C. J. Cherryh - Fortress 05 (59 page)

“Horses and all, is it?” the old man said. “There’ll be grain in the bin, there.” He indicated the dusty bin by the door.

“That’s nice, but they mustn’t eat what’s moldy,” Aewyn said under his breath, leaning next to Elfwyn and speaking so only he could hear, but when Elfwyn opened it, the grain was as fresh as if it had just come in at harvest, and there was a good wooden bucket in the grain for hauling it out. He brought it to the horses and strewed it in a thick line along the floor, gaining the animals’

instant attention.

“Water in the barrel,” the old man said then. Aewyn lifted the lid, and Elfwyn looked, expecting ice. But it was water, for sure, and he filled the bucket and took a deep drink himself, and so did Aewyn, before they brought the bucket to the horses.

“We’re ever so grateful, sir,” Aewyn said, while his horse was drinking.

“Oh, well,” the old man said, and now there was a pot on the fire.

“Use the other pail there, boy, and bring me water.”

“Yes, sir,” Elfwyn said, and indeed there was a second wooden bucket, in the corner. He brought water and poured it in the iron pot, which had already begun to heat on its pothook. The fireside gave off a fierce warmth, and the old man added more wood.

“Sack,” the old man said, and indeed, there was a sack by the door, where he might have dropped it coming in. Aewyn brought it, and the old man delved into it, drawing out a large loaf of bread, a half a sausage, and a round of cheese, which he laid out on the sacking on the fireside. And meanwhile, though Elfwyn had seen nothing but water go into the pot, a savory smell began to go up from it, and steam to rise.

“Bowls on the shelf,” the old man said, and there were three rust-brown glazed bowls, as clean as if they had come from the royal kitchens.

They had not been there a moment ago. Elfwyn would swear they had not. And despite his hunger, he conceived a reluctance to have any of that food in his belly.

“Food can be a bargain,” he said so Aewyn would hear him. “And I’m not sure it’s a bargain we should be making with a stranger.”

“Ah,” the old man said. “Be free of it, be quite free. That makes it safe, does it not?”

It ought to, unless there was something of more substantive harm in it. He had no enemy but the priests in Guelemara and his own mother, but he had something of value, something of wizardous value, next to his skin, and he began thinking that
that
might have drawn attention to them—attention far more dangerous than bandits.

“Sit, sit,” the old man said. “Bring the bowls, don’t gawk about, and sit down. You’re a scruffy pair, you are. And two fine horses.

Might you be horse thieves?”

“I am no thief, sir,” Aewyn said in round, elegant, Guelen tones, and Elfwyn caught him by the arm and pulled him down by him at the fireside. In the other hand he had the three bowls, and set them down on the hearthside. The old man dipped up savory stew, and served it—could they, he wondered, possibly just have lost track of time, and dreamed the beginning, and forgotten how the old man had come here? But the wind blew, if anything, more furiously outside, and thumped away at the shutters. And he was aware of no gaps in his memory.

The old man had done them and their horses nothing but kindness. Elfwyn tasted the food very gingerly, and decided he took no harm of it. Aewyn supped it right down, with bits of bread, and Elfwyn found it so filling he had no need of cheese or sausage to go with it. Aewyn, beside him, had propped himself against the stonework of the fireplace, and nodded, but Elfwyn kept staring at the bowls, which he would swear had not been there before the old man wanted it, and the remnant of the broth, which could not have come from anything he had seen go into the pot.

The old man had worn a tattered brown cloak; but when he looked up, it was gray, and the old man wore a silver medallion, a design he had never seen before, a twisting thing, like a snake, or a dragon, and what had been grizzled gray hair streaked with black had become snowy white.

Worse and worse.

He would have run out into the night if he’d had a choice, but Aewyn snored away, beside him, and one of the horses had been indiscreet, right in the corner—it lent a touch of rural strangeness to the night.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said, and got up and went to clean up the problem with a ratty broom and some straw from a pile in the corner: he swept it out the door, not without traces, and a lingering barn smell. He could run, he thought. But he could not leave Aewyn helpless. It was impossible to run.

He set the broom aside, and went to sit at the hearth, arms about his knees, looking steadily at the old man, wishing desperately for the sun to come up.

