Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles (25 page)

He sat down. Ninévrisë sat beside him.

“Are things as well as that?” she asked softly, who did not know her capital was under attack, and he held her hand and kept a pleasant face to the court, as he waved them to resume their dancing.

“Be brave. Tasmôrden has moved on the capital.”

There was silence. The fingers in his clenched slowly, but he trusted she kept her serenity, as he trusted her in all things else.

“There is no other word from the river,” he said. “Meanwhile the Quinalt roof has a hole in it and the Patriarch calls it sorcery. I am sending Tristen south for all our safety.” He almost said,
until the
wedding
, and then with full force it came to him that, while the appointment at last gave a friend an income of his own and a living land to stand on, it entailed obligations that would keep Tristen from court for far more than a season, if he saw to them in earnest.

Win his love
, Emuin had advised him. And Emuin himself would not oppose the force that Called a Sihhë-lord from the grave.

Knowing Tristen as he did, yes, Tristen would indeed take those obligations seriously. When had Tristen ever failed an obligation, once he had taken it up? It came to him, among other, more tangled considerations, that he might not so easily get his friend back once Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles he had sent him out—and that thought afflicted him with a sudden melancholy.

Of course he had Tristen’s friendship. Of course he had his loyalty.

That was unquestioned. Of friends he had ever had, there was none so sudden, so close, so maddening… none had made such a place in his heart as Tristen had, none ever let him rest so confident as he did, that he could neglect Tristen even a little and take him up again, as bright, as faithful as in the summer— or send him into the heart of wizardry and get him back again untarnished. Of course he could rely on Tristen. Of course they would always have their friendship.

Of course Tristen could come back again, when court was gathered about the king—and if Tristen did rise to rule Elwynor, why, what loss? His bride, all his, her home unharmed, but her loyalty turning entirely to him. That, with Tristen for an ally, a loyal man. It was beyond planning, now. He had advanced the first piece on the board.

But if Ilefínian fell easily to Tasmôrden’s forces and left time before the snows, and if Tasmôrden had some notion of securing southern bridgeheads to outflank Ylesuin’s incursion from the north—two curs chasing each other’s tails, yapping and snapping—why, that lightning strike, if it was Elwynim-sent, had just put Tristen square in Tasmôrden’s path. Then let wizardry do its worst; he had no more effective weapon and no stauncher friend.

It still had a cold feeling about it, to have done it all at a stroke, loosing Tristen to do what he would in the south, when he had before this had warnings from Emuin that what Tristen willed to do subtly
bent
the affairs of other men. Tristen willed very little and had his desires generally satisfied by feeding pigeons.

Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles Dangerous, something still said to him. He should surely have asked Emuin.

And did sorcery strike the Quinaltine and Emuin not send him a warning?

It was the late hour. It was the accumulation of bad news that so set his worst premonitions to wander.

“We must stay an hour, no more,” he said to Ninévrisë. She, better than he, had full cognizance of all it meant when Ilefínian should fall, all the tally of names of men who might be in peril of their lives when Tasmôrden rode in. “Whatever happens, the court must not say we were cast down by the news.”

“This movement of my enemies was almost certain to come,”

Ninévrisë said in a faint voice. Her fingers warmed in his hand, and kept a light hold. “The beacon was lit?”

“That is all we know,” he said. “Idrys is trying to learn more, but there is nothing we can do to prevent Tasmôrden’s march, save hope the skies open and the road bogs.”

“And that certain ones would run for safety,” she said. “But they will not.”

“On the other hand,” he said to Ninévrisë, and closed his hand on her fingers which had become rigid, “if there is a bright spot in this, it means Tasmôrden has not lingered to fortify the east shore against our crossing. Tristen coming to the south may disturb his sleep further. I doubt he will have foreseen that. And gods know, Tristen can deal with sorcery.”

“Gods, that we had another month. Or that the snows would come.”

Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles

“Gossip be damned. I should get you from this hall.”

“No, my lord. No. Otherwise, I shall have to endure the ladies’

gossip, and their questions. Not yet. Not yet, please you. I wish to be much more settled than I am.” Nails impressed his palm. “On the battlefield one knew one’s enemies. I know them here, but have not a weapon against them, none.”

