Fortress of Eagles

by C. J. Cherryh

  “What news?” Tristen asked.

  “His lordship the viceroy is on his way an’ out of the town for good an’ all,” Uwen said. “Didn’t stay for a man to go with

  ’im.”

  “And are you sad on that account?” Tristen asked.

  Uwen heaved a deep sigh. “No, m’lord, not to see his lordship’s back, good riddance.”

  “Then what more? Uwen?”

  “His lordship rid out on Liss.”

  Tristen had been at an ebb of his energies, and now found himself awake and angry.

  “We might send a messenger,” Syllan said, “m’lord, and ask her back.”

  “The stablemaster ain’t master Haman,” Uwen said glumly.

  “It’s some man the viceroy put in charge, and the damn fool let some boy give him Liss, who’s been on the road hard going all yesterday, and if he don’t run ’er to ruin in the hour, it’ll be a wonder.”

  “He will not,” Tristen said. He was never so indignant, and never so sure of a thing. He saw a roadway, felt the shift in the gray space, felt the world shaken and his breath grown thin.

  The mare shied away from under her heavy burden, her rider flew over her shoulder, and hoofbeats echoed in the hazy gray.

  “M’lord?”

  The mare slowed, weary as she was, drew the cold air into her nostrils, and smelled grain and warm straw on the wind out of the west. Footsteps and curses approached her. She shied from reaching hands, turned, bolted off to follow that waft through the dark, freed of weight on her back, freed of spur and rein.

  382 / C. J. CHERRYH

  “M’lord?” Uwen said, and the mare, Liss, turned north again, across open meadow.

  “Find out,” he said to Uwen, against all honor, “find out who is in Edwyll’s household, and to whom they send messages.”

  There was a small silence. Uwen had looked tired and distressed. Now the distress grew. But the understanding was there, too, what was required of him, what the exchange was.

  “Yes, m’lord.”

  “I don’t trust even Captain Anwyll in this,” he said, and included Syllan, Tawwys and Aran in his glance. “You are my guards. You I trust. Find out everything about Crissand. What is shaken is apt to slide loose. Emuin says so, and he knows.

  Wizardry will always find that unhappy man, that book on the shelf, that cup too near the edge.” To no other Men these days would he have spoken so plainly, but with them he had no longer any doubt. “Guard Meiden. Watch him. Name me all his friends, all his enemies. —And find us all the old servants of this hall, so we afford no more chance for such mistakes.

  Find master Haman, find Cook, the maids in the kitchens. Find those people, and put them back where they were, and restore the Zeide as it was this summer. There was a boy…” He had given orders regarding almost all the world within his power.

  But thinking of all the potential pieces, he cast back to his first day in Henas’amef, and the boy who had guided him into a trap. There, too, was an element that once had moved to some wizardly direction, and he wanted all such pieces within his ken and under his hand. “Paisi is his name. The gate-guards know him. Tell me when you find him.”

  FORTRESS OF EAGLES / 383

  “M’lord,” Uwen said, and Tawwys, and the rest, with bows of heads and solemn attention.

  “He will not keep Liss,” Tristen said with equal solemnity.

  “Yes, m’lord,” Uwen said very quietly.

  The dismay had quieted. Or had become better hidden. He had brought Uwen to something very different than Uwen would have ever chosen, and offended against Uwen’s sensibilities and Uwen’s heart. But he saw no other way for all of them to be safe in Amefel.

  He sat, in this strange encampment of his men, in front of a fireplace in a place lately full of dead men.

  The mare moved at a walk now, weary and aching in her steps. But she smelled apple trees and thistle. She smelled summer, and the wind continually told her lies.

  Tristen wished, if he wished for anything more than a province, a palace, and gold dinnerplates, for master Emuin to be here tonight.

  And for Cefwyn to be back in his apartment like the sun in the heaven above.

  And for them to wake in the morning with everything put right and no war in the offing.

  But Cefwyn was no longer a prince in exile, and he was no longer an innocent, spending his wishes on sunbeams and the flight of a leaf.

