Fortress in the Eye of Time

by C. J. Cherryh

  He took the cursed stick in hand, ordered the door guard as he passed to go back and fetch his cloak, and started down the hall without it: he declined to descend the stairs carrying its weight or having it swirling across his view of the steps when his footing was unsure as it was. The one guard hovered while he descended, and the Olmern lad, Denyn Kei’s-son, who had gone back to fetch his cloak, overtook him before he reached the bottom, offering it to him as he went.

  “I’ll put it on outside,” he said curtly to Denyn, and to the guard who had dogged him down the steps as if he could have rescued him from behind in a fall: “Don’t flutter ’round me, damn it. If you’d be of use, get in front.” He thought about descending the outside steps without the stick, but he considered the spectacle and, worse, the omen of the King of Ylesuin tumbling down them onto the courtyard, and let prudence rule.

  The whole descent took long enough that a horse was saddled and ready for him at the bottom—not Danvy: Danvy was down in pasture, recuperating from his cuts and bruises, and Haman’s chief assistant had given him that damned blaze-faced, showy black Efanor had ridden, when they had saddled everything in the stable to remount Efanor and his company: Synanna,—who was a good horse in most points, but tall; and facing that climb to the stirrup, in which he had to use the help of the guard, he thanked the gods it was his right, not his left, leg wounded.

  He handed his stick down to the groom with an order to keep it for him, and took the cloak the guard handed up, 542

  steadying Synanna’s foolery with his feet and his knees: his right leg hurt with the pains of hell as he slung the cloak about him and used his knee to steady Synanna from a compensatory shift sideways.

  More, the horse was sore, having been ridden that breakneck course for Emwy the last time out of the stable. Consequently he had his ears back and was going to take every chance to have things his way on this outing. The horse was looking for excuses as he rode to the gate with five of the guard clattering after—and the King’s standard-bearer riding to catch up, still unfurling the King’s red banner, at which Synanna threw his head and acted the thorough fool under the gate arch.

  Another horseman overtook them there and fell in beside him: Idrys, on black Drugyn, this time having heard the summons.

  The standard-bearer and the bearer of Idrys’ personal banner made it to their position in the same general flurry of riders.

  “I had the report,” Idrys said.

  “Gods know what this regards,” he said. They passed through the town streets and on the cobbles Synanna wanted to drop into his worst gait, which took work to prevent; it hurt, and stopping it hurt, and he was in far less pleasant a mood as he reached the lower town and saw the town gate standing wide—to welcome the Elwynim, one supposed. He was not thoroughly gracious as first Cevulirn and a small number of riders, with the White Horse standard and pennons and all, rode up and joined them at that open gate.

  Then Umanon and three of his lieutenants arrived, making a collection of banners enough to make a brave show for a King whose wounded leg and whose temper could not stand much more of Synanna’s jolting trot.

  But his two loyal lords might have shut the gates and met the damned Elwynim where they could not get a good look inside or a head count on all the camps down that lane.

  “Pass the word to all the watches,” he said to the gate-guards.

  “No foreign banner and no foreign courier is to pass 543

  this gate until an officer of the Dragon Guard comes down himself and takes charge of them. Do you hear that?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” came the answer; “Yes, Your Majesty,”

  came in awestruck tones at his back as he rode out westward with his growing company.

  And there on the muddy road, plain as a horse in a henyard, were the Elwynim, with the banners of three earls behind the black and white and gold Tower banner of the Regent of Elwynor.

  And with them, the pennons of six squads of the Ivanim light horse.

  That was much better; Cevulirn’s men were escorting the visitors in. There was Uwen Lewen’s-son, up at the fore. And best of all, Tristen, thank the blessed gods: he had no idea how all three elements had gotten together, but he was both vastly relieved and disquieted anew, and for the same reason.

