Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles (35 page)

The town is known for rebellion.”

“Uwen, I say. The two of us and the banner-bearers.”

Uwen said, soft-voiced: “I’ll do what ye wish, m’lord, but the captain’s givin’ good advice.”

“I say we go ask them to open the gates.”

“If there ain’t no untoward event of His Majesty’s message to the viceroy, aye, then maybe us two were enough. But that ain’t sayin’

what else could go amiss, m’lord, in the dark and wi’ rumors loose, as may be. The town’s a chancy ride i’ the dark. Listen to the captain.”

“You and I and the banners,” he said, making up his mind. “If they open to us straightway, we’ll be inside, and the gates will be open.

Then, Captain, or if not, you’ll come. I wish no commotion of the town, and I prefer they not see all of us.”

“I fear there will be a commotion, at this hour,” Anwyll said. “Or worse. Follow Lewen’s-son’s advice, if not mine: let him go, him and the banners, no more. Or send me. It is not cowardice that urges caution, Your Grace, it is reasonable concern for your safety.”

“When you see a light from the open gates, Captain, or if you see us riding back, come in quickly.”

“Your Grace, —”

“Come in quickly, I say.”

“As Your Grace wishes,” Anwyll said glumly.

Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles And, having been reined back, Petelly had it in his head at the moment that he was going to the stables whatever the outcome of the discussion. Tristen spent not another word on argument with the captain or the horse, but climbed down off Petelly’s back, put up the coif, put on his helm. “Bring him with you as you can,” he said, and entrusted Petelly to a guardsman to bring along. He unslung his shield from his back and stripped off the weather-cover, which was plain black. So was the shield face black, but with the pale Star and Tower of Ynefel, the sign of wizardry, the scandal of the Quinaltine. There had been no time to change it.

Meanwhile all around him, at Anwyll’s order, a hundred men quietly settled their equipment in order, changed to their war-trained horses, and armed themselves to follow him in due course.

A last test of Gery’s cinch, a judicious tightening, by his own bare hand, trusting not even Uwen’s offer to settle his equipment. Then he put on the right-hand gauntlet, set his hand in the shield grip and his foot in the stirrup, still judging the girth as it took his armored weight. Gery had not swelled against the girth, rather took him up in good order, but with a little shiver and a pricking-up of the ears at this breaking-forth of warlike equipment.

There was, however, no nonsense from Gery at this hour, none of Petelly’s breaking forward unbidden. None of their horses had called out in the evening quiet. The orchards—a hazard Cefwyn had forborne to cut down despite the threat of war inside the province—

screened their approach toward the town gates despite the lack of leaves, and the dark east and clouded south had been constantly at their backs during the last of the sunlight, so they had never for any Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles moment stood out against the sky. Unlike Guelemara, Henas’amef had few outbuildings, only the stables and a few barns and huts where herdsmen dwelt. Now the surrounds of the town were almost entirely dark, the stars brightening overhead.

Banners unfurled, first the white Sihhë Star shining in the gloom of near night, then the Star and Tower. Third and centermost, the Eagle flew, black on deepest red, a banner more ominous and wholly dark in this twilight than the two Sihhë standards. One-handed, managing Gery with his knees and with his shield hand holding the reins, Tristen tightened the last two buckles on his side as they went.

Then three other riders overtook them: Aran, of Tristen’s own four guards, came up, and two more guardsmen came with them.

“To guard your backs, m’lord,” Aran said, when Tristen glanced at that arrival in displeasure. “By your leave, m’lord.”

The well-ditched road ran beside the orchards on one hand and stone-fenced sheep-meadow on the other. Then plowed fields replaced pasture as their road, the East, joined the main South Road.

Shortly after that, the West Road swept in beside a sheep wall to make it all one road.

From there, they were on the last long straight approach toward the main gate of the town, the banners flying and snapping in the dark.

They crossed the ring road, which went around the town walls and came racing up to the great South Gate, near Cevulirn’s camp of this summer, the site now a barren field.

The horses fetched up, stamping and blowing in their impatience.

Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles

“Ho the gatekeepers!” Lusin shouted out at the lofty town gate, all but obscured by the Tower banner as they confronted the gate and the likely scrutiny of the gate wardens. “Ho there, for His Grace of Amefel! Open the gate! Let His Lordship in!”

