The King's Hand

by Anna Thayer

  “It is good to see you, captain.” Eamon clasped Waite’s hand as they met.

  “And you, Lord Goodman.” There was a smile to Waite’s face and odd strength in his grip.

  The guests waited in the main hall while the servants put the finishing touches to the dining room. Slater had been charging about with a very officious look all afternoon, and Eamon was sure that everything would be perfectly in order.

  As they waited for the signal that the dining room was ready, Anderas crossed the hall and bowed to Eamon.

  “Lord Goodman.”

  Eamon stepped to one side with him. “Is there any more news?”

  The captain rose. “We found three more dead in the rubble this afternoon, my lord. There were some serious injuries among the survivors, but the surgeon was able to set the broken bones and bind the wounds. A detachment came from the Crown Office at about midday, under the head architect’s orders to clear the debris and relocate the survivors to a temporary living space.”

  Eamon felt some relief. “Where were they sent?”

  “There are a lot of tunnels and caves under the city, lord,” Anderas answered, “made by old tributaries of the River. Some of the grottoes are used for storage, some were converted for the sewers, but there are a couple held by the Crown Office for relocation purposes in times of need.” Eamon looked at Anderas in surprise. He had known nothing about such caves.

  “How big are they?”

  “Ranging from room-size to the size of the Ashen.”

  “And the survivors have access to food and water?”

  “A part of the River still runs through the office’s cave.”

  Eamon nodded. He was about to speak again when a familiar voice assailed his ears:

  “Ah, if it isn’t the man himself!”

  Eamon turned and, for a moment, was stunned by the man who swept across the hall towards him.

  “Good evening, Lord Ratbag!”

  “Mr Kentigern.” Eamon smiled as Ladomer strolled up to him. “You are an unexpected surprise.”

  “An unpleasant one, to judge by your tone!” Ladomer laughed loudly and slapped Eamon’s arm. “I am so sorry that I haven’t been to see you since you were assigned here. I certainly meant to, but the Right Hand has kept me somewhat tied to my desk of late.”

  “Tied?”

  “Indeed, one might almost say bound hand and foot. When you are told to send dispatches and orders to the colleges in every region of the River Realm, you have enough work to last you for some considerable time. By the throne! I forgot!” Ladomer grinned and then threw himself into a ridiculously elegant bow before Eamon. “Lord Goodman,” he flattered, and rose. “How is it, being Lord of the East Quarter?”

  “I hope I will learn to lord it well,” Eamon answered.

  “And this stony interlocutor is your captain?” Ladomer turned to Anderas, still smiling. “Your fame, Captain Anderas, precedes you,” he said, saluting.

  “Thank you, Mr Kentigern,” Anderas replied. His brow was knit, but Eamon had no time to ponder it. Ladomer turned swiftly back to him.

  “He serves you well, does he, Ratbag?”

  “Yes,” Eamon answered, “to a fault.”

  “The worth of a bird in the hand, as they say.” Ladomer stepped back with a contented sigh. “I hope you’ve chosen a good menu this time, Lord Goodman – my fare has been rather poor of late!”

  A wave of tension ran through Eamon. “I am sure that the choice will be exemplary.”

  “You didn’t choose it?” Ladomer feigned surprise.

  “Not in its entirety.”

  “The parts that make me ill, then, shall be blamed on the delicate tendencies of my stomach and not on your fair self,” Ladomer answered with a small smile. “I like to indulge in a little altruism every now and then – as I hear you did this morning.”

  Eamon blinked hard at him, caught by the change in subject.

  “I would hardly call it altruism, Mr Kentigern,” he began, but Ladomer stopped him with a brusque wave of his hand.

  “It had ‘Goodman Altruism’ branded all over it in incredibly, stupidly large letters,” he answered, and an odd tone crept into his voice. “Half the city knows about it already. The Right Hand could talk of nothing else all day! Given the tally of your deeds of late, he asked me to come to inspect your sanity.”

  “Lord Goodman –” Anderas began. The captain bristled visibly at Ladomer’s manner. Seeing it, Ladomer laughed down his words.

