Fortress of Owls

by C. J. Cherryh

  him to the stables, for a horse was a way to be seen above the heads of the crowd, and Danvy had experience in crowds and battle alike. No one expected restraint from a warhorse—and no one pushed Danvy twice.

  “My lord king,” his bodyguard protested his determination.

  “Get your horses or walk!” He headed back down the steps, still buckling straps, surrendered his side to his pages to do the lesser buckles as stableboys began to bring their charges through, to the peril of everything in their path.

  “That’s tight enough,” he said to the trembling page, reassured the boy with a clap on the shoulder, and gratefully took a plain guardsman’s shield as the quickest available. Danvy arrived, straining at a stable-hand’s lead, throwing his head, already hot-blooded from the confusion around him. Cefwyn took the reins himself, set foot in the stirrup, rose up into the saddle.

  The Prince’s Guard, too, was getting to horse, and he moved through the press of nobles and bodyguards with Isin and Nelefreissan, of all unlikely others—northerners, Ryssand’s men with their household guard, all mounted and joining him.

  It was not the company he would have chosen, but all but a handful of his reliable men were outside holding the square.

  He trusted his back to them out of necessity and ascribed their offer to honor or fear: they were in as great a danger from the drunken crowd they faced. No one was safe out there.

  “Open the gates and close them hard after us!” he ordered, and guardsmen afoot used main force and the threat of pikes to press the gates outward against the stubborn few drunk enough to assail the Guelesfort gates themselves.

  Free and foremost, Cefwyn rode Danvy straight at the laggard townsmen in his path, his guard a hard

  490 / C. J. CHERRYH

  riding mass at his heels as townsmen scattered from the path of the horses. Around the corner of the Quinaltine wall, into the Quinaltine square, he met little to check him; but the Quinaltine steps were beset with a crowd in the wild flux of rumor and grief, clots of confused and frightened citizens. A man ran past waving scraps of cloth soaked in red, screaming,

  “The Holy Father’s blood! The Holy Father’s blood!”

  Cefwyn swore and maneuvered through the gap, laying about him with the flat of his sword, sent three men sprawling and one reeling aside who thought he could pass Danvy’s guard and get at the bridle. Danvy stumbled over him, came up with an effort, steel-shod feet racketing on pavings as he drove to the foot of the Quinaltine steps.

  There the Dragons and the portion of the Prince’s Guard and the Guelens that had stayed to hold their pike-line were sorely pressed at the Quinalt steps. The mob wanted into the shrine: the Guard forces would not have it, and blood slicked no few faces.

  “Back!” Cefwyn shouted at the crowd, striking still with the flat of his blade where it was a man’s back, the edge if a man showed a weapon … he had no idea how many such, where the Guard was all but over-whelmed. “I am your king, damn you! Back away!”

  “Silence there! Silence for His Majesty!” the cry went up from some few, amongst his personal guard, and with a screen of horses and their own bodies his bodyguard in their distinctive livery made the crowd give back.

  “Silence that racket,” Cefwyn said peevishly. His eyes stung.

  Smoke wafted at him, from across the square. “Quiet that bell!

  No one can have his wits with that din!”

  “My lord king.” Idrys had come up beside him, afoot, by Danvy’s shifting hooves. “This is too great a risk.”

  FORTRESS OF OWLS / 491

  “There’s fire somewhere. What’s burning?”

  “The Bryalt shrine,” Idrys said.

  “Damn!”

  There fell a sudden hush then, a sudden numbness of the air underlying the shouts, for the bell had, on a few false strokes, ceased tolling. It was as if the riot had lost its breath, and then fallen apart into individual, frightened men.

  “The Holy Father was murdered,” Cefwyn cried, lifting his sword high in the brief chance that silence gave him, and using the words that would catch the attention even of the drunken and the mad. “Within the Quinalt itself, a murder! A new Patriarch sits the gods’ throne, His Highness Efanor’s priest, Jormys, a good and saintly man, who prays you all stand aside from this lunacy! The gods do not sleep, and will avenge this blasphemy, and the blasphemy of drunken men who profane this holy precinct! Stand back, I say! Stand back and be silent!”

