Fortress of Eagles

by C. J. Cherryh

  There Tristen found himself reticent. The gray space still felt uneasy, and the servants whispered of cold spots in the library and on the East Court stairs, for which the Quinalt father provided charms and against which the Bryalt father performed a rite and ordered candles lit. It pleased the servants, and might have done some good; but justice still went begging, and satisfaction, Tristen thought, would come more slowly.

  The ashes of Mauryl’s letters yielded very little to his study…nothing thus far but requests for flour and candles, and a warning of flood in some long-ago spring. He could hear Mauryl’s voice in the writing; he ran fingers over the charred paper and remembered Mauryl at his writing, while the wind of a different year pried and wailed at the windows.

  The snow still no more than outlined the stonework and the roof tiles, and made a white haze between the town and the orchards. The banner, not that far away on the gate, was at times dim and pale.

  Snow did not prevent the town dignitaries and the lords, however, coming to the Zeide, wrapped up in furs still with snow clinging to them. The business of the town was simple, the matter of markets and taxes. Meanwhile he sought an accounting from the armory, 428 / C. J. CHERRYH

  which was well prepared; and wished he had the Amefin records which were returning with Emuin.

  More, he wished to send men into districts, particularly those bordering Elwynor, in case any villages should be harboring Elwynim, either fugitives or Tasmôrden’s men. But sending Dragon or Guelen Guard into districts as uneasy as Henas’amef had become under Parsynan’s rule begged trouble; and that left him only the resource of his lords and their messengers, the lord of Amefel having otherwise been stripped of personal forces at Heryn’s fall.

  So the Amefin lords came, and immediately presented their several matters regarding lands and winter court. Tristen held informal audience with several of them in the evening.

  “Join me at supper,” he said, with thoughts of the gatherings Cefwyn had held in that hall, memories of a hall noisy and sometimes argumentative, but a time, too, at which men might prove more easily swayed in judgment. The great hall was larger than their gathering needed by far; but the servants had lit a fire and arranged a blaze of candles; and Cook provided her famous pies and sausages and good cheese from the market, acquired at the last moment and when the numbers to feed suddenly increased. (I had the lasses taste everything, Cook had assured Lusin, and they hain’t a one come to grief yet.) Cuthan was one of the three who came to supper, and Drumman and Azant, each foremost in the several factions that existed among the earls. Drumman and Azant spoke for their country interests, and begged understanding on the taxes, which they feared would be heavy on account of the war; and which the recent counting had given them to fear would be the case.

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  “His Majesty’s men have been going about looking at every haystack,” as Azant said, “and the land’s taxed poor already, Your Grace.”

  “Arm your young men for the spring,” Tristen said to them.

  “By any means you can, see them ready. I’ve not had the accountings yet, but I know what His Majesty intends, which is the defense of the southern bridges. And I must count on you to send out to the villages and advise them.”

  “Your Grace says we will not see war in Amefel,” Azant objected.

  “Not by His Majesty’s intent, or mine. But to be under arms and at the bridgeheads will assure we see less. If his plans for Amefel go awry, Tasmôrden may find his men having less heart for war against us or the northern provinces. But we cannot have Elwynim camping in the hills as they did this summer without our knowledge, sirs. And the villages must report any strangers as quickly as feet can run here.”

  “My district will do so,” the earl said. “But we are suffering already in His Majesty’s wars.”

  Crissand had not come to their small festivity and it had not seemed right to ask him. The house of Meiden was mourning its dead, so Uwen said; and there were many to bury, not alone in the town, but out in the villages. Those sad carts had gained permission to pass the gates, too, and there would be mourning out across the sweep of Meiden land, once the terrible news reached villages that had lost half their young men.

  “We also have Meiden’s burden to carry through the winter,”

  he said, for he had had Uwen’s report, and Anwyll’s, regarding the extent of Meiden’s plight and how the muster in the spring would affect them

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  and other villages. “Earl Crissand is sending supplies for the villages that have suffered, to see them through the winter, but we should all stand ready to send supplies. And oxen.”

