C. J. Cherryh - Fortress 05 (32 page)

Well, he knew what Tristen would say about easy and natural courses… the thing that felt so right and natural to do… the situation unexamined for year upon year, as things subtly or not so subtly shifted: decisions forgotten and allowed to stand, though the safety in them had subtly eroded away.

Maybe—maybe he should have refused advice to send the boy home.

Otter had gotten through Festival and been written down; he could have taken ill for the last ceremonies, attendance at which was often taken somewhat lightly, if the privations and worship of the first days had rendered a body indisposed. They could have gotten through it.

But at least the boy had evaded his mother. He had not gone into the town: he had left, out of his mother’s reach. That was to the good.

“I’ll write a letter,” he said. “All hospitality for the messenger.”

Idrys gave him back the letter, rolled up, and Cefwyn laid it on the desk. “We know what we know, and no more. It may be to the good.”

Idrys left. Efanor arrived, before he had quite sat down to write the reply.

“There was a message,” Efanor said, and Cefwyn told him the gist of it.

Efanor sat down unbidden, in the informality of the privy chambers, sat down and rested his arm on the side of Cefwyn’s desk. “Well, better than I had feared.”

“Better than frozen in a snowbank,” Cefwyn said shortly.

“Everything’s better than what could have happened.”

“And the woman is well.”

“Perfectly well, as seems,” Cefwyn said. “His dreams were for naught.”

“
Tristen
wouldn’t send a false dream.”

“We know who would. Spare me. I have yet to explain to my son where his friend is. He will ask, of course, when he’s coming back, and if he’s gotten my letter, and I have to say no, the letter went to Crissand, but not to our fugitive, and nothing is mended.”

“The spot on the stone, meanwhile—”

“The Holy Father’s masonry, brother, is not my chief concern.

And you said—”

“The blot is there again,” Efanor said. “Not visible to everyone.

But—”

“How many paving stones has the inner chapel? We are not destitute. They should last until thaw.”

“Don’t make light of it, I pray you, brother. Listen to me. This is not the Holy Father looking for favors. If your son has gone to Lord Tristen—”

“If he has. He most certainly has. There’s nowhere else he could go, in that direction, and what in the gods’ own name does it have to do with the Quinaltine floor?”

“I told you, after the war, after the battle in Elwynor, the foundation—”

“The foundation is flawed. The Lines run amiss. I know it. They wouldn’t have Tristen deal with the matter, oh, no, nothing so reasonable. Now I’m to repave the whole Quinaltine, a stone at a time?”

“It’s not that, brother.” Efanor reached out and laid a hand on his wrist, quietly compelling him. “The foundations, yes, were mislaid from the start. The Lines are completely askew. I know you can’t see them, but trust me in this, they’re not what they ought to be.”

“Given that, they never have been.”

“Our grandfather founded the place on old ruins, and took them over, and they’re flawed from that beginning. I’ve tried to mend them. His Holiness has blessed them, with no success. And, without tearing the holy precinct down…”

“Good gods, brother.”

“Pavings are not the flaw here. The flaw is in the rock beneath.”

“The Holy Father proposes to tear down the Quinaltine?”

“I’ve not broached this with the Holy Father.”

He stared at his brother, not believing what he heard. “Tear it down.”

“As we build a new shrine.”

“Oh, good gods!”

“The manifestation—” His grip on Cefwyn’s wrist tightened. “The manifestation has not gone away with Otter’s departure. If anything, it’s spreading.”

“Well, then it wasn’t his fault, was it? Tell that to the street preachers! Did Nevris mention to you there was a tavern brawl, which ordinarily isn’t my concern; but this man was preaching against Bryalt observance, trying to burn down a tavern and blaming my son when he did it?”

“Otter, you mean.”

“Yes, Otter, damn it.”

“You think of him in those terms.”

“As my son? He is my son. He
is
my son, brother, however inconvenient. I can do nothing about that. Nor can he. I thought you thought well of him.”

“Well of him, indeed. But he’s a doorway. Whose, remains to be seen.”

“Gods, you sound like Emuin!”

“I heartily wish Emuin were still with us. He would tell you—”

“What, that I have a spot on the Quinaltine floor and we have to tear the building down? And it’s all my son’s fault?”

