Текст книги "Fortress of Owls"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

“Let us go downstairs,” he said.

“M’lord,” Uwen protested, “we can’t be stackin’ the bags in th’ countin‘ room.”

“I wish to see it,” he said, “now that I understand this much.”

So down they went, the two of them, and the guard that always attended him, all rattling and clumping down to the main hall and down and down the stairs that otherwise led to Emuin’s tower, until they came to the strong room and the guarded door.

To him the strong-room guards, members of the Dragon Guard, deferred, and unlocked and unbarred the place. The escort as well took up station outside, and Tristen and Uwen stood amid stacks and bags of gold, and plate, and cups, and all the service that had graced Lord Heryn’s table, besides the ducal crown and various jeweled bracelets and other such.

“Now, them jewels,” Uwen said, “I hain’t the least idea.”

Tristen said nothing, for the sight of all of it seemed at last to Unfold to him a comprehension of the treasure Lord Heryn had. He had been down here once before, in his first days here. But only now, well lit and laid out as it was, he began to know the extent of it.

“M’lord?”

He drew in a deep breath, more and more troubled by what he saw.

“This is a very great lot of gold,” he said.

“That it is.”

“Men died for this,” he said. “Very many men died for this.”

“An’ damn cold comfort,” Uwen said, thrusting his hands into his belt and letting go a great sigh, “’cept as it buys firewood and all. An’ don’t ask me why gold should be worth so much, ’cept it’s such as a man can carry the worth of a horse in his purse, an’ damn unlikely he could carry the horse.”

He scarcely heard Uwen, except the last, and he gathered up the threads of it belatedly and gave a small, shaken laugh. “That it is. But there are too many horses in this room and not enough in the stable; and too many loaves of bread here and not enough in Meiden’s villages, aren’t there? That’s what you mean.”

“I think it is, m’lord. A box like as we brought from Guelemara, we’d fill it a lot of times in this room, and that box full up with gold is enough for two hundred men and horses for half a year. That’s the ciphering I know.”

“Imor and Olmern sell grain for gold.”

“Both do, and is likely to be jealous of each other, if ye pardon me, m’lord. Imor don’t like the Olmernmen, but the Olmernmen have the boats.”

Amefel could do with both grain and boats in its defense, Tristen thought, and standing in all this wealth of gold, he knew that he beheld a kind of magic in itself, to summon boats, and feed men. Gold became grain, and sheep, and well-fed villages. Parsynan had gathered taxes and put them in this room; so had Heryn, over years of rule, and aethelings before him had done it since the time of Barrakkêth and before. Cefwyn, he knew, had taken some sum of money away, so Cefwyn had said at summer’s end, for the welfare of the province, and because the king’s tax was due, but far more was here than the tax should ever have required, and what was anyone doing with it?

It was far in excess of what needs he even yet understood, in flocks, grain, wagons, food, and horses.

The visit to the strong room was in the morning; the afternoon belonged to the earls, Crissand, Drumman, Azant, Marmaschen, Durell, and the rest, with some who had come in from the country, all gathered downstairs in the little hall, over maps which told their own story… the capital of Elwynor, not far from the river, fallen now, and the loyal subjects of Her Grace prey to the rebels under Tasmôrden: red marked the disasters, red of blood.

“I’ve given Her Grace’s men leave to cross the river,” Tristen said to the earls, seated at the end of the table whereon the maps were spread, heavy books weighting their corners. A stack of books the clerks had found pertinent in the ravaged archive sat beside the maps, overwhelming in the sheer volume of what he did not know. “Captain Anwyll has orders to disarm the armed men when he finds them and assure them they may trust Amefel for protection. So we must provide that protection.” By that the earls might understand he intended them move to a winter muster, but he added quickly, “The Ivanim are providing that guard of archers for the days the bridge is open, and Lord Cevulirn will send more if they find themselves pressed. So may others. He’s advising all the southern provinces of the danger. What we need to do is stand ready to help the troops they may send with supplies and transport. And in some part of which we may be able to rely on boats from Olmern. Lord Cevulirn will request that, too, and Lord Sovrag is our friend.”

