Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles (3 page)

He would turn around, and he would see Mauryl standing there, his plain brown robes blending with this gray autumn woods, his hand about that staff of his, his white hair and beard alike flying in the gentle whim of the breezes.

Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles

“So what have you found?” Mauryl would say, if he was in a patient humor, and Mauryl would come have a look at his log and tell him the name of the fungus and whether he should bring it in pieces back to the hall to join the vast collection of strange and curious things Mauryl treasured. Mauryl’s robes, never reputable or fine, and always smudged with the dust of the old fortress, would surely acquire tags of leaf mold and dirt just as his cloak had, Mauryl’s hair would have just such unseemly detritus of leaves, and his face would take on that look of concentration that was Mauryl at his kindest.

Petelly’s nose met his shoulders and shoved. Tristen drew in a breath rough-edged with the smell of oak and earth and autumn, and knew that Mauryl would not be there, not at distant Ynefel, certainly not on this hilltop in Guelessar, and that he had well and truly overstayed his time, since he heard the jingling of men and horses coming up the road. His guards had grown concerned, or curiosity had moved them, and leading Petelly toward the trail to meet them, he saw to his chagrin that they had all come.

Uwen was in the lead as they came up the turn, then Lusin, Syllan, Aran, and Tawwys, armed and armored, the lot of them—as of course he was, or more or less so. He had let Petelly carry his sword, which he had stowed behind the saddle, but he conscientiously carried a dagger on his person as Uwen advised him he should, and beneath his brown ordinary cloak and leather coat, he wore the mail the king and the king’s captain commanded he wear, even though he considered it very little likely that enemies would cross the Lenúalim and tramp across a good deal of Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles Guelessar to invade this hunting preserve and climb this very hilltop. In all truth, most Men had rather not face him with or without that sword, and he suspected that the guards the king assigned him generally served him better in deterring the approach of the unwary than in fending off hazards.

He pulled and scraped his way past berry bushes as his guards arrived, jingling and breathing and thumping and creaking, four men in the red of the King’s Dragon Guard, with his sworn man Uwen in plain brown. Uwen wore only the smallest black badge of Althalen over his heart, the same as he wore himself. The others, being king’s men, wore the gold Marhanen Dragon and red coats.

“So what ha’ ye found?” Uwen asked him amiably from horseback, with no reproach at all, while four riders fanned out among the trees to turn around, the trail being just wide enough for one horse. The hindmost of his guards was very steeply on the slope, even so. “And should we be riding back soon, m’lord?” Uwen asked. “This’d be our turning, here below, to go back by way of Cressitbrook, if ye’d rather a different road going home. As we should now.”

“We should,” he agreed shamefacedly. He saw his guards looking warily about for curiosities, for chills and shadows and other such events of his company, but without a word he climbed up on Petelly and eased him past the other horse’s nose. Uwen turned next. The king’s men turned about in the woods and followed.

The wind, an entirely natural wind, blew dust up and sent leaves across the path as they left the hilltop. Petelly danced and skipped through the insubstantial obstacle. The men rode after him in haste, and for a moment they went pell-mell down the chancy turn, over Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles ground buried in leaves. Tristen knew the footing, and so did they all. There were no roots, stones, or holes; but he knew that there was no threat above to give any reason for haste, either, so he pulled Petelly down to a reasonable pace past the spring. They all came safely to the lower road again, sheltered from chill breezes and wayward memories by the looming, forested hills on either hand.

“No shadows,” Uwen said, having overtaken him.

“No shadows,” he assured Uwen. “Not a one. I was listening to the wind up there. Looking at the hills.” For some reason, perhaps because it was a matter for wizards and not for soldiers, he was reticent about confessing his looking out toward Amefel. “There was a fungus I had never seen.”

“A fungus, ye say.”

“On a dead trunk.”

“Oh, them things.” Uwen seemed both relieved and amused, and it was as he expected. Uwen ventured not a ghost of a guess what the growths were named, or what their virtue was. “Ye don’t eat ’em, least I for certain wouldn’t. Mushrooms is done for the year.”

