Fortress of Ice

Paisi had burns on his hands, when gotten, neither of them was sure. And by the time the sun was rim up on the horizon, Farmer Ost arrived, with his ox hitch and his cart.

“Who’s there?” the farmer called out as he came. “Is ever’body all right?” And Paisi said no, Gran wasn’t, which was the first time they had said that truth to someone else.

“Gods a-mercy,” Ost said, heaving down from his cart. “I saw the fire in the night. I should ha’ come straightway.”

“Weren’t nothin’ ye could do, by then,” Paisi said, and clapped the old man on the arm with a hand hanging shreds of blistered skin.

“Gods, ye’re burnt.”

“Both of us,” Paisi said, and laid his other hand on Elfwyn’s back. “We done all we could. Ain’t no farm left, just the goats an’ the geese, and us and our horses. Gran’d want ye to take the goats an’ geese. Ye been a good neighbor, and ye’re first come. Far as I’m concerned, ye can farm the land, though ye must go to the duke an’ say so, which I’ll agree to. I ain’t no farmer. Never was.”

“What shall we do?” Elfwyn asked. There was no living in the goats and the geese: there never had been. It was all in Gran’s trade in simples.

“I’d say we wait,” Paisi said, “we go to town an’ we wait for him who’s comin’, an’ that’s the best thing. How else are we to feed the horses, ’cept we go to the duke an’ tell him what’s what.”

He wasn’t saying, before Farmer Ost, that there was anything but bad luck to blame, nor did he invoke Tristen by name, but Lord Tristen was, Elfwyn thought, the only choice they had. They caught the goats and geese for Farmer Ost, they told him their names—all but the youngest geese had names, at which Farmer Ost nodded and agreed—though Ost said he would come back for the geese with a proper crate: the goats would go in the cart, tied in place. Paisi threw in the tools, which were more valuable than the goats, and then, with an oddly forlorn look, tossed the bucket into the cart with the rest.

“Just fixed that damn thing,” Paisi muttered, and they went to gather up their rescued horse gear, which was mostly Feiny’s, and had to be fitted on with burned and bleeding fingers.

Osten was off down the road with the goats and the tools.

“I hope he gets back after those geese,” Paisi said, as if it were a matter of ordinary business. He tried to talk in an ordinary way, but Elfwyn was in no sort of spirits to talk at all, now that they faced the ride back to Henas’amef.

I did it, he kept thinking. I did it. I made her angry. She’d already told me what she would do, and I was a fool. I brought it on.

The town guards questioned them as they came in. “What’s happened with you?” one asked, and Paisi answered, “Candle burned the house down, I guess. We’re to see the duke.”

There was a frown at that. There was, on the one hand, the evidence of wealth, in the horses, and of disaster and bad luck, in the soot that blackened both of them. But Elfwyn showed the ring on his grimy hand, and the guards immediately let them pass.

“Ye want one of us should come up wi’ ye?” the senior asked.

“No,” Elfwyn said. “Thank you.” Nothing seemed real or right. His whole hand tingled, and yet he didn’t feel the sense of threat he was accustomed to feel: it was a furtive presence watching him.

She knew, he thought. Maybe, hurting him, she’d hurt herself—maybe gotten the pain of his burns. He didn’t know, nor wanted to go close to her, but he had no choice but go to Lord Crissand as their immediate lord, and the source of all help. He knew Paisi was right.

They rode halfway up the hill, to the Bryalt shrine, where there was a house of healing, and a fountain for washing on the public side street. They washed there, letting the soot stain the water, and the lay brother who attended the place came out to provide his services.

“We have no money,” Elfwyn informed the old man first of all. “It went in the fire. But you can ask the duke.”

The old man looked at them, and looked at the two fine horses, which told a different story, then shook his head and waved his hand. “You wait,” he said, “you wait,” and he went into his little shrine. He came out with unguents and bandages, and would have tended Elfwyn’s burns first, but Elfwyn insisted the man deal with Paisi’s hands, which were much worse.

He was only getting to Elfwyn’s hurts when a panting handful of the duke’s own servants showed up from the street, bringing more unguents, and two cloaks, which they refused to put on, being so dirty—“I can’t,” Elfwyn said, and by then the pain and the exhaustion all but overwhelmed Paisi, who simply sat down against the fountain rim and had his head in his hands. He felt like doing the same.

“His Grace had a report,” the foremost servant said, “and wishes you may come up to the hall as soon as you can.”

It was what they had to hope for, on a day in which they had lost every material possession except two horses they couldn’t feed, and Elfwyn bent down, the one to make the decisions now, as Paisi had done, down at Gran’s farm.

“We have to get up and go,” he said, his head close to Paisi’s, his bandaged hand on Paisi’s shoulder. “I’ll help you get up. When we get up there, there’ll be a place to stay, a roof over our heads, and whatever we need. The duke has sent his own servants down. I think the gate-guards or the priest must have sent word up the hill. Paisi, can you stand up?”

Paisi managed it, and with the servants’ help, and the priest’s, they got onto the horses and rode up the hill and through the gate to the stables.

There they turned the horses over to His Grace’s stablemaster and limped on into the scullery, where His Grace’s own physician came down to see to them, and the chief of his servants came to see they had drink enough, and a little watered wine, and warm water to wash in, besides new clothing.

Servants led the way to rooms upstairs, in an arrangement not unlike the Guelesfort, though much older. It was all carved, dark wood, and there was, again, a small servants’ quarters where the staff wanted to bed Paisi down.

“No,” Elfwyn said. “He’s not my servant. He’s my brother.”

“I ain’t,” Paisi said quietly. “Cousins, at best, by adoption, as is, an’ I’m his man, an’ shall be. But I’ll stay close by m’lord tonight, if ye will—he’ll rest best if I do.”

It was quiet, after the servants left. It was deathly quiet.

And, clothes and all, lying atop the coverlet, they went to bed.

“We’re back where we was,” Paisi said, lying on his side by him. “ ’Cept it ain’t the Guelesfort.”

“It’s my fault!” Elfwyn cried, tears welling up, and Paisi put his hand on his shoulder, gently so.

“Ain’t. Gran’d have a fit to hear ye say it, so don’t. If it was her, lad, that was an old, old war, your ma wi’ Gran an’ Lord Tristen. Ye ain’t nothin’ t’ that fight, yet. Ye may be. But ye can’t be yet, so no such talk. If ye was a wizard, say, I’d ask why ye didn’t See it, ye know—”

“I did See it. I Saw it in my dreams.”

“Oh, aye, an’ maybe I saw fire, too, which could mean Gran might burn the soup: it’s one thing to See, it’s another to know what ye Seen, an’ still another t’ stand up an’ fight the likes of her.”

“I tried, and I shouldn’t have gone up there. I thought I could do it, and I was an utter fool. I thought the ring would keep me safe, and I didn’t think about Gran and you not being protected, the same.”

“Aye, but Gran were a witch, an’ Saw clear as can be if it was in her to See it. You was there, lad, right enough, but there was Lord Tristen himself could ha’ stepped right in—he can do that. He can arrive like lightnin’. I know’t him to do it. An’ he didn’t come, nor know ye was steppin’ into trouble, so ye can’t blame yourself for not knowin, nor’d Gran ever blame her Otter for what a witch herself couldn’t stop.”

He wept for Gran, quietly. It was all he had left to do. Sleep came down on him in the middle of the day. He slept into dark, and waked when servants brought supper in, but neither he nor Paisi ate much.