The King's Hand

by Anna Thayer

  As Eamon came in, one servant, then another after another, looked up and froze in horror, their faces still dull with sleep. Only the cook, working with his back towards the door, did not see him. It was the awkward silence of the other servants that caught his attention. Eamon watched as the man turned, the song falling from his lips. The cook bowed low.

  “Lord Goodman,” he said. Though he alone of all those gathered found the strength to speak, his voice cracked with fear.

  Eamon looked at the men and women standing before him. They all served him and yet he had seen almost none of them before. His gaze passed over them, and as he looked, he saw among those gathered at one of the tables the boy at whom he had shouted; he could be little more than ten years old. As their gazes met, the child gave a half-cry and shied his head and hands into the skirts of the girl next to him. She could not be his mother – she was too young – yet the two had similar faces. The girl wrapped one arm firmly about the child while she curtseyed.

  It was clear that they feared him. How could he possibly show himself to be a good lord? That he had not treated any of them with respect or lenience filled him with shame.

  The table where the servants ate was covered in stale and broken table scraps from previous days. Other tables stood nearby, where the cooks prepared the day’s meals. On one of them stood the fresh bread, cooling in the morning air. It seemed a harsh arrangement.

  He walked to the bread. He examined it for a long moment and then chose three of the largest loaves. They were still warm. He turned back to the servants, who stood rooted to their places.

  “Are they to your liking, Lord Goodman?” The cook, his hands still covered with dough, watched him nervously. Eamon nodded.

  “Yes, Mr Cook,” he answered sincerely, “they are.”

  Eamon stepped across to the servants’ table and laid the bread there. None dared move. Perhaps they feared he laid a trap for them.

  He still held one of the loaves in his hand. With gentle steps he moved about the table to the bench where the quivering boy stood. The child watched him fearfully around the flimsy folds of the girl’s dress. The girl also watched him, with the terrified gaze of one who knew that, should Eamon choose to do or say anything, either to her or to the boy, she was powerless to stop him.

  Eamon offered the girl a smile. She stared at him in horror. He crouched down until he was level with the boy’s half-hidden eyes. His cloak trailed in flour and dust, but he did not care. The whole room watched him as he met the child’s gaze.

  “I am sorry that I shouted at you.”

  Eamon’s voice was swallowed by the silence. The servants gaped at him.

  “It was unfair of me,” Eamon added.

  Slowly, the boy emerged from his hiding place. He frowned. “Then why did you –?” he began.

  “Shhh!” the girl hissed.

  Eamon smiled kindly at her, then looked back to the boy.

  “Why did I shout at you? That’s a very fair question, and I would like to answer it.” He paused. “When you lit the fire, I remembered something that had happened to me that hurt me. It made me angry. But that wasn’t your fault. So I was unfair to you in being angry with you.”

  As he mulled on this information, the boy’s eyes flicked across Eamon’s face.

  “What’s your name?” Eamon asked.

  The boy curled his fingers into his sleeves and pinched the cuffs between them. “Callum, my lord.”

  “Callum,” Eamon repeated. He wondered how long the child had worked in the Handquarters. Had he been born of one of the servants? Did he know no other life but this?

  The last thought was a grim one, but he knew that he could not change it – at least, not yet.

  He held out the loaf of bread. “Callum, this is for you.”

  “Me?” The boy looked once at the bread, then at Eamon again.

  “You.”

  Slowly Callum reached out and took the loaf from Eamon’s hands. Eamon watched as the warmth and smell filled the boy’s face with delight. “Thank you, Lord Goodman!”

  Eamon was about to rise when he saw the table again.

  “Callum, is this what you eat every day?” he asked, gesturing to the stale foods. The boy looked dolefully at the table, and then back to his own hands with an expression of sorrow.

