Fortress of Owls

by C. J. Cherryh

  170 / C. J. CHERRYH

  or magic. Clearly the patriarch wished to leave, and Tristen wished just as strongly that this priest would go away. “I shall ask, Your Grace.”

  And with a bow and a murmured courtesy, the man edged toward the door until, with a second bow, he was out it.

  “Uwen,” Tristen said.

  “M’lord.”

  “I’ll speak to that soldier. The sergeant.”

  “Aye, m’lord.”

  “I could almost tell you the man’s name,” Emuin said. “And you’re quite right, young lord: it wasn’t piety that moved His Reverence. Well guessed, and I guess exactly as you do, with small wizardry about it—but I fear His Reverence believes you just worked sorcery and stole it out of his thoughts. You’ve frightened that man. And you’ll frighten the man you bring in to question, never doubt it.”

  “I guessed, sir. It was not by magic.”

  “Damned for the one time it wasn’t,” Emuin said. “But in the Guelen garrison, there’s a captain who doesn’t want to be in this town or in this province. He followed Parsynan’s orders and had them overthrown, and hasn’t been happy since, if you want my further guess. And that sergeant and no few of his men think like him. I may live in my tower, but I’m not deaf to what goes on in the yard.”

  “I wish the patriarch were in Guelessar,” Tristen said, “if I could choose. But the soldiers in the garrison wouldn’t be happy without him. I wish I might send the sergeant and all those men back to Guelessar, but he’d be at Ryssand’s ear, do I understand how he would act? I think I do.”

  “I fear ye understand very well,” Uwen said, “an’ master Emuin’s right, too. I’d have set that sergeant to the watch on the bridges, an’ let the troublemaker tell FORTRESS OF OWLS / 171

  ’is notions to them as has no way to send back to Ryssand, but soldiers is in a surly enough state in winter, wi’ nothin’ to do but pass rumor, as is. There’d be toads rainin’ from heaven in the rumors they’d have about ye, m’lord, an’ wi’ the captain of the Guelens, too, who, by me, ain’t any better. I’ve tried to reason wi’ this man, and I know this sergeant. I wisht I’d found a place to set this fellow where he couldn’t find mischief. I’m sorry it got to His Reverence.”

  “I wish I might send all the men home.”

  “An’ defend the land wi’ Ivanim?” Uwen asked.

  “That is the choice,” he said. They equally well knew the choices he did have. The Amefin villages would have a hard winter, a harder spring and famine in the fall if he mustered the men to winter camp. For half a century the king’s law had allowed no establishment of men-at-arms in Amefel, entrusting the defense of the province to the Aswyddim’s personal guard, and to a garrison of Guelen Guard, of the four Guelen companies the roughest and commonest. Now at urgent need and with the Aswydd guard fled across the river or back to their local lords for fear of Cefwyn’s justice, Amefel had no men of its own but an irregularly armed peasant muster that belonged to the earls, and them needing to do their planting and lambing at the time the army would be engaged across the river.

  Therefore, among other reasons, he had retained the Guelen Guard. But now he had evidence of Guelen disaffection, not an unreasonable discontent: the weather had turned, they were held here against expectation and in disgrace from their service with Parsynan, and now faced with the rise of Amefin to positions of authority, when it was Amefin they had once held in check as Parsynan’s iron fist. They were not the guard he would have chosen. Was he at fault? Might another lord have managed better than he had done?

  172 / C. J. CHERRYH

  Certainly Parsynan had not improved these men; and Uwen had pleaded for them, saying only a better lord could redeem them. They were Uwen’s old company; and they, Uwen argued, had been misused and misled.

  “I will speak to their captain,” he concluded. “Privately.”

  “You should do so,” Emuin said, “privately. But you see the seed of discontent in these men, young lord, and it comes of slighting them.”

  “My slighting them?”

  “And no few of the lords and burgesses. Where might they learn anything of your intent except from rumor? Become approachable. Hold audience. Do more in public.”

  “I speak with a half a score of them every time I venture the hall.” He had rarely failed to answer chance questions, and on this he was very sure he was on firm ground. “I speak to soldiers and to workmen and servants in the kitchen. All these folk, as well as to the lords. I answer their questions.”

