Fortress of Eagles

by C. J. Cherryh

  “Your Majesty,” the Patriarch said. And the dukes of Ryssand and Murandys looked out of countenance. Supper was preparing, and they all were invited, in a court composed exactly as they had wished, purified of wizards and their conjuring.

  Barley soup tonight and so long as the harvest held out. Plain Amefin fare. The royal cook might rebel, but it would be barley soup every evening, not a Ryssand leek in evidence, Amefin venison and Llymarish beef, and not a fish, not a one, from Murandys’ weirs.

  A taste for plain fare gave him an excuse for sending wagons and messages to Amefel. He was writing a letter in request of sausages and the state of affairs in a province that had never concerned his father except as a source of wool, taxes, and rural discon

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  tent mediated by a lord he had trusted far too much.

  He recalled an Amefin tailor, a chandler, even the mason who had repaired the stable wall. Perhaps there were walls about the Guelesfort that wanted patching, or perhaps the king needed a winter cloak of fine Amefin wool. Oh, there might he spells sewn into it: the whole province of Amefel was rife with heresy.

  He should not favor Amefel alone. If there were fish, they should also come from Sovrag’s people, who caught them downstream of Murandys, when they were not engaged in petty brigandage. It was a poor province, when it was not raiding; and a royal purchase of fish might give relief to Sovrag’s neighbors, among whom was Cevulirn. If there was grain, the south had that. If there was timber and stone, there was sullen Imor. Damned if he would sit helplessly nodding to the demands of the north. They had set him at odds with them and declared their war against his friends in pettiness and shadows.

  He knew them, and he knew their taxes and wherein they chose to pay the Crown in bags of grain and barrels of salt fish, which they took from the hands of their peasantry.

  Refuse Murandys’ salt fish? Levy instead a demand for timber and labor? To glut the fisheries without warning would lower the price of fish, which the people could eat as well as sell, but it would threaten Murandys and force him to look to Ryssand for the timber. Diminish the requirement for timber the king could not: he needed it for bridges.

  Best consider carefully which of his lords he wished to push at the other, and for what goods, and who would cheat whom, if he demanded, say, gold of Murandys, declaring a royal distaste for barrels of fish. And where would Murandys obtain gold? Selling

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  that fish to Guelessar at, perhaps, a lower price.

  Perhaps merely opening the discussion tonight of a distaste for fish would so alarm Murandys as to make him far more amenable. Or there was another possible topic of interest, which he had never mentioned, awaiting its usefulness.

  “Do you know,” he remarked to Murandys, “Lady Luriel sent me a letter. Several of them, in fact.”

  He saw the intake of breath, as Murandys, his mind set on the Patriarch’s cousin, realized he had an overlooked piece on the board, his niece, who did not love him, who had been writing letters on the eve of the king’s marriage and risking the king’s perhaps unfavorable interest. Cefwyn smiled his grandfather’s smile quite consciously, and rose from his chair.

  “We’ll discuss it,” he said. “The tables are laid, I’m sure, gentlemen. We expect your company.”

  Nestled between two hills, a Quinalt monastery occupied that small wedge of flatland created by the road’s branching to Marisal in the south and to Amefel to the west. Clusyn was its name. It was a waystop the king’s party had used on its way to Guelemara; and thanks to its provision for travelers at any season Tristen found no need to make a camp under canvas, a great benefit, which obviated the necessity of unloading a significant amount of canvas in a rising damp and, worse, loading all that canvas up again in the morning, when the air was bitterly cold.

  Instead a traveler met safe walls, and their company even found meals waiting. The king’s messenger, on his way to Amefel by post-horse ahead of them, had

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  advised the monks such a number of men would be following him by evening, and that news had had the honest monks baking up leavened bread, entire baskets of it coming hot from the oven right at sunset. Monks had swept out the sheds and the space along the south wall, provided hay for their horses, and managed their arrival as a marvelously efficient process, one monk directing their wagons to the end of the yard, where at another brother’s direction each set of drivers might unhitch its team on the spot and lead them to the appropriate area by the stables, oxen to one side, mules to this place, horses to that. The next wagon went beside that one, and the carts in the order of march, and so on, all by the wan light of a setting sun and shadows lengthening over the modest walls…walls the purpose of which seemed to fence out hungry deer, not hostile men.

