Fortress of Owls

by C. J. Cherryh

  Had he not gone alone across the field at Emwy? Had he not endangered all those trying to protect him?

  There seemed a sober lesson in that, and he thought that Emuin might have delivered that lesson to him without a word, only by his absence. It was with a far quieter tread that he came up on the doors where his other guards waited, Aren and Tawwys, with the Ivanim escort…and the presence of the latter advised him that Cevulirn had not left, for which he was humbly grateful.

  “I need guards against assassins,” he said to Uwen as they walked into the foyer. “I think the Elwynim will try, at least. I fear more for my friends. For you. Be on your guard.”

  “Wi’ Tasmôrden in charge over there,” Uwen said, “I expect’em, aye, before all’s done; and now ye take in that light-fingered boy, which worries me for other reasons. He’ll gossip all to Ness, an’, m’lord, ye ha’ rumors enow.”

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  It was true. And it was worth considering.

  Cevulirn sat, done with his supper, a cup of wine in hand, his feet before the fire…Tassand’s arranging, certainly: Cevulirn’s head was bowed, and he looked tired; but Cevulirn looked up with a level and completely wary stare as Tristen arrived at the fireside.

  “It’s settled,” he said to Cevulirn, and sat down in the matching chair, waving Uwen and also Lusin on to the remnant of their supper. “Thank you for waiting.”

  “Will my lord eat?” Tassand asked, quietly at his elbow.

  “I’ve had enough,” he said, in every effort to answer his staff kindly; and deftly as a whisper of soles on the floor Tassand set a cup of wine in his hand and a plate of sweet cakes on the small table within carry of his hand. “Thank you, Tassand.”

  “My lord.” Tassand absented himself then. They held the fireside to themselves, and still Cevulirn asked no questions, but curiosity…that was in the air.

  “It was a boy I’d been looking for,” Tristen said.

  “Ah.”

  “A boy with the gift. As you have,” he said to Cevulirn, chasing a small gray thought into the tangle of intentions.

  Cevulirn was one like Paisi, one he was reluctant to give up, a man essential also to Cefwyn’s safety.

  And Cevulirn glanced down, a momentary veiling of that gray stare, and that was as much truth as needed be between them. There was no need to press him. Cevulirn knew why he was here, knew his own value, at least that he had been moved enough to act. Crissand, also gifted, had felt ill at ease in the ride, and taken a small army for an escort. The boy Paisi might deny he had anything but luck after being taken up by the guard, but all these things had come on one day: the winds were blowing as they would and the coinci 140 / C. J. CHERRYH

  dences of their meeting diminished to none.

  And tonight, when his heart searched the gray space and the land around him, he knew unfinished tasks, unanswered questions…all these things, and knew the evening had provided him more essential pieces than he had had in the morning, even in his visit to stir Emuin forth from his tower. He knew all the gaps in the wards, both of the Zeide and of Henas’amef; and such faults in his defense as he could shore up, he had repaired.

  But he felt uneasy in Auld Syes’ appearance; uneasy in the overthrow of the oak; uneasy in the fact that he lacked officers and lords fit to maintain order while he fared out; uneasy that he lacked an army at his disposal when the border was a long, wooded, unobserved river between his fields and Elwynor, and he had never so much as seen those lands.

  “Will you stay with me?” he asked Cevulirn. “Or must you ride south again?”

  “I have affairs to set in order in my own land,” Cevulirn said,

  “and a muster to raise, considering the spring: this in the chance His Majesty will call me.”

  The tainted south, Cefwyn had said. That phrase would not leave Tristen’s thinking: wrong, wrong, wrong, it was, and yet there was Cefwyn’s reasoning.

  “And if he will not, and will not call me,” Tristen said, “yet the border is my border; and I will not permit Elwynim to fight on Amefin soil. Cefwyn says the north must win the war; but I say the south mustn’t lose it.”

  “Well said; very well said; and if Your Grace wished me to winter here, and my men and horses under canvas, here or at the border, that we might do, if you deem it needful…or even convenient…so the south should not lose the war.”

  Perhaps it was that hint of wizard-gift he had felt in FORTRESS OF OWLS / 141

  Cevulirn, that among the lords of the south and north, he had always felt greatest affinity for this lean gray man.

