Fortress of Owls

“Small wonder the village wanted to stable the horses,” Cevulirn said dryly. Since it was never the Ivanim habit to surrender that task to anyone, Tristen had no trouble guessing, the fugitives had had to hide elsewhere until the visitors were all abed. Then they had come creeping back to the lifesaving warmth, where hay and horses far in excess of the stable’s capacity had made a very warm haven until the dawn.

And that was the mysterious coming and going in the night he had heard, the sense of presence more than he had accounted for, that had kept him awake.

But they were not a warlike group… less than a score in number, one a babe in arms, the rest anonymous bundles of heavy cloaks and wraps of every sort, at least three others of them children.

“They are no threat,” Tristen said.

“Until asked questions by those who are,” Cevulirn said. “Best not to have them on this route to the river, where they see all the coming and going of your supply. Bryn’s villagers know where to go if trouble comes. These have fewer resources.”

To have a contingent of Elwynim next Henas’amef or within it was no comfort, either. A gathering of Elwynim fugitives, however pitiful, afforded a resting place where Elwynim spies might come and go. There was nowhere completely safe to settle them, none of the river villages within reach wherein an Elwynim band that might include those sympathetic to Tasmôrden could not work some sort of harm: lights and signals, even daggers in the night, or at very least, one taking to his heels to go back across the river with news.

Yet the wind blew with a whisper to his thoughts…

What had Auld Syes said? Magic had a way of diverting one’s attention, the things most needful to know slipping through one’s fingers like water.

The living king at last sits in judgment.

And again, which he had already remembered: When you find my sparrows, my little birds, lord of Amefel, warm them, feed them. The wind is too cold.

Birds before the storm, not his birds, not the fat, silly pigeons that he daily fed at his windowsill, the foolish pigeons which had won him the Holy Father’s ire in Guelemara, on account of the Quinaltine steps. No, these were certainly those other birds, Auld Syes’ sparrows, come to him in want of shelter.

And wherefore should prudent birds lack shelter? When their nests were windblown down, when their homes were destroyed, when armies marched and villages burned and greedy men seized power. Those were the birds that flew on Auld Syes’ storm… the winds blew, edged with winter and killing, and there was magic and wizardry behind his coming here and these fugitives seeking help of him.

And what direction would Elwynim loyal to Ninévrisë run?

They would never go to Guelessar for refuge, that was certain. Their lady Ninévrisë might have wed Cefwyn and might have Cefwyn’s promise of aid, but for Elwynim noble or common to cross the river and deliver themselves into the hands of Guelenmen, their old enemies, that, they feared more than they feared Tasmôrden’s army.

No, if Elwynim sought shelter, of course they would seek it among a folk allied by blood and history. Of course they would go south; and that was the duty Auld Syes had laid on him, to receive these folk and safeguard them, no matter what happened within Elwynor.

He looked at the pitiful band by torchlight, helpless and shivering, a close-wrapped band that looked for all the world like drab winter birds, and all looked fearfully at him, who held their lives and safety in his hands.

“Let’s go back to the stables,” he said, “out of the wind. That first. And you’ll tell me what brought you here. I’ll protect you, but if you wish me to, tell me the truth.” He had not forgotten how Crissand’s father Edwyll had contrived with Tasmôrden, who had promised to send Elwynim forces across the river… and indeed, in these, Tasmôrden had, but a force of the starving and desperate, whom Tasmôrden would be well content to see plundering Amefin resources: such cruelty he added to the tally of Tasmôrden’s doings.

“Light a lantern,” he said at the stable door… they should not bring the fire-dripping torches inside with the hay. And a man found a lantern and lit it, so they could go in among sleepy horses, gray and brown backs pressed side by side, and wary dark eyes shining back the lamplight in wonder what Men were doing.

Within the stable, barriered against the wind and in the warmth of so many horses and the bedding straw, Tristen appropriated a stack of grain sacks for a ducal seat; Cevulirn chose a barrel.

Drusenan stood and held the lantern himself, a circle of light which fell on faces that, indeed, freed of their muffling wraps, were all women, old men, and children.

“This is Tristen of Ynefel, our new lord duke of Amefel,” Drusenan said, “and this is Duke Cevulirn of Ivanor, who’s the best of the lords of the south, and they ask me why I’ve sheltered you.”

“Our homes are burned, lords!” came the anguished reply. And from another: “We had no choice but cross to Amefel!”

“Where is your home?” Tristen asked quietly.

“Nithen, lord.” A young woman spoke, a thin woman bearing a recent and ugly scar of burns on a hand clenched on her cloak of straw-flecked wool. “We come from Nithen district, mostly. One from Criess.” Another head nodded, a young woman with a closely bundled child at her skirts. “Tasmôrden’s men took our stock and our seed grain. We couldn’t live there.”

“My cousin,” Drusenan’s young wife spoke up. “Where else should she go, but to me?”

“Wife,” Drusenan interposed; and then with a glance at his judges: “So they came for food, harmless and unarmed. How could we refuse them?”

Tristen was ignorant of farmers and shepherds, but he knew the map of Elwynor, such as they had. Nithen was not on the map he had, but Criess was, near the border. Cevulirn, however, asked shrewd and knowledgeable questions of the fugitives, how large a village was Nithen, what was its sustenance, where were the men… and how many men they had seen making the assault, riding what sort of horses, whether they had killed the men of the villages or forced them into service. All these things Cevulirn asked, and yes, there had been perhaps a hundred, and they had taken some men of various villages to serve Tasmôrden, but some who resisted, they had killed. An old man from Nithen had lost a son, and others shouted out their own losses with tears and anger.

Cevulirn’s questions quickly assumed a shape in Tristen’s understanding, an image of the number and condition of the enemy and the very weather of the day they had moved through the district. All the significance of Cevulirn’s questions Unfolded to him in troublingly vivid order, and told him when, and how, and with what result. And he wished calm and comfort on the i

“When Tasmôrden marched on the capital,” Tristen said, “he went through Nithen; and that was above a fortnight past, is that so?” He was convinced both that they told the truth and that pity was justified for these desperate people. Nithen was a hamlet attached to Ilefínian, an estate of the Lord Regent himself.

And as for the day on which these folk had crossed over, no, they replied to his question, they were aware of no muster of Tasmôrden’s forces to the border to aid any Amefin rebellion: it had all poured in on Ilefínian.

So Tasmôrden’s promises of support to Edwyll were indeed a lie: only this hungry and desperate band had crossed the river, allowed to escape not out of mercy, but because their presence and that of other disordered bands of refugees might just as well aid Tasmôrden with no expenditure of troops. They might be a burden on Amefel’s supplies, perhaps would steal from Amefin villages—at best, given Tasmôrden’s promises to Edwyll and the rest, might confuse the king’s troops. They were cast away to die.