Fortress of Ice

He reached the door—the door was barred, but not guarded above: he suspected the guards didn’t want to stand that near, but the one had come up the steps with him and lifted the large, protected bar—it was necessary to free the bar, first, from a central restraint which no prying from within the room could reach. “You knock loud,” the man said, before he opened it. “You give it three good hard raps when you want out. I’ll stand right out here.”

“Thank you,” he said, and as the door opened, stepped inside.

It was a modest place, a room with figured carpets, a bed surrounded with draperies, and an alcove with windows that had shutters, though his mother rarely drew them. She stood by one of those five windows, the sunlight falling on a face that still was beautiful. She had red hair, and it flowed down her back, loose as a maiden’s—or a witch’s locks.

“Mother,” he said. “I take it you want to see me.”

“Ah, my dear boy.” She came toward him, grandly offering to take his hands, and, mindful of what his right hand had, he gave only his left. “What,” she exclaimed, pressing the offered hand in both of hers and leaning forward. “No kiss for your mother?”

He hadn’t the fortitude. He didn’t recoil, but he did step back. “A kiss when you’ve won it. And you haven’t. You’ve tried your best to make me miserable.”

“Oh?” she asked, and turned her shoulder, walked a space into the shadow. “How is your father?”

“Fair-minded and honest.” He found himself launched in a battle of cold words, an art he had learned from her. He had had as much as a year to think how he would meet her questions next time, yet always she confounded him in her own game. He gave up subtlety this time, his newest mode of attack, which took all the courage he had. “You sent the dreams, Mother. I know you did, so don’t lie to me. I’ve been to Lord Tristen. He advises me carry the name you gave me, so I will, from now on. Does that satisfy you?”

“I’m sure it’s no great matter to me,” she said, “since you’re an ungrateful boy. You always were. And how isthe Sihhë-lord?”

“He’ll speak for himself when he comes here,” he said, “and he will, soon. He didn’t like what he heard.”

“Oh, did you bear tales? And have youcome to threaten me?”

“I came to warn you. He will come here. He’s not pleased. Neither am I, Mother. So if you want one soul in all the world to be sorry for you—”

“To be sorry for me?” Her laughter was silver, and her hand flew to her breast, delicate and eloquent. “Dear boy, I don’t need your charity. You may need mine. Your sojourn in Guelemara was far from happy and fortunate, lad! The priests cursed you, didn’t they? Quinalt priests will never love you. Quinalt priests dug up our dead when your dear father hanged your young uncle: at your dear father’s orders, our graves were emptied, and the moldering dead went into exile, all, all bundled into a common cart and hauled off across the border, for the sanctity of Amefel, you understand—to satisfy the Bloody Marhanen’s spite. Not enough to kill us and exile us. He set up that traitor downstairs, that smiling, perfidious man, who doles out his charity to you—does it taste that sweet?”

He forgot, a

“Your father lied to you. Lied, boy. Where was his concern for you, hiding you away, herding goats, peddling pe

“You named me Elfwyn.”

“Elfwyn you should be, and are not! Elfwyn! The Sihhë blood runs in your veins as it runs in mine, and, twice fool, you go riding off to Tristen Sihhë, as if he has any reason to protect you and see you rise in the world.”

“He protected me once.”

“From your own father! From the Bloody Marhanen! And Tristen kept you and me alive because he himself wanted a hold on your father.”

“I don’t think he needed that one.”

“Little you know.”

“I know my father. I know black from white. And I now know you.”

“Oh, there was a great deal of gray in that decision, indeed there was. You really should learn to live in that territory. It’s safer, for the likes of you, neither fish nor fowl, neither Man nor Sihhë. A royal goatherd—what a life for you! You’ll inherit the goats. You’ll deliver cheese and milk to the duke’s table like a good fellow. Oh, damn your soft heart, boy, don’t be blind to those who have everything to gain if you bow the head and tend your goats… and that includes Crissand and his whelps. Now you bear his ring, don’t you? What a day!”

He felt the ring burn on his finger. He should have left, but he knew she would at least give him her arguments, dark as they were: they were often the dark side of truth, and curiosity and dread alike pi

“Tell me,” she said next, “how did you like your legitimate brother?”

“Well enough,” he said, defiant, and knew instantly that staying to enter her next argument was an utter mistake. His mother regarded him at the moment like a morsel on a plate—and said nothing more. He ached to defend Aewyn, and she didn’t even attack.

“And Tristen,” she said. “Sweet, dear Tristen. Did he teach you magic?”

“He is magical.” His heart beat at his ribs like a creature trapped. “You know that.”

“And did he give you advice?”

Wilder and wilder, that heartbeat. Vision and a word he had utterly forgotten. Did she know how he had failed? “Perhaps he did. Or not.”

“Dear, dear. My son has learned to lie.”

“I’m not sorry for coming here,” he said. “I came to pay my respects and to tell you I’m here, and under what name. Since you gave it to me, I thought in all courtesy you should know. I’ll be going now.”

“You live at their pleasure. You have a right to all of Amefel, and they house you in a hovel with goats.”

“It’s my choice.”

“Fool, it never was your choice. You have the blood to rule, and no priests should dare drive you out like a whipped dog. Was it pleasant, the ride home from Guelessar? Was it pleasant to have the people in town look at you and know the bastard was banished again? Damn them! Damn them all! Why aren’t you angry? You bow, you respect that upstart lord downstairs. This is your province, and you have no knowledge what’s inside these walls and under these stones! Open your eyes, boy, and see what you could have, if you only claimed what’s within these stones!”

Vision, Tristen had said. And now his mother challenged him with riddles, and a dreadful presentiment flitted past the back of his mind. Stones, the word echoed, and his mind saw the masonry downstairs. But he daren’t look, daren’t look at what vision his mother could give him if he let her. He stepped back, felt after the wall, and the door.

“That’s right, that’s right,” his mother mocked him. “Turn your back on your power. Even the old gra

That last lanced through like a knife, right to a sore spot. He wanted not to have people whispering ill about him, he wanted that very much, and in that moment something in him moved very unpleasantly, touching those depths of anger he had never believed he had.