Fortress of Dragons Page 6

  “And our gowns?” Tarien asked. “Surely Your Grace has no use for our gowns.”

  “I’ve no idea where they are.” In fact he had never wondered where the ladies’s wardrobe had gone: he had supposed it had gone with them to Anwyfar, in all the chests. The gowns they had worn in their days of power here had been gloriously beautiful, and with all the jewels, he supposed they were as valuable as Lord Heryn’s dinner plates—which he had in the treasury. “I’ve seen no store of clothes, not a stitch of them.”

  “And our jewels?”

  The whereabouts of certain of the Aswydd jewelry he did know, and was sure in his heart that the province’s need for grain was far greater than their need for adornment. But he regretted the beauty and the sparkle of the stones, too, all shut up in the dark treasury.

  “I shall send up some of the jewels,” he said, and then added, because they took every gift as their right: “I lend them, understand, until we need them for grain.”

  “For grain!” Orien cried. “These are the history, the glory of Amefel! These are the treasure of the Aswydds, my property! How dare you sell them for grain?”

  “If you were duchess of Amefel, I would agree you own them. But you aren’t. And I give them to the treasury.”

  “I am still duchess of Amefel, and damn the Marhanen! If you hold me here prisoner in my own hall, then look to yourself, sir!”

  “I’m sorry about the gowns. I don’t know where they went. I’ll ask; and if I can’t find them, I’ll find you others. It’s all I can do.”

  Orien drew a deep breath, and perhaps reconsidered her position. “You were always good-hearted, always kind to us before. I see you still have a kind heart.”

  “I wish you no harm, and ask you wish none.”

  “Harm to the bloody Marhanen!”

  “I ask you not do that.” He felt her anger in the gray space and rebuffed it strongly, refusing to encounter her there. In the world her face seemed all eyes, and the eyes a window into a place he chose not to go. He remembered how Cefwyn had wished to kill the twins, at least Lady Orien, and he had pleaded otherwise—not even so much out of mercy, although that had been in his heart—but rather the fear of Orien’s spirit let loose among the Shadows in the Zeide, set unbarriered within the wards and the Lines of Henas’amef, in those days when the sorcerous ally she had dealt with still threatened them.

  Now they had defeated that ally of hers, at Lewenbrook. And if Cefwyn had now proposed it, he did not know whether he would have been so quick to save her life, or Cefwyn to hear him: to that extent they both had changed.

  —Is it so? Orien asked him, a voice as sharp and cold as a dagger. Is it so? Did you save us? And had the bloody Marhanen not a shred of remorse?

  “Can you keep us in this prison?” Tarien asked, assailing him from the other side. “We have nothing, not even a change of clothes. My sister is the aetheling. Whatever else, she is the aetheling, and no one should forget it, least of all under this roof!” Tarien’s eyes glistened as she confronted him. A handkerchief suffered murder in her clenched hands.

  “Aethelings, yes,” Tristen corrected her gently. “Both of you. But Crissand of Meiden is the aetheling now, and there’s no changing that.”

  Orien’s eyes flared. “By whose appointment? Cefwyn’s? He has no right!”

  “By mine, lady.” He could be obstinate. He had learned it of Emuin. And he had every right, beyond Cefwyn’s grant of power to him. He was suddenly as sure of that as if it had Unfolded to him: their power had ebbed here, and ebbed further as he gave it away to others.

  More, Orien knew it, and fear insinuated itself into all her dealings.

  “For my sister’s sake,” Orien said, past tight lips, “we require a lady or two—a lady, mind you. Shall a lady of our rank give birth with the cook and the scullery maids in attendance?”

  That was unkind. Cook had never affronted Orien that he knew of. But he had no wish to provoke a quarrel that might bring harm to someone. “If you object to Cook, I might ask Lord Drumman’s sister to assist you.”

  “Lady Criselle? That preening crow!”

  Now it was Crissand’s mother Orien slandered. “Lady Orien,” Tristen said with measured patience. “No one pleases you. You may not have your servants. You refuse all others. I don’t know what more there is.”