  (“Which where a village has lost so many men, ain’t so bad at the first o’ winter, wi’ the harvest all in,” Uwen had said in reporting it, “but there’s chores all winter wi’ livestock, that’s hard, an’ spring wi’ the mud an’ th’ plowin’…there’s brutal work. Oxen is the best help, oxen an’ a good plow, an’ all the oxen an’ carts goin’ for the war, that’s hard on them villages, where th’ widows an’ orphans is settin’ in a crop.”)

  “On that account I’ve determined we’ll move supplies this winter, then,” he said. “Fortify the river margin and give Tasmôrden reason for concern. We shall own the bridges, and have supplies we need not move in the spring on muddy roads, if we move now.”

  “A hard winter for men under canvas, hard for men and beast.” So Azant objected.

  “But the oxen will have done their work, and be home for plowing,” Tristen said. “Will they not, sirs? And our supplies will be there waiting for us, and a camp already made. That means our army will move with far greater speed; and our mounted troops can be there in far shorter time to answer any massing of Elwynim forces.”

  “Supplies that will lure Tasmôrden, if nothing else, my lord,”

  Cuthan said. “We may draw war to us, and lose everything.”

  “The bridges are undecked, are they not? And by us. We have the timbers. They cannot cross else, in any force, without bringing timbers to the bridges, which occasion oxen, with all that entails. Once we have supplies in place, our garrison is supplied for the winter

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  and we need only maintain a watchfire ready.”

  “We have never mustered in the winter,” Azant said.

  He searched his recollection, whether that was true, and thought it was not, but that such a muster of Amefel might have been very long ago. “Nevertheless,” he said, not thinking of the vast movement of armies, and snow, and dark shapes confronting them. There were sober faces at the table with him.

  “To have the supply made,” Azant said. “There’s much relief to the villages in that, but bitter cold, and hard duty…”

  “What would we have all winter?” Tristen said. “Who will guard those bridges, else? Do we plan to sit in Henas’amef and trust Tasmôrden’s men are not more hardy and more brave? What shall we deserve, sirs, if we leave the bridges unguarded, and if you were in Tasmôrden’s place, what would you do?”

  There was silence. Azant shifted a glance to Anwyll, conspicuous now in Marhanen scarlet: the Dragon Guard had assumed its own colors and emblem, and taken off the black Amefin Eagle. The Eagle banner hung full-spread on the wall, green Aswydd draperies on either hand, the heraldry of this, the great hall.

  And did they say by that glance they expected the king’s garrison to defend the border, and themselves to sit in their homes all winter?

  “If Amefel will be defended,” Tristen said, “we will defend it.

  The Guelens and the Dragons will go home with the spring; or possibly before. If we fail, the border may fall, sirs, and your lands and your houses and the houses and fields of your villagers are at risk. If Tasmôrden laid plans to come this direction to support Edwyll, he may not know the situation here, or he may

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  find it out and still continue with his plan if only to try to draw the war to these
fields, where he has, sirs, better maps. We dare not trust otherwise. And yes, we shall do exactly that: winter camp, return the ox teams to the villages, and arm ourselves against whatever comes. We may have help from Lanfarnesse, from Ivanor and Olmern, and even Imor; or we may not, if His Majesty calls them north to open an attack there. The king bade me defend Amefel, and Amefin men will take up arms this winter, and exercise in the snow. When Amefel does move, it will be at the pace of horses, not oxen. So Amefel used to do. So it will do again.”

  There was a silence lately obdurate, then the slow nodding of Drumman’s head, and then Azant’s.

  “Does Your Grace have sure word of the king’s intent?” Azant asked. “And how does Her Grace fare in Guelessar?”

  It was more than a question regarding Ninévrisë’s happiness or Cefwyn’s: it was a wary, canny question under the eyes of Guelenmen.

