The King's Hand

by Anna Thayer

  Slowly he descended the steps. The whole household watched him as he walked towards the frame, near to Arlaith. Did the servants think he had ordered this flogging himself? Would they expect him to stop it? But they knew as well as he that before Lord Arlaith, he was powerless. Eamon felt sure that it was that same knowledge that gave the Right Hand his long, glinting smile.

  As he halted, the sound of feet scraped the steps behind him. Eamon turned to see Slater. The head of his household led Cara, pale and trembling, by the arm. As she came forward into the torchlight at the foot of the steps, Eamon saw that her eyes were red and swollen while half her face was bruised. He felt rage swelling anew in his breast. But rage quickly turned to grief as the murmurs of alarm ran through the gathered household – many of them did not know what had happened that night – and among those voices he heard the cry of Cara’s brother.

  Guilt swept through him like wildfire. Callum would be made to watch his own sister punished for serving a Hand. What would it teach him?

  Cara walked towards the frame where one of the stablehands, a strong, tall man, stood with the lash in his hand. His face was grim. The lash was his duty; he was no more able to defy Arlaith than Eamon.

  Eamon looked wildly across at the lines of serving men and women. He was horrified to see Callum pushing his way to the front of them. Once there, the small boy stopped to stare, aghast, at the grisly procession that held his quivering sibling as its centrepiece.

  Why had he not thought sooner? Why had he not removed Callum to some other duty to spare him from watching his sister’s torture? He could have tried. Or perhaps that small defiance would also have been laid against the serving girl.

  Eamon looked back to the line, trying to calm himself. Callum stared at his sister. Then Marilio laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder. The man met Eamon’s gaze and nodded slightly. It was but small comfort.

  Slater led Cara before them. She did not raise her head. Perhaps she could not look up. Indeed, Eamon wondered that she could stand at all. She shuddered and wept quietly.

  Arlaith stepped forward and took harsh hold of her face, forcing it up towards his own. She shied back, but could not resist the Hand’s grasp.

  “See where disobedience leads you?” Arlaith told her quietly.

  “Y-yes, my lord,” Cara stammered. The grip on her jaw was tight. Her reddened skin went pale beneath it. Eamon yearned to speak, but he could not.

  Arlaith threw the girl’s head aside in vague disgust and then turned to the household.

  “This servant has been arrogant and disobedient,” he called. “Let this be a lesson to you all as to how such manners are received in Dunthruik.” He turned to Slater. “Bind her to the frame.”

  The household could only watch as Slater led Cara to the frame’s posts. The girl’s arms were spread wide over her head and bound to the beams while Slater, with a shamed and downcast look, tore open the back of Cara’s work smock to reveal her trembling back. She wept. The stablehand prepared his lash. Eamon suddenly realized that no protection had been bound round her. It was customary to weave thick cloth about the lower back to keep the ropes from damaging the victim’s internal organs. He looked to Arlaith in alarm.

  “Lord Arlaith –” he began, his voice shaking.

  “Offer to take her place,” Arlaith answered quietly, his voice full of disdain, “and I will have her killed.”

  Eamon drew a deep breath. Arlaith knew that he had taken the cadets’ place on board the holk. For a moment the thought froze him, but as the stablehand prepared the coil for the first strike, Eamon shook the spell of silence and spoke again.

  “They will not count you gracious, my lord, if the cloths are not wound round her,” he said, desperately hoping that his words would not go amiss.

  A deathly silence descended. All was still for a moment as Arlaith thought. “Slater,” the Right Hand called, “apply the appropriate bindings.”

  A shudder of relief ran through Eamon as the stablehand halted. Slater diligently and willingly took up some thick lengths of leather. He bound the material about Cara’s lower back and then took a second length.

  Eamon clenched his lips closed and choked back the torrent of abuse that he wanted to hurl indiscriminately at the Right Hand. Arlaith had known full well about the bindings and had fully intended to have them forgotten.

  Slater finished his work and then withdrew to solemnly take his place in the servants’ line near Marilio, where he spoke quiet words to the trembling Callum.