“Name me them!”

“Oh, Artisane. Artisane, chiefest.”

“Of her I cannot relieve you. Not until—”

“Not until the wedding. Nothing until the wedding. Oh, I mark them down, every one, every petty remark. Men in the field have far more manners.”

“I much doubt it.”

“A man knows there may be blood. These women will shed someone else’s, blithe as jays. Even their fathers they hate. But hate me more. And I
endure
them. They carry on their Elwynim war with every look, every stitch they sew: ill-wish me? Oh, if they could. And cannot. Clatter, clatter, clatter, the wicked, wicked,
foreign
woman, and just
one
petticoat, la!
what
is one to think?” He heard her second indrawn breath. “If they could sew harm into my wedding gown, they would, ever so gladly. Every one of them disappointed in their hopes for you, and here am I, the stranger. I should fear the cups I drink if not for Dame Margolis.“

“
She
is a good woman.”

“A good and a brave woman, but her they despise as common. I can do nothing.” The voice he loved, the voice that lifted his spirits, Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles trembled. “Nothing to defend her or myself.”

“After the wedding,” he said in regret. “Then— then they will have affronted
me
. They should take sober note. Is there no one else you can rely on?”

“None. No one but Margolis. —Perhaps, in small ways, Cleisynde.”

There was still a perilous little quaver in her voice, which was a knife in his heart. They had played at ignoring their enemies. He had thought her safe, serene in her wit and her own worth in amongst such little, niggling attacks. He had thought she had ridden above it all, unassailable within the ladies’ court, a battle of petticoats and pearls irrelevant to the damage men did one another in war. She had ridden and camped with soldiers, faced sorcery and ghosts. Needed she guard herself from Ryssand’s sixteen-year-old daughter?

From Artisane’s sallies of wit, good gods? Ninévrisë was Regent of Elwynor.

“Ilefínian,” Ninévrisë said, then, the outwelling of her deepest, most painful thoughts, and her hand felt cold as ice. “Oh, gods save them, gods save them.
Ilefínian
.”

Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles
CHAPTER 10

«
^
»

In a quick succession of moves, Emuin took three pieces.

Tristen looked at opportunity… regretted winning. It seemed somehow discourteous to the old man. The whole night, since that dreadful shock of thunder, seemed uneasy, tottering with chance and overthrow.

“So?” Emuin asked. The two of them were poised above the scarred board of white wood and red, with counters of opposing colon. And the necessity became clear.

Regretfully Tristen skipped his counter from one to the other of Emuin’s pieces, taking every one.

“Oh, pish!” Emuin cried.

“I think you wished me to win,” Tristen said.

“No such thing,” Emuin said peevishly, and drank a sip more autumn ale. “Set up, set up. Another round.”

Tristen set up the counters again.

“Clever of you,” Emuin said, sounding unhappy. “Vastly clever.”

“If you had rather set aside—”

“No, no, no, I enjoy a challenge.”

Emuin was peeved, all the same. And had not seemed entirely Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles surprised until the fifth, sixth, and seventh captures all in one: at that finish, the old man had sat back in his chair, glaring at the board with a slight squint, as he did at times at his scrying bowl.

Tristen set up quickly, and let master Emuin take the red side this time.

“Learning quickly, we are,” master Emuin muttered, making his initial moves.

“I do try, sir.”

Emuin shot him one of those looks from under his brows. The noise from the square below the Guelesfort had been quite loud during the game. Now it had fallen away to a hush. Their candle had burned to the half and the fire sunk in the grate. It was a moment in which all the world seemed to be the round walls, the table, the light on Emuin’s face.

“So do we all, lad,” Emuin said to him. “So do we all make honest effort, but you are a clever lad in spite of us all.”

“I had no wish to win, sir.”

It made Emuin laugh, the crashing together of a thousand wrinkles, and then a quick settling. “It is no contest, else. I know my measure.

Learn yours. You will not learn it by cheating for
my
side, young lord. Play your own.”

