Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03 (17 page)

him and could not fall into the hands of anyone else. He had added Paisi to his list of those souls he wanted found, and found for the same reasons as he would secure wards and latch windows, gathering the power of the household close in one place, not scattering it abroad, available to any ill intention that wandered in from Elwynor.

But he had never, when he had first met Paisi, been aware of the gift in him. He had been very marginally aware of the gift in himself, on that confused evening. But he had no doubt at all now why Paisi of all boys in Henas’amef had happened across him, and guided him to Cefwyn’s gate. No chance, but wizardry had brought him to Cefwyn. He had wondered was there somewhere else he was supposed to have gone, perhaps to Elwynor or to the Lord Regent… but meeting Paisi now, he knew it
was
no chance, and that Cefwyn’s court was where Mauryl had intended him to go.

That was a profound realization, one that led him astray to Ynefel and back, so that he needed Uwen’s touch on the arm to remember what was essential, to find the boy someplace other than a straw-lined cell.

He did not want the boy loose and unwatched, no more than Mauryl’s letters or Mauryl’s books or a staff that Mauryl had leaned on. The wizardry that had sent
him
into the world had brushed past this boy and made of the boy a pivot-point on which so much else turned.

“He might help Tassand with Emuin’s tower, if he were of a Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

mind. I think I would prefer him in the house and not out of it.”

“He’ll steal the silver, m’lord. He wouldn’t want to, but I fear temptation’d be too much for the lad. He can’t rightly reckon his prospects. What ye hold up to ’im is so far beyond his ken as the sun and the stars is, and he just don’t know how to think of silver an’ hungry folk an’ what he wants all at the same time.”

“Nor do I,” Tristen said, bringing silence all around him. “Yet I try.” It was firmer and firmer in his mind that with all else unhinged in the world, any piece of his own left unclaimed could become an adit for sorcery, a danger as great as a broken ward.

He had not been prepared to find Paisi so urgently claiming his attention. He had certainly not been prepared to find him in trouble with the king’s guard and arrested for theft. But he was not utterly surprised, either. Uwen was right. Paisi was not a boy easy to love.

In fact he wondered if anyone but Ness had ever cared for him.

And he wondered for what reason outside the common goodness of Ness’s heart anyone had seen him fed and clothed. He had had Mauryl when he was foolish and helpless. But who had cared for Paisi’s needs? And why?

“Is he yours?” he asked Ness. “Is he kin of yours?”

“M’lord,” Ness said faintly, unsure, it was likely, what claiming Paisi might entail, or wherein he might be deemed at fault. “No, he ain’t kin. He ain’t no one’s kin, that I know. But we an’ the lads at the gate, we took care of ’im, an’ he kind of slipped about Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

the streets an’ told us if there was somethin‘ amiss.”

“Then he has had a use.”

“Aye, m’lord, sort of a use. An’ ’e ain’t stole except once. Or twice.”

“Has he lied to you?”

“Not so’s ever mattered. ’E tells tales. ’E’s a boy. Boys do.”

“Then take him at least for the night. —Go to Ness,” Tristen said to the young prisoner, “and do as he bids you. Have a bath at the scullery, have something to eat, and I’ll send someone for you in the morning who’ll tell you what you have to do. You’ve protected the town before. You’ll go on protecting it. And you’ll be an honest boy and not steal anything again, or Emuin will turn you into a toad.”

Paisi cast frantic glances at Ness and at him, and at Uwen.

Whether or not he believed the threat of being a toad he surely knew by now he was deep in wizards’ business, and in danger.

“I have enemies,” Tristen said softly, “and only honesty and my service may protect you. Dishonesty will deliver you to my enemies as surely as if you walked to Tasmôrden’s gates.”

“I don’t know about lords an’ wizards!” Paisi protested, for the first time finding a string of words. “I don’t know about bein’ in the Zeide!”

“Learn,” Tristen said, “and make as few mistakes as you can.

Steal
nothing
.” He gave a nod to Ness. “Find him a bed. And supper. I left mine, for this, and left my guest, too. I must go back Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

upstairs.” He had only just realized the extent of his dereliction: strongly as he had felt the need here, he knew now he must go back and beg Cevulirn’s pardon. “I’ll send Tassand in the morning.”

