Fortress in the Eye of Time (62 page)

It had not been enough—nor real rest. Tristen had feared sleep as he had not feared the ghosts that walked the earth of Althalen, and sat half-drowsing, content to watch Uwen's rest as Uwen had sworn himself willing to watch his—but Uwen had very quickly nodded off in the quiet and the stillness of the wind that, after the gale against their wet clothing, had seemed like warmth.

The lady had dreamed. The lady had dreamed of children's games, and children's songs, and the childish voices haunted him no less than the ghosts, rhymes about blackbirds and skipping steps, and memories of rain-puddles and gray stone.

They terrified him. He knew that they were her memories and not his. And in them she had
felt
small, which he never had. Their memories were so much the same, or hers had delved into his, and diverged again, into being she, and being he, and living in a bright hall and fearing the dark, and living in a keep that always ran and rippled with it.

Ynefel touched his drowsing thoughts with poignant
warmth, with longing to see his familiar loft and the stairs to his room, and to hear Mauryl's familiar step-and-tap; but the lady had waked from his dream with an outcry, afraid of the stone faces, and Tasien had asked her what was wrong.

A nightmare, she had answered Lord Tasien, and hugged her cloak about her and shivered.

That had more than stung: it wounded him; and he had sat watching her while she fell back to sleep, thinking, in his own fears, how very strange it was to have been so small as she had been, and to have weighed so little on the earth, and yet to have enjoyed the same pleasures as he treasured—except, except dodging around the stone walls, and looking at the faces, and thinking of them as familiar.

She had never known her father was a wizard…or whatever it was that gave her father the strength he had to travel that gray place. He had wondered once if everyone could go there. He had wondered whether it was a place Emuin had made for them alone—or that Emuin had let him into; and here at least was someone as surprised and dismayed by that place as he had been.

It made him feel…older, somehow. It made him wish he could give her in one instant all that he knew, and have someone then who would always understand the things he saw and how he saw them; it made him wish that he could leave all the others behind in camp and go somewhere alone and tell her and ask her…so many things, so many questions that stirred tonight in the grass, in the leaves, in the memories of Ynefel's creakings at night, the force of a gathering storm of Words and Names and so, so much about the world that he might almost understand if events and dangers had not swept him from one thing to the other. It was like the pigeons carried on the storm: they stayed aloft, they flew, but they rode the gusts, not choosing their own path so much as choosing the violence that went where they wished to go; they dived at the last into the safety of the loft on the blast of the rain, and a boy who was never truly a boy waited for them, with the wind blowing straws about and blasting the rain in
through the broken boards—that boy called them home to the loft, waved his arms and called out Hurry! hurry! never knowing they were helpless to do more than they did.

He could not have been different than he had been. He could not have been the child that the lady had been. He could not remember the long ago that people kept attributing to him. He could find only dark before the light in Mauryl's keep.

The banners snapped and thumped in a wind that had never warmed with the sun. He saw, past their intersecting folds, that they were coming to the western gate, the stable gate. They passed beneath the arch, and into the stable-court by the shortest way, and to the western steps of the Zeide, where grooms ran to take the horses, Cefwyn's first, and the lady's, Cevulirn's and Umanon's, and the other lords'. A boy came running to take Petelly's reins.

Tristen dismounted quietly, and Uwen got down. He saw a boy hand Cefwyn a stick, which he did use, and seemed for a moment to be in pain, but Cefwyn was at hand as Ninévrisë slid down in a flurry of skirts: so was Tasien there to take the lady's arm. Cefwyn and Lord Tasien were polite to each other, and Lord Haurydd and Lord Ysdan were there, all of them being polite, all of them concerned about the lady.

He supposed it would be difficult to add himself to that crowd. He could speak to the lady in a way they could not. He could tell her things they could not: he would gladly, when his knees were not shaking from exhaustion, help her explain to Cefwyn what had happened, and why there was a danger up by Emwy, and what had happened to the old man and to the Elwynim rebels.

But he knew better now than to intrude on Cefwyn when Cefwyn was dealing with the lords—least of all, he supposed, when Cefwyn was dealing with the lady Regent.

