The King's Hand

by Anna Thayer

  Anderas nodded. A moment later the sound of men approached. The East Quarter College was coming to parade.

  Eamon half expected to see Manners or Ford among the men who marched neatly into the parade ground, but soon enough remembered he was no longer in his old quarter. The men were resplendent in uniform, the officers and ensigns smartly polished. Among them, Eamon caught sight of the lieutenant who had been drunk the previous evening – he seemed not much recovered. What was his name?

  Eamon quietly turned to the list, scouring it for a name that seemed vaguely familiar. It only then occurred to him that most of the names would seem vaguely familiar. A quiet curse passed his lips. Either Anderas didn’t hear it, or he chose to ignore it.

  Eamon looked back up to survey the entering men. As the lines formed into ranks they saw him, and he saw their faces turning pale. Eamon watched them with interest but did not signal anything to them. His heart beat faster. What did he possibly think he could say to them?

  The last men fell into their ranks, and all gave the formal salute. A breeze stirred the silent square.

  Anderas turned to Eamon. “Would you inspect the lines, my lord?”

  “Thank you, captain,” Eamon answered, grateful that it was necessary – and would give him a much-needed chance to think.

  He stepped down and made his way to the lines. He had seen Waite do it a hundred times and had sometimes dreamed he would do it himself. Now he did, but he was robed in black and the men did not know him – they knew only a broken shadow of who and what he was. Eamon understood that his task was immense; he saw it from the strange mix of fear and contempt in the eyes that watched him.

  The lines were, as Eamon had expected, impeccable. Ashway and Anderas had crafted tight ranks.

  After completing his circuit of the lines he returned to the head of the square. The men’s eyes were on him, and he looked back at them. There was silence. Eamon knew that he had to speak. He had to do it before the silence grew too loud.

  “East Quarter, I congratulate you. Rarely have I seen a smarter college,” he said. “It speaks highly of you indeed. I have had but little opportunity to see you at your work, but I look forward to doing so.”

  He saw some of the cadets exchange glances. He had already spoken far more than they were accustomed to hearing. Eamon wondered whether he should continue. Had he not said enough? He had complimented them as befitted a Hand…

  He was more than a Hand.

  A seemingly interminable silence loomed over the courtyard. Eamon pressed himself to speak once more.

  “I have been honoured in being named the lord of this quarter.” As he spoke he felt the persona of Quarter Hand drop from him, leaving only himself behind. The men heard it in his changing voice, and watched him with bewilderment and anxiety as he continued. “It is an honour which, in the last week, I have been scarcely worthy of bearing. I dare say that you have all known such times. You will know also that a man’s strength returns to him, as mine has to me.”

  He looked at them for a long moment, trying to gauge their reaction. Their faces were clouded. What had they spoken of him after Pinewood? What had they spoken of him in the past week?

  Eamon could neither alter nor control what had been said about him – he feared even to imagine it. But he could show these men the shape of the hope that had been in him when he woke that morning.

  What would he have them say of him that day?

  “I have a vision for this quarter,” he called. As he spoke, his whole heart came forth in his words. “I have a vision of the glory of Dunthruik, epitomized by the men and women who live and serve in these streets. They will be streets that do not fear the Serpent, streets running with devotion. In the way that we uphold the law; in the way that we speak; in the way that we trade and eat; in the way we lay ourselves down at night and rise in the morning; in all this we will bring honour and glory to the Master, and this city will speak of us with praise. This is my vision for this quarter.” He said, more quietly: “I see it clearly now that my strength returns to me.

  “Some men say that they have heard of me. I would rather have all men say that they have heard of you, and how you serve the Master.”

  He fell silent. He heard his heart beating rapidly in his breast. Now that he had spoken, he could barely remember the words that had left his lips. All he saw were the watching faces, unsure how to take the man before them.

  He tried to steel himself against the discouragement welling in his thoughts.

  Anderas stepped up and looked out across the gathered men. “Lord Goodman calls you on to service and glory.”

  Eamon’s stomach churned as he looked at the myriad faces. They could either accept or reject him. How they spoke to him now would mark whether or not he could save himself and the quarter. He resisted the urge to close his eyes.

  “How will you answer?” the captain called.

  The college’s swords, lowered during Eamon’s inspection of the ranks, rose high.

  “To his glory!”

  The words came back as one voice. Eamon felt them wash over him and looked at the sea of faces. Some looked sceptical, others afraid. But some, not too few of them, looked at him with renewed eyes. It gave him cause to hope.

  “Lord Goodman,” Anderas said, “the East Quarter is for you. It will follow you.”

  Eamon looked at the captain and the assembled men. “No, captain,” he answered. As he looked back to the long ranks of men he glimpsed a puzzled look on Anderas’s face. “No,” Eamon said again, loud enough for all to hear. “I am for the East Quarter. I will serve it.”

  The silence that followed was deafening.

  Anderas turned to the men. “To your duties, gentlemen.”

  Eamon watched as the men filed out of the grounds, each to their different tasks. He wondered what they would do. He remembered walking in such lines, remembered Mathaiah walking by him, his smile. It pricked his heart, but he drew breath and steadied himself.

