Fortress of Owls

by C. J. Cherryh

  C H A P T E R 5

  Efanor’s letter had gone out. No answer as yet had had time to come back. There was only, for Cefwyn, the mingled dread of Efanor’s game and the delicious thought of Ryssand’s consternation—since Efanor had written in the same letter that he meant to announce the engagement at some unspecified time, unprecedented breach of mourning for the Lady Artisane, and worse, far worse for the lady’s reputation, if a royal match once announced were for any reason mysteriously broken off.

  Dared one suspect the lady’s virtue? Artisane had escaped Ninévrisë’s banishment by her immediate flight into mourning, and now dared she cast herself back into the affairs of the court, and expect immunity? Ryssand had a great deal to worry about.

  He knew, and Efanor knew, that the betrothal Efanor pretended to accept would be lengthy in arrangement, fragile in character, and consummated in marriage only, only in the successful conclusion of the Elwynim war and in a moment of advantage: Cefwyn was still unconvinced that the house of the Marhanens could or should weave itself into Ryssand’s serpentine coils.

  And if the news of a royal betrothal should get abroad, it might somewhat steal the fire from Luriel’s highly visible betrothal and hasty Midwinter marriage…that also would be regrettable if it happened. But if it set the formidable Luriel at Artisane’s throat, so much the better.

  284 / C. J. CHERRYH

  That Lord Murandys wished audience with His Majesty in light of all this was no surprise at all, since the spies that lurked thick as icicles on the eaves had surely noticed this uncommon exchange of messages from both sides and might even have gotten wind of the content. Luriel’s uncle Murandys danced uncertainly these days between the hope of his own advantage in Luriel’s sudden amity with the Royal Consort and the king, on the one hand…and the more workaday hope of maintaining an alliance much as it had been with his old ally Ryssand.

  Ryssand was generally the planner and the schemer, having the keener wit by far…and Prichwarrin, who was not quite that clever, must feel very much on his own these days, very much prey to others’ gossip and vulnerable to the schemes of all those he had offended, a list so long he might not even remember all the possible offenses.

  Now to have any exchange in progress between the royal house and Ryssand in which he was not a participant must necessarily make him very, very anxious.

  To be refused audience with the king must make him even more so. In fact, Prichwarrin must be fairly frothing in his uninformed isolation.

  But Cefwyn was not at all sorry. He stood at the frosty, half-fogged window nearest his desk in a rare moment of tranquillity, a silence in his day, in fact, which his rejection of Prichwarrin’s approach had gained him. He contemplated with somewhat more equanimity the general audience in the offing…there were judicial cases, among others waiting his attention, one appeal for royal clemency, which he was in a mood to extend: he’d spared greater thieves and worse blackguards than some serving-maid who’d stolen a few measures of flour.

  Mostly, in this stolen moment of privacy, he watched the pigeons on the adjacent ledge.

  FORTRESS OF OWLS / 285

  Dared he think they were Tristen’s few spies, remaining in Guelessar? Most of the offending birds had gone, miraculously, the very day Tristen left, and the Quinalt steps were sadly pure.

  He wished the birds back again, with their master, and wished with all the force of a man whose wishes only came true when Tristen willed it…useful talent, that.

  No Emuin, no Tristen. His life was far easier without them drawing the lightning down, literally, on the rooftops. But it was far lonelier. He deluded himself that he had time on his hands, even that he could find the time to take to riding again, with Tristen, with Idrys…oh, not to hunt the deer: Tristen would be appalled. No, they would ride out simply to see the winter and to hear what Tristen would say of it, how he would wonder at things Men simply failed to look at, past their childhoods.

  But, oh, how precious those things were! To look at the sky, breathe the cold wind, have fingers nipped by chill and skin stung red and heart stirred to life, gods, he had been dead until Tristen arrived and asked him the first vexing question, and posed him the first insoluble puzzle, and marveled at hailstones and mourned over falling leaves. What miracles there were all around, when Tristen was beside him…and damn Ryssand!

  that he had had no choice.