  Synanna went into his bone-jarring trot in his momentary lapse. He corrected it, and in the abating of pain, and past the cracking satin of his own red banner, saw a black-haired woman in a mail shirt and a billow of mud-spattered blue skirt that blew back on white linen—a woman, his startled gaze informed him, who rode preceded only by the Regent’s standard-bearer, ahead of the other banners; more, the Regent’s crown flashed in that mass of dark hair—and he knew that hair, that heart-shaped face that had resided for months in a keepsake chest in his bedchamber.

  “The Regent’s daughter, in the flesh,” Idrys said, coldest reason. “No sign of the lord Regent. And with Ynefel. What have we knocking on our gates, m’lord King?”

  “I’ll wait to see,” he muttered, while his thoughts were flitting wildly to Tristen’s safety, bridges spanning the Lenúalim, the missing messenger, the whereabouts of the lord Regent Uleman, the young lady’s distractingly pretty and apparently unconscious display— and her reasons for approaching the gates of Henas’amef.

  To pursue a royal marriage by passage of arms? He did not think it likely. But she was certainly far deeper into Amefel 544

  than any lordly delegation reasonably ought to come without his leave. It was an extravagant challenge of his good nature, which the Elwynim might guess was not good at all at the moment.

  And Tristen showed up in this business?

  Trust Tristen’s naïve confidence. And damn Idrys if he dared remind him now he had predicted Tristen’s blithe honesty could be his bane someday.

  Their two parties reached a distance at which their banner-bearers mutually stopped for protocols, and he rode up even with his banner, with Idrys riding beside him and Cevulirn and Umanon and their standard-bearers staying behind him. The young woman similarly advanced to the Regent’s standard, and one man rode to her side.

  “We’ve come to speak with the King,” that man called out.

  “Stay back,” he said to Idrys, and raised the wager by riding forward of Idrys. Only his banner-bearer advanced with him.

  There was consternation on the opposing man’s part, a frown on the lady’s face as her captain put out a hand, clearly wishing her to make no reciprocal advance. But the young woman rode forward alone, and the Regent’s standard-bearer advanced with her.

  “I am King Cefwyn,” he said as she stopped her horse within a lance’s length of him. The portrait-painter had not lied, never mind the mud and the mail coat: the image that had haunted his more pensive evenings was facing him in life, a face pale and wind-stung and afraid, and a resolve not giving backward a step.

  “The lord of Ynefel has made himself our hostage,” she said,

  “against your grant of safe conduct for me and my men back across the border.”

  “I shall certainly grant that. I would be obliged, however, if you returned me the lord of Ynefel and accepted my simple word to that effect, gracious lady. Am I correct? Do I recognize you, or have you a sister?”

  “I am the Regent.” The voice quavered slightly. “My father 545

  is dead, last evening, Your Majesty. I have come to ask your forbearance for our presence in your lands, and your permission to fortify a camp in your territory.”

  So Emuin was right. It was a sad event for the lady to report, a grief more recent than his own. It was, moreover, a very precise military term, doubtless her advisors’ idea, which she had been told to ask in its precise wording. He wondered if she understood it.

  “To fortify a camp,” he echoed. His view of blowing skirts and white, mud-spattered linen was competing with the consideration of Elwynim in view of his very vulnerable town. “I give you my sincere condolences, and ask why fortified, Your Most Honorable Grace.”r />
  “I understand that Elwynim crossed the river against your father the King up in Emwy district.”

  “Yes,” he said, not seeing how this answered his question.

  “They did. In collusion with the Aswyddim. We recovered shields from that field, and wounded now dead, three of them of Lower Saissonnd.”

  “Caswyddian,” she declared without hesitation. “Lord Caswyddian of Saissonnd. A rebel against my father—a rival of Aséyneddin.”

  He had heard rumors, he knew that name and had marked it down as a man who would pay in Heryn’s fashion, did he turn out to have been on that field at Emwy, or to have known of it—and did he ever fall into his hands; but he did not wish to tell her what he had heard or how much he knew. “So you bring Elwynor’s troubles onto Amefin soil, and want to fortify a camp, making us, I suppose, your allies of a sort, certainly as Aséyneddin will see it. That could cause us trouble. And, forgive my suspicion, Your Grace, but of how many men do you propose to make this camp?”