“The Olmernmen will want pay, all the same,” said Drumman.

“Let them have Heryn’s gold dinnerplates,” Tristen said, “if they value them. I had far rather boats full of grain and enough men to keep the border.”

There were glum looks, then. He did not quite see why.

“Do you think I’m wrong?” he asked in all honesty.

“Your Grace,” Azant said, “ Iwill contribute.”

“And I,” Crissand said, a little ahead of a muttered agreement from others, men who days ago had been arguing the poverty of their people.

“Use your resources for your villages. And to help Bryn build its wall,” Tristen said, for he had sent word to everyone about his promises to Bryn: Drumman was here, but his men were already moving to Bryn’s aid. “I ask of you all the same thing. Amefel has a treasure-room full of Heryn Aswydd’s gold. I don’t know the cost of the boats and the grain, but we’ll use that first, build the defenses in Bryn’s lands, and supply food and shelter to the Elwynim that cross to us.”

“We can’t deplete the treasury entirely.”

“I’m told a gold coin is a sack of grain, and I think we have more coins in the treasury than we do sacks of grain in all Amefel.”

That also drew a curious stare. “How many?” was the careful distillation of the question.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” Tristen said, and in fact, did not know the tally. But at that, one of the younger Amefin clerks looked as if he had something behind his teeth he was afraid to let escape.

“Sir?” Tristen asked the man, seeing the look.

“Elwynim,” the young clerk said, faintly, and had to clear his throat in mid-utterance. “And the tax collecting. —Which I’m not supposed to know, my lord, but master Wydnin fled across the river when the king came back from Lewen field, and he took some of the books with him. So we don’t havethe account of the treasury, not since this summer, and not even the king had an accounting. Parsynan started one. But he went away.” The clerk moistened his lips. “It never was done.”

“We have no accounting? But Tasmôrden does?”

There was a murmur among the lords, all of whom had conspired with Tasmôrden… that Tasmôrden turned out to know more, than they did about what was in the Amefin treasury.

And the clerk’s report made perfect sense. No few of the house servants had fled when it turned out Cefwyn had won at Lewenbrook. The archivist, who might have known more secrets than he had yet told, was now dead, murdered, in the matter of Mauryl’s letters. More, if Parsynan had had a counting in progress, that was a mystery to him.

“Master clerk,” he said, to his own clerk, who had come with him out of Guelessar, and the man stepped anxiously forward. “Do,you have any account the lord viceroy began?”

“No, my lord. I fear not.”

“So that’s gone, too.”

“It seems it has.”

This flood of papers toward Tasmôrden was alarming: Tasmôrden knew very much of their resources, their proceedings, and Mauryl’s correspondence with the Aswydds, Heryn, and those before him… and that contained, surely, some of Mauryl’s notions about defense, perhaps about Althalen, perhaps about wizards and wizardous resources as great as the treasury. It was not alone the accounts that Cefwyn had found muddled when he arrived here, the books all out of order and in stacks on the tables and jammed into the shelves… it was the books of the library itself that had been disappearing to avoid Cefwyn discovering the Aswydds’ fortune and their dealings with Mauryl and perhaps other wizards.

They had assumed it was Mauryl’s writings that had been secreted in that wall, because that was the nature of the burned fragments… but those letters they had burned, he suspected now from going through the fragments, were useless to them. The question was not what they had left as chaff, but what they had taken as valuable, and how long this traffic in books and records had been going on.

And had some of those found their way to Elwynor… missing books of unknown nature, themselves as valuable as gold. The senior archivist was dead, and the junior fled, with what final treasure… and of Mauryl’s writings… or someone else’s?

