Fortress of Owls

Her maid had told her that yesterday, since the ladies had not remarked the maid’s presence before they began to talk. In anyone else that gesture with the cup was insignificant: but in Father Benwyn’s case, oh, certainly a strange Bryalt practice, warding his cup from poisons, and, la! who would poison the Bryalt father, who truly was an inoffensive sort… though a heretic, of course. Or nearly so.

So her maid, Fiselle, a girl of good sense, had reported to her.

So the days drew on, pearl by pearl, stitch by stitch. She smiled at Luriel every day, and saw troops and bridges to Elwynor. Every night was love, unthought and measureless, a warmth of candlelight and a lover’s passionate embrace. They were mad things, she and Cefwyn. They burrowed beneath blankets and invented their own kingdom to explore. Then everything was wonderful.

But every sun came up on the world and measured it with a cold, wintry eye. She had headaches, and craved raspberries, which could not be had, and did not confess the desire, but measured herself in her mirror and wondered, desperately, to what wild chance of fate she had committed herself.

Every day her people died and still the needles flew, seeding pearls and schemes in a world of virgins and matrons. Efanor courted Artisane, Cefwyn redeemed Murandys, and rebuilt the walls of his kingdom.

I bear you no ill will, Ninévrisë had said to Luriel, early in their meeting, in their one conversation on the matter of old loves.

“Your Grace is generous,” Luriel had said, “beyond all women.” And then Luriel had added, in that deadly honesty that partook a little of contempt, “I could not be, were I in your place.”

It warned her, then and from the start, that neither generosity nor love had made it possible for them to sit side by side. It was that they both were set on separate campaigns, both desperate, both under the weight of censure, both willing to endure any other affront to secure what they wished… and their wishes were not mutually exclusive. On that slender point, peace rested.

She had not retorted, Because you ca

Ninévrisë had thought that, too, on that occasion, and had not said it.

But she had taken that conversation for her one moment to tell some truth to Luriel of Murandys. “What I do,” she had said, “I do for my husband’s sake. Never mistake my tolerance for folly.” And having said that, she never placed her trust in Luriel.

Stitch and stitch. In the patterns one could lose oneself. In the making of stitches, small and precise, there was no tomorrow and no yesterday, only the need to count threads and remember. The prattle of schemes and suppositions was only idle noise. Outside, the weather spat, and drizzled, then burned bright blue and icy cold. Cravings for raspberries turned to dishes of custard, which she had had as a child, and could not well describe to the cook, though her tongue remembered the taste exquisitely. Custard after custard failed her expectation.

“Did you hear?” Odrinian came in saying, one morning. “Someone painted the Quinalt sigil on the street outside Father Benwyn’s door last night.”

“Did they?” asked Bonden-on-Wyk.

“Benwyn will lay a curse on them,” Odrinian said.

“If he sobers enough,” said Brusa

Ninévrisë had said nothing in this exchange. Glances drifted toward her like moths to the forbidden fire, and hers to them. Needles stilled. There was the least hint of fear.

“He’s not a wizard,” Ninévrisë found herself saying. “No such thing. That’s not right.”

The silence lasted a moment. They never asked her what it was to be Bryaltine, and in fact she failed to practice the faith in any nightly observances. Benwyn did, nightly visiting the shrine, and having his wine flask with him… but most times being sober, since Idrys had lectured Benwyn very sternly.

He made fine salves, did Benwyn of Amefel. Bonden-on-Wyk used them. Her feet and hands pained her, and she swore Benwyn had given her more relief than the Quinalt with their charms and herbal baths. But Bonden-on-Wyk did not speak up on Benwyn’s behalf now. Only Margolis said, “Well, painting the sigil on streets is no great respect of the Quinalt, either, is it?”

“No,” said Ninévrisë, gratefully, “it is not.”

Tristen had acted recklessly: Cefwyn’s letters advised him so; and so did Idrys, which she hoped Tristen would heed, but one was never sure with him. News of the schism in the Quinalt frightened her. So much was fragile. Elwynor itself had become fragile, poised on the edge of starvation and dissolution. The prophecy of the King To Come might well be fulfilled in Tristen… she saw the signs, and for that she was also afraid… a selfish fear, she had thought at first; but more and more she knew that there was more than need of Guelessar that had turned Cefwyn from crossing the river last summer’s end. That he might fulfill the prophecy was something they shared, and then she had been swept by doubts, one time desiring to be queen and not a stranger in Guelessar, one time asking herself dared she stand in the way of prophecy and was she so great a fool?

But now when she heard the women talk of attacks on her priest she knew another fear, for nowhere in the prophecy of the King To Come did it promise miracles or even salvation for Elwynor. The King To Come was the High King, the King at Althalen… and Elwynor only a province in his hands, nothing said of its safety or its fate when all was done.

She spoke for Elwynor itself. She secretly nursed a hope within her, as yet untested.

Meanwhile Efanor courted Artisane, sending her letters and gifts, and Ryssand remained unprecedentedly quiet, while she knew the Holy Father of the Quinalt pursued debates with priests Ryssand sponsored.

All these things, all these things, troubled her thoughts when her hands fell idle.

Her heart and her hopes, had soared when she heard that Elwynim, her Elwynim, had found safety with Tristen, but oh, there were dangers still. Spring, spring would bring their answers; and in the meanwhile events proved that in Tristen’s hands the prophecy was a dangerous thing, much as she loved him for his i

Now the angers pressed in on her, angers she would have been free to satisfy if they had crossed the river this summer and engaged all of Elwynor without warning.

And at such moments she wondered if it had not been unwise ever to have entangled herself with the Bryaltines instead of the Teranthines, difficult as that had seemed. Benwyn, poor man, had no understanding of the currents that swirled about him. Angry Guelenfolk painted signs at his door. They gossiped about him.

The rare times she had ever talked with the man, it was not philosophy or religion, but herb lore out of Elwynor, and the obscure history of the shrine in Amefel. The sad truth was Benwyn well knew he was hated, and drank when he must face roomfuls of good Quinaltines.

Consequently he drank often… not the wisest solution, but then, if Benwyn had been wise, he would have confined his ministry to Amefel and not been the only Bryalt priest in Guelessar.

While she, if she were wise, would have bowed her head and accepted the Teranthine compromise, and never accepted this priest, near as he was to her father’s observances. She saw now what a difficulty it was to force Ylesuin and Elwynor into union, and she knew that if there could not be a peaceful compromise of the Guelen clergy, Ylesuin itself might be rent apart. As might she.

“It’s shameful,” Ninévrisë said now, regarding this latest outrage. “It’s shameful to use the Quinalt that way, and it’s shameful to treat poor Benwyn that way.”