Fortress of Ice, page 19
It was surely more familial devotion than Cefwyn might want displayed, making clear to all the witnessing crowd outside that here was the Aswydd sorceress’s son, the family mistake, in the very heart of the family, embraced by both generations. Cefwyn might not see the shadows running the aisles like spilled ink, might not feel the bands of terror loosed from about his ribs as they passed the doors or see the sunlight as the cleansing force it was.
Otter must not go there again, Efanor said to himself, shaken. He must not go there. Cefwyn’s will or no, he dares not.
He slipped his hand from the boy’s shoulder then, letting Aewyn and Otter go their way in the mistaken blitheness of boys, the darkness inside now past. They made a game of walking together through the snow as they reached the bottom of the steps, kicking it into flurries.
Boys, still. Boys whose fates rested in other hands than their own—
In the hands of grown men, who had to act with the limited understanding they had; and Efanor turned back forthwith toward the Quinaltine, taking an untracked walk toward the priests’ door, along the side of the building, where a wintry, snowy hedge concealed his visit from common view.
He opened the unlocked door, walked into the close, echoing warren that held the private chapels, the robing rooms, the wardens’ chambers, and the storerooms that supplied the less public aspects of the Quinaltine services. He climbed up a flight of narrow steps, and into His Holiness’ less public domain, where the Holy Father, the Patriarch, was shedding the heavy gold miter. His sparse white hair had wisped up into random peaks. He looked like any old man caught in dressing, except for the golden raiments, except for priests and lay brothers who raced up to him to ask questions and receive instructions, departing again at a run. It was a hive overturned, buzzing with distress and worry.
“Your Holiness,” Efanor said.
“Your Grace, the spot is back. It’s back, it’s on the new stone, and it’s larger. The whole city will see the mark!”
“Shut the doors.”
“Shut the doors? It’s Thanksgiving, the day before Praise. I have another service to hold in an hour, and the commons at eventide. We can’t shut the doors!”
“We’ve other stones. We’ll lay another stone. The services will be late today.”
“What will we tell the populace?”
“Tell them anything. Lie. Decry excessive drunkenness in the crowd. Say you’ve taken ill. But shut the doors!”
He turned on his heel and left a royal order hanging in the air. The Patriarch might send to the king to confirm it; and he had to reach his brother beforehand.
He lost no time at all, crossing between the Quinaltine and the Guelesfort. Unlike his brother, he moved at times without guard or escort, and this was notably such a moment, in which his plain raiment and his haste was disguise enough, given the sifting fall of snow. The crowd in the square was waiting to be let into services that would, alas, be hours delayed. The guardsmen closing the Guelesfort gate realized who he was and let him pass.
He left melting snow behind him as he climbed the servants’ stairs, up to the level of the royal apartments and straight down the hall… past the boy’s rooms, and past Aewyn’s, straight for his brother’s.
But not without interception. A black-clad guardsman checked him with a hand on his arm, right near his brother’s door.
Idrys.
“Your Grace,” the Lord Commander said in a low voice. “I take it that it was not without disturbance.”
“No,” he said, “it was not.”
ii
IT WAS A VISITATION OF ILL OMEN: CEFWYN SAW IT COMING——EFANOR, PASSING the guard at his chamber doors with no lingering courtesies, went straight to the point, just when the Lord Chamberlain had begun a report, and asked for complete privacy.
“The mark is back,” Efanor said directly.
“No such thing!” Cefwyn said. “I looked. I saw nothing at all.”
“Some see it. Some, among the priests, the Holy Father—as well as your Aswydd son—do. I see it. It will manifest again. I’ve ordered the doors shut, the stone replaced. Your miracle, brother, has failed; worse, it’s gone wrong. All through the service, I was with the boy…”
“Who did nothing!”
“I will warrant myself, by deed or word or invocation, he did nothing— but what he saw, and what I saw, brother—”
“These Lines.”
“You’ve seen them yourself. I know you can see them.”
