Fortress in the Eye of Time

“Idrys,” Tristen said with trepidation, seeing Cefwyn had said he would not deal with the matter, “Idrys, how shall I deal with this?”

The man looked at him with all his usual coldness—and yet with a little change in his regard. “Make it clear to them that you are the King’s friend.”

It seemed sound advice. Tristen nodded and went outside, giving place at the door to Ninévrisé.

Nindvrisi5 looked at him, a half-shadowed look in the firelight, near the standards, and said urgently, “Lord Tristen.”  “My lady.”

Ninévrisé seemed to have changed her mind about speaking, then changed it again and came carefully closer. “Our enemy,” she began, then said, “Your enemy. Is he there tonight?”

He did not so much fear the gray space, as distrust it. And he did not look. “Doubtless he is,” he said. “He always is.”  “And at Althalen?”

“I ca

She looked reassured, then. And it came to him that, perhaps worse than being able to see to Ynefel, if he chose, was the inability to see far at all, only to feel the threats in the gray world. She was not a strong wizard-yet, or perhaps ever. She perhaps had only enough of the sight to frighten her.

“You,” he said, “will at least feel danger if it comes. As you felt it that night. Then is the time to advise Cefwyn. And me. But I will very likely know.”

She looked at him, and put out her hand and touched his arm. “Be my friend, too,” she said. “I have this sight. I don’t know when it will come or where, and I don’t know what it will show me. I fear to sleep here-but Althalen may be worse, and I did not sleep last night—”

Tears were very close. Her lips trembled, and he touched her hand and let it fall.

A shadow had come in the doorway of the tent.

Idrys.

Tristen looked in his direction. “Sir,” Tristen said, feeling as caught in wrongdoing as ever he had with the man.

But Uwen was there, and Ninévrisé’s ladies, and Tristen made a little bow and went away into his tent, where the servants had the lantern lit, and where Uwen helped him shed the wearying mail and the servants helped him with the boots and the clothing. Uwen lay down to rest then, on the cot in his division of the tent, and soon Uwen was snoring, in honest, hard-won exhaustion; and the servants became quieter and quieter.

Tristen sat a time and tried by lantern-light and until his eyes swam, to read anything in the Book, on page after page after page, seeking any letter that offered him anything understandable.

But now and again through the night his peace was broken, with men passing the tent.

And it was plain, after he had blown out the lantern and lay abed in his tent, what was continuing to happen outside. The guards were doing nothing to prevent it, on Cefwyn’s order—because Cefwyn did not want a quarrel within the army. They had already had a nearly disastrous encounter between the two Guelen guard forces in the affair of Orien Aswydd, a confrontation which had left uneasiness between the two units that Idrys and Gwywyn had only scarcely patched. They could least of all afford a second one between Guelenmen and Amefin.

He did not know what he should do. It seemed he had not done what he should have, on any account. It was well possible that the enemy was already reaching out to push and pull things—just little things—to make them fail; and he did not know how to stop the desertions that threatened Cefwyn ... or the constant accumulation of followers of his own, that terrified and distracted him on every side.

In the morning as the first light touched the camp, forty or more of the village ba

But the Dragon of the Marhanen did not stand alone either, for the unit pe

“Break camp!” Idrys ordered, and tents began, in that area, to come down, as they had already come down in the row next to them, in that dim light. Very quickly their guy-ropes and pegs formed a bundle on their several tents which became a bundle, and they were among the first laid out along the lane the wagons would travel picking them up. Cefwyn stood in the chill morning wind, and Tristen stood beside him. The grooms brought their horses to them, but Cefwyn did not offer to mount yet, so no one else did.

Eventually there were only men and horses standing where there had been tents, as far as the eye could see. They were behind their scheduled departure. They stood, and went on standing, and as it became evident to everyone that they were standing there on the King’s will, and waiting for the King’s order, there fell an u

“Guelen!” Idrys shouted, then, and there was a movement forward, the Guelen camped around the command tents, who massed toward their standards all in confusion. Idrys shouted angry orders; the standard-bearers took their standards to their respective units, and the Guelen fell into order.

52O

Then, unbidden, but in rivalry, perhaps, not to be left behind, came a tide of Amefin surging forward, who noisily possessed their own standards, but they did not take any orderly form. There was shouting, there was pushing, and a fight broke out as men surged forward and began trying to rescue their standards, and as the Guelen shoved them and made space for the King and his company.

Tristen stared helplessly for that instant, then—understanding the symbol of what these men were struggling for—he knew the only thing the Amefin and Guelen in that press might all see. He seized the Sihhé ba

A murmur went up, and the fighting stopped. He was not capable of speech. He went to Cefwyn and they embraced before the army. A cheer went up around them, and Cefwyn laughed and gri

There was a cleaner feeling in the air. Tristen hugged Cefwyn a third time for gladness of that feeling, and Cefwyn’s eyes sparkled with tears, his lips drawn tight.

“To horse!” Idrys shouted, waving his sword. “Districts by order!

Move! We are late, sirs! Move, move, move!”

It seemed to mean everyone. Cefwyn went toward his horse, and he went quickly to the groom that held Petelly, took the reins and swung up. The wagon had not been able to get through. Now it was coming, as men ran for their appropriate places, and Andas reclaimed the Sihhé standard, as the standard-bearers of the Dragon and the Regent’s Tower took up their own.

A breeze lifted them. The morning sun streamed gold through light cloud. The King moved out and Ninévrisé joined him as their standard-bearers got to horse and moved out ahead. Tristen rode to join them and Andas took the Sihhé ba