  He thought of the mare, moving from meadow to a night-bound road. He thought of the silly pigeons of the Zeide roofs, and knew the nooks and crannies of high places, like the secrets of the loft at Ynefel. They came. Dawn might find them here.

  Owl, too, might be out there somewhere, on this chill night: Owl, bane of pigeons and mice.

  He had learned when he was still innocent that one creature of his limited world might destroy another. He 384 / C. J. CHERRYH

  had known from the first he could not blame Owl, but he still regretted the deaths of the soft-voiced, silly pigeons. Owl had sat on his perch, alone, beyond the barrier in the loft at Ynefel, and the pigeons had lived on the other side. Owl could not have chosen the company of the pigeons. He was a Shadow, at least among the birds, and he lived in the shadows. If he had ever come to the sunny side and joined the pigeons, they would have fled his presence in a great clap and terror of wings, knowing he was a Shadow.

  The men around him had let down their watchfulness, and looked as weary as he had ever seen them. And when all the to and fro of bathing and water-carrying was done and the servants were banished to the hall, Tristen found himself wearier and wearier, the wine cup all but falling from a hand that had wielded a sword in the long, shadow-haunted night…that lately bloodied silver-wrapped sword which, like some gray, grim bird of prey, had found itself another lurking place, a new fireside to lean by.

  Dared he rest? A seam of daylight showed between two dark velvet curtains, but in this room it was still night. He was aware that Uwen went to the door and spoke to someone and came back. He struggled for wakefulness, watching the fire leap and dance, an element the same in every campfire, every fireplace, and never diminishing until one failed to feed it. Master Emuin had sat by such a fire tonight, cold and complaining, almost certainly.

  Emuin had finally reached their camp at Assurnbrook, no further.

  —I am here, he said to master Emuin; and at last, fearfully, had a sense of presence far away. I am safe, sir.

  But Emuin seemed fast asleep, despite the daylight FORTRESS OF EAGLES / 385

  outside. He found himself no longer angry, no longer desperate.

  All decisions were made, and it was to Emuin’s dreams he spoke, at a time when the gray space seemed small and cramped and cold.

  —I think of Owl. Have I told you of Owl, sir? I think I

  have become Owl, in a manner of speaking.

  —The soldiers with us take good care of me, but among

  the soldiers, I am Owl.

  —Even to Uwen, I am Owl, now; and he has no idea

  what I may do. I think he fears me. He never did, and

  never have I wished him to.

  —Earl Edwyll attempted to hold the town against us,

  did you know? And the earl died, in Lady Orien’s apartment. I fear they have all conspired against Cefwyn, each

  for his own advantage, but I have made them a way to

  say they never did, so now they will try to make it the

  truth.

  —The earl’s son surrendered to us, with his men, and

  he has sworn to me. He likely knows all the men the earl

  dealt with, on this side of the river and the other. I’ve set

  Uwen to find that out. Uwen wishes to protect my innocence. But what of his?

  —The earl’s son, Crissand is his name, called me lord

  Sihhë in everyone’s hearing, and swore to me. I accepted

  the oath.

  There was quiet, profound quiet in the gray space.

&nb
sp; —And you are afraid, master Emuin. You have been

  afraid since summer’s end, since we won at Lewenbrook

  and drove Hasufin from the field.

  —Of what are you afraid? Of the Edge? Is it anything

  so simple?

  —Why did you not stay in Guelemara, if you will not

  answer me? Do you oppose me? You said that you still

  could.

  386 / C. J. CHERRYH

  —There might be virtue in that. To the best that I have

  found, Efanor’s little book has no secrets for me. I doubt

  what I should do. I find no advice in it—or in you, sir.

  —I wonder whether anything I have ever led Uwen to

  is good.

  C H A P T E R 4

  They were not astir until broad day, when the servants arrived with a very late breakfast and an escort of Dragon Guard flung the heavy green draperies back on frost-rimmed windows. The Eagle banner on the gatehouse roof opposite flew straight out in the gusts and fell slack by turns, under a chill blue sky. The servants laid the breakfast, stirred up the embers and put on another set of logs before Tristen and Uwen sat down, each other’s sole company, and dismissed both Guelenmen and servants.