“To come back in spring?” So many things were promised to return in the spring. And some things would Unfold to him the moment he asked a question, but some things would not. “Or in the fall?”

“A lot in spring, or in rainy spells. I don’t rightly know about that up there, that kind. But cooks dry the wholesome ones in the kitchen for the off-season, so ye never fear, m’lord: there’ll be mushroom soup aplenty all winter. I heard Cook say yesterday there’s a special attention to mushroom soup for harvesttide on Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles account of Your Grace.”

Harvesttide was only two days off. He did indeed like mushroom soup, and he would be as happy as most in the approaching celebration if he were happy in other points, and if he knew he were welcome among the other lords, but neither was the case.

Still, it was too fine a day for melancholy on that account. Uwen rode beside him, knee to knee on Liss, a mare Uwen greatly coveted, and they were comfortable a while in silence. It was still a wooded road after they had taken the Cressitbrook way, winding deep among the base of hills where only the king’s woodsmen cut wood, and where only the king and the king’s friends hunted. It needed no quick pace at all, as Uwen had said, for them to reach Guelemara before dark. The road they took now showed no track of horses or men since the rains, and therefore held less likelihood of meeting anyone. The men rode more easily, far from any critical eye, talking of whatever took their fancy, and anticipating the harvesttide festival, for which the town had been preparing for days, building a bonfire of truly prodigious proportions.

Friendly voices, friendly company surrounded him, past the spring and down along the little brook that flowed down from it. Tristen listened idly and watched the leaf-paved road above the twitch of Petelly’s black-tipped ears—busy ears, they were, alert to every burst of laughter and every whisper of the freshening wind out of the west.

Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles
CHAPTER 2

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There were pearls, an abundance of pearls. Cefwyn trod on one and winced, hoping it was only one of the sleeve-pearls, not some stray and costly one from the wedding crown, which lay in partial glory and strips of ribbon on the table. A mound of pale blue velvet and gold- and pearl-colored satin stood like a mountain range against the high, clear windows of the former scriptorium. The center panes of amber glass cast a bar of golden light across the room, from the embroidering maids to the far, scrap-strewn tables in this, the domain of the Regent and her ladies-in-waiting.

He endured his own wedding fittings in a hall similarly devoted to the groom’s garments, a hall piled with red and gold… Marhanen colors, more modest heaps, however, although he was the king. He was astounded by this volume of fabric, grown by half again, he swore, since his visit two days ago. Could so much cloth possibly be involved in a few gowns for one slender woman? He had thought he was expert in ladies’ accoutrements… but find his bride on their wedding night, in such an array?

Even finding his bride in this room proved no straightforward task, amid heaps and bales of velvet, destined for, one hoped, various other ladies of the court as well as his bride.

Amid all the ladies and maids and their stitching frames set in the Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles advantageous light from the windows, one maid, with a deep curtsy, retrieved the damaged pearl, and another, with a deeper curtsy, snatched an imperiled length of satin fabric from his path. In what became a rapid sweep of curtsies among the women discovering his presence, he passed like a gale through a flower garden… and by sheerest chance the diminishing of ladies standing upright directed his eye to the group under the farthest of the three tall windows.

His bride, the Lady Regent of Elwynor, stood on a bench, curiously draped in lengths of blue cloth, with a knot of ladies about her.

Intriguing, he thought as he approached in that breaking wave of ladies rising and curtsying. It proved difficult to hold folds in unsewn velvet and curtsy at once, and the ladies’ efforts all went for naught as Lady Ninévrisë shed the velvet and descended into the sea of ladies’ wide, fashionable skirts.

Among so many witnesses she kissed him chastely on the side of the mouth.

