Fortress in the Eye of Time

CHAPTER 18

The sun was far declined and red when the remaining lords arrived. Black-bearded Sovrag of Olmern and his rivermen hit the town out of the northwest, having navigated the Lenúalim through Marna, and having caused the gate wardens of the lower town great consternation when he insisted to bring a large clutch of his own guards about him into the town, the men of the Black Wolf banner, rougher and less mannered than their lord.

So Cefwyn heard on a message run up from lower town. He sent down to the Zeide gate to let the man and his escort in, and met him in the lower hall, himself, to his guardsʼ dismay.

“Ha, Marhanen-lord,” Sovrag called out — he towered over most men, this black wolf of Olmern, who had taken his lordship rather than inherited it. He was nearly as wide as two men: no common horse could carry him, and he most-times went by boat, where boats could carry him. His voice was fit to rattle the glass of Herynʼs fine windows.

But Idrys, turning up at Cefwynʼs shoulder, murmured, “That escort of his is show for Cevulirn and Umanon,” for there was bad blood there, and no secret of it — and the camp he had designated for the Olmernmen was to the townʼs north, on the river approach, well away from Umanon.

Cefwyn walked forward and gave his hand to the lord of Olmern—“Well,” he said, “well, my lord of Olmern, welcome to the hall. I doubt youʼll need quite so many men — but I would most gladly borrow them for posting; my own guard is stretched thin, and I trust your folk had sleep on the river, true?”

He had last met Sovrag on the occasion of his investiture as heir. Sovrag had seemed truly giant then, less so now, grace of a span or two he had grown.

Likewise he knew that Sovrag in days past had raided on the river as much as he now traded on it. And trade with Elwynor he might, too, but never quite hide the fact: he was an unsubtle man.

A greeting hand-to-hand was surely not the welcome Sovrag usually met, and certainly not the one he knew he was due for his armed incursion. It was a test, Cefwyn reckoned; a test of his welcome and possibly a test of the Aswydds, with whom relations were not cordial. But his bearded face split in a grin. “Your Highness,” Sovrag said, and clapped him on the arm fit to leave marks. “If youʼve use for these scoundrels of mine, be sure theyʼll follow orders. Gods, yeʼve grown to a proper man, Marhanen-lord.”

“Youʼll find water and wood at the north gate, space for you and your bodyguard in the southwest tower — ample space there. The Ivanim and the Imorim are lodged easterly, and I am lodged between.”

Sovrag burst into laughter. “Aye, mʼlord Prince!” he said.

“Iʼll send you there, then. Boy! Show mʼlord to the southwest tower, and put him in the hands of the staff.”

And, dismissed to the guidance of an apprehensive Guelen page, Sovrag went his way with his escort shambling about him, loaded with rivermenʼs canvas bags, and armed with the dirks and hooks their trade made more useful than swords.

Within the hour a fight erupted between an Ivanim and a riverman of Olmern in the stableyard, and Pelumerʼs folk of Lanfarnesse had ridden into the midst of it.

“Can they stand?” Cefwyn asked of Idrys.

“The Ivanim and the Olmernman? Scarcely but they will live, mʼlord Prince, except your justice. Guelenfolk separated them. Amefin were laying bets.”

“Bring the two. I will see Pelumer here, too.”

Idrys went. Cefwyn shook his head and called Annas for wine, and when it had come, drank it slowly to settle his stomach.

He feared now for what he had done, having the actuality of the lords of the region within the Zeide, a troublesome mix of highborn men within, and old feuds seething among their men camped without the town.

There were, added to the mix, the inns, the wineshops, the Amefin women, peasant cottages, and the Olmernmen in force inside the walls, who were never more than river pirates save by the grace of the Kingʼs grant of a township to the man Sovrag had knifed in a dice game.

The prince, meantime, feared Herynʼs subtlety, if he invited him to the formalities tonight: Behold me, how I am wronged. He feared as well the subtlety of Herynʼs staff, if he excluded the lord of the Amefin from festivities in his own hall.

Orien and Tarien would ply their talents to the same end. Cevulirn was too cold for them, and Pelumer too wise, but Sovrag and Umanon, each with a different sort of vanity, both were vulnerable.

Men approached the door. He took a chair at the table, in front of the account books, still with the wine in hand, and with a sidelong glance surveyed the bloody pair that the Guelen guard brought him, men chained together.

And ignored them a time, in favor of the accounts — while their wounds doubtless ached and they had time to realize together that they had broken the peace of the house with their brawling, under the hospitality of the Crown.