  Today, Tristen supposed, he must begin dealing with his own set of lords, and with Amefel’s peculiar problems. He had never yet visited the garden; he had not seen the library and the places he most valued, and he wished he might sit by the fishpond today, feed the fish and the birds and watch the wind blow, an activity which held no life-and-death decision. It was his reward, his personal and particular reward for duty.

  But between the frost on the glass and the banner flying wide, the wind must be blowing with a knife edge today: a bitter wind, a heartless wind. It was a morning for beginnings and rooms swept out and records found and proper men set in charge of things. But it was not a comfortable time to visit old and beloved places.

  They were no more than buttering the cold bread 387

  388 / C. J. CHERRYH

  when Lusin came breathlessly to say that Liss had turned up at the gates early this morning.

  “As her reins are broke, from her treading on them,” Lusin said cheerily, “so the boy said, but otherwise she looks to be sound. She come up to the stables outside the wall. And ye’ll not guess who found ’er.”

  “Go down if you wish,” Tristen said, seeing Uwen first start to rise from table in delight, and then think better of it.

  “I’d ha’ thought she’d run to Guelessar,” Uwen muttered, and rose with a sketch of a bow. “M’lord, by your leave, will I go, and will ye not go about the halls wi’out me?”

  “Go. I’ll not go anywhere alone.” He needed his breakfast, was weary and aching from bruises this morning, and had no need to see Liss to know that she was there and that she was well enough for having run hard and far these last two days.

  Nor was he amazed at Liss running to a stable she hardly knew instead of having drifted east toward the Guelen border or the nearest meadow with a village lord’s horse in it. He was happy to watch Uwen go with a boyish gladness in his step and a light in his countenance.

  As far as the door. Then Uwen stopped with a sober question.

  “Where’s his lordship the viceroy, m’lord?”

  “Walking to Guelessar, I would suppose.” He spoke quiet seriously, but Uwen laughed delightedly, slapped his leg, and turned and left at a brisk pace.

  Tristen finished buttering a slice of bread, and had raspberry jam. But before he had quite finished it, the curtains being open, he saw a flutter of sunlit wings, a noisy, silly congregation on the stone window ledge. He hurried, then, and rose and took the fragments of his

  FORTRESS OF EAGLES / 389

  breakfast and the end of the loaf for good measure. He opened the window vent by safe daylight, and all his birds, every one arrived, fluttered and crowded one another to reach the bread.

  Vain, silly, dear to him…before Lewenbrook, he would have doubted they could possibly find the window, when they had never fed here. But as Liss had found the stables down below the walls, here they were at the right window of all the windows of the Zeide, and he let himself believe he could have his own small pleasures as well as arrange them for others. The sun shone on their backs, touched jewel green on the gray-backed greediest one, who looked at him with a wise, round eye, and then with no hint of shame bullied a violet-tinted gray from the ledge to reach a piece of bread.

  “Behave,” he said to them, and yet bent no will to it. They were what they were. So were the lords of Ylesuin. Could he, he thought, in far better spirits this morning, reasonably expect them to be other than they had been…or ask too much of Amefin districts with ancient rivalries?

  The little violet-breasted one was back, and found his breakfast, fighting among the others. The difficulty was the pane and the ledge. It let only one or two at a time come at the bread, and much of the bread fell off during the struggles in the flapping of wings.

  Was that, too, not like the great lords?

  The servants arrived to take away the breakfast; and Uwen came back, breathless and sober, a commotion striding in with straw on his boots and, oddly, a purse and a writing case in his hand.