“I agree they’re there. Once and twice, yes, I’ve seen them elsewhere, in darkest night. Why should we be so blessed this time? And why should it be the boy’s fault? Why not one of the priests doing this?”
“I don’t at all deny that it could be. But the fact is, other things manifest when the boy is there. They frighten him, and what I saw there this morning frightens me. Listen this time, brother. Whatever the cause, for the boy’s sake, for yours, the boy must not go through those doors again.”
Master Crow had come in, sole exception to the request for utter privacy, and stood by, arms folded, the last man on earth who might see mysterious Lines or give way to superstition; but he, like Efanor, had seen far more unaccountable things in his life.
“My lord king,” Idrys said unbidden, “consider, not alone the boy’s mother, but the mother’s sister. Born at a sorceress’s will—”
“You are about to offend me, Crow.”
“Sorcery brought you into the Aswydd’s bed, sorcery conceived a son you will not now disavow—on what advice, yes, has generally been good advice, but Lord Tristen never counseled you to bring that boy into the Quinalt, my lord king. I would wager heavily on that. This was your own notion.”
“Damn you, Crow!”
“Oh, I’ll deserve it more before I’m done speaking. What you do, you do broad and far. You were a wild and froward boy. You are a generous and occasionally excessive man, where it touches your demonstrations of the gentler sentiments: love me, love my boys, or be damned to you all. Do I mistake your intent to press popular sentiment to the wall? You appointed the Holy Father: you can unseat him if he crosses you—but you’ll come to me to do the deed. Oh, I do serve you, my lord king, but His Grace has warned you, and I warn you. I miss Master Grayfrock. He’d mince no words. You find yourself hell-bent on a course that will destroy you—wizards are in it. And is there not a smell of wizardry about this boy? Say no, and I’ll know for a certainty you’re bespelled, my lord king.”
It was one of Crow’s better speeches. It left Cefwyn silent, except to say:
“You advised me drown him at birth.”
“I don’t think I specified the method, my lord king, but I did foresee this moment.”
“So did His Majesty,” Efanor said, “or he’d not have been so stubborn in this matter.”
“Damn both of you! This is not for jest!”
“You brought this boy in,” Idrys said in measured tones, “while I was otherwise occupied. You had no wish to hear my opinions on the matter. But being here now, I give them, gratis.”
“If I’m ever cut, Idrys will bring salt, will he not?”
“The boy,” Efanor said, “has no ill will, nor malice in him, nor practices anything unwholesome. He is innocent, and as Emuin would say, worse than that, he is ignorant. That said, this morning proves he has the Gift, in what measure I cannot tell—but enough: enough to make him a door through which Tarien Aswydd can look into this place, if not enter. The Quinaltine dead are roused… to what, I cannot say. It was no simple sneeze that hurled that censer to the stones. It was a struggle between what thin line protects the Quinaltine and what forces would bring utmost harm on you, on the queen, and on both your sons.”
“No.”
“Hear me. In him, Tarien has what she still lusts after: power. You always meant to take him from his mother. You snatched him from her at birth, you instructed him to fear her. But you had no power to break her desire for him.”
“What would I, kill her and loose another ghost?”
“What will you? Disinherit Crissand’s sons and install this boy as the Aswydd?”
“No. That is not my intent.”
“No place for him, then, in Amefel, where he might live. What shall you teach him to be, then? A captain of the Guard? He can’t ride, or fence. A cleric, perhaps! An Aswydd cleric!”
“If I wanted him a cleric, I’d send him to the Teranthines.”
“If we could find one. Their shrines stand vacant. And even they would fear him. For what do you prepare this boy?”
“I am making a lasting peace between my sons, exactly the reverse of our father’s intent for us.”
“Sons defy their fathers’ wishes. What, when your sons defy yours?”
He could argue with Master Crow. Crow only vexed him. Efanor had a way of cutting deeper, touching his fear for Nevris, for his daughter, and his son, in for the likelihood that Aswydd sorcery had indeed some purpose for his long-ago misdeeds, and revenge as its object. His stomach was upset, and for a moment he averted his face from the arguments, standing, arms folded, face to the windows.
