Fortress in the Eye of Time

by C. J. Cherryh

  “On my soul we had no idea, m’lord,” the chief of the guards said unsteadily, while the others held the women—there were five of them—at bay in a corner backed by shadowy dark drapes and gilt cord. The light all came from the hall, the doors open straight through, but that itself was dim. Came then another touch at the gray—but that was Emuin, glad despite the headache, glad to know what was happening, though Tristen felt a fine sweat on his skin and felt the room go around only in that instant of awareness.

  “Content to be the Marhanen’s chattel,” Orien said, nursing a sore wrist. Her face was lit strangely by the remaining candles.

  It seemed no longer beautiful, but ominous and terrible, the countenance she turned to Ninévrisë. “You above all others should be ashamed.”

  “Your Grace of Amefel,” Ninévrisë said with utmost coldness,

  “you have made a very grave mistake.” And to the guards: “I would call the Bryalt. I have no intimate knowledge of this sort of thing. But I think they should see this

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  room, these women, and these objects before they are removed.

  There are some of these things very surely of harm. I know what things like this mean. They are banned in Elwynor. I assure you, sirs, I have done none of this, nor ever did my father.”

  The four guards were not the only ones present now. There was Lord Captain Kerdin, and Prince Efanor who came in clutching an amulet and trailing a number of Quinalt priests.

  “It was sorcery,” Efanor said. “It was black sorcery. Arrest them.”

  “I trust this time you don’t mean me, Your Highness,”

  Ninévrisë said. “Or Lord Tristen.”

  “No, Your Grace of Elwynor.” Efanor’s expression was strained. “I fear we did mistake the source. But if you knew where to go—I ask why you waited so long.”

  “Your Highness,” Ninévrisë began in exasperation.

  “My lord Prince,” Tristen said. “I could not find the source, and I am Sihhë; master Emuin scarcely did, and he is a wizard.”

  “He is a priest,” Efanor said harshly. Tristen recalled how Idrys had said never argue about priests with Prince Efanor, and did not argue the point.

  “I think your priest should make prayers in this room,” he said, not seeing how it could do good or ill, but that it might please Efanor. “But first I think they should close this room and let wise men and Emuin decide what to do with these things.”

  “This is a nest of evil,” Efanor’s priest muttered, “and these women should be burned.”

  The women some of them began weeping. Orien did not.

  “No, sir,” Tristen said respectfully, and added, knowing he posed them a quandary of authority, “I think His Majesty the King should decide what to do with them.”

  That silenced them.

  “Take them to the guard-house,” Efanor said. “Set a guard on them and light candles all around. Your Grace of Elwynor, my apologies.”

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  “I do accept them, Your Gracious Highness,” Ninévrisë said, and offered her hand, which Efanor hesitated to take, then kissed gingerly. “Thank you, Your Highness. If you would take me to His Majesty, please, I should much be obliged. I’ve had a fright.”

  “Lady,” Efanor said, and, which Tristen would have thought very improbable upstairs, he watched Efanor with the lady on his arm walk out past the priests and the guards, in all good and fair grace.

  He looked then to the Lord Captain for wisdom in the matter.

  Kerdin looked quite dubious himself. But Tristen thought Ninévrisë had acted very wisely, since she had put Efanor on his best manners. More, she had not embarrassed Efanor when she might have. And Efanor knew it.

  He knew when he had seen something wise. He could admire it, at least. And he saw the guard gathering the women to take them to the guard-house, for which he was very sorry: he had been there himself, and Orien would not like it.

  She stared back at him with no apology. And he supposed she was angry about Lord Heryn. He thought she was very brave to have attacked Cefwyn where there was at least one wizard to have seen it, and he did not think that sorcery had broken master Emuin’s skull.

  “I think,” he told Uwen and Captain Kerdin in that thought,

  “that there is someone in the Bryaltine shrine who attacked master Emuin. It might not be one of the brothers, but I don’t think master Emuin slipped on the stairs. I think there was someone helping Lady Orien, someone there and in the kitchens.”

