The King's Hand

by Anna Thayer

  What kind of things? Eamon wondered.

  Ladomer grinned. “Cathair sent the head down to the Blind Gate to be hung up. The Right Hand had a meeting with the Master so told me that I could be spared for an hour. I want to see it,” Ladomer enthused, catching Eamon’s arm with a great-lunged laugh. “And, when I look at it, I want the man who brought it from the Serpent’s grasp to stand beside me and tell me how it came to be there.”

  “Ladomer,” Eamon began, “I haven’t given any official testimony of that to anyone. I don’t think it would be –”

  “Then you can tell me all the parts that you intend to omit!” he added greedily.

  Eamon allowed himself to be convinced to return down the Coll to the Blind Gate. People hollered his name as he passed, congratulating him on his service to the city. Eamon smiled, suddenly uncomfortable under the collar of his thick cloak. There had been a time when this kind of praise had been the very substance on which he lived. Now, they praised him for striking a blow against their enemy, not knowing he had struck against the one who now dealt in dark counsels with the Right Hand.

  Eamon glanced uncertainly back towards the palace as they moved down the Coll.

  “A sight for sore eyes, isn’t it, Ratbag?”

  “What do they do?” Eamon asked suddenly.

  “What do you mean?” Ladomer quizzically cocked his head.

  “The Master and the Right Hand,” Eamon answered slowly. It was a strange question he asked. “I understand that there is much work to be done in governing the River Realm, and I don’t doubt that much of it is beyond what I can understand, but…”

  “They rule,” Ladomer answered, as though that were enough.

  “Then what of the city?” Eamon asked, deciding to change tack. “Tell me, O most impeccably dressed! What has been happening here while I was away?”

  “You missed not a thing. Some noble or other challenged another to a duel at a state function. You’d have liked it,” he added with a cheeky grin. “It was over the honour of a woman. They were both drunk, of course, and the challenger withdrew the next morning when, as I understand it, his lady wife had been kind enough to tell him exactly whom he could and could not duel for!”

  They paused at the Four Quarters to allow some traffic to pass by. Eamon’s eyes turned east. He wondered where Anderas was.

  The traffic quelled, and as they passed the city wall the Blind Gate came into view. “The cull has continued very successfully,” Ladomer continued.

  “Yes?” Eamon prompted, feeling his heart sink.

  “Oh yes, some excellent work has been done, especially by that captain… I can’t think of his name… East Quarter…” He waved wildly east with his arm, as though to aid his flailing memory.

  “Anderas?” Eamon’s sunken heart grew heavy. Anderas was a man who did his duty. Eamon could not fault him for that. And yet…

  “Anderas! That’s him. Oh, he’s filled whole pyres by himself. A slight exaggeration, I’ll confess, but all founded in truth, I assure you. Did you know his first name is Andreas? Cruellest parents on the River, if you ask me!” Eamon was grateful that his friend laughed so hard that his own discomfort was hidden.

  Anderas has lead the cull? It was abhorrent to him; a splintering wound lodged in his chest.

  “In other news,” Ladomer said, lowering his voice, “there’s been a bit of gossip flying about concerning that Turnholt woman of yours.”

  “Lady Turnholt,” Eamon told him, surprised by his own ferocity.

  “Lady Turnholt,” Ladomer corrected himself. Eamon noted a careful look to his friend’s eye. “Did something happen between the two of you?”

  Eamon didn’t answer.

  “They’re saying that she’s gone back to her father’s lands, to the north. The Master himself bade her farewell – who knows what new service the house gave to afford such honour!”

  “The Right Hand didn’t tell you?”

  “He told me that she left bearing a message to her ailing father and that she was in the company of Lord Fleance,” Ladomer replied, “whose lands adjoin his. There was talk of…” He fixed Eamon strangely. “No,” he said at last, a touch of sorrow to him. He took Eamon’s shoulder. “Perhaps you needn’t know it all.”

  Eamon stared. He understood.

  All her words and pleas, tearfully given as she knelt before him… she had promised – nay, sworn – that she loved him, him and no other, and that she always would. She had no ailing father. No – she had left the city with another.