“The boy should go home,” Idrys said.
“Crow.” The Marhanen temper threatened to get the better of him. “Time you left.”
“He’s done all you wished,” Efanor said. “He’s forgiven and blessed, and written in the holy record. And if his gran, as we have now established with Brother Trassin, is ill—if she should get worse—if there were a messenger to arrive with dire news, if the boy were simply to fly home to his gran, as a consequence of such a missive, it would be a great success he has achieved here. Would it not? There would be an explanation for his departure. And talk would die down.”
Cefwyn let go a long, difficult breath.
“I like the boy,” Efanor said. “He has admirable qualities.”
“We are not burying him, damn it all! He will be back!”
“Indeed.” Idrys had not gone away as requested. Cefwyn looked at him, where Idrys leaned, long arms folded, against the royal writing desk. “The stench of fire in the sanctuary is too evident, my lord king. And if we strip another stone from the chapel, and another, why, the priests will pray on bare earth by snowmelt.”
“Aewyn will be in mourning,” Cefwyn said.
“And what ever endeared itself to a boy’s heart like the forbidden?” Efanor asked. “Separate them, and they’ll fly together.”
“And hate me for it.”
“The boy is worried about his gran. This is my advice. Satisfy that. Let a message call the boy home now. Then bring him back in fat, lazy summer, when the streets are dusty and people are in more generous humor. Let the people see him out in the country, hunting with Aewyn, attending harvest dances, and playing pranks like boys, not—not visiting the Quinaltine at the hinge of the year, when everything is at odds. Let the people see his better qualities.”
“Shall I tell you how he misled the stablemaster?” Idrys said smoothly. “Wit and guile together. Those are important qualities.”
Cefwyn’s fist hit the table nearest. “You have what you want, damn you, Crow. And if it’s bad influence you want, you’re sending him closest to it.”
“You will be sending him back to Paisi’s gran, with due warning, and a little wiser about the wide world. In all these years, he’s been safe there.”
“I’ll want to know the rumors out of Amefel,” Cefwyn said, “with no salt or sauce on them.”
“That you shall,” Idrys said. “But nearer at hand, there is the spy the Holy Father settled in the boy’s rooms. That man should be fed a careful diet in the next few hours—for the Holy Father’s benefit.”
“I’ll see to it,” Efanor said.
“Feed him what you like,” Cefwyn said to Efanor’s departing back, “but get him out the Guelesfort doors within the hour. And you may tell the Holy Father that the Quinalt will resolve this matter, or their king will be offended. We are well certain that through lack of zeal on their part—perhaps even conspiracy against us, for political reasons—they have damaged the stones and attempted this threat to the Crown.”
Efanor stopped dead. “I would hesitate at this point to declare war on the Holy Father.”
“The Holy Father will not have my ear, I say, until this business is smoothed over. I’m sure you can state that position with sufficient diplomacy.”
“Shall I advise the boy to prepare?” Efanor asked,
Cefwyn shook his head and cast a look at Idrys. “One of your men can contrive a message from Amefel. Do that first. Let him come into the hall, spread gossip in the kitchens, the usual thing.”
“Whenever my lord king commands,” Idrys said.
“He is my son, damn you. My son, who is nowhere at fault in this. Dispatch your messenger, let that damned spy see it when you deliver it—I fear the boy will have to believe it at least for an hour. I’ll tell the boy the truth directly before supper. Arrange an escort to leave with him, before daybreak tomorrow.”
“My lord king,” Idrys said, grimly satisfied. Efanor said nothing, only left.
iii
OTTER HAD NO APPETITE FOR FOOD. THE LAY BROTHER HAD SET A TRAY DOWN on the table and taken a certain amount back to his little chamber, where he ate and drank as if there were no spot on the Quinaltine floor and no shadow there.
