Fortress of Dragons

He regretted his act of mercy now, and he wished, if not harm on Orien, at least safety for his staff and all the friends, allies and townsfolk his charity had set at risk by bringing her here. Fool, he was ready to think, as often he had been a fool: but Owl had led him, and Owl, that chancy bird, knew nothing of reason.

Lives had been at risk already, among those he loved. Uwen had come out into the storm searching for his foolish lord, trailing after him Lusin and the rest of his bodyguard, honest men immeasurably distressed to have lost track of their charge outside safe town walls.

And not only his household had ridden out to search for him. Crissand Earl of Meiden and the duke of Ivanor had both come searching, the latter two having wizard-gift enough to find him in any storm… and wizard-gift enough to know for a truth what dangerous guests he had brought home.

From those two he was sure that by now the word of the Aswydds' return would have slowly, discreetly spread among the lords encamped near the walls. From the servants here on the hill, it would go like wildfire through the staff, some of whom had served the ladies and their brother Heryn. And word would leap from there into the Bryaltine shrine, too, a random thought informed him, to the nuns, who had been maids to Lady Orien and who now repented their lady's war with the Marhanen through their charitable acts and pious prayers.

From there, for very little good and a great deal of ill… rumor of the Aswydds' arrival in Henas'amef would reach every corner of the province, from the border with Guelessar, which had sent the ladies to him, to the borders with the other lords, and northward to those who already distrusted Amefel.

And it would go northward in Amefel, too, to Captain Anwyll's camp, Guelenmen, Dragon Guard, who would wonder what to make of it. Anwyll well knew the ladies were supposed to be under ban, and was sworn to uphold the royal decree that kept them so. Word would run to Modeyneth, where the men of Bryn built a wall; and to Althalen, where fugitives out of Elwynor established a settlement under his protection—and was the lord of Amefel's power that sure, the fugitives must ask themselves, if he housed the sisters of Heryn Aswydd?

The news would go to their enemy, Tasmôrden, sitting in his newly won capital of Ilefínian, up in Elwynor. He had tried to stir the Amefin to rebel against Cefwyn, with the promise of reestablishing the Aswydds and supporting them in war. What must he think?

And not last or least, word would reach Cefwyn, telling him that wizardry or the malice of Men had overturned his sentence and freed the two most dangerous prisoners in his kingdom… for they were that. They certainly were that. Sorcerywas their crime, not to mention an attempt on Cefwyn's very life, and on his kingdom.

Forgive me, should he write to Cefwyn, but I could think of nowhere else to send them?

The only place he could think of to send them, indeed, at this hour, was to hasten them upstairs, into rooms fit for the royalty they claimed to be… aethelings, of the old noble house of Amefel, with wizard-gift strong in their blood.

They were not the only survivors of that line, to be sure. His friend, his foremost supporter in council, Earl Crissand, was kin of theirs, andheir to the name… so he had sworn to himself, so Auld Syes herself had said, in an appearance as curious and ominous as he had ever seen—and no, these women would not take what was Crissand's: whatever came of his constrained charity, Crissand's heir-ship could not be challenged, not while these stones stood one on the other. It was that certain in his thoughts.

"What's Emuin say?" Uwen asked. They were still standing in the lower hall, Uwen and his guard all deaf to magic and wizardry alike, but Uwen knew his resources, and knew that Master Emuin tended to be awake at night; and knew by experience that his lord's moments of woolgathering were often conversations.

"He's not pleased," Tristen said, blinking the ordinary world into being. His sight centered on Uwen's gray-stubbled, earnest face. "Nor am I pleased, but what can I do?"

"I'm sure I don't know," Uwen said, and bit his lip, which usually presaged his saying something anyway. "Except as His Majesty might ha' had their heads on the South Gate, and didn't, on account of ye told 'im they'd be worse threats to us all if they was ghosts. And, ye know, m'lord, I ain't so sure on that, now."

"I'm not sure on that point either," he said, not in jest, and added: "But I don't think I can kill them, Uwen."

Uwen's look was the more distressed. "Ye ain't o' the mind, nor ever were, m'lord. An' her sister bein' with child, an' all—what's to happen? Ask Emuin. Ask Emuin, m'lord. This is beyond me."

"I fear it's beyond him, too." Uwen was right: he had never been willing to exercise a lord's cold justice, nor had done. But despite his thinking on slippery steps, something felt so utterly wrong in the notion of killing the women, he could not compass arguments about it, could not consider it—whether it was wrong in the magical sense or wrong because it was terrible to kill at all, he had no way to sort out. He only knew he shuddered at it. "Emuin's as surprised as the rest of us."

" 'At there," Uwen said, with an upward glance, the way the women had gone, "looks to be seven, eight months she's carryin'."

"Can you say so?"

"Summat," Uwen said, as they began to walk their own direction, toward the other stairs. "Looks to be. Nine's the term of a child that'll live, an' by the look, that 'un ain't far from it. That 'un's bloomed in the nu

Being not born, himself, and never a child, and never intimate with a woman, he had only uncertain questions where ordinary men had sure knowledge. He felt helpless in his ignorance, and so many things had converged in the last few days… magical things, dreadful things, hopeful things, and now, it turned out, Tarien's child, which it seemed would come sooner rather than later. He had feared Midwinter, just past, and the turning of the year, when a conjunction of the stars that Emuin said had been his birth had ended, and a new cycle had begun.

"When?" he asked. "How will we know?"

"She ain't immediate, I don't think," Uwen said, who had had a wife, once, and children. "A hellish far walk, she's been, if they come from Anwyfar, an' in the snow, and a-horseback before that. If she was near, that might ha' brought it on. And it didn't."

"Eight months?"

"Seven or eight, maybe."

In magic and wizardry, more particularly in sorcery… there were no coincidences. Seven or eight months… from its begi

"Could she have gotten the child in the summer, and no one know?"

"Damn sure she did," Uwen said somberly, "an' all that time, and her bein' a witch an' all, I'd about wager she knew right well, m'lord, that I would."

His thoughts grew vague and frightened and darted here and there in distracted fashion as he walked. His shoulders had felt the burden of armor for hours, as his cloak and his boots were soaked through with snowmelt. He had been scant of sleep for far too long, had walked, letting Tarien ride on the way home—and he thought now, after a month of striving and wrestling with Amefel's danger and Ylesuin's, now that he had done something so irretrievably foolish as this, he might rest… he might finally rest, as if he had done what folly his restlessness had aimed toward, and as he faced the stairs upward all the remaining strength was flowing out of him like blood from a wound.