Текст книги "Fortress of Dragons "

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Tristen had misgivings of his own, but none that he chose to discuss in Paisi's hearing. He laid his hand on Paisi's other shoulder, wishing him calm and steady and confident. "Trust Emuin," he said to Paisi. "And don't talk about this. Don't think it in the gray space where the Aswydds might hear you."

"Oh, gods," Paisi said, and his eyes rolled toward the west wing, where the women were.

"Do you understand your lord?" Emuin said sternly, drawing his attention back. "Look at me, boy! Think of filching apples."

"Apples, sir?"

"I'm sure you've stolen apples in the market. In fact I know you have."

"Aye, master."

"And didn't get caught."

"No, master."

"Why weren't you caught?"

"I was careful."

"And slipped in very quietly and didn't disturb anyone. Is that it?"

"Wi' my hands," Paisi said, making a flourish of his fingers, and a twist of the wrist that tucked an imaginary apple up his sleeve.

"Clever lad. Well, now you're the merchant, and you don't want some clever lad making off with any apples. So what do you do?"

"I watch wi'out seemin' to watch. Old Esen down in market, 'e's a canny 'un. He always looks as if 'e's watchin' somethin' else, an' 'e'll nab ye quick as ye can say—"

"So can Orien Aswydd. Do you understand me?"

Paisi's head bobbed slowly. "Aye, master, that I do."

"Think as if you were going to steal something from her apartment."

"Oh, no, sir, I ain't."

"As if you were, wretched boy. As if! Pretend that's what you're about, and go very, very quietly, because she's the merchant and you're the thief, and she's very, very dangerous."

"Aye, sir. Aye master. Yes, m'lor'." This, with a bob of his head first to Emuin, then to Tristen. "M'lord."

"He's learning," Emuin said. "The fair mother tongue suffers less every day, and he's learned to wash his hands andthe vessels, and not in the same water." Emuin reached out a hand and tousled Paisi's unruly hair. "I kept you here to hear this, boy, because I'll not have you overhearing half we say and then wondering about it or peeking and prying about the gray space, which, gods know, is the worst thing you could do. Salubrious fear. Do you know the word salubrious?"

"No, master Emuin."

"It means healthful. Goodfor you. Trust that now you know everything there is to know, or at least as much as your lord and your master together know, and don't try to find out anything exceptfrom me: it wouldn't at all be helpful or salubriousfor you to pry into Lady Orien's affairs. So don't!"

"Not salubrious, sir. I understand."

"Good!" Emuin said, and to Tristen: "I'll write to Cefwyn, and you write whatever you find to write. The sooner Cefwyn knows, the safer for us all."

The Aswydd ladies walked to Henas'amef for safety, Tristen wrote, with the brazen dragons looming over his desk and Aswydd green draperies open on a blood red sky. Men attacked the convent at Anwyfar. Lady Tarien is with child, a boy, and yours, which I do not know otherwise how to inform you, except that Emuin and I are taking care here and you should also take care.

With the help of all the southern lords and the earls of Amefel I hope soon to release the Dragon Guard from their watch at the river. I hope also to be sending the Guelens as soon as the weather permits. I know I have many of your best men. You can trust the officers Uwen put over the Guelens, but not the ones I sent away. I hope you will not restore them to their office. Orien says it was Essan who attacked the nuns at Anwyfar, and I think she is telling the truth in that.

I hope that you are well. All the lords with me wish you well. So does Uwen. Master Emuin is writing his own letter to go with this one. Be careful for your safety. We are doing everything we can "ere to carry out your orders, which I have never forgotten.

He put the pen in its holder, out of words, at least of those he would write. He heated wax and made the seal.

But on an impulse of the heart he took a fresh sheet of paper and wrote: To Her Grace of Elwynor, a wish. And he wrote it only with his finger, with no ink, but in the manner of a ward, and sealed it with his seal and with a ward. He had no idea whether a wizard could receive it, but he thought one could. Most particularly he Bought Ninévrisë might have gift enough, and that no one handling it would understand the message: Cefwyn is in danger. Here is refuge if you need it.