“You push at the world itself,” the old man said, “but cannot budge it.”

“No, sir,” he said, more and more disturbed, distracted by dread.

How had the old man known what he was thinking?

“The sun will come in its own time,” the old man said, and wove a little pattern with his fingers. The gusts of cold air, the drafts… all stopped, and the room was breathless.

“My name is Emuin,” the old man said, “and yours is Elfwyn.”

Emuin. The Emuin of Gran’s stories was dead. Surely he was dead. That Emuin had been an old, old man, even his whole lifetime ago.

“You doubt my claim?” the old man asked, with the arch of a brow.

“I’d heard you were dead.”

A chuckle now, gentle and distant, as the old man gazed into the fire and grew somber. “I had heard you had gone to Guelemara.

And then you came home to Amefel. Or did you? Didn’t you run from Guelemara? I think you’re given to running before the fact.”

Straight to the heart, which beat hard, like a trapped thing.

“How did you hear, sir?”

“Oh, a wayward bird.” A light and careless answer, to a question carefully guarded. “And directly from your father, who arranged a message you weren’t in any wise supposed to act on.”

“He didn’t.”

“Oh, but he did. He wanted to get the Quinalt fellow out of your way and get you home to Gran before there was more trouble of a magical sort. And he ever so greatly regrets that letter.”

“
Where
did you meet my father?”

“Oh, here and there, through the years, on the stairs, in the hall, in the scullery and the courtyard…”

“Just last.
Where did you meet him, sir
?”

A slow smile moved amid the mustaches, a darting look of very thoughtful eyes.

“Cautious lad.”

“I must be, sir. I have to be. People I would believe have lied to me.”

“Elfwyn. Elfwyn. Elfwyn,” the old man said, and Elfwyn felt a band close about his chest, and loose again. “A fey name. The name of an ancient king, a dead and betrayed ancient king. But you, who bear that name, play at stableboy in a cottage.”

“I’m not meant to be a king,” he said. “I’m illegitimate.” That wasn’t the word he’d used all his life. He’d learned
illegitimate
in Guelemara. “I don’t want to be a king.”

“Do you say so?” The old man reached a straw into the fire and let it burn, delicately. A draft wafted the little flame toward the fire as it consumed the straw. It burned right to the old man’s fingers.

And died with a little curl of smoke that flowed away as the flame had bent away from his hand.

“Do you say so?” the old man asked again.

“Where did you meet my father recently?”

A little frown knit white brows. The old man said, faintly, a wisp of a sound: “In the Zeide, in the Zeide just now. But I didn’t stay for Tristen—the fool boy. The whole world is astir, and he’s lost himself somewhere, and here you go trudging off through the snow. For what purpose?”

“To find Lord Tristen.”

“To find Tristen, is it? Why?”

He had not thought of the reason of his quest in hours. He had struggled so to live he had not thought until that exact instant of the book he carried next to his skin, and now it seemed the most dangerous thing in the world to have in this man’s close presence.

He felt it tingle, like the ring. And he wanted to take Aewyn, ride to Ynefel, and put that terrible thing somewhere safe and never touch it again.

“Why should a boy search for Tristen, at peril of his life?”

He looked away. He had no wish to meet the old man’s eyes: guilt for theft and folly overwhelmed him. He looked into the fire, and saw the ruin of old wood: he saw castles and fortifications of fire, crumbling in the heat.

“He will be by now where you were,” the old man said. “Where I had rather be, this chilly night, instead of this place. Dash off into the dark, indeed. Dash off into storms the like of which your little wisp of a life has never seen. Have you ever seen the like of this weather?”

“No, sir,” he said, bewildered into a glance toward the old man, which caught him, snared him, held him. “I never have.”

“I have seen worse. Do you think it natural, this storm, the storms of this whole winter?”

“I think it very bitter cold.”

“And yet you risked it. You fled. For what?”

He could not but think of the thing against his ribs. He didn’t want to think about it.

“I know,” the old man said. “Do you think I do not? What would your gran say? Why didn’t you take it home?”

He was shaken. And angry. “If you’re Master Emuin, you know my gran is dead. I have no home.”

“Otter,” the old man said, surprising him. “Slippery as an otter.

