Fortress of Eagles

by C. J. Cherryh

  hands he estimated as far less contested.

  “This case and the message must reach Idrys,” he said to Uwen. “Not His Majesty. And it must go as quickly as possible.

  The man should only say to Idrys that I thought he should see it. Ryssand doesn’t know it’s in our hands. He won’t know until the viceroy

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  arrives in Guelemara, he may not be sure of it even then, as you say, and by then Idrys will have made plans.”

  “We might prevent the lord viceroy gettin’ there at all, which is surer still. We can send men out after ’im, arrest ’im an’ hold

  ’m against His Majesty’s sendin’ for ’im.”

  That, too, was worth a thought. But he decided otherwise.

  “No. Idrys may prefer to do something else.” He wished he were more sure of that opinion; Uwen gave sound advice, on what Uwen knew. “Send the message straight to Idrys. It’s the best thing.”

  “Aye, m’lord,” Uwen said, and took the case. “I’ll send it, fast as these legs can find a likely man.”

  Uwen left, The door shut.

  Treason, that letter said without a doubt. Any baron of Ylesuin might freely quarrel with a Marhanen king’s policy…and had done so. But they were not free to have private dealings with a man who should report first to Cefwyn, an invitation issued in such haste the duke of Ryssand’s messenger had outridden a king’s herald.

  Did dinner invitations come with such desperate measures?

  And was forewarning Parsynan only for the sake of the jewels and other pilferage, or what other thing might a forewarning have advised Parsynan to do?

  To pack…and to arrange things for his absence…

  To lay traps? To remove certain things? Parsynan had tried to take the jewels, surely for his own benefit; had taken a sizable sum of gold; and a message, perhaps to prove to servants and guards his right to access Lord Ryssand without delay and perhaps in secret, or to prove to others Lord Ryssand had written to him. That

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  was the only use he could construe for it; and his own working had surely snarled Lord Parsynan’s affairs, top to bottom. He wished he might do the same for Lord Ryssand.

  He watched his pigeons, lately combatants on the ledge, green-coat and violet-breast walking separately, having chased off the others, and thought that he never should have left Cefwyn. He thought it so desperately he almost dared attempt to reach Her Grace herself with a message, but Ninévrisë’s gift was so small, the distance so great, the danger in the gray space so insistent that he backed away from the attempt in haste. No, that was not wise.

  By now the barons Cefwyn detested had compelled Cefwyn to take back Sulriggan. Dared he hope a horse threw the lord of Llymaryn as well as the lord viceroy? Perhaps Lord Corswyndam, too…a kingdomwide plague of ill-behaving horses, perhaps…was it wicked to imagine it? It was certainly to his liking.

  To Cefwyn’s good he could wish all the barons’ horses might be wild and unbiddable. So with all Cefwyn’s troublesome lords.

  But he checked himself abruptly, asking himself what would Mauryl say? What would Emuin? Yet, yet if men conspired behind their lawful monarch’s back…did a sworn friend’s virtue dictate letting them pursue their harmful work unscathed? If men must take harm, Ryssand and Parsynan were deserving of it, were they not? If Duke Corswyndam slipped on the stairs and no worse than went to his bed for a fortnight, Cefwyn might have a chance to read this letter and deal with Parsynan, and do justice for the house of Meiden.

  Had he not sworn to do justice when he swore fealty to Cefwyn? And would that not satisfy it?

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  But to wish harm on others was wicked even to think of, was it not?

  When he thought of it, he had left Mauryl’s care and walked into the world with no real knowledge of Wickedness, and Emuin had taught him very little of it. When the dark doings of ordinary Men Unfolded to him, they Unfolded not so much a blazoned banner of Evil as a tattered quilt of Misdeed, all far from the clear understanding he would have wished to gain of Good and Evil. Hasufin might have been evil…but did not lords prosper their own folk and strive against rivals quite commonly? He failed to see wherein Hasufin was worse than Cefwyn’s grandfather.