  “Will they trust me?”

  He had not intended to speak aloud and was surprised when Anderas answered him.

  “If a manner such as yours could be bought, Lord Goodman, it would be the most highly sought commodity in all the River Realm,” Anderas laughed, “and those who possessed it would go out of their way to boast of it at their feasts and banquets!”

  “Are you going to speak of my particularity to me once again, captain?”

  “You’ll note that I carefully refrained from doing so.” Anderas paused, then spoke more seriously. “They are good men, fiercely loyal. I have every confidence that they will see they can fiercely serve you. It will take some time to win them all, Lord Goodman, but I know them. I can already tell you that they have seen what I saw when I first met you.”

  Eamon hesitated. “Dare I ask?”

  Anderas looked at him, and Eamon saw the captain searching for the right words. At length he shrugged, content to speak what came to mind.

  “You are not like other men,” he said simply. “There is something deeper to you than can be found in many – something truer. What the root of that might be, I do not know, but it is there.”

  Eamon looked at him. His whole being sang the King’s name, but he held back; now was not the time to speak it out.

  Anderas shook his head as his words failed him. “You are in Dunthruik, Lord Goodman, but you are not of it. And yet you love it.”

  Eamon gaped. The words humbled him and he could not answer.

  The captain stepped down from the platform and gestured towards the college gates with a smile. “We will walk the quarter, my lord.”

  It was about the third hour when they stepped into the Ashen. The sunlight, strengthening both with the hour and the season, bathed the stones in gold. The line of men waiting outside the college had grown with the dawn.

  The Ashen lay off Coronet Rise and was set back towards the heart of the quarter. Towards the North Gate were the Crown Offices, which dealt with a large amount o
f the city’s paperwork and publicized any edicts made by the Lord of the East Quarter or the throned. Eamon remembered going to those offices when he had arrested Lorentide – the wayfarer who had been smuggling others out of the city with forged papers. Eamon had condemned both the man and his son to flames. He shuddered with the remembrance. He wondered whether any of the Lorentides’ neighbours were still there. Would they recognize him? Had Lorentide’s wife found safety, or had she also been captured in the months following her husband’s death? It shamed him that he did not know.

  Deeper in towards the city wall were large storehouses, intended to hold grain for the winter. They were under the charge of the quarter’s logistics draybant and were mostly empty after a hard winter and a poor preceding harvest. There were small stalls near these well-guarded houses, selling some of the grain that was kept there. Eamon heard the sellers call out their prices – they were high.

  The East Quarter had its fair share of inns and dozens of bakers and fishmongers. Now that the sea was becoming passable again, men from the city dared to seine the fickle waters to bring in as much as they could. Some fruits and vegetables were also available, drawn in from the mire of fields and farmland just outside the walls; some houses in the city had small plots of land where they also grew food, and those, at least, were faring well with the recent rains.

  Many of the buildings in the East Quarter were in need of repair, the stonework bare, often falling away from rotting timbers. The roads leading into the deeper parts of the quarter were in desperate need of attention.

  Wherever they walked, Eamon was aware of men and women watching him. It was not the open watching of people who marvelled at the man who had brought back an Easter’s head; it was quiet, fearful, discreet – out of the corner of an eye or from a turned head.

  They went on a little farther until a ragged building on Eamon’s left caught his attention. A faded sign hung over its door. The place was an inn – or at least had been. Its windows were twisted and broken and the door was half-collapsed upon itself, while shattered chairs and broken, empty bottles lay outside it in the dust.

  Eamon looked at the sign. The inn’s name was no longer legible and there was no man to be seen. “What happened here?”

  “The cull,” Anderas answered. “Wayfarers were working for the keeper. They did not take kindly to arrest.”

  “And the keeper?”

  The captain’s eyes took in the reduced shell of the inn. “He will have to join the list awaiting building works.”

  “How long is the list?”

  Anderas shook his head. “I am afraid that I couldn’t rightly tell you, my lord. That would be a question for the Crown Office.”

  Eamon looked back at the building. As he watched it he felt other, hidden, eyes stare back at him.

  “Then let us go to the Crown Office.”

  They returned through the quarter’s streets to the small square that held the Crown Office – a broad building filled with diligently working men. They were received warmly and it wasn’t long at all before Eamon met with the Crown official. It was as they went into the man’s office that Eamon recognized him as the man who had spoken on the day of Lorentide’s arrest. As they sat, they were brought drinks by a serving girl. Eamon wondered whether the official remembered him.

  “May I say again what a pleasure it is to have you here, my lord,” the man said. “How may we serve you?”

  “I am, as you may imagine,” Eamon told him, “still orienting myself in the quarter. I have come to see what work you do here, and how we may make best use of this office for the Master’s glory.”

  The official – one Mr Rose – smiled ingratiatingly. “This office is a vital part in the mechanism of the quarter, my lord. We are responsible for a very wide spectrum of things,” he continued, flicking through some of the papers on his desk, “such as exit and entry papers, a portion of which also go to yourself.”

  “Yes,” Eamon nodded.

