Fortress in the Eye of Time (77 page)

“Why?” Tristen asked.

“On account of the Quinalt says the gods laid down the world the way things are, and wizards meddled with it. They don't like 'em. Meanin' they killt no few. I'd be just a little careful, m'lord, and stay clear of 'em.”

It seemed to him Idrys had warned him much the same. So he told Idrys in private that evening what Uwen had said. And Idrys nodded and said, “His Majesty's Guard is well aware of the priest, Lord Warden. Believe me.” Then, unusual for Idrys, Idrys had stopped him for a second word. “It was very well done, Lord Ynefel, that night.”

“Catching Orien, sir?”

“Among other things. I must tell you my mind that evening was on one of Lord Heryn's partisans. Sorcerous action does not naturally occur to me as a cause.”

“I don't think anyone used sorcery against Emuin, sir. I think they had to keep Emuin from seeing them.”

“Seeing them.”

“So to speak, sir. Wizardry might make someone fall on the steps, but I don't think Orien could have done it. And certainly sorcery wouldn't break someone's skull.”

“Certainly,” Idrys echoed him, and Idrys' lean, mustached face was both earnest and troubled. “I fear wizardry encompasses few certainties with me, Lord Warden. What is the likelihood Emuin will be on his feet and with us come the full of the moon?”

“I fear it's very little likely, sir. I think he's helping Cefwyn most.”

“You are not to say that.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So the Aswydd lady had someone attack Emuin.”

“As I think someone moved Orien to do it. Mauryl said it was easy to make things do what they want.”

Idrys was silent a moment. “Is wizardry a consideration, then?”

“Hasufin's, yes, sir.”

“Hasufin Heltain?”

“I don't know all his name, sir, but he made a bird fly at my window. It killed itself. And in the lower hall, in the banner hall—the lines were almost gone, that protect this place. Emuin brought them back.”

It was deliberate, that confidence, a test he made of Idrys and how far Idrys did see; and Idrys did not exclaim in exasperation or walk away. Idrys only gazed at him steadily. “So has Orien Aswydd flown at the glass,—has she not? What do you recommend we do with her?”

Idrys turned back his test, he thought, whether he had the resolve Idrys thought a lord needed. Cefwyn had not condemned her. Cefwyn had not gotten to that matter. Or Cefwyn shrank from it.

He did. It was one thing on the field. It was another in reasoned thought—to kill. And a lord, he thought, ought to be able to do such things—as Owl had to eat mice.

“Come, sir,” Idrys said. “Do I trouble you? I had thought you unmoved by the lady's charms.”

“At least,” Tristen said, and found his hands shaking, “she should not die as Heryn did.” He nerved himself to say that Idrys was right, and that Orien should die, but then he thought of the lord Regent, who was also a wizard. “But where she is buried, where she dies, she will be like Hasufin. She might ally with him. She would be bound to this place. I think that would be dangerous.”

He had not given Idrys, he thought, what Idrys looked to have. “Persistent, you mean.”

“Sir, as best I understand—she is less a wizard than Auld Syes up at Emwy. Very much less. I think she did very little
but let Hasufin in, and perhaps helped him a little. I think she hates us. But I would not let those women together. I would send them all apart, and send them all away from here.”

“Does it run in families?” Idrys asked. “Heryn is buried here.”

It was a disturbing thought. “I have no idea, sir. He'd always have a Place here, if I understand it. But I would move him. Bury him among good men. Holy men.”

“Holy men.”

“I think so, sir. That is my advice.”

“Digging up corpses,” Idrys muttered. “Holy men. This is not to my liking, young sir. Not at all.—So wizard me who did this. Who set the fire? Who cracked master Emuin's head?”

“I'm not a wizard, sir.”

“Just like Emuin. Never the hard questions.” Idrys began to walk away.

“Sir,” Tristen said as an odd recollection came to him. He had spoken. He had Idrys' attention. He hesitated, then said: “Lord Sulriggan's dish was salty, at the dinner. He was furious at his cook.”

“Was he, now?”

“Cook's boys played a prank.” It seemed incredible to him that so small a thing—could do so much harm. “He would have been very angry. And Sulriggan was leaving.”

Idrys drew a long breath. “An angry cook. Well. Well. Sulriggan.—And what of the other, lord of Ynefel? Who struck master Emuin?”