  “Tasmôrden in besieging Ilefínian,” Tristen said, “promised the Amefin aid if they would rebel. But that’s failed. Now I have the province, and I only wish Cefwyn would let us cross to Ilefínian.”

  “So I urged on His Majesty and His Majesty’s Commander,”

  Cevulirn said.

  “I begged Cefwyn send the both of us, but he still said the attack must come from the north.”

  “For fear of Ryssand and Murandys.” Tristen shook his head.

  “And yet he relies on them.”

  “He is Guelen,” Cevulirn said. “He has that firm idea that heavy horse and pikemen are the secure heart of his army. He and I have argued that point long and hard. But that’s what he says to hide the truth of his reasons…the real reason he went home this summer. He had dissent within the Guelens.

  He saw danger in Murandys, danger in Ryssand’s ambition, and most of all in Ryssand’s influence with the Quinalt. If we had driven north to Ilefínian this summer, if we had set Her Grace on the throne and all had gone as smoothly as we could wish— he would have had to come home to Guelemara and present them an alliance with Elwynor which Ryssand would have opposed. And that would have stirred the north to join Ryssand, and Nelefreissan, Isin, Murandys for a certainty…the kingdom would have split. He faced them to fight for the Elwynim treaty and his marriage on level ground, and by all evidences, he’s won over most of the lords. Only when Ryssand assailed Her Grace’s honor, then he would have drawn and broken with Ryssand and Murandys, to the ruin of all the kingdom if they took up arms. Gods help the realm—and thank the gods for the letter you sent him. There we have our hope of

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  being called and Ryssand being sent home. But we must be ready…ready to move so quickly the north can muster no objection.”

  “To stand under arms this winter? Cefwyn forbade us because he had to forbid us. But might not lords come here to hold a council—with very large escorts? We border Elwynor. Crissand thought it necessary to have a large escort. Might not others?”

  “Lord of Amefel, you’ve grown very devious.”

  The stillness had become so great that the crackle of the fire was a third voice. From Uwen and Lusin, somewhat removed, came not a sound.

  “What we did this summer, we could do again,” Tristen said.

  “Could we not? Keep the signal fires ready, as we did at Lewenbrook, have all preparation made, so if Tasmôrden thinks of coming this way he daren’t. Do we feast at Midwinter? Have I heard that right? Might I invite my friends to supper? Is that the way lords conceal their intentions?

  “With polite pretenses, none of which anyone of sense believes, and which no one dares question to one’s face?”

  It was what he had seen at Guelemara, and it was heart and soul of the pretenses he had seen Cefwyn and Ryssand make over and over again. The practical use of it had Unfolded like a new word, sure as a well-balanced blade.

  “But if we have all those escorts sitting here,” Tristen said,

  “and if we have an army, won’t the northern lords know then we’re loyal to Cefwyn? And might not Lord Umanon come to us, rather than to the rest of the Guelens? And if he comes, wouldn’t Llymaryn and Marisel listen to Cefwyn rather than Ryssand? And if Tasmôrden had to worry what we intended, might he divide his attention between us and Cefwyn? And might not the Elwynim who support Her Grace take heart?”


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  Again that small silence. “Your Grace,” Cevulirn said, “you are no fool.”

  “Emuin says I am. So does Idrys. I was a fool only an hour ago, and made Emuin angry with me. But I know that Corswyndam and Prichwarrin will lie and do everything to their own benefit and none of Cefwyn’s, and if Cefwyn has only them to rely on, they’ll make demands at every moment Cefwyn needs something from them.”

  “That’s true.”

  “So let him have us. Cefwyn says he can’t muster the south for fear of offending the north. But the north doesn’t approve of us whether we muster or not. We’ve marched together. We know our order in camp. We know all those things. We don’t have to argue the way the northerners argue. We can just set up a camp, and this spring, when Cefwyn moves, we move across the river, set our camp on the far shore, and let Tasmôrden make what he will of it. Cefwyn forbade us to win the war. But he set me here to guard the border. I’ll guard it—from Tasmôrden’s side of the river.”

  “You have Ivanor with you,” Cevulirn said with the fire shining in his eyes. “Olmern, Lanfarnesse…all will come.”