  And while Wickedness and Evil were abundant in Efanor’s little book, and he could read that the gods disliked both, whence came Wickedness in the first place, if the gods created all the world? Did they create something they detested, along with the mountains and the rivers? Efanor’s book informed him of nothing on that score, except to say that Men and their works were wholly evil, but some were good…very like Emuin’s defining the length of autumn to him. So it seemed to come down to Efanor’s advice, and Efanor’s little book and an amulet of silver and sheep’s blood…which was to say, nothing.

  Perhaps he should have taken Uwen’s advice in the absence of wizardly counsel. Perhaps he should yet show Emuin that document, and ask Emuin what to do, before it ever came to Idrys’ grim actions.

  Yet dared he cast responsibility on Emuin, who spent so much effort avoiding it?

  No, that was not fair, or true. Emuin spent his effort avoiding responsibility for him, and that was a far, far different thing.

  Emuin wanted little done. There was a

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  certain wisdom in doing little, when one was obliged to act in ignorance.

  His own ignorance, however, was not so wide as it once had been…and his will to act, accordingly, was wider than it had been this summer.

  He waited, watching the roofs of Henas’amef from the window bordered in frost and green curtains, watching the pigeons.

  In time Uwen came back from his mission.

  “The captain’s sendin’ Lyn, who’s reliable man, won’t be no stoppin’ in the High Street tavern wi’ Lyn; and Haman’s picked a fine pair of horses from the stables for ’im. He’ll be dust again’ the sky soon as ye can wish, and I give him orders to ride right past th’ viceroy like a bird on the wing. But are ye sure about master Emuin? Shouldn’t ye warn ’im, lad, at least instruct ’im t’ gi’ that man the worst horse he can lay hands on?”

  Uwen was a clever man, and in part he thought yes. At least enlist Emuin’s help whether he saw the message or not.

  But to tempt Emuin to act against his judgment…

  “No,” he said. “No. Ride through. The viceroy will lie. If Emuin will not hear me in the gray space, he will hardly be happier to have a message other men can see. Lyn should ride past and not stop. That may worry master Emuin,” he added on a sober thought; and then said in some lingering vexation,

  “But if it does, perhaps he’ll suspect the viceroy’s story entirely and make some haste to reach us.”

  “Aye, m’lord.”

  Uwen left again in great haste and in no long space after Uwen had had time to reach the front stairs came the clatter of a rider headed out across the South Courtyard and out the South Gate.

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  So Liss had brought them a gift the lord viceroy would pay all his gold not to have in Idrys’ hands. And master Haman had turned up. That was good, too, though Tristen found himself not in the least surprised, only a little fearful for the broad scope of his decisions and at the same time expecting more such threads of Amefel-as-it-was to come into his hands.

  Petelly had his old stall back, Tristen found as he walked into the stables in a quieter hour of the mid-afternoon. There were no apples in the barrel, there was dirty straw and manure scattered in the aisle, a disgraceful state of affairs, and Haman, newly arrived back in his domain, was shouting about horse brushes and pilfered halters when he and Uwen came in.

  “Bandits!” Haman cried.

  But master Haman hurried over to him as he patted Petelly’s offered nose, Gia thrusting her head out of her next-door stall to watch. “Your Grace,” Haman said. “Gods bless Your Grace, these stables will be back in order as quick as we c
an move.

  We were never so glad in our lives, m’lord, as when we heard ye’d remembered us.”

  Master Haman was greatly moved, his weathered face showing more tender passion than its habitual lines had graven in it, and meanwhile boys with buckets and manure forks and barrows were in rapid movement up and down the aisle, evidence that with master Haman in charge the horses’ welfare would never be a concern. Uwen reported Dys was down in the lower stables with Aswys. So was Cassam. Gia was down, too, for rest, with Gery. But Liss had a red ribbon 398 / C. J. CHERRYH

  braided into her forelock, and was curried so she shone.

  “Well-done,” he said, “very well done.” And as he was walking out with Uwen, to the inspection of the rest of the yard, lo! there was Cook marching in by the West Gate bearing a ladle in her fist like a battle mace, and in her train, a number of the scullery maids bearing along pots and kettles. Two of the Dragon Guard, on horse back, improbably brought up the rear.