  “Ah, captain! I jest, of course. Lord Arlaith actually told me to go and glut myself on some other lord’s table this evening.”

  “I would highly recommend glutting yourself on food, in preference to the table,” Eamon answered.

  Ladomer’s voice suddenly dropped. His face took on a peculiar expression. “And I highly recommend that you cease gorging your bastard idealism all over the city,” he spat.

  Eamon stared. “Idealism?”

  “You’re a Quarter Hand, Eamon! A lord of Dunthruik – and you were crawling in the mud and dust! What were you thinking?”

  “Of the one I serve,” Eamon replied.

  There was a moment of silence.

  Ladomer laughed acridly. “Ratbag, the Master doesn’t care for the bloody faeces living in Tailor’s Turn,” he said. “Only you do that. What the Master does care about is the hierarchy in the Crown Office, which you appear to have rather perniciously abhorred this morning on one of your high-hearted, moral crusades.”

  Eamon stared at him, aghast. “Ladomer –”

  Ladomer hissed: “You would have done better to offer a ten-crown dinner, and leave the office well alone. But no – discontent with being a laughing stock, you insisted upon making yourself an embarrassment. Embarrassments, Eamon – much like your idealism – cannot be excused.”

  Eamon felt the words like blows. How could Ladomer subject him to such an onslaught? His will steeled against the insult. He could not permit his friend to berate him further. “You overstep your bounds, Mr Kentigern. The Master gave me authority over this quarter,” Eamon told him firmly. “I am exercising it.”

  “Exercise a little of your intellect in the process, Goodman!” Ladomer retorted.

  There was the briefest pause in which Ladomer’s eyes wandered to one side.

  “Ah!” he said. “There’s Captain Waite. If you’ll excuse me, Lord Goodman, I have a message to carry to him.”

  Eamon felt speechless – but mustered the best response he could. “We shall continue this discourse in private.”

  Ladomer quirked an eyebrow. “Of course.”

  He turned and stalked away, arriving swiftly at Waite’s side. Eamon watched him go.

  “Lord Goodman,” said a quiet voice beside him.

  Eamon looked across to Anderas. The captain’s face was grave.

  “Captain?”

  “My lord, Mr Kentigern has no right to speak to you as he did.” The captain’s voice trembled with restrained fury.

  Eamon frowned at him, barely able to comprehend what he was saying. Released from Ladomer’s attack, he reeled. “Ladomer Kentigern?”

  “He treats you as though you were a cadet,” Anderas said quietly; “treats you as though you were not the man who brought back an Easter’s head from the Serpent’s very camp. He treats you as little less than the dirt upon which he walks – and he does it publicly.”

  “Ladomer and I have known each other for a long time,” Eamon answered gently. “He was my lieutenant in Edesfield, and my friend before then.”

  Anderas’s resolve held. “Forgive me, Lord Goodman,” he said, “but you are now the Lord of the East Quarter, appointed by the Master, and he is the Right Hand’s lieutenant.” He fixed Eamon with a deep gaze. “My lord, those days are past.”

  Eamon gazed at him. As the captain’s words sank in he breathed deeply. He heard Ladomer laughing on the other side of the hall. Suddenly that laugh filled him with wariness.

  “Lord Goodman.”

&nb
sp; Slater was at his side, bowing low. “Your table is ready, my lord.”

  “Thank you, Mr Slater,” Eamon answered. “Please set an extra place at the high table for the Right Hand’s lieutenant before summoning the guests to their places.”

  “Of course, my lord.”

  Not long later they were called to dinner. The broad hall was once again filled with beautifully laid places, each with a name delicately written by it. The cloth on the table was red, and the gold trimming rippled as guests brushed past, seeking their places. Eamon once again made his way to the high table, accompanied by Anderas. Waite was there also, and an extra place had been laid for Ladomer. Eamon made a note to thank Slater for his efficient discretion later.

