Fortress of Owls Read online

  “Candles. Lanterns. As other people do, sir! People account me the simpleton, and you the wizard and wise man, and you have the hall full of baskets and this tower so cold it gusts cold wind into the lower hall. Whence this notion not to have candles?”

  There followed a small, uncomfortable pause in which Emuin looked elsewhere.

  “It is that?” Tristen asked, surprised to have happened on the truth. Then he added that favorite, persistent question that always found so little patience among ordinary folk: “Why, sir?”

  “Plague and bother of lighting fires! Leave my shutters alone!

  The place is dark as a cave.”

  “If you’ll not have Tassand arrange this, then I shall, sir. I will, with or without your leave.” It was a great impertinence to defy the old man, but he had learned of Cefwyn how to argue, and argue he was prepared to do.

  “The duke of Amefel will not carry baskets and build shelves!

  There are simply too many baskets to fit! They used to fit! I don’t know how it came to be so much. Leave one shutter, I say! How can a man see?”

  “Then you’ll accept Tassand’s help.” He faced an obdurate, weary old man, one who had not planned to reestablish his workshop twice, a man at his wits’ end after FORTRESS OF OWLS / 23

  a hard journey…an old man who still, a week after coming all this journey specifically to advise him in his new office, at least as Emuin had said to him, continually found reasons not to speak to him frankly on far more important matters than baggage obstructing the stairs. “And you shall have it, sir, his help or mine. You may choose which, but the lower hall is full of drafts, and the candles blow out when someone opens the east doors.”

  A tremor of weariness had come into Emuin’s mouth, and more wrinkles than usual mapped the territory around his eyes.

  He trembled on the verge of yielding. Then: “No! No, you will not be arranging baskets or carrying them.”

  “Then Tassand, sir. His Majesty set me in charge. I must have the baskets up the stairs and the shutters shut.”

  A second surly glance.

  “I’ll have them set in whatever order you wish,” Tristen said,

  “a fire laid, candles lit. Please have all the windows shut by this evening, sir, at least by the time the sun goes down.”

  “Beeswax. None of your tallow candles, young lord, nothing stinking of slaughter. I will have beeswax.”

  Then there was more in it than candles, as there was more in Emuin’s insistence on open windows than a desire for daylight by day and a view of the stars at night. Master Emuin was not a man who chose luxury or spent money profligately, beeswax being the luxury, above tallow. But he was a wizard, and the question of beeswax or tallow passed not without note and not without significance in Tristen’s thoughts.

  “Beeswax,” Tristen said, “you shall have, sir.” He was pressed for time in this small foray up the stairs, and let the precise reason of the candles escape comment, but he marked it for inquiry at some quieter

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  moment. “You’ll have Tassand’s earnest attention to whatever things you need, clothing for attendance in hall…and all set in order in a proper clothespress.” He saw that the one that did exist was crammed so full of bottles and papers the doors stood open.

  “Nonsense.”

  “Tassand need not retrieve your robes out of baskets.”

  “I have no room, I say! Hang them on a peg. For a peg, I have room!”

  “Join me at supper this evening, where it’s warm. Cook will have meat pies.”

  “When I have found my charts, young lord! If I have found my charts, which at the moment seems unlikely!”

  Emuin shouted in frustration, and Tristen found his own amiability tested. “They might be in those baskets on the stairs, sir. Dogs might come at them. There was a dog about. I saw him below.” That this had been far out in the yard, from the window, he failed to say. Whatever moved master Emuin to accept help and hasten his baskets up the steps was a benefit.

  “Perish the creature! Very well, very well, send Tassand!

  Gods bless! ” Master Emuin cracked his shin against a bench in the dimmed light. “Leave me one window, if you please! I have old eyes. Gods, what a contentious lad you’ve become!”

  “For your health’s sake, sir, and the servants’, and the downstairs candles, and to have your advice for a long time to come, without your taking ill up here, yes, I have become extremely contentious.” Tristen relented, leaving one leeward shutter ajar on stiff metal hinges so that the room was not altogether in twilight. He had had a fire laid in the hearth and wood provided in advance of his teacher’s arrival, and it had burned far too fast, thanks to the gusts, he was sure.

  FORTRESS OF OWLS / 25

  The tower room had a fireplace which shared a duct with the guardroom below and the hall below that, three flues and one common stonework that led to the wayward and now wintry winds above the fortress roof. It was thanks to the warm stonework, with other rooms’ smoke passing through, that there was any comfort at all in the room. “You need more firewood. Have you asked?”

  “No, no. And I don’t need a fire. The damned wind kicks up a gale in here when the flue’s open. Damn.” Master Emuin had found a pot of powders spilled in the bottom of a basket, and was not in a good humor. “Damn, damn.”

  It seemed time for even the lord of Amefel to make a quiet retreat, out the door and down past the numerous baskets of herbs and birds’ nests and down again the rambling East Stairs, with its little nooks and shelves and half levels, themselves piled high with stray baskets. His guard, four men, his constant and trusted companions, had waited below, and followed him from there.

  It had not been an entirely satisfactory meeting. He had come upstairs intending to set the fortress generally under master Emuin’s surveillance, had found himself distracted into argument about the shutters.