  “We also keep records of quarter property; we are responsible for collecting taxes and for arbitrating in more petty matters of law – say, disputes between neighbours.”

  “And the office sees to the architectural upkeep of the quarter?”

  “Indeed we do,” Rose nodded. “We have a number of architects here in the office, and we deal directly with the guilds of workmen – masons, thatchers, carpenters, and the like – who work on the quarter’s buildings.”

  “And how do you decide where and when to work?”

  The official smiled. “There is a list, my lord.”

  “On average, how long would you say it takes this office to process the buildings on the list?”

  The official pulled a pensive face. “Certainly no longer than any other quarter, my lord.”

  “For example,” Eamon told him, “I passed a dilapidated inn this morning. I understand that it was only recently that it was reduced to its current state. How long will it be before the inn receives repairs?”

  “That would depend. First, the work has to be requested,” Rose answered.

  “Who requests the work?”

  “Usually a nominated representative from the place’s inhabitants, or the proprietors.” As Rose spoke, the serving girl passed through the office to offer them more wine to drink. With a slight shake of his head, Eamon declined. “Office architects then go to the site and make an initial assessment of the repairs required. A charge is levied for this, and an estimate given of the time and cost needed to effect the repairs. The proprietors pay both the assessment charge and a proportion of the estimated repair cost. Once these have been paid, the building is added to the list. Repairs are then carried out in proper course.”

  “And for those who cannot afford or fall short on payments?”

  “This office is always willing to come to mutually beneficial agreements with such individuals,” Rose answered. As he spoke his gaze flicked to the serving girl. His face swelled lecherously.

  Eamon followed the man’s gaze and reddened with the anger of sudden realization.

  “It is a very efficient system, my lord.”

  “So I see.”

  They stayed a little longer in the office and Eamon was introduced to some of the staff and principal architects. The desks in that office were mostly covered with drawings of an expansive house belonging to one of the knights – Rose explained that a lot of restoration work was currently being carried out for the family in question. The Crown Office official saw them back to the square and bowed low as they left.

  As they walked back along Coronet Rise towards the Ashen, Eamon felt heavy of heart.

  “How many slaves are there in this quarter, captain?” he asked. He saw the logic of the system being run by the Crown Office, and hated it. He wondered if any of the servants in his own house had fallen foul of it.

  The captain had remained silent while they were in the offices. His answer was restrained. “I do not know, my lord. Dunthruik has no law against forced labour.”

  Eamon nodded. He knew it – he had always known it – and yet now the idea disgusted him. He did not know if he could – or whether he dared – strike against it.

  “What of the servants in the Handquarters?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

  “They have their food and lodging, Lord Goodman,” Anderas replied. “Nothing more.”

  “Slaves in all but name.”

  “Yes, Lord Goodman. But they are fed and housed, at least.”

  They continued walking and Eamon’s thoughts wandered. Dunthruik was full of slaves, prostitutes, beggars, prisoners, and families so poor and weak that they could barely raise the stolen food in their hands to their mouths. All the while, the Gauntlet and city militia ate and drank freely, and had sturdy roofs over their heads. He understood why there had been so many men waiting by the college that morning.

  CHAPTER XV

  They returned to the Ashen at about midday. Anderas had to prepare for his afternoon dealing with the Gauntlet ad
mittance, and took his leave. Eamon stood for a while in the Ashen, watching the normal life of the quarter pass by him. He reflected on what he had seen that morning – broken buildings, moulding grains, starving mouths, staring faces. He had seen such things before but never had they beaten against his heart with their present force.

  Dunthruik had once been a great city. The palace was great still, as was the noble West Quarter where theatre and palace stood and high-born dwelt. But in the deepest, darkest parts of the East Quarter, Dunthruik showed the dry veins of a destitute, crippled city, a city lacking hope and crushed by fear.

  The East Quarter did not need a Hand; it needed a king.

  Eamon drew breath and shivered. The King had not yet come.

  The corruptive burdens and machinations of the city weighed on him. They were systems by which the Master was served and glorified – systems enshrined in his law and upheld by his Gauntlet. Eamon hated what he had seen – how it grieved him to see a place that he loved so trammelled by despair! As he gazed at the Ashen he was sickened by the thought that a Quarter Hand could never dare to strive against those parts of the city that grieved him – to do as much would be to strive against the throned.

  He swallowed, feeling his hope of that morning becoming faint. If he was bound, if he could not do right in the city, if he could not challenge the wrong that he saw…

  He remembered the Hidden Hall. He remembered Hughan’s face and heard in his heart the King’s words: “Draw your sword to defend the helpless, lift your hands to raise up the needy, use your heart to love the people of the River and call your mind to challenge evil where you find it…”

  He breathed deep. He was the First Knight. Had it not always been a question of how much he dared to do?

  He walked again into the college, the line of young men along its wall still anxiously waiting to be seen by the captain. None could join the Gauntlet unless they passed Anderas’s inspection. As Eamon passed, the young men stared in awe.

  Did they know that he had once stood in just such a line?

  He remembered it well. After his father’s death he had continued bookbinding for a number of years. Edesfield was not the best place to ply that trade, but Eamon managed to keep the business going.