  “Direct word, sir, and his promise. There’s no question. He will marry Her Grace and the treaty has not changed from what they swore here in Amefel.” Azant had asked a question he had held back; he himself had reserved one. “Does anyone have current knowledge of dealings inside Elwynor?”

  Glances did not quite meet his. Only Cuthan looked at him directly in that instant.

  “I think Your Grace is quite correct: there were messages.

  Meiden might know; but I would never assert that to be so.”

  Drumman’s sister was Edwyll’s wife, and Crissand’s mother.

  Uwen had reported it to him, and yet no one FORTRESS OF EAGLES / 433

  had mentioned that fact, not even Drumman. The lady had taken refuge in Drumman’s house when the fighting began, and had not come back when Crissand had gone home, though Crissand had called on Lord Drumman’s residence and spoken to her there in the morning…understandable, certainly.

  Crissand had buried his father. His mother had not attended the ceremony. And Lord Drumman sat silent at the table when the matter of messages to Elwynor was raised, silent whether held by honorable restraint, or by guilty consciousness of his folly with Edwyll. Drumman had not yet mentioned his sister, or her whereabouts. Now, perhaps, he found himself with an unwelcome secret and nowhere to deliver it.

  “Lord Drumman?”

  Drumman flushed red and looked at him. But his stare, no, had nothing of fear, only estimation. “I will be your firm ally, my lord, and will fight your enemies. There are rash men in this court, made rash by outrageous tax and the promise of more of it. There is your truth, my lord. Will we be taxed again?”

  “His Majesty said nothing to me of more taxes. I have clerks who will inform me what may be needed; my wants are few, save I feed and house and horse the staff I have and see the bridges defended. If you know particular things that were done amiss, advise me. I will not have the spring planting forgotten, I will not remove both men and oxen from the villages, and I will not see hunger in the villages.” The last was Uwen’s advice, direct and simple. “The men who will stand behind the lords of Amefel will be well-fed, well-armed, and trained with their weapons; and they will know their villages are in good order.”

  “Your Grace.” Drumman’s flush had not abated.

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  He looked like a man screwing up his courage for a desperate statement. “Our several clerks can inform you what may not be in Your Grace’s accounts from the lord viceroy’s tenure and from Lord Heryn’s. And they will be true accounts.”

  “If the tax harms the villages, I’ll inform His Majesty, who knows the state of affairs here as well as I: he has no wish to impoverish the province.”

  “That Your Grace will look into the matter of the accounts is more justice than Amefel has seen in a hundred years,”

  Cuthan said. “And Bryn will arm in good order.”

  “Aye,” said Azant, and, “Aye,” from Drumman, and there seemed a great relief among the lords, down to Cook’s fine apple tarts. There was laughter, now, and good humor, but not quite free good humor: he marked that; and the conversation was on the snow and how the winter would go, in their estimation, which was that the snow might deepen early, or it might not. In the one case they might be held from establishing supply at the bridges; in the other they would not. It informed him, it was interesting, what condition the roads might be in, for his plans for the spring; yet the lords were easing their way carefully through harmless subjects, and the looks that flew from Drumman to Cuthan and from Cuthan to Drumman when the other was holding forth were not happy looks.

  They were men divided by the rebellion, he thought, and men still divided by their opinions, not all of which he had heard.

  And more than that had risen up to trouble him. He had judged the temper of the town itself as one thing—but he judged the temper of the earls as another. It was far more complex a weave, and shot through with

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  betrayals and old jealousies; and it did not give him comfort at all in what he had heard.

  Guards and even Guard captains did not drink or eat at table with their lord. But Uwen, Lusin, and Anwyll were amenable to a cup of ale in the privacy of their lord’s apartment, to lean back and talk in informality. So Cefwyn was wont to speak to Idrys in private; and so he and Uwen were accustomed to do.

  Tonight he invited Lusin and Anwyll. Lusin was not surprised; his fellows were on duty at the door, as guards always were, and he settled down with a cup and sighed with relief not to be standing. Anwyll was the most ill at ease, but accepted a cup, too.

