fortress of dragons.html (31 page)

Sovrag was exceedingly confident: Cevulirn's Ivanim were dubious.

But the Olmernmen would ready great frames out of ships' masts—

weather or no weather, Sovrag had declared—and have them in storage with the rope and the sections of decking over which the Ivanim stood guard. This was the word Anwyll had brought back with him to Sovrag, and in his cups, Sovrag revealed his plan to the company.

"One day," was Sovrag's boast. "One day to see that bridge bear traffic, much as ye like. She'll
carry
oxen; she don't need 'em to rise."

"Believe him," Umanon said.

Tristen hoped, willingly, for it meant a far quicker readiness on the riverside than they could manage with ox teams.

"I wait to see," he said, and lest that imply doubt, added: "I expect it."

And after that the evening rolled, wine-colored, to its cheerful conclusion, the lords of the south delighted in the prospect of bridges all the lords of the town delighted in the prospect of a town utterly under Amefin authority for the first time since the rise of the Marhanen—it was strictly understood there would be no cheering the Guelen departure, no disparagement of the Guelens, either, not before they went out and not after.

fortress of dragons.html

So Tristen had worried there would be, and Emuin and Uwen alike had passed the word to the officials of the town and the officers of the watch: he hoped it had gone where it needed to go.

"A health!" Crissand stood, lifting his cup, among the last toasts of the evening. "To the bridge!"

"To the bridge!" everyone cried, and drank.

"And a health to the Dragons!" Crissand, whose house had suffered most from the Guelens under their former captain, and an anxious silence fell, for Crissand had nothing to praise in Guelenmen. "These are honest men," Crissand said aloud, "and the scoundrels have gone home, after Parsynan. Here's to the
honest
men of the Guelen Guard!"

"To the Guelens," the others said, and Cevulirn, rising, lifted his cup, and added: "To an honest king."

They all drank. Anwyll blushed red with wine-flushed pleasure, and rose and proposed in his turn: "And a health to the honest, loyal southrons, one and all!"

None of it Tristen found fault with at all. But they had drunk very many rounds and the candles had burned far down, the hour close to midnight. He had learned from the lords of Amefel the formulas by which he dismissed the gathering, and made a proposal of his own:

"To Amefel and the Amefin, good rest."

"To the duke of Amefel, good rest and good fortune," the lords all said to him, drained and upended their cups, and then the company of the evening began its nightly retreat, now with lordly folk speaking respectfully to Tassand as an officer of the household.

"Good night, my lord," Crissand came close to say, and knew his approval of what he had done, cheering the Guelens: he had done it, defying his own bitter hurt, and done it because he thought it support of his lord, and to heal a breach; and now grieved for his father because he had said it—so many things boiled up in Crissand at any one moment he was rarely quiet.

But Tristen touched his arm and wished him well, wished him Peace, and caught Crissand's eye for an instant that became a moment. He had no idea himself of what it was to mourn a father, or what it was to hold such anger as Crissand had held: all this violence was beyond fortress of dragons.html

his knowledge, except that Crissand governed it, desperately envied the calm of a man like Cevulirn, and in that envy of a man his lord respected, governed himself with a hard hand.

It was for love Crissand did such things, an extravagant, devoted love, that when it was in the ascendant smothered all other things; it was only once he had acted that the anger and the grief came back to confuse his generous heart.

"It was well done," Tristen said in his turn, and was grateful. For a moment the love and the anger ran to and fro, confounded, and each passion doubted the other's honesty: in that much, Crissand bore a wound that had never healed. Wine had perhaps made it the more evident. And it was that healing which Tristen wished tonight, with a touch and a glance. "Well done. Go, sleep. Join me at breakfast."

"My lord." Cheer began to win over the confusion.

The matter of Crissand's adventure to Modeyneth was settled, the Dragons were back from the river, Cevulirn's men and Pelumer's and Sovrag's were all set in place and on watch against the enemy.