  “These men—” There was the least tremor in the lady’s chin, the first thorough fracture in her composure. “—these fifteen men, sir. Thirty-three were camped with my father. A band we think was Caswyddian’s attacked us last night and half my men stayed to guard our retreat, so that I might

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  remain alive to make this request—in which regard, I would ask you, if you would, if you would be so gracious, should they chance into your hands—place them under the same safe conduct.”

  That last seemed both sincere and from a lady not used to asking abject favors of strangers.

  “I shall,” he said, “most gladly, and I shall advise my searchers to be careful. I must, however, advise you, Your Grace, that fifteen men hardly constitute a fortified camp, certainly none to strike fear into your enemies.”

  “Fifteen men is what I have, Your Majesty. But if we could make that camp as a secure point, and send into Elwynor—”

  “You can gain more men for your camp?”

  “I am confident, sir.”

  Confident, he believed not in the least. But it was a sensible plan, and a far better one than he had expected of a young woman in such a desperate situation. Whether or not it was her idea, she presented it with authority, used the right words—and did know why the camp should be fortified. It was the Sihhë

  entrenchment, plain and simple: dig deep and hold on, then spread out.

  More, she had not once appealed him in terms of the marriage proposal lying just uphill in his bedchamber, not so much as acknowledged it existed, nor asked for troops, nor requested alliance with Ylesuin. The mischief the artist had put into the eyes was all iron and fire today—gray, was the answer to what the artist had made ambiguous.

  They were still ambiguous. Gray as morning mist. Gray as new iron. The mouth had dimples at the corners, but they were part of the set of a determined jaw, which he would like to see in that other expression—gods, he knew this face. He had lived with this face. He was fascinated out of his good sense—so fascinated he had imagined beyond her proposed camp and her proposed recruitment of an unspecified number of Elwynim onto his side of the river to launch a war from his territory against her enemies—and not asking the number of men this Caswyddian and gods-knew-who-else might have

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  across the river up there, and where his post rider might have disappeared to.

  He needed to ask Tristen what he had seen. He needed to talk to the Ivanim captain about how what he had seen agreed with what the lady now Regent was saying. His leg was hurting and he was distracted by Synanna’s restlessness.

  But it was toward late afternoon, the lady herself was the potential source of a great deal he wanted to know about the intentions of Elwynor, and he could hardly ask the Regent of Elwynor to camp in the orchard next the lord of Lanfarnesse, in the mud and the midst of apple-harvest, with—he could see—no tents and a couple of horses with very scant baggage.

  “Your Grace,” he said, “I shall consider your proposition. May I ask an indelicate question? Are you aware of a proposal and a medallion that your father sent to me?”

  Her cold-stung cheeks were already blushed. The pink reached the rest of her face, and the frown stayed. “Since our messengers did not return to us, Your Majesty, and since you mention it, I can only surmise it did reach you, and that your silence spoke for you.”

  “The messenger did not return to you.”

  “No, sir. As others did not. Do you say this was not to your knowledge? That there are no Elwynim heads above your gates?”

  Heryn, he thought, and damned him to very hell. “Lady, on those terms your courage in dealing with me is amazing. Will you marry me?”

  The color fled. The lips parted—and clamped tight. “Sir.”

  “Will you marry me?”

  “You are mocking me.”

  “On my most solemn oath, Lady Regent. I by no means mock you. Your state cannot be more desperate. On the other hand, the bloody Marhanen does have troops at his disposal and wishes to assure peace on this frontier. What terms would you wish?”

  The lips had relaxed, as if she were about to speak one word, and then another, and finally, on a deep breath: “I 548

  would agree to nothing, Your Majesty, without the advice of my own lords. They have given up their safety and risked their families to come here.”

  “Their advice, but not their consent?”

  “Majesty, I am in my own right Regent of Elwynor. And if you ask my terms, sir, they are that I be Regent of Elwynor, in my own right, and not subject to any authority of yours.”