  “Commence,” Arlaith called.

  Eamon watched as the stablehand stepped up behind Cara, his lash heavy in his hand. Across the Ashen stood a group of Gauntlet soldiers and their officer. Perhaps beyond the firelight there were other onlookers.

  The stablehand drew his arm back for the first blow. With horrid vividness, Eamon remembered the feeling of the sour bit in his mouth, the tension in his every muscle. He had held them firm with the notion of warding off the feared blow, but it had availed him nothing. He remembered the way the men had stared at him, remembered the snarling bite of the ropes as they drove and snagged into his back with hellish intensity. His back burned and his eyes welled with tears.

  “One,” barked the Right Hand.

  The first blow landed with a horrendous crack. Cara gave a muffled scream, for she too had a bit to bite. Eamon saw her hands gripping feverishly at the ropes about her wrists, for support and for release.

  “Two.”

  A spasm of pain ran down his back as the second blow snapped through the air. His knees threatened to give way. There were gasps of horror among the servants, cries of fear for their fellow.

  “Three.”

  Cara shrieked again, pleas for mercy caught up in her sobs. Her brother flinched in horror.

  It is your doing, Eben’s son.

  “Four.”

  Eamon clenched his eyes shut. He wished that he could grant Cara strength. He wished that he could know that she would live. But he could do neither.

  The fifth blow landed. Blow after blow followed it. Blood streamed on the servant’s back, caught and trammelled in the cords that returned to strike her again and again. Slater tried to turn Callum’s sobbing eyes from the scene. The pale faces of Eamon’s household simply endured what had to be endured. And all the while, the Right Hand counted and smiled.

  “Eleven.”

  Eamon drove his fingers into his palm as he closed his fists at his side. Cara’s cries grew less, not because the blows hurt any the less but rather because she was losing consciousness. The girl’s head lolled forward senselessly against the apex of the frame between the heavy blows. She was young – her body had already endured too much.

  Eamon glanced up at the Right Hand. “Lord Arlaith –”

  “Fourteen.”

  Cara’s head rested against the board and Eamon saw her hands losing their grip as her whole body sagged downwards. Her brother cried wildly.

  “My lord –” Eamon tried again.

  “Fifteen.”

  The blow was struck.

  “My lord, she will hardly speak of your grace if she is dead!” Eamon cried.

  The commanded sixteenth blow struck across the unconscious girl’s raw flesh. Tears burned Eamon’s eyes and he looked up to seek the Right Hand’s gaze. He held it as the seventeenth blow was called and struck.

  Suddenly Arlaith raised a hand. “Cease,” he called.

  There was a stunned silence as the flogger fell back from his task, his arms splattered with blood. The Right Hand turned to the silent household. “Behold the nature of my grace,” he said. “To his glory.”

  “His glory,” came the reply, and the household bowed low before him.

  Arlaith turned for a moment to Eamon. “Good night, Lord Goodman,” he said, then turned and strode past the prostrate household into the dark streets.

  For a moment Eamon stood there, shaking, waiting for his sense to return to him. Blinking back his tears, he looked back to the me
n and women who served him.

  “Cut her down at once,” he called. The words had barely left his mouth when Marilio darted from the line to the stricken body. The man’s big hands carefully undid the holds and lowered Cara from the frame.

  “Mr Slater!” Eamon yelled.

  “My lord?”

  “Find the lieutenant-surgeon. Have him tend her wounds.” It was an unorthodox request, but Slater left at such speed that Eamon barely saw him acknowledge the command.

  A couple of other servants, including Callum, left the line and ran to Marilio as he heaved the bloodied girl in his arms. Callum, his face crushed with tears, ran up to his sister but then held back in fear. Marilio spoke gently to him, and at last the boy came slowly forward and touched Cara’s hands.

  Eamon turned to the other servants who, rooted to their places with horror, still watched.

  “Return to your duties,” he told them.

  As the servants disappeared Eamon hurried over to Marilio. He reached his side just as Slater reappeared with the lieutenant-surgeon. The doctor took in the situation at once.