CHAPTER 5

Snow, and snow: that was the view from the windows of Tristen's apartment, as persistently depressing a sight every morning as the Aswydds' brazen dragons and green; draperies within… not that he failed to see the beauty in it, piled high and white across the land; yet with all the monotony of it, the beauty of the ice had never palled. He wondered at the new traceries of frost on the windows every morning, meticulous and fine as the. work of some fine expert craftsman. The sun in the afternoon melted it, and a miracle renewed it in the morning: he was sorry when he fed his pigeons that their flapping and fluttering at the window, spoiled the patterns on the little side pane, where he put out the bread.

Yet every morning it was new, and every morning there was a little more snow sifting down from the heavens, after a fall at night. The sight of it all still seemed marvelous to him, this changing of the seasons and the confidence of ordinary Men that they would see the land change back to what it had been before. This was the last of seasons that he had not seen in his life and between concerns, he enjoyed it absolutely for what it was, wondering what every day would show him, expecting new patterns in the frost.

But nothing about the weather had changed in a number of days now, and the skies that had once appeared to obey his lightest wish now seemed obstinate and ominous in their resistence. The storms that came at night grew worse with every effort he made to change the weather.

And it was now three days since Crissand, among other lords, had left him—certain lords to their holdings, all without a by your leave, m'lord—but Crissand notto his own land and with no more request than the others.

Crissand's absence, which had been a niggling concern the first day, had become a worry in the two days since, and last night the silence from that quarter had urged him to venture the gray space in earnest—to no avail.

Now, with the weather resisting him, with the sky dawned gray again, the doubts that had begun to assail him niggled away at his confidence in all else that he knew as certainties.

He regretted his folly in seeking after Crissand, telling himself that when Crissand would, Crissand would hear him—and this morning, in this pearl-colored morning like the last three, he could only remind himself how much harm he could do if he reached out recklessly and drew sorcerous attention to Crissand when he was near the enemy's territory.

In his venture last night he had learned only that Crissand was asleep somewhere… and what else did he hope for, at night, and in a snowstorm that sent down thick, fat lumps of snow, that obliterated tracks and buried fences?.

He had slept very little after that. Sleep had eluded him—so, too, had the dreams that sometimes sent him winging over the land on Owl's wings, dreams that might have found Crissand, dreams that might have discovered whether Crissand was snugged down warm and well fed at Modeyneth or fallen in some ditch along the way– whether the lack of urgent danger he had felt in that sleep was the safety of a friendly roof and hearth, or the peace of a mind too frozen and faded to worry.

Too, the gray space was not the place of light and cloud it had been, but a place as leaden and violent as the heavens. It was as if he rought the weather in that realm, too, and could make no headway in it with Orien and her sister close at hand.

Whether Orien knew he tried to find someone close to him, she never confronted him there. Whether Crissand might be attempting reach him through it—he never heard. And now, as of yesterday, so Uwen said, Crissand's men had set out down the north road Booking for him, to ride as far as Modeyneth or the river if they must. And he took that for his comfort this morning: if Crissand were in danger, injured on the road, they would find him.

And if it was otherwise… he could only think that it was no accident that Crissand had gone into the land of Bryn, and down the track that Cuthan Lord of Bryn had taken in his exile.

But toward the holding of the new lord of Bryn, too—equally troublesome. Crissand was a young man of high passions and sudden impulse—agreeable to young Drusenan's appointment to the honor, but the feuds and contentions of the lords in this ancient province had cropped up in unexpected ways before now. Tristen thought there was no resentment there and no possibility of a feud, but he was not utterly certain.

And the snow sifted down and the worry of it gnawed at his peace. He wished better weather to speed Crissand home, and wished it to ease the suffering of townsfolk and shepherds, those whom Crissand had notridden out to visit, in the village of Levey, among others; and farmers across the land, and craftsmen and householders and the humblest ragpicker in the town, for they all were his responsibility, hapless folk who had done nothing to involve themselves in the quarrels of wizards and kings.

Last night Lusin had reported a roof in the town market had given way, and a man's goods were all damaged: today the man had sent begging intercession with his creditors, for nothing had gone well for him, even before his roof came crashing down. Tristen wished it might go better for him, but he feared even to wish forthat, his wishes for weather having gone so far opposite to his intention. He stood at his window looking out over the snowy, weightladen roofs, the ledges, sparsely tracked by wandering pigeons near at hand, and asked himself had he harmed all those he wished to benefit.

