Fortress of Owls

  ’gainst Ryssand an’ the Quinalt and all of ’em.”

  The low music of Uwen’s voice was sweet to him, stilling fears, allaying anxieties and doubts, and telling FORTRESS OF OWLS / 149

  him things he longed with all his heart to believe.

  “You don’t fear me, Uwen.”

  “Ye keep askin’, an’ it’s the same answer, m’lord. Ye should have answered master Emuin a wee bit softer, but ’e understands, same as me, it’s a man’s weight ye carry now, an’ a burdensome weight it is: small wonder if ye feel it. Yet ye should answer him softer.”

  “I know. I repent of it. I repented the moment I’d done it.”

  “M’lord, I ain’t findin’ fault.”

  “No. Fool. Fool is what Idrys would say. And Mauryl. Auld Syes frightened Emuin. And yet, yet she only warns, by all I know. What wizards do…that’s another question.”

  “It’s above me, m’lord. Far above me…what wizards do.”

  “What I do, what Mauryl’s done, what Emuin’s done…all these things…tie one to the other. Cevulirn didn’t come because Auld Syes wished it. And who raised the storm, Uwen? Who raised the storm?”

  “It damn sure weren’t natural, m’lord. An’ whatever happened at that place, it ain’t what it was when we rode in.

  That great tree uprooted…like whatever were there, was all done, old as it was: ’at was what I thought of. It was old, an’

  it was all done and broke.”

  “That it was.” He saw in memory the ancient tree, its roots ripped from shadow to light, out of whatever secret places they had grown, deep in the earth, under it, among the old stones.

  Shadows might well have broken out. They might have followed Auld Syes, or her daughter. That, too, Emuin must have seen, as he had seen it.

  He shivered, barefoot on the warm stones, beset by the draft in the room. The dragons loomed above them, and cast fire-shadow of dragons on the ceiling,

  150 / C. J. CHERRYH

  all points and coils, enveloping all they did.

  “I should write soon,” he said. It was scarcely a fortnight since the last letter, which must move by courier over snowy roads, and at hardship to man and horse.

  “To His Majesty?”

  “To Cefwyn, yes. Idrys said as often as I wished, I should write. The last I wrote was about Cuthan.”

  “Letters has a way of strayin’, m’lord. And for the sweet gods’

  sake don’t write about meetin’ wi’ Ivanor.”

  “I know.” He was not so new to the world he did not imagine what Ryssand would do with such a letter in his hands. “I expected Cefwyn would write to me.”

  “A man new-married don’t think o’ writin’ letters, m’lord.

  On the other hand…maybe he has. The last king’s messenger didn’t have all that luck, did he?”

  It was true. Edwyll’s men had killed him. Edwyll, Crissand’s father.

  But with Cevulirn here, and the other lords to come…he found himself wondering what he could say, or should say, and knew no one he could send who would get a spoken confidence assuredly to Cefwyn. Even among the king’s heralds…some had been the old king’s men; and those could as well be Ryssand’s, even if they came to him. Fool he might be, but he had understood that.

  “I’ll write,” he said, “such as I can, and wish him to understand what I can’t set down by pen. I’ll write, when I know how things stand at the river.”

  C H A P T E R 6

  Cefwyn’s head hurt, where the crown had pressed on it.

  On this bleak, cold morning he sat at solitary breakfast at a small table near windows which gave far too much light, and craned his neck painfully askew to look at his black-humored Lord Commander of the Guard.

  “Tea,” he muttered to the nearest page. “Now. For the Lord Commander as well. Sit down, master crow, you’re a spot against the sun.”

  Idrys drew back one of the three chairs and settled his armored body carefully on brocade and painted wood. Idrys had appeared like toadstools in the morning, showing no evidence of headache or other inconvenience…a countenance that rarely changed, be it calamity or triumph Idrys had to relay.

  “So what’s amiss?” he asked Idrys.

  “Did I say aught was amiss?” Idrys countered. “There might be good news.”

  “And horses will learn carpentry,” Cefwyn said, “before master crow bears all good news. Spill it. Out with it. Where’s Tasmôrden this morning?”