  A handful raised their voices against him, but the majority hushed them in fearful haste; and he caught the breath of a further silence.

  “Jormys, I say, is the new Patriarch, whom the council of priests will confirm. And he will ferret out the murderer, among whom I expect to find traces leading to enemies of the Crown, of the peace, and of this land!”

  “Death to the Elwynim!” a drunken voice shouted, as generations of Guelenmen had shouted.

  “Elwynim are across the river!” Cefwyn shouted at the limit of his breath. “It’s Guelen traitors among you!” It was blood he called for and knew he did it. “Down with traitors! Gods save Ylesuin!”

  “Gods save Ylesuin!” Everyone could shout that, and did, in the wildness of their fear, and kept shouting, filling up the silence so there was no more anyone 492 / C. J. CHERRYH

  could say. A priest, up on the steps, raised his arms and tried to quiet them, with some success, a situation still full of hazard.

  “Gods save Ylesuin indeed,” Idrys said, at Danvy’s shoulder.

  The Lord Commander was blood-spattered, a fine dew on his armor and his grim face. “Go to safety. Let your guard deal with it. They’ve seen you’re not afraid, my lord king. It’s enough.”

  “They’ll continue to see it,” Cefwyn said harshly, for now that terror had given way, anger rushed up hand in hand with it. They had threatened his kingdom. They had threatened Ninévrisë, and men in the crowd had cried against the Crown and all it stood for. He would not go back and cower in the Guelesfort, waiting for the Guard to make the streets of his capital safe for him to show his face.

  Idrys could not prevent him, and the persistent sting of smoke provided a goal in the confusion: it was no small fire, and if there was a siege and a burning at the other side of the square, he meant to stop it.

  But when he drew near the farside he saw it was the Bryaltine shrine afire, a black-robed corpse dangling from a rope cast to the rooftree of the Bryalt shrine. Beneath the body a pile of books smoldered, all of a library in that blackened heap.

  The mob, seeking foreigners in their midst, had hanged poor Father Benwyn.

  C H A P T E R 5

  The lords had eaten and drunk their fill on the evening of their arrival, fallen asleep and rested late, even down in the tents, and out into the town. Tristen, too, took his time rising, advised that all his guests were asleep. For days they had struggled to reach here, and now all the lords who had been at the welcoming feast in the Lesser Hall either slept late or nursed last night’s folly behind drawn drapes.

  Tristen himself fed his pigeons, and sat by the fire, and did the little directing he had to do. He could not persuade himself to sleep so late. He was jealous for every hour his guests were sleeping, unavailable to him, unprecedented anticipation, and his thoughts flitted and buzzed like bees.

  The time felt auspicious, if any time had. His dream of the southern lords had come to life around him, and Emuin had not disapproved last night, rather had grown merry and cheerful. The lords had laughed together: Crissand got along famously with Cevulirn, and Pelumer and Umanon had sat talking with Sovrag despite old grudges.

  Had ever he dreamed so much could go so well, when the stars were so chancy?

  And even before the sun was a glimmering in the east the kitchens had gone into their ultimate frenzy before the feast, ovens hot, the smells of baking and roasting meat 494 / C. J. CHERRYH

  wafting everywhere about the yard…not a lord stirred forth except Cevulirn, down the hill to see to his horses before
the sun was well up.

  By noon the last stragglers had come out of their quarters, and by midafternoon, now, the smells of food were all but irresistible: Cook had prepared small loaves to fend off hunger, and that was the fare they had.

  But there was good converse all the afternoon, and a small venture out to see the pastures and the camp-grounds, of which all the lords more than approved.

  There was a moment, standing facing those pastures, and unheard by any but the foxes and the passing hawk, when Tristen explained the situation at Modeyneth and Althalen. It was a curious place for a conference, with the horses cropping the brown winter grass and the wind blowing a brisk, dry chill.

  “It’s only a village,” Tristen said. “And some make a great deal of it, and some think I’ve fulfilled some prophecy, but that’s not so, not to my thinking.” He added, honestly, “But Emuin bids me be careful.”

  “Yet Your Grace is loyal to the king,” Umanon said.

  “He’s my dear friend,” Tristen said. “And always will be.”

  “So His Grace has us all to swear,” said Crissand. “And has us to believe His Majesty has our good at heart.”

  “So he does,” said Cevulirn, “and to that I swear, too. King Cefwyn’s never been false to us, never forgotten Lewenbrook—he trusts us too much and doesn’t say so: all his attention is for the ones he can’t trust. But a true king, that he is.”

  “That’s so,” Tristen said. “That’s very much so. He hasn’t time for everyone. He has to tend the things that aren’t going well.”

  “Ryssand,” Crissand interjected.

  FORTRESS OF OWLS / 495

  “At the head of the list,” Cevulirn said. “Gods save the king.”

  So they said, and so they finished their ride with the sun strongly westering, having ridden up an appetite.

  Meanwhile Cook had outdone herself, and as the sky dimmed in the west, the kitchen poured forth platters of food, even enough to fill Sovrag’s belly, at least in prospect.

  Then the lords made themselves scarce, and buckets of water and servants were in short supply as all the guests wanted baths and attention to their dressing. There was shouting, there were harried servants pelting this way and that and out, in one instance, to a tailor shop—but no one was late downstairs, to the processional Tassand had arranged, with trumpets and banners.

  They filed into the great hall in all ceremony, and all who could possibly find an invitation and a place at table were in that processional, the benches fiercely crowded at their lower stations. Emuin came—was simply there, when before that he had missed Emuin in the line.

  The piper and the drummer lost no time after the fanfares, and swung into cheerful tunes, one after the other…for there would be dancing. Tristen loved to watch it, and was especially glad to see so many ladies at the tables, all in fine cloth and wearing jewels. He knew Crissand’s mother and Durell’s pretty daughter both by sight; and he recalled the two very young girls from Merishadd who put their heads together and giggled at every turn. They seemed to want his attention, but they were only children.

  “Your Grace should welcome them,” Tassand said close to his ear, helping him as Tassand had agreed to do. “Then ask the priests to pray.”

  Tristen stood up somewhat abashed and looked 496 / C. J. CHERRYH

  around him; he had to wait for silence.

  “I wanted you to come,” he said when there was sufficient silence. “I need all your good advice. And I’ve missed you very much. I’m glad to see you. Be welcome.”

  There was applause to that. “Here’s to the Sihhëlord!” Sovrag roared out, that word that he hoped never to hear, but there was no restraining Sovrag at all. “Gods bless ’im, say I!”

  He was supposed to invite the priests. Emuin stood up, to the rescue, splendid in his new robe. Teranthine gray he wore, and he wore the Teranthine sigil, standing forth as a cleric, tonight.

  “Father,” Emuin said with a wave of his hand toward the other end of the high table, where the Teranthine father and the Bryaltine abbot sat in close company. “If you’ll do the honors.”

  “Delighted,” said the Teranthine, shook back his voluminous sleeves from his forearms like a workman preparing to work, and gave a prayer so rapid and so authoritative the soldiers present all but came to attention. “Gods bless this gathering,”

  the Teranthine concluded, passing the matter to the Bryaltine, who rose with his cup and tipped out a few drops onto the stone floor.

  “Honor to the earth,” the abbot said, “honor to the dead in the passing of the year; honor to the living, in the coming of the new. A Great Year passes tonight. A new one begins. Let the good that is old continue and let the rest perish. Gods save the lord of Amefel.”

  It pleased some: Tristen thought it should please him, but he was less certain about the matter of perishing…and if ever there should be a moment the gray space should come alive, on this night, with these two honest priests and Emuin, now it should…but it failed without the flicker of a presence, not even Emuin’s closely held one.

  FORTRESS OF OWLS / 497

  And what should he do now? Tristen asked himself, for there was a ritual aspect to this feast, this gathering of close friends—as if Men wished to be sure where all they loved was when the world changed. And was that enough, and had they raised enough godliness in this gathering?

  But just then the servants paraded out with another course, the fabled pies, so there was an end to the speeches and the gods-blessing and all speculation on the new year. There was laughter, and Midwinter Eve, that had loomed so ominous through Emuin’s year, turned to high good spirits and the praise of Cook’s pastries.