  “She come back safe, m’lord, which ain’t all by half. She come wi’ a fine purse of gold an’ a writin’ case which she had from his lordship, besides she found

  390 / C. J. CHERRYH

  master Haman, too, who brought her up the hill! His lordship had turned him an’ his boys out to the lower stables, an’ when Liss come trottin’ in wi’ her fancy gear and a purse o’ gold an’

  a writin’ case, Haman…bein’ an honest man an’ a quick

  ’un…brought ’er right up to the stable-court an’ told the guards when we waked we should ha’ word of it. On your advice I said he should come back to his old place an’ I told the Guard stablemaster take all the Guard remounts down the hill to the outside stables. They was so crowded last night they had Guard horses standin’ in the pigsty, to the shame of it, an’ all lookin’

  like the sty itself. Meanwhile Haman’s gone to fetch his boys an’ there’ll be an accountin’ o’ that in short order. —But here’s what Liss’ brought wi’ her, besides master Haman, and I’ll guess his lordship ain’t pleased.”

  The purse Uwen gave him felt as heavy as the one Idrys had given him when he set out to Amefel, and he judged it a reasonable sum for the lord of a province to carry by the only standard he had, so perhaps he should not assume theft…but in a man found with a bag of women’s jewelry the matter was certainly suspect. The writing case was a cylinder of leather with a cap that held a small container of ink and three clipped and rumpled goose quills, but of greater interest, it held a rolled document, and while Uwen talked on excitedly about master Haman and the stableboys and about Liss having come to the other horses in spite of being a Guelen horse, he unrolled it to see what it was.

  It had been sealed in the manner of a letter, but the seal was cut, so it was not a message the viceroy had prepared to take on his journey. It was someone else’s letter in Lord Parsynan’s possession, presumably already read, but not disposed of.

  FORTRESS OF EAGLES / 391

  It said:

  The vacancy of Amefel is filled. His Majesty has seen fit to appoint the Marshal of Althalen to the post.

  Pray advantage yourself of my hospitality when you reach godly lands.

  Godly lands were, in the Quinalt’s way of speaking, any place in Ylesuin but Amefel. And the Marshal of Althalen was himself.

  The letter bore the seal and name of Lord Ryssand, Corswyndam, least beloved and most troublesome of Cefwyn’s northern lords. He had been close enough to the court in Guelemara to have seen Lord Corswyndam’s countenance and his work, and to be very sure he was not Ninévrisë’s friend or Cefwyn’s, for that matter.

  “Lord Ryssand would seem to invite the viceroy to stay with him when he comes home to Guelemara,” he remarked to Uwen.
“Or possibly to lodge in his hold in Ryssand, since he invites the viceroy to enjoy his hospitality: Ryssand’s lodgings in Guelemara are under Cefwyn’s roof. The letter also seems to advise the viceroy of exactly what we came to say, but it had to come before we did and perhaps even before the king’s messenger.”

  “Then he must have rid hard,” Uwen said, “and left soon’s the word was out. The king’s messengers is steady on the road, but they most times stop a’ nights. I’ll wager His Majesty wouldn’t like that letter-writin’ in the least. Sendin’ a message to somebody ahead of a king’s herald, about the king’s business? It ain’t right, and probably it ain’t lawful.”

  392 / C. J. CHERRYH

  “So Corswyndam has been dealing directly with the viceroy, not telling Cefwyn,” Tristen said, and was uneasy in that thought. “If Corswyndam needs to talk to the viceroy so urgently and privately as that, I think I should send this letter to Cefwyn to read as soon as possible.”

  “I think that were a very good thought,” Uwen said. “An’ I’ll guess his lordship’ll be prayin’ to the blessed gods Liss ran home or strayed into thieves. He won’t guess she run back to us. —But he will be meetin’ wi’ master Emuin an’ the wagons on the road, now, won’t he? And he’ll be askin’ master Emuin for help and tellin’ master Emuin all sorts of lies, won’t he, then? Master Emuin might delay the lord viceroy if he knew the man’s doin’s, m’lord, just, you know, gi’ ’im a touch o’

  colic.”

  It was a clever notion. The wagons held potions and powders enough to give a troop of men indigestion. But Tristen had ceased to think master Emuin would prevent anything. There was little hope there.

  And if he were to send the message straight to Cefwyn, various hands would handle it, or at least attempt to handle it, from the front gate to the Lord Chamberlain, Annas. Annas was very much to trust…but the other hands he did not know, and suspected.

  Idrys on the other hand was experienced in matters of misdeed, and the path to the Lord Commander through soldiers’