The archive of correspondence had probably gone into the wall when Heryn knew Cefwyn was coming… and when hewas coming the junior archivist had murdered the senior and fled with a few precious items, likely to Lord Cuthan; and Lord Cuthan, confronted with his own treason… fled, again, to Elwynor, leaving behind his own culling of less important, less concealable documents, for they had found certain things left behind in Cuthan’s house that they were relatively sure should have been in the archive. They suspected those were part of the stolen documents… but they had never found the junior archivist, and while they suspected Cuthan might have gotten something past the searchers and into Elwynor, they were never entirely sure.

More and more, however, he was sure it was not just one theft, but a pattern of theft, the slow pilferage of years, and a junior archivist overwhelmed with fear, seizing the best of the concealed items, burning the rest and fleeing for fear of the whole business coming out.

“My lord,” said Marmaschen, who rarely spoke. “Lord Heryn was known for asking gold for favors, besides his surcharge on the Guelen king’s tax. We knew he had accumulated a great deal in the treasury, but no man but Lord Heryn’s closest familiars went there. And his master of accounts. But that man fled to Elwynor.”

“Very likely, too,” said Drumman, “Lord Heryn sold the old king’s life, and had gold for it. So I think. No Amefin will be mourning Ináreddrin, as may be, but that’s likely the sourceof some that’s there. Blood money.”

“And anything Aseyneddin might have wanted to know,” said Marmaschen. “That, too, Lord Heryn would have reported, if gold flowed.”

“What would he do with it?” Tristen asked, and received astonished, confused stares, which he took to mean his question was foolish. “Did he buy grain?”

“He kept it,” Drumman said.

“He had gold plates. Gold cups. He had boxes and boxes of it.”

“My lord,” said Marmaschen, fingering his beard, and in a cautious voice, “does this mean my lord will levy no war tax?”

“I see no need to,” Tristen said. “When there is need, then I shall.”

There was a general letting-forth of breath, as it were one body.

“And the levy of troops?” Drumman ventured. “Will we be taking the field, or does the wall answer the need? We’ve no great disadvantage sending men off the land in the winter, while the weather holds.”

“I hope it will hold. I wishit to hold.” He dared say so with these men. “And Bryn needs all the help all of you can send, to build the wall. The more men, the faster the stones move. And they’ll need ox teams there for the heavy pulling. I’ve delayed the king’s carts as long as I can. I can’t keep them into the spring.”

“The spring planting…” Crissand said.

“We can let the land lie a year if need be. We’ll still have grain. We’ll have brought it in Olmern’s boats.”

That brought consternation.

“Do we understand Your Grace means to supply grain to all the families in the villages and the town as well as to the men under arms? And to muster out every able man in Amefel? Is that what we face?”

“No,” he said. “But to feed an army, that we may. The southern lords willcome. Cevulirn will bring them. We won’t let Tasmôrden bring his war here, and Iwon’t let him have the riverside.”

There were slow intakes of breath, the understanding, perhaps, that all they had discussed with Cevulirn before they had gone to the river had begun to happen.

“So we’re to provide for an army,” Crissand dared say, for all the rest. “And does the Guelen king know, my lord? Or to what are you leading us? Go we will, but to what are you leading us?”

The question struck himto silence, a long silence, gazing into Crissand’s troubled face across the width of the table.

“I don’t know,” he said, the entire truth. “But to war with Tasmôrden, for the king’s sake, and ours, and all the south… that, yes. There will be war.”

“Lord Ivanor’s ridden home without a word.” Azant said. “And to do what, Your Grace? To bring his men?”

“And how will we determine the need for this gold and grain?” asked Marmaschen. “Who’ll decide one claim against another? Shall we simply come with a list and say, Your Grace, give us grain?”

“I’ll ask you the truth,” Tristen said, “and you’ll tell me.”

One lord lifted his head instantly as if to laugh, and did not, in a very sober, very fearful silence. The silence went on and on, then, oddly, Crissand smiled, then laughed.