  “You have the most extravagant eyes.”

  The eyes in question widened and sparked fire. “I am not to be mocked, sir.”

  “I am a King more absolute, and can agree without my advisers, who will damn me to hell if I take such terms from you.”

  “I shall take my safe conduct and ride to the border!”

  “I said I agreed.”

  The remarkable eyes blinked. Twice.

  Cefwyn asked: “Did you talk to the lord of Ynefel? Do you find him pleasant, agreeable—somewhat mad?”

  “You are mocking me, now.”

  “I mock myself, dear lady; I see war inevitable if your rebels have their way, and wizardry is already with us. Things will not be for us what they were for our fathers. Mauryl Gestaurien is dead, my friend yonder is beyond all doubt Sihhë, and possibly your King—some do think so—who may be bent on having his kingdom, if he does not tomorrow take a fancy to some other pursuit.”

  She took a large breath. “Sir! I—”

  “But should you find yourself in that event without a realm to rule, I shall be glad to reconsider our pact of separate rule.”

  “You are the most outrageous man I ever met!”

  “Since you’ve met Tristen, I take that for a sweeping statement.—Do you accept?”

  “You are mad, sir!”

  “And?” He had almost seen the dimples. The look was in her eyes.

  “I—shall consider it, with my advisers.”

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  “Your name is Ninévrisë. Am I right?”

  She stared, in deep offense. Then she laughed. “You know that!”

  “One should always be sure.—In the meantime, while you’re considering—” He left all banter, and turned completely serious.

  “Will you and your advisers be my honored guests? I swear to your safety.”

  Her anxious glance traveled to the heights and back again. “I put you on your honor, sir.” She gathered up the reins, began to turn her horse. And looked back. “—Cefwyn. Is that your name?”

  With which she rode briskly back to her men.

  He shut his mouth, and rode back to his—to Idrys, in the main, but Umanon and Cevulirn were moving in.

  “I’m going to marry her,” he said.

  “My lord is not serious,” Idrys said.

  “Tristen’s upstairs room for the lady—Tristen’s belongings are all downstairs
, are they not? The adjacent quarters for the lords, the men disposed with them or elsewhere at their wish.

  Send ahead of us and set reliable servants to work on the details.

  The betrothal within a day or two, I swear to you.”

  “My lord King,” Idrys began, and, in the presence of witnesses, fell prudently quiet.

  “Oh, I’ve thought about it, Idrys. I have most seriously thought about it. The woman demands sole title to the Regency of Elwynor. I have more imminent concerns.” He cast a look at Umanon’s frowning face—and Cevulirn’s, but Cevulirn showed no more expression than usual. “I am not mad, sirs. This lady is an ally who has importunate suitors raiding our territory to have the better of each other. That will stop. I had far rather, if I must go to war, go to war to settle a permanent peace on this border, and if a marriage is the price of that peace, I shall.”

  “They are Elwynim!” Umanon said.

  “Patently. That is their use, Your Grace. A pious Quinalt lady will not get me a peaceful border. This lady will.”

  Cevulirn had never batted an eye. As for Umanon, he knew 550

  how to reason with him: make it a plot, a scheme, a stratagem.

  Then Umanon understood.

  He had thought, however, that shadow in the wind and sound of a horse moving quietly up beside him was Idrys’ standard-bearer. It was a different horse. It was Tristen on him, Tristen unshaven, mud-flecked and shadow-eyed.

  “Gods,” Cefwyn said. “You startled me.”

  “You will marry her,” Tristen echoed, as if assuring himself of what he had heard. Tristen’s eyes were unwontedly opaque to him. Guarded. Gray as the lady’s: he had never thought it until that instant, and a chill went with that awareness.

  “I shall indeed marry her.—Ride with me. Tell me later what happened.” Whatever Tristen had been up to, he did not think it a story for Umanon’s sensitive ears and gossip-prone mouth.

  He wanted nothing of any of Tristen’s doings or the lady’s until he had Tristen in private. “Are our Elwynim going to ride with us, or not?”