“Scrub under them fingernails,” Uwen said, “as don’t seem likely

’e ever has. Show ’im how to stand like a soldier and speak up like one, too. It ain’t so different for His Grace’s servants.”

“Aye, Captain,” Ness said in a hushed tone.

And that was the end of the matter, with Ness and Paisi at last.

Increasingly it seemed he had done the right, the necessary thing.

“M’lor’,” the young voice pursued him, a-tremble.

He stopped and looked back. Paisi had reached the bottom step, and came another step up.

“M’lor’, if it’s anything ye wish to hear… there’s talk, there’s talk I heard.”

“And what talk?”

The silence after said perhaps the boy was too eager, foolishly eager, to prove himself useful; and all he had was dubious. Ness seemed to think so, too, for he overtook the boy and set a cautioning hand on his shoulder.

“In the market they said… They said you was goin’ to raise up the old tower.”

“Ynefel?”

“That ’un, yes, m’lor’. —An’ ye’d bring back the magic.”

Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

“Who says so?”

“The gran’mothers say’t.”

“He means the hedge-wizards,” Uwen said. “Mostly they’re midwives. Herb-witches.”

He hardly knew what to say to that charge. Likely it was already true, in the sense that he came from Ynefel. But it was nothing he wanted bruited about the streets: the Quinalt was not that well-disposed to him, and Idrys had warned him of it.

“I don’t know,” he said, “and I know nothing about these grandmothers. What else do you know?”

“There’s them carts gone out,” Paisi said, “an’ folk is talkin’

about war and maybe ye’ll call the muster.”

“I don’t intend to have war here. It’s far from my intention.”

“That’s what I know, m’lor’.”

The words were more than the words. The very stones rang with them… a sense of things to which ordinary men were deaf.

Of a sudden he reached across the gray space and seized on Paisi’s notice, startling his soul half out of him, and facing him there, in the gray…

—I think you hear me, Paisi
.

“
Gods bless!
” Paisi cried, and in the one world fell to his knees
and in this one whirled away on the winds of panic…

flat into Ness’s arms.

Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

Tristen pursued, a mere step down the stairs, and had him at close attention.

—M’lor’…

“Don’t lie
,”

he said, in this world and the gray one. “If you’ll do a service for me, ask the grandmothers what they would say to me.”

He had Emuin’s attention, and knew it; and Emuin was utterly
aware of the waif, and of him. In that moment Paisi seemed to
see Emuin, for he turned his head all in a jerk and fled.

In the world of Men Paisi missed the step and tumbled to his knees on it.

“M’ lord,” Paisi said, trembling.

“Go with Ness,” Tristen said aloud, and added, “Boy?” It echoed to him with Mauryl’s voice, kind and commanding at once.

When had the tables turned? “I’ll never hurt you.”

“My lord,” Paisi whispered, on his knees.

“Send to Tassand in the morning,” Tristen said to Ness, “and let him have the run of the town as he has had. I’ve given him something to do for me.”

With that he had done all that was profitable to do, and he turned and went up the stairs with Uwen.

Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

Emuin was there, with a handful of the Guelens, Emuin with hands in the sleeves of his gray robes, beneath the fitful light of a lantern, shielded light there in the drafty stairs. And even so the wind gusted the little flame and cast Emuin’s face in ominous shadow.

“A thief, you say,” Emuin prompted him aloud.

—And what more
? Emuin confronted him in the gray space as
well, and the gray clouds were roiled with the storm of Emuin’s
distress.

—A boy,
Tristen answered.
He guided me to Cefwyn: should I

leave him loose and unwarded? He’s an open threshold. Now

he’s ours.

—Yours. Yours, young lord. I have nothing to do with him
!

Paisi had led Tristen straight as an arrow from the town gates to Cefwyn’s doorstep, the night he had arrived. Wizardry went for weak points, and Paisi’s hunger was that; it went for movable points, and there was none more unstable than a boy with no bed at night; it went for persons with a glimmer of the gift and no knowledge how to use it. And if there was malice afoot in the gray space at large, seeking any approach, any weakness in his Place in the world, he had just mortared in that stone with strong wards. He had meant what he said to Paisi: if hostile force attempted this boy who had so basic and early a connection to his Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

presence here, he would know that threshold had been crossed.