“Lies will find us out,” Crissand said. “Will you not know the instant we lie, my lord?”

“I think I would,” he admitted, though he had kept from others the truth of the gray space, and what it told him… he judged all men by Uwen Lewen’s-son, and what made Uwen uneasy, he told no one casually. He thought, too, of Cefwyn’s barons and Cefwyn’s court, and how the men there were always at one another’s throats. “But I’d hope none of you would lie to me.”

There was again that silence.

“No,” said Crissand cheerfully, “no, my lord, we shan’t lie to you. And youwon’t charge Heryn’s tax.”

“I see no need of a tax, when we have so much gold.”

“But, Your Grace,” Drumman said, “this wallyou want… if you,will forgive me my frankness… if I dare say… my men are on their way, with every intent to obey Your Grace’s order. But the Guelen king forbade our fortifications and our walled houses. He ordered them torn down. Dare we do this?”

“Aye,” said Azant. “What will the king in Guelemara say? And shall onlyBryn have defenses? We have ruined forts aplenty, from the Marhanen’s order. And shall only Bryn raise a wall?”

“And will we have a Guelen army on our necks?” Lord Durell asked.

“No,” Tristen said. “Cefwyn wouldn’t send one. I’m his friend.”

“His advisers will urge him otherwise, my lord,” said Drumman. “And in no uncertain terms. Your Grace, with all goodwill, and obeying your orders, I’m uneasy in this.”

“I know they’ll be angry,” Tristen said. “But the king doesn’t like their advice, and he’s far cleverer than Ryssand. He knows his best friends are in the south.”

“Then gods save His Guelen Majesty,” Azant said with an uneasy laugh, “and long may he reign—in Guelessar.”

“Aye,” said Drumman, “and leave us our Lord Sihhë.”

“Our Lord Sihhë,” said Marmaschen, “who spends his treasury instead of ours and bids us build walls… walls. I will build, Your Grace. Two hundred men is the muster of my lands, three hundred if you’ll feed the villages through next winter. Do that, and we’ll join Drumman, and raise your wall in Bryn, and then my own.”

“Three hundred from mine through winter, spring, and summer,” said Lord Drumman.

“Two hundred from Meiden,” Crissand said, “no trained men: shepherds… but we sling stones at wolves that come at our flocks. Give us some sort of armor and our maids and boys will man Bryn’s wall. That we can do, and will.”

There was never a doubt Crissand was in earnest, and others named numbers, a hundred from one lord, fifty from another, until the tally was more than Amefel had fielded at Lewenbrook.

“Now is the need,” Tristen said. “Ilefínian’s people are coming south. But so may Tasmôrden’s. We have to set the signal fires, the way we did before Lewenbrook. This, until we have the Ivanim horse to defend us, and then whatever other help will come to us… they’ll come.”

“With Ilefínian fallen, and the snows coming,” said Drumman, “there’s likely no grain to be had in Elwynor. There can’t have been a crop last year in the midlands; there’s none this year: all they sowed was iron. Tasmôrden’s stolen for his army whatever the poor farmers put in, his army’s stolen what they could carry, and now he’ll plunder the capital storehouses, none preventing him… whatever the siege didn’t consume, if there’s anything left at all. Hunger across the river is inevitable, Your Grace is right. Grainis what they’ll want, and even innocent villagers can grow desperate enough to turn outlaw. It’s not all quiet, peaceful folk who’ll cross the river in winter. There’ll be some bent on taking.”

“We’ll give them grain,” Tristen said. “As much as they can carry.” v,

Worried looks had attended Drumman’s assessment; astonishment attended his answer, slight aversions of the eyes, flinching from the notion; but it seemed reasonable to him.

“And if we give it, they’ll be fed, and if they’re fed, maybe they’ll be quiet neighbors,” Drumman said. “But can we find that much grain, Your Grace? Can we get it?”

“We’ll ask the Olmernmen,” Tristen said, in utter sobriety. “Cevulirn is doing that.”