  He had Tristen’s letter. Gods damn Ryssand, gods bless Tristen, he had good news out of Amefel…and Ryssand dared make only small and cautious moves, a man on precarious ground.

  Likewise precarious, atop the snowy roofing slates on a pitch the height of four ordinary houses, small, dogged figures had heaved up ladders across from the royal windows and tied scaffoldings aslant the steep, icy slope of the Quinalt roof, attempting to mend the lightning stroke that had assaulted the gods’ home on earth.

  286 / C. J. CHERRYH

  Carts moved below, bringing timbers…carts which might well serve getting supply to the troops, except His Holiness owned these few, and guarded them jealously.

  Odd, how avariciously he had begun to look at such mundane things. The carts Tristen had still not returned to him might not come back at all if the weather set in hard, and gods knew what Tristen thought he was doing with them.

  Not moving Parsynan’s belongings back to Guelessar, that was clear.

  But being a resourceful king and understanding that trying to keep Tristen to a predictable, even a sensible course was like chasing water uphill, he had found ways, and with carts such as he could lay hands on, even those of the minor houses of Guelemara and the trades, he had moved men in greater numbers to the river bridges, using his personal guard and the Guelen Guard, men of Guelessar, not yet calling on the provinces for their levies.

  He was merely setting the stage, putting necessary elements in place…keeping a watch on the river the while.

  The weather had been surprisingly good, clouds dark to the west during the last two days, darkness over Elwynor, and fat gray-bottomed clouds speeding for the second frantic day across the skies of Guelessar, failing to drop snow or even to shade the sun. The whole season had been warmer than usual…and late as it was, and despite a few evening and morning snowfalls, winter had not set in hard this side of the river. He, who had learned to count wizards among the possible causes, looked at the situation in the west and wondered how much of the good weather was natural.

  It was natural, however, that unseasonable warmth, FORTRESS OF OWLS / 287

  otherwise pleasant, produced its own miseries…for blight had entered a set of granaries in Nelefreissan, royal stores he had planned for support of the army. Mice were fat and prosperous, mites afflicted the mews and the poultry yard alike, fleas had become the kennelmaster’s bane and, worst of all, had spread to the barracks, where they were execrated but not exor-cised…remedies of burning sulfur and priests’ blessings had done far less for the men’s relief than a wizard might have done, Cefwyn was sure of it, and he perversely hoped that fleas afflicted all the pious, good Quinaltines who had contributed to Tristen’s and Emuin’s exile this winter.

  If Emuin were here, there would not be fleas, and he had remarked that to the clerks and officers, failing to add, if Tristen were here, since wizardry in Emuin was faintly respectable, but wizardry in Tristen reminded everyone why Tristen and Emuin were not here this winter.

  Meanwhile Annas, scandalized and fearing the spread of the vermin, drove the household harder than their habit, and wanted afflicted premises scrubbed to the walls.

  Mixed blessings indeed. No one had seen such a mild winter, wherein stores of wood were far in excess of current need and ice stayed off the small ponds, to farmers’ relief: no need to go out with axes to enable livestock to drink and no need yet to keep cattle close in byres. Autumn had stayed late, and later.

  There remained the chance, still, of the howling gray blast that would freeze all in a night and obscure the sun for days, but it had not happened yet�
��leaving them just snow enough to drive the vermin indoors, and the damned fleas with them, such was his own theory…not mentioning the notion of hostile wizardry and ill wishes from across the river, without a wizard left this side of the river.

  288 / C. J. CHERRYH

  Damned defenseless, Ryssand’s quarrel had left them, and not alone to the fleas. If there was worse than vermin, if those scudding clouds heralded some wizardous storm in the making, they might well regret the actions that had sent all the wizards south.

  All but one. Ninévrisë had the wizard-gift. He had neglected her in his reckoning. Perhaps, he thought with a wry laugh, perhaps he should appeal to his bride to attempt the banishment of mice. Perhaps the court might forgive her her small flaw, for that benefit.