  “I’m wish my own nurse,” Tarien cried, and burst into tears. “They murdered her, at Anwyfar. They killed all the nuns, and Dosyll with them. She was sixty years old, and she never threatened them!”

  “I’m sorry.” He was honestly afflicted by her report. “Who did it, and why?”

  “Brave soldiers of the Guelen Guard,” Orien interposed harshly. “Heroes of the same company the bloody Marhanen garrisoned in my town, the same company as these hulking men you post at my door! The Marhanen’s best bandits! Murderers! Mercenaries!”

  “Are you sure they were of the Guard?”

  “And should I not be sure, with the Guelens garrisoned at Amefel all my life? I know what I saw. I know their badges and their ranks and of one of them I knew the face!”

  “Do you know the name?” he asked, with a sinking heart recalling the men he had dismissed home because of their discontent in his service, men guilty of malfeasance and murders that should have sent them to the hangman, if they had not acted under Crown authority, in the person of Lord Parsynan.

  “Essan,” she said, and he had to bow to the truth.

  “I doubt your eyes deceived you, then,” he said, “since I dismissed him, with a handful of others, for crimes here. The others, I sent to Cefwyn. He and his sergeant slipped away rather than answer my summons to accounting.”

  “Gods bless the Holy Quinalt, then! They shouted that, you know, while they burned down a Teranthine shrine, and murdered old women! I don’t know what they were looking for besides the wine and the treasury, but they weren’t shy about their cause.”

  “No,” he said, “clearly not. I’m sorry for your nurse and I’m sorry for the nuns. And I know Cefwyn didn’t send them.”

  “You know nothing. You said yourself, you sent these murderers to him! He sent them back again, to Anwyfar!”

  “Not Captain Essan. He and his sergeant took shelter in the Quinaltine, so I understand.”

  “Oh, so it was the Patriarch himself who sent them to burn Teranthine nuns!”

  “I doubt it, and you doubt it, lady. And if you’ll give me answers, I can send to Cefwyn. I know he’ll find these men. Can you tell me any reason for what they did? Were they looking for you? Were they angry with the nuns?”

  “Look to yourself, Tristen of Ynefel! Look to yourself! Yes, it was us they wanted, and do you think common soldiers imagined this? Do you think the drunkards and ne’er-do-wells of the garrison traveled all the way to Anwyfar to raid the wine cellars in the nunnery and assault old women? It was hate for us, and these were soldiers! Someone sent them! Someone put the idea in their heads, and it was the hate they bear all of us who have wizard-gift—it was fear of my sister and me! So look to yourself, Tristen of Ynefel. If they hate us, a hundred times more they hate you, and now you shelter us!”

  “That may be true,” he said. “But Henas’amef is stronger than Anwyfar.”

  “A great deal stronger. And have they come for you? Is that the cause of the army outside these walls? There were Ivanim we spoke to last night. I saw Sovrag’s pirates.”

  “You did see Olmernmen,” he said, letting her shafts rain about him, none landing, for she knew nothing, and struck none home. “And Ivanim. But none of these have to do with the nuns and Essan’s men.”

  “The rumor reached us,” Orien said haughtily, with her hands on her sister’s shoulders, “even in our rustic exile, it reached us—that Cefwyn has married the Lord Regent’s daughter and intends war against Elwynor this spring. And is that what we see outside the walls? Will you wage his war for him? Tristen, the innocent? Tristen, the wizard, Tristen, Mauryl’s heir, the defender of the king? Does the Marh
anen not wield his own sword, these days?—Or does he wield magic, through you? And is that what came down on us at Anwyfar?”

  It was a fair question, however unkindly put.

  “What he calls on me to do, I’ll do. And I’ve wished nothing against you.”

  Barbs had flown. Now Orien seemed to pause for thought, and heaved a sigh and walked a few paces from Tarien’s side. “And do you wish anything against us?”

  “Not for yourselves. Not except as you wish harm here, or to Cefwyn.”

  “Have we sanctuary here?”

  Sanctuary was a Word. It meant safety no matter what, justice and all other considerations notwithstanding. It was a strong Word, and Unfolded with magical force.

  “Do you wish harm to Cefwyn?”

  “Am I required to wish him well?”

