Fortress of Ice

Another tangle, Cefwyn having the current Regent as his queen, gathering the Aswydds into his house on the one side, and the Elwynim Regents on the other, the Marhanen king now bringing into his own bloodline even a little Sihhë lineage—

It might be frightening, for those who had learned to hate the bloody Marhanen as a matter of local faith. Frightening, too for the Quinaltines, who had learned to think of their faith as the king’s only faith—and also for the Bryaltines, who had gotten most of their wealth from Amefin and Elwynim folk greatly opposed to the Quinalt and the Marhanen.

Now a living Sihhë sat in Ynefel, the Regent slept with the Marhanen king, and the duke of Amefel had a half-Marhanen, half-Aswydd boy in his care who might one day overthrow him and dispossess his children.

But Crissand stayed faithful, all the same, knowing that when everything came together, when powers that slept moved again, the world would shake.

Gods, he had had misgivings when Cefwyn chose Festival as the time to bring his firstborn son out of rural obscurity. It had been bravely done, thoroughly in character for Cefwyn, who had all the best traits of the bloody Marhanen, courage and will, and a less favorable one—a tendency to do the very thing that would a

Well, the tactic might work in the field, and even work in politics with the Guelenfolk and the northern provinces, but it was damned dangerous where it regarded Aswydd blood, and forces that couldn’t be seen so readily, forces another Aswydd did recognize, right over his very head.

Dared he think the boy might be right, that that decision of the king to bring the boy to Guelessar had been Worked, and nudged, and moved, very quietly?

Dared he write an honest Aswydd opinion to the Marhanen king? You were bespelled once, into begetting the boy. Don’t do the things you find yourself tempted to do. Don’t corner an Aswydd in hot blood and Marhanen temper… we don’t go at things head-on. We never have. That woman is a prisoner, but she is still aware of her son.

He did add a postscriptum, but not that. He wrote: If you should decide to come to Amefel for any purpose, pray wait for Lord Tristen’s arrival here. Then questions can be asked and answers given.

Tristen, when he did stir forth, tended to a harbinger of troubles. But having Tristen here, whatever the attendant perils of his company, would make him feel ever so much safer.

v

IT WAS A DAMNED GREAT MESS, IN CEFWYN’S OPINION——THE WEATHER DELAYED the messages he hoped for, the Quinaltine fuss simmered on, and he had no word at all from Tristen by any means. He hoped his son had found a quiet place to winter over.

The secret business at the Quinaltine was at least proceeding under Efanor’s direction, the notion of building a new Quinaltine being still closely held in a very small circle, the Holy Father tending toward the pronouncement that the Quinaltine as a physical structure was not unalterable, that it was, with priestly blessing, able to be enlarged—that was the Holy Father’s current position: that they might enlarge the sanctuary forward and move the altar to what was now the front steps, which would make it larger than the Guelesfort itself, and, no, that would not happen… Cefwyn had decided thatmatter before ever it became a whisper on the wind. Efanor had informed the Holy Father, who was balking at utter abandonment of the sacred precinct, and on and on it went.

And he had a hearing to attend on the morrow, a most distasteful hearing, a rural squire dead under unprovable circumstances, six young girls being his sole issue. The eldest, aged twelve, and not particularly outspoken, was betrothed, since his death, to a neighbor and second cousin, Leismond, while the grieving widow had drowned in the same sinking boat, so the report was. The servants had allegedly made off with the household silver, neither servants nor silver being yet found. The fishermen on the estate, meanwhile, had no one seeing to their rights. The marriage document only wanted a royal seal, perfunctorily granted, ordinarily, but he liked nothing about it. Marriage with the girl sent the land to Leismond, who coveted a river access, and the fishery—Squire Widin’s death was in that case suspiciously ironic—and he suspected it just possible the twelve-year-old bride might likewise come to grief within a fortnight of her marriage. He could delay a royal permission until the girl reached majority: that was easy—but the estate was failing fast. He could take temporary lordship of the land, which bordered the royal hunting preserve, cast a number of peasants out of their homes, set up a pliable and seemingly foolish child as a royal ward, denying Leismond or putting him off indefinitely. But that meant the Crown paying out six attractive dowries, or the children forever on the eldest sister’s husband’s charity—and where was he to find a husband besides Leismond who wanted to take in five underage and pe

Gods, he hated cases like this one.

He found himself at that window again, where on a happier day he had looked down on his two sons at practice. The yard was deep in snow, now, and desolate. Aewyn moped about, attending his studies, and having pi

It was such a sad compliance, where there had been such joyous skirting of the rules…

He looked down at snow-covered stones, and measured the depth by the degree to which the rosebush in the corner was buried: only its pruned top and heap of mulch was above the snow, which seemed at its thi

His breath made a fog on the window, a veil between him and the courtyard. And suddenly his vision centered on a disturbance in that fogged glass. A word appeared.

Come, it said. Just that. Come.

Chilling as the first warning, to caution… and what dared he do?

He wanted to rush downstairs on the next breath, call for his horse, and ride, unprepared and unheralded, but a king had obligations… his person to protect, for the kingdom’s sake; documents to sign, matters which had been most carefully negotiated; the fate of two children to decide, that case on which important things rested… not least Efanor’s question of the Quinaltine…

He looked twice more at the window glass, to be absolutely sure, before he wiped it out with his sleeve and left no record.

Tristen had his other son in hand. Tristen wanted him to come to Ynefel. That was what. But it wouldn’t be a matter of his son’s life and death, not with Tristen protecting him. So the urgency was a little less.

He labored through the next few hours, wishing he knew exactly what to do with the Quinaltine, knowing that a priestly fuss was bound to break out in all its fury, with Ninévrisë here with Efanor, and Ninévrisë the higher authority, a Bryaltine, an Elwynim, and the target of all discontent: that worried him most. She was due, when snowmelt came, to take Aemaryen to Elwynor, the baby to be presented to the Elwynim as their heir to the Regency, their Princess, the fulfillment of the Marhanen promise to that kingdom; and she could not delay that journey for her own people, even if she became embroiled in priestly politics on this side of the Lenúalim.