  She had lied to him.

  “Something did happen, didn’t it?” Ladomer looked carefully at him. “Are you all right? Eamon?”

  Eamon drew a deep breath and walked on. Ladomer followed him.

  They continued to the Blind Gate. After a few minutes of silence, Ladomer spoke again. “I heard something just after you left,” he said. Eamon felt his friend’s keen, almost baiting, interest. “Something about the Pit.”

  Eamon went cold. He tried not to show any trace of emotion as he met Ladomer’s gaze.

  “What about it?”

  “I should rephrase that.” Ladomer spoke more quietly this time. He fixed Eamon firmly in his gaze. “I saw the Pit – what was left of it.”

  Eamon met his look unflinchingly. His friend searched his eyes; Eamon thought that he saw a trace of fear in Ladomer’s face.

  “They say it happened while you were there. That there was a storm of light… The Pit certainly suffered for it! What happened, Eamon?”

  “Ladomer, sometimes the servants of the Serpent are strong. But faced with the Master, they are less than creatures blinded by dust and wasted with hunger.”

  “This Grahaven, your ward… he is a strong one?”

  “Yes. He did what you saw.”

  “He has paid for it,” Ladomer answered with an arrogant sniff. “He pays for it often.”

  Eamon’s heart wrenched.

  Ladomer laughed nastily. “Between them, Lords Ashway and Cathair have been grinding him down.”

  “Good.” Never had a more hateful word left Eamon’s lips.

  They had reached the far end of the Coll now, the Blind Gate tall before them. Eamon felt the eyes of countless carved eagles glaring down at him. As they approached he caught sight of a group of Gauntlet soldiers atop the gate-tower. The men were setting a head – the head – upon a pike. A crowd gathered to watch the work. As the grisly token was raised it was met by a great cheer and clapping.

  Ladomer and Eamon watched silently. Ladomer laughed and gestured exultantly at the newly impaled head. “Look at your work, Lord Goodman!”

  Eamon looked, wondering how well Lord Rendolet enjoyed his new view of the city.

  They walked back to the palace together and Ladomer hurried off, eager not to be missing when the Right Hand emerged.

  It was early evening. Without orders from the other Hands or from the throned, and without even Ladomer’s company, Eamon felt strangely purposeless. His thoughts returned to Hughan, to the preparations that the King would even then be making to protect and reconnect the camp to its Easter allies. He wondered about Leon – would the man forgive him when he learned the truth? And what of Feltumadas – was he safe and well? Had he been told what had happened?

  He rehearsed their faces before his mind, fearing that those memories, so powerful while he lived them, would fade. He had not been able to say farewell to Aeryn or Lillabeth, or Giles, or Ma Mendel. He knew that they were far safer with the King than he was in the city.

  He took to strolling in the Royal Plaza and then returned to the Coll. The odd passer-by stopped to congratulate him, but the wave of praise died down as the sun slipped away.

  He wandered, lost in his thoughts. None bothered him. It was turning dark when at last he emerged from his reverie.

  He stood before the gates to Alessia’s house. But the doors were shut, the windows barred, and no lights burned in welcome.

  It came softly, unbidden: the memory of her
touch, of her hand in his – the smell of her hair, lying between them in the bed they had shared. The music of her laughter. The tenderness of her embrace. The sincerity and strength of her hands when she had found him, kneeling, by her fireside, his own blood on his hands. She had bound him, soothed him, cherished him. Surely he had… surely he had loved her?

  She was gone.

  He felt something burn hot against his face. He struck the tear away.

  Hadn’t she loved him? Anger in place of sorrow. Hadn’t she?

  No; she had whored herself to him, on the whim of another. Her adulation was nothing but falsehood. Now she had whored herself to Fleance. She had been rewarded – Ladomer had seen it with his own eyes – the throned had bid her farewell in person! It was a reward for her treachery, for her beguilement of his weak heart – it had to be. He saw how it would have been, how Ladomer would have seen her – her teasing smile, her lips lingering on Fleance’s cheek, her arms twined lithely about another.

  No; he would feel no sorrow. She had scorned him. She had betrayed him.

