Fortress In The Eye Of Time, page 50
?Gods save us, then,? Tasien said.
?The Marhanen will see me. He will deal fairly with me. My lord of Ynefel swears that he will. Does he not??
?I shall ask him to,? Tristen said. ?He is my friend.?
?And of course this is our King,? Tasien said, ?who cedes Ynefel to his master the King of Ylesuin and takes it back again in fief—gods have mercy, m?lady! A friend of the Marhanen? This is a man owing homage to the Marhanen! Ask him!?
?Are you?? Nin?vris? asked, looking at Tristen. ?Have you sworn homage to him??
?I swore to defend Cefwyn and to be his friend.?
There was heavy silence in the tent. The men were not at all pleased, and did not intend to accept him, he was certain; but he would not lie to the lady, who would know the truth in that gray place—he at least had no skill to deceive her.
?Gentle lords,? Nin?vris? said, ?at least let us try. Shall we sit here until they find us??
?This is madness,? Tasien said.
?So you called my father mad,? Nin?vris? said, ?yet you loved him with all your hearts. You came here to die for him notwithstanding your own lands, your own wives, your own children. I shall not lead you all back to Elwynor only to die, m?lords. I have another choice. I can seek alliance .... ?
?With the Marhanen! Gods save us, my lady.?
?I will not see your heads on Ilefinian?s gates, sirs! Nor will I marry As6yneddin! You cannot ask that of me!?
?Will you marry this wandering fool and beg the lords of Elwynor swear oaths to the Marhanen? That is what they seem to suggest!?
?Have respect!? Nin?vris? said. ?Have respect for my father, Tasien, if not for me. Lower your voices! Is the whole camp to hear??
?Lord Tasien,? Tristen said quietly, overwhelmed with anxiety, though he feared that his suggesting anything at the moment was a cause for them to oppose it. ?Sir, we are under threat, of wizardry if you call it that. This place feels worse and worse to me. —Lady, if your lord father can do anything, I think we should do exactly what he said, and soon.?
?Do we speak of wizardry?? the lord called Haurydd asked. ?Is that what we have to hope for??
?Yes, sir. So did the lord Regent hope for it. And if we wait we may lose all the hope he had. We should bury him and leave here.?
?My father,? Nin?vris? said, ?warned us against going outside these walls after dark.?
?Yes, if there were safety to be had inside. But this place is losing its safety, as Ynefel became unsafe. I do feel so. We should go. Leave the wagon. There is no way to take it. There are men searching for me. There must be. We can find them on the road and they will protect us.? ?Run like thieves, you mean. To Marhanen men.?
?Sir, this is very serious. You should do what the Regent asked. There is danger.?
?Read me no lessons in my lord?s service. And we can afford the decency of daylight,? Tasien said angrily, ?for a man who, if you are our King, may have kept your throne safe, sir, little though you may love me for saying it and little though I think there is any likelihood.? ?Tasien!? the lady said.
?My lady, I do not respect him. I do not respect a soft-handed man who bears every insult. He agrees to everything. He has no authority but his orders to bring us into ambush. Perhaps there is some sort of protection in this ruin. He certainly urges us away as hard as he can!?
?We must go, sir.? Arguments could easily confuse him. Words betrayed him. And danger was coming closer, a threat that distracted him, a threat changing and growing by the moment, as if the venture of himself and the lady into that gray place had attracted unwelcome attention, and now it had turned toward them and come to do them harm.
Besides the prowling of the Shadows, there had arisen a sound, a thumping in the earth that reminded him most of horses. ?For all our sakes, Lord Tasien.?
?Tasien,? the lady said, ?we shall go. We shall bury my father, and we shall go as he says, to speak to Cefwyn Marhanen.?
?This man will not fight your enemies!? Tasien said. ?Is this a King? Is this the King we have waited for??
?Sir.? Tristen looked Lord Tasien square in the face. ?I am not afraid of you. I do fear for you.?
Tasien stared back at him, and the anger seemed to desert him for a different expression—almost. ?If we go, then we shall have you for a Hostage, lord of Ynefel. If Cefwyn does not respect a Truce, and attacks our lady, I will kill you myself.?
The Words made sense, and offered a way out of this place, both practical and frightening. ?If it pleases you, Lord Tasien, and if it please the lady, and if we can leave this place, I have no fear of giving you such a promise.?