  So they all sat by the fire with sleet rattling against the tall, velvet-shrouded windows.

  “Cuthan deserves his reputation,” Tristen said to begin with.

  “I think if Edwyll had ruled for a time before being besieged by the Marhanen, Drumman and Azant might have joined him, but Cuthan wouldn’t. And he’d have been safe. If Tasmôrden had come in, Drumman and Azant would have ruled with Edwyll; but I think Cuthan would still have survived. And if His Majesty had come and taken the town, Cuthan would have been quick to come forward as a loyal man, and Cuthan would still have survived, and become very close to whatever duke Cefwyn appointed. If Cuthan doesn’t lead, others do; but if he leads, others follow him. Am I right?”

  “If his lordship o’ Bryn had joined wi’ Edwyll,” Uwen observed, pouring himself and Anwyll a cup of ale, “we’d ha’ had a hellish ride up them streets. But thank 436 / C. J. CHERRYH

  the gods not all on ’em joined. They might ha’ hailed arrows down on us off ever’ rooftop in the town.”

  That thought had certainly been with them during the ride up from the gates. The thought that had occurred to him during dinner was no more comfortable. “Might Bryn have been forewarned? Might he have seen Ryssand’s letter, and known we were coming? And if he, then did Edwyll, all along, know whom he was fighting? Or why, outside of prudence or loyalty to the king, did the rest of the lords hold back from supporting Edwyll? Why were they not on those rooftops?”

  He had sharp looks from all three captains, and he doubted it was the first question they had had inside themselves.

  “I’d look careful at Drumman,” Uwen said, “who I think was closest to goin’ wi’ the rebels. Drumman knew what was toward, didn’t he, or the lady wouldn’t be shelterin’ there from the time Edwyll done what he done? I think the viceroy spilled what he knew to somebody like Lord Cuthan. Maybe Edwyll didn’t believe anything the viceroy said, and took the courtyard wi’ the notion to hold it and see what terms might be, but the others was again’ it. ’At’s my humble guess.”

  Drumman had sheltered Crissand’s mother. But at the last Drumman had come to the stable-court to support the king’s forces, leaving only Crissand to stand by his father once the rumor of Mauryl’s heir had run the streets. Lord Sihhë! the people had shouted—and had the whole town foreknown and awaited his coming, while Edwyll attempted to bar him from the citadel?

  Tristen listened, and asked himself had Edwyll possibly done what he had done knowingly? Had Edwyll opposed him
, or had Edwyll intended to hand over the citadel if the rumors of his appointment were true?

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  Crissand had commanded that the defense in the South Court go on, having had no such instruction, quite clearly; and held and held while he waited for his father to send word down from the apartment where he had gone…had continued the defense while even Drumman had joined the other side and while they had shouted through the gate, clearly naming who offered a cessation of hostilities and a way out without more deaths.

  But no word came from the earl his father. So Crissand held, and held, not knowing Edwyll was dead, a tragic waste of lives almost equal to what the viceroy had done.

  Tristen turned a somber look toward Uwen. “If there was an ill-working,” he said to Uwen, “it did its worst that night.”

  But the thought that Edwyll might have fought against him knowingly, when the son professed loyalty more strongly, more extravagantly than Cuthan, whom he strongly suspected. Had Crissand, the brave, the loyal man—had Crissand lied to him so deeply, so callously?

  There was one ground where truth shone through—and in pain he reached out on the instant, seeking truth, caring nothing for caution, and had an impression exactly where Crissand was. More, he suddenly had Crissand’s attention. A cup had shattered, there, not here. Crissand had leapt up, caught his balance.

  —Have you lied to me? he asked Crissand directly, while the gray space roiled with cloud as bitter cold as what spat sleet at the windows. Have you lied?

  —My lord! the thought came back, and Crissand reached wildly for substance and direction, lost, and afraid, not accustomed to this place, and snatched into it without warning. My

  lord, wherein should you say I lied? Where have I sinned