Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles (11 page)

Driving him inevitably toward Ilefínian, Tristen thought unhappily.

Pushing him toward the south. Denying him the bridges made it sure he would go against Ilefínian. And if
only
someone were there to face him—

“—bitter work,” Cefwyn said, “hardship for the men; but if we could bring the eastern provinces of Elwynor to welcome Her Grace next spring and rise against Tasmôrden, she might sweep unchecked across the east like a triumphal procession.
Then
we might cross from the south shore of the river, too, and come from two directions, up and down, to Definian. It would fall in a moment.”

Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles

“I might go to the Amefin shore when the army goes to the river,”

Tristen said. The prospect of winter in tents did not seem so impossible or so unpleasant to him as a winter idle in Guelemara, taking lessons from the Patriarch. He had longed for employment, for some reason for his existence, and still the notion of
next fall
wafted in front of him, the thinnest of promises. There were so many mistaken decisions in the wind, any one of which could rise up to bring disaster to Cefwyn’s fortunes. Cefwyn said he must be here, and learn religion, and appear to be Quinalt—but if the army was, in fact, to move, he should be ready to move as soon as the wedding was done. The northern barons’ vanity, their quarrels with each other thus far had not fielded an army, but rather kept the one they did have home until a wider bloodshed of Elwynim and Guelenfolk alike was all but inevitable. On his life he tried not to wish for things, and he distrusted his own desires, but he wished Cevulirn to the fore and Murandys in obscurity. “Far more gladly would I sit in a tent than in the Quinaltine, sir. If it were possible, this I would ask to do, myself, more than anything.”

“No,” Cefwyn said, though gently. “No. My good friend. There you may not, not now, not yet. We need no wizard-work on the river shore, I assure you, not at this stage of affairs. We
need
your agreement with the Quinaltine. Your peace with the Holy Father.”

“Then when I have peace with the Quinaltine—
then
I could go down to Amefel. From the south I might cross the river with a small force this winter, a very small, a quiet band, and reach Ilefínian. The Patriarch will wish me gone. So let me go. Give me a single troop and I shall be no trouble to you.” The plans, the very detailed plans, Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles were clear to him. The gray space was gone, in favor of a vision so clear to him his heart beat high with thinking of it.

“No, no, and no.” Cefwyn’s hand descended on Tristen’s wrist where it rested on the table. “You must have nothing to do with the taking of the capital, not a thing, do you see? It must not be by wizardry that Ninévrisë wins her throne. And that is what everyone would say if you did that on your own.“

“I am not a wizard.”

“No,” Cefwyn said, and pressed his hand hard. “No, my brave, my good friend. No. But you are not the lord of Murandys, either, and the Guelen duke of Murandys and the Ryssandim must give Ninévrisë her throne. Then they will support her rights and make peace with her kingdom.”

He perceived to his discontent that the reason of Cefwyn’s fear was still the Quinalt, always the Quinalt, a fear which he had discovered prevailed over all better sense in Guelessar; the Quinalt, and the like of Sulriggan, whose work he had seen in Amefel. The Holy Father, Sulriggan, Prichwarrin of Murandys, Corswyndam of Ryssand, none of them were friends of his nor ever would be friends of the king. That was the worst harm the Quinalt did, maintaining Sulriggan and his kind in influence because it needed to have a threat in order to bargain with Cefwyn, whom otherwise it could not frighten. For two months it had had the wedding to threaten. Now Cefwyn asked him to defend Ninévrisë by turning its attention on himself, just long enough for the marriage to become a fact. In a soldierly way he understood such a diversion.

But would the Quinalt improve its actions once the wedding was Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles over? Would it become Cefwyn’s friend simply because Cefwyn flattered it? He thought not.

His situation and Cefwyn’s had grown very tangled, but dearest to his heart, at least tonight he was again in the king’s close counsel, and therefore and for the first time in weeks he saw hope, hope of the same sort that Cefwyn himself saw: only let there be a wedding, only let them have the agreement of the Quinalt, Cefwyn said; and now he thought the same. Let there be a wedding, and then he would have men and weapons and then he would make Cefwyn’s kingdom safe.

And
then
there would be peace and safety and all Cefwyn’s friends would be together for a thousand thousand such evenings. Dared he hope so? He had grown wiser, and dared trust less in the world.