  “Yes, Lord Goodman.” He chewed his lip, looked guiltily up, then held the bread back towards Eamon. “Lord Goodman, it isn’t fair for me to –”

  “Will you do something for me, Callum?” Eamon interrupted. The boy nodded. “I’d like you to tell the master cook that this food is not fit for the servants, because you work very hard – probably harder than I do.” A tiny smile escaped the boy’s lips. “Tell the master cook that you must eat food fresh each day, as the Gauntlet do.”

  The boy gaped. “Won’t we be punished for that?”

  Eamon’s heart moved in compassion. Ashway had run a tight ship, he knew: household servants caught eating anything due for higher tables received lashes, and Ashway’s house had been no exception.

  It would not be so in his house.

  “A servant who betrays me – or my trust – should be punished,” Eamon told the boy quietly. “A servant who keeps up his strength, and sets to his tasks with that strength, should not.” Eamon cast a glance at the cook himself. The man stood agog. “Do you think that’s fair, Callum?”

  It could so easily have been a barbed question, a trap laid for an unwilling victim to be torn by dogs. On Cathair’s lips it would have been. But the boy knew nothing of the sinister plots and subtleties of such men. After a moment’s ponderance, he nodded.

  “I think so, Lord Goodman.”

  “You are a wise man,” Eamon answered, “and a great builder of fires. I want you to tell the servants that they will all eat fresh bread, not just this morning, but every morning.” The boy smiled. “One more thing, Callum: does the master cook sing often?”

  “Yes, Lord Goodman.”

  “It is not the least of his talents. Tell him that he sings well.”

  “Yes, Lord Goodman.”

  Eamon smiled at the boy once more, and rose to his feet. The whole kitchen, which contained a large proportion of the household – his household – gawked. He met their looks in silence one by one, and smiled.

  “Good morning,” he called to them at last. A halting chorus of good mornings stumbled back to him. “Mr Cook,” he added.

  “Lord Goodman?”

  “I’d like breakfast in my study as soon as you can manage. Please send breakfast for Captain Anderas also. He and I have some business to conduct this morning.”

  “Of course, Lord Goodman.”

  “Thank you.”

  The words were the final blow in a catalogue of astonishment for the household. The cook’s jaw fell open, but was swiftly shut.

  Eamon smiled again. With a heart bursting with joy, he turned and left the kitchens.

  He made his way back through the still corridors. The sun was higher now and filtered down through the windows. Eamon walked back towards his study, marvelling at how the light lived on the deep wood. He had not noticed it before.

  His meeting with the servants had given him hope. If he could have peace there, then perhaps he could also bring peace to the quarter. Peace would honour the King.

  As he walked down the corridor, he came across an elegant archway. It was met by a path that led out into the garden. The place was thick with budding greens. Some of them would suffer in Dunthruik’s late chills, but spring followed swiftly behind them. Eamon’s heart surged at the thought. Spring.

  Would the King come in the spring?

  He set his hand to the door and stepped out onto the path. The light stones beneath his feet led into an open courtyard where a small and impeccably kept fountain cast out a delicate stream. The buildings that rimmed the garden were faint shadows behind the trailing leaves. That the city was not so tainted that it could not bear things of beauty gave him cause for more than hope.r />
  Footsteps came down the path towards him. He looked up to see a figure pause on the other side of the fountain: Anderas. His brow was knit together. Catching sight of Eamon, the captain changed the direction of his steps and walked quickly to him.

  “Lord Goodman –”

  “You feared for me, captain?”

  Anderas looked at him a little uncertainly. “I… Yes.” He met Eamon’s gaze. “Are you well, Lord Goodman?”

  Eamon felt the light on his face and listened for a moment to the running water. He thought of the servants, of Anderas’s words of comfort, of the city that he loved and to which he had been sent by the King.

  He looked back to Anderas with a small smile. “I am.”

  Anderas watched him for a moment and judged his words. At last, Anderas nodded. “I am glad of it, my lord,” he said, and buried his face behind one hand as he was interrupted by a yawn.

  “You are in need of sustenance,” Eamon told him. “Fortunately for you, I have seen to it.” Anderas’s gaze widened with curiosity. “Come with me, captain.”

