Fortress in the Eye of Time

by C. J. Cherryh

  But it was safety he had found at Uwen’s back, at long last, after long running. Uwen offered him protection, a trusted, a kindly presence, strong enough to chase the shadows for him.

  He slept, utterly, deeply slept, then, his head bowed against Uwen’s shoulder.

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  “I done what I knew,” Uwen said. The veteran’s voice shook.

  And Uwen Lewen’s-son, Cefwyn thought, was not a man who feared that much of god or devil—or the lord court physician. “I talked to ’im all th’ way home, Your Highness,” Uwen said, “I told ’im, don’t you fear, I told him, Don’t ye go down, lad, and he clung on. He hears what ye say.—He ain’t deaf, sir.”

  The latter to the physician, who tucked his hands in his black sleeves and scowled.

  Cefwyn scowled at Uwen and at the physician alike, as the learned fool shook his graying head and withdrew from Tristen’s bedside.

  “In sleep, despite the protestations of unlearned men, there is no awareness,” the physician said. “It is perhaps a salutary sleep, Highness. There is no hurt on him that mortal eye can see, naught but scratches and bruises, doubtless from the falls—”

  “A fool can see that! Why does he sleep?”

  “Nothing natural can cause so profound a sleep. I would say, ensorcelment. If he would bear the inquiry—” The physician moistened thin, disapproving lips. “I should say this far more aptly is a priest’s business. Or—failing that—the burning of blessed candles. The Teranthine medal—is that his choice?”

  “I gave it to him,” Cefwyn said sharply, and whatever sectarian debate the physician was about to raise died unsaid. “Holy candles, is it?”

  “He needs a priest.”

  “He needs a physician!” Cefwyn snapped. “I engaged you from the capital because I was assured of your skill. Was I misinformed, sir?”

  “Your Highness, there are—” A clearing of the throat. “—ru-mors of his unwholesome provenance.—And if it is true that he came from Ynefel, I understand why you have engaged no 240

  priest. Yet I have risked the inquiry, Your Highness, and made the recommendation. Perhaps a lay member—”

  “A plague on your candles. What in the gods’ name ails him?”

  “Not a bodily ill.”

  “A priest, you say.”

  “I would not for my own soul stay an hour in Althalen; the feverous humors of that place, particularly at evening—”

  “Out on you! You’ve never come near Althalen!”

  “Nor ever hope to, Your Highness.” Secure in his physician’s robes, his officerships in the guild, and in his doddering age, the man gathered up his medications, restored each vial, each mirror, each arcane instrument to its place, while the patient slept unimproved and an unlettered soldier did the only things that seemed effective, kneeling by the bedside and talking, simply talking.

  Baggage packed, the dotard pattered to the door and opened it.

  Guards closed it after him. They were Guelen men, of the Prince’s Guard, men he trusted—as he would have thought he could have trusted the Guelen physician not to be affrighted by the unorthodox goings-on of a largely heretic province.

  But Uwen stayed, on his knees, arms on the bedside, pouring into the sleeper’s ear how red Gery was to be let out to pasture tomorrow with his own horse for a well-earned rest, how she’d taken no great harm of the run Tristen had put her to, and how he was very sorry to have left Tristen in the woods, but he’d had the prince’s orders to ride to town and he had done that.

  Uwen had indeed done that. With two of Uwen’s comrades dead and Uwen himself struck on the head with a sling-stone that might have cracked a less stubborn skull, Uwen Lewen’s-son had ridden his own horse to the limit and roused Lord Captain Kerdin and a squad of the regular Guard in an amazingly short time. Then, instead of pleading off as he well might have done with his injury, Uwen had changed horses and ridden with the rescue, joined of course by His Grace Heryn Aswydd’s oh-so-earnest self.

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  Uwen Lewen’s-son had stayed with his charge all day and night after, besides his breakneck ride and a lump on his skull the size of an egg. Uwen had bathed the man, warmed the man from the chill that possessed him, and talked to an apparently unhearing ear until he was hoarse. Uwen had hovered and worried without the least regard to his captain’s casually permissive order to retire, and not expected a prince’s reward for his staying on duty, either.