But the boy was himself harmless as the old women Uwen named.

—Harmless!
Emuin echoed his thought.
Harmless now. Bring

back the magic indeed.

—Is there truth in it, sir? Can you see? I can’t. Who are these

grandmothers?

—The truth, gods, the truth! The cursed truth is the magic’s

worn thin and raising it is
work,
young lord, wearying work,

until a draught of your presence pours down, and a wizard who

ought to know better finds it headier and headier wine, gods

save me. Gods save us all.

The Guelen Guard, who had lost their prisoner to higher orders, stood frowning, meanwhile, and all the distressing exchange was in an eyeblink, leaving him staring at Emuin and Emuin conspicuously evading his eyes.

“The boy is a thief,” the Guelen officer said, “and will steal from Your Grace, if he goes free.”

“He will go free… in my service.” Tristen had no idea what the boy had stolen or whether they had gotten it back. The wagons bound for the border had been laden with all manner of things, supplies, soldiers’ belongings, tents and fittings as well as grain for horses. Paisi, however, would not have made off with a grain sack. Likely it was something smaller. “Whatever he stole,”

Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

Tristen said, “have the owner come to Uwen, and I will pay it.”

“Your Grace,” the sergeant said, “it was a man’s kit, an’ we ain’t ever found it.”

“Then Paisi will tell where he hid it.” He saw no profit in long debate with the officer, and pursued his way doggedly toward the lower west hall, having learned to disentangle himself from the importunate: solve a matter and move on, disentangling his guard and those with him at the same time, and leaving firm orders behind him.

But even so he felt himself constrained and hemmed about.

“What in the gods’ good name possessed you to ride out today?”

Emuin asked. Not: why have we left a supper upstairs? That he took in stride. But riding out with Crissand… that was in question.

“Crissand asked,” he said simply. “Have you marked it, sir, he has the gift?”

“As does that boy. This is Amefel. Half the province has the gift in some measure!”

“Not to that measure.”

“No. That’s true.”

“I’ve done what I see to do. I ask, sir, this time I ask very strongly, that you advise me.”

“And still, I say I will not—”

“I
know
what you will not, sir! But consider… the harm is out Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

across the river. It
is
across the river, is it not?”

“It seems to be.”

“Yet it was a great storm out there!” He needed exercise no discretion in front of Lusin and Uwen, who had been there, but he kept his voice low with great effort, lest it echo to the guards elsewhere, who surely could hear that they argued, if not
what

they argued. “Crissand urged me go, Auld Syes met me, Cevulirn had been on his way long before I took the notion to ride out. I say I felt disturbance in the west and you say not in the west. So where shall I look for it, sir? And what shall I do about it when I do find it?”

“I’m sure I don’t know. Nor do I care to, young lord. I’ve told you that.”

“And yet came with me back to Amefel.”

“Someone needed to.”

“And having arrived here, you do nothing, all for fear of involving yourself in Mauryl’s spells. And what if Mauryl

wished
you to advise me?”

“I know he
did
, young lord! That’s the bloody point! He had the cursed gall to leave you and me equally ignorant of his purposes and you ignorant of
your
purposes, and wherein am I to substitute mine? If mine were adequate, why am I not ruling Ynefel at this hour? No, no, and no! I am not Mauryl’s successor, and I am most certainly not your master! Rail on
him
, that he failed to advise you! But on we? Why, I do as he did! I leave you Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03

ignorant as a new-whelped pup and trust the unwinding of his spell to inform you of your reasons or his intent… so where am I at fault more than he, pray?”

Now they were well beyond what the guards should witness, even Lusin and Syllan, and some consciousness of witnesses and the echoing halls seemed to return to Emuin, and he moderated his voice. “Forgive me. But think on statecraft and moderate behavior, young lord. I’ve every suspicion the knowledge of that art is in you, and does Unfold at need. You
are
the lord of Amefel. Conduct yourself so! Hold audience for your people and don’t complain of me that I fail to advise you, when you will not act on the simple advice I have given you! And what do I tell you? Establish a court! Settle in one place and let entreaty come to you, not the other way about, none of this haring about the countryside looking for trouble! We are not yet at that need, that we must find troubles out by some country shrine.”