  “Freezing outside Ilefínian, to this hour, if luck holds. No, my news is not Tasmôrden. Nor even Lord Tristen.”

  “Thank the gods.”

  “Luriel.”

  “I make my thanksgiving provisional.”

  152 / C. J. CHERRYH

  “No, no, quite appropriate, my lord king. The lady established herself very well with Panys last night.”

  “Established.”

  “Spent the night in his chambers.”

  Cefwyn arched a brow, in spite of the sun, and meanwhile the page arrived with the new pot and a second cup. He let the lad pour, waggled fingers, sent him out of the range of gossip.

  “She certainly wasted no time in that siege. Tasmôrden should employ her.”

  “Half the men in the hall last night entertained similar ambitions.”

  “Only half?”

  “The rest know Prichwarrin.”

  “And doubtless some have known Luriel.—In his chambers, you say. Playing at draughts, you say? Discussing sanctity?”

  “She does have a certain forwardness,” Idrys remarked drily.

  “Gods. How could I have been so blind?”

  “As what? To have entertained a notion of marriage?”

  “As to have had the vixen in my bed, gods save me, and gods save Ylesuin.”

  “Panys doesn’t mind. The lady’s dowry will be Murandys, her uncle’s detestation notwithstanding, so long as she keeps her head.”

  “That lovely head is very well protected,” Cefwyn muttered, and grimaced at the bitterness of the tea. Or was it the headache? “A wedding is almost certainly in the future, then, and agreeable to the lady as well.”

  “It would seem so.”

  “So master crow becomes the messenger of weddings.” He furrowed his brow against the glare of sun. “I thought it was a dove.”

  “A crow is quite enough for Murandys,” Idrys said, FORTRESS OF OWLS / 153

  buttering a bit of bread. “The lady’s dear uncle is not utterly pleased. His niece won’t easily forgive him her sojourn in disgrace…little likelihood of any reconciliation there until it’s to the lady’s clear advantage, as we both know of this lady.

  There’s every likelihood that the lady will divulge all manner of his secrets to her new love, who, though young, is no fool.

  He’ll bring them all to his father, and his father will most likely approach Your Majesty or Your Majesty’s duly appointed representative, with all manner of these tidbits, in due course.

  This, granted Murandys finds no way to buy his niece’s silence.

  Yet what can Murandys do but put a good face on it? His one offspring gets only daughters. And he’ll no more beget another heir himself than horses will fly. Once Luriel produces a son, he’ll put as good a face on it as the lady will allow.”

  “She’ll spend Panys dry and move on to her uncle’s treasury.”

  “Your Majesty’s support would, of course, sustain Panys against the lady’s depredations…and make sure whose ear those early reports find.”

  She would not spend rustic Panys completely dry, to be sure: their wealth was in apples, not gold, and her tastes were extravagant, requiring other than cider barrels: the orchards were Crown grant and could not be sold. But she would drive Panys’

  offspring to an importance within the royal councils and a passion for trade and gold that Panys could never otherwise hope to attain…and that was good for the monarchy, for Murandys linked with rustic Panys instead of Ryssand would guarantee him a far more
tranquil reign.

  Could he justify the expense of a gift to Panys, say, an establishment of some additional income, and cloak it from Murandys’ objections?

  “The lady herself is no fool,” Cefwyn said. His own 154 / C. J. CHERRYH

  liaison with the lady had been, at that time, a practical necessity, the heir of Ylesuin with the niece of a powerful baron of that unholy Ryssandish alliance, until the marriage had shipwrecked on a riskier, more advantageous match with a better-dowered woman he also loved, deeply and passionately. “What more can we ask?”

  Idrys took a sip of tea, put the cup down, set his forearms before him on the table, and looked very sober. “Shall I answer that, my lord king?”

  This was not good news. He foreknew it, and waved a hand in signal that Idrys should speak.

  Idrys did. “We might ask discretion of Lord Tristen. He’s done very well in sending the letter that silenced Ryssand, in subduing the rebellion that prevented a southern war. But my very reliable informant says charms are sold in the market again, and that the people hail him Lord Sihhë whenever he rides in the streets.”