“Aye!” came a thin-voiced shout back. “Aye!” But no opening of the gate ensued. Lusin rode by and thumped the wood hard with his shield. That drew an answer.

“
Just a moment, just a moment, there
!”

No bell had rung yet to advise the higher town, but it might ring at any moment. Tristen expected it, as Gery stamped and blew in impatience. Came a sound of steps from inside, not at the bar of the sally port, which might signal the intent to open, but a heavy, panting thump of a heavy man running up the stairs inside the gatehouse. The thumping ascended all the way up to the stubby right-hand tower of the pair that supported the gate.

“Who’s there?” The shout came down from the crest of the wall.

Then, faintly: “Begging your pardon, who
is
His Grace of Amefel?”

“Lord Tristen,” Uwen shouted up. “By the grace of His Majesty in Guelemara, Duke of Amefel, Lord Warden of Ynefel and Lord Marshal of Althalen! Ye’ve had the king’s messenger man, have ye not?
Have ye not
?”

“Aye. Aye, we have had a king’s messenger. But no word to us!”

“Well, there is now, man! Bear a light, there, bear a light down and unbar the gate, in your own duke’s name!”

Another thumping, as the man ran down the stairs.

“The gods’ mercy,” Tristen heard then distinctly from the other side Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles of the gate, at the very center, with a clatter this time right behind the barred gate, a whisper half-voiced. “Gods’ mercy! Do we open?”

“Aye, ye open!” Uwen roared out. “And be quick about it! His Grace has rid clear from Guelessar, he’s weary and he’s hungry and in his patience wi’ good men, he ain’t near angry yet, but I wouldn’t keep your lord standing out here like some tinker on the road. There ain’t anyone but His Grace to give ye yea and nay here and hereafter, man, don’t natter about it! Shame on ye! Open this gate!”

“We has to do it,” came a faint voice. “We has to do it. Run up to the hill quick and see what’s toward! It’s himself and the king’s men. We has to!”

Something was wrong, Tristen was sure now, and Uwen had wisely laid the matter at the guards’ feet: open, open without question or face an angry new lord. He took a firmer purchase on his shield grip, made sure of his reins, not knowing what he might have to do to get the gate open, but open it must: matters otherwise could worsen, step by step.

Nothing so small as the sally port, but the main gate itself began to move, with the thump of pawl and ratchet. The gate swung, and in a moment’s confusion Gedd rode into the widening crack, the Eagle banner obscuring all view as he forced it wider still with his horse.

Tawwys and Aran rode in with swords in hand, and in the same moment Uwen sent Gia side-passing smartly right against the other wing of the gate, shoving it wide for Lusin and Syllan and a great wall of obscuring black banners. Tristen sent Gery straight through the middle, leading the men behind him in with a rush.

The banner-bearers had no shields, no swords; but the gate wardens, Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles in the lanternlight from the open gatehouse door, scrambled well back, showing no inclination at all to move toward the three pikes leaning in the corner.

“Your Lordship,” one of the gate-guards said, looking up at him as he held Gery at a restless halt. “Your Grace,” said the other guard, and they both fell to their knees. All battle was over. The gates were wide-open, and the light that splashed across the ground and across that open gate was a clear and ample signal to the guard troops under Anwyll’s command, out beyond the orchards.

But the guard who looked up at him in the lantern-light was a face that entrained a memory.

“Is that Ness?” Tristen asked.

The men both looked up at him, wide-eyed.

“Yes, your lordship,” Ness said, wide-eyed and openmouthed besides—a good man, a fair man; he had known Ness in the summer.

“Get up. Both of you. And answer me. Is the town willing for me to be here? Or not?”

“Your lordship.” Both of them had scrambled up, muddy-kneed, bowing again. “Your Grace,” the other said. Both seemed entirely terrified.

“Earl Edwyll has got the citadel,” Ness said in a rush. “The viceroy has got the garrison. Earl Edwyll put us back to wardin’ the town gates, your lordship, against the king’s men come in, and here we are.”

“In mortal trouble,” the other said, “saving Your Grace remember Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles us.”

“Edwyll is holding the Zeide gates?”

