Fortress in the Eye of Time

by C. J. Cherryh

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  Refraining from power is, he thought, gazing at the eight-pointed star shining on the altar shelf, the sole virtue I have achieved in all these years. Mauryl would not have lied to us. I believe that. But…

  Doubting is my sole defense, the only effective barrier against the unequivocal dark. I am all grays.

  And the safest, wisest thing to do now is to go into retreat at Anwyfar and to have nothing to do, for good or for ill, with this thing of Mauryl’s.

  I shall die soon,—soon, at least, as men reckon years. I have seen to my own soul. I need not risk it in Mauryl’s service. I need not fling myself into Mauryl’s designs, against Mauryl’s enemy, ancient—unknowable to my age.

  How dare he? How dare he do this to me?

  Then he thought of his own students, of Cefwyn and others that were young, without understanding of the deeds he had done, without defense against the enemy Mauryl had himself fostered, and against whom once before Mauryl had enlisted his unthanked help; and in that thought he clenched his hands and wept for sheer pent-up rage.

  The servant passed from sconce to sconce, touching a waxed straw to a new set of candles, others, half-consumed and long-unused when they had arrived at the room, having been taken from their sockets and replaced.

  Which Tristen thought profligate, and entirely unneeded.

  There was a large table at one side of this room, nearest the fire, which he thought was a table for food and for study. Beyond a slight sort of archway was the bed, where, if he were at home, he would have gone and simply flung himself down with or without the sheets, daring even Mauryl’s displeasure.

  But he feared now even to move without the leave of Idrys, who waited, armed and grimly patient, in a hard chair near the door.

  It seemed forever that the servants had worked—the room 154

  would have done very well for him, dusty as it was. Ynefel had been dusty. He would not have cared for dust on the tables or even on the bedclothes, as he would not have cared that the candles were old and half-burned. There was dark behind the unshuttered windows, long since, and the knowledge that a bed awaited him—with servants arranging new sheets, new comfort-ers—made him nod toward sleep even sitting and trying to be on his best manners.

  They had laid a small fire in the hearth, they said, to burn freshening evergreen and to take the mustiness away. If there had been any, it must have long since done that. They fussed over candles that were perfectly good. Before that, they had kept him waiting in the hall an unendurable time, arranging this and that, bringing in stacks of linen. Now he sat by the fireside warming the shivers and the aches of travel from his bones and growing sleepier and sleepier as they found still more things to dust and polish.

  But, oh, at last, now, the servants looked to be finishing their business and looked to be leaving. With eyes that burned with exhaustion and a hope that like the rest of him trembled with repeated demands, he watched them all gather by the door as if they were about to leave.

  He hoped that Idrys would go, too, but he did not.

  And servants left, but at the same time more servants came in bearing a huge brass tub, which—an interminable wait—they set in a corner behind a screen, and filled, with successive pails of steaming water. Then they told him they would help him with his bath.

  “I can bathe, sirs,” he said to them. He would bear with anything they wished, only to get to bed, but he had had enough of strangers laying hands on him, and he was bruised and sore.

  “Do as they ask,” Idrys said darkly, Idrys seeming weary himself and out of patience. So he did as they wished, stripped off his filthy clothing and settled into the bath—wonderfully warm water which smelled strongly of pleasant herbs. He bent and ducked even his head. Offered pungent

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  soap, he washed his hair and scrubbed the lines of dirt from his hands and everywhere above and below the water.

  Idrys came and stood over the tub, hands on hips. “Wash well. There are doubtless vermin.”

  “Yes, sir,” Tristen said, taking it, on reflection, for some sort of a peacemaking, and a very reasonable request from Idrys. He scrubbed until his skin turned red, the cloudy water turned brown, and he felt himself at last entirely clean and acceptable.

  Idrys walked away, apparently satisfied—while Tristen almost lacked the strength afterward to rise from the tub. But with two servants’ unanticipated help he managed it, and wrapped gratefully in the sheet they offered, shaking from head to foot in the cold air, but, oh, so much relieved.

