Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03 by Fortress of Owls

grand lines had blurred, he had never, at the distance of his windows, imagined the wealth of details written in the new snow, the record of farmers’ traffic that told where men and beasts had walked hours, even days ago. The landing of a bird left traces, like marks on parchment.
    Shadows of birds, too, passed on the snow, prompting him to look up, and then to smile, for his birds flew above them, outward bound, his silly, beloved pigeons, faring out on their business, as by evening they would fly home to the towers and ledges of the fortress, looking for bread and their perches. They circled over once, and flew out ahead, seeming to have urgent business in mind… a barn, perhaps the spill of a granary door: the woods never suited them. The woods were Owl’s domain.
    “Are they the ones from the tower?” Crissand asked, himself looking up.
    “I think they are.”
    “Do they follow you?” Crissand asked.
    “They go where they like. I don’t govern them.”
    Did his birds fly sometimes far afield, and did they sometimes meet the pigeons that nested at Ynefel?
    He was not sure, indeed, that anything lived at Ynefel. He saw them sweep a turn toward the west, indeed, away, away toward the river… and equally toward the stony hills around ruined Althalen. Ruins suited them well: they liked ledges and Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03
    stonework. Certainly birds that dared nest at Ynefel, if they were the same birds, would never fear Althalen.
    “Nothing of omen,” Crissand wondered in some anxiousness.
    “No,” he said as they rode, “only birds.”
    A cloud came, passed. Many clouds came and went, and fields blazed white after shadow. Snow on bare gray apple branches made lacework of the eastern view. Moving shadows grayed the hills, and the sky was an amazing clear blue with fat wandering clouds, while the morning’s fall cast a winter glamour on common stones and roadside broom. The horses’ nostrils flared wide, their ears pricked forward in the bracing air. Their steps were willingly quick and light.
    “Is it the South Road we use all the way?” he asked Crissand at a certain point. He had looked at maps; but the hills were a maze of small trails, some missing from the charts, he much suspected, and he was very willing to use a shortcut and go up into the wonderful hills if Crissand knew one.
    “Yes, my lord, south an hour,” Crissand said, “to Padys Spring.
    There’s an old shrine, and the village track to Levey comes in there, only over the ridge. We’ll leave the main road there.”
    Padys rang not at all off memory, neither the village of Levey, nor Padys Spring… though he was sure there should be water where Crissand described a spring being.
    But, also, to his vague thought, the name of the place was not quite Padys.

    Fortress of Owls - C.J. Cherryh - Fortress 03
    “Bathurys,” he said suddenly, pleased to have caught it.
    “M’lord?”
    “Bathurys,” he said. It seemed increasingly sure to him that that was the proper name of the spring, as sometimes the very old names came to him. There was a shrine, Crissand had already said; but he was less sure of that fact.
    But there at least should be a spring at a place called Bathurys, and when he set a right name to it, he far better recalled the lay of the land… thought of a village of gray stone, and flocks of sheep.
    It was not so far a ride, then. He felt happy both in Gery’s free and cheerful movement and in the increasing good temper of the company around him. He even heard laughter among the soldiers behind, and beside him, Uwen, who habitually was shy of lords’
    company, was not shy in Crissand’s presence, and bantered somewhat with Crissand’s captain, riding near them.
    The two guard companies, the Dragons and the men of Meiden, had fought each other with bloody determination the night of his arrival; but the Dragons had also rescued Crissand and his men from execution, so with this particular Guelen regiment,