And in Crissand's lightening mood Tristen found his own heart lighter: he allowed himself a feeling of accomplishment in a world of intentions, a court at peace and things in better order than before he took the province. Crissand had taken no great harm of his adventure, and showed signs of recovery in a larger sense, as well—nothing, tonight, of the Aswydds, or his fears of the women who languished upstairs, rather he had determined to settle divisions and heal breaches tonight, and had urged the Amefin to generosity no one expected.

It was by no means the full assembly of Amefin nobility. A number of the other lords were out in their own lands tonight, particularly those bordering Bryn, and by now taking good advantage of the sudden turn in the weather, he hoped, and setting their households in order for the spring. The lords who remained in hall tonight were friendly and easy in the company of the southerners, dignified old Pelumer fallen fast asleep in his place, in fact. One of his men waked him and gathered him off to his bed.

For a moment then in leaving Tristen delayed, seeing Lusin and Syllan across the hall, in the foolish thought that he needed to wait for them—but they were about their own business. From now on he fortress of dragons.html

had not Lusin and Syllan to guard him, but Gweyl and the men of the night watch, who had come close to him on his left, to see him back to his apartments.

He had them, and he had the four Amefin he had taken to stand night guard in their place: it was another change, one that set men he relied on in better places, and gave them honor, but it made him sad to lose the ready recourse to their friendship, and when he had told them his intention, it had made them sad, too, amid more honor than they had ever looked to have in their lives.

He wished them well, last thought of all before he collected his new guard and Uwen, and left the hall, to the whisk of Owl's wings.

It was change again, and sadness preoccupied him as he left, the knowledge that there were new men with him, and that for the good of Amefel and Lusin and the rest his life had gone past another milestone, another good-bye. He found nothing easy to say to the new men, though he knew it would have pleased them. He tried not to think on Lusin's objections, but he heard them in memory as he walked in silence up the stairs. There was not the irreverent banter between Uwen and these men. Their presence in the gray space was that of servants, remote from him, too respectful for close confidences.

Of other presences—he heard, remarkably, nothing tonight, so much so he extended curiosity to the other wing of the Zeide, and heard sullen silence, a surly temper.

There were two who had not rejoiced in the general festivity. He had not invited the Aswydds to the hall, and he was sure they knew something was proceeding below… knew, and were jealous, but Emuin had taken pains to ward that hallway, and kept a close watch over the guards, picked men all, who watched there.

Paisi's Gran Sedlyn the midwife had taken the guard's anteroom in that apartment, besides, and attended most of their wants, except that frequent requests to Cook brought up delicacies for Tarien, who was vexingly fickle in her whims and her appetite—but Cook said she had been so long before she was with child.

Otherwise the ladies had troubled the household very little at all, even during Cevulirn's two-day governance here. There was no news, either good or bad, out of that apartment, and he decided that fortress of dragons.html

tomorrow he should concern himself and pay at least a brief visit.

So he thought, setting foot on the topmost step of the stairs, when suddenly the gray place rang to a presence and a threat, and the tone of it was not Tarien.

It was Crissand, and Crissand was in danger.

"M'lord?" a guard asked. He knew Uwen was beside him. He knew Lusin and the accustomed guards were still down in the hall, with Tassand; but Crissand—

Crissand was in the lower hall, where the old mews made a rift in the wards. And suddenly the wards were threatened.

Tristen spun about on the precarious marble steps and ran down them, two steps at a time, startling servants who were changing the candles at the landing, while Uwen and Gweyl and the new guards hastened behind, a clatter of men and metal. He reached the lower hall, passed the broad double doors of the great hall, and there was Crissand, running headlong toward them—toward
him
, Tristen knew of a certainty, and the thoughts in Crissand now were fear: fear of what might be behind him, fear of what he might have brought into the Zeide, fear that he had breached his promise to come to Tristen before doing something rash.

Lusin and his old guards all arrived at once from out of the great hall, rallying to the commotion in the hall, if not to a danger none of them had perceived.

