Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03 by Fortress of Owls Page A
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peered out from well-situated windows, for not since summer had the White Horse banner been seen in the streets, when Cevulirn among other lords of the south had camped in that broad expanse outside.
Loaded carts had gone out for the border, where war was bruited about, a great lord had come guesting with their new lord and the new lord of Meiden… it surely made for talk, on an evening remarkable only for a light snowfall.
Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03
Chapter 3
« ^ »
The herald trumpets faded tremulously from the air, the harpers harped, the pipers piped, and the king and Royal Consort, settling on their dais in the great hall, looked out over the assembled nobles of Ylesuin, as happy as a bride and groom might be, who knew what all their guests were thinking. The king sat above the stone Ryssand had installed under the Dragon Throne, a lasting and symbolic legacy of Ryssand’s attempts to prevent the wedding. That stone remained, though Ryssand was gone at least for a season; that stone would acquire the voice of baronial anguish if removed, for removing that handbreadth height would lower the king of Ylesuin to the height of his bride’s chair of state, and that would unravel all the convolute and, in the end, bloody agreements that had let the court accept the marriage.
In Cefwyn’s glum reckoning, the presence of that stone would only grow more, not less, a necessity, wearing itself into habit and memory until the damned thing was all but sacred. The majesty of Ylesuin must sit higher than his wife Her Grace of Elwynor, or northern baronial noses would be sorely out of joint, and when the barons’ noses were out of joint then the barons would gather in corners and whisper, which at the moment and only of very late date, they dared not do without careful smiles Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03
on their faces and occasional sweet-faced bows toward enthroned majesty.
So all in all, the cursed stone was likely to remain, preserving Guelen pride and making it clear that the woman beside the king, his wife, his consort, his bride, and the love of his heart, was not
the queen of Ylesuin.
In fact ever since he had come back from Amefel and the fighting at Lewenbrook to inform the barons that his father was dead and he was king, and that he had, moreover, betrothed himself to the daughter and heir of their old enemy, the Regent of Elwynor, he had met a resistance not only greater than he had anticipated, but more clever and dangerous than he had imagined. He had thought these men simply agreeable to his late father’s unpleasant opinions, had realized too little and too late how very extensively these men were accustomed to having their will of his father and directing those opinions… and nowadays he wondered how many of the worst decisions of his father’s reign had been his father’s and how many were in fact Ryssand’s instigation.
Certainly he had come to court in blither certainty and confidence of the world than he held now. Yet it was Ryssand, ultimately, who had rued the clash of wills… and Cefwyn could congratulate himself on having had his way in all meaningful things. Save this one.
Save this one, for at last, on the eve of the wedding and with the Quinalt granting all else and reconciled to performing the ceremony, he had slipped in the word queen , and a small Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03
delegation of lords and priests had presented him in turn the last, the most stringent and inflexible objection of the clergy: royal expectation aside, there had never quite been a queen of Ylesuin, even counting his father’s mother and his, and Efanor’s, and the Quinalt had come armed with chapter and verse to prove its case, a veritable parade of clerks and clerics.
It was true. It might be Cefwyn’s argument that the omission was never intended for precedent, only that his grandmother had died before his grandfather’s rule began and his mother and
Loaded carts had gone out for the border, where war was bruited about, a great lord had come guesting with their new lord and the new lord of Meiden… it surely made for talk, on an evening remarkable only for a light snowfall.
Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03
Chapter 3
« ^ »
The herald trumpets faded tremulously from the air, the harpers harped, the pipers piped, and the king and Royal Consort, settling on their dais in the great hall, looked out over the assembled nobles of Ylesuin, as happy as a bride and groom might be, who knew what all their guests were thinking. The king sat above the stone Ryssand had installed under the Dragon Throne, a lasting and symbolic legacy of Ryssand’s attempts to prevent the wedding. That stone remained, though Ryssand was gone at least for a season; that stone would acquire the voice of baronial anguish if removed, for removing that handbreadth height would lower the king of Ylesuin to the height of his bride’s chair of state, and that would unravel all the convolute and, in the end, bloody agreements that had let the court accept the marriage.
In Cefwyn’s glum reckoning, the presence of that stone would only grow more, not less, a necessity, wearing itself into habit and memory until the damned thing was all but sacred. The majesty of Ylesuin must sit higher than his wife Her Grace of Elwynor, or northern baronial noses would be sorely out of joint, and when the barons’ noses were out of joint then the barons would gather in corners and whisper, which at the moment and only of very late date, they dared not do without careful smiles Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03
on their faces and occasional sweet-faced bows toward enthroned majesty.
So all in all, the cursed stone was likely to remain, preserving Guelen pride and making it clear that the woman beside the king, his wife, his consort, his bride, and the love of his heart, was not
the queen of Ylesuin.
In fact ever since he had come back from Amefel and the fighting at Lewenbrook to inform the barons that his father was dead and he was king, and that he had, moreover, betrothed himself to the daughter and heir of their old enemy, the Regent of Elwynor, he had met a resistance not only greater than he had anticipated, but more clever and dangerous than he had imagined. He had thought these men simply agreeable to his late father’s unpleasant opinions, had realized too little and too late how very extensively these men were accustomed to having their will of his father and directing those opinions… and nowadays he wondered how many of the worst decisions of his father’s reign had been his father’s and how many were in fact Ryssand’s instigation.
Certainly he had come to court in blither certainty and confidence of the world than he held now. Yet it was Ryssand, ultimately, who had rued the clash of wills… and Cefwyn could congratulate himself on having had his way in all meaningful things. Save this one.
Save this one, for at last, on the eve of the wedding and with the Quinalt granting all else and reconciled to performing the ceremony, he had slipped in the word queen , and a small Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03
delegation of lords and priests had presented him in turn the last, the most stringent and inflexible objection of the clergy: royal expectation aside, there had never quite been a queen of Ylesuin, even counting his father’s mother and his, and Efanor’s, and the Quinalt had come armed with chapter and verse to prove its case, a veritable parade of clerks and clerics.
It was true. It might be Cefwyn’s argument that the omission was never intended for precedent, only that his grandmother had died before his grandfather’s rule began and his mother and
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