  “You’ve done him more good all along than that learned fool’s advice,” Cefwyn said. “But there’s no change. I’ll have reliable men watch him. Do go to bed, man.”

  “By your leave,” Uwen said in his thread of a voice. “By your leave, Your Highness, I had to leave him in the woods. I’d not leave him to no priest who won’t stir for thunder. I’d rather stay.”

  So Uwen Lewen’s-son had looked Mauryl’s work in the eyes, too, poor ensorcelled fool. Idrys had called Uwen a longtime veteran of the borders, a man of the villages, not of the Guelen court, but long enough about the borders to know wizard tricks and sleight-of-hand; and to know now—a shiver went through his stomach—what the hedge-wizards only counterfeited to do.

  He recalled the gust of wind that had skirled around the old woman in Emwy. That was either a timely piece of luck, or it was something entirely different. Tristen had been involved.

  Therefore Mauryl had. Kerdin, in a moment out of Heryn’s hearing, had wanted to send a force of Guelen men to occupy Emwy and poke and pry into local secrets; Idrys, having seen the area himself, had wagered privately that such a force would find bridges as well as witches, and advised them, in colder counsel and with his prince safe in retreat, that they ought well to consider how much they wished to discover, and when.

  Heryn, during that ride home, had said the horsemen whose sign they had seen near Raven’s Knob might have been nothing more sinister than his own rangers, going about their ordinary business and keeping out of sight.

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  Then where are Emwy’s young men? he had asked Heryn plainly, himself, and Heryn, always ready with an answer, had said they were in fact hunting outlaws, that Emwy district had indeed lost numerous sheep, and that the prince was entirely mistaken and misled if he thought there was possibly aught amiss in Emwy.

  That meant that the prince, the Lord Commander, and his company had foolishly panicked at the sign of friendly Amefin rangers, that they had fled those friendly forces in confusion, and outlaws—outlaws, where supposedly Heryn’s rangers were thick!—had shot and slung from ambush, killing the prince’s men, for which they would pay—so Heryn Aswydd swore.

  The bedside candle, aromatic with herbs, not holy oil, broke a waxen dam at its crest and sent a puddle down the candlestick and down again to the catch-pan beneath it. The puddle glowed like the sleeper’s skin, pale, damp, flawless.

  Heryn had implied, by what he had said, that the prince and the Lord Commander of the Prince’s Guard, who, himself, had led His Majesty’s forces in border skirmishes before this, were fools, starting at shadows.

  Or Heryn thought to this very moment that the prince and his Lord Commander were fools to be tricked by shadows.

  Shadows of which Amefel had many, many, in its secret nooks and clandestine observances—and in its ancient alliance with the Silver Tower. Mauryl’s tower, as men had called it since the Sihhë kings died.

  Heryn thought the prince did not delve into such secrets.

  Heryn thought the Marhanen prince, out of Guelen territory, sanctified by the Quinalt, had no conduit to such strange wells as Heryn Aswydd drank from in his countryish meanderings.

  But the prince had had Emuin for a tutor, the prince had learned enough to safeguard himself from pretenders to Emuin’s craft—and the prince, more lettered in many respects than Heryn Aswydd, he would wager, was not complacent or blind.

  The prince wondered, for instance, considering the luxury 243

  hereabouts which did not find its way to royal
coffers, where Heryn had found the means. The polished stone—oh, well, there were quarries. The carvings, to be sure—the artisans of Amefel were skilled, if heretic, and the patterns traditional to the region were…ornate, and devoid of symbols nowadays that might offend the Quinalt, whose local patriarch had such carvings in his own residence, set in gold and pearls, of course. One wondered with what hire Heryn bought them, or where the gold flowed before and after.

  The Sihhë kings had hoards unfound—they said. The Sihhë

  kings had had means to call it out of the sea—or less savory places.

  The Sihhë kings had had such wealth as Heryn used—Heryn, who might, like the Elwynim, have a little of that ancient, chancy blood in his veins, as he had such ancient, chancy connections to various villages of Emwy’s sort, hung about with curious charms and observing strange festivals regarding straw men and old stones.