He knew that down in the stable yard Master Haman's boys clambered up to the shed roofs twice a day to shovel them clear for fear of their collapsing. He knew that Haman himself must go our to the meadows where the horses of the assembled army were sheltered, to be sure of the older boys and men who cared for those more remote sites—stablehands whose plight was perhaps worst of all the hardships the army suffered in its winter camp at Henas'amef. Out there it was a lonely and cold duty of breaking ice for the horses to drink, hauling hay from the stacks, and generally keeping their charges from suffering in the cold, while at night their small hearths and their small shelters were beacons to vermin and true shadows that prowled the night.

The soldiers had the cold to fight—beyond the walls, and under canvas, the muster of Amefel, of Ivanor, Imor, and a handful of rangers from Lanfarnesse had all come here in better weather, which his wishes had maintained. But now they suffered from the cold, and endured misery of frozen ground.

He could at least relieve the soldiers of some of their hardship: at his own charge, the taverns near the gates had set up kettles in their kitchens, for hot suppers. It incidentally used less wood, which cost heavy, snowy labor to get more of. But prodigious quantities of wood fed the camps' other needs: warmth, and the laundry kettles. Reasonable cleanliness for so many men required another small camp of attendants, where kettles sent up steam that froze on any nearby surface—a man needed not bathe all winter, one of the Lanfarnesse-men was heard to remark, only stand downwind of the washing kettles, and be drenched to the skin. And in that vicinity the laundrymen battled ice: clothes and blankets froze rather than dried, and had to be hung in the smoke downwind to dry at all—so that anyone with a nose could tell which men had come from the camps: the men, the tents, and their blankets smelled of woodsmoke: so did the lords who lived with their men.

Yet—one of the day's good reports—the men were in good spirits, by reason of the abundance of food and the moderate but cheerful quantity of ale: the men needed not stay on hard watch, so Uwen said, and they might have the ale to keep them happy. And the ground being frozen so hard at least meant that mud, that bane of soldiers, was all but absent from clothes and tents—except the mud-holes around the laundry, in which pigs might be content.

They managed, with this continued assault of winter on the army he had gathered. But he could not improve it. And this was yet another iron gray day, with snow veiling all but the nearest towers. Neither he nor Emuin nor both of them together with all the grandmothers in the lower town had been able to change it… and, what was far worse for wizardry, he was beginning to doubt he could. He longed to stretch out, search the gray space, meethis enemy if he could find one…

But, oh, there was risk in that, mortal risk to all who depended on him. There were so many things at hazard, so many lives, so many things he did not yet understand. If someone had the better of him in the matter of the weather, it was because that wizard had the better of him in other ways, and knew things he did not, and outmaneuvered him with sheer knowledge and experience—as Emuin had done, while Emuin sufficed.

This… this opposition… was stronger than Emuin.

It was stronger than Mauryl—at least that it had caught Mauryl at his weakest.

But had not Mauryl had to go to the north and bring down the Sihhë-lords to have a chance at subduing it?

And had not the Sihhë-lords failed, ultimately, to contain it?

He hesitated to say that evil was out at the back of this storm. He had read about evil in Efanor's little book, and how it permeated the doings of Men, but he had never found such doings evil, rather good and bad… but none without self-interest, none he could not understand even in terms of his own will to have his way. Misguided and foolish governed most actions he had met: spiteful and selfish. These were bad traits; but none quite descended to that worst word in Efanor's book.

Was selfish enough to say for the creature that had stolen one child's life and that might have caused this one to exist?

Was foolish enough to say for the creature who had overthrown all the good that was Mauryl—all the kindness, all the wit, all the learning, all the skill—was foolish and spiteful and selfish enough to compass Mauryl's enemy?

And was selfish enough to describe the desire that had wrecked Elwynor and slaughtered the innocent and driven hapless peasants into the snow?

It might be. Wicked might describe his enemy. But had he not killed? Had he not driven Parsynan out onto the road, and Cuthan across the river? And did not the soldiers who fell to him have kindness of their own, and wit, and learning, and skill?

The sword had found its place to stand in this fortress, too. It lurked by hearthsides, the alternative to peace and reason.