  “Will Imor, do you think?” Lord Umanon had always stood off from the others, in his brief experience, and detested the newly made lord of Olmern. “I’m least sure of him; but it seems he’s more one of us than he is fond of Murandys. And if we had him with us, we’d have the entire middle of Ylesuin listening to him.”

  “He detests Murandys. That’s certain. Let me send letters. If I summon them in my name, it won’t forewarn the north.

  Nothing unusual at all in my messengers going back and forth…gods know the northern lords would like to know what we say to one another,

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  but they’ll imagine far too much if you sent the messages.

  —Your health, Amefel.” Cevulirn lifted his cup and drank deep, here among the brazen dragons and green draperies that had been the scene of fatality with such cups. “Your long rule…Lord Sihhë, lord of Amefel and Althalen.”

  “Never say so.” He felt heat touch his face, ill at ease with Cevulirn’s fey and talkative mood. “The people do. I discourage it.”

  “You are what you are. And fortunate for His Majesty that you’ve been a faithful friend. I don’t stand in your path, nor wish to.”

  “Emuin says the like, and I wish he would. I need his advice.”

  “I bestow mine. His Majesty is in dire danger, and the danger isn’t at all that you’re Sihhë, lord of Amefel. The danger isn’t even that our king is Guelen and wed to an Elwynim. The danger is that Selwyn Marhanen established his throne on his blackguardly betrayal of a trusting lord, and Ináreddrin Marhanen established his throne on the unsatisfied ambitions of his father’s rivals, both of them playing one lord against the other and one son against the other all for fear of assassination…exactly what happened to Ináreddrin, as it turned out; but a man makes his fate, and so do kings.”

  “What do you say?”

  “That Cefwyn’s throne, mark you, is set on a stone Ryssand demanded of him…and never was there a greater mistake than granting that and granting Ryssand any power. Expediency, expediency, expediency, grant this, grant that, all in the name of this marriage, this war, and all on the excuse of dire threat from Tasmôrden, who has only become a threat worth the name at all because Cefwyn would not cross the river immediately after Lewenbrook and take the

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  Elwynim capital for Her Grace. Now, yes, Tasmôrden has slaughtered his rivals, increased his army, and will slaughter Her Grace’s partisans such as exist this winter when the capital falls. Next spring, we will slaughter his, as last summer, As

  éyneddin and before him, Caswyddian, slaughtered all who opposed him. Another year of this and there’ll be no man alive in Elwynor but starving peasantry and liars and weather-cocks who swing to every wind that blows…no fit population for greatness, that. There, Amefel. I’m not reputed a man of many words, and I’ve just spent my entire store, the distilled opinion of six months in His Majesty’s close company.”

  “He does regard your opinion.”

  “Regard it he may. But His Majesty has had my good advice, Idrys’ good advice, Her Grace’s good advice, and your good advice, and ignored it for bad, all to please Corswyndam of Ryssand, who had a kinglike power in the last reign and to no one’s wonder is our monarch’s rival for authority in this one.

  There is the man who will yet do us greater harm than Tasmôrden, mark me. His Majesty believes he may subdue that man by wit, not force, and I say a stout fence is the only solution to an ass that will not keep its pasture.”

  He had heard the truth. Everything he had himself observed said that Cevulirn told the matter fairly, and reached some conclusion of his own.

  “What does a good lord do with the like of Ryssand, sir?”

  “To whom is it necessary that a lord be good, Amefel?”

  “To his people, sir.”

  “So say I. And Cefwyn knows the answer. He only hopes the answer to Ryssand’s defiance will be something different if he can be more clever tomorrow. But the plain truth is, his good and loyal subjects should not be subject 146 / C. J. CHERRYH

  to Corswyndam’s spite today. The king has his bride and his treaty now. He has no more leisure to temporize with a self-seeking baron, and his people have none for him to do so.”

  Cevulirn set down an empty cup. “I’m well content to have Ryssand for an enemy. I prefer that man facing me, not at my back, for my people’s sake as well as my own. Would Cefwyn would come to his senses.”

  “I understand everything you say, sir,” Tristen said. “And I agree.”

  “So share a second cup, and I’ll go tamely to my bed, having committed treason enough for an evening. I’ll stay with you the few more days, go home to set things in order, and by Midwinter…ride back here again, with all necessary force if you aren’t in jest.”