  “No. Nor would I ask it, nor would he. And I don’t offer sanctuary, but if you deserve safety, I promise you’ll be safe in this room.” A coldness wafted to him out of the gray place, fraught with time, and change. “No more can I do.”

  “What? You have limits?” Scorn edged her voice. “Or do you set them for yourself?”

  “If you work mischief here or anywhere, Lady Orien, I will prevent it. If you work any mischief against Cefwyn or anyone else, you won’t be safe here, or anywhere.”

  “I am your prisoner.”

  “Yes.”

  “I demanded my rights of my liege lord, my rights by oath, and Cefwyn denied me them and sent me and my sister away in a common cart in the mid of the night, like offal from the kitchens! Was that just? Was that justice? Better he had killed us!”

  “He thought it mercy,” he said in all honestly. “And said it was a risk.”

  “And how long will this arrest go on?” Orien cried indignantly. “Are we to live here forever?”

  “As long as you wish to oppose Cefwyn. I won’t ever permit that. And I know that you do.”

  Clearly this had taken a turn the ladies Aswydd did not like. Tears brimmed in Tarien’s eyes.

  “And shall we never leave this room? Shall we not at least have the freedom of the halls?”

  He had pity on them in that regard, if his sense of the danger in them were not so great. He had had his own fill of locked doors and silent guards.

  “Not while you intend harm. Think and change your minds if you can. Intend better if you can.”

  There was a moment of silence, in which Lady Orien gazed at him with heaving breast and fire in her eyes. But then the glance lowered, all but a bowed head, a meek clasping of hands—an implied acceptance he did not trust.

  “We have no choice,” Tarien said in a low voice. “And we have no chance if we go on as we are.” Orien’s anger flared, scenting the very air of the room, but Tarien persisted: “Good sir, we did hear in the convent that you had been given Henas’amef, else we wouldn’t have dared come here. You were the kindest of the Marhanen’s friends. I expect nothing good of him, but you would never harm us.”

  “Cefwyn didn’t harm you,” he returned. “And you tried to kill him.”

  “To win him,” Tarien said, but he knew that for a lie, and Tarien perhaps knew he knew, for the gray space grew dark and troubled.

  “Emuin’s here, too, isn’t he?” Orien asked. “I heard him quite clearly.”

  “He’s here.”

  “Dry old Emuin,” Orien said. “Hypocrite.”

  “He says very ill things of you, too,” Tristen said, “and I regard his opinion as far more fair.”

  It was perhaps more subtle a sting than Orien had expected. Her nostrils flared, but she did not glare. Rather she seemed to grow smaller, and more pliant.

  “We shouldn’t quarrel. I never held any resentment for you, none at all. You never had a chance but to fall into the Marhanen’s hands, the same as we, and you have far more right to be here: I shouldn’t chide you.”

  He felt a subtle wizardry as she said it, and he wondered what she was attempting now.

  He broke off the blandishments and the weaving of a spell with a wave of his hand, and she flinched. So did Tarien, for that matter.

  “Don’t,” he said, to Tarien as much as to Orien. “Don’t press against the walls. You’re in danger, and you’re far safer here than anywhere else if you’ll accept it.”

  “Accept it!” Orien said in scorn.

  “Accept safety here. It’s my best advice.”

  “I need nothing from you or that dry stick of a wizard!”

  “But you do,” he said. “You need it very much.” Orien turned her shoulder to him, but he went on trying to reach her, in the World and in the gray space alike. “Lady, you didn’t only open the wards and the window, you opened yourself and your sister to Hasufin. You thought it might give you a way to rule here and be rid of Cefwyn, but all Hasufin wanted was a way inside the wards.”

  “And an end of the Marhanen!”

  “Lady Orien, the truth is, if you had died and if everyone had died, Hasufin didn’t care. It didn’t matter to him. It doesn’t matter to him now—if there’s anything left of him. If sorcery finds a way inside the wards, it won’t give you back what you had. Cefwyn might have, but Hasufin Heltain never would and never intended to. If you don’t know that, you don’t know what he was.”

  She was angry at what he said, but she might think on it. Perhaps she had already thought on it. Doubtless she had had ample time to think, sitting in a Teranthine nunnery in Guelessar with no fine gowns, no servants, no books, and no one who cared to please her.

