Fortress of Ice

by C. J. Cherryh

  “Or friendship.”

  Idrys’ lips pursed, thoughts held silent on a pairing that had been Lord Tristen’s advice, the Prince and the bastard son. Idrys had made clear his personal doubts about this pairing, long, long ago.

  “Friendship, I say, Crow.”

  “Be it so, my lord king. Be they the most devoted of friends. But there are things I should look into.”

  “The lad is slippery as the otter he’s named for. That we have seen. And, granted, I by no means like this claim of visions. But I do not think the source of ill resides in the boy. Not in him, nor even in Gran, if you take my meaning. Another reason to have a good man in Amefel.”

  “Certainly things someone should look into,” Idrys said. “Or askance at, granted either man gets to Henas’amef through this weather. Questions my man should ask directly at the source, by your leave.”

  Lady Tarien sat imprisoned in the Zeide tower, in Henas’amef.

  “Have him ask them. His mother is not likely pleased with her son’s being in Guelemara. But that she could get past Paisi’s grandmother, with Tristen’s seal on her imprisonment . . . and again past wards here, that I would not expect.”

  “Whence came the amulet in question?” Idrys asked.

  His turn to raise an eyebrow. The snow on Idrys had scarcely melted, and 1 0 7

  c. j. cherryh

  he had gathered up the essentials of the scandal since his return. No one had mentioned amulets.

  “One assumes . . . from the grandmother.”

  “And the urge to deception?” Idrys asks. “From which side of the blanket came that gift?”

  Master Crow had his ways, and annoyed him with impunity.

  But Lady Tarien’s involvement in this was likely. If indeed an unhappy Lady Tarien down in Henas’amef had mustered both the will and the strength to make trouble, and found in a solitary old woman a boy’s vulner-ability in which to do it . . . then the boy himself was, as Tristen would call it, a gateway within the Guelesfort, warded and guarded by the grandmother, it might be, but locks could be picked, with patience and skill.

  “The boy has ample reason to be worried,” Cefwyn said. “And so have we— not least am I concerned about the grandmother. If she should pass from the world, young Otter is bereft; and I am not the one to deal with his less common abilities. He dreamed, do you hear, Crow? He dreamed. His man dreamed the same dream. He has the Sight, and he is no kin to Gran.

  That fact has come out, and will be whispered about in the kitchens.”

  “No mystery whence the Sight came. He is half - Aswydd. But, alas, you would not be rid of him.”

  “And Tristen, again, hear me, Crow, said take him in! Read me no sermons. Go or send to Henas’amef, and advise Crissand to watch his prisoner particularly closely this season.”

  “Perhaps a poisoned cup? There would be a certain justice.”

  “Lord Tristen advised against it,” he said, and it came to him when he said it that death, with wizards, was not always a guarantee. He had never thought of that, not in all these years, but a little chill went over his skin now, a confi rmation.

  “Well, I shall get to it.” Crow rose, bowed, a slight parting courtesy. “My lord king.”

  Loosing Idrys was like loosing an arrow from the bow. Best give him a target and aim him carefully, or the wrong man could die, or the wrong events launch themselves irrevocably— not foolishly, but not always what one wanted.

  “Tarien,” Cefwyn said, before Idrys could reach the door, “is not to be harmed or coerced. Nor is Paisi.”

  “My lord king.” A second bow, a look as blithe and innocent as a black -

  hearted Crow could muster. “My man will carry your message faithfully.

  Have I ever failed you?”

  1 0 8

  fortress of ice

  iv

  “see?’’ aewyn said, perched on otter’s bed, while the servants were busy cleaning and brushing his clothes and the royal bodyguards stood uselessly by the door. “He was not so angry as all that. And did I not say Mother would take your part?”

  “She was very kind,” Otter said faintly.

  “So be cheerful! All you have to do to make everything right is attend tomorrow morning and the next three days as if nothing has happened at all.

  The servants will clean your cloak. The tailor will have clothes ready tomorrow. And you have your own holiday candle. We can burn it on First Night of the Bryalt festival, the same as Mother does.”