Truthit said on one side. Illusionwas engraved on the other, and the Edge was the answer to the riddle it posed. It was the answer; to the riddle heposed. It answered all he was, and there was no word for him but the Edge of that riddle.

Perhaps there was such a word for his enemy, neither evil, nor; wicked, nor even selfish, but some edge between absolutes. Perhaps that was why wizards could not compass it.

Not even Hasufin Heltain had compassed it… only listened to its whispers and its unreasoning reason. What would a man needwith the whole world? What would a Man need with absolute power?

If he could understand that, he thought he might understand his enemy, and how Hasufin had fallen to him.

"M'lord." Tassand was brisk and cheerful, arriving in the room, disturbing his thoughts as freely as if something good had happened. "M'lord! Lord Crissand's back. He's here."

" Ishe?" Tristen reached on the instant for the gray space and restrained himself from that folly. "Where is he?"

But in that moment Crissand answered his question by appearing behind Tassand in the short foyer. Dark-haired Amefin, and dour as the Amefin could be, Crissand was all fair skies and brave ventures on most days… but now he was muddy, travel-worn, and exhausted.

"My lord," Crissand said in a thread of a voice.

"Sit down," Tristen urged him, and scurrying about at the back of his mind was the realization that Crissand was never yet a presence in the gray space: he simply could not find him; and had not found him, even with him here, in the same room. Thatalarmed him. "Tassand, hot tea and bricks."

Crissand had surely come straight up from his arrival, coming to him still in mud-flecked boots, lacking a cloak which might have been sorrier than the boots, and all but out of strength.

"Forgive me. Forgive me, my lord. I knew before I was the first night on the road that I was doing something foolish."

"Where wereyou?" Crissand was a candleflame of a wizard as yet, and he had known and master Emuin had known where Crissand was… but not precisely wherehe was.

But still not to know wherehe was when he was in the same room with him: that was the inconceivable thing.

He searched with great care, investigated more and more of the gray space in concern for Crissand's welfare, and at last found a very quiet, very small presence, all wrapped in on itself, all knotted up and resisting.

In that condition, Crissand had ridden home again, through this weather.

"I thought it better for Amefel," Crissand said in the voice he had left, "if I went to Lord Drusenan and spoke to him directly."

It was a minuscule part of the reason Crissand had gone and a minuscule part of what must have sent him back in such a state, but at least it was a start on the rest of the tale, and now that he was safe and here, Tristen was willing to use infinite patience. He sat down opposite Crissand beside the warm fire, waiting for the part that might explain why Crissand had left on such a journey on the tyght his remote cousins—and Drusenan's—had suddenly turned up estitute, escaped from Guelen vengeance, one of them with child… and both of them breaking the terms of their exile.

He understood entirely what Crissand had likely wanted to do, which was to set distance between himself and Orien Aswydd. He even understood why Crissand had gone to speak to the new Lord

Bryn, successor to the man who had done so much harm to Cris -

and's father and his people. But the silence in the gray space even now kept Crissand at distance from him, and he waited to hear those reasons from Crissand's own lips.

And waited, and waited. The silence went on between them what seemed an eternity; so he ventured his own opening.

"So did you make peace with Drusenan?" Tristen asked.

"With a will." Crissand seemed relieved to be asked that question and not others: his whole body relaxed toward his habitual easy grace… but that motion ended in a wince, an injury he had not made otherwise evident. "He was as glad as I was, to settle at! grudges. He wasn't glad to hear the news about Lady Orien and her sister being here. He's not her man. We agreed together, that our quarrel is all with Cuthan, across the river, and I know now in my own heart and for certain he's not Cuthan's man, nor ever was or will be. He received me very graciously, he and his lady."

Crissand finished. The silence resumed.

Then with a deep breath, Crissand added, "My lord, my patient, good lord, I should have asked leave, considering the state of things. Other men come and go. But you've given me duties; I thought I was seeing to those duties—I persuaded myself I was doing that—but before I was halfway to Modeyneth I knew I was a fool."

"I would have granted leave for you to go anywhere. But you left without your guard, and without my hearing you. You were a night on the road before I knew you were gone," Tristen said, "and then I dared not call you too loudly, not with the Aswydds so close. If theyurged you to do such a thing, they were very quiet about it."

"I'd do nothing they asked!"

"If you knew they asked it."