“The king should have pressed across the river last summer,” Azant muttered. “Her Grace was willing. The army was willing. And, no, he turned aside and went back to Guelessar. Now we empty our treasury to feed Elwynor?”

“A sack of grain is one gold coin,” Tristen said, “and if you put it in the ground, it’s a field of grain. Isn’t that so?”

“If you can get the soldiers off the ground,” Azant said. “There’s the matter.”

“With all the starving peasants of Her Grace’s land at our doorsteps,” Durell said. “Save this grain we give of our own accord, and no recompense from His Guelen Majesty, as I understand. And we’ll have more than hungry peasants before all’s done. We’ll have hungry soldiers, bands of them, with no leaders, no thought but their bellies.”

That was so.

“And if there’s famine,” said another lord, “disease, that goes with it.”

“Then there’s need of medicines, too,” Tristen said.

“And is our treasury enough for it?”

“The grandmothers don’t ask much for their cures. But it’s a good thing if we tell them, and pay them.” He had understood this matter of paying folk, finally, so there was bread enough. “And if we don’t have enough herbs for their powders, we’ll buy them from Casmyndan, too. Sovrag’s boats can bring them.”

“And a good store for us, too,” said Marmaschen. “No crops, no store of food untouched in Elwynor, no planting this spring, in all that kingdom. It’s an immense undertaking.”

“And treasury gold to pay for it, Your Grace?” asked an ealdorman of the town. “Recompense, for what we supply?”

“And a fair price,” Crissand said. “The merchants know what that is. Fair price, and fair quantity. Weavers to weave: they’ll need blankets and cloaks. Cobblers, dyers, wheelwrights, tanners, and smiths…”

“For gold?” the ealdorman asked.

“For gold,” Tristen said, and added, because Crissand was right, “at the prices things are.”

“My lord,” said Azant, from the other side of the table. “We know we have our own to save. But I have a question, and trusting Your Grace, I’ll be plain with it. The king cast out Lord Cevulirn, who by all accounts was the only honest man left in Guelemara. All fall long, he’s heard only the Guelenfolk, and shown no regard at all to the blood we poured on Lewen field: he gave us Parsynan, was the thanks we had. I did think better of king Cefwyn, and I know I’m putting my head at risk, here. But he’s only proved himself Marhanen, this far. Your Grace says he loves us dearly. Your Grace trusts him. Your Grace says if we commit ourselves and raise this effort, there’ll be Guelenmen carrying the war into Elwynor and flying Her Grace of Elwynor’s blue banner all the way. Bear in mind our love for you, my lord, but we don’t so easily love the Guelen king, and we’re not altogether sure the Guelenmen are going to cross the river.”

He had wished the earls to speak plainly. And this wasthe truth, from men who had been prepared to join the Elwynim rebels against Cefwyn.

“My lord,” Crissand had said to him while he chased those thoughts harelike through the brambles of Cefwyn’s court, “my lord, we’ve come here to tell the truth. I said we dared, and Lord Azant’s done it. So now I will.”

Crissand drew forth a small, much-abused bundle of paper which he had carried close to his person, and he laid it on the table.

“My father’s letters sent to Tasmôrden I don’t have, though here are drafts of two of them. But all Tasmôrden’s representations to him of whatsoever minor sort, they’re here. I know they set forth names of some of those present, regarding those promises, and they knew I would do this. We trust my lord’s forgiveness for any here that may be named; if you would be angry at them, be angry at me, first, and any punishment you set on them, set on me, first. I said I would do that. But I trust my good lord, that there’ll be none.”

“No,” Tristen agreed.

“Ask the Bryaltine abbot about letters, too,” Azant muttered, “if Your Grace wants a store of them. Aye, I’ve a few of my own, as damning.” He drew another, neater bundle from his breast, and others laid them down.