“The South Gate. And the lord viceroy is holding the stable-court and its gate. But all the gates up there on the hill is shut, Your Grace. We sent a man up to whichever is in charge, being on the earl’s orders, which was to shut the town gate again’ any asking, and no regard to king’s men.”

“But then us not knowing where the right is,” the second man said,

“and not being properly the earl’s men, neither, as might be, here you was, m’lord, with the banners and all, and we flung up the bar soon as we could think on’t. The whole town’s awake behind their doors, ain’t budged since afternoon except getting water and such, knowing all hell’s up on the hill. But they were saying it’d be three days till you’d arrived, m’lord, and there ain’t no water in the South Court ’cept the town give it him. And Lord Cuthan weren’t coming to anybody’s rescue, saying Earl Edwyll ain’t any aetheling more than any of the rest of them. But the viceroy ain’t asked him to help the Guelenmen.”

“Hush,” Ness said. “Lord’s affairs ain’t our affairs and there ain’t no more aethelings.”

“Well that we came ahead,” Uwen remarked in a low voice.

Well that they had come, indeed, Tristen thought. The town gates were breached, and the guards here had surrendered in an instant.

By all they could see and hear, too, there had been not a sound to alarm the town, nor any general sympathy shown the rebel earl except the gate wardens sending a messenger up the hill, which Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles accounted for the third pike leaning against the wall. It was still within likelihood that they might apprehend the man Ness had sent if he risked a noisy chase up a cobbled hill, but only by exposing his men to death or capture in doing it, and only at risk of provoking the general commotion they were trying to avoid.

Meanwhile the gate wardens alike looked uncertain as men might be who had opened their town gate on their own advice and now heard the low thunder of a hundred riders on the road coming toward them. The three banners above them, shadowy and transparent across the lanternlight from inside the gatehouse, were there by the king’s will, while the Amefin earl the guards had named had clearly chosen a declaration of rebellion against Cefwyn, imprisoning the king’s garrison on the hill and declaring his ownership of the place.

And Earl Edwyll was in a defensible position. The north side of the fortress was a blind wall except for the small, high-walled garden, which had no gate and was only accessible from the lower corridor.

The other faces of the citadel, east, south, and west, each had a courtyard, each divided from the next by walls, and there was indeed no water on the hill except the one spring in the West Courtyard. The viceroy’s men, having seized that area, had secured the only infallible supply of fresh water for themselves… and the horses for escape and grain to feed them, as well as the scullery with its stores of food.

“There is the wine and the ale, too,” he remarked to Uwen. “The garrison has that, if it has the kitchen storerooms, and the lower hall is between the two for a battlefield.”

Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles

“Gods ’a-mercy,” Uwen said. Uwen knew the lay of the courtyards and the existence of the spring as well as he did. It was on the one hand a ludicrous situation, the battle of the stable-court against an upstart and foolish earl in ill-timed rebellion; and on the other, honest servingfolk and townsmen who had no desire at all to be in the midst of a battle had been put in jeopardy of their lives up there.

“Ye’ll set those gates well back, there,” Uwen said to the gate wardens, and waved a signal at Gedd and the standards. “We’ll be holding the way open. Up standards and smartly so. Guards! Bear a light, there!”

The gate wardens hurried, not without anxious, backward looks as the distant rumble of cavalry on the move echoed off the very walls.

Anwyll and the rest were riding for the gate at breakneck speed, not knowing how they had fared. But as the gate-guards brought out the lantern and light spread full over the walls and the banners, the riders checked their full-tilt charge and spread out along the ring road just outside. Out of the dark came the noise of breathless, excited horses coming to a halt, and atop them as they arrived, a darkness glittering with the sheen of armor and weapons. In the faint light from the gate the Marhanen colors on Anwyll’s coat shone brighter than the rest.

“Your Grace!” Anwyll called out.

“Captain,” Tristen said. “One squad comes up the hill with me for the Stable Gate, one for the Zeide’s East Gate by Woolmarket, one by Bell Street for the South Gate, the third to hold here and assure us of this gate. But don’t trouble these guards! They’re honest men.

Captain, take command at the South Gate, do no harm to the town, Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles and be ready to come in when I open the doors!”