?I thought,? Emuin said, his fist firmly about a cup of mulled wine. ?I have thought about it and thought about it, m?lord King, and, though in my earliest youth I saw all the royal house of the Sihh? and knew their faces, and, more, knew them in ways a wizard knows—I had no impression I knew the lad. It worried me that night I first saw him and realized what he was: I told myself that of all the dead souls at Althalen Mauryl might have chosen, he could well have chosen Elfwyn?s true brother Aswyn, who died at birth—as a natural restraint upon the one who had that body ....?
?We know that story,? Cefwyn said impatiently. They were upstairs in his apartments. Idrys stood with his shoulder against the door, making certain there were no eavesdroppers even among the trusted guards.
?This is not Elfwyn. Nor any stillborn babe. He is skilled in the sword and horsemanship, which I do not think comes in the cradle. The name, old master. Favor me with the name, no other, no explanations, no long narrative.?
?Plainly—Barrakk?th, m?lord prince—M?lord King.? Emuin was more disturbed than he had ever seen the old man. ?The founder of his line. Or one of his cousins. I do believe so.?
?A fair guess,? Idrys said from across the room. ?A name that can be written. You could have spared a messenger to say so before now.?
?Peace, sirs.? Cefwyn grew more than impatient. ?We knew at Emwy he was no scholar-king. But whence this? Tristen?s is not cold hearted, nor self-seeking, nor a wanton killer. Barrakk?th was. Why Barrakk?th??
?Mauryl did not like your grandfather.?
It was like the turns of Tristen?s speech: it startled him into laughter.
?None of us liked my grandfather. My grandmother never liked my grandfather. Tell me something more dire than that, sir! Where is your proof? Prove to me your notion!?
?To Mauryl, the Marhanen as successors to the Sihh? were a choice of chance, at best. The Marhanen were there to take advantage of the situation, but your grandfather was very uneasy with Mauryl. Remember that Mauryl was not of this age, not of whatever blood men share. He had no loyalties even to the Galasieni, who were supposedly his people. Elfwyn?s father had besought—call it the gods, the gods some Sihh? worshipped if they worshipped any at all—to raise his stillborn son. The blood had run very thin by that time, and Elfwyn?s father certainly couldn?t have raised the dead. Except—he opened a door. As ?t were. To a dead wizard.?
?Hasufin Heltain,? Idrys supplied, and Emuin cast him a troubled look.
?We have had to seek our own answers,? Cefwyn said. His leg was paining him, acutely, he was peevish, and trying to be patient. ?Many of which, it seems, are on the mark, master Emuin. Go on, sir, don?t dole it out like alms. Give me your reasoning. Tell me what you fear happened at Althalen, and why this is Barrakk?th.?
?Young King, Mauryl fought this wizard in Galasien. Mauryl chose in Barrakk?th and his cousins an agency of destruction so ruthless—so ruthless—there is a Galasite word for it ... so lacking in attachment. Yet honest. Mauryl did call him honest. He contended with wizards by magic—magic, not wizardry, mark you—and with men with the sword. I don?t know why. Mauryl said they were not Men as we understand Men to be. The true Sihh? had an innate, untaught power that would not be deterred. What the true Sihh? willed, so I understand, and am beginning to fear, wizardry does not easily prevent.?
?A god,? Idrys said dryly, arms folded, and walked back to stand at the tableside. ?You describe a god, master grayfrock.?
?Something very like.? Emuin?s voice was hoarse. He had a large gulp of the heated wine. ?Something far too like, for my taste. And the Quinalt and its witch-hunting have been too thorough in their hunt for wizards. There are few wizards left worth the name, m?lord King. There is no one to contain either Hasufin or Barrakk?th.?
?Oh, come now,? Cefwyn said. He had until then been concerned, but drew a longer and easier breath, and massaged the fevered wound in his upper leg. ?Our Tristen? A ravening monster? I think not.? ?Ask Barrakk?th?s enemies.?
?Idrys tracked a Hasufin Heltain through generations of musty chronicles. And found a Hasufin in the royal family. So what did become of him? Is he still alive? Or haunting Althalen—or what??