  The men of the Guard found their accommodation in a disused drying shed, where a fireplace provided a welcome warmth. The drivers shared canvas-sided lean-tos provided with a bonfire in front; but for the lord of Amefel and his captain and his servants, and for the king’s officers, there was the guesthouse, which boasted four proper rooms besides the warm common room. But supper was waiting for all of them, and they were able at last to put off the armor they had worn since before dawn, and to set aside their weapons and sit down to a hot meal. “These are countryfolk,” Uwen said approvingly of the monks. “These are good countryfolk, no rich city men. They put the soldiers and the muleteers and all right into walls, which with this wind startin’ up and the damp and all is a fine thing, a very fine thing.”’

  The wind had become very bitter at the last, nipping 258 / C. J. CHERRYH

  noses and making riders’ toes cold as the sun went down, marking a night of small comfort for anyone beyond a safe fireside and in the open.

  Master Emuin, on the road (asleep, as seemed, in a wagon, as Tristen felt from moment to moment a slight uneasy balance) would not fare half so well, and despite master Emuin’s tenancy in the drafty tower, the unfettered gusts outside were bitter and strong.

  But there was nothing he could do to lend wings to oxen, and he knew no way he could hurry distant wagons. He only hoped the axles bore the weight of master Emuin’s load of baggage and brought him here as soon as might be.

  With a waft of cold air from outside, Anwyll came in to join them midway through their supper, reporting everyone under cover and the soldiers exceedingly grateful for grain and water they had not had to carry for themselves—water which had healing virtues for man and beast.

  “The shrine is famous for the water,” Uwen explained in a low voice. “It heals, so it does, the stomach complaints. His Highness…” Uwen cleared his throat quietly. “His Highness’d set great store by it, on account of the holy precinct.”

  The water tasted of sulfur, to a tongue familiar with the powders of a wizard’s workshop; but Uwen’s quiet tone and hushed reminder of His Highness advised him it was a matter of gods, which Efanor would revere.

  “They sell amulets,” Captain Anwyll added, “which have the virtue of the water. And the local blessing.”

  “This is a safe place,” Tristen said, since some acknowledgment of the virtues of it seemed called for. “It feels so.” And to the rescue of the moment, the

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  monks brought ale, three pitchers of it. “From Marisyn,” the chief monk said, and they finished their supper, with sweet buttered cakes, and talked of safe things like wagon wheels and harness until Anwyll was through with his supper and left them.

  The sulfur-tasting water satisfied thirst. Tristen much doubted the amulets, after Emuin’s dismissal of Efanor’s; but some mark of courtesy seemed due. The monks had done far more for his comfort than ever the great shrine in Guelemara had done.

  “What shall we do to repay the monastery?” he asked Uwen at length. “Shall we give them gold?”

  “It’s the custom to give a gift.”

  “Then will you do that?” he asked, and ga
ve Uwen the purse Idrys had given him, supposing that that was enough: the rest of their money was not in purses but in that great chest the company quartermaster guarded.

  “’At were a good thought,” Uwen said. “I’ll see to it.”

  “Do. But,” he added, “make sure of the coins as you give them. Idrys cautioned me strongly.”

  “That I will,” Uwen said, “and have the lord abbot bless ever’

  one of ’em as I deal it out.”

  “A very good thought,” he said. He was here because of a Sihhë coin as well as a lightning bolt, he well understood so, and he no longer trusted everyone he met, even when he made a gesture of friendship and respect to them. It seemed a sad and sorry way to proceed. But he sent Uwen to pay a coin and test the balance of the heavens tonight, in the very unlikely chance that wizardry had truly transmuted his last one.