  But it was not a matter for jest, the small gift she had, and that he knew she had. More, and far more serious a matter, all the officers who had come back from Lewenbrook knew there was wizardry in the house of Syrillas and that it had not failed in the daughter. But Quinalt roof slates, mice, and fleas and all be damned, he was not about to prompt them to gossip it to the Quinaltine, who doubtless had heard already.

  All the veterans, therefore, kept their counsel, even in the taverns seldom admitting there had been manifestations at Lewenbrook and since, oh, nothing of the sort. One would have thought they had fought on some other field, to hear how it was this company or that which had driven back the enemy and cast their ranks in confusion.

  Pigeons now battled for narrow space on the ledge, buffeted one another with gray wings. The losers wheeled away and lit in another patch of snow, unruly, disrespectful of each other, now their master was in exile.

  So much odd had happened in those days the living witnesses knew not who had been responsible, or even what they had seen. The apparitions of dead men, the strange lights, the darkness by day…memories of that day shifted and changed like oil on water, so that

  FORTRESS OF OWLS / 289

  none of them who had been there quite remembered all of it…nor truly wished to. Men pushed and shoved one another for position, but none of them acknowledged the battles of wizards.

  He gave a small shiver, finding his hand chilled to ice by the glass. He drew back his fingers, folded them into a fist to warm them, finding his memories not so pleasant after all. For the pigeons, the silly, gray-coated pigeons, he was tempted to send for bread and take them under royal patronage for Tristen’s sake, never mind what the court would say. It would be simple kindness to poor, dumb things.

  But gossip…gossip would pick it up, saying the damned birds were messengers, wizardous in behavior, suspecting them of eavesdropping, gods knew. He could not harbor pigeons without the town imagining darkest sorcery.

  In fact, as of yesterday and Efanor’s message, he had emerged from the haze of recent matrimony and the confusion of Ryssand’s attempt to prevent it, suddenly to realize he and Ninévrisë were whole, but that very dangerous things had happened around them…to realize, too, that those they relied on, like Idrys, had only been marking time, waiting for them to face the world at large and realize how few their numbers had grown to be.

  So they did, now missing the absent faces, the voices, the counsel of those who should have shared their new life. Gaining each other, gaining a union that should make all the world the richer, they had lost what they most treasured, and might never see the court come back to what it had been. The reports he had out of Amefel spoke alarmingly of rebellion crushed and decisive actions taken…all well within Tristen’s ability, if they challenged him.

  But that side of him was dire and frightening: it had 290 / C. J. CHERRYH

  shown itself at Emwy, and at Lewenbrook, not the gentle mooncalf, his defender of pigeons and his friend who marveled at a sunbeam…but the soldier, the revenant, whose martial skill spoke of another life, one long, long past.

  Parsynan was at someone’s ear, up in Ryssand, but he had passed through the midlands to get there. The Quinalt consequently was busy as the kennel fleas, at this lord’s ear and at that one’s, complaining of wizardry and heresy on the borders, of a populace that hailed Tristen their Lord Sihhë and raised forbidden emblems.

  Silence it, he had said to the Patriarch yesterday, with no patience whatever. I need Amefel steady and peaceful, and however Tristen obtains it, well and good.

  That last he had found himself adding as if he had to justify his order, as if some value for Tristen should make a difference to the Holy Father.

  He wished peevishly he had not been so weak as to add that argument, wished that he had his grandfather’s gift for stopping argument short of justifying himself.

  If he were his grandfather he would have said, “The king’s friend is the king’s friend and whoever slights him will have me for an enemy. Damn the lot of you anyway.”

  Tristen’s message, precious as it was, had stated in amazingly few words the overturn of all he had arranged in Amefel. He had feared Tristen might prove such a sparse letter writer.

  Master Emuin had his tower back. A lord of ancient lineage had suffered exile.

  Tristen had exiled an Amefin earl. The lamb had assaulted the lion.

  And let the rest of them, from Henas’amef to FORTRESS OF OWLS / 291

  Lanfarnesse, beware their sedition and their scheming, these rebel southrons who had never yet been willing to recognize a Marhanen king. With that gray-glass stare and a question or two, Tristen could assail their very souls, snare them, entrap them in a spell of liking that had no cure…he could attest to that, for he missed sorely the man who had done all this to him.