  Heryn appeared to tax the villages white—and a Marhanen prince was not certain, with all the work of his accountants, whether that appearance was as simple as even the second set of accounts showed, or whether there was a reason villagers were to this day more ready to cut the throat of the hated Marhanen than they were to overthrow Aswydd taxes. Treasure trove was due the Crown—but one could prove nothing in the damned books. Heryn appeared to pay his taxes. Amefel appeared to be richer than its fields.

  “M’lord,” Uwen was saying, patting the sleeper’s cheek.

  “M’lord, d’ ye hear?” At the bedside, Uwen took the sleeper’s hand, which the physician’s ministrations had left prey to cold air, and, tucking it across Tristen’s chest, drew the blankets up to his chin.

  Like chiseled stone the face was, too perfect—and seemed older sleeping than awake, curious perception of Mauryl’s creature. It was a grimmer, more hollow-cheeked visage than 244

  when the curious, gray eyes were open, entrapping, ensorcelling the unwary eye to look into them, not at the features, not at the stature, which was tall, nor at the shoulders, which were broad—nor at the hands, fine-boned and strong and sure on red Gery’s reins.

  Mauryl’s piece of work had fallen ill in the Sihhë ruin, complaining of smoke which only some of them had smelled before or after that warning, but which he could now imagine clinging even in this room.

  Mauryl’s piece of work had ridden a good mare a course that should have broken her legs and his neck, through sapling woods and over ruined walls, along starless trails, over thorn hedges and dead-on to the road they were looking for—staying just out of their reach and with uncanny accuracy arriving to meet Idrys, who was desperately looking for them.

  Thereafter—an increasing swoon, moment to moment waking to be with them, then gone again, like a candle guttering out, wit and resource all spent. Uwen had had hard shift only to keep his charge ahorse; and it had taken two men to carry him, yestereve, to this room.

  Tristen had not waked since that last time on the road, still far from Henas’amef; had not waked though taken through the clattering town streets and through the gates; had not waked though borne by the guard upstairs and undressed and settled here; had not waked through the ministrations of three separate physicians, the last of which had been the prince’s own resort.

  Cefwyn looked at Uwen and let go a breath, giving a shake of his head.

  “A priest would call this a dangerous place to be. Are you a pious man, Lewen’s-son?”

  “Not so’s I’d leave him, Your Highness. I seen wickedness. I seen it where I had no doubt. This ’un don’t ’fright me.”

  “They say he’s a haunt, you know that.”

  “Who says, Your Highness?”

  “Oh, the wise, that might know. Gossips in the hall.

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  Servants in the scullery. Men in the guardroom.—Priests at their prayers. Some might say your soul was in danger. Some might say he’d bewitch you. Or that he already had.”

  “Some might say they’re full of wind.—Wi’ all respect, Your Highness.” Uwen ducked his head and his ears were red. “I misspoke.”

  “Idrys called you honest. I respect that.”

  “I don’t know that, Your Highness, but if the Lord Commander says.”

  “Servants will attend tonight. Tell them if you have need of anything for yourself or for him. Anything. Do not be modest in your requests. His belongings are under guard in his own room, upstairs. My guard, across the hall, will rouse me if he wakes—or worsens.”

  “Your Highness.” Uwen gathered himself up to his feet. “Thank you, Your Highness.”

  “Bed down by him, on the mattress. You’ve need of your own rest, man. He’ll not mind.”

  “Aye, Your Highness.—I—”

  “Yes?”

  “The physician didn’t hint at any cause, Your Highness? I seen men hit on the head, m’lord, or knocked in the gut, and I seen ’em sleep like this.” Uwen’s scarred chin wobbled. “I didn’t think he’d fallen, Your Highness, and I couldn’t feel aught amiss, but maybe he sort of cracked his head, or one of them slingers—”

  “He had a good soldier’s helm till he lost it, Lewen’s-son.

  Where was yours?”

  “I guess I give it him, Your Highness.”

  “So your own head is the chancy one, isn’t it? No, Lewen’s-son. This is Mauryl’s working, and by Mauryl’s working he lives or not.”

  “They say Mauryl’s dead, Your Highness.”

