Fortress of Eagles

Her Grace the heretic arrived with only the four of the king’s guards assigned to her, to sit in the intimate, doubtless drunken company of half a score men at their leisure, including a king ill reputed as a prince… oh, depend on it: the gossip would fly by morning. Here they were, if a wizard-priest, the captain of the King’s Guard, the king’s pious brother, and the silent lord of Ivanor could possibly be counted raffish and daring… why, Cevulirn was a southerner, after all, and not a good Quinaltine, but Teranthine like master Emuin, if Cevulirn ever chose to make any philosophy evident.

Clatter, clatter, clatter of women’s gossip, and be damned to them and their suppositions. The king did as he pleased tonight and needed those he gathered close to him. His heart needed them.

It wanted only the Lord Warden of Ynefel’s haunted precinct to complete the evening, and Tristen was, not uncommonly, late.

CHAPTER 4

Cefwyn had said there was no need of formality. As we did in the first days, the message had said, but they had gotten in from their ride just at sunset, and had to wash, and dress in clothes fit for the king’s supper table.

Tristen wore dark brown and Uwen wore green, no badges at all of Ynefel’s dark repute (which he escaped whenever he could) and this time no weight of mail or defense of weapons. The guards—there were always at least four at the king’s private chambers, besides the score up and down the hall outside—knew them and let them in without their having to say a word.

“The lord of Ynefel and Althalen,” the guard informed a hurrying page, and the page bowed and led them quickly down the reception hall to the smaller banquet hall—past A

The page showed them into the hall. Gratefully, it was not to be one of those state affairs, with tables reaching from the front of the hall to the back, in double rows, a din of voices and lute players in which no one could hear what happened a table away: those affairs could never be arranged in a single day. The invitation tonight had been a surprise, and set in the Blue Hall, which was actually mostly gilt, with only touches of blue in the ceiling. Tristen had been here once before, just after the oath-taking, in what Cefwyn called the coziest hall in the king’s apartments.

There was Emuin looking scrubbed and like his old self; and Ninévrisë was talking freely with Efanor, who was smiling, tonight, and without the doleful priest who often came with him. Even the pages were those who had attended Cefwyn in Amefel and whom he had kept in service, though other lords had besieged the throne with offers of eligible sons and nephews.

Best of all, Cefwyn came and clapped him on the shoulder, bidding him welcome; and for a few distracted moments Cefwyn talked to him about the weather and the wedding and the harvest.

“I hear the barley is exceptional,” Tristen said, and Cefwyn gave him a wondering look.

“Uwen told me today,” he confessed, and Cefwyn laughed.

“It is a fine harvest,” Cefwyn said. “Come, come, are you too warm with that cloak? Boy! —Gods, they’ve heated the hall like a forge.”

Tristen surrendered his cloak. Uwen had deserted him for the outer hall and would have his supper there, Tristen was sure, where Uwen would be far more comfortable with the Ivanim guard, and with Idrys’ lieutenant, than among lords.

Meanwhile it was impossible to follow anything Cefwyn said; Tristen’s thoughts flew entirely asunder. He had come in from riding all unsuspecting. He had taken to eavesdropping on his own guards for the sheer comfort of voices and here he was, snatched into a gathering of all his own old friends. He felt his heart more than fill; he felt it loosen from its habitually guarded state, and he looked about him in sheer dangerous delight… aware of Ninévrisë as he was of Emuin.

He saw Emuin’s frown from across the room.

He ducked his head then and made his presence in this world and in the gray space instantly smaller and quieter.

But damp the happiness, no, it could not, and Ninévrisë crossed the room to meet him and take his hands.

“Tristen,” she said with great warmth.

“My lady Regent.”

“You look very well,” she said. He tried not to reach into the gray space. They could speak with no word spoken—alone of everyone but Emuin she could reach there, as her father had been able to do; but only scarcely, a wisp of a presence at the strongest: she was no wizard. She only had the heritage, and had consciously abandoned it.

“Here we all are,” Cefwyn was saying just then, summoning all of them to table. “Come, come, everyone, no standing on ceremony tonight. By royal decree among the lot of us, I make today a start on harvesttide, no great echoing halls and long speeches, no worries, not a care. So be at your ease, all my good friends, my dear soon-to-be-bride—sit by me. Emuin is a priest—he will keep the proprieties.”

“No priest,” Emuin said. “I am most carefully not a priest.”

“Close enough for propriety in this company: a cleric, a man of years and dignity. My lady to my left, Efanor to my right hand—Cevulirn, next Efanor, Tristen, opposite, then my good master crow. Gods, what joy to see you.“

They talked a moment. Efanor delivered a very long supper prayer, and after serving and conversations began again, Cefwyn talking of horses, of the weather, the prospects for the winter… and the spring, Idrys reminded them.

“No,” Cefwyn said, then, “no, not a word on that matter. I did not bring you here for any council of war, only for the pleasure of seeing you. Friends, look you, a gathering of friends. That is all my pleasure tonight.”

“My lord king,” said Cevulirn, and Emuin lifted his cup.

“Friends,” Cefwyn said again, “with whom I can say with particular significance that this has been both a bitter year and a good year.”

“Aye to that,” Idrys said.

“A year of ending and begi

Cefwyn drank. Then Efanor got up from his chair. “Gods rest our father,” Efanor said then, lifting his cup, “and gods rest them all who died, and gods save the king and the Holy Father.”

Everyone drank to that, too, though Cefwyn did not seem entirely pleased. It was like Efanor to bring the gods and the dead into everything, and he was not quite sure Efanor should in all propriety have paired the Patriarch with the king.

“Gods save the Lady Regent,” Cevulirn said, in his turn, “and all her faithful men.”

That meant Elwynim and heretics. Everyone drank, and that did please Cefwyn, but not quite so well Efanor. Tristen began to fear he might have to say something himself, and all wit immediately escaped him. He decided if he had to say something he must bless the king and all present, which was no great difficulty; but fortunately it seemed the gods-saving was done, and the rest of them were spared having to invent something.

Instead they began to talk and eat until they had done for the soup and bread. A