He felt a heaviness in the air then, as if the room had swung round, as if the heavens had wheeled full about, not that a thing was true now that had not been true a moment before, but that he sat at a further remove from the world, looking on a small stone room, piled high with clutter, at a young man and an old one, with a board on Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles the table between them, and all at once the banging of the door below, the clatter of his guards getting to their feet outside and challenging someone.

Emuin looked toward the door with a playing piece in his hand, and paused. Whoever had come had engaged Uwen and the guards quietly, after clumping up the stairs, and then the latch of the door moved.

An officer had arrived: Pryas was his name, a king’s messenger.

“Your lordship,” the man said, and already Tristen had begun to rise from his chair, with the sure foreboding that something had changed in his quiet existence, and that some disaster had befallen. “Your lordship, His Majesty bids you know, although he has had no time to set his seal to it as yet, your lordship is made duke of Amefel, and set over that province, your lordship to be provided troops and staff, wagons and guards, horses to a sufficient number, and all honor.

Your lordship must swear to His Majesty tomorrow noon for Amefel, with public ceremony, and depart for your lordship’s capital the same hour.”

He heard. He felt the wood of the chair under his right hand. He was aware of Emuin getting to his feet. Of Uwen regarding him with fear. There was no hint now that Uwen might have drunk any great deal, neither he nor Lusin nor his other guards.

“How shall I answer?” he asked Emuin, not that he was unwilling to obey Cefwyn, but that the implications of the moment stretched beyond his understanding.

For two months Amefel had been under the king’s viceroy, Lord Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles Parsynan, and Cefwyn had declined to depose Lady Aswydd in her exile, refusing to change that arrangement to a permanent grant of the province, refusing to decide on any claimant.

And what of Lady Orien Aswydd? Some had said she should be beheaded. Her brother had been beheaded and burned for his crimes, and Lady Orien was far from innocent of malice against the Crown. Had Cefwyn decided, then, she should die? He would be very sorry if that were so.

“I shall not advise you,” Emuin said.

At the same time there arose a great deal more clatter below. More men were coming up the winding stairs, and there was no way for more than two men to occupy any step or for more than three to stand in the doorway, even sideways.

“There’s Annas come in below, m’lord,” Uwen said. “An’ two of His Majesty’s pages.”

“His Majesty’s staff,” Pryas said, “His Majesty’s officers to arrange the wagons and all, as many as necessary, all His Majesty’s household to assist your lordship in the particulars and orders tonight.”

“I shall pack, then,” Tristen said, envisioning taking Petelly and Gery, his two light horses, and a bundle of clothes, with Uwen—

Uwen would go with him, he was sure of that. But troops and staff, wagons and guards? The enormity of the undertaking began to dawn on him. Should he have Tassand, then? Would he have to leave his servants behind? They were a presence he had come to rely on, even to enjoy for their wit and their company.

Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles And what would he tell the viceroy in Amefel? That he was dismissed? Or what
would
become of Orien Aswydd and her sister?

“Pack, is it?” Emuin said in a faint voice. “Pack, should we?”

“Shall you go, sir?”

“Pack. Pack for the gods’ love! Yes, I shall go. How should I not go? Sends us to Guelessar for two months and sends us back again in a thunderstorm… what in the gods’ good mercy is the boy doing?”

He meant Cefwyn. Emuin was never much on protocols.

“Do you know why we’re sent, sir?” Tristen asked of the king’s herald, and the man answered quietly,

“On account of the Quinalt roof, your lordship, as seems likely, but I have no word from His Majesty, except that we need a count of wagons from your lordship, how many your lordship may require.”

The Quinalt roof, Tristen thought, and when he asked himself what might involve both the Quinalt roof and his sudden dispatch to Amefel, as Emuin had said, in a thunderstorm, then he knew indeed that the great clap of thunder had been more than noise.

Amefel, then. But it was not as bad as could be. The king was safe.

He could not feel any joy in his appointment, nor quite sorrow, either, at being sent south. But Men said winter was a season of little traveling. He contemplated the pieces on the board, thinking that the king had just moved pieces, too, in a strategy directed steadfastly at freeing Elwynor and defeating Tasmôrden. And that was well, too, and he was glad of it. He saw movement as on a battlefield. Danger came clear to him, danger in his separation from Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles Cefwyn, and that distressed him; yet there was nothing he could do.