  “If master Emuin gets well,” Captain Kerdin said, “I don’t think I would like to have been that person, Lord Warden, and I fear he’s the most likely besides yourself to find out who. But I’ll ask the abbot and the kitchen staff who came and went.”

  He cast an uneasy glance about him, at the room, at the women. Orien’s glance still smoldered. There was still harm 665

  in her. There was still the anger. He felt it as, finding nothing for himself to do, he thought he would also like to be sure Cefwyn and Emuin were safe, and went out into the hall and down the stairs. Uwen stayed with him, saying something about how Prince Efanor had been willing to listen to Idrys, finally, and how Gwywyn and Idrys had gone together to see Cefwyn, whether he was well.

  But as he came into the lower hall he had that same feeling, that dread feeling he had had when of a sudden he had known direction to Orien’s ill-working—and it was the same direction.

  “M’lord?” Uwen asked, as he stopped. Uwen’s voice came from far away. The sense he had was overwhelming, that it was there, down that hall, on the lower floor.

  “My lord?” Uwen said again.

  It was that end of the hall that had distressed him when he had first come, that place where the paving changed from marble to older stone.

  Lines. Masons’ lines.

  “Stay here,” he said to Uwen, and when Uwen protested regarding his safety: “Stay here!” he said, and went, alone down that hall, past other people, past servants. “Get away,” he said to them, and servants, looking frightened, moved quickly.

  He walked all the way down the hall, to that place where the pavings changed. He saw the hall hung with old banners, and looked for the lines, such as he had seen at Althalen, at his very feet.

  The lines were scarcely there, scarcely a pale glow. He looked up, up at the bannered hall, and heard the rustling of wings, hundreds of wings. He saw the stirring of Shadows hanging like old curtains, perching on beams, spreading wings like vast birds, and the whole hall shifting and stirring with the darkness that nested in every recess. Wings began to spread, Shadows bated and threatened him, and he stepped back behind the fading safety of the line, wishing for a Word such as Mauryl had used, a spell, whatever it was that Mauryl worked.

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  — Tristen, came Emuin’s voice. Tristen! Stay back. Hold

  on to me…Do not let me fall. Hold me!

  — Yes, sir, he said, and was aware of Emuin near him in the gray space, and was aware of Emuin growing stronger and stronger and that blue line at his feet growing brighter and brighter, until it blazed, until it turned white, and the Shadows were only banners, and the place fluttering with wings had gone away…

  “M’lord!” Uwen said, having disobeyed him, having come, with his sword bare in his hand, to stand by him looking at a hall full of faded banners. “Is summat here, me lord? Is it somebody hiding here?”

  Master Emuin was alive. Emuin had retreated until he could only dimly feel his presence, but something had changed in that presence. It was far, far warmer, far more vivid, of far more substance, if one could say that in the gray realm.

  He had never seen Mauryl. He had never heard Mauryl in the way Emuin had shown him to do—and he thought that Mauryl might have been fearsome in this place. Emuin was not—at least, not toward him.

  “It’s gone,” he said to Uwen. He drew an easier breath.

  “There’s no one. We should go upstairs, now.”

  There were a great many people gathered
around his bed when Cefwyn waked next. There was sunlight coming through the window, so he had certainly slept a while; and he blinked in slow amazement to see Idrys, and Tristen, and Ninévrisë, and Efanor, all sitting or standing around him.

  He could not remember what he had been doing when he went to bed, but he shifted the leg that had been giving him misery, to find it was sore, but no longer acutely painful.

  “Is there some occasion?” he asked, embarrassed to be the object of such anxious attention. “My lady.” He did not at all look his best. His hair would be in tangles. He ran his hand through it, and felt his arm quite inexplicably weak.

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  Annas arrived with a bowl of soup, saying that the kitchen was limited at the moment until they could wash all the pots, whatever that meant, and while he was trying to think of a question, a page came and stuffed cushions behind his back and another held the bowl and spoon for him—prepared to spoon the soup into his mouth in front of all these witnesses.

  “No,” he said sharply, and waved away soup, spoon, and boy.

  “What is this?”

  “It was witchcraft,” said Efanor, who sat on a reversed chair, arm along its back.