“No. He’d say that the door has already come ajar. The boy
sees
the Lines…”

“So do you,” Cefwyn retorted.

“He more than sees the Lines, brother. Things beyond the Lines see
him
. I see the Lines. And I guard my own soul. Who guards his?”

“Well, damned well not the Quinalt Father, does he, despite writing him down in the book? And what will the old man say when you propose to tear the building down? I’m sure that will patch things.”

“Listen to me: the Lines, the Lines, brother. I don’t understand them, but they exist, they’re confused, they’re a trap for spirits, and as tangled as they’ve grown—I’m not sure even Tristen could untangle them…”

“They won’t let Tristen through the doors, remember? They won’t take blessings from a Sihhë. And we can’t afford to build another Quinaltine.”

“Brother, if we begin it, if we only begin it—”

“
Where
? Every morsel of ground atop the hill is built on. There’s not room for a chapel, let alone another Quinaltine! And since when does the Holy Father believe in Bryalt Lines?”

“They’re not Bryalt.”

“Does he see them?”

“He can’t.”

“Nor believes in them, I’ll warrant. It’s a Bryalt belief. And you propose to explain to him how this exists in his Quinaltine, while explaining to him you want to tear down his sanctuary.”

“And build one that’s clean, and whole. I can lay it out. I know where, on the hill, there is a place.”

“Where? Just suppose for a moment that I even entertain this notion. Where would you put it?”

“Midsquare. The square itself is clean.”

The public square. The meeting place of the populace, the precinct of vendors and artisans, by kingdom-old right.

“Get the Patriarch to deal with the street preachers,” Cefwyn said. “Get them in hand before I ever consider this thing. Do that!”

“It may not be possible,” Efanor said. “It may get worse, as the Lines get worse. They want that place. They intend to have it.”

“Who wants it? The street preachers?”

Efanor shook his head. “No. The things behind the Lines. The ghosts of our own dead, among other things less savory.”

“You’re mad. You’re quite mad, brother.”

“You were on the field. You saw, in Elwynor, when the dragon passed…”

“I saw a shadow! I am not favored, to see dragons.”

“You saw it, I say. You’ve dealt with it. You’ve dealt with Tristen, far more than I. The Quinaltine is failing, and your son has very sensibly gone to him, but I cannot swear to what may result if Tristen should move from there. What he does we cannot predict.

But give me my shrine. Give me that, brother.”

“The people in the streets will be in uproar at the idea, every tavern will have its rumors, and your street preachers, your infernal street preachers, will seize on the matter like a hawk on a sparrow, brother. Give me a better proposal, and a cheaper one!”

“There is nothing cheaper,” Efanor said, “but the Patriarch might foreseeably propose it himself. Or I might do it. It need not come from you.

“Too dangerous for you. And as suspect. I’ll not have you embroiled in the matter. I’ll not have you proposing it.”

“If he proposes it—do I get my shrine?”

Cefwyn drew a long, long breath. Complications, controversies, gods knew—it would divert attention. They could dally for years, ripping up pavements, laying a new foundation, priests debating the design.

Ripping up the city square? Oh, certainly that would be a diversion, at a time when royal power was likely to come under challenge.

Trust that it would come under challenge, when something was loose among the priests in their sanctuary. He
had
seen strange things in Tristen’s company. They tended to stay in the back of his mind, shut away from the ordinary tenor of his life. Workaday, he could maintain his balance and swear no such things existed. But he had seen the shadow sweep down the field. He had seen terrible things, and their grandfather—gods, their grandfather Selwyn—had burned candles all night in every hallway: he had had a conflagration of candles, until there was shortage in the city, the week he had died. He had ordered them burned day and night, as the light in his eyes dimmed, and he knew he was dying. He had seen things: the betrayer of Elfwyn Sihhë had seen things at the last and feared the dark above all things.

So where had they buried Grandfather? In the Quinaltine. That thought sent chills down his limbs.

“The people need a parade or two,” he said peevishly. “Damn this snow. Enough ale in the public square, a few more comfortable visions among the priests. It could improve the temper in the city.”

“Hold a feast. That will be a welcome diversion. Call in the lords.”