"Voices," Crissand said, and his was low, for Tristen's ears and Uwen's, alone, as a late straggle of guests and servants gathered to overhear. "Voices came from the storeroom, noble voices, learned voices, and I heard the king's name and Her Grace's, and something about moving before the walls were finished. I feared treason, my lord. And—and when I looked into it, sensibly, so I thought, cautiously—suddenly there were men—there were men…"

"In the storeroom, Your Grace?" Uwen was attempting to make sense of the matter. Crissand, the man who had led the defense of the Zeide courtyard and faced death with never a tremor, was shaking as he spoke, and Tristen could sense his efforts to keep his wits and set aside the fear.

"It… it was no one I knew, my lord. And there was a room, a table…

fortress of dragons.html

it wasn't
here
, my lord. But the place where Owl came from. Where
you
disappeared."

Tristen set his hand on Crissand's shoulder to calm him, and though he knew the answer said, "Show me where."

And they went to the spot of candlelight beside the great hall, the sconce that hung on the wall where the old mews had been, that stretch of stone wall, at the base of which the pavings were the aged cobbles and fill of the old courtyard instead of the even work of the new.

Crissand laid his hand on the stonework beneath the sconce. "Here,"

he said.

Tristen had no doubt at all. A storeroom was near, one that served the great hall, but the voices had nothing to do with that.

"They named Modeyneth, my lord. And the wall—and the child."

"Tarien's child?"

"I think they meant hers. They argued times and seasons, and the birth of a child. One said—one said best strike while the child was yet to come, than to wait until after the birth and risk a stillborn.

Another said the child only complicated the issue and they should do as they would do and let the child take his omens from them.

I'm sure of the words, but they don't mean as much to me as they might to you or Emuin, I'm sure, my lord."

They might well make more sense to Emuin. Tristen only guessed it regarded wizard-work, and the Zeide.

But it could not be Ynefel, where the mews had led him.

"You didn't recognize the room."

"No, my lord."

"Did they see you?" he asked in all seriousness.

"See me? I don't think so.—Do you know where it was? Was it where you found Owl?"

Around them were only his guard, Uwen having waved all the curious servants away, and that Crissand could venture through that rift—or at least see what lay beyond—that he had not anticipated.

"I very much doubt it was Ynefel you saw. But this—" He set his fortress of dragons.html

hand to the stone next to Crissand's, deceptively solid stone for the moment, as the gray was deceptively quiet. "This place must lead there, and something drew another place close for a moment. It reaches different places. I don't know yet how many or to where.

Ynefel is one. Althalen is." He could not but recall the dream he had dreamed within the old Regent's wards. "The Quinaltine in Guelessar is another."

It was that which he most feared, the plots of priests near Cef-wyn, no friendlier to him than they had ever been. And in the flickering light from the sconce, Uwen frowned. Crissand's troubled face, however, took on a different, puzzled look.

"It wasn't ruins, and it wasn't holy men," Crissand said, and his eyes widened as if something only then came clear to him. "There was a banner, my lord." And took on a look of outrage. "
Your
banner, my lord, the Tower, with a Crown!" And having said it, Crissand's fist clenched as if he would rip that offending sight from his own memory. "The High King's banner."

"Tasmôrden," he said, in quiet conviction now where Crissand had been, and where the old mews led besides. "There's clearly another place it goes. Wherever in Ilefínian Tasmôrden sits tonight, this place leads."

He wished—almost—to open the rift again, to venture into the room and the council Crissand had seen… and seen, but not been. The fact that Crissand had the gift had let him see into the place, but Crissand had not gone further, perhaps had no power to go, alone, for which Tristen was very grateful. The thought of Crissand caught and trapped on that other side, in Tasmôrden's hands, turned his blood cold.

Yet on the thought, the stone beneath his fingers warmed, and he saw the room then, exactly as Crissand had described:
The table, seven men, the banner Tasmôrden had usurped. And one
man was on his feet facing him, shouting at the others: Don't tell me
what I saw, damn you! He was there! Eyes widened. Oh, gods!

So at least one of them had seen Crissand in return, and one
presence in the gray space leapt to awareness
—
one, who had sat
with his back to him, leapt up and turned in astonishment
.