“I murdered a pearl,” he said between two formal kisses. “Surrogate for my Lord Chancellor.” This last in a low voice as he led her off by the blue velvet mountains next the windows. “This man.” The precise cause of his anger, the inane and constant repetition of the phrase
your late father found it good policy
… followed by what had been done for the last twelve years, a recitation undaunted by the firm statement of his own will to change that policy… all of that was impossible to articulate in this listening hall of daughters and sisters of great lords—northern lords at that, all of whom were involved in this contest of wills between the king and his late father’s court. “This man.” He was not yet up to coherent exposition.

Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles

“What has he done?” Ninévrise asked.

“I asked for the tally of village levies. It was
not my father’s policy
to deal with such matters himself. Lord Brysaulin accordingly sent the tally to the lord of Murandys and
not
to my Master of Accounts, as I instructed. But
my lord father
always had it go to Murandys.

Accordingly the lords, now possessed of the information I had wished to present, are delaying me, fearing all this presages a new tax, and are already resolved, Murandys to the fore, to oppose any such collection. This is beyond incompetency. It verges on treason!”

“I should hardly think that there was any ill intent.”

“Oh, I have no doubt the river simply flowed as it was accustomed to flow, in all its old channels. But more than that—” He lifted a forefinger. “More than that—I asked for the accounts also to list the notable men in the villages by name and lineage. I wished the wagons listed, the houses, the weapons.
No
! The cattle, gods forbid, the cattle and the sheep, and the granaries were all Lord Brysaulin’s passion. There are no
names
in his report, let alone tally of weapons. It was
not my father’s policy
to gather the names in the fall, nor the account of weapons. After two months of searching, sending scribes hither and yon, and the waiting, my Lord Chancellor has gathered for me a complete account of fields, of grain and granaries down to the half measure, and of the cattle of whatever age, oh, far more complete than my father was wont, but omitted the weapons, as something done two years ago, which he deemed accurate enough, and it was
not my father’s policy
to gather the names and the strength of the muster until spring. So the recording of all beasts of whatever age, with houses
and
granaries Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles has every semblance of a tax assessment! The lords are uneasy with the king’s apparent interest in their revenues, how not? and how am I to know these men’s resources if I have no names or tallies? Is it Uta Uta’s-son still over Magan village in Panys, or has the old man died this summer and is his foolishly indolent and dastard
son
in charge, who will be devil a use when Lord Maudyn musters troops next spring? My father never inquired into such matters for reasons I leave to my father; but I do as my grandfather did, and with a war to fight,
I
think it reasonable to know the men of account in the villages as I know their lords, because
I
think it reasonable in me as king to know what sort of men my barons look to for their resources! I think it is of concern to the Crown whether a village be well led or indifferently led or led by an utter fool! I rely on such information when I rely on Panys to advance or to hold his entire contingent; and I will not do in my reign as the Lord Chancellor finds
convenient
, or face a set of barons inflamed by suspicions my Lord Chancellor has stirred up with his only half-following my orders!—And I want an entire tally of wagons, their kind as well as their number!”

He was not speaking to some child… but to the Lady Regent of Elwynor across the river, a sovereign in her own right. And against a wall of obstinate, self-interested Guelen opposition to his will, the Lady Regent of Elwynor was a calm, sweet, sure, and unassailable voice on his side. “He will simply have to obtain the names and weapons and the rest of it, my lord, and that will correct the impression he might have given.”

“The snow will fall and we’ll be holding muster in blizzards! Pray, Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles is that a man, sir, or a snowdrift?”

“There is still time, adequate at least to amend the list.”

“And with a list I wanted done with
no
extraordinary fuss! Secrecy was my aim. Quiet proceedings. —Come with me. We’ll flee to Marisal, break a bowl together and set ourselves up as simple farmers.”

The Lady Regent must not, by treaty, attempt to advise him in the monarchy of Ylesuin: the marriage contract had stipulated likewise that he would not intervene in Elwynor.

It was a noble notion of dual reigns over two allied realms, give or take the inconvenient fact that her capital across the river was threatened by rebels. But besides all other reasons, they loved each other… at least… they were hoping to love one another: at this early date they were merely, hopelessly, smitten.