  “That they do. And perhaps the old man’s work is unraveling.

  Or maybe it isn’t. If we knew, then we’d be wizards and our own souls would be in danger, so I’d not ask, man. I’d just keep the fool covered and pour a little brandy wine down 246

  him if he wakes. You could bake bread in this room, gods, and it won’t warm him.”

  “I been thinkin’ of warming stones. Summer ’n all, Your Highness, if we could once get ’im warm…”

  “It could do no worse. Tell the servants.” He gave a shake of his head and walked out, through the anteroom where Lewen’s-son had a bed he refused to use, and across the hall where Guelenmen stood guard over his own quarters. It was a larger room he’d allotted Tristen. It was a finer room, but that was beside the point for a man who might not wake. It was—the holy gods knew, a twinge of conscience, that he’d so failed Emuin’s simple behest to take care of their visitor.

  He’d sent to Emuin, last night, post-haste, a royal courier, one of twelve such silver tags which the King in his expectations of calamity had allotted his son and heir. They allowed a courier anything he needed anywhere along his route, under extreme penalty for refusal of his demands. He’d not used a one, before last night.

  He’d not needed one before last night. Or had, counting what had been quietly going amiss over in Emwy district, and he had failed to see it growing.

  Outlaws. Using shepherd weapons. And, if one believed Heryn Aswydd, rangers on horses, unusual enough in a woodland district. Rangers who didn’t show themselves even to the prince’s banners plainly and unequivocally displayed?

  Not proper behavior, as he added the tally.

  He crossed through the anteroom of his chambers and inside, where the servants were disposing bath and bed, and where Idrys was poring over maps on the sideboard.

  “No change in him,” Cefwyn said.

  Idrys said nothing. Cefwyn unlaced cuffs, collar, side laces, and hauled off shirt and doublet together, before the staff could receive all the pieces thereof.

  “The men I wanted?” Cefwyn said to Idrys. “I’ll see them between bath and bed.”

  Idrys frowned. They had had their argument already: it 247

  was bootless to dispute it in front of servants. Idrys said, “Yes, my lord Prince,” and turned and went.

  Four messengers.

  To four lords of the south besides the Duke of Henas’amef, proud Heryn Aswydd. There was a lesson to be taught, and it began now, before the sun had risen on this silken-smiling Amefin lord, who asked with such false concern after his safety, who rode in hall clothe
s out to the windy road to ask after a Marhanen’s welfare.

  Cefwyn shed the rest of his clothing, stepped into the bath and ducked down under the tepid surface long enough to scrub the sickroom heat from his skin and hair, long enough to count to twenty, and to want air; and to find the bath too warm for pleasure after the stifling warmth across the hall. Gods alone knew how Lewen’s-son stood it.

  “Your Highness,” Annas said, alarmed as he broke surface again—expecting a near drowning, perhaps; but Cefwyn found the draft from the open window vents more pleasant than the heat of the water. He clambered up to his feet, reached for the linen which a servant, taken aback, was slow to give him, and snatched it around himself, splashing the marble floor and the plastered walls as he stepped out. Servants mopped to save the woven mats and other servants scrambled to offer his dressing robe and more dry linens. The bath smelled of roses and hot oils. It cloyed. The water heated the air around him. He shrugged the dressing robe about him and mopped his own hair with the linen towel, ignoring the servants’ ministrations as, in his wake, Annas ordered the just-poured bath removed, the bath mopped—the linens taken away.

  “Leave it,” he said, and tossed the towel at the boy nearest him. “It can cool.” It took six servants half an hour to empty the cursed tub. “Do it in the morning, Annas, please you, I prefer quiet.”

  Annas understood. The three pages seniormost in his service understood. The latest come, he doubted. But he sat down in front of a window vent in his double-layered robes, 248

  and endured, still damp, the noxious airs of the night breathing from the open windowpane, despite his physicians’ earnest disputations and predictions of the upsetting of his humors—his humor was vastly upset already, and if anything, the damp wind cleared his wits and made him less inclined to order summary execution for the servant who escaped Annas with an offer to light the, he was assured, already-laid fire.