Fortress in the Eye of Time (80 page)

That brought a third cup of wine, and there were far lighter expressions. The lady said then she was for bed, and so they all said.

“We shall break camp before light,” Cefwyn reminded them, and they were beginning to take their leave of him, and went out into the dark, Ninévrisë to the north and himself to the south.

But just then came a rider thundering down the road and,
by the sound of it, to their very door. The guards shouted angrily outside, and the rider kept going past the tent, hoofbeats fading in the distance.

Cefwyn had started from his chair. Idrys had been quicker, and at the door of the tent a Guelen guardsman was on his way in.

“Your Majesty,” that man said, distraught and angry.

But in just that small interval—came another such rider thundering past, and another angry outcry from the guards, as the rider passed.

Cefwyn cursed and walked past Idrys' questions and the guard's attempt at explanation—and stopped still in the doorway of the tent.

Tristen came and stood at Cefwyn's shoulder. The only oddity he could discover was his own banner, which had stood alone a short distance from the Marhanen Dragon and the Eagle of the Amefin of Henas'amef.

Two poles now stood imbedded in the earth, bearing village standards of the Amefin, at angles crossing his own black banner.

Another rider came speeding through the camp, village standard flying from the spear he held.

“Damn,” said Idrys, and would have gone out.

“No,” said Cefwyn sharply; and to his guards, “No altercation.”

That man came by and flung his spear—and another standard joined the Sihhë banner.

Came a body of men afoot, right behind him, and four more of the Amefin standards went into place about the Tower and Star. Without seeming to notice the guards or them watching, they planted their standards, troubling themselves to straighten and make firm the standards hastily set. Then they turned and walked away.

“Plague on them!” Idrys muttered; and Tristen felt cold and isolate—somehow at fault for what he understood as a shifting of allegiances of the Amefin—to his banner, which he neither wanted, nor knew what to do with. He thought that
he ought to say something, to protest that he was against it, but he did not know what had caused it, and the words stuck in his throat.

“Orien,” Cefwyn said. “Damn her!” There was another rider coming.

“We should stop this,” Idrys said, and by now Gwywyn and Kerdin and a number of the Guelen guard were near the door, from their tent at the rear. But Cefwyn said, “No, damn it, let them do as they will. Do
nothing!
I'll not break what unity we have!”

Cefwyn thrust past them back into the tent, and before Annas could intervene, Cefwyn poured himself more wine and flung himself down into his chair. A frown was on his face in the candle-light, and Tristen came back to stand uncertainly facing him.

“What shall I do?” Tristen asked. There was such anger and resentment in the look that Cefwyn gave him, a gnawing sort of anger, hurt and small and frightening to him. “Can
I
stop it? I will. I shall go and talk to them.”

A moment Cefwyn seemed unable even to speak to him, but sat with his hand clenched on his chair-arm. Then Cefwyn gave a great sigh and shook his head. “No.”

“I would go with Idrys.”

“No,” Cefwyn said again, and looked up at him with a wry expression, made strained, Tristen hoped, by the lantern-light. “This is a fact. I am Marhanen. I am not loved. And Orien Aswydd has chosen her proxy. Quite clearly she has gotten a message out somehow, to arrange this.”

“They are Amefin, all,” Idrys said from the door. “And my lord King will recall, the bond between the Amefin and Althalen. Well that they
have
allegiances they will follow.”

“And may follow on the field. If they will—if they will, then well enough. I said I would as lief have you lord of Amefel.”

“There are good men of Amefel,” Tristen said tentatively, “and if the Aswyddim are gone, still—one of them would expect, would he not—?”

“Then let the Amefin
lords
exert authority to prevent it,” Cefwyn said shortly, and with a glance at the two pale-faced Amefin ladies who attended Ninévrisë: “I see none of them doing so. The earls fear their own commons.—And what matter, as long as they attach themselves to a loyal man? Orien wished a rift between us, but it will work against her wishes, because I shall not be jealous and Tristen is my friend. Go, take your chairs, peaceful sleep. I shall sleep soundly, I assure you. They have answered my question, and if no Amefin earl durst step in, I shall appoint you over them. You should regard that as a threat, my friend, not a benefice. First I advise you appoint a taxman who is
not
a moneylender.”