“I don't know, sir. That, I truly don't know.”

“An Amefin shrine,” Idrys said. “Lord Heryn had his connections. So has Orien. Of various sorts. You've given me enough, lord of Ynefel. Quite enough to serve.”

“But—” A terrible thought came to him. And he had not thought. Idrys had started a third time to leave, and stopped again. “Sir. Orien knows about the lords leaving. She knows about Lewen plain and the full moon—she must have found out.”

“Sulriggan's cook, carrying lady Aswydd's messages?” Idrys asked. “Hardly likely. And in the wrong direction. A Bryalt priest, now,—or someone connected to him—”

“No, sir. That's not the point. Lady Aswydd doesn't
need
a messenger. Hasufin needs none. She could have told Hasufin. Hasufin
will
have told Aséyneddin, across the river. Aséyneddin knows the place. He knows the day. He will move before that, sir. He will cross at Emwy and take Lord Tasien's camp. I
said
it would be the new moon.”

Idrys' face had gone very still, expressionless. “Say nothing of this.—However you wizard-folk say such things, keep it to yourself.”

“Sir,” Tristen said, thinking of the bird, and the cook, and how very small things could move, even against their will. “Sir, it's as well the lord physician went with Sulriggan.”

“Another damn witch?”

“No, sir. An angry man. Things do what they want to do. But the bird didn't want to fly into the glass. If it had wanted to, it would have been easier.”

Idrys did go away, then, quickly, to Cefwyn, he was sure.

He thought that they had very little time, now. For no particular reason he had thought of the new moon.

He remembered Mauryl's cipherings. The moon-plottings. He had never understood them. But no more did he understand the work of masons or wizards than he ever had. He only knew that something very dire was coming at Amefel, and at Cefwyn, and, now, purposefully, he realized,—at him.

 

“He said—it would be sooner,” Cefwyn said, and sat down. “Damn.
Damn
the woman.”

“That would have been my inclination,” Idrys said.

“It would not have prevented this,” Cefwyn said, with all they had been talking about in council—all the figures and estimates of supply and logistics—tumbling through his head. “Why did
Emuin
not perceive this going on, if Tristen didn't?”

“I could not possibly guess,” Idrys said, “save that master
grayfrock showed no enthusiasm for wizarding. Perhaps he didn't—whatever wizards do. Perhaps lady Orien didn't—whatever m'lord Tristen thinks she did: whatever Tristen does: talk to passing birds, or hear it from the frogs, or whatever. This is far beyond my competency, m'lord King, but Tristen's chancy warnings have in the past been of some weight.”

“I should have heard this one,” Cefwyn said. “I told him not to speak. I tried to silence him in council, thinking him—”

“Feckless?”

“Innocent.” The room seemed stifling. He rubbed the leg, which was both sore and itched devilishly with healing, asking himself whether he was remotely fit, and distractedly adding in the back of his mind the same figures they had added in council, and wondering if three days was enough to see him more fit than he was—and the baggage train delivered to Lewenside. Fear crept in—the sensible sort, that said there were additional troubles, of the sort he could have expected.

“Did I not say—” Idrys began.

“Oh, you often said, master crow. And I listened too little.”

“He
is
still the mooncalf. But on the field he seems to have a very clear understanding. He comprehends in council. He says Orien alive or dead should not remain here. That her
brother
should not be buried here. Nor anyone of great animosity. He seems to imply—though I was already past my understanding—that anyone of animosity, wizard or not, could be moved by a wizard to act against us.”

“Good loving gods, there
are
grudges. There will be grudges.”

“That was my impression. It may be incorrect. But he was definite about two things: first, that, through Orien, Aséyneddin knows our plans, which may include, I would surmise, lord Haurydd's mission into Elwynor, and that fortification at Emwy, and the day on which we plan to move. And second, that Orien Aswydd and Heryn must move—Heryn to holy ground.”

“Holy ground. Heryn!”

Idrys held up a languid hand. “I assure my lord, it is not my fancy.”

“He said the lord Regent had to remain at Althalen. That he came there to die.”

“We are contending with the dead, m'lord King. I'd take the advice of one who should know.”

Cefwyn drew a deep breath and shook his head. And had a chilling thought. “The skulls from over the gates. Send those with Heryn Aswydd—to the same interment. Tonight.”

