Fortress in the Eye of Time

by C. J. Cherryh

  “No,” he said. He would not give up his brother. He would fight for Efanor, if nothing else. “To Henas’amef,” he said, and saw looks exchanged, subtle consternation among his father’s guard.

  And no one moved.

  They question me, he thought in anger. And then in utter, wild overthrow of his reason: They came here on Heryn’s accusations of me. And my father is dead. They think I— I—am at fault for this.

  “Surely,” said the Commander of the Dragon Guard—Gwywyn was his name—“Surely we should send word to the capital, Your Majesty.”

  His heart was beating fit to burst. He was angry. He was shaken to his soul, and in pain. But he stilled the shout and the anger he wanted to let loose. His hands were still shaking and he tucked them in his belt to hide the tremor.

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  “Lord Commander, surely we shall do that, but we shall send to Guelemara from Henas’amef, where this attack was ordered.

  I will have answers as to Heryn Aswydd’s involvement. He is the source of the message my brother advises me brought you here. Credit my brother for my presence on the field.” He gave Efanor his due. Entirely. And aimed a stroke straight to the heart of Heryn’s false report of him. “I rode here from Henas’amef, as hard as I could. I would to the gods you’d sought me there, Lord Commander, not here.”

  “I would to the gods, too, Your Majesty.” The Lord Commander seemed both overcome by the loss and relieved in his mind by that small though significant piece of information, and went on his knees and swore him fealty and kissed his hand as he should have done earlier; but this was an honest man, Cefwyn said to himself. He had not known Gwywyn well, but this courageously late acceptance told him this was a man well worth winning to his side. He lifted the man to his feet, confirmed him as continuing among his high officers, and Gwywyn gave orders to his father’s men.

  To his men, he thought in anguish.

  There was more to do, quickly, much more,—but first the necessity to move them clear of further attack. “Cevulirn!” he said. “Men of yours to ride ahead on the road, men to lag back, by your grace, Ivanor! We’ve yet to know whether this is all they have in reserve in this cursed place. Either they swam these horses across, or we’ve a bridge decked and in use—and we’re not in strength to find it out now.”

  “Leave it to me, Your Majesty,” Cevulirn said, and gave orders more rapidly and more astutely than he had managed. He had babbled. He had given not commands, but reasons. It was not a way to order soldiers, or lords who might be tempted to give back contrary reasons and not actions. It was not his father’s way. It was not a king’s voice he had, or a king’s confidence-inspiring certainty on the field.

  But the things he ordered were being done. He tried to 374

  think what he might have omitted to do. The crown worked at the wound on his head when he clenched his jaw or when he frowned, and was its own bloody misery.

  “Efanor,” he said, and his brother came to him. Red-eyed, Efanor was, pale of face, still leaking tears, like the little boy who’d suffered tragedies enormous at the time—the little brother who’d been his constant ally in the house. On an impulse he embraced his brother, as he had rarely done since they’d become men. “Efanor, with all my heart—I would we had all come even moments sooner.” He said it consciously and publicly to remove any sting Efanor might have felt in his late arrival, and to remove any doubt Efanor had had of his acceptance. But Efanor was stiff in his embrace.

  “My lord King,” Efanor said through the tears. The face had hardened in that instant of that embrace. The voice had gone cold. It was clearly not a time to press Efanor on anything, least of all with an appeal to familial loyalties which Efanor had ample familial reason to doubt. He had loosened his hold on his heart once: he could not risk it twice, or he might break down in the witness of these men, and perhaps Efanor felt the same. He made himself numb, incapable of further grief or astonishment, in favor of calculation that told him that trouble for Ylesuin was far wider than the loss on this field. He felt sweat on his face, that began to dry and stiffen on his cheeks, and he did not let expression fight against it.

  “I will grieve for this tomorrow,” he said then. “Forgive me, Efanor.”

  “You have no tears.”

  “I shall have. Let be.”

  “Where is your Sihhë wizard, Cefwyn king?”

