Read Online Fortress of Dragons by C. J. Cherryh - Free Book Online Page B

none.”
    â€œHarm to the bloody Marhanen!”
    â€œI ask you not do that.” He felt her anger in the gray space and rebuffed it strongly, refusing to encounter her there. In the world her face seemed all eyes, and the eyes a window into a place he chose not to go. He remembered how Cefwyn had wished to kill the twins, at least Lady Orien, and he had pleaded otherwise—not even so much out of mercy, although that had been in his heart—but rather the fear of Orien’s spirit let loose among the Shadows in the Zeide, set unbarriered within the wards and the Lines of Henas’amef, in those days when the sorcerous ally she had dealt with still threatened them.
    Now they had defeated that ally of hers, at Lewenbrook. And if Cefwyn had now proposed it, he did not know whether he would have been so quick to save her life, or Cefwyn to hear him: to that extent they both had changed.
    â€”Is it so ? Orien asked him, a voice as sharp and cold as a dagger. Is it so? Did you save us? And had the bloody Marhanen not a shred of remorse ?
    â€œCan you keep us in this prison?” Tarien asked, assailing him from the other side. “We have nothing , not even a change of clothes. My sister is the aetheling . Whatever else, she is the aetheling, and no one should forget it, least of all under this roof!” Tarien’s eyes glistened as she confronted him. A handkerchief suffered murder in her clenched hands.
    â€œAethelings, yes,” Tristen corrected her gently. “Both of you. But Crissand of Meiden is the aetheling now, and there’s no changing that.”
    Orien’s eyes flared. “By whose appointment? Cefwyn’s? He has no right!”
    â€œBy mine, lady.” He could be obstinate. He had learned it of Emuin. And he had every right, beyond Cefwyn’s grant of power to him. He was suddenly as sure of that as if it had Unfolded to him: their power had ebbed here, and ebbed further as he gave it away to others.
    More, Orien knew it, and fear insinuated itself into all her dealings.
    â€œFor my sister’s sake,” Orien said, past tight lips, “we require a lady or two—a lady , mind you. Shall a lady of our rank give birth with the cook and the scullery maids in attendance?”
    That was unkind. Cook had never affronted Orien that he knew of. But he had no wish to provoke a quarrel that might bring harm to someone. “If you object to Cook, I might ask Lord Drumman’s sister to assist you.”
    â€œLady Criselle? That preening crow!”
    Now it was Crissand’s mother Orien slandered. “Lady Orien,” Tristen said with measured patience. “No one pleases you. You may not have your servants. You refuse all others. I don’t know what more there is.”
    â€œI’m wish my own nurse,” Tarien cried, and burst into tears. “They murdered her, at Anwyfar. They killed all the nuns, and Dosyll with them. She was sixty years old, and she never threatened them!”
    â€œI’m sorry.” He was honestly afflicted by her report. “Who did it, and why?”
    â€œBrave soldiers of the Guelen Guard,” Orien interposed harshly. “Heroes of the same company the bloody Marhanen garrisoned in my town, the same company as these hulking men you post at my door! The Marhanen’s best bandits! Murderers! Mercenaries!”
    â€œAre you sure they were of the Guard?”
    â€œAnd should I not be sure, with the Guelens garrisoned at Amefel all my life? I know what I saw. I know their badges and their ranks and of one of them I knew the face!”
    â€œDo you know the name?” he asked, with a sinking heart recalling the men he had dismissed home because of their discontent in his service, men guilty of malfeasance and murders that should have sent them to the hangman, if they had not acted under Crown authority, in the person of Lord Parsynan.
    â€œEssan,” she said, and he had to bow to the