  “Yet make all decisions in chambers. Therein you are at fault.

  You asked advice: now I advise you.”

  “I’ve called the earls for supper.”

  “Hold audience beforehand and hold it today. This is where you fail. The people believe in you while the sun shines and they have enough to eat; but when things go harder, they have to know their lord to follow him. Worship is not enough, young lord. Care for their concerns. Care for their fears. Hear the quieter voices. We have His Reverence on our doorstep with rumors and accusations; but what more should you hear? You must sit a certain time every day in the great hall, no more of this dealing in the hallways of the Zeide and granting this and granting that to the loudest and most importunate. You’ll miss the quiet and the desperate. Yes, ride

  FORTRESS OF OWLS / 173

  out to the villages, and hear them as well. And don’t neglect Henas’amef and your own court.”

  “His Grace already don’t sleep enough,” Uwen said. “Where’s he to rest?”

  “And you, Uwen Lewen’s-son, you have your own fault in this! You are not Lord Tristen’s body servant or his guard…you are his captain. Give me no excuses: take command of the Guard, march them up and down until they have no breath for gossip.”

  “Uwen does very well,” Tristen said.

  “Well is not good enough. And you, young lord, must be approachable for your people other than in the hallways, or prepare to do the business of the province there, on every chance approach and by all comers. You should never have been summoned by His Reverence to come down to hall, as if you were some truant lad with a lesson to read. I find it outrageous in him, and I find you far too accommodating of approach on the one hand and far too secret and unapproachable on the other. What you will tell to the earls separately, tell to them all in common council. Hear debates, once and together, not once for each man. Sit in state, and let petitioners see how their business weighs against other appeals to Your Grace’s resources. If the matters they bring are trivial, they may take shame of it and ask less. Two problems may be each other’s answer. And I will tell you Cefwyn could benefit by that advice. He cannot rule from his chambers. Indeed he cannot.

  He avoids the likes of Ryssand by shutting himself in chambers, but he fails to hear the town reeve, and this with a war in the offing. He is the worst example.”

  “Have you told him so?”

  “I told his father, who had the same fault: oh, deal with every man in private, tell one man one thing, another the other, and thus Lord Mistrust rules all! Idrys, the most furtive man alive, Idrys concurs with me in this.

  174 / C. J. CHERRYH

  Ylesuin cannot have the ghost of the last king presiding over it, no more than Amefel can have Suspicion for a duke and Rumor for leader of its armies. You have His Reverence listening to sergeants of the Guard and soldiers whispering with the gate-guard, and gods alone know what tales they obtain from the kitchens. But fault none of them until you demand and they refuse. Captain Anwyll and his command left yesterday to sit and endure the snow on the river…good riddance, say I. Anwyll will never say good morning but he asks permission for it of someone. Of him I expect nothing but good compliance; but you, Uwen Lewen’s-son, you’ve waited last night and all morning long and not seized the Guelens and shaken them into order. Seize command!”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “And, young lord, duke of Amefel, until you assemble your court and rule it with a firm hand, I
look for you to be a profound concern to your captain, who knows your kind civility with fools. Lordship does not bind you to give away the treasury or to consent to every request. I saw hope in Lewen’s-son last night; I see it today. What of you?”

  “Is that why now you advise me, when since summer Cefwyn and I alike have asked and asked and gotten nothing? Can you fault me, sir, when of your advice I’ve had precious little come down from the tower? You say I should leave my chambers and sit in hall. Cannot you come down and stand by me?”

  That drew a tilt of Emuin’s head and a wary look. “I advise as I see to advise. Now I see a stirring of will, young lord, in you and in your honest captain. Employ it.”

  “I have the earls’ goodwill. The Guelen Guard is a harder matter.”