Crissand was silent, and troubled of countenance, thinking on that, and at no time had he unfurled from the tight, small presence he was.

"I searched for you," Tristen said.

"I didn't hear you, my lord. Unless you were telling me I was a fool—I knew before the night was half-done that that was the truth. I came the rest of the way to my senses when the sun came up and I was trying to find the road in the snowfall. But by then I realized Modeyneth was hardly over the next hill, and my poor horse couldn't have carried me back without foundering. So I went ahead, hoping to borrow a horse, and I presented myself to Lord Drusenan. I wanted to bring you someprofit for my foolishness."

"I needed no gifts," Tristen said. "I need nothing but your loyalty—and your safety."

It was not his intent to cause pain, only to urge caution, but

Crissand's color rose and he looked away, surely knowing how he had risked all that they hoped to accomplish.

gut it was not just foolishness, and that he had somehow to make Crissand understand… and that he could not avow a clear reason for his actions made a frighteningly clear sense, for Crissand had ridden out in the very hour the Aswydd sisters had ridden into Henas'amef, and while on the one hand he did not know what exact thought had seized Crissand to send him out, he was as sure now as he was sure of the next sunrise that Crissand's actions had directly to do with the sisters' arrival, and all of it directly to do with the currents in the magical wind—for Crissand was Aswydd.

And Crissand being Aswydd, head of that lineage in Henas'amef until Orien set foot in the town, he had a strong sense for those currents in the wind. He might have left under direct urging of his own wizard-gift, protecting him or leading him astray… completely without understanding it, completely without directing it.

It was no straight course—the last lord of Bryn, Earl Cuthan, who had betrayed Crissand's father, was Orien Aswydd's man, exiled now and the lands gone to Lord Drusenan, but Cuthan was in Elwynor—in Elwynor, where their enemy sat.

And with Orien back under the roof where she had been duchess of Amefel, small wonder if that presence stirred the winds of the gray space, and small wonder a man with the gift had done reckless acts, not knowing why they did them. That Crissand had rushed in some direction was entirely understandable.

But that it was toward Bryn, and toward Elwynor, and that, in the gray space, Crissand remained that tight, unassailable ball… that alarmed him.

To their mutual relief, Tassand brought the tea, and made some little ado over it. One of the servants pulled a heated brick from the hearth, and Crissand set one booted, sodden foot on it and tucked the other against it for the warmth.

"You might do with dry boots," Tristen said. "You've not yet been home?"

"I met with my guard on the road. They know; they've passed the word to my household. But no, I came straight here."

Tassand, send a page for another pair of His Grace's boots. And tell his servants make his bed ready."

'Yes, m'lord." Tassand was off, at a good clip.

'So tell me what you did," Tristen said then, and bent another small thought into the gray space. Still it told him nothing. But his eyes had seen. "You're hurt."

"Nothing mortal."

"A fall?"

"Elwynim. I—" Crissand took a sip of the tea and his hands shook. "I should set it out in order."

"Do," Tristen urged him..

"I left without a word to my guard—just rode away from the camp in the night. And I rode, as I've told you—I reached Modeyneth… I think sometime after midday, by the time I dealt with the drifts. I took a light meal. I met with Lord Drusenan—that was a long matter; but he was gracious—more than gracious. I slept only a few hours, then left my horse there and took another, by his good will, his best and favorite… I owe him the worth of that beast. And I was coming home, as soon as I could, my lord. I took your warning about venturing into the wizard-place, and I feared to try to reach you there, but I knew I'd been a fool, and I feared that concern for a fool might divert you from far more important matters. I'm sorry, my lord. I can't express how I regret it."

Tristen reached again for that knotted presence, touched it briefly, felt it contract, flinching from that contact. "But the wound," he said. "The Elwynim."

"The roads are drifted worse to the north than here. And in the blowing snow and the evening light, I saw riders. I thought at first they were yours, or maybe my own, as did happen, but later than this. When I saw these men… they weren't coming on the road at all, and I knew all the border was at risk, so I held back, and saw them go toward the open land and toward Althalen, where Lord Drusenan told me Aeself has his men under arms day and night– Drusenan says—says the same way Aeself and his men crossed without the garrison seeing, over to the rough hills to the north and east, other men come that way, intent on spying out whatever they can see, just looking about and hoping to find a weakness. So I knew this. I hid. I could see them very clearly, just at the edge of night as it was…"

"And they were Elwynim?"