  He remained standing as the guests continued finding their places and filling the room with brilliant uniforms. Each man took his place behind the chair where he would sit. Their eyes turned towards Eamon. Only now he smiled at them, and for a moment, as they looked at him, the cloak on his shoulders did not feel heavy.

  It was true that the men all about him served the throned, and true that they wore colours that stood against the King – but they were good men.

  Silence fell over the hall. Given what Ladomer had said about how his latest deed was being interpreted in the city, Eamon wondered for a moment whether he should be wary with what he said. His reputation was a shy and slippery thing, and any good that he did seemed to mar it rather than make it brighter. But as he parted his lips to speak, he did not hesitate.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, “I wish to begin by welcoming you to the East Quarter, and by saying what a pleasure it is to see you all here this evening. Many of you will be wondering why I would ask you to a meal so soon after the one which inaugurated me as the lord of this quarter. It is a question well asked, and deserving of response, though you are intelligent men and I am sure that you will have reached an answer not far from my own.

  “I could, of course, say that I enjoy good food, good company, and sharing the bounty of my household with those who serve the Master as unswervingly and faithfully as you each do. I could say that service such as that offered by each and every one of you must be feasted, for it glorifies the Master. I could say these things, and they would be true, but they would not be the whole truth of why we stand here this evening.”

  He looked across the hall. The men gathered there watched him with interest, caught up by his words, and he saw faces, so recently hostile towards him, now watching him with attention, and in more than a few cases, even with respect.

  “The whole truth is in the fact that grace has been rendered to me to serve, even though I passed through a time of darkness. That grace was rendered to me by the Master, and to glorify him I would celebrate it, and this quarter, with you.” Ladomer watched him as Eamon took his glass in his hand and raised it high.

  “To your service, and his glory!” Eamon called, and the hall echoed it back to him.

  As the call died down, the hall was filled with applause from every quarter until Eamon’s ears rang with it. Eamon smiled. It wasn’t until a bell rang that the gathered guests sat, and Eamon did likewise. As he did so Ladomer, who had been set near him, leaned across to him.

  “It would appear that, despite your foibles, the East Quarter is truly for you, Ratbag,” he muttered. His eyes were wide, and he shook his head with disbelief.

  “You doubted it?”

  “Yes, and I had good reason to.” Ladomer paused as a servant passed and filled his goblet with wine. “Now I have reason to salute you. His glory, Lord Goodman,” he said, raising his goblet.

  Slater had made an excellent choice of dishes for the meal: a deep, ruddy soup was served first with warm bread, followed by red meat that was served with a large assortment of vegetables. With these came the warm, earthy wines that Eamon had bought from Cathair; they filled the palate and rested there, enhancing every flavour that passed. These courses were cleared away and followed by enormous platters of various fruits arranged in the shape of a crown. Beyond that there was cheese, veined with deep red-coloured creases, and then cakes laced with honey, accompanied by Cathair’s Passa, a golden sweet wine.

  Slater had outdone himself. Eamon saw how the household had worked to prepare every detail for him. It touched him deeply.

  He spent much of the meal speaking with Waite and Anderas, who had once again been set at his right. Ladomer also joined in the conversation from Eamon’s left, adding his observations, to each of which Anderas responded with stone-faced silence and a sip of wine. Eamon was glad when Ladomer was drawn into conversation with Tramist’s captain.

  When the meal had finished Eamon and his guests removed through to the main hallway, allowing the servants to clear the room unencumbered. Some of the guests gathered there and spoke together for a while.

  It was as Eamon was emerging from the hall that he met Manners. The cadet was moving towards the archway that led out into the Ashen. When he saw Eamon, he smiled.

  “Mr Manners,” Eamon said.

  “Lord Goodman.” Manners bowed low, and as he rose, Eamon noticed something strange and uncertain about the young man, though he could not tell its nature. There was a short silence, in which the murmuring in the hall and the distant clattering sound of plates could be heard.

  “You’re being sworn in tomorrow.”

  Manners nodded. “Yes, my lord.”