  “Parsynan appointed their officers, m’lord,” Uwen said, “an’

  master Emuin’s right, best we can do to keep FORTRESS OF OWLS / 175

  ’em out of mischief is march ’em up an’ down. Ye daren’t send a man of ’em home: they’d be straight to Parsynan wi’ gods know what tale. If ye wisht my soldierly opinion, it’s the captain an’ the seniormost sergeant is the poison in the cup, him in the hall last night. Gellyn’s the sergeant’s name. I suspect he was the one went to the patriarch: and maybe ye can put the fear in the sergeant, but small hope for the captain, say I, who’s a Quinalt man, an’ a hard-nosed Quinalt at that. ’E won’t change, an’ it ain’t right you talk to ’im before me. You want the men that leapt right quick to Parsynan’s order to slaughter the prisoners, m’lord, it was this captain an’ this sergeant, an’

  the rest was swept along wi’ what they had no heart for, otherwise.”

  Emuin had come forward with advice, and now Uwen was stirred to report to him, when before he had been swathed in silence.

  And it was no shocking news, what Uwen said about difficulties with the Guelen officers: he had heard it before in bits and pieces. But now Anwyll was out of the town, and his learned and lettered Guelen efficiency was neither a restraint on the Guard officers of the garrison nor on Uwen’s command of them. He had worked for a fortnight to have Anwyll out the gates; and lo! now all the stones that had refused to move tumbled at once.

  “I do hear,” he said, “and I’ll take your advice, yours and master Emuin’s. I’ll have Tassand teach Paisi how to beg the soldier’s pardon, for the soldiers’ sake, so they understand and he understands. He mustn’t do it again.”

  “That comforts me,” Emuin said. “By this afternoon, do you say, Tassand is to have wrought this miracle?”

  “I take your advice, sir,” he said, for it seemed to 176 / C. J. CHERRYH

  him a little salve for the soldiers’ pride and for grudges might mend something of what was amiss with the Guelen Guard: a better lord, Uwen had said the night of the slaughter, might let these men regain their honor.

  But gaining what he had of advice, and being told to establish a court, he pressed further on forbidden ground, this time with Emuin. “What of Auld Syes, then, sir, if advice is possible today?” He abandoned fear of asking or saying anything at all before Uwen, or even Lusin. “Have you advice on that, sir, and what when one of the earls asks me who she was or signifying what? I know the men have spread it about. And what do you think I should do about the sergeant?”

  “Advice? Advice now, when you’ve gone out and stirred up the spirits of this land? Gods save us, say I, gods save us all.

  Discipline your sergeant or march him and his captain out to join Anwyll; set up a second camp with the discontents and leave Uwen sole captain here.”

  “Can they?”

  “Can they what?”

  “Can the gods save us? I’ve found nothing in Efanor’s book to say so.”

  “Oh, young lord,” Emuin said with a sober look and a shake of his head, “that is not the question. Certainly not in this matter. Set things in order. That’s what you’re here to do. Set all things in order that Parsynan and Cuthan disordered. All you know should tell you the danger in disorder. And with that, I’m back to my tower and my shuttered and warded windows, young lord. I’ve said enough. Order is what’s needed.

  Order is the only saving of us. I pray you, establish one soon, any sort of order you like, so long as it’s no one else’s order.”

  Something in that, touching on what they both under FORTRESS OF OWLS / 177

  stood, breathed a cold breath out of the gray space.

  “Do you see sorcery, sir? Or have you seen it?”

  Emuin turned again and looked at him, but it was in the gray space that answer came to him, not aloud.

  — Does it not always seek the crack in the wall, young

  lord?

  So ruin had begun at Ynefel, subtly, an old, familiar crack beneath his own small window; and from that small fracture of the stone, grown greater, all calamity came. He could not but remember it, for the thunder-clap that had riven the Quinalt roof could have shaken him no worse than did Emuin with that one word.

  Yes, the Zeide’s heart had many cracks, of every sort, not least the bloody rift between Meiden and the Guelen Guard.

  Now the Quinalt, at a Guard sergeant’s instigation, came lodging complaints aimed at Amefin.

  “No more dare I say,” Emuin proclaimed, and began to go his way.

  Emuin denied him again, again stopped short of the whole truth; or perhaps it was all the truth Emuin had now to give him.

  Uwen gave a twitch of his shoulders and a shake of his head, and began to say something. But all the light had gone to brass, and the gray space was all but with them.

  He could reach out and have Emuin’s attention from here.

