Fortress in the Eye of Time (22 page)

“Feed the birds?” Clearly Cefwyn thought it was a joke.

“They are grateful, m'lord, as birds know how to be. And polite as birds know how to be.”

“Is this insolence?”

“No, my lord Prince. I do not intend to be insolent.”

“Do you want for anything at all?”

“No, my lord Prince.”

Cefwyn frowned and jammed his hands into his belt. “Idrys.”

“My lord.”

“Have Annas bring wine.—Sit down,” he bade Tristen, suddenly indicating the group of chairs in the corner of the large room.

Tristen unwillingly chose that nearest him and sat down. Cefwyn sat down facing him, crossed his booted ankles and leaned back, hands folded on his stomach.

“You have no diversions,” Cefwyn observed then. “You
cease to eat; I have had report. You pace the halls or sit in the garden doing nothing.”

“I feed the birds, sir.”

“You've not tried to leave,” said Cefwyn.

“No, sir, never.”

“Emuin claimed that there was no malice in you. He left you in my keeping. What am I to do with you?”

Cefwyn wanted to have an answer that would let him dismiss the matter. That was all.

“I need nothing.”

“What would you wish me to do?” Cefwyn asked. “Damn what you
need
, man. I have power. What would you have me do?”

“Have others speak to me.”

“You are gentler company than most. I cannot set you out among these Amefin lords. They would rend you like wolves.”

“I would not speak to the lords, sir. Only to my guards. If you would, sir.”

The door opened; the aged servant brought the wine and poured two cups, offered to Cefwyn and then to him. Cefwyn lifted his cup and drank, deeply and full; but Tristen only sipped at his, for he had eaten but little in two days, and it came very strongly to his stomach.

“Idrys,” Cefwyn said suddenly.

“Your Highness?”

“Be at ease. I judge no harm in him.”

Idrys unfolded his arms and sank down on a bench by the fire, tucked up one knee and rested his arm against it. His dark eyes did not cease to watch and his frown never left him.

“There are no civilized diversions in Henas'amef,” Cefwyn said. “Only the hunt. No hunting about Ynefel, I'll wager.”

Tristen shook his head. Hunting was a Word of blood and death. It shivered down his spine.

“Gods, what
did
you do there?—Grammaries? Wizardry? Unholy sorceries?”

“I read, sir.”

“Would you ride, Tristen?”

Horses, and open land. Moving air. Sunlight. “Yes,” he said at once.

“My lord Prince,” Idrys said, sitting upright.

“With full escort,” Cefwyn said.

“The area is not secure, m'lord. Even so.”

Cefwyn frowned, folded his arms tightly across his chest, and scowled, rocking his chair back. “Doubtless. So we ride with the guard.”

“M'lord,” Idrys protested.

“No, no, and no.” Cefwyn was angry now, and looked not at Idrys, only at the table, his face mad-eyed like Owl's sulk. “Damn it, I am strangling in this Amefin hospitality.
With
the guard, with a troop of heavy horse and the Dragon Guard to boot, if you like, but I shall ride, Idrys. Tomorrow. Gods.” He slammed the chair legs down and turned his face toward Tristen with a frown and an exasperation that Tristen did not take for anger directed at him. “Tomorrow,” Cefwyn said. “Tomorrow morning, at first light, we will ride out to the west, have a glorious day in good weather and come back to a good supper, does that suit you?”

“Yes, m'lord Prince.”

“Idrys is careful with my life. It's his business to suspect everything.—Idrys, is Annas waiting dinner, or has he deserted to the Elwynim? What is keeping him?”

“Is my lord done with business?”

“Yes. Finished, writ, waxed, sealed, and quit of. Not another lord with complaints, not another tax roll. I refuse. I deny them. I consign them to very hell.—No, damn it,
you
will stay, Tristen. You'll have your supper here. Will you?”

“Yes, sir,” he said, bewildered. He had started to rise, thinking himself surely dismissed with this flood of complaint and exasperation, but with Cefwyn's offer of supper, and perhaps someone to talk to, he suddenly found that he had appetite, even with his trepidations. He sank back down; he drank the wine: his mouth was dry. Idrys had gone to call Annas in, and in the attendant commotion of trays, bowls,
plates, and pages, a page hurried to fill Cefwyn's cup and his, without his asking.

“So what have you done with your time here—besides the birds?”

“I read, sir,” Tristen said.