“The roads are frozen, have you noticed?”

“Call them in for snowmelt. But send now. Let the word go out.

That will start the people thinking toward a happy event. And who knows, there may well be a profound vision among the priests…

vision of building.”

Cynicism, in his pious brother? “You amaze me.”

Efanor let go his wrist. “I have my uses, brother, dull as I may be.”

“Never dull. Never that.”

“Nor are you as blind as you try to be. Open your eyes. Emuin taught you how. Tristen surely did.”

“Emuin’s left the world. So has Tristen.” The latter was the source of greater pain. Emuin had simply faded from his knowledge, part of the earth, part of the stones. But Tristen—Tristen’s absence was a decade-long grief, half of his heart missing, a part even Ninévrisë failed to mend. “I so miss him, Efanor.”

“So do we all.” Efanor shrugged. “But we, meanwhile, have the world to deal with. He may hear your son. In the meantime, summon the lords. Make a feast. Cheer the people. There’s been too much winter this year.”

“Storm after storm.” Holiday penance brought annual discontent in the Quinalt faith, and now, with snow still coming down, the year did head for spring, regardless. Another year of Tristen’s absence. Nevris’ annual pilgrimage, and the anticipation of the Elwynim… this time she would show them her new daughter, born this last summer: he had to commit her and the baby to the road in only a few months, and Guelenfolk here in the city would raise another hue and cry when the Elwynim acknowledged their Princess, the child the treaty had promised them. Aemaryen would never marry some lord of Ylesuin. She would rule in Elwynor.

The people might have forgotten that provision of the treaty between Elwynor and Ylesuin, as they had forgotten the king’s bastard living in Amefel, and only now took to brawling, in their unease—so it was a year of forgotten matters coming due, for the populace, first Otter, then Aemaryen.

A new Quinaltine? Construction in the city square? That would be gossip for more than a month, perhaps enough stir, if the Holy Father backed it, to divert the people from the Elwynim question.

Perhaps change would catch the popular fancy.

“If the Holy Father asks it,” he said to Efanor. “If
he
deems it good: think of the old thief, with all those artisans to cheat. That will occupy him. To the greater glory of the gods.
That
should please the devout.”

“Brother,” Efanor said with a small, tight smile, and took his presence away

Perhaps, Cefwyn thought, in the closing of that door, the visit of a couple of old southern friends with attendant festivities would soothe the spirits of the people and settle their uneasiness—even the eternal politicking of the dour old northern lords, some of them with sons and daughters to marry off, would be a pleasure this year. The zealots always exhausted themselves in Festival, and slowly settled, once the holidays were past. Religion would give way to the more forgiving, liberal days of spring.

A new Quinaltine? It was an idea to catch the imagination. Glory to the gods. A shining new sanctuary.

And more careful masonwork.

He touched the medallion he wore, remembering that not everything could come down to a building project and a revel. He had a glum and unhappy son on his hands… and now bringing all the lords in, and this crazy business of Efanor’s, this building—

No, best leave that sort of thing to Efanor, who cited holy writ back at the Holy Father with a scholar’s deep understanding, and had a knack for catching hold of the priests’ fervor and turning it to his own purposes. To no other man in Guelessar would he have yielded, but he had utmost hope in Efanor, and hang the expense, so long as expense came slowly, year by year, layer by layer of a new foundation, and became a popular cause and a project to divert the damned priests. If Efanor wanted the square ripped up stone by stone, and gave him that, he should have his way.

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i

SNOW LAY THICK IN MARNA WOOD, OUTSIDE THE WALLS, AND MOUSE CAME from his kitchenside hole this dawn with a message of trouble. Mouse would not stay for his morsel of bread on the floor, but ran in circles, stood up, his whiskers twitching in alarm.

Tristen tossed another crumb, nearer Mouse’s safe door, but the trouble was in the wind, it was in the stones of the old fortress. By night the faces that haunted its walls had changed and moved. The stairs themselves proved unreliable, as if they hoped to catch an unwary foot. They shifted restlessly in the last several days and led places they ordinarily didn’t visit.

All these things, and Owl sulked in the loft, making carnage, Tristen feared, among the pigeons.