Fortress of Dragons by C. J. Cherryh

among the snowdrifts and the wretched roads, it fell to old Earl Prushan to stand by his duke’s right hand, an honor usually several degrees of precedence removed from that good old man…in fact, beside Prushan, next, were only a handful of the lesser earls and the ealdormen of the town, a set of faces all grave and curious, all come to hear the circumstances of Lady Orien’s uninvited return…but not the representation of the highest lords in Amefel that Tristen would have wished. It was instead the gathering from Lewenbrook, the southern army, the neighbors, who came to him at his call.
    How many of the earls had gotten wind of Orien Aswydd and absented themselves?
    Fearing what? Had they not seen Auld Syes enter the hall on Midwinter Eve? Had they not seen enough strange things in this turning of the year to send them uneasy sleep?
    A whisper of wind wafted past Tristen’s head. Owl swooped down and lit on his forearm, piercing his flesh with sharp talons, caring not a whit for his discomfort, it was certain. He was more and more distressed, and yet refrained from a general call into the gray space, a shout to rouse all that was his against all that was Orien Aswydd’s.
    â€œLast night,” Tristen began, addressing those who had come, the locals, and the southerners, “last night I heard travelers in the storm, and I found Orien and Tarien Aswydd walking toward the town. They say armed men burned the convent at Anwyfar, and killed their nurse along with the nuns there. They say they had a horse at first, and lost it, and walked the rest of the way, hoping for shelter here. I don’t think it’s a lie, how they came here. But they’re not welcome guests. They’re still under Cefwyn’s law. I had nowhere to send them, but I don’t set them free.”
    â€œSend them to Elwynor,” was the immediate suggestion, from more than one voice, and others had a more direct suggestion: “Better if they’d burned.”
    â€œPoint o’ that—who burned Anwyfar?” Sovrag asked, above the rest, and that was the question.
    â€œWho burned Anwyfar?” Tristen echoed the question. “Orien said it was Guelen Guard, Cefwyn’s men—that it was Captain Essan.”
    â€œEssan!” old Prushan exclaimed, and no few with him. The earls knew the name, if the dukes of the south did not, and for a moment there was a general murmur.
    â€œThere’s another should have hanged,” someone said. “Turned right to banditry.”
    â€œI know Cefwyn didn’t order it,” Tristen said. “If he wanted to kill them, he certainly didn’t need to send men to burn a Teranthine shrine and kill all the nuns, who never did him any harm.”
    â€œRyssand,” said the Bryaltine abbot, standing forward, hands tucked in sleeves. “Ryssandish, it might well be. Parsynan was Ryssand’s man, and every other trouble he visited on us Captain Essan had a hand in. And why not this?”
    The ealdormen thought so. There were nods of heads, a small, unhappy stir.
    â€œAnd what when the king in Guelessar finds it out?” Prushan asked, and Earl Drusallyn, who was almost as old: “And what when the king blames us?”
    â€œSend ’em to Elwynor!” an ealdorman said.
    And Sovrag: “Hell, send ’em to the Marhanen, done up in ribbons!”
    â€œNo,” Tristen said. “No. Not Elwynor, and not Guelessar.” He drew a breath, not happy in what he had to tell. “Lady Tarien’s with child. Cefwyn’s.”
    â€œBlessed gods,” Umanon said, under the gasp and murmur of the assembly, and a deep hush fell.
    â€œI haven’t told Cefwyn yet,” Tristen said. “I have to write to him, and my last messenger to Guelemara came and went in fear of his life. I don’t know what’s happened there, with Guelen Guard burning shrines and killing nuns. I don’t know if Cefwyn