They might, Tristen could not help thinking, account for some of the purloined archive, for there was a fair pile of them. And the Bryaltine abbot had trafficked with Tasmôrden? The Quinalt father he had known was inimical to him, but that the Bryaltines, who had sheltered Emuin’s faith, might be a difficulty… he had not suspected.

That meant the Bryaltine abbot was, like Emuin, very good at secrets.

More than one wizard, Emuin had said.

Suddenly there seemed more than one side to Tasmôrden’s scheming, and many to his own lords’ duplicity with Cefwyn.

So the abbot had a glimmering of the gift, in himself, and had carried on treason and never let it be known.

“Uwen,” Tristen said, “send for the abbot. Crissand. Lord Meiden.” He reminded himself of pride, and courtesies by which Men set such great store. “Do you know what’s in the letters?”

“Lord Heryn’s dealings with the Elwynim… with Caswyddian,” Crissand said, and so Lord Azant, red-faced, confirmed his own letters were part of it.

Then Earl Zereshadd broke his long and wary silence, and poured out a tale of Heryn’s dealings. “Caswyddian sought permission of Lord Heryn to come into Amefel, to outflank the Lord Regent’s forces… he’d already crossed the river, but he asked, to keep good relations; this while Prince Cefwyn was in Henas’amef. The Lord Regent was sending messages to the prince, and Lord Heryn intercepted every one. It was an agreement between Lord Heryn and Caswyddian to ambush the prince at Emwy.”

By the prince Zereshadd meant Cefwyn before he was king. And the earls had supported Lord Heryn in his schemes… perhaps, in fact, all of them had conspired with various of the Elwynim pretenders, not necessarily one side, not necessarily one pretender, and perhaps even two or three of them at once, wherever reward offered itself. Deception had been the rule in Heryn’s court, and Cefwyn had known he was living in constant danger. But not the extent of it.

And once started, the other lords had details to lend, perhaps matters which they had never told each other… in certain instances, provoking angry looks, then rueful laughter. Confessions and tale-bearing poured forth like nuts from a basket, everyone with a piece to tell, all of it with new kernels to glean, but nothing more of the greater doings of Lewenbrook than Tristen already knew: the conspiracy against the Lord Regent Uleman, which had driven Uleman into exile and at last to his grave in Amefel, had had Amefin help from beginning to end.

On their side of justice, the earls had suffered under Marhanen prohibitions and decrees. The order that had torn down the fortified manor houses was one such, and was the reason most of the earls lived in Henas’amef, in the great houses around the Zeide. The prohibition against the earls keeping above a certain number of common men-at-arms was another, which had left Amefel no standing army and no stores of arms to which anyone admitted… the disappearance of swords and spears after the last muster was suspicious, and the earls quietly said they would ask among their villages.

The number of men said to be bastard kin within the houses and therefore entitled to weapons turned out exaggerated… but these lords’ houses had paid taxes for generations under the aethelings and the Sihhë and contributed to the building of Althalen and its luxury. Then came the Marhanen tax, and, worst of the lot, there had been Lord Heryn’s extravagance; but they had kept quiet. Lord Heryn had been their own, their aetheling, their claim to royalty and their man accepted by the Marhanen crown.

“Heryn said,” said Marmaschen, “that the tax went to the king. We see it didn’t.”

“What could we do?” Zereshadd asked. “There was no other lord we could turn to. So we tolerated his excesses. And gods save Your Grace, indeed, if there’s as much as you say, it may save us all.”

“There are other reserves,” said Drumman slowly, “since we tell the truth here. More than one of us has laid by against need.”

That brought an uneasy shifting in the seats.

“Truth,” Crissand said. “We promised truth for truth. And hasn’t our lord given us the truth?”

“This is my truth,” Drumman said. “When the Marhanen king ordered the manor houses razed, records were lost; and in the losing of those records, my district preserved reserves with which we hoped one day to rebuild. This timber and stone I will give to the wall. The gold… I will also bring forward.”

There were grudging nods among the others, as if this was far from an unknown practice.