  He asked himself what he would say when he did, what authority he would seize unto himself, and do what with it?

  Invade Elwynor? He had Cefwyn’s authority to raise an army unprecedented in the dealings of Ylesuin with Amefel; but Crissand pleaded the summer war had left the province bereft as was. Yet Cevulirn happened to come to him.

  Who has done this? he asked the unresponsive void, 178 / C. J. CHERRYH

  and the old man who was by now walking back to his tower, with feeble and arthritic steps.

  — Who has done this, Emuin? Have you called Ivanor

  to me?

  “Wizards is pricklish folk at best,” Uwen was saying, in the world of substance and color and the smell of candles, cold stone, and the incense that lingered where the Quinalt had been. “I’ll find the boy an’ I’ll find the one who talked to the priests, as ye say, m’lord. Master Emuin’s entirely right to chide me: busy soldiers is better soldiers, an’ the sergeant and the captain’s better shoveling snow in the river camp. Ye’ve given

  ’em fair trial since they went again’ your given word; an’ if they’ve been behind your back a second time, don’t gi’ ’em a third chance. The river’s the place for ’em, an’ a warnin’ to Captain Anwyll to go with ’em.”

  “What orders you see fit. At any time you see fit.” Yet it seemed unfair to him, to damn a man unheard. “But before that, I’ll hear the sergeant’s reasons, and if I have no good answer from him, then send them all to Anwyll’s camp.”

  “’At’s just,” Uwen agreed. “I’ll bring ’im, sayin’ ye want to have a word wi’ ’im. And I’d ask did his captain approve what he did, m’lord, that I would, but I suspect I’d already know the answer. The poison there ain’t all the sergeant. The sergeant wouldn’t be what he is, ’cept for the captain.”

  “I trust your advice,” he said. “Bid the sergeant come to my chambers, and after him, the captain, in private. And send to the earls. Say I’ll hold court today.”

  Such was the plan; and so the sergeant was due to come at midafternoon, and the captain of the garrison directly after him, but by somewhat past the expected time, Uwen came to his apartment to say personally that there was no sight nor report of either man.

  FORTRESS OF OWLS / 179

  “It ain’t ordinary the captain should be unfindable,” Uwen said, “a
nd right now I’m inquirin’ in the lower stables.”

  “As if they should have fled?”

  “Or should be attendin’ of their horses or pretendin’ so,”

  Uwen said. “It’s the only thing a soldier’s got need of, wi’out orders to be out an’ away from the garrison. If they ain’t drinkin’ or about the town…an’ if they ain’t at the stables, there’s the whole damn town to search.”

  “Inquire,” he said. The gray space might have told him something, if he had well known the men they were searching for. Ranging through the whole population of the town and finding soldiers was like searching for certain kinds of pebbles in a pile of them…it would mean sorting a good many other pebbles in the process, disturbing them and discovering more of their privacy and peace than seemed just, and taking time, that, too.

  “Do you have the Guard searching for them?” he asked.

  “I ain’t ask’t it, let alone ordered. It’s their officers, m’lord.

  I’m inquirin’ by way o’ the Amefin guard an’ the staff. An’

  talkin’ to the undersergeants, the while, just getting the look o’ men I used to know, m’lord, an’ I do know some of ’em.”

  “But not all?”

  “The Guelen Guard comes from more ’n Guelessar, m’lord.

  Panys, Murandys. Murandys’ province. Any second and third son, as ain’t apt to inherit, that man’s apt to come to the standing companies. The lords’ kin’ll go to the Dragons or the Prince’s Guard, but the common lads…an’ them as ain’t quite lads, like me…they’re for the Guelen Guard. An’, aye, some of these I marched to Amefel with; an’ some I knew when His Majesty was here; an’ some I knew for scoundrels, too, the senior sergeant bein’ no better.”

  180 / C. J. CHERRYH

  “But some you don’t know?”

  “A good many’s come in since summer’s end, when His Majesty marched home to Guelessar an’ Parsynan came in.

  Some are good men an’ one an’ the other I’ve me doubts of.

  All’s Quinalt, but some’s too Quinalt, if ye take my meanin’, m’lord, an’ don’t like Amefin.”