  He sat sipping the remnant of his ale before the fire, aware of monks who tiptoed close among the columns to stare at him, and aware of Anwyll and his men, who in pursuing duties in the cold kept letting the wind in.

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  He was aware of Emuin, too, on the road and uncomfortable, and that venture into the gray space seemed riskier than in the daytime. Perhaps it was the weather, with the wind keening around the eaves of what was a strange lodging, even once visited. He had had his way today in sunlight, but the clouds were moving in again. The shadows which abounded in the cluttered edges of the common room leapt and flowed like the firelight as wind fluttered down the chimney…not wicked Shadows, but there were a few more dangerous ones, he suspected, among the natural ones.

  He was glad when Uwen came back, after, it seemed to him, too long a time.

  “The lord abbot’s right pleased, and the captain and all.”

  “Why should the captain be pleased?”

  Uwen ducked his head somewhat and seemed to have said a small word too much.

  “On account of the luck. Havin’ a lord do things for luck, it makes a soldier happier.”

  “The soldiers are unhappy?”

  “Well, there’s some as is anxious about Your Grace, that’s the truth, with the lightning and all. But,” Uwen added, cheerfully, “they ain’t sorry to be here, counting ye a lord that wins his battles, m’lord, which is a long sight better’n one that don’t.”

  “It seems I hardly won the one against the Quinalt.”

  “I don’t think it were the Quinalt that done ye wrong, m’lord, an’ so say others.”

  He looked straight at Uwen, and Uwen, with something he had gathered himself to say, went on:

  “Likeliest Murandys, maybe Ryssand, is what they’re sayin’

  around the fire. Some thinks it was magi

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  cal, but others says it’s again’ His Majesty on account of Her Grace, which the barons don’t like…Murandys is the name some say.”

  Uwen had a knack for hearing things, in the kitchens, in the stables, with the common men wherever he was, and most particularly with grooms and soldiers. He paid attention when Uwen told him such things, and trusted Uwen’s estimations as much as he trusted Idrys’ warnings.

  “Is Cefwyn in danger?” he asked. That had to be asked first.

  “Not so’s ye’d say, in danger, m’lord, as folk think. It’s that the barons in the north was accustomed to goin’ on their own advice in the old king’s reign. I’m talking above myself, here, but the old king favored ’em and His Majesty don’t, and I pray to the gods His Majesty gets before ’em soon an’ checks ’em hard.”

  Gods were much in his thinking lately, and unresolved. But he was entertaining less and less hope of them. “I wish he may.

  What more should I wish?”

  Uwen looked squarely at him, understanding what he meant, he was well sure. At times he longed for Uwen to know more than he did, and to be able to advise him, as Emuin refused to do.

  But Uwen set his own limits. “I couldn’t judge, m’lord. Truly, don’t ye ask me. I can’t tell ye what’s right. All the same I trust your heart, m’lord, ye’ve done naught but good to me. And good to His Majesty. He’s on his throne, and I wouldn’t say His Grace of Murandys is safe if he crosses the Marhanen, not an hour.”

  “Yet Cefwyn wouldn’t do any man harm. He has no wish to do it.”

  “That’s so, m’lord, but he is a king. And kings ain’t common men, as goes wi’out saying.”

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  “Nor am I.”

  “No, m’lord, ye ain’t.” Uwen gave a great breath, as that damning statement hung there, and they neither one could mend that, nor mend what had sundered him from the place he had longed to have.

  “The whole household come wi’ ye, m’lord. Lusin and them has all left the king’s service for good an’ all, to come wi’ ye”

  “I am grateful,” he said, but had no idea what more to say, when men put themselves and all their substance at risk on the currents that swept him up and carried him here and there in the world. To follow him seemed an unreasonable choice in men who might have had peaceful lives. And at the moment he saw his servants and his guards alike waiting at the side of the room, on benches, some, or squatting down to talk to comrades, none asleep, none appearing impatient of the long day’s travel.