  “So they did when I rode with him. This is nothing new.”

  “That the son of Meiden knelt to swear him allegiance and hailed him aetheling.”

  That was worth a moment of silence, at least. “To spite Guelen authority. I did read your report.”

  “The Quinalt there is distressed, and sent a letter to the Holy Father, who has not brought it to my lord king.”

  “I trust the Holy Father in Guelessar knows where his safety is and will reassure this priest. Good gods, the Quinalt in Amefel is used to witchery. Whence this complaint?”

  “Whence, indeed?”

  “Ryssand?”

  “Oh, his letters also go to the Quinaltine.” Idrys took a sip of tea. “But far more feet than two leave the FORTRESS OF OWLS / 155

  Quinalt every day, and I can’t follow all of them at once.”

  “Those that go to Ryssand would be a benefit.”

  “That I have done. Unfortunately, I cannot follow through the doors.”

  “Well find the way! Where is your invention?”

  “Time. Time, my lord king. One of Ryssand’s servants met with mischance, a kettle of oil in the kitchens. Another dead, a fall on the stairs. I’ve other ears there, but none so well placed, and I reserve them against greater need than my suspicion that priests from the Quinalt go to Ryssand’s priest. I know that conduit, and I assume that sewage flows. Beware Ryssand, I say. Beware his priests, and watch their actions.”

  “The damned northern orthodoxy.”

  “The northern orthodoxy, indeed. I’ve warned Lord Tristen.

  I warned him before he left, to make public gestures of favor to the Amefin Quinalt. More, I advised his advisers.”

  “Well done in that.” The whole question of Tristen’s innocence wandering through the maze of Quinalt, Teranthine, and Bryalt ambitions in Amefel was enough to curdle milk. “I’d suspect Ryssand’s fingers are inside Amefel in more than Parsynan’s case. The Quinalt there I never did trust.”

  “And Tristen is not utterly circumspect. I have also to report, unless something intervened, Parsynan’s baggage is still in Henas’amef, and the carts have gone to the river.”

  “My carts?”

  “He sent all your carts to the river, whence reports may be more scant: he also sent my informant there, who could not, of course, protest the mission, except to dispatch a man to advise me about the orders. I assume they’ve gone.”

  156 / C. J. CHERRYH

  “And what does he think he’s doing?”

  “Dispatching supply to the borders. He’s also declined to send home the Guelen Guard or Anwyll’s detachment of the Dragons. They are not delayed. He’s kept them all, and it seems he’s reinforcing the river border. In all honesty, in my opinion, a service.”

  Cefwyn heaved a heavy, a considerate sigh. “He’ll have my carts stranded in drifts, and then what will we do? But he doesn’t think of that.”

  “Or he hopes to banish the snow. Conjure it from his path.”

  He was unsure whether that was humor. “Reinforcing that border is no sin, I agree. Good for him, I say, carts and all.

  And he has no house guard but the Guelens in the garrison, and my troops. He’s not the mooncalf now. And regarding this mission to the river, pray, you never told me. I trust you told no one else.”

  “At this moment, in Guelessar, Anwyll’s courier knows. But, of course, the Quinalt father in Amefel knows…which does add possibilities to the list of the knowledgeable.”

  “Priests! Priests at every turn. I grow very weary of priests.”

  “At least the Holy Father has remained constant to his best interests. But priests disaffected from Your Majesty will not go to the Holy Father, and I doubt ones alarmed by Tristen’s doings will go to him.”

  “Where will they go?”

  “Where indeed?”

  “No wide guess, is it? I’ll tell you, master crow, the Holy Father fears Ryssand; so does Sulriggan.” He considered the alliances involved and heaved a sigh. “Damn him! —Why am I here, with all my friends exiled to the south, in favor of fools and grasping old men in the north whiom I little love? Tell me that, crow.”

  FORTRESS OF OWLS / 157

  “Your grandfather weeded his garden severely from time to time. Your father was too complacent. I’ve no idea what you will be, my lord king, but if you prove complacent, I fear for us.”

