by Anna Thayer
“My tailors tell me, son of Eben, that they have excelled themselves.” The Master’s voice resonated through the air above all the cheering in the plaza below. “Show me.”
Closing his eyes, Eamon stepped into the light before Edelred. As the Master’s appraising smile rained down on him, vomit pressed the back of his throat.
“Does it please you, Master?”
“You, Eben’s son, please me more each day.” Then, leaning forward, he kissed Eamon’s forehead with the peculiar tenderness of a cruel and fickle father. A sob escaped his lips as he received it.
Smiling, the Master gestured to the balcony door. “Glorify me,” he commanded.
Eamon strode onto the platform of light. The whole of Dunthruik lay before him, shown forth as a swelling ocean of faces in the teeming plaza below. His head spun as he looked down at them. He steadied himself on the balcony’s edge. A great roar filled the air.
“Long live the Right Hand! Long live Lord Goodman!” The storm of voices erupted into applause. “Lord Goodman, to his glory!”
Pride and fear, arrogance and humility shattered Eamon like a tempest-strike. The city of Dunthruik adored him.
“The city loves you, Eben’s son.” The Master spoke from the darkened gallery behind. “Accept their love as you accept mine.”
Slowly, Eamon raised his arms; his black cloak fell down from them and the folds struck outwards, like the plumes of a great eagle in flight. The crowd clamoured ecstatically.
“The Serpent is defeated,” Eamon called, “and the land is crowned.”
“The land is crowned in glory!”
The liturgy had begun; never had Eamon heard it given with such passion.
“The glory is the Master’s, for he cast down the Serpent’s brood.” Suddenly Eamon’s voice rose to an unimaginable volume; something in him stirred to fervency by the ardour of the crowd. “Behold the majesty of him who delivers you from the broken and cursed house whose star has set. Behold him, Dunthruik!” he cried. “Behold him and rejoice!”
The balcony became awash with light that tore Eamon’s sight from him. His ears were blasted with the cry from below.
“To his glory! To his glory!”
For the Master of the River and the Lord of Dunthruik stood on the shore of the city’s adulation, and there he smiled.
“Dunthruik,” he called. “Never has my glory had such a champion. I give you: my Right Hand.”
And Dunthruik roared.
Eamon barely slept that night. His heart was full of the city’s praise and his forehead tainted by the press of the Master’s lips.
Cartwright woke him early. Eamon let the man prepare him for another day. The robes he had shed the night before had been removed from his quarters, to be laid out for him when the Master desired it. To dress once more in the general robes of his rank felt akin to donning a worn, pale doublet that had seen years of harsh service; it felt rough against his skin.
When had he grown accustomed to finery?
He went again to breakfast and barely noticed the mute servants in the hall as they fed him. He basked in the Master’s praise and yet all the while it seemed hollow in his ears.
“You have yet to see to the theatre, Eben’s son,” the throned told him.
Eamon looked at him in surprise. “Master?”
The Master favoured him with a smile that broke his heart. “The Crown is yours,” he replied. “It awaits its patron.”
Eamon’s mind flew back what seemed a hundred years, to the night when he had sat in the theatre with Lord Arlaith speaking softly in his ear and Alessia clinging to his hand, her treachery but a breath away.
“Yes, Master,” he said. “I will attend to it.”
He made another tour of the city that morning and saw that repairs at the port had gone well. Waite was there, his gaze tired and sullen. He greeted Eamon formally and accepted his condolences with gratitude.
“I am a hardened soldier, Lord Goodman. Death is part of my life. Yet some deaths are easier to accept than others. When men of the Gauntlet die, it should be in battle against the Serpent. Any death is tragic, but it is more so when the deaths of good men carry no meaning. Their deaths gained nothing,” the captain murmured. He turned to Eamon and swallowed in a swollen throat. “Does that not seem grievous to you, my lord?”
Eamon looked at Waite; his heart wrenched.
“The manner of their death does not change the fact that they are dead,” he answered at last.
Waite looked back at the quay and Eamon wondered whether the captain imagined the ensigns’ last moments, squalled in stone and water.
“No,” Waite breathed.
Fletcher brought Eamon a great number of reports that afternoon. Eamon was not happy when the lieutenant laid the pile of paper – a hand tall – before him, all of it to be signed and sealed.
“From the quarters,” Fletcher told him. “There is one, however, that I believe warrants your urgent attention.”
“Indeed?” Eamon replied, looking cheerlessly at the ream.
“One of your prior judgments has been called into question.”
Eamon looked up sharply. “By whom?” he asked, though he knew the reply before his lieutenant answered him.
“Lord Arlaith.” Eamon’s face grew grim. If Fletcher noticed, he overlooked it. “It regards a certain Mr Fort. I have been advised that the matter is to be judged at the ninth hour.”
It was but moments away. Eamon got to his feet.
“I will see Lord Arlaith at once,” he said. “Where is he?”
“My lord, he is treating with the matter as –”
“Where is he, Fletcher?”
“I understand that the matter is to be seen to in his Handquarter office.” As Fletcher answered, a dire look broke across Eamon’s face; it was the same place where he had acquitted Fort himself – and Arlaith knew it.
“I will see him, and I will see him now,” he growled. The mauled returnees, the West Quarter ensigns, Darren Lorentide, the reduction of the East Quarter building programme, his own tattered heart… all these whirled through his mind, and rightly or not, one by one, Eamon cast the blame for each squarely at the feet of Arlaith.
“Shall I summon –?” Fletcher began.
“No,” Eamon answered hotly, and stormed from the room.
His horse was ready for him in the stables. In minutes he rode out of the palace gates. Rage and grief gripped his breast such as he had not known for a long time, and all of it, its every part, cried out against Arlaith. A bright May sun touched the streets as he charged into the East Quarter. The stable hands recognized him and fell back from the look on his face; they took his horse without question. Without a word Eamon took himself into the Handquarter, passing through corridors as familiar to him as his own palms. It was the ninth hour; he burst unannounced into Arlaith’s office.
Arlaith was not alone. Cathair and Tramist were also there along with several Gauntlet ensigns, Captain Anderas, and Mr Fort himself. Fort was on his knees before the Hands. Tramist stood over him, palm stretched towards the howling man’s brow.
In three angry strides, Eamon had crossed the room. Seeing him, the Hands halted. Eamon seized Tramist’s wrist where it still hovered above Fort’s forehead.
“You will not breach him,” he said, casting the hand aside. “But you will answer me.”
Silence fell. The three Hands looked at him; none of them looked terribly surprised to see him. It disquieted him.
It was Fort who called his mind back to the present. “Lord Goodman!” Fort sobbed, his wretched voice torn between relief and alarm.
“A pleasure to see you, Lord Goodman.” Arlaith bowed as an afterthought and the faintest flicker of a smile passed over his face.
Eamon turned at once to Anderas. “Captain, you will take Mr Fort and your men from this room.” Relief passed over Anderas’s face, though whether it was at the command or at his presence, Eamon did not know. “Wait outside,” he added.
<
br /> “At once, my lord.” Anderas drew Fort to his feet and shepherded him and the nervous ensigns from the room.
The door shut. Eamon turned to face the three Quarter Hands. As he did so, he belatedly realized how dangerous a situation he had created: he stood, alone, in a room with three of his greatest enemies. If they were in league against him…
He set his face towards them. He was the Right Hand. He would not fear them.
“I will be answered and I will be answered now,” he said fiercely.
“Perhaps,” Arlaith put in politely, “you will be answered more easily, Lord Goodman, if you ask a question?”
“Be silent,” Eamon seethed. Arlaith almost flinched.
“Lord Goodman!” Cathair exclaimed. “What has happened to your legendary courtesy?”
“I rather think that I lost it when I discovered that my decisions were being questioned without my being consulted,” Eamon answered wrathfully. “Do you think, Lord Cathair, that the Master would take kindly to the revelation of such a thing?”
Tramist laughed. “Such a man!” he jibed snidely. “He runs crying to the Master at every scrape, like a child.”
Eamon glowered at him. “If you must sully matters with your tongue, Tramist, you may at least do so answering my question.” He glared at them each in turn. “What are you doing?”
“I shall answer you, Lord Goodman.” Arlaith stepped forward and offered him another mocking bow. “Mr Fort has been brought back for questioning not through any desire to spite you, as you so wantonly seem to think, but rather because new… evidence has come to light. As you so eloquently taught us but a fortnight ago,” he added, “all evidence must be properly weighed and considered, especially in the absence of a second witness.”
Arlaith’s tone and manner unnerved him. “What evidence?” Eamon asked, trying not to let his sudden discomfort show. “And what reason have you all to be here? Surely this is an East Quarter matter?”
“Allow me to indulge in a touch of last-first, Lord Goodman,” Cathair answered suavely. “The evidence came from the West Quarter, Mr Fort was taken in the South Quarter, and the East has jurisdiction over him.”
Eamon looked hard at him. He didn’t believe it for a second. “And this evidence, Lord Cathair?”
“Mr Fort has not been entirely honest with us, Lord Goodman,” Arlaith replied. “Alleana Tiller and her family were not killed by the Gauntlet. Mr Fort knew this, and he withheld it.”
“Of course, you were not to know, Lord Goodman,” Tramist added. “You did not, after all, breach him before you had him acquitted.”
“There was no need to breach him,” Eamon replied coldly.
“Forgive me, my lord,” Tramist answered, his words dripping insolence. “The evidence seems to suggest otherwise.”
“Such a thing reflects oddly on you,” Cathair added, “but perhaps, if you breach him now…?”
“He will not be breached,” Eamon answered.
Cathair bowed. “I do, of course, defer to you, Lord Goodman.” Eamon heard insincerity in every syllable. “Still, I must ask why you so insist upon not breaching him?”
“Lord Ashway’s investigation of the matter was thorough enough,” Eamon answered. “He judged this case and he acquitted this man. There is a formal East Quarter report. The matter has been dealt with on every level. Breaching is not required.”
“I will not hold that opinion with you, Lord Goodman,” Tramist hissed.
Eamon glared at him. He was about to speak when Arlaith lightly touched his arm.
“Perhaps you would like to hear Lord Cathair’s account of the new evidence, Lord Goodman?” he said.
Eamon held his gaze for a long moment, then turned to Cathair. “What are these records?”
“You may be acquainted with the general account of the incident in question,” Cathair told him. “Mr Fort maintains that his cousin, Alleana Forthay – or Tiller – and her family were killed by the Gauntlet on the twenty-fifth of October in 519. He also says that he was called upon to identify the bodies. The records in the East Quarter ratify this.
“However, a second set of records discovered in the West Quarter gives that Alleana Tiller was found dead in her home on the twenty-eighth – the same day that one Mr Tiller and child are recorded as leaving the city. The exit papers in question were later found to be improper,” Cathair added.
Eamon’s heart went cold.
“I have had the liberty of having the exit papers brought out of the Crown Office,” Arlaith added, and scooped them up from his desk. They were yellowed with age. The Hand trailed them for a moment under Eamon’s gaze.
Eamon froze with unfolding dread. He knew the shape of the letters upon them, remembered well the hand that had formed them. He remembered the day that his father, known in Dunthruik by the name of Tiller, had handed the papers to the Gauntlet on duty at the East Gate. They had been permitted to pass.
He drew a deep breath. “I will see the conflicting papers.”
“Of course.” Arlaith answered, genteelly handing him the two reports.
Eamon looked at them; they were exactly as Cathair had described them. The only substantial difference between them was that papers from the East Quarter had been signed by Lord Ashway in person, while those now produced from the West merely bore the signature of a quarter draybant. Eamon’s brow creased.
He could only conclude that Ashway had lied.
Looking up, Eamon set the papers down on the desk. “Summon Mr Fort,” he said.
“Of course, Lord Goodman.” Cathair strode to the door to do so.
