C. J. Cherryh - Fortress 05 (13 page)

And Paisi had only come along with him to Guelemara in the first place to take care of him, and he had never been forbidden to send Paisi back— because no one ever thought he would be sending Paisi anywhere else, he was sure, but it was so. The horse, now, being his—he could argue that he thought the horse was his to send, though it was unlikely his father meant him to keep so fine a creature when he did go home again.

At least, he said to himself, at least if his father was angry, the anger would not fall on Gran’s head or Paisi’s: it was his own at risk.

And, while truth was at issue, he would learn essential truths about his father when the first truth came out. He would discover, for one thing, whether his father would forgive him as readily as he forgave Aewyn, and laugh—Aewyn had always said that their father wouldn’t be annoyed at this or that thing, and Aewyn defied the rules with blithe unconcern. All he wanted for himself was one grace for one solitary misbehavior. It seemed within reason… if the king really did care what became of him.

All those years that the king had stopped to talk to Gran—he had always taken for granted that it was about him; and then he had begun to believe it was concern for his welfare. The annual gifts had persuaded him so.

But had the conversation really been regarding him?

His father had other concerns in Amefel: the cold light of day had made him reckon that into the balance. His father might have been stopping to ask Gran about his mother, not about him.

If that were so—maybe he would have far less patience with his misdeed.

Well, there was the truth to learn. At worst, his father would send him home and never want to see him again. But at least he would have done the right thing by Gran, and he would not have built up fond hopes about his estate in life, hopes which, if followed too far, could do greater harm to him and Gran and Paisi than he could manage now. Maybe he was meant to be a goatherd, or maybe learn Gran’s craft, if he had a smidge of his mother’s talent.

He was never a wicked person. It was a choice, was it not, whether to turn wizardry to sorcery? It wasn’t a taint born into him, was it?

And if his father turned out not to want him here, then he could only make things worse for himself and Aewyn and everyone by staying too long. If his father cast him out, there was still a hope that someday Aewyn would come visit him… there was their friendship, which above all else he wanted not to betray. And he didn’t think he had.

He almost wished he had gone with Paisi, back to his life in the country, where he could help Paisi on the farm and live a quiet life in a place he loved until the king and Aewyn rode by again. That was no bad fate.

Well, and if that was all done and gone—it never had been much.

And if not, and his father did forgive him as freely as he would forgive Aewyn, on whom he clearly doted—well, then he’d know Gran’s extravagant hopes , for his fortunes were justified, and he could trust a little more to that fragile ice.

If his father did forgive him, then he would give his father what a good father might hope to win from him… like trust. And love.

He would so very much like to love his father. He had come here hoping to find his fortune, to be given something to do, or be, and so far he had found that it was Aewyn who had bidden him, to give him friendship—not inconsiderable at all, by no measure insignificant, but not altogether what he had come hoping for.

If he found a father who could love him, that he could love in return, and trust…

Oh, it was a giddy, soaring hope. And he had just done everything a fool could do to make things go wrong, had he not? He deceived, and stole, and lied.

So here he sat on the very hinge point of his life, gifted with his new clothes he was now afraid to question with Aewyn; with new obligations— and overwhelmed with the possibilities—and having a secret he had to keep for at least a day.

Maybe, he thought, after he put on his best show of manners in the Quinaltine on Fast Day, maybe after he proved he could do well and be dutiful, that would be the best time to tell his father what he had done.

If he could keep the secret from spilling out of the courtyard and the stables.

From now on he must make no more mistakes, none at all. He had been Otter all his life, and that was a safe name. The one he was born with— Elfwyn—he knew was an enemy’s name, a king’s name, the one the Marhanen kings of Ylesuin had betrayed and murdered. If only his mother had given him a name out of her own Aswydd house—a name like Heryn, even, her brother who was hanged—that would have been bad enough for his fortunes. But she had named him after a remote relative only she claimed, the last of the Sihhë kings and the source of her abrogated rights and titles as well as the Gift she had. The name had insulted his father, whose house had succeeded the Sihhë kings, it had threatened Lord Crissand, who had gained her titles, and it had outraged the Quinalt priests. It had been a wicked stroke on her part: it was clever, and it made everyone around her as uncomfortable as possible: that meant his mother was happy.