  “It does smell of evergreen.”

  “Some of evergreen, some of bayberry. And I’ll wager Mother sends you more cakes on the night, too.”

  “Was the king too angry?”

  “He fretted. He scowled all through services. He was worried, mostly. I feared you had had another dream and run off after Paisi. Papa didn’t know what I knew. But I thought if you were still here and hidden, I might fi nd you upstairs, in the hiding holes, where I did find you. Whatever were you doing with a bowl of water that scared that goose of a maid?”

  Otter put his hands behind him and his head down— sulking, or at least he had that look. One never could be sure in Otter’s dark moods, when, like his namesake, he dived below the surface of his thoughts and not even the most persistent questioning could fi nd him.

  “Looking in the water,” Otter said.

  It wasn’t at all an informative answer. Aewyn waited. Then Otter said:

  “I miss Paisi. And I do worry about Gran.”

  “Well, Captys can stay here tonight,” Aewyn said. Captys was his own chief servant. “You like him.”

  “I suppose so. But I don’t truly need him.”

  “Well, you certainly need someone. Or you can stay in my quarters until Paisi comes back! Father didn’t forbid it, did he?”

  The spark showed in Otter’s eye, then faded. “No. No, I shan’t cause any more trouble. And I daren’t have you caught in it.”

  “Me?”

  “The girl ran. I have a sorceress for a mother and a witch for my gran.

  Everybody already thinks what they think, and I never want them to think ill of you. That would be the worst thing.”

  1 0 9

  c. j. cherryh

  “Well, let them try to do anything! You shouldn’t be afraid.”

  “They burned Bryalt folk here.”

  “They never did.”

  “They burned your mother’s priest. Paisi told me.”

  Aewyn was taken aback. He never had heard that, but Paisi had never told an untruth, either. It must have happened before he was born, in the trouble in those years. “Well, a good many things happened before us. They never will do it again. Father won’t let them.”

  “Maybe not. But people here hate witches. Quinalt priests do.”

  “You’re not a witch.”

  “Wizard. Men are wizards. Women are—”

  “Well, I wish you were. My father’s favorite tutor was a wizard, for what it matters. Emuin Udaman was a Teranthine, and Teranthines can be wizards, just like Bryaltines can be, with their priests saying not a thing about it, so there you are!” Aewyn swung his feet. “Father says if he could fi nd another Teranthine, he’d be my tutor and I’d learn some sense. I almost remember Emuin. I think he should look again.”

  Otter gave a grudging laugh, fi nally.

  Aewyn asked: “So what were you truly doing with the water and the charm?”

  “I was trying to see Gran, or Paisi. But I failed.”

  That was disappointing. “I wish you could do magic.”

  “Wizardry. Magic is born in you.”

  “Well, whatever it is, I wish you had it. I wish you could show me. I should like to see it.”

  Otter looked about them. The servants were all in the other room, and it had been a foolish thing to say, Aewyn knew it: but there, it was said.

  “I wish I could,” Otter said. “It was the first time I ever really, truly tried, and it was no good.”

  “But you had the dream.�
��

  “I dreamed, but that was none of my doing, the dreaming, I mean. It would be a Sending. And we shouldn’t at all be talking about this.”

  “Well, it is all nonsense, is it not?” The candle still sat on the table, where Otter had set it down. Aewyn slid off the bed and went and set it on the mantel instead, amid its evergreen bough. “See? Now we shall have a proper holiday, just like in Amefel and Elwynor. Change your mind and stay in my rooms!”

  “I think I should stay here. I have trouble enough. And you should let the queen send her servants. Keep Captys. Thank you— thank you for rescuing me.”

  1 1 0

  fortress of ice

  “Piffle.” That was what his mother said to nonsense. “Piffle. I’m going back to my rooms, I suppose. But come after dark. Then we can have supper.

  Right after services tomorrow we can eat, and you can come to my rooms for supper then, too, do you agree?”