  And in this moment of her retreat, he pursued, with a question which had troubled him since summer.

  “You tried to kill Emuin,” he asked her, for someone at summer’s end had attacked Emuin and left him lying in a pool of blood. He could think of no one more likely than Orien Aswydd, who had commanded all the resources of Henas’amef. “Didn’t you?”

  She gave him no answer, but he had the notion he had come very near the truth: Orien or someone sworn to her. And he could think of many, many connections she had had among the servants and the nobility of the province, one of whom had perhaps stayed more loyal than most.

  “Lord Cuthan’s gone to Elwynor,” he said. “Did you know that?”

  Perhaps she had not known it. Perhaps she was dismayed to learn that particular resource was no longer within her reach, when he was sure Cuthan had something to do with Orien Aswydd. Perhaps through Cuthan she had even known about the proposed rising against the king, and the Elwynim’s promised help.

  But she said nothing.

  He tried a third question. “Did you bring the attack on the nuns?”

  It was as much as if to ask: Did you wish your freedom from the nuns, and, Did you grow desperate because the plan had failed?

  And: Did it work finally as you wished?

  It all might have shot home, but Orien never met his eyes, and he somewhat doubted she heard…or that she knew any other thing. He only wished that if it were possible she could find another path for her gift, she would do differently. He wished it on her with gentle force, and with kindness, and she stepped back as if he had grossly assaulted her. The white showed all around her eyes.

  “I wish you well,” he said in the face of her temper, and included Tarien in the circle of his will. “I assure you I do, as Hasufin never did.”

  “You take my lands,” Orien cried, “and wish me well in my poverty! How dare you!”

  It was a question, and he knew the answer with an assurance that, yes, he dared, and had the right, and did. The gray space intruded, roiled and full of storm; and in it, he did not retreat: Orien did. In the World, she recoiled a step, and another, and a third, until she met the wall. Tarien rose from her chair, awkward in the heaviness of her body, and turned to reach her sister, still holding to the chair.

  “If Aséyneddin had won,” Orien said. “If you had died—”

  “You promised Cefwyn loyalty,” Tristen said, “and you never meant it. Do you think you’d lie to Hasufin, and have what you
wanted? If you lied and he lied—what in the world were you expecting to happen?”

  She had no idea, he decided sadly. Nothing at all Unfolded to him to make sense of Orien, but he suspected Orien’s thoughts constantly soared over the stepping-stones to the far bank of her desires, never reckoning where she had to set her feet to take her there.

  Flesh and bone as well as spirit, Mauryl had said to him, when he had been about to plunge down a step while looking at something across the room. He could hear the crack of Mauryl’s staff on incontrovertible stone, to this very hour. Look where you’re going, Mauryl would say.

  It was in some part sad that Orien had had no Mauryl to advise her.

  But on a deeper reflection, perhaps it was as well for all of them that Hasufin’s counsel had never been other than self-serving.

  And she never answered him now, never confessed her expectations, possibly never knew quite what they were or why she continually fell short of her mark.

  “What do you hope I should do?” he asked them. “I might send you to Elwynor.”

  “Send us to Elwynor?” Orien echoed him, and drew herself up with a breath, a shake of her head, a spark in the eye. “Oh, do. Do, and you send King Cefwyn’s child to Tasmôrden!”

  Cefwyn’s child, he said to himself.

  A man and a woman made a child together, and would it be with one of the stableboys Tarien had done this magic?

  No. It made perfect sense. Now her defiance assumed a purpose, and her coming here disclosed a reason. So did the nuns’ deaths, at a far remove: whatever men had killed those hapless women, he knew that greater currents were moving in the world, and that none of them was safe.

  “And when will the child be born?” he asked, already having clues to that answer.

  “I’m eight months now,” Tarien said, and settled into her chair like a queen onto her throne.

  Nine was the term of a child that would live. So Uwen had said.

  Three times wizards’ three, this term of a child. Wizardry set great store by numbers, and moments, and times.

  “And have you sent this news to Cefwyn?”

  “No,” Orien said. And Tarien: