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

was as tall as he, but they had their leatherclad shoulders beneath his arms, and a firm grip around him, and bore him up the last step and down the corridor. His head drooped. He was next aware of his own foyer, outside Uwen’s room.
    And could not bear to go back into the bedchamber.
    â€œI’ll sit by the fire,” he said.
    â€œThe fire an’ not your bed, m’lord?” Uwen asked. “Your bed’s waitin’.”
    â€œNot now.” It was an effort for him to speak, now, not that it was hard to draw breath, but that his thoughts wanted to wander off, and the firelight seemed safer than the dark in the rooms beyond.
    Time was when he would fall sound asleep at moments of revelation, at any moment when new things poured in on him so fiercely and so fast that his wits failed to keep up. For hours and hours he would sleep afterward, no physician availing to wake him, and when he would wake—when he would wake, then he would have remembered something he never knew.
    But such sound sleeps no longer happened, not since the summer, when War had Unfolded to him in all its terror. He no longer had that grace, nor dared leave his servants and his men a day and more unadvised. He fought to wake, and make his limbs answer him—and yet it was so much effort. If he could only sit by the fire, he thought, and see the light, then he would not fall asleep.
    â€œWill ye take food, lad?” Uwen asked.
    â€œHot tea,” he said.
    â€œTea an’ honey,” Uwen said, and a distant murmur went on a time, then a small, distant clatter of cups until one arrived in Tristen’s hand.
    He drank, and the fragile cup weighed like iron, an effort even to lift. There was no strength in him, and he supported one hand with the other to have a sip without spilling it.
    Uwen hovered, waiting for him, perhaps expecting him to drop it. Uwen had ridden through drifts the same as he—but was not half so tired.
    â€œPetelly,” Tristen said. He did not remember now where he had left his horse. His last memory of Petelly was of his shaggy coat snow-plastered and his head hanging.
    â€œHavin’ all the grooms make over ’im,” Uwen said, “an’ ’e’s sleepin’ by now, as you should be doin’, m’lord.”
    He gave a small shake of his head. “Not now. I daren’t, now. I’ve things to do.”
    He failed to remember where Owl had gone…Owl had gone off to kill mice, perhaps, or flown off to some place more ominous, but at least Owl had gone, and nothing worse would come tonight.
    â€œWhat d’ ye wish, m’lord?”
    That was a fair question, one to which he as yet had no answer.
    â€œYe want to post a guard up there wi’ the ladies,” Uwen reminded him. “There’s servants in this house that served the Aswydds.”
    â€œDo that,” he said, and then heard, in the great distance, Uwen naming names to Lusin, choosing Guelenmen, Quinalt men, men least likely to listen to the Aswydds’ requests or to flee their threats.
    He had another sip of honeyed tea, sitting before a fire that had been Orien’s, in an apartment that had been Orien’s, green velvet and bronze dragons and all. It had been Orien’s apartment, and Lord Heryn’s before her, and on the best of nights he never felt quite safe here. He watched it, guarded it as much as lived in it, and of all places in the Zeide where he could bestow the twins, he would not cede this one to Lady Orien.
    The old mews was virtually under his feet here, that rift in the wards out of which Owl had come, and which he had not been able to shut, since.
    â€œTassand’s gone to see to the guests,” the next-senior of his servants came to report to him…Drys, the man’s name was. “Your Grace, would you have another cup? Or will you have the armor off?”
    He had lost his cloak somewhere, or Uwen had taken it. The