“I know nothing of such things,” Tristen protested.

“So appoint men who do. You could do no worse than the Aswyddim.”

“I want no more men following me,” Tristen said. “I have
enough
, my lord King. I need no more.”

“Go to bed, I say.” Cefwyn moved his injured leg, and crossed his ankles before him. “I want my rest.—My gracious lady, forgive me. I am not a gentle host tonight.”

“We should go to our tents,” Ninévrisë said, and they went to the doors. Uwen gathered up their two chairs, the Amefin ladies took the others, in which Annas intervened and called a page to help them.

“Idrys,” Tristen said with trepidation, seeing Cefwyn had said he would not deal with the matter, “Idrys, how shall I deal with this?”

The man looked at him with all his usual coldness—and yet with a little change in his regard. “Make it clear to them that you are the King's friend.”

It seemed sound advice. Tristen nodded and went outside, giving place at the door to Ninévrisë.

Ninévrisë looked at him, a half-shadowed look in the firelight, near the standards, and said urgently, “Lord Tristen.”

“My lady.”

Ninévrisë seemed to have changed her mind about speaking, then changed it again and came carefully closer. “Our enemy,”
she began, then said, “Your enemy. Is he there tonight?”

He did not so much fear the gray space, as distrust it. And he did not look. “Doubtless he is,” he said. “he always is.”

“And at Althalen?”

“I cannot say, m'lady.” He thought then that was what she feared: she had said not a word when they chose one of their camps as a site near Althalen, but he had seen her face in the council where they had worked out such details, seen the small nip of her lips together, clamped on an anxiousness about the notion. “But I have no sense of trouble there—or I would have said. Cefwyn did ask me.” It had not been a question aloud, but at least a look, when they had measured the distances. “I would have spoken if I thought so.”

She looked reassured, then. And it came to him that, perhaps worse than being able to see to Ynefel, if he chose, was the inability to see far at all, only to feel the threats in the gray world. She was not a strong wizard—yet, or perhaps ever. She perhaps had only enough of the sight to frighten her.

“You,” he said, “will at least feel danger if it comes. As you felt it that night. Then is the time to advise Cefwyn. And me. But I will very likely know.”

She looked at him, and put out her hand and touched his arm. “Be my friend, too,” she said. “I
have
this sight. I don't know when it will come or where, and I don't know what it will show me. I fear to sleep here—but Althalen may be worse, and I did not sleep last night—”

Tears were very close. Her lips trembled, and he touched her hand and let it fall.

A shadow had come in the doorway of the tent.

Idrys.

Tristen looked in his direction. “Sir,” Tristen said, feeling as caught in wrongdoing as ever he had with the man.

But Uwen was there, and Ninévrisë's ladies, and Tristen made a little bow and went away into his tent, where the servants had the lantern lit, and where Uwen helped him shed the wearying mail and the servants helped him with the boots and the clothing. Uwen lay down to rest then, on the cot in
his division of the tent, and soon Uwen was snoring, in honest, hard-won exhaustion; and the servants became quieter and quieter.

Tristen sat a time and tried by lantern-light and until his eyes swam, to read anything in the Book, on page after page after page, seeking any letter that offered him anything understandable.

But now and again through the night his peace was broken, with men passing the tent.

And it was plain, after he had blown out the lantern and lay abed in his tent, what was continuing to happen outside. The guards were doing nothing to prevent it, on Cefwyn's order—because Cefwyn did not want a quarrel within the army. They had already had a nearly disastrous encounter between the two Guelen guard forces in the affair of Orien Aswydd, a confrontation which had left uneasiness between the two units that Idrys and Gwywyn had only scarcely patched. They could least of all afford a second one between Guelenmen and Amefin.