  He found no gods in this place, no more than in the Quinaltine. He hoped for the safe rest and peaceful dreams of all the men with him. The Lines were well-ordered here, at the least, a greater comfort and source of strength than the famed water. “The household should go to their beds,” he said, “you among the first. I may sit here a while by the fire.”

  “Yes, m’lord,” Uwen said quietly, and went and spoke to Lusin and Tassand. The staff moved quietly off to the hall.

  But when Uwen came back alone and settled close by the fire, he was not surprised. Uwen maintained his solitary watch, armed, but not heavily so, wary, but nodding sometimes.

  “How’s Emuin farin’?” Uwen asked at last.

  “Master Emuin has had to stop,” he said quietly.

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  Emuin was at least warm, if damp, and the cold wind was catching the canvas that sheltered him, an intermittent thumping. “Has Captain Anwyll gone to bed?”

  “The captain’s turned in, aye. I said I’d watch.”

  “You might make a pallet.”

  “Ye might lie down on your own bed, young m’lord.”

  “I shall. I shall, Uwen. But just now the fire is warm.”

  “Aye, m’lord.”

  A question nagged his peace. “Does he fear me, the captain?”

  “He’s Quinalt, an’ ain’t never dealt with wizards. Ye do set a body back a little with your seein’ master Emuin, m’lord.”

  “Doubtless so.”

  Tristen watched the flames, wondering did he dare sleep, and asking himself whether they should simply wait here until tomorrow evening and until master Emuin might overtake them. He had let the captain go to his bed without discussing the notion. But he still might propose it at breakfast, which they did propose to have, before they hitched the wagons.

  Delaying another day could have risk, once the messenger had reached Amefel and let loose his news in a town known for unrest. If the town expected a thing to happen in a certain number of days and it failed, speculation started, and men did unwise things.

  Meanwhile Uwen’s head nodded and his chin sank on his breast. And in the gray space, softly, subtly, as Tristen watched the fire, Emuin was with him, a wisp of a presence, a comfort in the shadowy dark.

  A wind seemed to blow through the gray, tattering edges.

  Emuin’s presence grew more attenuated still, but 264 / C. J. CHERRYH

  whether he was as thin and insubstantial to Emuin he could not say. He resisted all temptation to reach out and hold on to the old man by his own strength. There had been risk in speaking like this in Guelemara, the chance of being spied upon; and he was not sure, resting among so many priests and monks,
whether it was entirely safe to make such an approach.

  But there was also a decision to make.

  —Shall I bid the company wait? he asked master Emuin.

  We might stay here tomorrow.

  The wind blew stronger. And colder.

  —Master Emuin? Are you well?

  —Be careful! Emuin said, a mere wisp now. Beware,

  young lord!

  Something crossed the wind, shadowed it for a moment, uncommon in his venturing here.

  —What is that? he began to ask. And in alarm: Is someone

  there?

  —No! Emuin caught at him, but wafted backward as if the wind had blown him, sailed away and down like the leaf from the hilltop. Don’t pursue me. Don’t look. Don’t ask, don’t

  wonder. I fear shadows in that direction, young lord. I

  do fear them. Perhaps I see them more clearly where I

  stand. But this is altogether an uneasy night. Go!

  Distances here were not the same. At one moment Emuin had as well have been in Guelemara, in the next as solidly as if he were in the monastery, and yet Emuin had not stirred from his camp nor he from his chair.

  And beyond…beyond and in some direction he could not equate with the chair or the fireside…was an Edge of the sort he had learned was dangerous. It was death…or it was at least a loss of some sort. He had seen it appear with Uleman, the lord Regent,

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  Her Grace’s father, and lost him very soon after. Of a sudden he was afraid for Emuin, and was amazed how very like Mauryl Emuin had become, with his hair and beard far whiter since summer. It shone, in the light there was. He could easily mistake one for the other.

  —I am not Mauryl, Emuin said fiercely. I have no wish