  He was not prepared to make judgments on Efanor and witches.

  “Orien Aswydd,” Ninévrisë said. “Master Emuin broke his skull but he says he will be better soon.”

  “I feel fine,” he said. “I keep telling you I feel fine. What are all of you doing here?”

  “You should fare much better now,” Idrys said.

  “I shall, if I have fewer people staring at me.” He was unaccountably weak. He had no desire for the soup. He most wanted to sleep. He decided he would shut his eyes for a moment, and said, “Did you see the horse, Tristen? What do you think?”

  “I think he’s very fine, sir.”

  “Good,” Cefwyn said, remembered his betrothed bride was in the company—with his brother, which he found unlikely, and made the effort a second time to lift his eyelids to be certain it was true. “Forgive me. I don’t mean to fall asleep.”

  The eyes shut. He was aware of them moving about, and discussing him quietly, and Annas saying they would put the soup back in the pot and it could go on waiting. He had as lief escape it. But Annas was very hard to escape. He had learned that, at Annas’ knee.

  Was it porridge he should eat? He thought of the sunlight coming in a window of his childhood.

  But that was silly. Or magical. On this particular morning, when he was about six or seven, he could hear all the voices 668

  of most of the people who would be important to him in his life. So it was a very important dream, although he didn’t know their names, now; but he knew that he would, someday, and he should remember it when he grew up.

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  C H A P T E R 3 1

  I n two days a Frost had come, and rimed the black slates of the Zeide roof outside Tristen’s window. He opened it to test the strangeness of the white coating, and found the air very cold, and the Rime slick and cold and quite remarkable. People went about morning chores in his narrow view of the courtyard below and their breath made white steam. So did his own against the glass. “Look!” he said to Uwen, quite foolishly, entranced by this miracle, and Uwen looked.

  “Why does it do that?” he asked Uwen, and Uwen scratched his morning-stubbled chin.

  “Because it’s cold.”

  “But why?” Tristen asked.

  “I can’t say as I can answer,” Uwen said. “I can’t say as I ever asked anybody as would know. That’s wizard-question. Breath’s warm. Horses do that when they’re hot.”

  “Give off steam?”

  “They can.”

  “That’s very odd,” Tristen said, and blew more steam at the glass and watched the magic instead of dressing in time for breakfast. He would have liked to ask master Emuin further about the ice and the steam, but Emuin did not wake much, except to eat, even yet, and then he had so fierce a headache Tristen wanted not to be near him. Emuin was angry at him, and upset, and would not see anyone. The priests kept praying in the shrine and called Emuin’s getting well a miracle of the gods, but Emuin called himself damned now and said it was his own fault for coming near him again.

  That stung. But he told himself Emuin didn’t mean it that strongly, and that once Emuin was well, which Emuin would be, Emuin would be in a much better frame of mind. Meanwhile Emuin had confided in him that he was mending 670

  himself, far more slowly than he might—and that such strength as he had to spare at all, he gave to the King.

  And Cefwyn was on his feet. Cefwyn was inquiring, Annas said, about the kitchens, the boys that were burned, and the whereabouts of Orien Aswydd, Idrys having told him that troubling matter and the reason of his wound not healing. Cefwyn came down the hall to visit master Emuin, using the hated stick the way Emuin peevishly said, lifting one blackened eyelid, that His Majesty should have done in the first place and not fallen down the stairs like a damned fool.

  More kindly spoken, Ninévrisë came downstairs, made Cefwyn tea and fussed over him, Idrys fussed over him, Annas fussed over him—Tristen did the same, such as the others left him room: he brought Cefwyn reports from the pastures and the armory; he had done that yesterday. And he thought, in his collecting of cheerful things to tell Cefwyn, about telling him about people’s breaths steaming and the air turning cold, but he thought that it was probably much too commonplace a miracle to entertain Cefwyn.