“Do you gamble? Play the lute? Do you do anything but read and feed the pigeons?”

“I—don't think I have, sir.”

“The court is abuzz with you. The men are jealous. The women are smitten. I receive inquiries.”

“Of what, sir?”

Cefwyn looked at him as if he had said something remarkable or perhaps foolish. He sat still, and Cefwyn ran out of questions.

But the old servant Annas and the pages had laid a glittering table in the next room in a magically short time, and Annas announced their supper ready.

So following Cefwyn's lead Tristen went and took his place at the end of the table. Cefwyn took the other, while the man Annas walked between, serving them a delicate white soup that smelled of mushrooms. It was very good. It was, he thought, the best thing he had tasted in days.

Meanwhile Idrys stood guard, as if his legs never tired and his back could not bend. Tristen turned from time to time to see him, wondering at the man, disturbed to have his eyes constantly on his back.

“He will take his supper after,” Cefwyn said to his concern. “You don't understand the manners here.”

“No, sir.”

“That is a virtue.”

“Yes, m'lord.”

“Is that all your speech?” Cefwyn asked. “Forever and ever,—sir and m'lord without end?”

“I—
can
converse, m'lord Prince.”

Cefwyn shook his head. “Idrys' silence is comfortable since I know its content; and yours is, if silence pleases you.—Idrys.”

“My lord?”

“No ceremony. You make our guest uncomfortable. Sit at table. This is no Amefin. For that reason alone I trust him.”

Idrys walked over to the sideboard and with a clatter disburdened himself of his sword. He sat down at the side of the long table and Annas set a place before him. He loosed several of the buckles of his black armor and held up his cup as a page poured him wine.

“Idrys is a man you should trust, Tristen,” Cefwyn said. “You should understand him. He is another fixed star in the firmament. And there are very few. He and Emuin, and Mauryl, each after his own fashion.—I think we shall ride out to Emwy, tomorrow, Idrys. That village has made complaint of sheep losses. I think we would do well to look into it.”

“Too near the river,” Idrys said. “Too far. It would require a night.”

“Near the river. Near the hills. Near the woods. There is nowhere on the gods' good earth someplace is not
near
, Idrys.” Cefwyn took a calmer breath. “It would be politic in the countryside, would it not, for me to show a certain—personal—concern in local affairs? I refuse to be seen cowering from the attempts against my life. Or relying on Heryn's assurances—or Heryn's maps.”

“Not overnight. Not this place. Not with an untried horseman.”

“Emwy.”

“My lord Prince,—”

“Emwy, Idrys. Or Malitarin. Now
there's
a village loyal to the Marhanen. And only four hours' ride, do I recall?”

“Emwy overnight,” Idrys said stiffly, “might be better.”

“A peaceful village. Missing sheep, for the good gods' sake. In the Arys district. I've been looking for excuse to see the hills there, from safe remove, I assure you. I want very much to know how that land lies—how wide that precious forest is, apart from Heryn's maps. And I had as lief know what the local grievances are, beyond the missing sheep. How they think the border stands recently.”

“A double Patrol would be at minimum wise, my lord
Prince.—And lodge
in
Emwy, not on the road. Walls and an armed presence in the village.”

“I grant you. But no advance warning. No word to anyone where we ride. And polite and moderate in our lodging. I'd have this village stay loyal.”

“May I point out your guest has only light clothing?”

“See to that.” Cefwyn's quick eyes darted back. “You've never ridden?”

“No, sir. M'lord. Mauryl had—”

“No skill with horses. Have never handled weapons.”

“No, lord Prince.”

“Idrys chides me that there is at least a possibility of Elwynim on our side of the river. Not in force. But best we do have some caution.”

“The Elwynim are not safe, m'lord?”

He amused Cefwyn, who tried not to laugh, and struggled with it, and finally rested his forehead on his hand, shaking his head.

“There is hazard,” Idrys said, completely sober.

“Indeed,” Cefwyn said, and soberly: “Ynefel once prevented that sort of thing. But my captains believe now there will be a set of trials of that Border—which is still far from Emwy, and I doubt there is anything to be feared there at the moment.”

“Your enemies pray for such decisions,” Idrys said. “And I remind you our young guest is not—without any impugning of his good will—entirely discreet.”

“And I,” said Cefwyn, “doubt anything at all in Emwy's strayed livestock but a straggle of hungry Outlaws, pushed out of the woods, if anything, by our real difficulty over on the riverside.”