  “The cook and the three maids was all found at Silver Street, m’lord,” a guardsman said with a salute. “The pots were hidden in the gatehouse cistern.”

  “M’lord!” Cook said with a deep curtsy, and so all the maids bobbed down and up in rapid succession, their faces all consternation.

  “Why were the pots hidden?” Tristen could not for-bear asking.

  “So’s they weren’t stolen, m’lord,” Cook said with another curtsy, “as the viceroy turned us out for puttin’ his Guard layabouts out o’ the scullery.” This with a fierce look. “They turn’t me out, an’ the lads, too, an’ so we hid the good copper pots in the cistern, an’ since then they hain’t had a kettle but the great one that’s hard to shift. Here’s all the fine spoons, too,”

  At that a maid tipped the pot she carried, and there were, indeed, spoons. “We come back ourselves like honest folk an’

  reported to the Guard about the pots.”

  “You’ll take great care,” Tristen said. “Earl Edwyll died of poison Lady Orien left. Be very careful of the stores. And I have missed the pies.”

  “That I will, m’lord! That I will indeed! An’ pies you shall have, m’lord!” Cook’s broad face splotched when she was distraught, or now when she seemed happy. “Gods bless, gods bless, an’ a long life to Your Grace.”

  He feared she had broken the law by taking the pots FORTRESS OF EAGLES / 399

  and the spoons, but justice required his not seeing it. “Let them free,” he instructed the guards. “They’ll set the kitchen in order.—I suppose the scullery lads will turn up in due course,”

  he said to Uwen.

  “I’ve no doubt. Word’s out that ye want the old staff, an’

  they’re turnin’ up by twos and threes an’ by troops and regiments. We sent word out, too, that ye want the gate wardens o’ th’ West back, but Ness says they’re fair scairt, on account of layin’ violent hand on ye this summer.”

  “Say they should come. I’m not angry.”

  “At’s what I said to Ness.” Uwen shook his head. “An’ I’ll say again. We’ll find ’em.”

  “Your Grace.” A clerk had been hovering at the edge of his vision for the last several moments, the clerk who had ridden with them, distressed and in the company of a Guelen guardsman. “Your Grace. If Your Grace could spare a moment…”

  Tristen paused to listen, and the clerk bowed again. But it was the guardsman who spoke:

  “There’s letters burnt, your lordship, and a dead man in the library.”

  He had asked himself what such a man as Parsynan would choose to do, given advance warning. He delayed not at all, but strode off, himself, Uwen, Syllan, and Tawwys with him.

  “What sort of letters?” he asked the clerk. “Are they entirely burned? Can you make anything of them?”

  “A book of record, a record of some kind, perhaps of the very letters.” The man was all but trembling. “And a man who may be the archivist, dead, beneath a table. No one had been in there with the fighting and all, and I came in to build a fire myself, the servants not answering; I never even saw the dead man, Your Grace,

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  until I saw the scroll ends in the fireplace, and he was right beside me. Right beside me!”

  “Stabbed?” Uwen asked.

  “No blood,” the guardsman said. “An’ the book in the fireplace, m’lord, and the scroll ends. It seemed your lordship should know.”

  “We ain’t let anyone into any place we ain’t searched,” Uwen said, “even yet. Have ye seen the archivists, either one, man?”

  “Neither.” The clerk hitched a double step keeping up with them as they climbed the stable-court stairs. “Unless this is one.

  It’s an old man.”

  “It might be,” Tristen said, as they passed the doors. The way to the archive took them past the lesser hall, and behind the central stairs, into the back hallway.

  There were two guards posted over the archive, which ended that hallway, past the garden windows, guards who came to attention and opened the door without question.

  Codices were not shelved, but piled on tables. Scrolls were stacked, not in their columbaria, and when he walked to the far side of the room the fireplace that provided warmth to the library indeed held the ends of scrolls and the burned spine of a codex.

  “Here’s scoundrels’ work for certain,” Uwen said, and Tristen surveyed the calamity, and the body of the man recently dead, a tangle of robes and white hair curled up as if for sleep, beside a heavy chair and partially concealed by the adjacent reading table.