  He was still dazed, conscious of Efanor’s attack on his associations, and of the bitter nature of that attack—and at the same time keenly reminded of the question of Tristen’s whereabouts.

  Looking about, he saw no sign of him.

  “My lord King,” said Idrys, “we can make a litter for you, too, if you need. You need not ride.”

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  “No,” he said. “Where has Tristen gone? Where is he?”

  “Majesty,” Idrys said, “we’re searching for him. No one’s seen him since the fighting.”

  “The man saved my life, damn it—saved the lot of us! I want him found!”

  The buzz of flies hung in the air. Men coughed, or cursed or grunted in pain, bandaging their hurts. Men and horses wandered at apparent random through trampled, bloodied grass, seeking order and direction. One such whisper through the grass and accompanying jingle of bits brought him Danvy. A man had found him, Danvy showing a cut on his shoulder but nothing that would not heal, nothing that even precluded him being ridden home, and he wanted not to part from Danvy again: he patted Danvy’s neck and gathered up the reins, guilty in recovering a creature so loved, so dear to him, amid other, more grievous losses to the realm.

  A man helped him into the saddle. Other men were mounting up. Their dead were too many to take with them, the danger in the area too great to detach more than a squad of Cevulirn’s cavalry from their main body to stand watch over them against village looters. He had heard Idrys give necessary orders for the removal of weapons from the dead, so as not to meet them coming back in hostile hands—and to search for clues of allegiance among the fallen enemy.

  But that was Idrys’ concern and Idrys was giving all the orders for those that stayed: Cevulirn and Efanor were ahorse. Still he saw no sign of Tristen, and could not ask again, petulantly, like a child: Idrys was doing all he could to be sure of the area, and who was in it, and if Tristen and Uwen were among the fallen or the wounded, the men staying behind would advise him and do more than he could do.

  The Crown meanwhile had other obligations too urgent, among them to secure his own safety, and Efanor’s, as the only two Marhanen, and them without issue. “Shall we move?”

  Efanor asked him, prompting him to issue orders which no one but he could give, and numbly he said, “Let’s be on our way.”

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  So the King’s litter began to move. The elements of Cevulirn’s men and the Guelen guard sorted themselves into order, the King’s Dragon Guard with their tattered red standards, the men of the Prince’s Guard, who now—he realized with faint shock—must attach to Efanor as heir to the throne (but not Idrys, he swore to himself: Efanor should never inherit Idrys). The two red-coated Guard units came first, with the gray and white contingents of Toj Embrel and Ivanor at large riding under their own banners and under their own lord.

  At some length Idrys overtook him, and rode beside him, apart from Efanor, who rode with Gwywyn.

  “You are not fit to ride,” Idrys grumbled. Idrys’ face, whitened by the road dust, was a mask. “You should have taken the litter.

  The bleeding is worse.”

  “Where were you?” Cefwyn snapped. His leg hurt him, now, swelling against the bandage, muscles stretched by sitting the saddle.

  “Heryn almost eluded us. He led me a chase. We did overtake him. And he dispatched another messenger. Heryn’s man babbled treason—and will say more.”

  It was news that flooded strength into him. Vindication. Proof, for his father’s men. For all the realm besides. He drew a deep breath. The hooves scuffed deadly slow in what had become a warm day, belying the clo
uds in the west. The flies pursued them. The band about his head seemed a malicious and burning fire.

  “He will believe me,” he said, thinking of Efanor. “My brother will believe me now.”

  “My lord?” Idrys asked.

  But he chose not to answer. He had said too much, in that, even to Idrys.

  They came up behind a pair of horsemen on the road, riding ahead of them so slowly that even at their pace they were gradually overtaking them. Cefwyn watched them from his vantage at the head of the column, and knew who they were, 377

  long before the interval closed enough for anyone to see the red color of the mare, and the black of her rider, and the stocky figure of the man on the bay.

  “Your Majesty.” It was Gwywyn. “Shall we ride forward and find them out?”

  “No,” he said, “I know who they are. Let be.” So the Lord Commander fell silent riding on one side of him with Efanor, and Cevulirn arrived beside Idrys on the other, to hear the same.

