Fortress in the Eye of Time

by C. J. Cherryh

  “Ha, Marhanen-lord,” Sovrag called out—he towered over most men, this black wolf of Olmern, who had taken his lordship rather than inherited it. He was nearly as wide as two men: no common horse could carry him, and he most-times went by boat, where boats could carry him. His voice was fit to rattle the glass of Heryn’s fine windows.

  But Idrys, turning up at Cefwyn’s shoulder, murmured, “That escort of his is show for Cevulirn and Umanon,” for there was bad blood there, and no secret of it—and the camp he had designated for the Olmernmen was to the town’s north, on the river approach, well away from Umanon.

  Cefwyn walked forward and gave his hand to the lord of Olmern—“Well,” he said, “well, my lord of Olmern, welcome to the hall. I doubt you’ll need quite so many men—but I would most gladly borrow them for posting; my own guard is stretched thin, and I trust your folk had sleep on the river, true?”

  He had last met Sovrag on the occasion of his investiture as heir. Sovrag had seemed truly giant then, less so now, grace of a span or two he had grown.

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  Likewise he knew that Sovrag in days past had raided on the river as much as he now traded on it. And trade with Elwynor he might, too, but never quite hide the fact: he was an unsubtle man.

  A greeting hand-to-hand was surely not the welcome Sovrag usually met, and certainly not the one he knew he was due for his armed incursion. It was a test, Cefwyn reckoned; a test of his welcome and possibly a test of the Aswydds, with whom relations were not cordial. But his bearded face split in a grin.

  “Your Highness,” Sovrag said, and clapped him on the arm fit to leave marks. “If you’ve use for these scoundrels of mine, be sure they’ll follow orders. Gods, ye’ve grown to a proper man, Marhanen-lord.”

  “You’ll find water and wood at the north gate, space for you and your bodyguard in the southwest tower—ample space there.

  The Ivanim and the Imorim are lodged easterly, and I am lodged between.”

  Sovrag burst into laughter. “Aye, m’lord Prince!” he said.

  “I’ll send you there, then. Boy! Show m’lord to the southwest tower, and put him in the hands of the staff.”

  And, dismissed to the guidance of an apprehensive Guelen page, Sovrag went his way with his escort shambling about him, loaded with rivermen’s canvas bags, and armed with the dirks and hooks their trade made more useful than swords.

  Within the hour a fight erupted between an Ivanim and a river-man of Olmern in the stableyard, and Pelumer’s folk of Lanfarnesse had ridden into the midst of it.

  “Can they stand?” Cefwyn asked of Idrys.

  “The Ivanim and the Olmernman? Scarcely but they will live, m’lord Prince, except your justice. Guelenfolk separated them.

  Amefin were laying bets.”

  “Bring the two. I will see Pelumer here, too.”

  Idrys went. Cefwyn shook his head and called Annas for wine, and when it had come, drank it slowly to settle his stomach.

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  He feared now for what he had done, having the actuality of the lords of the region within the Zeide, a troublesome mix of highborn men within, and old feuds seething among their men camped without the town.

  There were, added to the mix, the inns, the wineshops, the Amefin women, peasant cottages, and the Olmernmen in force inside the walls, who were never more than river pirates save by the grace of the King’s grant of a township to the man Sovrag had knifed in a dice game.

  The prince, meantime, feared Heryn’s subtlety, if he invited him to the formalities tonight: Behold me, how I am wronged.

  He feared as well the subtlety of Heryn’s staff, if he excluded the lord of the Amefin from festivities in his own hall.

  Orien and Tarien would ply their talents to the same end.

  Cevulirn was too cold for them, and Pelumer too wise, but Sovrag and Umanon, each with a different sort of vanity, both were vulnerable.

  Men approached the door. He took a chair at the table, in front of the account books, still with the wine in hand, and with a sidelong glance surveyed the bloody pair that the Guelen guard brought him, men chained together.

  And ignored them a time, in favor of the accounts—while their wounds doubtless ached and they had time to realize together that they had broken the peace of the house with their brawling, under the hospitality of the Crown.

  There was hanging for that offense.

