Fortress of Owls

There was a general letting-forth of breath, as it were one body.

“And the levy of troops?” Drumman ventured. “Will we be taking the field, or does the wall answer the need? We’ve no great disadvantage sending men off the land in the winter, while the weather holds.”

“I hope it will hold. I wishit to hold.” He dared say so with these men. “And Bryn needs all the help all of you can send, to build the wall. The more men, the faster the stones move. And they’ll need ox teams there for the heavy pulling. I’ve delayed the king’s carts as long as I can. I can’t keep them into the spring.”

“The spring planting…” Crissand said.

“We can let the land lie a year if need be. We’ll still have grain. We’ll have brought it in Olmern’s boats.”

That brought consternation.

“Do we understand Your Grace means to supply grain to all the families in the villages and the town as well as to the men under arms? And to muster out every able man in Amefel? Is that what we face?”

“No,” he said. “But to feed an army, that we may. The southern lords willcome. Cevulirn will bring them. We won’t let Tasmôrden bring his war here, and Iwon’t let him have the riverside.”

There were slow intakes of breath, the understanding, perhaps, that all they had discussed with Cevulirn before they had gone to the river had begun to happen.

“So we’re to provide for an army,” Crissand dared say, for all the rest. “And does the Guelen king know, my lord? Or to what are you leading us? Go we will, but to what are you leading us?”

The question struck himto silence, a long silence, gazing into Crissand’s troubled face across the width of the table.

“I don’t know,” he said, the entire truth. “But to war with Tasmôrden, for the king’s sake, and ours, and all the south… that, yes. There will be war.”

“Lord Ivanor’s ridden home without a word.” Azant said. “And to do what, Your Grace? To bring his men?”

“And how will we determine the need for this gold and grain?” asked Marmaschen. “Who’ll decide one claim against another? Shall we simply come with a list and say, Your Grace, give us grain?”

“I’ll ask you the truth,” Tristen said, “and you’ll tell me.”

One lord lifted his head instantly as if to laugh, and did not, in a very sober, very fearful silence. The silence went on and on, then, oddly, Crissand smiled, then laughed.

“Lies will find us out,” Crissand said. “Will you not know the instant we lie, my lord?”

“I think I would,” he admitted, though he had kept from others the truth of the gray space, and what it told him… he judged all men by Uwen Lewen’s-son, and what made Uwen uneasy, he told no one casually. He thought, too, of Cefwyn’s barons and Cefwyn’s court, and how the men there were always at one another’s throats. “But I’d hope none of you would lie to me.”

There was again that silence.

“No,” said Crissand cheerfully, “no, my lord, we shan’t lie to you. And youwon’t charge Heryn’s tax.”

“I see no need of a tax, when we have so much gold.”

“But, Your Grace,” Drumman said, “this wallyou want… if you,will forgive me my frankness… if I dare say… my men are on their way, with every intent to obey Your Grace’s order. But the Guelen king forbade our fortifications and our walled houses. He ordered them torn down. Dare we do this?”

“Aye,” said Azant. “What will the king in Guelemara say? And shall onlyBryn have defenses? We have ruined forts aplenty, from the Marhanen’s order. And shall only Bryn raise a wall?”

“And will we have a Guelen army on our necks?” Lord Durell asked.

“No,” Tristen said. “Cefwyn wouldn’t send one. I’m his friend.”

“His advisers will urge him otherwise, my lord,” said Drumman. “And in no uncertain terms. Your Grace, with all goodwill, and obeying your orders, I’m uneasy in this.”

“I know they’ll be angry,” Tristen said. “But the king doesn’t like their advice, and he’s far cleverer than Ryssand. He knows his best friends are in the south.”

“Then gods save His Guelen Majesty,” Azant said with an uneasy laugh, “and long may he reign—in Guelessar.”

“Aye,” said Drumman, “and leave us our Lord Sihhë.”

“Our Lord Sihhë,” said Marmaschen, “who spends his treasury instead of ours and bids us build walls… walls. I will build, Your Grace. Two hundred men is the muster of my lands, three hundred if you’ll feed the villages through next winter. Do that, and we’ll join Drumman, and raise your wall in Bryn, and then my own.”

“Three hundred from mine through winter, spring, and summer,” said Lord Drumman.

“Two hundred from Meiden,” Crissand said, “no trained men: shepherds… but we sling stones at wolves that come at our flocks. Give us some sort of armor and our maids and boys will man Bryn’s wall. That we can do, and will.”

There was never a doubt Crissand was in earnest, and others named numbers, a hundred from one lord, fifty from another, until the tally was more than Amefel had fielded at Lewenbrook.

“Now is the need,” Tristen said. “Ilefínian’s people are coming south. But so may Tasmôrden’s. We have to set the signal fires, the way we did before Lewenbrook. This, until we have the Ivanim horse to defend us, and then whatever other help will come to us… they’ll come.”

“With Ilefínian fallen, and the snows coming,” said Drumman, “there’s likely no grain to be had in Elwynor. There can’t have been a crop last year in the midlands; there’s none this year: all they sowed was iron. Tasmôrden’s stolen for his army whatever the poor farmers put in, his army’s stolen what they could carry, and now he’ll plunder the capital storehouses, none preventing him… whatever the siege didn’t consume, if there’s anything left at all. Hunger across the river is inevitable, Your Grace is right. Grainis what they’ll want, and even i

“We’ll give them grain,” Tristen said. “As much as they can carry.” v,

Worried looks had attended Drumman’s assessment; astonishment attended his answer, slight aversions of the eyes, flinching from the notion; but it seemed reasonable to him.

“And if we give it, they’ll be fed, and if they’re fed, maybe they’ll be quiet neighbors,” Drumman said. “But can we find that much grain, Your Grace? Can we get it?”

“We’ll ask the Olmernmen,” Tristen said, in utter sobriety. “Cevulirn is doing that.”

“The king should have pressed across the river last summer,” Azant muttered. “Her Grace was willing. The army was willing. And, no, he turned aside and went back to Guelessar. Now we empty our treasury to feed Elwynor?”

“A sack of grain is one gold coin,” Tristen said, “and if you put it in the ground, it’s a field of grain. Isn’t that so?”

“If you can get the soldiers off the ground,” Azant said. “There’s the matter.”

“With all the starving peasants of Her Grace’s land at our doorsteps,” Durell said. “Save this grain we give of our own accord, and no recompense from His Guelen Majesty, as I understand. And we’ll have more than hungry peasants before all’s done. We’ll have hungry soldiers, bands of them, with no leaders, no thought but their bellies.”

That was so.

“And if there’s famine,” said another lord, “disease, that goes with it.”

“Then there’s need of medicines, too,” Tristen said.

“And is our treasury enough for it?”

“The grandmothers don’t ask much for their cures. But it’s a good thing if we tell them, and pay them.” He had understood this matter of paying folk, finally, so there was bread enough. “And if we don’t have enough herbs for their powders, we’ll buy them from Casmyndan, too. Sovrag’s boats can bring them.”

“And a good store for us, too,” said Marmaschen. “No crops, no store of food untouched in Elwynor, no planting this spring, in all that kingdom. It’s an immense undertaking.”