  “This is senior archivist. There were two.”

  “There’s just the one, Your Grace,” the sergeant said, and pointed into the shadows, to a hole the table shadowed. The plastered masonry had been taken apart, revealing a hiding place.

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  “Find the other archivist,” Tristen said, wanting that very much, but finding it far less readily accessible than Liss…and it was not because of his not knowing the man. The two who had worked here were both old men, both quarreled with each other bitterly. Now they were one dead, the other fled; and there was no apparent reason except Amefin business, the sort of which this archive kept account. It was not likely Lord Parsynan’s correspondence in the fire: there was no reason for Parsynan to store in the archive any letter he wished kept secret and there was no reason to chisel it out of a wall. It might be a certain portion of Lord Heryn’s archive. Cefwyn had ordered that sent to Guelemara, along with unique books of history and record, but there might have been something concealed.

  “There’s nothing left,” the clerk said, stooping to pick up the burned remnant of the book. He opened it to show only the margin and a handful of words, and charred parchment flaked away in his careless handling. Tristen knelt at the fireplace, carefully extracted the browned yet unburned end of a parchment. It was blank, a margin edge. “Your Grace will soot his hands,” the clerk said, but Tristen reached in among ashes warm at their heart and another, which had burned up and down its length, but which had the scroll top at its heart—crumbling ash, for the most part, and the wax of the seals had surely fed the fire that consumed it.

  The salutation was still legible: to the aetheling…

  He walked to the window, where there was more light, and pried further, into charred black whereon the ink was gray. He made out the words Althalen and Gestaurien…

  And he knew the spidery hand. He had seen it every 402 / C. J. CHERRYH

  day in Ynefel. He had watched Mauryl write and cipher, day after day, endlessly at his work.

  The charred portion fell away in his fingers. Gestaurien vanished in soot and fragments.

  He stood shaken, grieved and angry.

  “I want the archivist,” he said, but even knowing that the Guard had had the town gates shut last night and watched the traffic there carefully today, there was no warning to watch for an elderly, unarmed man. “Find me a box. Now.”

  “Find his lordship a box!” th
e sergeant said, but the clerk, hurrying to redeem himself, turned a scroll lectern upside down, and Tristen knelt and carefully laid the fragments in the box it made, piece by treasured piece, as he had never had the chance to collect anything from Ynefel but Mauryl’s direct gifts.

  And why these now lay with a dead man he could only half guess: that they were potent, yes; that the archivists had always known they were here, likely; that they wanted to come to him now, conceivable; that someone would have wished to prevent that, understandable.

  But did humble archivists turn and murder one another and destroy their charge?

  It was conceivable these exceeded what a man could conceal about his person, if he had turned thief. Or they might be all.

  Find the archivist, was the burden of his thought, but it went out into the gray and lost itself in a town full of similar men, similar lives, only a few that sparked fire, and those nothing, nothing to do with this act.

  One was surely Crissand. About that one he felt a pang of grief, felt the cold of stone. One was in the East Court, likewise within stone, likely a priest. One was

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  about some business he could not define. But more subtle, like a fish slipping through sunlit ripples, invisible, something else flicked past his notice.

  And that something flickered off toward the east, toward Emuin, toward the monastery, toward Guelessar.

  Beware, he wished Emuin, and all at once rued his decision not to warn Emuin regarding either the message from Ryssand or the messenger to Idrys. He knelt with ruin in his hands and willed it mended, but only a flickering presence answered him, undefined, flickering hither and thither through his recollections, difficult to catch, wary, wily, and not without complicity…he felt so.

  The clerk’s face was pale in the sunlight from the windows and utterly sober. “Your Grace,” the young man whispered fearfully. “If I could have been here sooner, last night…”

  But the clerk had been in hall, reading the documents. The archivists were entrusted with the integrity of this place. And guards had been at the door…what more could a clerk do, where wizards failed? The deed was done, the second archivist had fled with whatever he had taken away, and Tristen much doubted they would find the man within the town.