  He sat where they wished then, and they toweled his hair, during which he nearly slipped from the bench asleep.

  “Here,” said Idrys, pushing at him to make him lift his head, as the door opened and yet more servants came in, and one pattered closer. He saw food offered him, he put out a hand and took a wedge of cheese as from the other side a second servant offered him a cup both pungent and sweet. It seemed when he tasted it much finer than the ale Mauryl had given him sparingly.

  He drank, and ate a mouthful of the cheese, and tears began to flow down his face, reasonless and vain. He wiped at them with the back of the hand that held the cheese, gulped the wine down, because he was thirsty.

  Then his fingers went numb, so that he could hardly hold the cup from falling.

  Idrys caught it before it hit the floor, the servants caught him before he did—but he was still aware as they carried him to a soft, silky and very cold bed.

  Then he slept, truly slept, for the first time since his own bed in Ynefel.

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  C H A P T E R 1 0

  I drys occupied the chair opposite him when he waked—Idrys sat with arms folded about his ribs, head bowed. But not asleep. Tristen caught a sharp glance from that black shape near the light of the diamond-glass window and recalled uneasily both how he had come to this bed, and why this man sat watch over him.

  Idrys did not move. Even with no cause but his waking, Idrys’

  lean, black-mustached countenance held no expression toward him but disapproval, a coldness that seemed to him far greater and far more fearsome than that of the gate-guards or the Guelen soldiers, who had toward the last of his ordeal sometimes laughed, or touched his shoulder kindly, or offered him a cup of water. He imagined that he smelled food. But mostly he smelled burnt evergreen. He supposed that, over all, this room was far finer than the guards’ quarters, and that the things over which Idrys presided were far more extravagant than the soldiers had offered—but he had, he thought, far rather the Guelen soldiers, if he could only have the bath and the bed, too.

  He pretended to sleep a while longer, in the vain hope that Idrys would lose patience and leave, or call someone else to watch him sleep. Idrys had to be bored. He hoped to outlast him.

  “There is food and clothing,” Idrys said finally, undeceived,

  “whenever you feel so inclined.”

  “Yes, sir.” Thus discovered, Tristen dutifully sat up, aching and sore, and followed with his eyes Idrys’ consequent nod toward the table in the other room, where a breakfast was laid—he saw from where he sat—on large silver platters.

  He was chagrined to have slept through so much coming and going.

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  And he supposed if they gave him breakfast they were going to take care of him and that if they took care of him he must have duties of some kind that he was neglecting lying abed.

  So he rolled stiffly out onto his feet and wrapped his tangled sheet about him as he cast about looking for his clothes.

  “Have your breakfast first,” Idrys said, so without demur he went and looked over a far too abundant table of cheeses and fruit and cold bread, while Idrys, never rising from his chair, watched him with that same dark, half-lidded stare.

  He gestured at the table. “Do you not want some too, sir?”

  “I do not eat with His Highness’ guests.”

  That seemed as much conversation as Idrys was willing to grant to him, and Idrys seemed impatient tha
t he had even asked.

  In embarrassment and confusion, he sat down, gathered up a bit of bread, buttered it, and ate it with diminished appetite, for he had little stomach left after days of hunger, and he felt Idrys’

  eyes on him all the time he was eating. He drank a little, and had a piece of fruit, and had had enough.

  “I am done, sir.” He was appalled at the waste of such delicate food. “I could hardly eat so much. Will you eat, now?”

  “Dress,” said Idrys, and pointed to a corner where a stack of, as he supposed, towels rested on a table.

  He found it clean linens and clothing—not his own dirty and torn clothes, but wonderful, soft new clothing of purest white and soft brown—along with a basin and ewer, a wonderful mirror that showed his image in glass, and all such other things as he could imagine need of. But most pleasant surprise, he found his own silver mirror and razor and whetstone, which he thought the gate-guards had taken for themselves; he was very glad to have the little kit back, since Mauryl had given it to him.