  “My lord,” said another page, “Pelumer Duke of Lanfarnesse.”

  And that was superfluous, for there immediately, past the overwhelmed page, was Pelumer at the door, and Cefwyn left his chair and his wine with a quick smile and a welcome. Pelumer was the oldest of Ylesuin’s barons, white-haired and bearded—with his Heron banner, a frequent winter visitor at the court in Guelemara. His sun-seamed face was a sight, as it were, from home, though Pelumer’s land of Lanfarnesse was southernmost of all of the southern lords.

  It was more than a handclasp: he embraced the aging lord 318

  with the same warmth he had felt when he had been a boy and Pelumer’s hair had been darker. Pelumer had given him his first lesson at archery. Now he felt the warmth of a friend of the Marhanens, and of safe company.

  “Ah, Pelumer, how good to see you!”

  “Gods bless,” said Pelumer, his frown-lines cracking into a broad smile. “And how weary you look.”

  “You are the shield at my back, Pelumer. The only man in the realm who has, I can say before them all, no feud with any other. And I need your rangers out along the border; I need their furtive watch over the river and the woods.”

  “I’ve had reports, m’lord Prince. Some of which you should be made aware of. And my rangers are already out.”

  “I will hear. I will most gladly hear them.—My page will guide you to quarters for yourself and whatever guard you feel sufficient—many of them, if you please. Guard yourself as you see fit. Warn your men as I know you do. And we meet tonight in hall. In an hour. Time for you and yours to settle, but only that.”

  “No word of the cause?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Your Highness,” Pelumer said, and bowed, and withdrew.

  In all of this the malefactors remained. And counting that the prince had yet to dress for hall, and that he had need to make some disposition of the case before him to make a hard point with dissent among the common men:

  “Olmernman, your name.”

  “Denyn, m’lor’.”

  “Yours, Ivanim?”

  “Erion Netha, my lord Prince, of Tas Arin.—But, I assure Your Highness, I was not the one who—”

  “Be still!” he snapped, and the men stayed motionless as fawns in a thicket.

  “Who draws in despite of the Crown or the Crown’s officer, dies. That is the law, for lord and man. Erion and Denyn, you have disrespected my hospitality. I claim your persons from your lords for my justice. That is the King’s law.”

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  They were pale, those two, but no word came from them.

  They were alike in stature, but the Ivanim Erion was a slim, hard-eyed man in his prime, and the stocky Olmernman Denyn was a youth whose beard had hardly started.

  “A hanging offense, no honorable death there, none that your kindred could cherish for their comfort. Is it, sirs?”

  The boy’s lips trembled, but the boy set his jaw. From the Ivanim there was a tightening of the jaw but no more protest, no bravado either.

  And the waste of such men—one young enough to be on his first muster, and perhaps too young to restrain his temper or his foolishness, and one old enough to know better than the fight he’d gotten into—filled his mouth with distaste.

  “You are mine,” he said, “and for your mockery of my law you will learn to serve it, both of you. You will stand guard at my door.”

  “My lord,” the guard sergeant protested.

  “Dead, they avail nothing. You will stand that duty, sirs, until Idrys sees fit to relieve you. You will eat with that Guelen unit and bed with them togeth
er, chained as you are. No one will remove that chain for any cause, and should one of you die for any cause but in my service, I will flay the survivor alive and burn his father’s house. Do you hear me, Erion and Denyn?”

  Tears brimmed in the boy’s eyes, and the Ivanim’s bloodless face looked numb as he nodded.

  “Then take up your post,” Cefwyn said, and they bowed and went, limping and bloody and unwashed as they were, and still chained together.

  He passed them that evening as they stood among the Guelen who would watch the room and not attend him to hall. Blood had dried on their wounds and their faces were ashen with pain and fatigue. He lingered and looked on them, and they gazed on him with apprehension.

  “The Guelen do not love their company,” Idrys said as they walked together.

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  “Does any province of this realm love another?” Cefwyn asked.

  “This is the third generation since the Sihhë kings. Look you back at them. Is this not a perfect type of my father’s kingdom?”

  “Will you mend it by being murdered by them?”