  They drew steadily nearer.

  “Majesty,” his father’s Lord Commander whispered, justifiably apprehensive, for there was indeed an eeriness about the pair, who had never looked to know what rode behind, as if a king’s funeral cortège and the procession of his successor were nothing remotely of interest to them.

  The stocky man looked back finally. The other did not, but rode slumped in the saddle, dark head bowed.

  He is hurt, Cefwyn thought in anguish, and yet—and yet—in the trick of the setting sun and the dust the two horses raised in the trampled roadway, it was as if two ghosts rode before them, beings not of this time or place, nor accessible to them.

  Not Elfwyn, he thought. Whatever soul Mauryl had called—it was surely not Elfwyn’s unwarlike soul that had ridden to save their company. It was not the last Sihhë king whose hand and arm and body had found such warlike skills as drove armored enemies in panicked retreat.

  Sihhë! their attackers had cried, falling back in consternation.

  He would never forget that moment, that the enemy about to pour over him had given way for fear of two men, one of them having ridden out unarmed but for a dagger.

  Tristen rode loosely now, as if sorely hurt, as if he expected no help, Cefwyn thought, and would rebuff what aid might be offered him. But gingerly he moved his horse forward, while the main column kept the pace it could best maintain.

  He rode alongside, met Uwen’s anguished face…saw Tristen’s profile in a curtain of dark hair. Tristen’s head was bowed against his breast, as if only instinct kept him in the 378

  saddle. His face was spattered with blood like his hands, and the black velvet was gashed, showing bright mail underneath.

  Blood had dried on the velvet, and on the mane and neck and feet of the red mare. Tristen’s hands did not hold the reins. They clenched a naked sword, on which sunset glinted faint fire, and blood sealed his hands to it, hilt and blade across the saddlebow.

  “Tristen,” Cefwyn said. “Tristen.”

  The dark head lifted. The pale eyes behind that blood-spattered mask were unbarriered and innocent as ever as they turned to him.

  Cefwyn shuddered. He had expected some dread change, and there was none.

  “This, too, I know,” Tristen said distantly, and raised the bloody sword by the hilt in one hand. He let it down, then. And without any expression on his face, without any contraction or passion in the features, tears welled up and spilled down his face.

  “You saved my life, Tristen.”

  Tristen nodded, still without expression, still with that terrible clarity in the eyes, fine hands both clenched upon the sword.

  “My father is dead,” Cefwyn said, and meant to say in consequence of that—that he was King. But suddenly the dam that had been holding his own tears burst when he said it, as if with his saying the words, it all became real. He wiped at his face, and the tears dried in the dusty wind, as he became aware of the witnesses closing up around him.

  “Are you hurt?” Cefwyn asked.

  “No,” the answer came, faint and detached. Tristen’s eyes closed as if in pain, and remained so for several moments.

  “Uwen, care for him.”

  “Your Highness,” the soldier whispered, and fear was in his eyes as he corrected himself. “M’lord King.”

  Riders had come up behind him. Only the leaders had overtaken him: the column was falling behind them. The pace they had taken was a hardship on the wounded.

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  “My lord,” said Idrys’ cold voice as he reined back with Efanor and Cevulirn. “The Sihhë should not precede you, not in this column, not into the town. It will not be understood. You have fostered this thing. Now it grows. Better it should vanish. Kings need to allies such as he is. Send him to some quiet retreat where he will be safe, and you will be.”

  “He was by me,” Cefwyn replied bitterly. “He rode between me and the assassins. He almost saved my father. Where were you?”

  “Serving Your Majesty, not well, perhaps. Better I had left Heryn to others. I deeply regret it.—But, all the same, he should not precede you. For all our sakes, my lord King.”

  It was truth. It was essential, even for Tristen’s future safety.

  He surrendered, still angry at himself, at Idrys, at fate or the gods or his father for his dying act: he was not sure. “See to it.”

  Idrys rode forward. Cefwyn watched as Idrys spoke briefly to Uwen, and immediately after the pair went to the side of the road and let the column pass.