  “Your permission to take her to the college infirmary, my lord?”

  “Do whatever is necessary, lieutenant,” Eamon replied.

  He slept little that night and, when he lay still, his back arched with the agony of blows. It had been a long time since they, or their memory, had tormented him.

  He tried to read, but he could not focus on the words before him. As his lamp burned out, he rose, dressed, and then strolled across to the college. It was silent in the Ashen and the frame – still bearing testimony to its grisly work – stood, unmoved, by the steps.

  Eamon tore his eyes from it and passed the college gates into the entry hall. There, he turned his steps towards the inner parts of the building and the infirmary. He found it well lit and was glad to see that a doctor attended to those who were ill. The winter and constant skirmishes against the wayfarers had left their marks.

  He passed through several small wards to a darker room at the back of the infirmary. There he found Cara, lying still on her front in a bed. The girl was covered by thin linen sheets that were, in places, marked with blood. Her face was ragged and pale but, in the stillness of the room, he heard her shallow breathing. Nobody was with her. An empty chair stood by the head of the bed, and by it a small candle burned.

  For a long time Eamon stood just inside the doorway, watching her. His mind was numb, but he knew that just as the Right Hand had struck at Cara, so he would strike at any others with whom he felt the Lord of the East Quarter had been too familiar. The thought filled him with mounting terror.

  After a while he heard footsteps, and then someone entered the room. As the figure crouched down over Cara’s bed, he smoothed the tangled hair back from her face. The visitor was a young man. He eased himself into the chair beside the bed, keeping his movement slow in case it should wake the sleeping girl.

  “Shouldn’t you be in bed, cadet?” Eamon asked quietly.

  The young man at the bedside rose hurriedly to his feet to salute. “I have the permission of the lieutenant-surgeon,” he said. As he spoke, Eamon recognized him: Wilhelm Bellis. At the same moment the cadet recognized him in return and bowed. “My lord,” he said.

  “At ease, Mr Bellis,” Eamon answered with a gentle gesture of his hand. The young man nodded.

  “I saw my father bring her in,” he explained quietly. “I wanted to stay with her, my lord, to make sure she was well.”

  “I understand,” Eamon answered. “You need not leave.”

  “Thank you, my lord.” Wilhelm looked back at the resting girl with deep concern on his face.

  “What was the lieutenant-surgeon’s opinion?” Eamon asked. “It was too early for him to say,” Wilhelm answered. “He said we’d have to wait until the morning.”

  “Are you on duty in the morning, cadet?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Do you intend to rest before then?”

  Wilhelm looked at him. “No, my lord,” he answered quietly.

  “Do you think that wise, Mr Bellis?”

  The young man didn’t answer but dropped his gaze to the floor. Eamon stepped forward.

  “Mr Bellis,” he said.

  The cadet looked up. “My lord?”

  “Tomorrow, when you are not on duty, you may attend Miss Cara, but you should rest now.”

  The cadet looked up at him and nodded resolutely. “Yes, my lord.”

  Eamon bade him a good night. As he left, the cadet reached out across the bed to take Cara’s still hand and cradle it in his own.

  When the dawn came at last, Eamon took to his horse and spurred down Coronet Rise to the Four Quarters. It was early still, and not many people were about. The dawn chill caught in his lungs and rested there. As he rode, he glanced along each street in case the Right Hand should be there. The ring felt heavy on his finger as he held the reins.

  He made his way towards the port, and the ships’ rigging rattled in the breeze as he came down the cobbled streets. Parts of the way he took were pieces of road he had helped to lay. The thought felt curious to him as he tethered his horse in the care of a local innkeeper. The keeper recognized him and greeted him warmly.

  “Lord Goodman!” he cried. “A pleasure to see you!”

  The man’s joy reached Eamon’s ears, and under the shadow of the Right Hand’s smile, mutated into a crushing fear. Would this man also pay for rendering him service?

  “I am looking for the cargo contingent,” he said, not returning the man’s warm greeting. The man nodded, seemingly unoffended.