"No doubt," Crissand said. "They came across my tracks in the snow. I saw them look around. I had to judge whether to run back for Drusenan's holding or ahead to home, and I ran for home, because I didn't know but that more had come in behind me. I took one arrow, shallow, no great injury; Drusenan's horse will carry a scar worse than that, and still carried me, brave fellow that he is. The snow was coming down again, and with the dark and the trees, they seemed to lose me, by then, I had to wait a time, for the horse's sake, and then I waited a little longer to be sure I didn't run back into them by mistake, because by then I wasn't completely sure where I was. I moved a very little, until dawn, in what I thought was the right direction, but without the stars and with the snow coming down I couldn't tell what was the right way even after I came on the road again. But when the sun came up I had my bearings again and I'd chosen right. Then I met up with my guard, who was out searching for me. And we talked about going back to catch the band that shot at me. But my captain persuaded me we might risk telling them more than we might learn if we lost a man."

"You were right to retreat."

Crissand ducked his head and sipped his tea, two-handed, exhausted, and still withdrawn from him.

"So I came home. My guard at least had the foresight to bring provisions, and I think the horse will be as good as he was; but I never thought to use him so, or to stir up so much trouble. Now the Elwynim know they're seen. I might have managed far more cleverly than that…"

"Yet we do know they're inquiring of the state of affairs here for themselves, which may mean that they're not hearing all they'd wish from the villagers. That's good news."

"Yet I am ashamed of what I did."

"Why did you do it? Because I took in Lady Orien? Was that it?"

He asked, no longer believing that that was the answer, but it was a place to start. The answer was not immediate, and Crissand did not immediately meet his eyes, but took another sip, and gazed across the ornate chamber, with its green velvet draperies and brazen dragons.

"My father died in this room, my lord, of Orien Aswydd's poison. It appears I have the wizard-gift, and if that's what sends me dreams, my lord, I could wish it gone, but while I have it—while I have it, I beg my lord not to trust that woman."

"It takes no wizard-gift to see harm in Orien Aswydd. I assure you I do."

"I was halfway to Modeyneth before I knew the thing I feared most was not her under this roof, but my lord in these rooms within her reach. And then I wished twice over that I were back here."

Never had he doubted Crissand's heart in his disappearance– but in his silence he found very much to concern him. In very truth, as he had told Crissand himself when hehad been the one riding off northward and Crissand had protested it, wizard-gift never left them out of reach of one another… or it should not have.

Yet Crissand had crept up on him, even in the hall a few moments ago, following Tassand in. He had grown accustomed to knowing just who moved where in the Zeide, and few could surprise him… except Emuin.

Except, just now, Crissand, who huddled in the corners of the gray space, seeking utter anonymity, even from him: Crissand, who had found in the gray space that which he could not face.

But he hushed all use of the gift, himself, for he began to suspect what was at least the source of Crissand's fear—for as Crissand had been deaf to his gift before he came, now he increasingly did hear; and now came two women, his enemies, with wizard-gift and hostility toward him. Nothing was coincidence in wizardry. Wizardry thrived on accidents and moments of panic fear or happy recklessness.

And something had found a gap in their defenses, and in his, and in Crissand's.

"When the gift begins to Unfold," he said gently to Crissand, "it's hard to find one's balance. It was dangerous for you to ride out. But it was dangerous for you to stay here with the gift Unfolding and Unfolding with no end to it. There was a time I took Petelly and did something very like."

Crissand looked at him, questioning that, hoping for respect perhaps.

"Too," Tristen said, "you were amazingly quiet. Master Emuin is no quieter. I never heard you, and I hear most things."

"I don't know about that," Crissand said. "But I took care you didn't hear, my lord. I stole away like a thief in the night and without a word, and I take no honor from that."

"Yet it's a skill."

"None I can claim for an honor, my lord. And if things were going wrong, I failed to ask those who might know." Crissand held the teacup still in both hands, his fingers white on its curve. "I feared being here, I feared going, and I was on the road before I though my way through it. Then I could have come back, but I hadn't a thought in my head until morning. I don't to this hour know why I went in the first place."