  “I am not in jest. Henas’amef will supply you with every need, firewood, canvas, grain, whatever you will have. I have a hundred of the Guelen Guard and two hundred of the Dragons, who must go back when spring comes. In the meantime they’re at my orders. Lord Parsynan did nothing to raise a muster, and he did nothing to replace the weapons and equipage after Lewenbrook.” He had not intended to enumerate Parsynan’s failings, and went instead to his point. “My promise to Cefwyn didn’t mean letting Tasmôrden cross before we stopped him. We’ll have the bridges in our hands.”

  Something in the exchange pricked Cevulirn’s odd humor.

  “Indeed,” Cevulirn said. “And before I go…perhaps I should have a view of those bridges myself.”

  Tristen had no idea whether Emuin had listened to what he and Cevulirn said, but it was his impression the old man had withdrawn from all of it in truth, shut the door to his tower and held aloof from lords making plans he would not advise.

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  Uwen, however, had heard everything.

  “Is it folly?” he asked Uwen, in consequence, after Cevulirn had left and when Tassand and the servants were disrobing him for bed. “I think he means nothing but good to Cefwyn, and I don’t think he’s a fool. I trust him.”

  Uwen had long since inured himself to questions of that nature, and passing judgment on what Uwen called his betters.

  Uwen would do it, in private, and quietly. “He ain’t a fool, that ’un, never was.” But the look Uwen gave him after was still troubled, something unsaid, and Uwen waited, gazing into the small fire in the bedchamber, until Tassand and the servants, trusted as they were, had left the room.

  So Uwen would do, if he had something to say in absolute privacy, and Tristen gathered a robe about himself for warmth and went to the fireside. The light cast a fire glow over Uwen’s face, brightest on the silver of his hair, which nowadays he wore clubbed, growing longer after the fashion of a man of rank.

  “’At boy, an’ his lordship the earl, an’ Cevulirn,” Uwen said,<
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  “is all of a piece, m’lord, that woman an’ all…the witch.”

  “Wise or not wise?”

  Uwen’s face turned profile to him, eyes set on the fire. “Wisht I knew, lad. I ain’t th’ man to advise a duke.”

  “You called me lad.”

  “That I did, an’ beg pardon. I shouldn’t have done ’t.”

  “Call me that, and tell me the truth. Am I a fool?”

  Uwen’s gaze swung back to him, earnest, surreal in the firelight and shadow. “I ain’t th’ one to say that, m’lord.”

  “Uleman called me king. Auld Syes said the lord of Amefel and the aetheling; and the second she meant 148 / C. J. CHERRYH

  was Crissand. I know it was. Crissand is the aethelings’ heir.

  She meant he should be lord here. And what should I be? What should I be, Uwen?”

  “What she said was a lot muddled,” Uwen said soberly, “but there ain’t but one king in Ylesuin, and anything else is treason, lad, just so’s ye know ’t. I’d follow ye at any odds, but so’s ye know, I don’t think His Majesty wants to hear any king in Amefel. I don’t think His Grace of Ivanor wants to hear it either, and His Grace of Ivanor won’t follow you over that brink. I would, but he won’t.”

  It was dire to think of any king but Cefwyn; and he would not think it. “I know that. And I would never do anything against Cefwyn.”

  “Yet I think His Majesty has his own idea what ye are, lad, an’ His Majesty’s Commander ain’t in doubt.”

  “Has Idrys talked to you? Can you say?”

  “Oh, I’ll say, m’lord. Ye’re my lord, an’ the Lord Commander don’t expect otherwise when he talks to me, as I confess he did, before we left Guelemara.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Oh, reasonable things. Sayin’ I should have a care, an’ not let ye do anything rash, an’ to watch your back, m’lord. The Lord Commander wishes ye better ’n ye might think. Ye may be what ye are, but ye ain’t Lord Ryssand, an’ ye ain’t ever asked for Amefel: it was His Majesty give it to ye, wi’ His blessing an’ His Holiness’s blessing to boot, so, aye, His Majesty was the one who made the Holy Father willin’. It weren’t the other way around. And ye can rest a’ nights knowin’ His Majesty knows what ye are, an’ still stands by ye,