Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03 Read Online Free PDF Page B

destroyed; and now both were gone, and he was there.
    Consequently everyone wanted his attention, everyone wished to establish their connections and their favor with the new duke, and in the process their demands pressed on him until his head fairly swam with questions. He did not know who should do these things. He had no idea. And under the incessant demands for his attention, he could not find answers.
    Indeed he was so overwhelmed he feared even Crissand had motives in stealing him away for several hours in private…
    points to press, favors to gain at the worst; and in agreeing to go, he knew it would wound him to the heart if that was all Crissand’s reason in seeking his company. He hoped for less selfish notions in this young man who seemed so inclined toward him. He hoped for some beacon in this sea of demands, but he had been disappointed before, discovering even master Emuin set his own will ahead of friendship and promises, and that Cefwyn, whom he loved, had as many demands on his time as he had.
    He understood Cefwyn’s situation, now, in a way he never could have before.
    But knowing that turned him desperately to seek warmth and Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03
    company where it seemed to offer. And, oh, that might be foolish of him, and expose him to hazards such as he had seen in Cefwyn’s court.
    But he went. He trusted. He stormed through the last stretch of hallway toward the stable-court before more questioners could close about him—for he had been indoors for an entire fortnight now, imprisoned in his duty, in men’s squabbles and difficulties, while all the wonder of snow spread across the land outside his misted, frosty windows.
    And now the chance was on him. He rushed toward freedom in simple, undilute curiosity, eager to meet the sights that had tantalized him and eager to have a horse under him for a few hours… eager most of all to have Crissand beside him and the sound of a friendly voice without a single demand for favor or approval of some document.
    Cefwyn had made him duke of Amefel… and of all pleasures the high office might have afforded (the prior lord, Heryn, had ordered gold dinnerplates, and the viceroy, Lord Parsynan, had coveted a lady’s jewels), he discovered that the greatest and least attainable of all his treasures was time, time to ride out in the sparkling white and time to be with friends.
    And when he and his accustomed bodyguards, Lusin and the rest, escaped out the west doors into the snowy damp air and thumped down the steepest steps in the fortress—he found himself both free and faced with a yard he had forgotten would be teeming with soldiery and oxen and carts.

    Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03
    “The lord’s come down!” A trio of stablehands scampered at the sight of them, dodging through the confusion of ox teams and heaps of equipment bound for the bottom of the hill, all shouting for the duke’s horses as they went. Tristen regarded the commotion with some dismay: nothing he did these days was circumspect or secret, and no one went sluggishly to accommodate him; the carts were going to the border, the army was going, this was the day he had appointed, and such had been his haste this morning he had not even realized his ride and the carts’ being loaded overlapped each other.
    Almost as they cleared the bottom step, one of the stablemaster’s lads came laboring through the press with the tall ducal standards bundled together, brought from their storage near the armory, a heavy burden for a slight lad. It was a heavy burden, too, for the grown men appointed to carry them when they were unfurled.
    They were inevitably cumbersome, and in the wish of his heart, Tristen would have bidden the boy put the banners back in their safekeeping so he and Crissand could simply ride free and enjoy the day in anonymity… but those banners were part and parcel of their honest excuse for riding forth today. They would show them abroad,