  “You will not move me, Idrys.”

  “By your own will, you risk your life.”

  “Go. You know what I will have you to do.”

  “My lord.” Idrys stopped at the stairs. Cefwyn did not look back. The guards that stayed with him were sufficient, and failing those, there was still the bezainted leather and the dagger and sword at his belt.

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  C H A P T E R 1 9

  T here was formal display in the grand hall, which was Heryn’s, like all else; and Cefwyn had not used it since his formal reception by the Aswydds last fall: Heryn’s gold and lavish ornamentations were most evident here, the wealth of the province on bold display. So was Heryn himself, with his Guelen-imposed guard, and with Orien and Tarien, joined by a thin surly scattering of Amefin earls and thanes of Heryn’s retinue among the crowd of visitors and ealdormen of the town itself…the Amefin now being outnumbered by the guests and their attendant bodyguards who crowded the guest quarters and who would soon crowd the hall for the banquet to follow. The tables for that affair were not yet brought in. It was all a standing crowd.

  Cefwyn drew a deep breath and walked that center carpet, not looking to the sides, and wondering the while about the safety of his back, on which he felt Heryn’s stare, not unaccompanied by the stare of outraged Amefin nobles.

  He reached the middle level of the dais and turned, seated himself in the right-hand seat of the throne set there. Then, stiff with hatred, Heryn advanced as far as the third step from the top, bowed to him, and took that place which the Duke of the Amefin had to accept with the prince-viceroy occupying the throne above him.

  “My lords,” Cefwyn hailed them, and the Amefin chamberlain rapped the floor with his staff until silence reigned.

  One by one the lords were proclaimed, in order of honors and precedence—himself, Heryn, Pelumer, Cevulirn, Umanon, and Sovrag, with trumpet flourishes and unfurling of banners from their standards, pronouncements of lengthy titles and proclamations of ancestral rights, an ordinarily tedious business, one through which the Crown Prince, and likely the lord 322

  being named, might watch the candles, or add chains of figures, or parse antique verbs, or do any number of things to maintain himself awake.

  But tonight was an uncommonly late assembly, beneath huge chain-anchored circles of oil-filled lamps, which lent their own odd pungency to the war of perfumes and the aroma of foods waiting in the east hall. Tonight there was a perilous rivalry of voices, of display, of elaboration and martial character, each trying to outdo the other. Cefwyn sat still and watchful throughout, acknowledging compliments and appeals to his personal attention as required, his eyes straying often about the vast ornate hall—easy to become distracted in the forest of ser-pentine columns and the flash of banners of lords and minor lords. The crowd of Amefin and outsiders alike shifted at each new name, anxiously to estimate each other, to see who was named and who was not, and with what honors. His eyes were not for that detail so much as for the strategic location of his guardsmen, the steel glint of businesslike weapons, the movement of Amefin servants and messengers about the room on, one assumed, needful errands.

  As prince, he had to face this assemblage. As prince, he had to hope that no one trod on disputed titles or territory that might bring the knives out.—Sovrag was the one to watch for outright provocation, Umanon for a test of the prince’s authority to summon them—but grant Umanon would be here among the first if he thought that business might be discussed that could work against him. Wild bulls, his father was wont to call the lords of Imor; and having them in yoke meant contentions his father was accustomed to handle. Watch them, he thought: the barons would try him, they damned well would try him.

  “My lords,” he said at last, when all ceremony was done, “we bid you welcome in the hall.”

  “My lord Prince.” That was Sovrag’s booming voice, coming from the left-hand assembly, and he looked toward the man, whose blue breeks, gilt-edged green cloak, and dark 323

  red doublet made him seem more appropriate to brigandage than to the lordship of a province.

  And he foreknew exactly what the matter was that Sovrag would bring; he could, with a little deftness, shift it aside. But Sovrag was unsubtle and in his way easier to manage than, say, Cevulirn, on whom one could get no hold at all. So he nodded assent, beckoned, and the big riverlord came forward and set hands on hips in the center of the hall, upheaving all business, all ceremony, on a point of personal interest.