“I shall send Efanor to you,” Cefwyn said. “Tomorrow.”

“I shall expect him,” he said to Cefwyn.

“Was it a fine evening?” Uwen asked him as they walked back, Uwen with a moderate glow of ale about him. “Was it all to expectation?”

“Very fine,” he said. “Very fine, thank you. Efanor will come tomorrow, to teach me the Quinalt’s manners.”

Uwen coughed, which he did not take for a cough at all.

“For Cefwyn’s good,” Tristen said. “Like Wys. Very like Wys. To please the northern lords and the Quinaltine.” He thought that told Uwen enough.

Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles

“Well, mostly, aye, ye puts your head down at the right times and does as others do, and there ain’t that much to it.”

“Cefwyn gave me a purse of pennies to give. For the roof.”

“Ah.”

“I have two days. The court will go there, and I will go, all together.

And you must tell me what to do.”

“Oh, well, as to that understanding don’t ye fret, lad.” Uwen alone could call him that, generally not until they walked clear of Lusin and the others, as they did now. And Uwen had seemed much reassured about his visiting the Quinalt when he heard it was the penny offering. “Say what the lords say an’ do just what they do.

’At’s the straight and simple of it.” Then a frown. “—There ain’t any small shadows like to come out, is there? No untoward appearances.”

“No,” Tristen said fervently. It was what Cefwyn had asked. “No.”

He was worried about the visit to the Quinaltine, but Cefwyn had directed him smoothly through the confusion and movements of the court before this, and he was the more reassured to know he was also under Emuin’s advisement. If Idrys talked to master Emuin and neither of them found strong objection, he feared nothing in meeting with Efanor, at least. Efanor was tedious, but genuinely learned, and intelligent, and well-disposed, and he was indeed puzzled about the gods and the other manifestations the Quinalt here claimed to see, far more than in Amefel, along with miracles and some sort of magic. The priests never wanted to call it magic, and perhaps it was not: if spirits so potent as regularly came and went in the Quinaltine, he would have expected to notice them in the gray space. Above all Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles if there were common appearances of gods within the Quinalt, not an arrow-cast from the walls wherein he lived, he thought Emuin would have warned him not to stray there.

Yet Emuin
had
forbidden him the gray space, so long as he was in Guelemara.

Emuin, however, had affected to take the priests all lightly… and Emuin
was
a priest, though not Quinalt, but Teranthine. He never saw Emuin pray and he never heard Emuin blessing this or that as Efanor did. He found it all very curious, and the prospect of gods both intrigued him and posed him questions. Dared he ask Efanor to show him a god, or to teach him how to find one?

But perhaps gods were furtive spirits and refused to visit where there were crowds. Some shadows were like that. Perhaps priests met gods only when they were alone and the lights were dim.

Perhaps gods were a special kind of shadow. If that was the case, then that might be the reason he always felt uneasy when he looked at the Quinaltine. He was curious about the priests, too, and wished to learn why they both tolerated shadows, which was dangerous, and feared wizards in general, who were not.

Idrys came back. Idrys had not gone far. “So?” Cefwyn said, when Idrys and he were without servants, in the private, the guarded, hall.

“Out with it, crow.”

“I?”

He flung a glance at a face that had no expressions, but two, the Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles arched eyebrow and the rarer play of mirth. There was the one, but not the other, tonight, and had not been from the time he had spoken to Tristen. He had brought his wine with him. He drained the cup.

“You, crow, you
know
, you think, you
guess
, and you suppose.

Wherewith? On what account? And do you dispute me?”

“Not I, m’lord, oh, no, not I.”

“Out on it! You reek of disagreement. You breathe disagreement.”

“I fear no manifestation of mice and demons in the shrine when he appears. I do look for opposition. To set the lord of Ynefel as the focus of the barons’ discontent denies that they have weapons. And that he does.”

He set the cup down hard and picked up the pitcher. He set down another cup beside it, he, the king, servant to them both. He filled both, and gave one to Idrys. “Stand down from your watch, crow, and unburden yourself. I saw you frowning through supper. Plague on you! Can you not be festive?”

“About the safety of my king? Rarely these days.”

“And wherein am I threatened?”

“The mooncalf
is
the prophecy, my lord king. You cannot deny it.

