Fortress of Ice

Maybe, Otter thought, it was a message, and now the shadow would disappear, driven away by the old man’s power. Maybe they were all supposed to understand it as a trick and an illustration. But the shadow was lapping and leaping about the hem of the old man’s robe, and he seemed not to notice it at all. He waded through it when he turned to the altar and poured a bowl of oil.

Otter’s skin began to prickle. The shadow didn’t go away. It coiled and sent out fingers up the old man’s robes.

“We have to be blessed, now,” Aewyn whispered, tugging at Otter’s sleeve, and in fact His Majesty moved out, and Ninévrisë with the baby, and the priest dipped his finger in the oil and touched their foreheads each in turn, calling them by their names and titles. The shadow underfoot diminished under his father’s feet and the queen’s, but Otter felt a lingering tightness at the pit of his stomach, the feeling that he might at any moment be sick if he had to step in it. Efanor followed the queen, being called Prince, and duke of Guelessar, which he was. The shadow stayed away, hiding under the railing.

“Us, now,” Aewyn said, dragging Otter with him out into the aisle, while the king and queen and Efanor filed back into the frontmost, vacant bench.

Otter caught a breath, stood still while the old man blessed Aewyn with the oil, calling him Crown Prince and heir of Ylesuin and forgiving his sins of the year.

Then the old man moistened his finger again, and Otter stared at it advancing toward him, not knowing what was happening at his feet, and had the terrible, awful, stinging urge to sneeze.

“Elfwyn,” the old man began.

He had to sneeze. He did, startling the old man backward.

A crash resounded off the pavings, a priest moved to catch it, a censer dropped and hit the edge of the altar. Coals skittered across the altar as the pitcher of oil went over the edge and hit the marble. Fire spread in a thin sheet as the old man recoiled, brushing at his gilt-and-white robes amid cries of alarm from the priests, who ripped loose cloths and hangings to smother it and save the man. A great outcry swelled from the crowd, the crash of a bench, as people surged out of their seats to see or to escape the vicinity. Otter stood frozen in place, while priests fell to their knees and mopped and smothered the fire with ba

The old man cleared his throat, lifted his hands and signaled the buzzing crowd to settle again, slowly restoring quiet.

Sweat had broken out on the old man’s face, and his hands shook as he turned and took another pitcher of oil. He poured a little into the bowl, atop the rest, and moistened his finger before he turned a sweating, disturbed countenance toward Otter.

“Elfwyn Aswydd,” the old man said, his true name, his mother’s name. “Do you stand to be blessed by the Holy Quinalt and written in the book?”

“Yes, sir,” he said in a shaking voice, forgetting in that instant that he was probably supposed to say Your Holiness, as Aewyn had, but then it was too late. The old man touched the oil to his forehead and said, all in a rush:

“Sealed to the Quinalt. Your sins are forgiven.”

The sins of Sight, and of ru

He walked away, glad to escape, at very least, half-blind to his surroundings as others, recovering from the commotion, got up to be blessed, the whole next row. It seemed a long, long way to walk before he found his place beside Aewyn, having gone all the way around the bench as Aewyn had done, to observe a respectful distance from the king and not to cross between him and the altar.

He breathed, every breath an effort. He shivered, trying not to let it be known.

“You did it,” Aewyn whispered, nudging him with an elbow, while the blessing went on, and they all stood. They stood all through the ceremony, until the priest had blessed the last of hundreds of them, and the choir sang, and dismissed them all, and the royal family led the way out into cold, wanly golden daylight.

Clean wind chilled them. Otter’s eyes stopped watering and his nose stopped stinging, but it still ran. He thought he would smell the stink of incense and fire for hours.

And the old man whose robes had caught—he had been so afraid the man was hurt, but he was not. He had gone on. And he was blessed. Forgiven. He was by no means sure he thought much of the Guelen gods, since Gran never had, but being forgiven was a good thing, was it not? And the shadow had gone. He felt as though he dared breathe again. He had done what his father wanted. They could write him in the book, with all the good people.

Today—he had figured it as best he could—even with delays because of the weather, Paisi should be across the river and onto the road on the other side, well on his way to Gran’s.

And Brother Trassin would be waiting for him in his rooms.

ix

THERE WERE USUAL PROCLAMATIONS TO ISSUE, A ROYAL APPROVAL ON A FIFTH daughter’s marriage in Carys—gods, was the man never out of daughters?— and the same from the current Lord Ryssand, no relation to the last, whose third-eldest son was the bridegroom: it required wax and the seal, but little thought. On this particular ill-starred day, Cefwyn wished there hadbeen some distraction. At least the Patriarch had not gone up like a torch: he was, it was reported, a little singed, and in some pain, but nothing too serious.

“His Grace of Guelessar,” a servant advised him.

News, maybe. Maybe an assuagement of anxiousness that, along with a too-bland, too-fatty sausage, sat uneasily on the royal stomach since noon.

“Admit him.” Cefwyn blew out the sealing flame and tidied the unruly stack of stiff, beribboned parchments on his desk.

It was afternoon, verging on late afternoon. He had another di

If Efanor reported matters in the Quinaltine solved, he might manage.

“Brother,” Efanor said, closing the door at his back. “I’ve talked to Idrys. I’ve just come from the Quinaltine, inspecting the matter myself. There is a mark. No scrubbing will remove it. There are scratches on the altar, which appear to the eye but not to the touch, and I have seen them. They reportedly spell out blasphemies.”

“Scratches that spell, for the gods’ sake! The boy sneezed. The old fool jumped back, and a fool priest was standing too close with the censer—what more might there be?”

“I did everything possible to quiet this—”

“I know, I know. I knew it was difficult when I asked it. But a simple sneeze, good gods!”

“His body could not tolerate the holy incense. The oil burned the holy ba

“And purged them right away and forever in the next moment, once the old fool got his wits collected, damn it all. Did anyone notice he didreceive the oil with no difficulty, after?”

“The fire mark on the floor ca

“Well, pry it up and lay a new paving stone, if His Holiness wants it. The boy was a model of decorum and gentility throughout. Your spy was with him all night and all morning previous. He took the oil. He sat through services. He did nothing but sneeze, gods save the day! What does the good brother say? That he flew about the room last night and conjured rats?”

“The boy had bad dreams and waked calling on Paisi and Gran, who the brother was relieved to know are living relatives.”

“Oh, for the gods’ own sake, brother!”

“There is gossip ru

“Probably overzealous scrubbing,” Cefwyn said. “Claw marks, for gods’ sake! Claws that write. Do they observe good grammar?”