  He had sent his own messenger to Tristen, and another to Cevulirn, asking after their health, professing his gratitude…asking after his carts, in Tristen’s case, and hinting at a readiness to march in Cevulirn’s. He had a province of Amefel rescued from rebellion due to Tristen’s quick action; he had the Amefin people cheering his choice and not throwing rocks at his troops, which was also worth gratitude…if it were only a little less fraught with rebel Bryaltine sentiment for vanished kings.

  All these things he had said, in letters to his two dearest friends, and realized thus far, muddleheaded with courtship and marriage, he had been very fortunate until this day simply to have had no disasters.

  And as for Tristen, Tristen, whom wizard-work had raised or Shaped or whatever wizards minced up for words…there was no safer place to put him. Mauryl Kingmaker had sent them a gift thus double-edged, a soul who might be Barrakkêth incarnate.

  And the Elwynim had long prophesied their King To Come, thinking some surviving one of halfling Elfwyn’s sons might creep out of the bushes and byways to proclaim his thread of Sihhë blood and claim the crown of the old High Kings.

  It was, after all, safest that he had himself fulfilled all the prophecies he could lay hands on, naming Tristen lord not only of Ynefel, to which he most probably had right, but to Althalen, and to heretic Amefel, where they might proclaim him lord of most

  292 / C. J. CHERRYH

  anything in relative quiet. The Teranthines could embrace such heresy. He…even…could bear with a neighboring king, even a High King, did Tristen somehow stray into power.

  Dared he, however, could he, should he…ever mention such thoughts to a bride he hoped would remain on this side of the river, in his realm, a peaceful, not a reigning, wife? Among all the preparations he had laid, the moving of troops, the marshaling of aid in council, the hammering-out of titles to bestow on Ninévrisë Syrillas, and this cursed business of priests, sodden or sober…dared he even think the thoughts when he had a bride so gifted as Tristen hinted she was, who might pluck his guilty imaginings out of the very air? He was a king. It was his fate, his duty, to make as much as he could favorable to himself, and therefore to his people.

  Pigeons flew up of a sudden, battering each other with their wings at a movement, a sound. The door had opened, and a messenger had come in, and two of his ordinary guards, and Ninévrisë, she…white and frightened, carrying he
r skirts as if she had been running, all this in a trailing attendance of two anxious maids, Cleisynde and Odrinian, both Murandys’ kin.

  The man in a Guelen Guard’s colors was still mud-flecked from a hard ride, had wiped smears of it across his freckled young face, and looked exhausted and dazed.

  “Your Majesty,” the young man had gotten out, before Idrys, too, arrived with his own aide in close attendance, and the young man looked around to see.

  Disaster, and he and Ninévrisë alike could guess from what source. This young officer had come from downstairs, from the stable-court, from the road, from hard riding, and he was Lord Maudyn’s man, a messenger from his commander at the river.

  FORTRESS OF OWLS / 293

  “Your Majesty,” the courier said in a breath, “Ilefínian has fallen.”

  Cleisynde was first at Ninévrisë’s elbow, of all the women, the cousins from Murandys, who poised their cupped hands under Ninévrisë’s arms, awaiting a fall, an outburst.

  There was none. There were not even tears, only the evident pain.

  Not an unexpected blow, Cefwyn thought, nor was it; but, black weather over there notwithstanding, Tasmôrden had carried the siege to the end, meaning the death of Ninévrisë’s loyal folk in the capital, her childhood friends, her supporters, her kin, cousins, remote to the least degree, all, all doomed and done in a stroke.

  And yet she stood pale and composed, a queen in dignity and in sharp sense of the immediate needs. “When and how?”

  she asked the messenger.

  “My lord had no word yet,” the man said anxiously, certainly knowing who Ninévrisë might be, but still caught, damn him, in a gap of stiff Guelen protocol that turned the messenger to him. “Your Majesty, I took horse as soon as the fires were lit.

  My Lord Maudyn will send to you with each new report he receives, but at the time I left, we knew nothing but the signal fires.”