“Outlaws,” Tristen said, lost in the notion of Mauryl and Elwynim, sheep and Borders. “Men in the woods.”

“Men in the woods?”

“I did see some. They were cooking something over the fire. But I know it wasn't a sheep. It was much smaller. They gave me bread.”

“Near Mauryl's crossing?” Idrys asked, so sharply attentive it startled him.

“I suppose, sir, near the bridge, but not—I was walking so far—”

Pages had whisked away the soup bowls and served them instantly with a savory stew and good bread. The smell was wonderful, and he had a mouthful of bread and sauce. His stomach felt better and better.

“Most probably,” Cefwyn said, “there is the cause of Emwy's strayed sheep. Bandits. Outlaws.”

“The gate-guards thought I was one,” Tristen said.

“Well you might have been,” Idrys said, “but for that book. How
fares
that wondrous book, Lord Tristen? Still reading it?”

No question from Idrys ever sounded friendly. No question from Idrys
was
friendly.

“Do you read it?” Cefwyn asked. “Emuin said you made no sense of it.”

“I do try, sir,” Tristen said faintly, and swallowed a mouthful of bread, which he had made too large. A page had refilled his wine cup and he reached for it and washed the bite down. “But nothing comes to me.”

“Nothing comes to you,” Cefwyn echoed him.

“Not even the letters,” Tristen confessed, and saw Idrys look at him askance.

“Emuin said nothing?” Cefwyn asked. “Nor helped you with it.”

“No, sir, but I still try.”

“Sorcerous goings-on,” Idrys muttered. “Ask a priest, I say. The Bryalt might read it.”

“Damned certain best not ask the Quinalt,” Cefwyn said. “Eat. Plague on the book. It's doubtless some wizardly cure for pox.”

“Mauryl said it was important, sir.”

“So is the pox.”

“If I learn anything of it—”

He saw by Cefwyn's expression he had been foolish.
Cefwyn had stopped eating, crooked finger planted across his lips, stopping laughter.

Tristen stopped eating, too. Cefwyn composed himself, but did not seem to be angry.

“Sometimes,” Tristen said, “I don't know when people mean what they say.”

“Oh, you've come to a bad place for that,” Idrys said.

Cefwyn was still amused and tried not to show it. “Tristen. I care little for pox, except as I could apply it to Lord Heryn.—Which,” Cefwyn added, before Tristen found a need to say anything, “is a very boring matter and a very boring man.—Eat.”

“Yes, sir.” He felt foolish. But Cefwyn said nothing more about it, and the stew went away very quickly as Idrys and Cefwyn discussed the number of men they should have along on their proposed excursion.

But the Name of Elwynim nagged at him. So did the accusations the gate-guards had flung at him. So did his recollection of the men in the woods. He reached for wine. He recalled the guards that had thrust that Name at him amid blows. It was a Name that would not, as commoner things did, find the surface and explain itself. He pulled at it, as something deeply mired.

“Are not—” he ventured to ask finally. “Are not Elwynim and Amefin both under Heryn Aswydd?”

“Mauryl's maps are vastly out of date,” Cefwyn said.

Idrys said, “Or perhaps the old man never quite accepted the outcome of matters.”

Cefwyn frowned. “Enough, sir.”

“They are no longer under one lord,” Idrys said. “The Aswyddim are no longer kings. The capital has moved. Did Mauryl never say so, master wizardling?”

“You see why he does not sit at table,” Cefwyn said, leaning back with the wine cup in his hand as pages began to remove the dishes. “He provokes all my guests.”

“Only to the truth, my lord Prince.”

“But—” Tristen said, confused and not wishing to provoke
a quarrel. “Why should the Elwynim be crossing the river to steal sheep from Heryn Aswydd?”

“Easiest to show,” Cefwyn said, and thrust himself to his feet. Idrys pushed back his chair to rise, and Tristen did, in confusion, thinking they were leaving the table, and looked for a cue where to go next; but Cefwyn immediately found what he wanted among the parchments stacked on a sideboard and brought a large one back to the table, carelessly pushing dishes aside to give it room as pages frantically rescued the last plates. The salt-cellar became a corner weight. A wine pitcher did, moisture threatening the inks. There was an up and a down to the words, and Tristen diffidently moved closer as Cefwyn beckoned him to see.