Fortress in the Eye of Time

�So. And what is your name, young stranger in my lands? And what are you to rouse me out of my well-earned bed at this midnight hour?�

�My name is Tristen, sir.�

�No other name?�

�None that I know, sir.�

�And do you live most times at Ynefel, or do you travel about the land, rattling gates and conversing with honest guards?�

Incomprehension grew, and fear became foremost in the youthʼs eyes. �I did live there, sir. But the wind came, and the roof slates fell, and Mauryl�� The youthʼs voice faded altogether, not into tears, although the young man was distraught � simply into bewildered silence.

�So how does�Mauryl fare?� Cefwyn asked him.

�I fear � he is not well.�

�And the roof slates fell,� Cefwyn echoed him.

�Yes, sir. They did. Not all. But��

�Because of the wind, they fell.�

�Yes, sir.�

�And what brought you here to my hall?�

�I wish a place to sleep, sir. And supper.�

There was anxious laughter among the guards. But the young man seemed quite, quite fragile. Childish of manner, now, and altogether overwhelmed.

Cefwyn did not laugh. �Supper,� he said. �Did you walk all that way for supper?�

�And a place to stay, sir.�

�Bringing one of Maurylʼs books.�

�I didnʼt steal the book. Mauryl gave it to me. He said I should read it.�

�Did he?� He could not find in the young manʼs face the innocence he had seen before. He might have deceived himself. It might be an Amefin-sent deception, challenging his dignity and his authority. So he challenged it in turn. �How many days did you walk from Maurylʼs tower?�

�Four. Five. Perhaps five.�

�Walking? One takes it for twice that many days. At least.�

�Days and nights, sir.�

�Days and nights.�

�I feared to sleep, sir.�

�One does doubt this,� Idrys said coldly, and a spell seemed broken � or provoked. Cefwyn felt uneasiness at what he heard, but although it seemed to him that, if his maps were true, the youthʼs account was far short of the truth � still, the youthʼs remembrance might be in question. He felt more uneasiness at the habit Idrys had of provoking a situation. He saw it building.

�He does seem unlikely simple, Your Highness,� the chief of the gate-guard said, �from time to time. Anʼ then again, he donʼt.�

�Well-acted, though,� Idrys said. �Quite well-acted, boy.�

�The book,� Emuin said, �the book.�

�Oh, the book.� Idrys waved his hand. �Iʼll have you two its like by morning. Amefin maunderings. Lyrdish poetry. Gods know. Save it for the library. Some musty priest will make sense of it.�

�I think not.�

�Monastic pantry records,� Idrys said under his breath. �Household accounts.�

�A plague on you.�

�Enough,� Cefwyn said, watching the youth instead, whose glances traveled from one disputant to the other.

A Road there was indeed in Marna Wood, and legend held that no matter where one found that Road, it went to Ynefel, and not easily away again.

And by his speech, by his manner, by that unreadable book in his possession�

Had Mauryl had a servant? Cefwyn asked himself.

Or, gods save them, an apprentice?

��Or � worse still, a successor?

Not even the Amefin locals, with the old Sihh� blood still, however thin, in their veins, would readily venture that Road, that forest, far less go asking admittance at Ynefelʼs ancient gate. If an apprentice, surely no ordinary lad had come asking for the honor. But reputedly the old wizard had stirred forth, from time to time, though not to court, and reputedly the old wizard still dealt with those willing to risk the river � if indeed it was, as some credulous maintained, the same Mauryl who had dealt with his grandfather, still dealing in Sihh� gold and wizardly simples, and having Olmern lads bringing baskets of flour and oil and such like goods as far up that river as they dared go.

And never would Olmernmen cheat the old man, or short a measure. In truth � so his spiesʼ reports had it, they made the measures as much as possible, and tucked gifts in as well.

So the Olmernmen, particularly those of the village of Capayneth, still honored the Nineteen, the wizardsʼ gods, as did the rural folk of Amefel,�� while the local Quinalt priests, for a share of the gold, looked the other way. As a deity, Mauryl had been demonstrably efficacious for centuries � at least, skeptics said, the many who had had the name of Mauryl and occupied the tower since the legendary rise of the Sihh� kings. More, on the medicines and spells the old man sold, Capaynethʼs sheep bore twins, Capaynethʼs women never miscarried, Capaynethʼs crops somehow never quite headed-out and dried before hail that flattened other fields, and Capaynethʼs folk lived long and healthy lives. So they said.

And mutter as the Quinalt would, it could not prevent the veneration that outlasted the Sihh� themselves.

Mauryl fallen? The sun had as well come up in the west. Comets should fill the heavens.

The youthʼs acute attention had flagged now. The youthʼs head had drooped under his study as if bearing himself on his feet was all that he could do. If this lad was local deity, heir to immortal Mauryl, he bore the wrong name and showed himself a mortal and weary godling, smudged with mud and traces of blood, wilting before his eyes. The spark that had leapt out of the youth for that moment seemed utterly irrecoverable now, the force all fled,�� for which the Prince of Ylesuin could be grateful. Here was only a tired young man with an unkept look and a convincing innocence at least of pig-theft, wife-beating, and petty banditry.

�Tristen.�

�Sir?� The head came up, the eyes met his, and that moment was indeed almost back, that intense, that unbearable innocence � so appalling and so unprecedented that a man was drawn to keep looking, wishing to be sure, from heartbeat to heartbeat, that it was truly there or had ever been there.

But he could not find it again, not with the same force. Perhaps the young man did have secrets. Perhaps the young man had discovered them in himself, and was not quite so innocent.

Or perhaps he had found that his hosts were not what he had hoped.

�Aman.�

�Your Highness?�

�This young man is not to be harmed in any way. Do you understand?�

�Yes, Your Highness.� There was true commitment in that answer. Aman knew when the Prince of Ylesuin was completely serious, and when default would entrain sure consequences.

�Idrys. The west wing, the blue room.�

�My lord Prince,��

�Idrys. The west wing. The blue room.�

�Yes, my lord Prince.�

�Tristen.�

�My lord?�

A change. An awakening to proprieties. A wit wakening � or a pretense abandoned. It could betoken lies. Or utter ignorance. Cefwyn did not so much as blink. �Tristen, these several honest men will take you to a room, and servants there will provide you whatever you reasonably need. Your requests will be moderate, I trust��

�Supper?�

�Assuredly.� One did not interrupt the Prince of Ylesuin when he was speaking. There were breaths bated. Not his. He became imperturbable. And equally plain-spoken. �I also suggest hot water.� The young man looked to have been accustomed to cleanliness � and if he had himself walked five days and five nights through the woods, as the youth had claimed to have done, a bath would have ranked foremost among his requests.

�I would be very grateful, my lord.�

Ah. Politeness. Courtly politeness. And a moment, all unanticipated, to set the hook.

�These things,� Cefwyn said, �if you will answer a question.�

�Sir?� Back to the first mistakes of protocol, in such an audience. And in an eyeblink, the young manʼs self-possession began to fray about the edges. In vain, perhaps, the guardsʼ knocking-about: threats of harm had not shaken the youthʼs composure or come near the truth. But now, in the diminishing of threats, the offering of comfort � then the abrupt withholding of it � the young manʼs voice trembled.