“What a wagonload,” Idrys said. “The Aswydds—and their victims.”

“It seems due. Light the signal fires and pass the word. I'll have written messages—for my brother, for Tristen, for my lady,—for Sovrag, on the river. They should go out together. But meanwhile, light the fires.”

 

Tristen sat by the window in the early night, with the Book shut in his hands and saw the fires—one after the other, on the hills. A single glance at the writing had shown him he knew no more than before. Then the fires had begun to go. And Uwen came in, his face aglow with the cold wind, cheerful—until Uwen looked at him.

“M'lord?” Uwen asked.

“We are moving,” Tristen said. “It's come.”

Uwen caught a breath, shrugged off his cloak, and tucked it over his arm. “Has His Majesty said?”

“The fires. Do you see them?”

Uwen came near the window and looked out into the dark. “Seems as if the lords is hardly had time to take their boots off,” Uwen said, and went and put his cloak on the bench. “So there ain't no putting that away.”

“I told Cefwyn what I should have realized sooner—when I knew about Orien Aswydd—that they would know. I should have seen it. I should have understood.”

“They. They—the Elwynim.”

“Aséyneddin.”

“Ye're saying Aséyneddin knows.”

“The day. The place. Lord Tasien is in very great danger.”

“Can ye—warn him, wizardlike?”

“I don't think even Emuin could. And he—far more likely. I should have known, Uwen. I should have seen it.”

“Ye've had summat to occupy your thoughts, m'lord.”

It was Uwen's duty to cheer him. It was his to take Uwen into more danger than Uwen knew how to reckon, and it was his not to upset Uwen, or to spread fear around him to his staff and the army. He tried to gather his wits, and his composure.

But that he
did
not know, and
had
not known in a timely way indicated more than the reason Uwen gave; wizardry had
not
provided him the answer in a timely way, and Words had
not
unfolded to him. The blind, trusting way in which he had ridden off to Althalen, expecting things to become clear, had not worked, with devastating implication that they might not work in future. He felt betrayed, in some measure, betrayed and not knowing what else might fall out from under him.

But, moved to fling the Book with violence onto the table—he did not. He laid it down carefully. “I must take this. Above all, Uwen. Don't let me leave it behind. I give nothing for my ability to remember anything.” His hands were trembling. He rested the one on the table, hoping Uwen failed to notice. “I have let slip very important things. Or important things have escaped me.”

“Fact is,” Uwen said, “we're mostly ready, m'lord. I don't deny I'm a little surprised. I expected a few more days, perhaps, but not beyond. And you watch: we'll get up there and we'll sit and wait. I've seen the like of
this
before.—Ye could do with a cup of tea, maybe.”

“I might,” he said, and Uwen went over, poked up the embers, and swung the kettle over.

But while he was doing it, the servants let in one of Cefwyn's young pages, a grave-faced boy with a sealed note for him.

It said, in a hasty hand,
My dear friend, we are going. Wagons move tonight. The signal fires are lit, on your advisement. Do not hesitate to give me further thoughts you may have. I should have heeded your warning in council. Do not think that I shall fail to heed another one. Advise your household. In the second watch, be prepared to bring baggage down to the wagon at the west doors
.

My Household, he thought—like a Word showing itself in all its shapes. His Household was Uwen, and the servants, all of whom had declared they would go into the field with him; and the guards of several watches, that were assigned to him. There were the horses and their accoutrements, and the staff that managed all that. Master Peygan's boys had brought his armor and shield and Uwen's to the apartment a day ago as they had brought all the lords' gear to have it handled by the lords' own staffs; and they were supposed to have sent all horse-gear down to Aswys this afternoon, to store in the pasture-stables' armory, where there was more room than up on the citadel; but the citadel armory kept the lances and other such in its adjacent buildings. There had to be one wagon, he had discovered, only to carry his servants, his tent, his equipment, and there had to be drivers, which Uwen had added only yesterday, whose names he did not even know; and besides all that, besides the horses they would ride, and their gear, and Dys and Cass, that Aswys cared for—there were water-buckets and grain for the horses, including the horses to pull the wagon, and everything sufficient for the number of days it took to send and resupply them from Henas'amef—the whole tally was enormous. He knew all the pieces of it.