  That drew a brighter look, a hungry look. Otter nodded yes, and Aewyn winked— his father’s wink— before he walked into the other room and gathered his servants.

  v

  the world seemed much better in otter’s eyes: he had the king’s forgiveness, his brother’s invitation to supper tonight, the noon meal, and supper tomorrow, and the promise of the queen’s servants’ help if only he could keep out of trouble.

  His brother had taken away his own servants and the guards. The rooms were neater than Paisi had ever made them, and he would like a bath. Baths were a luxury he had gotten to love, with all the chill of winter outside the windows and creeping into the stones, and, filthy as he was, he longed to be clean. There was the way they did it at Gran’s in the winter, a matter of soaking towels in hot water and scrubbing off; which was its own sort of comfort to wind - raw hands and cold - numbed feet, and he began to heat water in the bedwarmer to do just that.

  He wondered how Paisi fared tonight: he would be well along to the river crossing by now, and he hoped Paisi was toasting his feet by a good fi reside, with no constraints of fasting or praying in the merchants’ company. He had thought a great deal about Paisi, and how he could join him, during his hours of hiding in the drafty heights. He had been so chilled and hungry he had thought he would never be warm or fed again.

  But the king forgave him. No one even seemed that angry. And the queen . . .

  He visited the candle while the water heated. He smelled its green scent but did not touch it: it had a tingling about it, a magical feeling that whispered of forces, kindly forces, he thought . . . but forces, all the same, and a power that was neither Gran’s nor yet his own mother’s, and he was sure that if it were lit, the fire would loose those things around him. He was grateful to the queen, but he dared not be ready to loose a force he didn’t wholly know and let it have its way in his room. Gran and his mother alike had made him cautious in such regards, and Gran’s sort of witchcraft had 1 1 1

  c. j. cherryh

  gone amiss this morning, whether it was his fault or the Quinalt’s. He was not ready to try another pass at it.

  Besides, the scent reminded him of home and weakened him, which was a spell unto itself; and had a power in its very nature. He felt it. And the queen was Ninévrisë Syrillas, of the old blood, the Sihhë blood, from long ago, like his mother’s Gift, though light and not dark. And Gran had warned him, had she not?

  Ye respect the queen, young lad, ye respect that great lady. The Sight is in her, no question, like in her da, him under the hill in Amefel, an’ don’t ye e’er doubt it.

  He gave a little shiver, as if a draft had touched him.

  Or a door had opened.

  It had. His heart jumped, as he found Efanor standing in his front room, Prince Efanor, accompanied by a priest in black robes.

  “Your Highness,” Otter murmured, and achieved a small bow, trying to gather his wits in the process. And to the priest, respectfully, with another bow: “Sir.”

  “Well, Otter,” Efanor said quietly. “You certainly had a cold, dusty day.”

  “Yes, Your Highness.” Perhaps the king or the Prince might have disapproved of Aewyn’s visiting here, after his misdeeds— or perhaps Efanor’s forgiveness would not come as easily as his father had led him to believe.

  Perhaps they had come to punish him, after all.

  “Sending your man away was one thing,” Efanor said, “and whether that was wisely done or not remains to be known; but pretending otherwise, Otter, and deceiving your father and attempting matters which ought not to be undertaken here— by such small gaps in judgment other forces fi nd their way where they ought not, getting into places where otherwise they cannot come. Have you any least notion what we tell you?”

  “That I was a fool, Your Highness.” Efanor was the most scholarly Quinalt of anyone he had met, except the priests, and while much that Efanor said racketed through his hearing and never stuck at all, he had the one matter clear, that there was fault, and it was his, and that what he had done was dangerous in ways beyond his understanding.

  “Well, well,” Efanor said, “you were that. And it was a boy’s fault, not to be repeated. Loneliness at holidays brings dark thoughts, which we simply shall not allow. The true story will go abroad, that illness in your gran’s house detained you this morning— that is the truth, is it not?”

  It was, when he looked at it that way, a certain version of the truth. “Yes, Your Highness.”

  1 1 2

  fortress of ice

  “Well, and hereafter you will not be alone. Brother Trassin will attend your needs, whatever they be, until your man fi nds his way back again, as I trust he will. Will he not?”