Gran had stepped in, then, and called him Otter, a country name, from a countrywoman, and it had served him all his life. But it wasn’t a city name, or a name to go about with, and among the hopes he had had in coming to Guelemara, he had hoped his father would give him a new name, a Guelen name, one the Quinalt priests would accept, one he could wear in public, and stop people whispering about him.

“There’s the king’s son,” they would say, if he had a Guelenish name like Gwieden or even Wynsan or Feisun, which every third person in town seemed to be called. He would settle for Wynsan, not—“There’s the witch’s brat.”

He didn’t know what he was going to be once he went into the sanctuary of the Quinaltine with the rest of the family. Probably nobody else had thought of it, yet. There was a book there, that the priests wrote names in, when a person was blessed and sealed, whatever that meant. But if they wrote him in the Quinaltine book, what would they write? Otter from Amefel? Not next to Aewyn Marhanen. His father would find it entirely uncomfortable to have a son named Elfwyn or Aswydd, would he not, and he was both, and those fine clothes were trying to say Marhanen—if he was meant to have them.

Oh, he wished he had gone with Paisi when he’d had the chance.

He still sat waiting, waiting to gain what Gran had always told him was his fortune… and dreading some shout in the hallways: The Amefin brat’s stolen a horse and lied to the gate wardens…

Why, oh, why had he stayed? He had settled into certain appurtenances of this princely life: Aewyn’s comradeship above all; and books, as many as he liked; and bread with no mill sand in it; spiced foods; clean sheets and warm fires and glass windows—all these wonderful things he still looked on with wonder and yet could not imagine now being without. The priests always said wealth could never make anyone happy: but it seemed to him, where he sat, that these things were a reason for great contentment, if he could continue here.

Wealth, and a righteous name that Guelenfolk could say without blanching, if he could only attain it, could do one other thing for them. If he gained a name he could wear comfortably among Guelenfolk, and be in the king’s house, and if he had gold, then he could help Gran and Paisi, and provide for them handsomely to the end of their days. Paisi should not be his servant. Paisi was Gran’s true grandson, was what, when he himself had had no right to a place under Gran’s roof until Lord Tristen had asked Gran to take him in and keep him away from his mother. Paisi’s real place in the world was to take care of his gran, not him, and to inherit her farm someday, and to have a fine herd of goats and another of pigs and enough money to hire a helper. Paisi could be a substantial man, with property.

His wealth was their answer. He would get through this. He would do all he could to send Paisi home for good. He would find his own way in this strange place, after making peace with his father.

He might be terribly lonely, then, bereft of the family and life he knew.

But there was Aewyn. His absent brother. His friend. His model of what it could be, to be King Cefwyn’s son.

At the moment he dreaded going to Aewyn: he was by no means sure Aewyn would not immediately see that something was wrong, and if Aewyn got the truth out of him too soon, he might take offense at not being told from the start—gods, he was supposed to be helping Aewyn with the apples this morning, and he hadn’t, and now Aewyn was going to ask questions for sure, where he’d been, what he’d done—

Aewyn might be angry with him, and might tell his father, and the soldiers might catch Paisi before he had reached the first way stop.

That was no good. He’d let Aewyn get worried about him, that was the way. He’d tell Aewyn he’d been hiding out and confess the whole truth right after services tomorrow. By then Paisi would be much too far to catch, and Aewyn would have to feel sympathy for him. Likely the clothes were exactly what he was supposed to have, and he would just have to show up for services and not say anything to Aewyn before tomorrow morning.

It was dangerous. Aewyn did have a temper. But that way, if his father did let fly, Aewyn would intercede for him until he had the story, and he could talk his way past Aewyn, after it was too late for a report to do anything to catch Paisi or thwart that—Aewyn might be angry, but he would not likely want to have him sent home, and knowing his father that much better, and being able to say things a bastard son wouldn’t dare say in his own defense, Aewyn could talk his way out of trouble for him—it was going to be unpleasant, but if he knew Aewyn, and he thought he did, the storm would blow over, if he just didn’t have to lie to Aewyn beforehand.