  And all the while there was Idrys at his back, arms folded, watching his every move. He tried to ignore the presence as he reached for the razor and tried to ignore the stare on his back as he began, however inexpertly, to clean his face of the 158

  morning stubble. Idrys remained unmoved, a wavery image in the silver mirror he chose to use.

  He combed his hair and dressed in the clothing that lay ready for him—which fit very close and had many complications and required servants to help him. It was not as comfortable as his ordinary clothing.

  What they had provided him was like the fine clothing that Idrys wore, like that Cefwyn had worn: gray hose, a shirt of white cloth, boots of soft brown leather, a doublet of brown velvet,—far, far finer and more delicate cloth than that Mauryl had given him, and his fingers were entranced by the feeling of the clothing. But he would have rather the things he knew, and the clothing Mauryl had given him, and Mauryl with him to tell him not to spoil his shirt. It was a thought that brought a lump to his throat.

  “Your own had to be burned,” Idrys told him when he asked diffidently where his own things were. And he wished they had not had to burn what Mauryl had given him, and thought them very wasteful of good food and clothes, and candles, which Mauryl had said were not easily come by. But he dared not argue with the people who fed him and sheltered him. He supposed there were new rules for this Place, in which such things counted less.

  Idrys regarded him with the same coldness when he had finished and when he stood shaved, combed, and dressed. He found no clue to tell him whether it was fault Idrys found or whether it was impatience with his awkwardness, or merely—it was possible—boredom.

  “What shall I do now, sir?” Tristen asked. He hoped for answers to his questions, for a settling of his place and duties in this keep—perhaps to speak at length with master Emuin, who reminded him most of Mauryl.

  “Rest,” Idrys said. “Do as you wish to do. Pay my presence no heed. I shall stay at least until His Highness calls me. He will probably sleep late.”

  “Did you sleep, master Idrys?”

  “I do not sleep on duty,” Idrys said, arms folded.

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  Tristen wandered back to the table and found the little food he had taken, and perhaps Idrys’ at least moderate and reasonable answer to him, had further stirred his appetite. He sat down and buttered another bit of bread and cut a very thin bit of cheese. Idrys had settled in a chair nearby, still watching him the way Owl might watch a mouse.

  “Master Idrys,” he found courage to say. “If you please,—what is the name of this place?”

  “The town? Henas’amef. The castle is the Zeide.”

  “Kathseide.”

  “So men used to call it. Did Mauryl tell you that?”

  “No, sir. Master Idrys.” Tristen swallowed a suddenly dry bit of bread, still terrified of this grim man, and was very glad that Idrys’ mood had passed from annoyance to this sullen, idle companionship.

  “Why have you come?” Idrys asked him, then, as swift as Owl’s strike.

  “For help, master Idrys.”

  Idrys only stared at him. There seemed one reasonable thing to say to Idrys, and to all the people whose sleep he had disturbed.

  “Or if you will only let me go,” Tristen said in a small, respectful voice, “I will go away. If I knew where to go.—Am I in the wrong place? Do you know, master Idrys?”

  Idrys’ face remained unchanged, and in that silence Tristen’s heart beat painfully. Idrys finally said, “Ifs count nothing.” But Tristen did not take it for his answer, only a sign that Idrys had heard his offer and, pointedly perhaps, ignored his real question regarding his permanent disposition.

  But in that moment came a rap at the door, and Idrys rose and went to see to it. There was some ado there: servants, Tristen thought, were waiting outside, or perhaps guards; but the fuss came inside with an opening of the inner doors, and it was Emuin.

  He rose from the table, glad to see the old man, who had listened to him patiently last night, who had been kind and pleasant to him and kept his promises to bring him to the 160

  master of the keep. Emuin smiled at him gently now and dismissed Idrys to wait outside—as behind Emuin came Cefwyn himself, whom he was not quite so glad to see, and who looked reluctant and unhappy to enter. Cefwyn clapped Idrys on the shoulder in passing and spoke some quiet word to him, after which Idrys nodded and left.