  “He will, Your Highness.” He was distracted, casting an apprehensive glance at the man in priestly black. This was a dour- faced and solemn man, his hands tucked up into his sleeves: Quinalt, very surely Quinalt— though a monk, by the title, and not quite a priest.

  Still a spy, Paisi would say. A sneak and a spy set here to catch a boy doing what he ought not, and what word of protest would priests believe if this man reported mischief of any kind?

  “Come.” Efanor walked into Otter’s bedroom, and to the white - frosted window. There, having beckoned him near, Efanor set a hand on his shoulder and looked straight into his eyes at close range. “This man is a servant of the Patriarch, and will search and spy to prove there is no harm. You understand me. Have you anything you ought not to have in these rooms?”

  “Gran’s amulet.” He pressed his hand against his chest, where, since this morning, it rested beneath his clothes.

  “Give it to me, for the while.”

  He was reluctant, but dared not refuse. He reached into his collar and drew it out, warm from his body, warm with Gran’s protection. Burning cold flowed toward him from the window the while, chill enough to sting.

  “Good lad.” Efanor pressed something else into his hand, another warm object, on a chain. “Whatever gift comes in love is potent,” Efanor said,

  “against all manner of ills. Keep this close tonight and tomorrow, wear it openly, do well, and by Festival end, this man will be gone from your premises with a good report for the Patriarch himself— a costly favor I ask you, understand; a penance for you, one that will pay for your indiscretion.”

  Again the intimate touch of Efanor’s hand, but a calming one, a peaceful one on his shoulder.

  It was a Quinalt sigil in his hand. It had no liveliness such as Gran’s coins had. But he obediently slipped the chain over his head and let it rest in plain sight, while his heart thumped away in fear.

  “Good, good,” Efanor said. “There’s good sense there. Endure the brother. A necessary matter.”

  “Yes, sir,” he whispered, and Efanor went away.

  “Why is there an empty bedwarmer in the fireplace?” Brother Trassin asked.

  It had boiled dry. “I would like a bath, sir,” he said. “Will you arrange one?”

  1 1 3

  c. j. cherryh

  Trassin frowned but wen
t and did that. Water arrived, hot water and cold, and he did bathe, letting Brother Trassin see the Quinalt sigil, but he did not want the brother in the little bath while he was bathing. He wrapped in towels, dried his hair with them, and hung things neatly. The clothes— he hardly knew what to do with. He hung them up, too, in the bath, and dressed in his most ordinary clothing.

  “I need my clothes cleaned, sir,” he said to Brother Trassin, and Brother Trassin, instead of taking them himself, went and called servants to do that, standing by in great disapproval until the dirty clothes and the towels disappeared.

  “Were other clothes to come?” he asked.

  “I have no idea,” Trassin said, paying him no m’lord and no courtesy. He simply stood in the room, arms in his sleeves, the Quinalt sigil prominent on his breast, and that was that.

  Brother Trassin stayed, no fount of conversation or pleasantry, and while he sat in his bedroom pretending to read, Brother Trassin pretended to clean the place again, opening all the cupboards and drawers and looking into everything in the process. Brother Trassin spoke never a voluntary word to him, except to give him certain long, long looks, as if he expected him to turn into a rat or a snake on the spot.

  In those moments he felt very uncomfortable. Efanor had given him the other sigil he was wearing, a reminder that the Prince himself had contrived this and set a protection on him, perhaps for his father’s sake, or Aewyn’s.

  Trassin continued his cleaning in the room where he sat. The queen’s candle drew another such look from Brother Trassin, and a sniff. The man went his way then into the bath, into more nooks and crannies.

  Otter went on pretending to read until the light failed in the window, and Brother Trassin fed the fire in the other room until that light was brighter.

  “We may break our fast now,” the lay brother pronounced, the only thing he had said, all day. “Shall I send down to the kitchens?”

  “Do,” he said, as he would have said to Paisi— though Paisi would have gone down himself, and so far as he knew, there was no one for Brother Trassin to send. But he remembered with great relief that he himself had somewhere to go. “For yourself only, sir. I’m bidden to the Prince’s table tonight.”