?My lord, I killed that child, I, myself, at Mauryl?s behest. I killed Hasufin?s last mortal shape.? The old man rocked to and fro in discomfort and had another large drink, the last. ?Do you suppose, m?lord King, there is anything left in the pot??
Emuin—kill a child? ?Idrys,? Cefwyn said, feeling a chill himself, and Idrys looked, filled another goblet, poured more wine into the pot and swung it further out over the fire to warm.
Emuin took a sip, seeming as glad to warm his hands as his insides. He looked frail tonight. His skin was pale and thin, his lately drenched hair and beard were drying in wisps of white. His shoulders had grown very thin.
I dare not lose him, Cefwyn thought. I dare not. ?And what,? he asked Emuin, determined to unravel the matter, ?what, precisely, was Mauryl?s judgment on Elfwyn? Was it his father?s sin? Was it retribution??
?It was simple fear, my lord King. Fear not only of Hasufin, dreadful enough, but the union of Hasufin?s very great wizardry and the innate Sihh? magic, dilute as it had grown by that day. No one could predict what would happen—with a wizard potent enough to bring himself back from death, joined to a Sihh? body. One simply didn?t know.?
?One thought you priests knew such things to a fare-thee-well,?
Idrys said.
?My lord King, I will not bear with his humor. I do not think I have deserved this. This is difficult enough to explain.?
?You might have been here,? Idrys said sharply.
Emuin clamped his lips tight. ?Aye, that I might, and added my bit to the brew. You might have been very sorry, Lord Commander, if I had swayed to the left or the right the force that Mauryl had set on course.
His spell was still Summoning, still is, sir. I warned you of it, and I would not to this day put my meager working in the path of that force, no more than I would tamper with a river in flood without knowing what lay downstream—which is the difference between myself and those that meddle with things they do not understand, sir, as is the habit of some people I could name!?
?Peace, peace, good gods, I had forgot the sound of you both under one roof.? Cefwyn poured his own wine from a pitcher on the table, unmulled and untampered-with, and hoped for surcease of the ache in his leg that now beat in time with the ache in his skull. ?So you don?t know, in sum, what we are dealing with.? ?I have had years to think on it.?
?More years than most, as a matter of curiosity,? Idrys said.
?Peace! Damn you, Idrys, let us have his account undiverted.?
?Tristen is at Althalen,? Emuin said.
?You are certain of that.?
?I am certain. So, in a wizardly sense, is Hasufin. And something—let loose as a consequence of his dealing. I don?t like to think of it. Quickly!
Ask me another question!?
?The same question! What did Mauryl intend? What are we dealing with? Why Barrakk?th??
?The same answer, my lord King: the Sihh? were Mauryl?s choice to succeed the folk of Galasien, nine hundred years ago. Mauryl loosed Barrakk?th on the south, from what Mauryl claimed to be his origins up far in the Hafsandyr. No one knew more than that. Barrakk?th arrived well versed in arms, he subdued what is now Amefel and Elwynor and Lanfarnesse with brutal thoroughness. He would not go among Men, but ruled as High King from Ynefel, which was in its present gruesome state: he ordered the building of Althalen and its pleasures, but he rarely stirred from Ynefel except for war, and, save once, he left the begetting of heirs to the handful of Sihh? that arrived with him—who amply attended that duty.?
?He enchanted those faces into the walls?? Cefwyn asked. ?I take it, then, that those rumors are true.?
?They are true. They are most awfully true, and contribute to the strength of the place. All I know is what Mauryl said: that the walls of Ynefel became what they are during the battle between Barrakk?th and Hasufin Heltain.?
?And Mauryl.?
?And Mauryl.?
?Who seems to have been a damned busy man. Why should he care what this Hasufin did? He was old. He was dying.?
?My lord king. He is dead. I do not know that he was dying.?
?Meaning??
?He lost, m?lord. He lost to his enemy. Now we have Hasufin to deal with. But Mauryl was not a man to go down without revenge. We also have Tristen.?
?Revenge on whom??
?That is the question. What did Mauryl promise the Marhanen when he stopped Hasufin the second time? To rule forever? I think not. Mauryl promised the Elwynim a King. And was it for love of them—or for some sort of balance with the Sihh? themselves? Far less did he love your grandfather, or your father, or care to leave Ynefel long enough to inquire what manner of King you would be. Was this the man they called Mauryl the Kingmaker, who, surrendering all power to the Marhanen and a regency in Elwynor, locked himself away from worldly power and said nothing for eighty years? Was this the action of the man who ruled behind the thrones of two kingdoms? I don?t believe he went down without arranging something to settle accounts.?