  The door closed. Tristen stood still, looking for some cue what to do, what to say, what to expect of them both or what they expected of him.

  “Much the better,” Cefwyn murmured then, looking him up and down. “Did you rest well?”

  “Yes, master Cefwyn.”

  Cefwyn looked askance at that greeting; Tristen at once knew he had spoken amiss and amended it with, “My lord Cefwyn,”

  as Cefwyn sat down in the same chair Idrys had lately held.

  Emuin settled on a chair near the table, and Tristen turned the chair he had been using and sat down quietly and respectfully.

  “You may sit,” Cefwyn said dryly, in that very tone Mauryl would use when he had done something premature and foolish.

  “Yes, sir.” So he had been mistaken to sit. But now Cefwyn said he should. He had no idea what to do with his hands. He tucked them under his arms to keep them out of trouble and sat waiting for someone to tell him what he was to do here.

  “We come to unpleasant questions this morning,” said Emuin gently. “But they must be asked. Tristen, lad, is there nothing more you can tell me of Mauryl’s instruction to you?”

  “No, sir, nothing that I know, beyond to read the Book and follow the Road where it would lead me.”

  “But you cannot read the Book.”

  “No, sir. I can’t.”

  “And what was Mauryl’s work? What was the nature of it?

  Did he say?”

  “He never told me, sir.”

  “How can he not have known?” Cefwyn snapped, but Emuin shook his head.

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  “He is very young. Far younger than you think. Not all seemings are true. Listen to him.—Tell me, Tristen, lad, do you remember Snow?”

  Snow was a word White and Cold and Wet, lying on the ground, clinging to the trees, falling like rain from the skies.

  “I know what it is, sir. It comes to me.”

  “But you have not seen it.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Ever?”

  “Not that I remember. Perhaps the shutters weren’t open.”

  “This is an unnatural business,” Cefwyn said, locking his arms across his chest. “I tell you I have no liking for it. Emuin, can you judge what he says?”

  He feared Cefwyn, whose eyes were sometimes cold as Idrys’

  eyes, whose voice very often had an edge to it, and whose speech had many, many turns he failed to follow.

  But Emuin’s voice was gentle and forgiving. “He was Mauryl’s, my lord Prince, and Mauryl was no
t wont to lie, whatever his faults.”

  “He never stuck at worse acts.”

  “Peace,” Emuin said sharply, and turned on Tristen a gentler look. “Lad, I’ve told you that I knew your master. That he was my teacher, too. He would not have you lie to me.”

  “No, sir,” Tristen answered. “I wouldn’t think so.”

  “You have no idea why he died.”

  “I don’t know that he is dead, sir.”

  “What do you think befell him? Why do you think he might be alive?”

  “I don’t know, sir. I know—” It was difficult to speak of his reasons and his guesses. He had never said them aloud. He had persuaded himself not to speak them aloud, not so long as the guards questioned him. But Emuin said he was Mauryl’s student, too, so surely he should tell Emuin the truth.

  “I know that Mauryl believed he would go away somewhere.

  I thought he meant the Road. He gave me the Book and said he might not have to go if I could read it. But I failed.” It was a difficult failure to admit. He was deeply

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  ashamed and troubled with a thought that had worried at him ever since he had come to the guards’ hands. “Perhaps I was mistaken to go out the gate. Perhaps I was mistaken about when he wanted me to go. I would have asked him, if he were there, sir. I wish I might have asked him.”

  “I do not think you were mistaken,” Emuin said, which he was glad to hear. “You did exactly as Mauryl would have had you do, and very wisely, too.”

  “I hope so, sir.”

  “I am very sure.”

  Tears welled up in his eyes and a knot came into his throat.

  He looked down, because Mauryl had said men did not show their tears, and Mauryl had said he was becoming grown. But the tears escaped him and ran down his face, so he wiped at them surreptitiously, as quickly as he could, and tried to pretend they had never happened.

  “You see,” Emuin said to Cefwyn. “He is still a child in many respects. Mauryl did not gain everything he wanted in his working.”