  If Lillabeth’s child grew never having met its father, it would be Alessia’s doing.

  He shivered, though he was not cold. He drove his hurt deep inside. She was gone. Part of him had gone with her, shattered and torn as her faith had been.

  With a bitter taste in his mouth, he turned and made his way back to the Hands’ Hall.

  He woke long before dawn, to see the throned’s banner hanging over him. It seemed a strange guardian. Cold clung to him as he rose, washed, and dressed. His room, still and empty, seemed as unwelcoming as a tomb. He left it swiftly. He was wanted by the Hands that morning.

  His footsteps sounded dead in the courtyard as he passed along the colonnade to the Hands’ Hall. Its posts framed the pastel sky like an obsidian relic. Their sharply carved letters cut his eyes like knives. He turned from them and went inside.

  Cathair was in the atrium. His green eyes flashed, but he remained disturbingly civil.

  “Lord Goodman.”

  “Lord Cathair.”

  “You slept well, I trust?”

  “I did. Yourself?”

  “Well indeed.”

  The doors to the greater hall opened. They passed within.

  The Right Hand was seated upon the raised chair in the hall, his shadow long across the floor. He rose and came forward to greet them. Eamon bowed.

  “My lord.”

  “Your work has been well done, Lord Goodman,” the Right Hand told him. “The Master passes on his congratulations once again.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” Eamon answered. He did not meet the Right Hand’s eyes – this was the man he had brashly defied before leaving the city. As the Right Hand watched him, he knew that the throned’s closest had not forgotten it.

  “It is the Master’s desire for you to serve Lord Cathair over the coming weeks.”

  Eamon saw Cathair look up sharply.

  “Lord Cathair still has much to teach you, if you will learn it,” the Right Hand continued. “He has been a master of men, and a servant of the Master, for years uncounted.”

  “His glory.” Eamon risked a discreet glance at Cathair. The Hand’s eyes raged green fire, but he held his tongue.

  “Tell me of your mission,” the Right Hand continued. “I would hear how you accomplished it.”

  At the Right Hand’s gesture Eamon rose and spoke of what he had done. He spoke of how he had been to the King’s camp and endeared himself to them, how the pontoon bridge had been destroyed – for which he claimed the credit – creating a rift between the Serpent and his allies which, even if it did not destroy the alliance, would severely damage it. Last of all, he told how he had used that rift to kill Feltumadas and then forced the Serpent to trade the life of one of his own men for the head which now so richly adorned the Blind Gate.

  “You let this man live?” the Right Hand asked quietly.

  Eamon met his gaze, sensing that the incident at the village on the way back from Pinewood lurked in the Right Hand’s mind.

  “Yes, my lord,” Eamon answered, and smiled. “He will be of no trouble to us again. He has been bettered by me, and cannot hope to overcome that shame, either for himself or to those under him. As for the Easters, I do not expect them to maintain their crumbling alliance too long, given how short-sighted their ally proved to be.”

  “Is it so, Lord Febian?” the Right Hand called.

  The summoned Hand emerged from the shadows where he had hidden throughout the meeting. Eamon felt a chill go through him.

  “Lord Febian.” He allowed himself to sound surprised – Cathair looked it. So the Lord of the West Quarter had not known of Febian’s mission. Like Cathair, Eamon turned to the Right Hand as though to ask how it was that Febian could give any answer. The Right Hand smiled. Eamon tried hard not to do the same. He surmised that Febian had not spoken of their encounter in the woods near the King’s camp: so much the better.

  Febian did not blink. Instead, he bowed to the Right Hand. “My lord.”

  “What say you, Lord Febian?” the Right Hand asked. “Is it as he tells it?”

  “Yes, my lord.” The Hand’s answer was firm. “It is.”

  The Right Hand gave a satisfied nod before turning back to Eamon. “I believe that Lord Cathair has some matters of business this morning. You will accompany him, Lord Goodman.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Eamon bowed once more; Cathair did the same. In silence, they left together.

  Outside the hall Eamon welcomed the cool morning air, inhaling deeply to clear his head. He paused and glanced at Cathair. The Lord of the West Quarter matched his gaze. He smiled icily.

