C J Cherryh [Fortress 03] Fortress of Owls (retail) (epub

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.Crissand, Edwyll’s son, himself of remote Aswydd lineage, swore fealty to Tristen in such absolute terms it offended the Guelen clerks who had come with Tristen, for Crissand owned Tristen as his overlord after the Aswydd kind, aetheling, a royal lord, reopening all the old controversy about the status of Amefel as a sovereign kingdom.Crissand had become Tristen’s friend and most fervent ally among the earls of Amefel… who, given a lord they respected, came rapidly into line, united for the first time in decades.In the succeeding hours Tristen gained both the burned remnant of Mauryl’s letters, and Lord Ryssand’s letter to Parsynan.The first told him that correspondence Mauryl had had with the lords of Amefel might have some modern relevancy… one archivist had murdered the other and run with the letters.The second letter revealed Corswyndam’s connivance with Parsynan.Tristen sent Ryssand’s letter posthaste to Guelessar, while Cuthan, revealed for a traitor to both sides, took advantage of Tristen’s leniency to flee to Elwynor.In the capital, Ryssand knew he had to move quickly to lessen the king’s power against any baron, and one of his clerks had reported that the office of Regent of Elwynor, which Ninévrisë claimed, included priestly functions.So at Ryssand’s instigation, the Holy Quinalt rose up in protest of a woman in priestly rites, which would break the marriage treaty.Cefwyn countered with another compromise and a trade of favors with the Holy Father: Ninévrisë agreed to state that she was and had always been of the Bryaltine sect, that recognized though scantly respectable Amefin religion, and if she agreed to accept a priest of that faith as her priest, leaving aside other difficultquestions, the Quinalt would perform the wedding.The barons now came with the last and worst: charges of infidelity, Ninévrisë’s with Tristen, laughable if one knew them… but Ryssand’s daughter Artisane was prepared to perjure herself to bring Ninévrisë down, and Ryssand’s son Brugan brought the charges to Cefwyn, along with a document giving much of his power to the barons, which was clearly the alternative.Therein Ryssand overstepped himself: it gave an excuse for a loyal baron, Cevulirn of Ivanor, to challenge Brugan and, by killing him, change the character of the effort.The gods had let a man of the king’s kill the man who made the charge, and if Ryssand should make public the attack on Ninévrisë, that fact would come out.But if it should, someone would challenge Cevulirn, and another and another… or if it did not, Ryssand could not be expected to deal civilly with the man who had killed his son.Cefwyn still hoped to deal with the other barons, and would cast the killing as a private quarrel to prevent the issue becoming public.But that meant Cevulirn had to leave court, and Cefwyn girded himself for a confrontation in court with a powerful baron who had just lost his son… a confrontation that might yet tear the kingdom apart if the other barons stood with Ryssand.Into this situation Ryssand’s incriminating letter arrived secretly into Cefwyn’s hands… and Cefwyn thus had the means to suggest Ryssand retire to his estates immediately, or have all his actions made public to the other barons.So the treaty stood firm, Cefwyn and Ninévrisë married, and Tristen settled in to rule in the south as lord of Amefel, lord of the province containing old Althalen and bordering Ynefel and Elwynor across the river.And rule he does, in the first glorious winter of his wizard-summoned life.BOOK ONECHAPTER 1Master Emuin had packed in a night, when His Majesty in Guelemara had decreed a new duke for Amefel.Baskets, barrels, and bundles had gone out of master Emuin’s tower room in the Guelesfort in the heart of Guelemara and into wagons that night of storm and departure, and after a slow transit between provinces, up they had come, a week and more later, into the appointed tower in the fortress of Henas’amef [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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