  Midwinter Eve had been imagining, and planning, all these things…and now the very night assumed a solidity and a scent and a sound all around him: it progressed, and the famous pies which, baked over the last sevenday, came out steaming, in great abundance. There was course after course besides, and music and laughter. There was nothing terrible, nothing to dread. Friends were like armor about the heart, and nothing could daunt him.

  Then Sovrag called out that a good Midwinter Eve wanted tale-telling, and he had heard of the business with Ryssand’s son, but he wanted a full recitation for the wider hall.

  A small silence fell—Sovrag was several cups past sober and meant no harm at all, but it was no good story, and Cevulirn, with that still, dignified calm that hushed all around him, refused.

  “It’s too recent, and I’d rather Lord Pelumer. He has a winter story.”

  “Which?” asked Pelumer.

  “Why, when you were young, Lanfarnesse. The deer in the treetops.”

  That caught interest even from the drunken, and Pelumer needed no pleading. He told of the year the 498 / C. J. CHERRYH

  Lenúalim froze so deep carts could cross it, and how the ice had lasted into spring. He told how the snow had drifted so high up the trees the deer browsed the high branches.

  Then it was so cold a man carrying wood had his fingers break off, and it was so cold an ox team turned up frozen in their yoke, still standing.

  Tristen thought that part very sad.

  “A man could walk to Elwynor from here,” Pelumer went on, “since the river was a highroad, white and smooth as glass.

  I saw it. I was a boy of seven years, and I walked from Lanfarnesse into Marna and back, chasing the deer and seeing what I could see. Marna was all asparkle with ice. The High King sat in Althalen, and the High King’s rangers kept the woods.

  But no one dared kill the deer in Marna Wood. And no one went to Mauryl’s tower, either.

  “Yet I saw it through the trees, and knew then how far I’d come. I turned back, walking the river home, not wishing even in those days to have the sun set before I’d cleared that part of those woods. Down and down went the sun, and the ice went from bright to gray. Then I walked as fast as I could, and began to run, with the clearest notion there was something right at my shoulders. I ran and I ran and I ran, unti
l a shadow rose up right in front of me.

  “It was a King’s Ranger,” Pelumer concluded, to the relief of the young girls from Merishadd, who had leaned closer and closer together, and all but jumped. “And he said it was very well I never looked back, for those who did never came out again.”

  There were delicious shivers. But Tristen knew better, and so did Sovrag, surely, who leaned back in his chair, and began his own tale of river-faring, less eloquent than Pelumer, involving his own first trip up to Marna, with his father’s crew, even then trading with Mauryl.

  FORTRESS OF OWLS / 499

  “We went to the old tower, right up where the water meets the stones, and the old man’d come and never bargain, but say what he’d pay. That was his habit. And me da was careful about the hour, that’s so. By sundown we cleared that wood—and was raidin’ the shore by Lanfarnesse after that…”

  This with a wink at Pelumer. “But we’re honest men, now, an’

  sittin’ in a warm hall, with clear water an’ the wind turned out of the north this evenin’. That’s the breath of the hoary old north wind, as blows the boats home. Mother South Wind, she’s blowed us here, and old man North Wind, he’s chasin’

  us home—can’t ask for better. Wizard-luck, that is for us,

  ’specially if it blows us back with the next load.”

  “Wizard-luck, indeed,” Emuin said somberly, from Tristen’s right, next Crissand at the table. “Luck and wizardry.”

  “Was it you?” Sovrag asked—respecting the cloth and the wizard, as it seemed, for there was a caution in Sovrag whenever he spoke to Emuin. “Uncommon lack o’ snow, there is.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” Emuin said, not the admission Sovrag courted, and it left Sovrag with not a thing to say on that subject. Tristen took quick note of the tactic, seeing it turned on someone other than him.

  But Sovrag was rarely without something to say. “An’ no ice in the river, master wizard, not this year. Boats, boats can run free an’ bad luck to Tasmôrden, say I! Here’s to wizard-luck an’ Ilefínian—an’ to hell with that blackguard Tasmôrden!”