There was hanging for that offense.

“My lord,” said another page, “Pelumer Duke of Lanfarnesse.”

And that was superfluous, for there immediately, past the overwhelmed page, was Pelumer at the door, and Cefwyn left his chair and his wine with a quick smile and a welcome. Pelumer was the oldest of Ylesuinʼs barons, white-haired and bearded — with his Heron banner, a frequent winter visitor at the court in Guelemara. His sun-seamed face was a sight, as it were, from home, though Pelumerʼs land of Lanfarnesse was southernmost of all of the southern lords.

It was more than a handclasp: he embraced the aging lord with the same warmth he had felt when he had been a boy and Pelumerʼs hair had been darker. Pelumer had given him his first lesson at archery. Now he felt the warmth of a friend of the Marhanens, and of safe company.

“Ah, Pelumer, how good to see you!”

“Gods bless,” said Pelumer, his frown-lines cracking into a broad smile. “And how weary you look.”

“You are the shield at my back, Pelumer. The only man in the realm who has, I can say before them all, no feud with any other. And I need your rangers out along the border; I need their furtive watch over the river and the woods.”

“Iʼve had reports, mʼlord Prince. Some of which you should be made aware of. And my rangers are already out.”

“I will hear. I will most gladly hear them. — My page will guide you to quarters for yourself and whatever guard you feel sufficient — many of them, if you please. Guard yourself as you see fit. Warn your men as I know you do. And we meet tonight in hall. In an hour. Time for you and yours to settle, but only that.”

“No word of the cause?”

“Not yet.”

“Your Highness,” Pelumer said, and bowed, and withdrew.

In all of this the malefactors remained. And counting that the prince had yet to dress for hall, and that he had need to make some disposition of the case before him to make a hard point with dissent among the common men:

“Olmernman, your name.”

“Denyn, mʼlorʼ.”

“Yours, Ivanim?”

“Erion Netha, my lord Prince, of Tas Arin. — But, I assure Your Highness, I was not the one who—”

“Be still!” he snapped, and the men stayed motionless as fawns in a thicket.

“Who draws in despite of the Crown or the Crownʼs officer, dies. That is the law, for lord and man. Erion and Denyn, you have disrespected my hospitality. I claim your persons from your lords for my justice. That is the Kingʼs law.”

They were pale, those two, but no word came from them. They were alike in stature, but the Ivanim Erion was a slim, hard-eyed man in his prime, and the stocky Olmernman Denyn was a youth whose beard had hardly started.

“A hanging offense, no honorable death there, none that your kindred could cherish for their comfort. Is it, sirs?”

The boyʼs lips trembled, but the boy set his jaw. From the Ivanim there was a tightening of the jaw but no more protest, no bravado either.

And the waste of such men — one young enough to be on his first muster, and perhaps too young to restrain his temper or his foolishness, and one old enough to know better than the fight heʼd gotten into — filled his mouth with distaste.

“You are mine,” he said, “and for your mockery of my law you will learn to serve it, both of you. You will stand guard at my door.”

“My lord,” the guard sergeant protested.

“Dead, they avail nothing. You will stand that duty, sirs, until Idrys sees fit to relieve you. You will eat with that Guelen unit and bed with them together, chained as you are. No one will remove that chain for any cause, and should one of you die for any cause but in my service, I will flay the survivor alive and burn his fatherʼs house. Do you hear me, Erion and Denyn?”

Tears brimmed in the boyʼs eyes, and the Ivanimʼs bloodless face looked numb as he nodded.

“Then take up your post,” Cefwyn said, and they bowed and went, limping and bloody and unwashed as they were, and still chained together.

He passed them that evening as they stood among the Guelen who would watch the room and not attend him to hall. Blood had dried on their wounds and their faces were ashen with pain and fatigue. He lingered and looked on them, and they gazed on him with apprehension.

“The Guelen do not love their company,” Idrys said as they walked together.

“Does any province of this realm love another?” Cefwyn asked. “This is the third generation since the Sihhë kings. Look you back at them. Is this not a perfect type of my fatherʼs kingdom?”

“Will you mend it by being murdered by them?”

“You will not move me, Idrys.”

“By your own will, you risk your life.”

“Go. You know what I will have you to do.”

“My lord.” Idrys stopped at the stairs. Cefwyn did not look back. The guards that stayed with him were sufficient, and failing those, there was still the bezainted leather and the dagger and sword at his belt.