  “I saw them making their way up the north quay, my lord,” the man answered. Eamon thanked him and hurried along the seafront.

  Sure enough, the contingent was there – dozens of men lifting broad crates and barrels onto a merchant ship. As he approached, the smell of fish – no doubt the night’s catch – passed his nostrils. For a moment he thought of Edesfield.

  The men were busy working but soon noted him, calling to each other to halt so that they could pay him the respect that the badge of his office merited.

  “Lord Goodman,” said one, bowing low. Eamon assumed the man to be the head of the contingent.

  “Where is Cadet Manners?” he asked.

  “He’s here somewhere, my lord,” the man answered. “I’ll fetch him for you.” After a brief pause he turned and called over his shoulder. “Rory!”

  Eamon blinked. He knew it to be Manners’ first name – he had known it ever since he had become the young man’s lieutenant – but had never heard anyone address him by it. Gauntlet protocol used surnames as a mode of address, and the fact that, in this place, the cadet had been stripped of even that title was witness to just how much damage he had done to his Gauntlet record.

  Manners appeared from behind a large cart of barrels, his hands and arms tanned now rather than burnt, and the young man seemed relaxed despite looking somewhat dishevelled from the salty sea breeze that caught and wrenched his hair every which way.

  “Sir?” he called.

  “Lord Goodman asks for you.”

  Manners came forward and then halted, dropping into a low bow before Eamon. “My lord.”

  Eamon looked across at the head of the gang. “I will not keep him from you long,” he said, and then turned back to Manners. “Come with me a moment.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Manners followed him to a quiet part of the dock. There, Eamon turned to look at the harbour. The cries of the men and sailors were behind them; before them was the rush of the sea. The stones of the quay were slippery beneath Eamon’s feet and when the wind picked up, it carried the spray into his face.

  “Stop,” he said, and Manners did so immediately. He turned his face towards Eamon, and for a brief moment Eamon felt a stab run through his heart. Something about the way the young man looked at him reminded him of Mathaiah.

  “How may I serve you, my lord?” Manners asked.

&nbs
p; “By keeping my name from being used.”

  Manners’ brow furrowed into a deep frown. “My lord, I don’t understand what –”

  “I mean the ‘Good Men’.” Eamon said it fast, and then bit his lip. It was the name that the survivors of Pinewood, and the Third Banners in particular, had given themselves. In the short silence that followed, broken only by the rushing waters, the cadet’s face ran pale.

  “My lord, no harm was meant –”

  “Manners,” Eamon told him softly, “I will speak frankly for a moment.”

  Manners matched his gaze and nodded. “Yes, my lord.”

  “I am sure that you have done nothing but good under my name, and I am deeply honoured by the loyalty that you, and others, have shown to me by doing so.”

  “We’re men who have served you,” Manners answered, “who owe you our lives, and who want to do in this city what we see and hear you do.”

  A wave broke against the stones like the crack of a whip. Eamon stared hard at the young man. “Don’t you see how dangerous that is?” The words exploded from Eamon’s mouth.

  Manners shrank back in surprise. “My lord –”

  “I’m sorry,” Eamon said, and drew a deep breath. The waves fell back from the stones, and for a moment there was a strange quiet.

  Eamon matched the cadet’s gaze again. “I have enemies, Mr Manners,” he said quietly; “enemies who do not like the idea of men who bear my name. These same enemies have threatened death against those who call themselves by it. You are one of them.”

  Manners seemed undaunted. “Yes, my lord.”

  “You must not be one henceforth. Do you understand?” A tremor crept into his voice. Eamon resisted the urge to glance over his shoulder. “None of you must.”

  “My lord, are you well –?”

  “Do you understand?” His tone was harsh.

  Manners fell back with a nod.

  “Yes, Lord Goodman.” The young man looked back at him, unafraid.

  Eamon sighed. For a moment, he was not the Lord of the East Quarter; he might have been the lieutenant of the Third Banners once more. “I’m sorry, Manners,” he said.