  Distraction in master Emuin’s vicinity was not an uncommon occurrence. He would have liked to have asked master Emuin about the archives and the problems there. He would have liked to consult master Emuin about the vacant earldom of Bryn, but they had ended arguing about other things. He saw no likelihood that all the baskets and bundles were ever going to fit into the tower. Now he walked the hall uneasy in this requirement regarding the candles, which echoed off his own dislike of Emuin’s open and unwarded windows…and there was another piece of unfinished

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  business he had not yet had a chance to discuss with Emuin: the wizard-work that had left the fortress more open than some to wizardous attack.

  He most of all wished that master Emuin would leave his charts in whatever disorder they fell, look at events around him, and provide a steady and sober counsel to him in his new rule over the province of Amefel.

  Yes, Emuin had advised him in some limited particulars, but there remained the flood of mundane matters which he had not yet been able to persuade the old man to hear, such as the pile of petitions regarding land settlements, and several very much greater ones, involving the king and the situation in Elwynor.

  But no, Emuin would not be at peace to hear anything so important until his workshop was in order, which it was not, and showed no prospect of being. Tristen began asking himself where he could find storage outside the tower, which master Emuin thus far refused to consider; he had come upstairs to gain advice about the affairs of the fortress, and instead found himself wondering where he could set a clothespress.

  Now he found himself wondering why he had ever thought he could spare an afternoon to leave the fortress and ride outside the walls.

  But Earl Crissand had pleaded with him and cajoled him to take some relief from the demands on his attention. He had a need and a duty, Crissand said, to see the people and be seen by them, a duty he could not accomplish inside the fortress.

  The ducal seat at Henas’amef had become remote and estranged from the commons even under its recent duke and duchess, and the l
ast authority, Lord Parsynan, had brought the land nothing but grief and bloodshed. It was time the people saw hope for better days.

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  So here they were, he and his guard all cloaked and gloved and equipped for winter riding—an unexpectedly appropriate weight of clothing for venturing the tower room—bound for the west doors and the stable-court. The escape seemed both more attractive and less responsible since the conversation above; and he only hoped to reach the stables.

  All through the lower hall the household staff with mops and buckets fought back the thin gloss of mud soldiers and workmen brought from the snowy yard. And around the central doors, that mud mixed with the shavings and dust of workmen repairing the damages of their new lord’s accession. It was a second source of draft in the fortress, where wind leaked through the nailed patches, and it was a hazard to his escape, a source of overseers with questions.

  He foresaw it: now a well-dressed master craftsmen intersected his path and showed him a paper, the requests of craftsmen for an order of oak planks.

  Consult Tassand, was his answer to no few. He was sure his chief of household knew no more about oak planks than he did about wizardry and herb lore—less, in fact—but Tassand at least knew how to send petitioners to appropriate places.

  From being merely a body servant, Tassand had become a duke’s master of household, did the office of chamberlain and half the office of seneschal.

  Tassand seemed to know, moreover, when an order was excessive or excessively expensive, which his lord did not. He did know that money represented hours and quality of a man’s work, and that dukes did not have an endless supply of it.

  But today, faced with an order for wood which seemed reasonable for carpenters, and anxious to reach the doors:

  “Yes,” he said, and moved on. “Yes,” he said, to a further request, and he had no more than 28 / C. J. CHERRYH

  sent that man off, than a third man in court clothes appeared in his path, unrolling drawings of the carvings of the new main doors, and asking whether the design pleased him.

  “The Eagle of Amefel in the center panel, do you see, Your Grace, and the border of oak leaves, for endurance…”

  He had no idea why he should be asked about the carving for the main doors, which he had simply ordered repaired to stop the draft. The only usefulness of the carving might be a kind of magical seal, and everyone from earls to servants to his close friends had assumed that common doors would not do…nothing common ever suited. Endurance seemed a reasonable, a happy wish, to which he certainly consented, and with a wish of his own he reinforced it…he helped the craftsmen as he could, not knowing what he was supposed to do.

  But by now he was sure he was overdue in the stable-court, and he was more and more sure Crissand was right in urging him to ride out for a day: he grew weary and short of patience.

  His court did everything in a great deal of fuss and uncertainty, and questions seemed to come to him faster than he could learn. Wishes for solutions aside, he had not enough officers, not enough servants, no clear lines of appeal—and, as Tassand had informed him, unhappily there was no other person established as the authority. What had existed, Parsynan and Edwyll between them had destroyed; and now both were gone, and he was there.

  Consequently everyone wanted his attention, everyone wished to establish their connections and their favor with the new duke, and in the process their demands pressed on him until his head fairly swam with questions. He did not know who should do these things. He had no idea. And under the incessant

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  demands for his attention, he could not find answers.

  Indeed he was so overwhelmed he feared even Crissand had motives in stealing him away for several hours in private…points to press, favors to gain at the worst; and in agreeing to go, he knew it would wound him to the heart if that was all Crissand’s reason in seeking his company. He hoped for less selfish notions in this young man who seemed so inclined toward him. He hoped for some beacon in this sea of demands, but he had been disappointed before, discovering even master Emuin set his own will ahead of friendship and promises, and that Cefwyn, whom he loved, had as many demands on his time as he had.