Otter’s stomach knew otherwise. Aewyn had dined with his mother this noon, and asked him to come, too; but he had no desire to sit at table with the queen asking him questions he would not know how to answer.
Was it better today? Her Majesty might ask.
No, he would have to say, if he were honest.
And: What troubles you? she might ask, which was worse, because the dreams were back, just behind his eyelids, whenever he shut his eyes at all, now. He saw fire, firelight on snow, and Henas’amef sitting on its hill, and a trail leading through snowy woods.
He saw Gran’s house as all blackened sticks.
Doors opened and closed. He supposed Brother Trassin had taken his noon dishes out himself, though the man had done little else, and fed himself prodigiously, to judge by the size of the tray he had taken to his rooms.
In time, the man came back from the kitchens. Otter was reading at the time, and only noted it, and kept reading, trying to lose himself in the words.
But the poetry had failed to hold him. It was all about spring and flowers, and outside his windows, snow was coming down again, thick and wild, piling up on the sills—
Snow would be falling, likewise, in Amefel, across the river. Snow would put out fires. Gran was never careless with fires. She never had been.
Brother Trassin came to the doorway of the room with a rolled paper in hand.
“Pray to the gods,” the brother said. “Bad news, poor boy. Very bad news.”
He didn’t understand, at first, what the brother meant. But he laid his book aside on the table. “Sir?” he asked, rising.
“This has come,” Brother Trassin said, and handed him an opened document, its two seals already cracked, two shades of red wax. “I have the greatest concern, boy, the greatest concern for you.”
He was puzzled. He understood he was to read the paper, and held it so the window’s light shone through it. It was from a military clerk’s hand. It said, beyond the opening and name of the Guelen clerk, that a guardsman who had visited Gran had come to the Guelesfort at midafternoon with a spoken message, which was rendered here as the guardsman said it and meant to be delivered to him.
The woman is very ill. She urgently wants her grandson at her side.
It was hardly Gran’s way of saying things, or even a soldier’s, but it had evidently come through a clerk, and the words would have changed. There was, appended to the bottom of the paper another statement, from the Commander of the Dragon Guard: His Majesty excuses you from services.
Somehow—not by the ordinary way messengers came and went—this had gotten into Trassin’s hands. The broken seals—the first was plain, but the second looked like an official seal, with the Dragon on it, in red wax, said that Trassin had read it.
Fear made his stomach upset. He felt a profound shock and all the same, he was angry.
“How did you get this?”
“From the Lord Commander, in your name, boy, as in care of you.”
“And read it? How long have you had it?”
“Dear boy!”
“How long have you had it?”
“Just now I got it. I was in the kitchens. The Guard is forming an escort for you, in the early hours. They are calling up the horses and packing for the journey. They will escort you out before the sun, back to Amefel, to deliver you back into Lord Crissand’s lordship and lose no time about it. I heard this, and went to the Prince, who confirmed it, and I came here, to bring you the message myself, poor boy.”
A message from Gran would have passed Paisi on the road and Paisi would be with her by now. Paisi would be seeing to her welfare. She would be well by now. There was surely no reason to worry—this was at least three days old. Or more than that. And his father knew it, and was sending him with an escort of soldiers—
“Your dreams,” Brother Trassin said, “your dreams of misfortune must have some unhappy foundation in fact, and, poor boy, this instruction is in error. You cannot hope to help your gran. You have your own soul to save, you are written in the book, here you are on the verge of bettering yourself, and this woman sends after you, I can only imagine with what influence at work. I can appeal to the Holy Father—”
“I shall pray for my gran, sir.” His mouth could scarcely shape words that might mollify this man, and he had no idea what to say. Brother Trassin had spoken to him very little except to pray over him, and now wanted to advise him not to go, and he had no idea what his father was about, unless—unless they knew of some reason Paisi hadn’t gotten there.
He wanted to fling the missive down, to run, as fast as he could for better advice. But this man had already been to His Grace. Where was there, but Aewyn? And Aewyn would know nothing, not about messages that came through the Lord Commander.