  Anderas followed him back along the path. Eamon delighted in the odd picture the captain’s face made as they worked their way back to the study. Eamon pushed the door open and strode in.

  The desk had been cleared for a long tray. The girl from the kitchen was setting a second tray down. As Hand and captain came in, she looked up and froze. Eamon imagined the long years she must have spent fleeing before the sound of footsteps. She had not heard them, her face betrayed her anxiety.

  Anderas watched him as he walked forward. The girl curtseyed deeply.

  “I am sorry, Lord Goodman,” she began. “I –”

  “I am not,” Eamon answered with a smile. “Would you like to know why?” The girl looked at him with an expression torn between curiosity and terror. “When I see those that serve me, I can praise them. Thank you, Miss, for delivering what I am sure will be a fine breakfast.”

  The girl stared at him, then curtseyed again as a touch of embarrassment passed over her face. “Do you require anything else, Lord Goodman?”

  “No, thank you.”

  The girl rose and withdrew quietly from the room, leaving the trays on the table. There were two large plates there, filled with warm bread, cheese, and a few slim slices of meat. The smile on Eamon’s face grew broad as he looked at them, then he turned to Anderas. The captain watched him with a partially perplexed, partially delighted, expression.

  “Where did you go this morning, Lord Goodman?”

  “To ask for some breakfast,” Eamon answered. He gestured to one of the extra chairs that stood in the room. “Care to join me, captain?”

  “With pleasure, Lord Goodman,” Anderas answered. He brought the chair across and set it at the table. Eamon sat down in his own chair and watched as Anderas paused by the seat he had brought. Looking at Eamon uncertainly, he hesitated to sit but at last took both seat and courage.

  They each set to work at their generous plates.

  “This is a little different to breakfast at Pinewood,” Anderas mused. “Do you remember that awful broth?”

  “The one that Lieutenant Dawes seemed so fond of?” Eamon pulled a face. “It must have been made with mouldy beans.”

  “Or worse,” Anderas commented. “Apparently the recipe is a closely guarded Gauntlet secret. We may be thankful for that!”

  They both laughed. Eamon took a bite of his bread and sat back with deep contentment as he ate it. After a moment he noticed Anderas watching him.

  “Is there something on your mind, captain?”

  “It is good, my lord, to see you eating,” Anderas answered. “No more – and yet much more – than that.”

  Eamon smiled, marvelling again at the captain’s regard for him. “Thank you, captain – for everything that you have said, and done, for me.” He paused, and Anderas smiled. “I am afraid, however, that you shall now have to bear the terrifying consequences of my regained sight.”

  “Consequences?”

  “Consequences.” Eamon cast his eye briefly over some of the papers on his desk. “Captain, I have two tasks for you this morning.”

  “I will perform them, my lord.”

  “You don’t know what they are yet,” Eamon countered.

  “Neither my heart nor my duty would permit me to refrain from performing what you allotted to me, whether allotted in wisdom or in malice,” Anderas answered. They were true words, jovially and eloquently spoken. Eamon laughed.

  “You comfort me, captain!”

  “I am glad of that, my lord.”

  “But to return to this morning’s business. First, captain, I would have you take me to college parade this morning, for which I wish to be fully furnished with a list naming every man who will be present.”

  “Yes, Lord Goodman.”

  “Then I would like you to escort me again through the East Quarter. I am afraid that I did not pay full attention the first time. I rue it heartily.”

  Anderas nodded. “You ask little, Lord Goodman.”

  “And you give much.”

  CHAPTER XIV

  Eamon and Anderas finished breakfast together, then Anderas went to collect the papers detailing the name and rank of each man in the college. He advised Eamon that the men, including groups of drummers and trumpeters, would stand in strict order at the parade. Eamon set aside his heavy cloak, taking up instead one of the formal ones, hemmed in gold. The ring on his finger still felt heavy, but it did not burden him. Looking at it, he remembered Ashway. What would the Hand have made of the man who now held the East Quarter?

