Fortress of Owls

Yet crossing the river thus and relying on Tristen’s help with Althalen’s black ba

Yet what might he have made of Ylesuin if he had not stopped at Lewenbrook and not forbidden magic and never come home to Guelemara until he had come as High King and husband of Elwynor?

What might he and Ninévrisë have become with the strength he had had in his hands in those few days? Everything he had done, he had done to get a legal, sanctified, recognized wedding that would secure an unquestioned succession, sworn to by the Quinalt and legally incontestable.

And, doing that, he had given Ninévrisë no way to win him and his aid except to cross every hurdle he set her. What else was she to do, having no army, having nothing but a promised alliance with him on condition of their marriage?

He owed her better, he thought, holding her close and cherished within his arms. Damn Tasmôrden and damn Ryssand and his allies, and damn his own mistaken trust in his own barons, but he owed her far, far better than this.

Chapter 6

The baskets had disappeared from master Emuin’s stairs long since—Tassand’s managing—and Tristen left his guard below as he climbed up and up the spiral stairway on this day after his arrival home.

A door opened above before he could reach it, letting out not daylight this time, but warmth and candle glow, and a rapidly moving boy… who had not expected to see him there, face on a level with his feet. Paisi came to an abrupt halt and tried to make himself very small against the wall of the landing.

“M’lor’,” Paisi whispered, as Tristen climbed up to stand there, far taller than Paisi.

“Paisi,” Tristen said. “I trust master Emuin is in.”

“Oh, that ’e is, m’lor’, an’ ’is servant sent me after wood an’ salt, which I’m doin’, m’lor’, fast as I can.”

“Other servants from the yard will carry the wood up for you, understand. You have only to ask them. The salt you must manage. Cook’s staff will not come up these steps. They complain of ghosts.”

“Yes, m’lor’.” A deep, deep bow, and a wide-eyed, fearful stare. “Yes, m’lor’, an’ I will, m’lor’.”

“Emuin won’t harm you.”

Paisi seemed to have lost all powers of speech. He had only added a good coat to his ragged shirt and worn boots to his bare feet; but he had had a bath, despite his uncombed and undipped look.

“Didn’t I send you to the guard and to Tassand,” Tristen asked on that sharper look in the imperfect light, “and is this the dress they gave you?”

“I been i’ the market, m’lor’, an’ beggin’ Your Grace’s pardon, listenin’ as ye said, so I kep’ the clothes, as they’d point at me if I was in a fine new coat.”

There was a small disturbance of the gray space, a gifted boy trying to become invisible, as, in those clothes, he looked very much the boy he had always been… except a fine new coat.

“Go, do what he asks,” Tristen said, not willing to deny master Emuin’s instructions, whatever they might be, and not willing to plumb the convolutions of Paisi’s reasons this morning. He had far more serious matters to deal with.

Paisi ran past him, and Tristen stepped up into the doorway of a tower room in far better order than last he had seen it.

“Good morning,” Emuin said from the hearthside. Emuin sat on a low stool, stirring a pot and not looking at him, but the faint touch of wit was there, in the gray space, and it was the same as a glance. Tristen took it so.

“So Cevulirn is riding south,” Emuin said, “leaving his guard at the river, and you have made your agreements for Bryn, for the raising of a wall, and for the settling of a band of fugitives at the old ruins.”

“To Cefwyn’s good. Do you say otherwise?”

“Not I,” Emuin said. “No.”

It was always the same reply, whether a refusal or a denial of objection always unclear. Emuin never rose quite as far as agreeing with his choices, and this refusal to contradict him was as halfhearted.

“I have ordered the watch fires ready,” Tristen said, coming to stand over the old wizard. “Which is a great hardship on the men that keep them. Consequently I wish all bad weather north of the river. I could reach Cevulirn otherwise, but it seemed better to use the fires, and to extend them to the view of Lanfarnesse, Olmern, and Imor.”

Emuin nodded.

“Was that wrong?” Tristen asked. “ Isit wrong?”

Emuin gave a shrug and never abated his stirring. Whether it was a spell or breakfast was unclear by the pot’s sluggish white bubbling. It smelled like porridge.

“I’m sure I don’t weep for Tasmôrden’s discomfort,” Emuin said. “It’s no concern of mine, and none of my doing.”

He could lose his temper entirely at this resumed silence. Almost. But Mauryl had taught him patience above all things, and he gathered it up in both hands.

“Porridge?” he asked, a tactical change of subject.

“Barley soup.”

“How does the boy do?”

“He’s a scoundrel,” Emuin said, “but deft. He won’t steal from me. As for why you’ve come—you wished His Reverence in Guelessar, as I recall. So to Guelessar he’s gone.”

A shot from the flank. It was not entirely why he had come, but he knew he was in the wrong, and badly mistaken in the way he had dealt with the man. “Uwen couldn’t stop him.”

“Short of your man arresting him or sitting on him, I doubt Uwen could have done anything to prevent him. What a cleric will, that he will, and a duke’s authority through his man or otherwise can’t stop him… short of lopping his head, that is, and that creates such ill will among the clergy.”

“I’ve written to Cefwyn,” he said meekly.

“Good. You should.”

“And to Idrys, more plainly.”

“Regarding?”

“Ilefínian.”

“ That…”

“Ninévrisë’s people are dying, sir! Don’t you know that? That’swhy I came.”

Emuin looked at him from under his brows. “I say thatbecause it was foredoomed to happen.—So, perhaps, was your settlement at Althalen. Oh, yes… thatmatter, while we’re at it.”

“You might have advised me.”

“Advised you, advised you… were you ignorant what Althalen means, and what it signifies to have that site of all sites tenanted again?”

He drew a deep breath. No, he could not say he was ignorant of that.

“Were you unaware?”

“No, sir. But there was nowhere else I knew to put them. Herewasn’t safe.”

“In that, you may be right.”

“Am I wrong, sir?”

“Wrong? I think it must have been fated, from the hour Cefwyn, the silly lad, handed you itsba

“Have I done wrong, sir? n

“I don’t think right and wrong figure here. If Althalen was foredoomed to fall and foredoomed to rise, damned little he or I could do about it.”

“And I, sir?”

“At least this ma

From the edge of the water to very, very deep waters indeed, and shattering accusations.

“I amhis friend, sir!” Tristen dropped to a bench near the fire, rested his elbows on his knees, and met the old man face-to-face, seeking one level, honest look from him. “Look at me, master Emuin! Have I given anyone any reason to think otherwise? Have I ever given you or Cefwyn any reason to think otherwise of me?”

“This boy you found,” said Emuin, shifting the tide of question again onto a former shore, “this boy who’s provoked His Reverence to disastrous measures and brought us all ma