  Annas and Idrys gave orders and kept the household in order; servants were lugging water up the stairs and washing everything the smoke had smudged, and it turned out to have coated even walls that looked clean. Cook had the courtyard full of tubs and fires going, while servants brought out the blackened pots and tables to scrub, and a master builder had taken a look at the timbers and masonry of the kitchen and given orders to a number of workmen. A pile of charcoaled pieces from the kitchen timbers fed the fires in the courtyard, and the smell of cooking vied with the lingering smell of smoke.

  Wind bore down on the citadel that night, a noisy, cold wind, that had every fire lit and that rattled doors and window-panes, but it seemed innocent. Cefwyn invited him, among others, and sat in front of the fireplace, in a comfortable chair, with his leg propped up, a quilt about him, a cup of wine in his hand, and his friends, as he said, around him: Ninévrisë

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  and Margolis came down, and he and Idrys and Annas were there. Efanor, more quiet than Tristen had ever seen him, came in while Ninévrisë was reading poetry aloud, and sat and listened, before he came and rested his hand on Cefwyn’s arm and in a quiet voice asked him how he fared and wished him and his lady well. The harper entertained them. No one argued.

  No one mentioned Orien Aswydd. Efanor did not seem comfortable the entire evening, but he was there, and he was resolutely gracious to the lady, who, when he took his leave, early, seized his hands, looked at him and said quite gravely, and in everyone’s hearing, “Thank you.”

  Efanor did not seem to know how to answer. He turned very red, and held the lady’s hands a moment looking at the floor as if he were trying to say something and could not decide what.

  Then he said, “My lady,” and left.

  Idrys cocked his head with a look at Cefwyn. Cefwyn was looking toward the door—or at Ninévrisë who was looking at the door. Tristen wondered what Efanor had thought of saying, and realized he had held his breath.

  On the next day leaves lay thick about the land. Tristen rode Dys out and about the meadows, through an orchard bare-branched and piled with leaves that scattered under Dys’ huge feet. He on Dys and Uwen on Cass had chased a hare through the meadow and into the brush, and came back with the horses blowing steam into the chilly afternoon air.

  And to his surprise and the guards’ distress, Cefwyn had come down to the pasture stables. He had ridden Danvy down, followed by a mounted guard. The chill had stung his face, and he was pale, but red-cheeked, and cheerful. “There you are,” he said,
and rubbed his leg, if lightly. “Danvy does the walking, fairly sedately, thank you, but far, far less difficult than a sennight ago. I waked this morning feeling very little pain. I won’t attempt Kanwy—but I’d take a turn out and back with you.”

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  “Gladly,” Tristen said, and Cefwyn and he and Uwen and the guard rode out a good distance across the sheep-meadow.

  “How do you find the young lad?” Cefwyn asked, and Tristen perceived he meant the horse under him.

  “Very fine.” He slapped Dys on the neck, and, in truth, if one had asked which was which horse, he could have told Dys from Kanwy, but most could not, he thought. “I do like him. And I do thank you.”

  Cefwyn talked to him then about Dys’ breeding and his line, and how Dys had been foaled on a bitter cold morning. Their breath made clouds. Cefwyn tired quickly, but it seemed to him that Cefwyn was very much better very quickly.

  “His Majesty looked good,” Uwen said later, “almost so’s you’d say he didn’t need that stick.”

  He was glad of it. But not glad when he visited Emuin directly on his return to the Zeide, and found Emuin scarcely able to wake. He took Emuin’s hand, and knelt down by him, and said, into Emuin’s ear, so the good brothers who tended him should not hear: “I know what you did, master Emuin. Cefwyn is mending ever so fast. But you must do something for yourself now. Do you hear me, sir?”

  Emuin gave no sign of hearing him. He was very frightened.

  He thought he ought to be able to do more. He wanted both of them, Cefwyn and Emuin, to be well. Emuin had grown so thin, and his hair was all white now, so that he looked very much like Mauryl. The faces were different, but there was something in him that touched those memories and said, though it was not exactly, every-day true, that there had always been something about Mauryl that shone, and that Emuin had that quality, now.

  “Master Emuin,” he said. Emuin’s hand was very frail, very smooth in his, as if it were becoming like fine silk, like dust on old boards, the way home had felt under his hands, in Ynefel.