Fortress of Ice

Or maybe there would only be soldiers, to collect the horses, and bid him stay away from Guelessar forever, since he had done things so badly and made trouble with the priests. That notion, which he thought more likely, settled like a leaden weight in his chest.

He had dreamed of Guelessar in his childhood, and thoroughly enjoyed his first days in the Guelesfort, oh, so full of wonders; and with Aewyn for his friend. But they had taken a dark turn in the Quinaltine, at Festival, and he had no wish to see all the good memories go sour, or do further harm to his father’s reputation or to Aewyn’s. He wished no one ill—wished no harm, even to Brother Trassin, who had wanted to pray for him and save his soul, but he felt the urgent need, for this hour, to be far from here as fast as he could persuade Tammis to travel before the tangle grew deeper and darker. He just had to get home and be sure Gran was all right.

What he would do then—then, and forever afterward, he had no scrap of a notion. He had pla

Then what? Then what, and where?

And what will I be, if I come home too late this time?

Gran had sent him out to find his fortune. His time with Aewyn, and among the books, had all been aimed at growing up and becoming a man who could support the family: Aewyn had been so convinced they would grow up together, and be allies, and now all that plan was gone, he began to realize it was not Otter the child who was coming home to Gran. Otter had grown up in his winter in Guelessar, grown up and gone away and looked to have very grown-up men angry with him and fearful of him.

Lord Crissand might not be as well-disposed as before, either.

Where was safety for them, then?

Tammis’s hooves found packed snow in a track where carts had passed, and thumped along good-naturedly, his breath frosting on the wind. Snow turning his shaggy mane white. Tammis carried him home, not at all the Otter who had left, but another creature altogether, one he hoped had, on this last day, grown warier and become harder to catch.

iv

IT COULD NOT BE TRUE. IT COULD NOT POSSIBLY BE TRUE, WHAT THE BODYGUARDS whispered among themselves.

“Who said Otter should go away?” Aewyn asked, breaking into his guards’ privacy in the little chamber in the hallway and standing squarely in the door.

The men—grown men, his father’s men—were all caught, and there was no graceful way to dislodge him without answering his questions.

“Your Highness,” Selmyn, seniormost, said, with a grave ma

“Why would my father send him away,” Aewyn cried, “when my father brought him here in the first place?”

“There seems to be some trouble,” Selmyn said, “Your Highness.”

“What trouble? What trouble would it be?”

“We don’t know,” Selmyn said, red-faced, clearly embarrassed. “But word is out that he has to leave—there’s a Guard contingent to ride escort tomorrow morning, Dragon Guard, Your Highness. He was to go to Amefel before the sun comes up. And watchers we know are ru

“The hell!” It was not language he was permitted to use, but Aewyn said it, and stormed out of the doorway and out into the hall and across the grand stairway landing to reach Otter’s rooms, his guard trailing him.

Why? he intended to ask Otter, first off and without preamble. Whatever trouble Otter had gotten into, there had to be time for cooler tempers to prevail. His father had gotten the family temper from his father and his father from his grandfather, and Aewyn had his own. They could all shout and threaten, but a quiet few words with Otter first would settle his stomach.

Then they could both go and talk to his father, and his father would listen to him. He knew it.

But when he opened Otter’s door and walked in, he found the fire still burning, but no sign of Otter, not in any of the rooms, only a book on the floor and a piece of paper beside it.

He picked it up. He read it, and things came half-clear, at last. Lord Idrys. Master Crow, no less. That was not just a problem. It might be deadly.

“Where is he?” he demanded of his useless guards. For the first time he was frightened.

“We have no idea, Your Highness,” Selmyn said, and Aewyn brushed right past him and headed back the way he had come, and on to his father’s rooms.

More guardsmen, standing outside the doors, came to abrupt attention as he headed straight through their midst.

The last, seniormost, had the temerity to lower a hand, barring his progress.

“I’ll see my father!” Aewyn said. “I’ll see him now!”

His guards had overtaken him. His guards and his father’s cast combative looks at each other, and the seniormost signed for silence and slipped inside properly to inquire if the king could possibly be interrupted.

Aewyn shoved the door open and walked in without leave. The guard’s quick move saved the door from banging.

“Father?” he called out, and saw the far doors shut, those that barred off the royal apartments, which generally meant a conference in progress. He headed for them, jerked the first open, and found his father, indeed, in conference with the Lord Chamberlain, who had been leaning over a table full of charts.

“Aewyn?” his father asked, and rose to his feet—not startled, no. Upset.

Aewyn went at the matter in his father’s own way—head-on. “Where’s Otter?”

“In his rooms, one would have thought.”

Aewyn shook his head. “He’s not. He’s heard. I’veheard. He got a message from his gran by way of the Lord Commander. And you had already arranged the Guard to go with him in the dead of night, without seeing me! Why did you not tell me, Father?”

His father turned to the Lord Chancellor.

“My lord king,” the Lord Chancellor said, excusing himself, and Aewyn clamped his lips together and said not a word until witnesses, even the guards, had passed outside the doors.

Alone, his father stared at him until it occurred to him that he would lose, in any test of wills. It was his part to bow his head, unclench his jaw, however difficult, and adopt a milder tone.

“Why was I not informed?” Aewyn asked again, trembling with outrage.

“Where is he?”

“Not in his rooms. The fire’s still burning, but he’s not there. Neither is Brother Fool.”

“He was to leave,” his father said, ignoring the epithet. “Tomorrow. I’ve told the stables to notify the Guard if your brother should try to leave. I was going to speak to him tonight. Or earlier, if he appeared. I was going to send him off with a proper escort, all the help he and his gran could want.” His father drew a deep breath and his brows knit. “There was a message.”

“I read it.”

“It was a lie,” his father said. “Or at least, it was intended to give him an excuse.”

“ Youdid it!”

“I fear I did.”

“Then he’s taken off to help her, and it’s a lie?”

“He won’t have gotten a horse. Or passed the gates. The Guard will bring him back.”

“He’ll have walked out. He’ll have taken Paisi’s horse. He’s out there, in the snow.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because if he couldn’t get a horse at the stables, he knows where Paisi’s is, and he was going to ride him to the lodge.”

“What does the lodge have to do with this?”,

“We were going there, and he was going to ride Paisi’s horse, but I said you’d get him a better. But if he’s gone home, and not asked anyone, then he’s gone down and taken Paisi’s horse from the pasture.”