Fortress of Owls

Besides that small crisis of goose feathers, he had a report from the royal forester regarding the condition and take of deer from the royal preserve, in a winter not as bitter as feared, the condition of the forest and the abundance of hare.

And from a tenant the usual complaint of foxes making depredations into domestic stores, and a request to hunt them. Besides there was a wall wanting mending in Imor, on royal lands he had not seen since taking the throne and which he despaired of seeing in the future: he loved that hunting lodge and its command of the southern hills.

He thought of the woods near Wys, saw in his mind’s eye the afternoon light coming through winter branches. He smelled the moist, sweet air after a snowfall… and envied the life of the foresters who had the care of it for their sole duty, hunting deer, when his own task was, endlessly, fruitlessly, hunting Elwynim rebels.

What would it be, to know on rising for the day, that one’s duty was to walk in the woods, take account of deer and hare and badger, watch the flight of the birds and understand the weather? He was sure the office was somewhat more troublesome than that: no life was as simple as it seemed. But what did the forester think? Did he think how splendid it would be to be the king, and rise leisured to the worship of countless courtiers, dine from a golden service, and be fawned upon continually?

The golden service was true, but golden cups made hot tea go cold. He preferred humble pottery, thought it luxurious for a king otherwise damned to cold tea, and maintained a set of the cheapest by the fireside. As for the fawning… ask Ryssand. A morning where the letters abounded with nothing more grievous than fishing rights or requests for petty permissions was itself luxury, compared to the convolute dealings of his lords, and gods save him, his almoner, who he knew was only waiting his chance for complaint.

He did not hold audiences often enough. Men had no choice but to approach him with letters, and Emuin reproached him for it. But it was far quicker to read about the foxes than to hear about them from some dyspeptic squire who’d had to wait his turn in a cold audience hall. The Sihhë-lords themselves had insisted on written petition, and had had an immense archive of records… which had flamed up mightily in the fall of Althalen, so he supposed: all that efficiency and good order sent up in smoke in an hour by his grandfather, who came of a sturdy people whose farmers felt entitled to complain to the king and send him gifts. Denied, they sent him letters, and more letters, paying a clerk, or worse, a priest, to write them up fair if they had no skill to do so.

And if the High King of Althalen had heard his common farmers and paid attention, Emuin had said peevishly, he might have heard what would have saved him and his realm from your grandfather, who at least listened to hisfarmers, for all his other faults. Paper and parchment are no substitute for faces and the sight of fields.

They were not a substitute. And when he thought of it, he had rather look at turnip fields than the face of Lord Murandys. But common farmers did not easily get past the guards of the Guelesfort these days. The great barons had ceased to rub sleeves with such common fellows, during his father’s reign, except on feast days.

“Your Majesty.” A page flitted near. “The Lord Commander is here.”

A page had kept the Lord Commander standing in the foyer. His staff had taken his admonition to preserve the king’s privacy for his slugabed bride a shade too literally.

The page proffered a sealed letter, with Ryssand’s colors.

All the ease went out of him. “I’ll see the Lord Commander,” he said, and in the same moment his bride came through the door from the i

“Idrys is on his way in,” he said. “Forgive me.”

“Ilefínian,” she surmised in immediate concern.

“No. I don’t think so. But Ryssand is no good news. Sit by me.”

Idrys arrived in the room before she had quite seated herself, Idrys, Lord Commander of the household, the black harbinger of disaster.

“Ryssand dares send to me,” Cefwyn said, taking up his knife to loose the seal. “Do you know what the matter is?”

The seal proved breached. Idrys regularly did so. It was his duty to know.

“I confess so,” Idrys said. “But Your Majesty should read it.”

A moderately bland missive, until his eye struck the line:

seeking Your Majesty’s understanding regarding the actions of Your Majesty’s obedient subject in Amefel, in the protection of Your Majesty’s interests…

and then:

I seek an early audience for a man Your Majesty once favored with his trust on matters of utmost urgency…

He looked up at Idrys, already angry… not at the news, which was not news to him, but at the braze

“Oh, read to the end.”

He read further, finding a formal complaint of Tristen’s theft of Parsynan’s property and charges of threats against a Crown officer’s life.

“Am I surprised? Recount to me the causes whereby I am surprised at this sweet union of purpose, master crow. Parsynan and Ryssand! I’m only astonished at my credulity, taking this man’s recommendations to put that damned thief in office in the first place! Good loving gods!”

“The gods are allied with His Holiness, one would suppose… and that devotion is still firmly bought. I do keep an ear to it.”

“Gods hope.” He sca

“His horse threw him.”

That was there to read. Indeed, oh, and the i

That could be believed. So, for that matter, could the actions of the horse, but it was not sorcery, if Tristen had done it: Emuin, his old tutor, had taught him that fine distinction.

“And Ryssand commits his honor to this complaint,” he asked Idrys.

“Oh, more, more than that, my lord king. Read on.”

… the urgent representation of Your Majesty’s loyal officers who will swear to these facts, as we who have honorably and loyally supported the Crown and the gods are greatly alarmed. We seek redress of grievances and, putting aside our own bitter mourning, wish to consult with Your Majesty regarding measures that may lead to greater, not less, unity of purpose.

“Bother and damnation. Unity of purpose. Bitter mourning. Hell!”

Your Majesty witnessed the circumstances that have left Ryssand bereft, and casting now all our care upon our remaining treasure, our daughter, whose alliance with a powerful house will shield Your Majesty’s Ryssandish province, accordingly we have thought of various alliances. But we deem no union more glorious and none more beneficial to the tranquillity of Ylesuin than to join the Marhanen line to that of Ryssand, forging an alliance that will bring us to the spring in one mind and with one purpose. Accordingly I have written to His Highness…

“Good loving gods! He’s lost all his wits!”

“Which part in particular has caught my lord king’s eye?”

“Is he proposing marriage? Marriage?”

Ninévrisë leaned to see.

“Artisane,” Cefwyn said, “loving gods! To my brother Efanor…”

“I suspect His Highness will be here shortly,” Idrys said in his low voice. “The courier carried two letters to court. And how will my lord king respond to this sage and selfless proposal of peace?”

He lacked words. Launching the army not at Tasmôrden’s forces, but at Ryssand, was ever so fleetingly the wish of his heart. “I detest this man. I truly detest him.”