. My lads’ll take ’em downriver, an’ they’ll go overboard with no qualms at all.”

  “No,” Tristen said again, and the gray space came to life. The hall seemed a hall of statues, everything set, the very pillars of the roof and the occupants of the hall one substance, set and sure and warded against the queasiness just next to this hall, that one place of slippage and weakness in the wards which he could not continue to ignore. “I’ve thought of our choices. I’ve asked myself whether it’s wise to be good, or good to be wise and, aside from all I can think of, or all I can do, the truth is that the Aswydds built this place. Their wizardry is in these stones. It makes them part of the defenses of the Zeide and Henas’amef. Emuin can tell you so.”

  “Woven into its defenses like ribs in a basket,” Emuin said in the attention that came to him. “The stay and support of it, and every chink and weakness in it, they know in their bones. Wisest was what Cefwyn did, sending them to Anwyfar. They were as safe there as it was possible for them to be, given it was nuns watching them and not an armed guard or a half a dozen wizards. Now someone’s made a move to free them, and they’ve come here not only because they had to come here rather than Guelemara, but because they know the same as I their protections are here. They’re bound to Henas’ amef. That’s one point, and never forget it. The second: Ryssand may have burned down a Teranthine shrine, but if Ryssand, not only Ryssand was in on it. The man’s too canny to do something like this openly, or recklessly. He has concealment he believes will hold, or he has overwhelming reason to do something so rash.”

  “What reason, then?” Umanon asked.

  Tristen tried to answer, and in Emuin’s silence he could only shake his head, eyes widely focused, taking in all the room at once, on all levels, as the gray winds tugged and pulled at his attention. “A wizard doesn’t even need to be alive,” he said, determined to be honest with his hearers as Emuin had never been honest with him.

  But once he had said it he felt fear coursing through his hearers. He felt the courage of some, the apprehension of most. Hasufin was his fear; it had now to be theirs, and every man who had stood at Lewenbrook knew what he meant: that a wizard need not be alive. Hasufin Heltain had not been alive when he had cost so many lives, when the dark had rolled down on the field like a living wave, and no man among them forgot that hour.

  In that general dismay Emuin came to the center of the steps and stood with arms folded in his sleeves, waiting, waiting, silently commanding the assembly’s attention.

  “His Grace is telling you difficult things,” Emuin said when quiet came and every eye was on him. “He means to say that the Aswydd sisters aren’t strong enough to have released themselves from the bindings I set on them—yes, I! But if they move with currents already moving they might well have done it themselves, and without the knowledge or help of our enemy. But be assured there are such currents. There are currents in waters that have been moving for some time, and now these two have cast themselves and Cefwyn’s son into that flow, if not with their attempt to free themselves—which hasn’t, in fact, gained them their freedom—then certainly early last summer, when they worked petty hedge-witchery to get a child.”

  “Saying what?” old Prushan asked. “What does your honor mean? That there’s some other wizard? The wizard from last summer?”

  “Do you mean this is all foredoomed?” Umanon asked uneasily.

  Emuin held up a finger. “Not foredoomed as to outcome.” The hand flourished, vanished again into tucked sleeves, to reappear with a silver ball, that again vanished. “Say that a wizardous river is in spring flood, and the shore’s become damned uncertain. The Aswydds and the usurper are deep in the waters. Hear the lord of Amefel. Hear him! He’s the only swimmer in the lot.”

  Tristen cast Emuin an uneasy look of his own in the murmur of the assembly, not wishing to hear what he had heard, not taking it for any more solid truth than the maneuvering of the ball, and wondering why at long last Emuin, who shied from discussing wizardry directly even with him, had suddenly spoken in council and employed this trickery of the eye.

  Was it because he had resolved to speak out the truth to these men, and Emuin followed him?

  Emuin made a final flourish, hurled the ball at the wall, making the assembly at that side flinch.

  Nothing hit. Nothing happened.

  “Don’t trust your eyes,” Emuin said, serenely passing the silver ball from finger to finger, to the assembly’s disquiet. A glow possessed his hand, which vanished. So did the ball. “Don’t believe what you see. Don’t believe what you suspect. Listen to your lord.”

  A stillness followed.

  “Your Grace,” old Pelumer said then, “what about Orien Aswydd in our midst, telling whoever might want to know all she can see here? There’s the depths of cellars. I’m sure the town itself has a number of them that could host the lady. I’m sure the Zeide has.”

  “I’d rather have her here,” Tristen said, “over all, I’d rather have her where Master Emuin can keep an eye on her.”

  Master Emuin snorted. “Great good that will do.”

  “But while they’re here, Tasmôrden can’t get his hands on His Majesty’s child,” Cevulirn said, “which would be disaster if it happened. And if we place the Aswydds somewhere we can’t watch, there’s a greater chance he might reach them.”

  “When he does know,” Umanon said, “he’s bound to be sure the whole world knows. Her Grace of Elwynor a bride, and a queen without a title, and now there’s a bastard in the Marhanen line, out of an Aswydd sorceress, no less, and will the Quinalt abide it? I don’t think so.”

  “Sink ’er,” Sovrag said. “I tell ye, that’s the way out o’ this muddle.”

  “Oh, aye,” Emuin said. “We have that choice: kill the child, or let it live: two choices more: kill the sisters or let them live; and again, two choices: keep them prisoner or let them free. The child is male, and has the wizard-gift, and she claims it’s His Majesty’s. Again two choices: believe her or don’t believe. Those are your choices, lords of the south, eight choices we all have, but not a precious one else can I think of.”

  “Do
you doubt her?” Umanon asked.

  “I believe her,” Tristen said, “and I know her son has the gift. In the storm I thought there were three; and there were only Orien and Tarien when I found them. I felt it again when I spoke with them. I have no doubt at all.”

  “And doubt as to the father?”

  “I never felt they were lying.” Tristen watched Owl wander down to his hand and he lifted it to oblige Owl, as claws pricked uncomfortably through the fabric of his sleeve. Owl arrived at his fingers, and swiveled his head about to regard him with a mad, ruffled stare, as if utterly astonished by the things he heard—before he bent and bit, cruelly hard.

  He tossed Owl aloft, and Owl fluttered and flew for a ledge.

  The eight choices Emuin named, whether those present thought of it or not, were the same choices Emuin had had in Selwyn’s time—the choices Emuin had had when he killed a prince of the house of Elfwyn, the last High King, the last reigning descendant of the Sihhë.

  Gentle Emuin had killed a child.

  And Mauryl, the Mauryl who had fostered him, had ordered it.

  He stared at the wound Owl had made, blood, that smeared his fingertips: he worked them back and forth, and looked up where Owl had settled.

  Wake, Owl seemed to say to him. Rule. Decide. Blood will attend either choice.

  He drew a breath, looked at the solemn, shocked faces of the assembly, with the blood sticky on his fingertips…and knew that the question was Orien Aswydd.

  “She won’t rule here again,” he told the assembly. “Cefwyn set her aside. Now I do.” And as he said it he made that doom certain with all his force, all the might that was in him. Emuin turned in alarm and mouthed a caution, half lifting a warding hand, for Emuin above all others felt the currents shift, much as if he had cast a mountain into the flow.

  And half the fortress removed and upstairs, Orien and Tarien surely felt it—for something like a cry went through the very stones of the Zeide and the rock of its hill.

  Owl took to his wings, and flew off across the hall to settle on the finial of the ducal throne.