So long as he didn’t lie, everything would be patched up and cobbled together. And Gran’s gifts—those would go on. She needed them.

He’d once thought Lord Crissand was the sole source of the good things that came to them in their cottage, and that of course lords naturally gifted old peasant women with goats and hay and good blankets. When he had learned a few years ago that it was his father the king behind it all—his father the king, and, long ago, Tristen Sihhë—

Surely, whatever else happened in Guelemara, those gifts might continue.

Oh, he wished he knew what to do.

Maybe, please the gods, it was Gran’s Sending that had reached out to him, and he had done the right thing. Gods forfend it should be his mother’s.

Act on a piece of wizardry, cooperate with it ever so little—and it spread and developed branches.

Wasn’t that what Gran had always warned him?

vii

AFTERNOON CAME, AND WITH AFTERNOON, A PATCH OF

BLUE SPREAD IN THE sky, while the snow had stopped for the last hour. Whatever Aewyn had done about the stables, Otter was sure Aewyn had done by now, and he might be angry, staying in his room, waiting for him to come and apologize.

He would have to wait. Otter put away the strayed items about the room, dined on more toast and water, while thus far, so far as he could guess, the question of a missing horse and a servant’s mission somehow had not gone beyond the courtyard, nobody had mentioned it to Aewyn, and Aewyn had not come to his room, which meant, probably, that Aewyn was put out with him.

But there was still the likelihood of the stablemaster asking, when Feiny never came back. As the afternoon lengthened, worry wore a deeper spot in his imagination. Otter finally gathered his courage and decided he should go down to the yard to head off questions and prevent any difficulties from reaching the inner halls and complicating matters with Aewyn and his father.

He put on his better brown cloak, to look as much like his father’s son as he could, and walked down the hall, this time to the central stairs, keeping a slightly worried eye out for Aewyn or his bodyguard. He saw no one, which indicated Aewyn was somewhere other than his rooms. He went down to the main hall and so on to the stable-court door. Past soldiers busy with their own concerns, he walked out into the crisp air and sunlight of the courtyard, and, descending the steps at an idle stroll, he walked through the yard.

“Your lordship.”

He looked aside. The stablemaster had seen him, and diverted onto his track straightway with the air of a man bent on business.

His heart beat hard. “Sir,” he said respectfully and as innocently as he could manage. The stablemaster had the look of an old soldier, weathered and white-mustached, with no nonsense about him, and Otter’s every desire was to bow and look at the ground—but he had known, coming down there, that he might be caught and might have to try out his story on the stablemaster or the gate warden or worse.

“The boy says ye went out by dawn an’ took Feiny out.”

“I did, sir,” he said, light-headed with fright. “Paisi had to go home.” The story started to change its order, and its pieces, coming hind end first into the world. “Our gran’s taken ill. He had to go, and with the drifts and all, we couldn’t get down to the pasture. So I sent him on Feiny, with grain enough, and cover from the weather. He’ll be back, Paisi will. With Feiny safe and sound.”

The stablemaster’s brows drew together like a gathering cloud, and the frown deepened. “It’s a hard ride, at best. And that man o’

yours ain’t up to that horse, your lordship, forgive me. The boy’s a fool that didn’t ask what you was about. If we’d ha’ knowt, we’d ha’

provided a gentler horse.”

There it was. The boy had the blame and might take harm for it, and in the face of such bluff goodwill from the old stablemaster, he lost all resolve. He could scarcely track the story that had fallen out of his mouth already.

“It was my fault,” he said. “It was my fault, Master Kei. But Paisi is much better than I am on a horse. And he’s traveling with merchants.”

“Ha,” the stablemaster grunted, eyebrows lifting at that comforting news. “A message come, was it?”

“Yes, sir,” he said. The lie fell out of his mouth and took solid form. “From Amefel.”

“An’ this messenger, did he ride back wi’ your man, wi’ no change of horse?”