“More might be found,” said Zereshadd, and Marmaschen inclined his head with a pensive expression.

“Your Grace has allowed Bryn to fortify his northernmost village,” Azant pointed out. Azant was also bordering on the river. “Since each has such ruins in our districts, holdings forbidden us by the Guelen king, and since we have reserves for building…”

He understood slowly that justice and evenhandedness meant allowing all such fortifications, if he had allowed them in Bryn: that was what Azant was saying… and there was a great silence in the hall, and an anxious look at him and at Azant, as if seeing what he might do with such resistance.

“First,” he said, “defeat Tasmôrden. First let’s take account of the map and fortify where there’s some chance of the rebels coming across.”

“We will need to leave the court and take command in our districts,” said Marmaschen in a low voice. “At least at the start.”

“I’ve very few couriers to carry messages,” Tristen said, “and a scarcity even of guards, if I send Cefwyn more of his men home, as I have to this spring. I’ve no one, until Ivanor comes north. If I raise a levy for my own guard in the spring, men who’ve not exercised at arms, they’re no defense. I need an Amefinguard.”

“If each of us,” said Crissand, “were to give ten men with horses to His Grace’s service until Ivanor supplies the need, His Grace would have guards andcouriers. Uwen Lewen’s-son is a Guelenman, true, but a fine man, and a good captain, and any man of Meiden would be honored to have the post.”

“Twice ten young men,” said Drumman, “and at my own charge. With horses. And pastthe time Ivanor may arrive. I’ll not have our lord served by another’s men, for pride’s sake, sirs. I challenge you.”

“Men I’ll give,” Zereshadd said, “but where shall we get trained men here and trained men there, and now horses, gods save us, and men fit to ride them?

From under mushrooms? The Guelen king refused us any but our house guard.”

“Send those you can,” Tristen said, “and they’ll learn.”

“Give His Grace at least some with the skill,” Crissand suggested, “and the rest, as likely as we can find. His Grace has no house of his own. Where is he to get them, if not from us?”

“Where will they lodge?” Azant asked. “The Guelens have the barracks.”

The vision of a second barracks suggested a solution: a barracks might stand… had stood… Tristen drew in a breath, having suddenly a location in the South Court in mind, and wondered where they should find the stone… but on a second, more sober thought, simple timber would serve and make warm walls, and timber stood available on the nearest hillcrest—

If, that was, they could spare workmen from carving eagles and embellishing doors that were otherwise sound enough.

“I’ve workmen enough to raise a new barracks,” Tristen said, “and the men you send will camp in the guardroom and the stairs and in the lower hall until there’s a place, and help the workmen… and master Haman. We’ll have our allies here by Midwinter, and all their horses.” He drew a breath. “So. Let’s do everything we’ve promised, and see that we’re ready for what comes.”

“His Reverence is here,” Uwen said, when he had settled in his apartment to sort through the pile of the letters, and indeed he was, a shy presence at Owen’s side, a shy one in the gray space, unmasked, and honest at the moment, though he had never detected it before.

Of all priests he knew, save Emuin, who maintained he was not a priest anyway, this was the only one such he recollected: this one had the gift, a faint one, or one secret by nature. If so, there was some strength in it.

“We were learning Tasmôrden sent to some of us,” Tristen said. “Did he send to you, sir? Or has any other we might wish to know about? We’ve collected letters, all sorts of letters, which came from the north, and you may have some of your own.”

The abbot bowed, and bowed again, white-faced. “Your Grace,” he said in a faint voice, and then took several breaths before starting over. “Your Grace… yes.”

“And what did you answer?”

“Nothing,” said the abbot. “I sent no answer. And if the lord across the river should send again, I would tell Your Grace immediately, on my oath.”

“Are you telling me the truth?” Tristen asked, listening in both realms, and the abbot nodded and bowed fervently.

“On my life, my lord, on my life and on my faith, I tell you the truth.”