Fortress in the Eye of Time

“Same as all the arms stored here, m’lord, in name, at least. The lords is to manage it all, and the King’s armorers is to keep accounts. And accounts gets kept, now. They don’t put nothing over on master Peygan.

If something’s broke it don’t go on the rolls.”

They walked up the steps, and into a place which had fascinated him and frightened him from the first day he had seen it, a place with Words echoing of War, and Iron, and Blood, a place with rows and rows of orderly weapons, displayed on the walls and in the racks, ba

He wished to turn on the step now and rush out of the place, and not to take anything it offered. He disliked the mail shirt he was bidden wear, although it had saved his life. He had no desire to have any armor heavier or more extensive than he did—and most of all he dreaded the dark and metal feeling of this place.

But Uwen was to draw armor of a guard issue better than he had ever worn, which pleased Uwen mightily; Uwen was carrying a paper to that effect, which Idrys himself had given him, commissioning him into the Dragon Guard: and Uwen’s enthusiasm made him think differently from moment to moment, that it was not the armor that threatened to smother him, but the constraints of purpose it imposed—and that it was not the weapons that frightened him, but the skill in his own hands.

“Heavy armor,” Uwen said. “Plate and chain. If happen somebody bashes ye square down on the shoulder, m’lord, as do happen in a close tangle, or if ye catch a lance-point, a lot better you should have plate.

The King,” Uwen added, “wouldn’t be limping about now if he’d had a good Cuisse in that melee, ’stead of them damn light-horse breeches.”

It was a language of its own. The names of the pieces and of the weapons did come to him, and he knew that Uwen was right, for a man who did not look to ride hard or fast.

“But,” he said, while they waited for attendants in the darksome and echoing hall, “are you happier with it, Uwen?”

Uwen laughed. “M’lord, I’m a Guelen man. We was always the center of the line, heavy horse and foot. It ain’t but since I turned gray they sent me to protect young lords who fly off in the dark wi’ naught but a mail shirt and a stolen horse.”

46O

He did not think Uwen should joke about that. He knew he had been rash and he wished that Uwen would not follow him if another such moment came on him—that was the consideration Cefwyn had laid on him, by giving him Uwen.

Peygan came, welcomed them, looked at Uwen’s paper and gave it to a boy who gave it to a clerk who was setting up in the entry. Master Peygan looked him in particular up and down, muttered, “Tall, sir,” and with a well-used piece of cord took various rapid measurements of his limbs and across the back of his shoulders.

“I’ve little that will serve,” Peygan said, then. “At least—that I’d have confidence in. His Majesty gave strict orders, and I must say, it will not be gold or gilt, Lord Warden, nor pretty nor even matched. I ca

“I’ve no objection, sir,” he said. “As best you can, sir—light. I wish to see.” He rarely objected to others’ choices. But this frightened him, despite Uwen’s assurances.

“A challenge, Lord Ynefel.”

“Yes, sir. If you please. And whatever Uwen wants—I’d have him safe.”

Peygan rubbed his chin, scratched his unruly hair—it was liberally grayed, like Uwen’s; and Tristen stood watching while Peygan measured Uwen, too.

“Hmm,” Peygan said, and walked off.

So he sat down to wait with Uwen for most of the next two hours, while the master armorer, clearly working on a number of requests at once, fussed and marked this and that strap his assistants would bring him, and a man Uwen said was Peygan’s son sat at a bench using an array of curious implements and mallets on the fittings Peygan had marked.

In time, Peygan came back bringing an armload of pieces, and cast them on a nearby bench.

“It’s old,” Peygan said, of a fine piece of brigandine. “Still solid, though they say—” Peygan seemed hesitant. “They say it’s Sihhé work, Lord Warden.”

His fingers did not tingle when he touched it. It was black, and showed wear, and was not like what the Guelenfolk wore. But it felt right.

“M’lord,” Uwen said dubiously. “She’s pretty, but a lot’s come and changed. She ain’t modern.”

“Neither am I,” Tristen said. “Isn’t that what they say?” He liked weapons no better, but this was the only piece that made him feel safer.

“Mostly,” said master Peygan, “there’s no such silk these days. They say it came from oversea. There’s some as is afraid of the piece, truth to tell.”

He did look, in that gray place, but it showed not at all.

“There is no harm in it,” he said. “Though such things seem to come and go.” It felt comfortable to the touch. He could not say the same of the mail shirt he wore. “I’d try it.”

Uwen was less pleased. But he said, “I am very sure, Uwen.”

Uwen gave a tilt and a shake of his head. “Might be, then, m’lord.”

The straps and laces of the silk-woven brigandine were worn, and wanted work. And Uwen was still to fit out. So they waited. The armory was echoing with the comings and goings of Peygan’s boys, who were, by now, with the afternoon’s work in full clatter and bustle about them, counting out to Guelen and Amefin sergeants and attendants the equipment they requested, and counting in what tents and wagons and other such things the departing lords were leaving behind.

At a table near the door, master Peygan’s clerks kept careful account of what went out and what went in. Carts pulled up at the door and bundles of pikes went in, long arrows by the score, as well as buckles, girths, bits, harness, pe

It was a tangle, lords’ pages demanding their equipment be taken to shelter immediately, since there were clouds overhead, threatening a shower, and master Peygan’s clerk informing said pages that nothing would go into or out of storage without it being written fair and wide in request, which went on the stack.

Meanwhile Amefin companies were being equipped for weapons-drill, and someone was complaining about a box of buckles that had gotten set down and swept up with someone’s equipment.

A clerkish young man came out lugging an armful of odd plate up to them, then, and said they were to have bards for two horses, and would he approve what he had found so he could put it with their gear.

Tristen had no idea. He had never handled horse armor, but Uwen said that it was very fine, he was sure, but they were mistaken in the number of horses unless they wanted a spare.

Meanwhile another boy came with a tablet and said he had to draw the arms for the man who was going to paint the shield, and was the device correctly displayed?

That, Tristen could answer, and had the Star set a little larger and the Tower a little smaller above it; so the youth went off busily to inform the painter. Uwen said that likely they would stitch up a caparison for his horse and all—the horse Cefwyn had given him being still on his way in from the country, from what they knew. But the standard he would have carried before him would be the one they had unfurled in hall.

It was an amazing amount of activity, and they were often crowded upon, where they sat, so Tristen took the notion to tell the clerks where they were, and go out to the smithy which stood next door.