  “My lord Prince, in all respect, welcome we may be, but there’s a man of mine in question. I’d know about that matter before we set hand to matters of the court. He’s a boy, no more’n that, and some Ivanim’s got his nose in the air because my boy walked in front of his damn horse.”

  “A hanging offense, my lord of Olmern, that’s the issue. Not the damn horse. Nothing else but the drawing of weapons under the King’s peace. Yours is not the only lordship involved.”

  Cevulirn stepped forward, as colorless in gray and white as Sovrag was garish. His pale regard was chill and angry. “Since the matter is now public,” said the Ivanim lord in a voice for which others made silence, soft and piercing as a slight. “You have shamed a man of honor and of long and personal service to me, Your Highness. You would have received my protest privily this evening, and it is doubtless awaiting your attention through appropriate process, but since the lord of Olmern brings the matter in public, and since it seems Your Highness’ pleasure is to hear it, I will say that I have had a report of the incident.

  The law decrees hanging. It does not decree the shameful state which you have accorded him.”

  “What, shame to be taken to my service? I think not.”

  “He was the innocent party, my lord Prince.”

  “I judge both guilty. And I give you clear notice now, my lords, in all love and confidence in your good will, if there is further fighting in this town or in this hall, I shall see the surviving participants personally, and deal with them by the King’s justice.

  These two, Olmernman and Ivanim, I make an

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  example of my mercy. If they serve me well, they will find me a generous lord; if they do not, I have already made judgment of the survivor, and it is severe indeed, Your Grace, be it your man, be it Olmern’s. I am completely impartial as to which. I will not have weapons drawn or blood shed in this hall or anywhere within this gathering of forces.”

  There was silence in the hall.

  “Do you challenge my claim on their persons?”

  Cevulirn made a bow. “No, Your Highness.”

  “Olmern?”

  “Aye,” said Sovrag. “You may have the lad, m’lord Prince, and welcome to him. He’s a good boy.” Sovrag frowned at Cevulirn.

  “But if there be any provocation of my men—from His Grace, there—”

  “I am determined,” Cefwyn said, raising his voice, “that th
ere be peace in this hall. I trust you hear me. Shall I have it proclaimed by the herald, whose voice is louder?”

  “Beware, lest we all have Guelen guards,” Heryn said.

  “Dear Lord Heryn,” said Cefwyn, leaning back on his throne and giving Heryn a sidelong glance. “I rely on the honor of our guests, who are all honorable and proven honorable in good service to the Crown; but such is the love I bear you, Heryn Aswydd, that I shall continue to lend you Guelen guards. Indeed—such is the prevalence of assassins in your domain,” he added, looking around at the others, “that I advise you all to sleep with guarded doors. Mauryl Gestaurien is dead. Doubtless that sad rumor had reached you. There have been now ten attempts on my life, of which the south gate is witness, save the last, where we lost good men in my stead, and yet Lord Heryn swears the district under his control—ah, what else of gossip have I forgot? Armed bandits in the countryside, of which there now are fewer. Perhaps you have had such difficulties, my lords.

  If so I earnestly pray you advise me.”

  “We passed a village at the border south,” said Pelumer, “Trys Ceyl was the name of it—Trys Ceyl and Trys Drun—and the folk in that area begged us stay, grace of a good neighbor, so of that grace and my knowledge ye’d approve,

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  m’lord Prince, a handful of my men did stay there. We’ve had our troubles the last two years on the forest marches: brigandage, livestock stolen, skulkers about the haystacks. Our rangers report no substance we can pursue on any large scale. Movements in the woods, shepherds startled, lost goats. But two of the village folk at Trys Ceyl seem to have disappeared without trace, they say there, man and son, and I thought it worth leaving five men to see.”

  “Well done, and I hope they find nothing so grave as we did by Emwy. Aught else observed by any of you?”

  “Naught but quiet on Lenúalim’s south,” said Sovrag. “Upriver…I wouldn’t say. It’s eerie and quiet at Ynefel and all through that wood, and we sailed past it by broad day and set no foot on that shore. Ynefel’s always chancy, and things come unhinged lately. A lot odd’s come to us by rumor.”