  He understood Cefwyn’s situation, now, in a way he never could have before.

  But knowing that turned him desperately to seek warmth and company where it seemed to offer. And, oh, that might be foolish of him, and expose him to hazards such as he had seen in Cefwyn’s court.

  But he went. He trusted. He stormed through the last stretch of hallway toward the stable-court before more questioners could close about him—for he had been indoors for an entire fortnight now, imprisoned in his duty, in men’s squabbles and difficulties, while all the wonder of snow spread across the land outside his misted, frosty windows.

  And now the chance was on him. He rushed toward freedom in simple, undilute curiosity, eager to meet the sights that had tantalized him and eager to have a horse under him for a few hours…eager most of all to have Crissand beside him and the sound of a friendly voice without a single demand for favor or approval of some document.

  Cefwyn had made him duke of Amefel…and of all pleasures the high office might have afforded (the prior lord, Heryn, had ordered gold dinnerplates, and

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  the viceroy, Lord Parsynan, had coveted a lady’s jewels), he discovered that the greatest and least attainable of all his treasures was time, time to ride out in the sparkling white and time to be with friends.

  And when he and his accustomed bodyguards, Lusin and the rest, escaped out the west doors into the snowy damp air and thumped down the steepest steps in the fortress—he found himself both free and faced with a yard he had forgotten would be teeming with soldiery and oxen and carts.

  “The lord’s come down!” A trio of stablehands scampered at the sight of them, dodging through the confusion of ox teams and heaps of equipment bound for the bottom of the hill, all shouting for the duke’s horses as they went. Tristen regarded the commotion with some dismay: nothing he did these days was circumspect or secret, and no one went sluggishly to accommodate him; the carts were going to the border, the army was going, this was the day he had appointed, and such had been his haste this morning he had not even realized his ride and the carts’ being loaded overlapped each other.

  Almost as they cleared the bottom step, one of the stablemaster’s lads came laboring through the press with the tall ducal standards bundled together, brought from their storage near the armory, a heavy burden for a slight lad. It was a heavy burden, too, for the grown men appointed to carry them when they were unfurled. They were inevitably cumbersome, and in the wish of his heart, Tristen would have bidden the boy put the banners back in their safekeeping so he and Crissand could simply ride free and enjoy the day in anonymity…but those banners were part and parcel of their honest excuse for riding forth today. They would show them abroad, ride through the town of Henas’amef in brave display, and visit the nearest vil FORTRESS OF OWLS / 31

  lages, likewise: and all that was to confirm that, indeed and at last, Amefel had a lord watching over them and doing the sort of things a lord did. In a winter ominous with war and its preparations, Crissand had reasoned with him, the people needed to see him. Banners were for courage, and they had to see them fly.

  War…he did understand. Doors and orders for oak were another question altogether.

  Perhaps Crissand might show him that, too.

  Carts maneuvered with ponderous difficulty, one loading, one waiting. Uwen Lewen’s-son arrived through the gap between with bay Gia at lead—Uwen bundled up in a heavy cloak and with a coif pulled up over his silver-streaked hair.

  Tristen recognized the horse but not immediately his own right-hand man.

  Uwen was more sensible than he was, Tristen thought, feeling the nip of the wind, in which his hair blew free. It was not a dank cold, but a crisp, invigorating one, with the sky trying its best to be blu
e. It was better weather than they had enjoyed for a week; but it might turn, and while he came from his hasty passage through the lower hall all overheated, he had his coif and cowl, his heavy gloves and lined boots, foreseeing wind among the hills.

  “A fine day,” Uwen said. “Weather-luck is with us.”

  “A bright day,” he said, his heart all but soaring. He had dreaded winter as a time of death, then seen it advance during their passage from Guelessar in an unexpected glory of frost…from his high windows he daily saw snow lying white and pure across the land and had wondered would it look as white close at hand.

  And was snow like water, into which it turned, and did it change colors according to the sky like a pond? He saw it take on the glories of sunrise and sunset,

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  such as there were under a leaden sky. He waited to see what the sun would bring.

  And with the arrival of the sun for the first time in days he saw the promise of wonders. Even in the brawling confusion of the carts and the limited vantage of the stable yard, he saw Icicles, which he had only just learned as a Word, and never seen so glorious as just now, on this morning of sun breaking through the clouds. They decorated every ledge and eave, and sparkled. The most casual glance around at the yard showed how a frosting of snow glossed all the common things of the stable into importance. He had never noticed the curious carving about the stable door, for instance, an unexpectedly fine decoration for a humble building: the lintel was beautiful edged in the sifting of snow, a carving of flowers and grain, appropriate enough for horses.

  All around him such details leapt up, from the pure snow lying on the stonework edges, white instead of mortar, to the way it made a thick blanket on the stable roof.

  With Uwen accounted for and his guard waiting for their horses, he stared about him in a moment of delighted curiosity, seeking other wonders, finding beauty even in the lion-faced drain spouts above them, that he had never seen.