Diving into dark places. Being the fool only for others’ amusement.”

That drew a frown. “I may be. But I look for advice from people I trust, not from strangers who may not be who they say they are.”

“And you have very sharp teeth.”

“Only if someone comes at me.”

“Otter… or Spider? Which had you rather be?”

“Otter, thank you. Spiders live in nasty holes.”

“Fastidious, then. You have a prince’s tastes.”

“No prince. A bastard, is all.”

“His brother.” This, the old man said with a gesture at Aewyn, whose fair hair curled in grimy ringlets about his unconscious face.

It was not a notice he wished to bring on Aewyn. If he could humor the old man until his bones warmed, until the horses were recovered, until the sun rose and dispelled this wizardous haunt, he would do that, and hope to keep Aewyn out of the old man’s thoughts entirely until he waked. This man could conjure: he had seen that, and it was beyond him to deal with such a man, a wizard, who might have been drawn to them by what he had stolen and what he carried…

“A true prince of Ylesuin,” the old man said. “
The
prince of Ylesuin. His father fears for him. And fears for you.”

The first saying he easily accepted, that his father feared for Aewyn, though he by no means took for granted that this old man was his father’s old tutor, or even his father’s friend. The second thing stung. If his situation had risen to any care of his father’s, it could never match his father’s love for Aewyn, and he knew his brother’s danger was all of his making. He was being led, and if he made a mistake in judgment of this old man and grew softheaded in his desire to hear what he wanted to hear, it could be his last mistake.

“You doubt your father loves you?”

“He has no particular reason to love me,” Elfwyn said, every word like broken glass. “I’ve stolen. I’ve run away. As you say—I’m good at it. Slippery. The rest, you know nothing about.”

“I know your begetting and your birth, your upbringing—and your talents.”

“I have no talents except for getting in trouble.”

“You are Aswydd.”

“Not on the right side of the blanket.”

“Born to a sorceress and a king and nurtured by a witch. But none of these is the source of your Gift.”

“I’ve no Gift at all,” he said, wanting to veer away from this topic. He shivered, cold despite the fire. “Nor wish to have. What times I’ve tried to do wizardry, I’ve failed. Do you think this storm will be done by morning?”

“Shoving at the world again. Tristen, now,
Tristen
could budge the weather.”

“Can
you
stop the wind?”

The ancient fingers stirred, a ripple of a dismissive gesture. “I’m a wizard. That means a wise man. I never try.”

It answered his secret question, the one he feared to ask: did you raise this storm? But he grew bold enough to challenge what he saw. “There weren’t any bowls, before,” he said. “I’d have seen them.”

“Did you expect to find any?” the old man asked.

“No,” he said.

“I did.” A shrug, the ghost of a smile. “Best expect, if you spend the effort of looking. But do it sparingly. I assure you, the joy of some surprises isn’t worth the risk of others.”

Riddles with Gran’s kind of sense at the core. Wizard, indeed, and by that advice, what answers did he reasonably expect to find in this old man?

Vision, Lord Tristen had said. Vision was one of his two words, and what did he see with a close look at this suddenly immaculate stranger?

Danger.

Power beyond what Gran had had. Even, perhaps, more power than his mother’s.

Emuin, he claimed to be. And if he was that famous wizard, he might indeed raise a storm if he really wanted to. And there were not that many wizards, ever, more powerful than his mother.

Emuin was indeed one possible answer to the riddle, if he was not a haunt.

Haunts, however, were not in the habit of coming up with bowls and grain.

“Maybe you could conjure us some cakes to finish with,” he said, and the old man tilted back his head.

“Cakes, is it?”

“Well, if you looked for them… and expected them…”

“Impertinent boy!”

“Well, but you can do that, can’t you?”

“Wishing for more than one needs is wasteful.”

“Wasteful of what?”

A forefinger lifted. “Now
there
is a wise question. Of what? Of what indeed? Of effort, of soul, of spirit, of thought and life itself.

Needing what one wants—now there’s a wicked trap. Wanting what one needs, that can be a trap, too. Poverty can lead a lad from despair to envy, from envy to bad behavior. Knowing exactly what one needs, and
working
to get it, there’s the wisdom. Your gran taught you that.”