There was no love wasted between Emuin and Mauryl. He saw that, too. And possibly it colored all Emuin said.
?He could have sent a plague on my grandfather. None of us would have cared. He sent us a gentle and reasonable young man.?
?So I apprehended. Mauryl took no oath to your father, neither of homage nor even of fealty. Little it would have mattered to him.?
?Tristen has. He swore to defend me. Knowledgeably. He did swear, Emuin.?
?I am aware. Perhaps that is the test Mauryl set you: to deal with young Barrakk?th.?
?Like lessons? Like that? Guess the reason? Guess the purpose??
?My old student does remember.?
?Damned right I remember, old master. But is that all your theory??
?It?s my most hopeful one. And direst magic may have an escape, however improbable. Therefore I said, Win his love. We wizards are cranky, impatient sorts. We live long—unless we abandon our practice-and we grow damned impatient with fools. That is the worst thing about living long. One sees so many mistakes repeated, over and over and over.
It makes one a little mad and desperately angry. Mauryl—was a master wizard. A Man, I have always thought, in the sense that he was not Sihh? himself. But one never knew his loyalties.?
?One never knew,? Idrys echoed him. ?And what master do you serve? ?Win his love, m?lord Prince.? ?Win his good will?—all the while telling us nothing of his nature. It is damned late, sir priest, to come to us with your advice!?
?Now you understand me. Not then. Now you?ve dealt with him. I see fear, sir, that may still destroy you; but I see respect for what is by no means like yourself. You are dealing with your greatest enemy. His good will is still your best hope.?
?I said he was a wizard,? Idrys muttered, and paced away again, rubbing the back of his neck.
?He is not a wizard,? Emuin muttered under his breath.
?This man,? Cefwyn said, ?whatever he is, this man you advised me to win, this friend, this sworn friend of mine, is nothing evil—a plague on your suspicions, Emuin. I do not believe he is my enemy. I refuse to believe it.?
?That might be best,? Emuin said. ?All along, that might be best.?
?Don?t read me such lessons! You think something else, sir. Out with it.?
?That wizardry at its highest is not cattle-curses. That what the Sihh? are, wizards struggle to be. Hasufin was not a greater wizard than Mauryl.
But prone to cheat. Too willing to work in the physical realm, that was what Mauryl said. An assassination here, a tweak of wizardry there-Mauryl despised him. He?d brought Hasufin very far along before Hasufin?s nature became clear to him, is what I very much suspect. Wizardry requires a man search himself very deeply and face all his most secret faults—lest they work the spells, that was what Mauryl used to say: that there comes a point when one realizes one has power, and the faults work the wizard as the wizard works the spells.?
?So with kings,? Cefwyn said, feeling they had wandered far from the subject.
?So with Tristen, too. This is the trap Mauryl set you and me and the Elwynim all in one.? ?You?ve lost me.?
?To live life without him, my lord, or to bring back the reign of magic over the world of Men by our own choice. The Quinalt, with its holy abhorrence of wizardry, has left us all but unarmed against that boy?s lightest wish, and hope to the powerless gods we find better help. Mauryl has left me the last, the last teacher of the higher wizardry that stands any chance of denying that young man what he wishes.?
?To all I know,? Cefwyn said, feeling a most unaccustomed and angry moisture in his eyes, ?what Tristen most wishes is my happiness. What are we saying? Tristen named us an enemy! And yet we?re speaking of Tristen as the danger!?
?All the same,? Idrys said, ?all the same, I hear what Emuin is saying, my lord King. And it disturbs me. What both of you say—disturbs me profoundly.?
He cast a frowning look at Idrys, and knew that there was yet another danger that Emuin did not reckon of: Idrys? loyalty, and Idrys? perception. Idrys had taken oaths of homage to him. Of fealty to him. But in the challenge to the Marhanen that those oaths had never anticipated, he found himself without sure knowledge what Idrys? attachment was: to him, as King; to the realm; to whatever man Idrys served—or to his own unexpressed sense of honor. Idrys measured things by some scheme that had never yet diverged from his personal welfare.