  “Are you ready?” Eamon asked the question kindly, though in his heart he wished that he could deliver to Manners the warning that he had given to Mathaiah on the deck of a holk that had never reached the city, the same warning that Aeryn had given him too late. But the hall was full of watchers, and men stood on every side – he could do nothing. “From tomorrow you shall be Ensign Manners.” Eamon offered the young man a smile and, by it, hoped to cover the emptiness in his own heart.

  “No, my lord,” Manners answered, and he laughed a little. Eamon raised an eyebrow.

  “Of course,” he said. “Lieutenant Manners.”

  “If the captain doesn’t change his mind,” Manners answered, and again Eamon saw a strange look to the young man’s eye – a kind of steely glimmer. “I am ready, Lord Goodman.”

  “You’re a good man,” Eamon told him.

  “I hope to be one, my lord,” Manners said, and smiled.

  Manners and the West Quarter men left early with Waite, who pleaded last-minute preparations for the following day’s swearing. Eamon bade farewell to all of them, and as many of his other guests as he could, by name. They thanked him warmly. The only one he did not see leave was Ladomer. Anderas commented on it.

  “Perhaps he had some business to attend to,” Eamon said.

  Anderas, who had remained with him until all others had left, allowed a sceptical look to pass over his face. “No man should leave your hall without your indulgence, nor without thanking you, my lord.”

  “He is the Right Hand’s own lieutenant,” Eamon answered, as though that might excuse the behaviour.

  “Yes, Lord Goodman.” Anderas’s voice sounded restrained.

  “You mistrust him?”

  Anderas did not answer at once. He carefully weighed his reply. “I may not answer your question, my lord, without being frank.”

  “You may be frank with me, Anderas.”

  “But, in such matters, not without your leave,” Anderas answered. “This is not a policy to which Mr Kentigern holds, and for that reason I mistrust him. My lord, I would urge you to be cautious. You may well have the Master’s support, but you will have enemies at the palace; Mr Kentigern, and the Right Hand himself, may be among them.”

  Eamon looked at the captain in surprise. As much as he wanted to discount it, he knew that Anderas could be right. Ladomer worked for the Right Hand. Unwittingly, his friend could be being worked against him. Or perhaps his friend’s words were warnings: warnings of how the other Hands – including Lord Arlaith – viewed him. He did not think that Ladomer would willingly work against him. They had been fri
ends for so long; they had lived through Dunthruik together. It was Ladomer who had encouraged him in those days while he was estranged from Mathaiah, and Ladomer who had brought him to the Gauntlet. It was Ladomer who had always encouraged him not to despair of becoming Right Hand himself.

  Eamon shuddered. That ambition had meant so much to him once. Now he reviled it.

  Anderas looked at him and Eamon met the gaze. “I cannot know Mr Kentigern’s heart, captain,” he said, unable to suppress his sorrow. He had known it once.

  “No, lord,” Anderas replied. “And he cannot pretend familiarity with yours.”

  CHAPTER XXI

  The twenty-first dawned clear and bright, with fading stars that glistened in the pale sky and air so crisp that the crying of the gulls at the port could be heard even in the East Quarter.

  Eamon and Captain Anderas went out of the city to ride. Eamon once again envied both Anderas’s horsemanship and his ability to cope with the early hours of the morning.

  Upon their return to the East Quarter, Anderas announced that he had some Gauntlet business to attend to.

  “You remember Lieutenant Greenwood?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  “He is being promoted to college draybant this morning – something I must oversee, though it will hardly be a trial! By your leave.”

  “It is a promotion he certainly deserves,” Eamon nodded. “It pleases me greatly.”

  Anderas disappeared into the college. Eamon returned his horse to the stables and retired to his office, where Slater brought him breakfast as he studied the day’s papers. The servant moved so silently that if Eamon had not seen him he might not have known the man was there at all. He watched his servant’s movements with admiration. Just as the man was prepared to withdraw, Eamon spoke.

  “Mr Slater.”

  “My lord?”

  “You did well last night; the whole household did.” It was true: everything had been perfectly performed. “It was a supreme effort, and much appreciated.”

  Slater bowed. “Thank you, my lord.”