Marry her?

Cefwyn had talked about marriage, before now.

Marriage was a Word of great importance to a man and a woman. Marriage entrained other Words so…numerous and so strange to him that he lost his awareness of where he
was, and realized that he was walking across the courtyard, watching Cefwyn and Idrys and the lady and the lords climb the steps, Cefwyn using his stick and limping in pain and talking all the while.

It was one of those moments in which he felt shut out, unwelcome. And he supposed Cefwyn was angry with him for leaving—deservedly so. He wanted Cefwyn to be as glad to see him as he appeared to be to see the lady—as he wished the lady herself would speak well of him. He thought he had deserved it. He could show her things Cefwyn could not. But, no, they would settle things as they pleased, without him.

Uwen was with him as he walked up the steps. They had already gone inside. He heaved an aching sigh, found tears almost escaping him, and realized how tired he truly was. He was foolish to expect a welcome after he had stolen Petelly, lied to the guards, and sent six squads of Cevulirn's horsemen out looking for him. Well that Cefwyn had been as pleasant and glad to see him as he was. He had not at all deserved well of Cefwyn for what he had done.

He had not deserved, either, to have Uwen still faithful to him, and forgiving of a soaking and a long, long ride and a chase through very dangerous places. But Uwen did forgive him. He supposed that Cefwyn did; and the lady, after all, owed him nothing.

He followed the lords inside, and while they went down the corridor to one of the halls of state, he went upstairs, and down toward his apartments, where his guards, to his chagrin, were still patiently standing, as if he were still there.

Had they never left? he wondered. He saw their faces lighten as he came, and, “M'lord,” one said, and
they
were glad to see him; which he did not at all deserve.

It made him ashamed.

“You go fetch His Lordship's servants,” Uwen said to the youngest. “You tell them he's here and wanting to rest and they should be quick.”

“Yes, sir,” the guard said, and hurried to do that as the others let him in and wished him well.

Every detail of the rooms, the very fact of coming home, when he had not been sure he would ever see any of it again—filled up his senses to a dizzying fullness. He stood in the middle of the room just looking at the furniture and finding somewhere he had, wonderful to say, come back to and found again.

He heard a step behind him and thought it was the servants. But a brush of gray as soft as the footsteps told him a further amazing thing before he even turned around.

“Master Emuin!”

“Tristen.” Emuin came and set his hands on his shoulders. “I wish I had foreseen more than I did.”

He had done badly, Emuin meant, on his own. He found himself facing the judgment of the only teacher he had alive, and found it a hard judgment of his choices. “I did what I knew, sir,” he said. “I tried to reach you.”

“You have met so much. A great deal of changes. A great deal. You've had to find your own way, young lord. And not done so badly, perhaps. Tell me, tell me what you did, and saw, and how you found your way.”

Emuin held out hope of approval, which he was all too ready to grasp: but Emuin began to draw him into the gray space—which he feared since last night, and with the Regent dying, and with Ninévrisë—and the Shadows, and their Enemy. He refused; and Emuin stepped back of a sudden, ceasing to touch him.

He had not remembered Emuin's face seeming so old, or so drawn, and Emuin, who had at first seemed so wise and calm, looked haggard and afraid. “I see,” Emuin murmured faintly, “I
see
, young lord.”

“Do you know all that's happened? Hasufin was reaching out of Ynefel. But the lord Regent said he shouldn't have Althalen, and wanted to be buried there—” Things made far better sense, telling them to Emuin, than they had to the lady, or than they would when he told them to Cefwyn. “He said he'd listened to Hasufin too long. He came to Althalen to be buried because he feared he would be a bridge for Hasufin if
he was buried anywhere else. And I brought the lady here, sir: her father wanted to talk to Cefwyn, and Cefwyn says he wants to marry her.”

“Merciful gods. Marry her.”