  The Handquarters were springing to life as he left his study. Servants moved in the far corridors, and, as the sun rose higher, Gauntlet officers and ensigns made their appearance, collecting and bringing paperwork. Some of the junior Hands were also there and they bowed as Eamon passed. He greeted them cheerfully and felt their astonished stares on his back.

  Anderas waited for him in the entry hall, where the timbers had been fashioned to resemble arching branches. Eamon gazed up as he walked beneath them.

  “Lord Ashway told me that this building was once the home of a noble Easter family,” Anderas said quietly, tracing the beams with his eyes. Eamon nodded; they looked too delicate for Dunthruik’s architectural style. The whole of the Handquarters did, in fact. It was easy to imagine Ithel – or Anastasius – walking the halls.

  “He said that was why they called this the East Quarter, even though it isn’t quite geographically east. After the Master took the city,” Anderas added, “the other quarters had their names based on the compass because of that; their original names were very different.”

  Eamon looked at Anderas. “Is your tour of the quarter going to be full of such ruminations?”

  “I am no real authority on the matter, my lord,” Anderas answered, “but I fear that I cannot always help myself.”

  “You are too modest, Captain Anderas,” Eamon laughed. “Besides which,” he added, “there is no shame in knowing where we came from or what the world was like before us. So much of what we are, and where we go, depends on that.”

  “So, for the benefit of those for whom we will constitute ‘history’, we must do rightly in our own days?” A look of mock concern passed over Anderas’s face. “Does breakfast usually make you so philosophical, my lord?”

  “Occasionally,” Eamon confessed.

  “Then I’m afraid that tomorrow’s breakfast will be a meagre affair, if it is permitted at all.”

  Eamon laughed and invited Anderas to lead the way.

  The East Quarter College had a wide gateway, similar in many ways to that of Waite’s college. There was a long line of men outside the college wall, who either sat or stood, and who bore nervous looks. They were mostly young men, and as Eamon and Anderas passed they bowed hastily.

  “Who are they?” Eamon asked.

  “We’re still short on quarter numbers. This afternoon there is a Gauntlet admittance. They will have c
ome for that.”

  “But it is barely the second hour!”

  “They are keen,” Anderas replied, “and hope that standing there all day will show it.”

  “It does.”

  Two Gauntlet ensigns, their red jackets bright in the morning light, guarded the doorway into the college. Faint trees had been worked into the stonework at the door, their limbs reaching delicately up to a crown marked into the keystone. Eamon climbed the college steps and watched as the ensigns snapped to sharp attention. They raised their hands to their faces in a formal sword salute. Eamon greeted them cordially and passed through into the hall.

  Anderas showed him the way through the wide passageways and out into the college parade yard. As he stepped out into that space, nostalgia overcame him. How many times – in Edesfield, and even in the West Quarter – had he marched into a college square for parade? As he looked, he yearned after the camaraderie of new cadets, the lessons in River Realm law and geography, and the weapons and formation practices. In that moment even the course held a peculiar, rose-tinted charm for him.

  At the front of the parade square was a small wooden platform, with a few steps leading up to it. It was these steps that Anderas climbed, and Eamon followed him, his pace forgetting that he was a lord of Dunthruik – for a moment, he was just a simple Glove.

  The speaking platform had a small podium on which Anderas laid the list of names. The square still empty, Eamon leaned against the stand and studied them. At the top of the list were the draybants and then the officers, some of whom he knew: Greenwood, Smith, Taine…

  “Do you wish to speak to them, Lord Goodman?”

  Eamon looked up. In his heart his thoughts had gone that far. Indeed, he knew that he needed to speak to the men to redress whatever damage he had done. But what could he say? The men who would fill the square were not kitchen servants or stablehands; they were Gauntlet, men of prowess and pride.

  “Yes,” he forced himself to answer before he could reconsider the matter. “I will speak to them.”