  He could not see Uwen and Tristen, then. He must trust that they would come in safely, that Uwen’s good sense would fend for them both, however far back they had been pushed by the succeeding ranks, and that Tristen would find his way home with the rest of them, when of all persons he most wanted to know was safe, it was Tristen. He was King. And he could not protect the things he most wanted safe.

  A wind began to blow at their backs, a chill wind out of the north, kicking up dust in clouds, flattening the grass beside the road and making the broad Marhanen banners crack and buck at their standards, so that the standard-bearers fought to hold them.

  Idrys dropped back into place. He said nothing. Efanor was on the other side.

  They spoke no words. The journey now did not require them.

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  The sun was rising as they came into Henas’amef, with the gate bell tolling, and the Zeide bell picking up the note as they rode the cobbled streets.

  A Marhanen king, Cefwyn thought, seeing the townsfolk gathered. A Marhanen king is visiting this town for the first time since the massacre of the Sihhë.

  Now the Marhanens bleed.

  He had sent Idrys ahead, to deliver word up to the Zeide.

  But, perhaps uninformed, the townsfolk had run out to gawk and cheer as the column came in with banners flying and numerous strangers to the town. The crowd was excited, then struck silent and sober at the sight of wounds; they muttered together at the King’s banners; and as the cortège passed, somewhere a voice cried out, “The King is dead!” and the cry went through the town, with an undertone of fear—well it might be fear, if the province were held to blame.

  And hard upon that, “Sihhë!” went rippling through all the rumors, beneath the tolling of the bells, until he knew that Tristen had likewise come within the gates—knew that it was more than Tristen’s presence that stirred the people. A Marhanen King was dead and a living Sihhë had ridden in from battle. To them it might be omen, even verging on prophecy.

  The Zeide gates up the hill gaped for them; the grim skulls looked down victorious from the south gate, and the Zeide’s many roofs behind that arch were a mass of shadow against a pearl-colored sky. “I will show you justice here,” Cefwyn said to Efanor as they came beneath the deathly gate. “I promise you an answer for the treachery responsible for this.”

  Efanor did not look at him, nor he at his brother. They preserved funereal decorum as the procession labored its way up and around the front of the Zeide, to the east façade and th
e holy and orthodox Quinalt shrine where—he had already given orders to Idrys—the body would lie in state within the Zeide’s walls.

  “Promise me another answer,” Efanor said finally, when 381

  they had come clear of bystanders, in the cobbled courtyard,

  “an answer for the questions that brought our father here.”

  Now, now the bitterness came out. And the suspicion.

  “Was it not enough, what you saw, Efanor? They were lies that Heryn used to lay a trap for you—playing on our family’s cursed suspicions. There was nothing true in anything Heryn reported. Our own distrust was his ally, Efanor. Do not go on distrusting me.”

  “I saw brigands without a crest. I do not know why our father is dead. But you need not work over-hard to please me, brother.

  I am obliged now to be pleased at whatever you do.”

  It was the bravest, most defiant speech he had ever heard from Efanor as a man. It gave him as thorough a respect for his younger brother’s courage as he had for Lord Gwywyn’s. And it grated on his raw sensibilities.

  “Stay by me, Efanor. I beg you. I am asking you. Courage is well enough, but face our enemies with it. Not me. We swore not to be divided. We swore Father should never do it.”

  Silence.

  “Efanor.”

  “I would not wish,” Efanor said coldly, “ever to leave your side, brother. Never fear I shall.”

  Torches were lit in front of the Quinalt shrine. Fire whipped wildly in the dawn. The bier was loosed from the horses, a loose, soldierly thing of spears and belts and cloaks. Men took it up and bore it toward the doors. A priest confronted them, as ritual demanded he do. Wind whipped at his robes, rocking him in his hooded and faceless decorum.

  “The King is dead,” Cefwyn said, disturbing the thump and flutter of banners and fire. “He perished by assassins on the road to this town. Have it proclaimed. Make prayers for his soul.”