  “It seems that you have been pressed into my service, Lord Goodman,” he said.

  “I would not say pressed, my lord –” Eamon began.

  “What happened in the Pit?”

  The question was ferociously direct. Eamon stared.

  “My lord?”

  “I am reliably informed that before you went head-hunting you went down to the Pit. It may interest you to know, Lord Goodman, that since that day the Pit has been rendered somewhat inoperable.”

  “I surmised as much when I left it,” Eamon told him. In his mind he heard again the singing, felt his joy at Mathaiah’s forgiveness, saw light cracking along the walls…

  Cathair glared at him with a look that might grind blood from a stone. “Learn this, and learn it well, Lord Goodman: none descend to the Pit without my foreknowing.”

  “I am sorry, Lord Cathair,” Eamon answered demurely. “It was late, and I had need of information before I left.” Though tempted, he did not add that with the Pit inoperable, there was no danger of a repeated offence. “I had no wish to disturb you at such a time.”

  “The Pit is half collapsed,” Cathair continued bluntly. “I am told this occurred after you descended into it.”

  “What are you suggesting, Lord Cathair?” Eamon demanded.

  Cathair stared at him, saying nothing. Then he smiled.

  “Tell me, Lord Goodman; have you seen your ward since you returned?”

  The shift in subject almost caught Eamon off guard. He laughed nastily. “No, my lord.”

  Cathair smiled – a long, creeping, spine-chilling smile. “I think you should.”

  It was to the Pit that Cathair led him. Fear crept into Eamon’s limbs as he followed down the long, familiar steps. The torches guttered, the air thick with dust. It was not long before the smell reached them and Eamon nearly retched. How could he have forgotten that smell in so short a time? It had only been a week. It felt an eternity.

  The Pit was as he remembered it, with rubble strewn everywhere. The narrow hole through which he had initially been lowered was a gaping orifice. The apparatus for the lowering and retrieving of prisoners hung brokenly to one side.

  Eamon noticed Cathair shudder, but euphoria touched him as he remembered his visit with Mathaiah. It was almost as though some echo of the song linger
ed in the walls. The stones, forced so long to witness torment, could do nothing but witness to the strength of the blue light.

  A couple of Hands on duty made their respectful greetings to Cathair. One of them stared at Eamon – was it one of the Hands who had been there a week ago?

  Cathair took him to one of the rooms off the central chamber, one that he had not been to before. A red stone guarded its entrance. It was cracked and singed. Had the blue light done that, too?

  The door opened into a room that might hold two dozen people, its walls dimly lit by torches. Between the torchlight, Eamon glimpsed the angular writing that also marked the doors to the throne room and the Hands’ Hall. It turned his stomach. The harsh words seared his eyes, imprinting themselves in his mind so that when he looked away he could see them still.

  The same letters marked the Nightholt.

  Near the centre of the room was a table covered in sheets of parchment, an inkwell and quill perched on one side. There were a couple of chairs but only one, on the far side, was occupied. In it sat Mathaiah, his arms bound to the arms of the chair and his legs to its legs. The cadet was deathly pale. Deep marks rimmed his eyes like enormous bruises; slashes and cuts covered his bare arms. Eamon’s dream – of Mathaiah, crying out – returned to him.

  Around Mathaiah several Hands were gathered. One held the cadet’s head, forcing him to look at the papers scattered on the table. A couple of Hands were positioned at either side of him, armed with small blades that glinted red – as did the fresher wounds on Mathaiah’s arms. Blood laced the floor and table.

  As Cathair entered, one of the Hands towered over Mathaiah. The cadet’s eyes were pressed shut as he fought to wrest his head free from the Hands.

  “For the last time, you wretched snake!” the Hand yelled, his voice swollen with rage. Eamon realized with a start that it was Ashway. “Or I will tear your eyes out!” The Hand holding Mathaiah’s head wrenched it sharply to the side. For a horrible moment, Eamon feared that the cadet’s neck would be broken. But the Hand knew his trade: Mathaiah only gasped.