He did not know what he should do. It seemed he had not done what he should have, on any account. It was well possible that the enemy was already reaching out to push and pull things—just little things—to make them fail; and he did not know how to stop the desertions that threatened Cefwyn…or the constant accumulation of followers of his own, that terrified and distracted him on every side.

 

In the morning as the first light touched the camp, forty or more of the village banners made a tight cluster about the Sihhë standard.

But the Dragon of the Marhanen did not stand alone either, for the unit pennons of the Guelen guard had been moved by their own men, and stood ranged about Cefwyn's red and gold banner, defiance and challenge of the Amefin. Tristen knew what he saw, coming out of his tent at the first stirring about; and, “Well,” Cefwyn muttered, seeing that sight from
the doorway of his own tent, and seemed greatly touched.

“Break camp!” Idrys ordered, and tents began, in that area, to come down, as they had already come down in the row next to them, in that dim light. Very quickly their guy-ropes and pegs formed a bundle on their several tents which became a bundle, and they were among the first laid out along the lane the wagons would travel picking them up. Cefwyn stood in the chill morning wind, and Tristen stood beside him. The grooms brought their horses to them, but Cefwyn did not offer to mount yet, so no one else did.

Eventually there were only men and horses standing where there had been tents, as far as the eye could see. They were behind their scheduled departure. They stood, and went on standing, and as it became evident to everyone that they were standing there on the King's will, and waiting for the King's order, there fell an unnatural quiet, on their personal guards first, and at last over all the camp.

“Guelen!” Idrys shouted, then, and there was a movement forward, the Guelen camped around the command tents, who massed toward their standards all in confusion. Idrys shouted angry orders; the standard-bearers took their standards to their respective units, and the Guelen fell into order.

Then, unbidden, but in rivalry, perhaps, not to be left behind, came a tide of Amefin surging forward, who noisily possessed their own standards, but they did not take any orderly form. There was shouting, there was pushing, and a fight broke out as men surged forward and began trying to rescue their standards, and as the Guelen shoved them and made space for the King and his company.

Tristen stared helplessly for that instant, then—understanding the symbol of what these men were struggling for—he knew the only thing the Amefin and Guelen in that press might all see. He seized the Sihhë banner from Andas, who had moved to protect it, and carried it himself to the front of Cefwyn's tent. The pole had a sharp end; and with a great thrust he planted it in the earth beside Cefwyn's Dragon, aslant, as it settled the poles touching.

A murmur went up, and the fighting stopped. He was not capable of speech. He went to Cefwyn and they embraced before the army. A cheer went up around them, and Cefwyn laughed and grinned broadly, and embraced him again.

There was a cleaner feeling in the air. Tristen hugged Cefwyn a third time for gladness of that feeling, and Cefwyn's eyes sparkled with tears, his lips drawn tight.

“To horse!” Idrys shouted, waving his sword. “Districts by order!
Move!
We are
late
, sirs! Move, move,
move!
”

It seemed to mean everyone. Cefwyn went toward his horse, and he went quickly to the groom that held Petelly, took the reins and swung up. The wagon had not been able to get through. Now it was coming, as men ran for their appropriate places, and Andas reclaimed the Sihhë standard, as the standard-bearers of the Dragon and the Regent's Tower took up their own.

A breeze lifted them. The morning sun streamed gold through light cloud. The King moved out and Ninévrisë joined him as their standard-bearers got to horse and moved out ahead. Tristen rode to join them and Andas took the Sihhë banner out to the left, where it belonged. Their guards mounted up, the Amefin lords came next, and before they had left the camp grounds, the Guelen Guard, both rival regiments and the regulars, had started up the same marching-song, shouting it out and going along at a brisk pace.

In no little time there was another song from the Amefin ranks behind, and that was the way the troops contended with each other.

He felt quite cheered. He had won something, he saw that, things seemed mended that had been broken, and Cefwyn laughed and joked with him and with Idrys and the lady. The morning lay like a sheen over the road, making their shadows long as they marched toward the west, casting that early-morning glamor on things that made ordinary colors seem different, and more magical. This morning they could do nothing wrong.