“I think—” he said, because he had had all the ride home to reason it out, “I think that the people of Emwy village were hiding the lord Regent. I think they knew he was there all along, and they protected him. He was a good man. But now all the houses are burned and the people are Shadows. Idrys might have done it; he was going to burn the haystacks; but I think it was a man named Caswyddian, looking for the Regent. He found us—but the Shadows caught him. I don't think he followed us out of Althalen. I heard the trees breaking.”

Emuin passed a hand over his face and went over to the table and sat down as if there were much more to hear. There was not. But Tristen went, too, and sat, feeling the weariness of what seemed now days in the saddle, Cefwyn's father's murder, and now this ride to and from the Regent's death—there was so, so much in turmoil around him, and too many dying, whatever it meant to die—he could not puzzle it out. And he wanted to have Emuin tell him he had not been mistaken, and that he had not brought Cefwyn worse trouble.

“I should have been there,” Emuin said.

“Have I done wrong, sir?”

“It remains to see.”

“I've killed people. I fought Cefwyn's enemies. But I—knew how, sir. It came to me—as other things do.”

“Did you do unjustly?”

“No, sir. I don't think that I did.” It was a question the like of which Mauryl would have asked. It showed him a path down which he could think. “But is this what I was meant to do? Is fighting Cefwyn's enemies what Mauryl wanted me to do? I thought by going on the Road I might find the answer, and I found the lady and the lord Regent. I think this was where I was supposed to go. But I can't tell if this was what Mauryl wanted. How am I to know such things?”

“Gods, lad, if I only knew, myself. But you did very bravely.”

“Hasufin still has the tower, sir. He has that, and he might have Althalen, now. I don't know. The old man, the lord Regent, was fighting to stop him.—He was a wizard.
I
think he was, at least.”

“The lord Regent?” Emuin sounded surprised. “Why so?”

“Because he went to the gray place. So did his daughter, but she didn't know she could do it. Can only wizards go there?”

“The daughter can?”

“Yes, sir.”

Emuin drew a long, slow breath.

“Is it
wrong
to do?” Tristen asked, not understanding Emuin's troubled expression.

“No. Not wrong. But dangerous—especially in that place. I have always told you it was dangerous.”

“Because of Hasufin.”

“Because of him, yes.”

“Could you have defeated him, if you were there?”

“Where Mauryl failed? I am not confident. I am far from confident. And you must stay out of that place! You and she both must.”

“The lord Regent said—” He tried to follow the tangled reasoning that the lord Regent had told him, how it was easy to slip into Hasufin's trickery, but all thinking was becoming a maze for him, like the dazedness that came with too much, too fast. His tongue forgot the words. His eyes were open, but they were ceasing to see things clearly. He was all of a sudden profoundly, helplessly weary, and knew he was where he could trust, and that there was his own bed very near him, which he wanted more than he wanted anything in the world.

“Poor lad,” Emuin said, as Mauryl would have said; or he dreamed, and rested his head on his hands. He heard the scrape of the chair as Mauryl rose, and he tried to wake. He felt the touch of a kindly hand on his back. He might have been in Ynefel again. He might have begun to dream.

“Poor m'lord,” someone said, and he heard someone say, “Put him to bed. He needs that most of all.”

He felt someone at his shoulder, heard Uwen's voice then, saying, “On your feet, m'lord.”

“Emuin,—”

“Master Emuin's gone to his supper, lad.” Uwen set an arm about him, and he waked enough to help Uwen, and to get his feet under him. “Servants has got hot towels, m'lord, and your own bed is waitin'.”

He could walk for that. He let Uwen guide him to his own bedroom and set him down on a bench by the window. Uwen helped him off with the coat, and with the mail shirt, and with the boots, and then he sat and shivered in clothing that never had dried.

But the servants came with stacks of hot, wet towels, and he shed his clothing and let them comb his hair and shave him and warm him with the towels, until his eyes were shutting simply with the comfort, and he was near to falling asleep where he sat.

Uwen and one of the servants pulled him to his feet and took him across a cool floor to his bed. There was a fire going in the hearth, he could see that as he lay back and let Uwen throw the covers over him.

“Was Emuin angry? I don't remember.”

“He wasn't angry, m'lord. He said you'd sleep a while. He said not to worry, he'd talk to the King.”