  He knew precisely what Idrys counseled. “There’s Murandys, keystone of the entire effort in the spring, the staging point of our advance. Shall I remove him, pray, and have Luriel lead my forces? Or young Panys, straight from his mother’s arms?

  I need these conniving old men, damn them. At least they’ve fought in the border war.”

  “So has all the south.”

  “Yet I rule here. ”

  “Move the capital.”

  He gave a rueful, startled laugh. “You jest.”

  “You say your power is in the south. Rule there.”

  The Marhanen had no welcome in Henas’amef-to parade through its streets, perhaps. But to rule? “Not for living there,”

  he admitted. “Not possible.”

  “Then rule here,” was Idrys’ succinct counsel, “and don’t look to do otherwise, my lord king.”

  Idrys had a way of slipping past his guard with a telling argument. And therein he did. Rule here. Rule Ryssand. That was the point wherein Idrys thought he failed as a king. It stung.

  Idrys meanwhile finished his cup and rose, unbidden. “I’ve business downstairs, my lord king. I beg your leave.”

  “Go,” he said, but his stare was meanwhile at the white, wintry light, the frosted panes.

  Rule, indeed. As if he did not. Rule here. As if he did not.

  Was not Murandys in check, and Ryssand home, disabled?

  And had he not set the south firmly in order, with Cevulirn attending business and Tristen there, in charge.

  Gods knew what Tristen would do in ruling 158 / C. J. CHERRYH

  Amefel, but he knew what things Tristen would not countenance, one such being dishonesty in the taxes and the other being any hostile incursion into the territory he was set to guard. Any adventure of Elwynim across the river would turn out to Tasmôrden’s extreme regret, Cefwyn had every confidence. He had less in Tristen’s forbearance from magic, but at least it would be magic outside the witness of Guelenfolk; and by the time the rumors did get to common lips they would have the flavor of ordinary gossip, a little less credible by their remove from Guelen lands and ordinary sights and doings.

  Idrys chided him, and advised him to harsh measures, but he had secured the southern frontier with two broad strokes, not an arrow expended. That was the very point of what he considered wise rule, that things happened quietly and without fuss. Was Idrys not the master of such strokes, and did Idrys decry his quiet management of the south, which had defied his father and ultim
ately killed him?

  No. It was not the south where Idrys faulted him. It was the north where he had not covered himself with glory, and Idrys was right, at least in his observation. That Ryssand was home and out of mischief was thanks to Cevulirn’s sacrifice more than by his own cleverness; and by that stroke he might have been rid of Ryssand’s poisonous influence in court for the winter, but he had lost Cevulirn’s valuable presence, the last southern presence in his court, at least for the winter, and had a blood feud between two of his barons as a consequence.

  Luriel was holding Murandys in check and keeping him from uniting with Ryssand, but, gods, that was no stable situation, all teetering on the edge of Luriel’s whims, her uncle’s spite, and the cleverness of Panys’ young son.

  Marry the baggage off in haste, he thought. An FORTRESS OF OWLS / 159

  estate to Panys, a royal wedding present to dazzle Luriel and keep her happy. He had the house of Aysonel in Panys, royal lands his remote kin had held, fine land, a good, anciently maintained chase among the oldest oaks in the north. The Crown could ill afford to diminish its holdings, but the Crown had them precisely for gifts of state importance: Panys was sensible and loyal, at least in this generation…gods knew what Luriel’s example could make of their mutual offspring in the next.

  But by the time Luriel’s descendants were old enough to commit their indiscretions, the Elwynim question would be settled, granted the gods’ goodwill.

  And there was Panys’ older brother, who would inherit Panys itself, another sober, reasonable lad, gods save him and his sire from accidents and Ryssand’s ambition.

  He supped down a cold remnant of tea, setting his thoughts on a second court wedding, as soon as practicable…and the couple not yet having presented themselves and their request.

  “Call Annas,” he said to a passing page, and when his chamberlain appeared, even in advance of Ninévrisë’s venture forth on the day: “Strongly suggest to the son of Panys that I suggest discretion and haste. Midwinter. Midwinter would not be too soon.”