We all know it and Her Grace knows it. The Elwynim look for a King to Come. And you pretend there is no danger.”

“Tristen is exactly right in his advice, you know. Plague on the northern barons. These dithering fools will cost us lives, they will cost my lady’s men lives, and by the Five if an incursion out of Elwynor lands boats on Murandys’ shore, I’ll send troops to Prichwarrin’s relief by way of Ivanor. Lord Maudyn sends me Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles anguished letters. Damnation! Men will
die
because Lord Prichwarrin insists on delays and Lord Brysaulin mistakes my reports.”

“If it was a mistake.”

“Do you say it isn’t?”

“I would never accuse the Lord Chancellor as to the reason he sent that report to Prichwarrin. It would hardly be politic. And I have become a politic man. I must be, else I will surely offend you.”

“Politic.” He drank a mouthful and found it flavorless, the result of too many cups before. He set the cup down, gently, this time.

“Damn him.”

“Damn Prichwarrin? Or the Lord Chancellor? Or Mauryl Gestaurien?”

“Leave Tristen out of this damning. He is not a political man.”

“He is Sihhë,” Idrys said, “he is Mauryl’s heir, he is most indubitably Mauryl’s parting gift to the house of the Marhanen and the house of Syrillas…”

“All these things we admit.”

“And dare I say you have had my advice, but you follow master grayrobe’s by preference. Now what will Your Majesty do?”

Win his love, Emuin had said, regarding the danger Tristen posed.

Win his love.

“Now are we afraid?” Idrys asked. “Now do we wish we had done otherwise?”

“No, we do not!” He cast Idrys a scowling look. “Mauryl prevented Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles harm to us once. And twice. Tristen is my friend. They are rare in this climate. Exceeding rare.”

“Mauryl Gestaurien, Mauryl of Ynefel, Mauryl Kingsbane, Mauryl
Kingmaker
…”

“Crow, what point are you making?”

“I wonder what point my king is making. You will win Her Grace her throne back. And then what? Twice on a week, boats will ply the Lenúalim to bring the king his bride, his bride the king…”

Idrys came very near the mark. Dangerously near. Cefwyn looked elsewhere, into the shadows, of a mind to forbid the topic, but wondering how much the man closest to him had assembled out of bits and pieces.

“Go on.”

“Because she will not sit the throne?” Idrys ventured. “Because you
have
the Elwynim King to Come sworn and sealed to you in fealty?”

Things had such a dull sheen in Idrys’ hands, sheen of gray iron, sheen of well-oiled metal, knives, and swords, and sharp-edged daggers. He could turn even friendship to base, cutting metal.

“The oath between us is fealty, not homage. I left him free. Ignorant that he was at the time, I left him free!”

“How ignorant is he now, more to the point, Majesty? How much does he fail to guess? And while we discuss the intricacies of Her Grace’s oaths and pledges, promises and prayers… by what is Lord Tristen sworn, and how is he bound?”

“By friendship if nothing else!” He answered in haste, because he was stung; but it echoed of Emuin’s advice.
Win his love. Win his
Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles
love
, because nothing a king wielded would ever constrain him.

That which a wizard wielded… perhaps. Perhaps it could. But Emuin could not.

Idrys lifted his cup with a quizzical expression, a tilt of his head.

“Forgive the northern barons a certain bewilderment: you are the king of Ylesuin, and do not agree that the throne of Elwynor is a Regency? And if a Regency, for what king? And if not for a Guelen king, for
which
king, pray? Has Your Majesty explained that point to Her Grace?”

“You tread now where you have no welcome.”

“But he is your friend,” Idrys said, “and so all things can be resolved.”

“Yes, they can. They
can
and they will be.”

“The barons of Ylesuin will not accept him as a leader on the field.

It will create dissension. And the commons of Elwynor rally to Lady Ninévrisë? Some may. Some may not. How will you restrain Guelen soldiery from provocations? There will be bloody battle, my lord king, far bloodier than you wish to contemplate. There will be slaughter. You rely on the northern barons as you are determined to do, and look to it: there will be slaughter when Guelenmen march across those bridges. Do not delude yourself. There is no gentle war. Aye, yes, Tristen is right: come from the south, come from the south because you will have such allies, you will make such bargains, and you will do better to parade your allies in front of southern troops, not northern.“