Free Fortress of Eagles by C. J. Cherryh

notably absent from the field, any wish to hear about Lewenbrook.
    He had most urgently to marry, remove any potential leverage priests might have on him, and then to hell with the religious quibbles: he would do as he pleased then and be damned to the barons. He had to produce a victory, make heroes, create precedents that would settle all this tangle, bribe a few key barons with grants that would make them betray their brother lords, and most of all he had to do the deed quickly, trample over custom, shorten the mourning for his royal father no matter how Efanor frowned and cast him anguished looks. He had to marry soon and very suddenly to dash the hopes of Ylesuin’s assorted nobles and eligible daughters: his marriage would place all hope of a daughter crowned out of reach of any of the baronies…most notably out of the reach of the duke of Murandys, Prichwarrin, who had been counting heavily on snaring him into a familial bond that would make Prichwarrin ultimately kinsman to kings.
    But hot-tempered, self-assured Luriel, Prichwarrin’s lovely niece, had abandoned her prince when he was governing Amefel, a province rife with assassins and on the edge of rebellion. She had gone to Henas’amef when her prince was made viceroy in Amefel quite clearly expecting to reign like a queen consort and had been so certain of him that she had set herself in his bed to win his undying love. But she had grown bored with the lack of festivities in that rustic province, and because there were no more suitable, more beautiful, more favored ducal daughters in all Ylesuin, why, she had no fear of his looking elsewhere and she had flounced out of Amefel. Her uncle Prichwarrin, after all, was the most important baron, the most necessary ally to a king-to-be, and her position seemed secure.
    She had not considered outside the bounds of Ylesuin, however since no Guelen lady had ever had to consider outside the bounds of Ylesuin for a rival—and now Luriel languished in Aslaney, with no marriage, no husband, and no prospects. Luriel, greedy Luriel, so sure she was clever, had certainly suffered the most pitifullly in his plans, and was certainly a grievous disappointment to her uncle…who doubtless clung to hope and prayed for an outbreak of sorcery, treachery, even a breath of scandal or a trip on the stairs that might at the last moment prevent the king marrying the foreign Regent.
    Lately Cefwyn felt sorry for Luriel, truth be told, and took her plight as something he would have to deal with in some honorable way…a title, a handsome husband. He had one in mind. Meanwhile marry he would, and marry Ninévrisë he would, and in fifteen days he would have made clear to all of Elwynor that the Regent of Elwynor was not his prisoner, but the ally of a Marhanen king with a potent army, a king with the Quinalt’s blessing, a king able to fight the rebels (all this a powerful blow to rebel claims) before the situation across the river grew more dire, and able to set Ninévrisë on her throne and march away without claiming Elwynor as his own.
    Let one of the Elwynim rebels claim to sit as King and not Regent, and then the Quinalt might well see another resurgence of wizardry on their very doorstep. A prophecy current in Elwynor foretold the end of the Elwynim Regency in a King to Come, and it was only to be expected that they did not expect the Marhanen to fulfill it. Sooner or later a bold rebel would find some wizard or worse to attest his legitimacy and assuredly claim Sihhë blood in his ancestry (common enough in Elwynor, and in Amefel). He had argued that possibility to the Holy Father and seen real fear dawn on the man’s face. The Quinalt, that other power in the kingdom of Ylesuin, had never demanded piety of the Marhanen kings; and gods knew his grandfather and his father Ináreddrin had been willing to accommodate unorthodoxy—for the very calculated purpose that they might one day gain