A moment later Anderas brought Fort back into the room. The man shook; he bowed wretchedly, the look of hunted prey on his face.
Eamon turned to Anderas. “Wait outside, captain.”
“Of course, my lord.” Anderas bowed and left.
Eamon looked down at the trembling man before him. “Mr Fort.”
“M-m-my lord,” the man quivered, bowing again.
“Tell me what happened on the twenty-fifth of October, 519.”
Fort held his gaze fearfully for long moments. His eyes darted to the other Hands and then back to Eamon. “My lord, the records –”
“I have seen them, Mr Fort.” Eamon looked at him sternly. “I charge you to truthfully tell me everything that happened.”
Fort took a shuddering breath. “Alleana Forthay was my cousin,” he said. “She was killed on the twenty-fifth. She was a proven wayfarer. I was the head of the family at that time – my own father had recently died. I had barely learned of her death when, having only the name of Forthay, Lord Ashway summoned me. I think it was the twenty-seventh that I was seen… He asked me about Alleana Forthay – he told me that she had been killed and that he was keen to hunt down any other snakes connected to her. I explained to his lordship that she had been married for nearly fifteen years, and that her name was Tiller.”
Fort paused. Eamon watched as the man wet his lips nervously. “Lord Ashway dismissed me,” he said, “but the next day I was summoned again. I was to be the official witness to identify Alleana’s body. Then…” Fort faltered and looked up at Eamon. “Then he told me that I was also to sign documents witnessing to the deaths of her husband and her son. I was to spread the account that all three of them were wayfarers and that all three of them had been killed, which was what the official reports would also say.” His face grew pale. “The truth was that her husband and son had already left the city. Lord Ashway was very clear: under no circumstances was I to speak of the truth unless the Right Hand or the Master himself called me to do so. If I did, then my own family would bear the consequences. As a grace to us, Lord Ashway allowed us to formally change our family name to Fort.” Suddenly Fort dropped, shaking, down to his knees. “Forgive me, my lord,” he said. “I lied to you, but I was bound to do only as Lord Ashway had commanded! I am sorry, my lord!”
Eamon’s heart beat fast. Ashway had concealed the Tillers’ flight from the city. Had Dunth
ruik’s seer come to know of Elior Tiller’s truer name, and come to know it too late to stop his escape?
“Captain Anderas!” he called.
The door opened and Anderas stepped in once more. “My lord?”
The other Hands stood about him in silence. Eamon gestured once to Fort. “Take Mr Fort out for a moment.”
“My lord.”
As Anderas stepped forward, Fort rose to his feet. He trembled, but he bowed.
The door closed behind them. Eamon looked back to the Hands but could not read their faces. He marshalled his thoughts.
“You have heard Fort’s account,” he said.
“His account merely explains the discrepancy in the papers,” Arlaith answered. “It does not prove that he is not himself a snake.”
Eamon stared at him in disbelief. “He was under commands from Lord Ashway.”
“How are we to ascertain that?” Tramist asked bitterly. “Lord Ashway is dead!”
“The only way to be certain that the truth is being told is to breach Fort,” Arlaith put in sagely.
“He will not be breached,” Eamon thundered.
Cathair gave a clipped laugh. “Calm yourself, my lord!”
“Do you desire the Master’s enemies to walk freely in the street, Lord Goodman?” Arlaith challenged.
Eamon’s blood cooled at once. There was a baiting glint to Arlaith’s eye. “No,” he said, measuring his tone.
“Then this man must be breached.”
“Not if it is proven that he was faithfully obeying the commands of Lord Ashway.” Eamon snatched up the report from the East Quarter and pressed it into Cathair’s hand. “Test this paper,” he said, “and I am convinced that you will find that it is sealed with the Master’s mark and Ashway’s own hand.”
Cathair held his gaze for a moment and then laid his fingers over the paper’s seal. As had happened on the very first day that Eamon entered Dunthruik, red light answered him.
“It is as you say,” Cathair told him, setting the paper demurely aside.
