Fortress of Owls

Carts moved below, bringing timbers… carts which might well serve getting supply to the troops, except His Holiness owned these few, and guarded them jealously.

Odd, how avariciously he had begun to look at such mundane things. The carts Tristen had still not returned to him might not come back at all if the weather set in hard, and gods knew what Tristen thought he was doing with them.

Not moving Parsynan’s belongings back to Guelessar, that was clear.

But being a resourceful king and understanding that trying to keep Tristen to a predictable, even a sensible course was like chasing water uphill, he had found ways, and with carts such as he could lay hands on, even those of the minor houses of Guelemara and the trades, he had moved men in greater numbers to the river bridges, using his personal guard and the Guelen Guard, men of Guelessar, not yet calling on the provinces for their levies.

He was merely setting the stage, putting necessary elements in place… keeping a watch on the river the while.

The weather had been surprisingly good, clouds dark to the west during the last two days, darkness over Elwynor, and fat gray-bottomed clouds speeding for the second frantic day across the skies of Guelessar, failing to drop snow or even to shade the sun. The whole season had been warmer than usual… and late as it was, and despite a few evening and morning snowfalls, winter had not set in hard this side of the river. He, who had learned to count wizards among the possible causes, looked at the situation in the west and wondered how much of the good weather was natural.

It was natural, however, that unseasonable warmth, otherwise pleasant, produced its own miseries… for blight had entered a set of granaries in Nelefreissan, royal stores he had pla

If Emuin were here, there would not be fleas, and he had remarked that to the clerks and officers, failing to add, if Tristen were here, since wizardry in Emuin was faintly respectable, but wizardry in Tristen reminded everyone why Tristen and Emuin were nothere this winter.

Meanwhile A

Mixed blessings indeed. No one had seen such a mild winter, wherein stores of wood were far in excess of current need and ice stayed off the small ponds, to farmers’ relief: no need to go out with axes to enable livestock to drink and no need yet to keep cattle close in byres. Autumn had stayed late, and later. There remained the chance, still, of the howling gray blast that would freeze all in a night and obscure the sun for days, but it had not happened yet… leaving them just snow enough to drive the vermin indoors, and the damned fleas with them, such was his own theory… not mentioning the notion of hostile wizardry and ill wishes from across the river, without a wizard left this side of the river.

Damned defenseless, Ryssand’s quarrel had left them, and not alone to the fleas. If there was worse than vermin, if those scudding clouds heralded some wizardous storm in the making, they might well regret the actions that had sent all the wizards south.

All but one. Ninévrisëhad the wizard-gift. He had neglected her in his reckoning. Perhaps, he thought with a wry laugh, perhaps he should appeal to his bride to attempt the banishment of mice. Perhaps the court might forgive her her small flaw, for that benefit.

But it was not a matter for jest, the small gift she had, and that he knew she had. More, and far more serious a matter, all the officers who had come back from Lewenbrook knew there was wizardry in the house of Syrillas and that it had not failed in the daughter. But Quinalt roof slates, mice, and fleas and all be damned, he was not about to prompt them to gossip it to the Quinaltine, who doubtless had heard already.

All the veterans, therefore, kept their counsel, even in the taverns seldom admitting there had been manifestations at Lewenbrook and since, oh, nothing of the sort. One would have thought they had fought on some other field, to hear how it was this company or that which had driven back the enemy and cast their ranks in confusion.

Pigeons now battled for narrow space on the ledge, buffeted one another with gray wings. The losers wheeled away and lit in another patch of snow, unruly, disrespectful of each other, now their master was in exile.

So much odd had happened in those days the living witnesses knew not who had been responsible, or even what they had seen. The apparitions of dead men, the strange lights, the darkness by day… memories of that day shifted and changed like oil on water, so that none of them who had been there quite remembered all of it… nor truly wished to. Men pushed and shoved one another for position, but none of them acknowledged the battles of wizards.

He gave a small shiver, finding his hand chilled to ice by the glass. He drew back his fingers, folded them into a fist to warm them, finding his memories not so pleasant after all. For the pigeons, the silly, gray-coated pigeons, he was tempted to send for bread and take them under royal patronage for Tristen’s sake, never mind what the court would say. It would be simple kindness to poor, dumb things.

But gossip… gossip would pick it up, saying the damned birds weremessengers, wizardous in behavior, suspecting them of eavesdropping, gods knew. He could not harbor pigeons without the town imagining darkest sorcery.

In fact, as of yesterday and Efanor’s message, he had emerged from the haze of recent matrimony and the confusion of Ryssand’s attempt to prevent it, suddenly to realize he and Ninévrisë were whole, but that very dangerous things had happened around them… to realize, too, that those they relied on, like Idrys, had only been marking time, waiting for them to face the world at large and realize how few their numbers had grown to be.

So they did, now missing the absent faces, the voices, the counsel of those who should have shared their new life. Gaining each other, gaining a union that should make all the world the richer, they had lost what they most treasured, and might never see the court come back to what it had been. The reports he had out of Amefel spoke alarmingly of rebellion crushed and decisive actions taken… all well within Tristen’s ability, if they challenged him.

But that side of him was dire and frightening: it had shown itself at Emwy, and at Lewenbrook, not the gentle mooncalf, his defender of pigeons and his friend who marveled at a sunbeam… but the soldier, the revenant, whose martial skill spoke of another life, one long, long past.

Parsynan was at someone’s ear, up in Ryssand, but he had passed through the midlands to get there. The Quinalt consequently was busy as the ke

Silence it, he had said to the Patriarch yesterday, with no patience whatever. I need Amefel steady and peaceful, and however Tristen obtains it, well and good.

That last he had found himself adding as if he had to justify his order, as if some valuefor Tristen should make a difference to the Holy Father.

He wished peevishly he had not been so weak as to add that argument, wished that he had his grandfather’s gift for stopping argument short of justifying himself.