by Anna Thayer
Eamon turned to Arlaith again. “As you see, Mr Fort is guilty of nothing but doing as Ashway ordered,” he said. “Breaching him now would therefore be the same as saying that a family connection to a wayfarer is enough to warrant the incarceration and torture of a citizen of Dunthruik. This is a dangerous precedent.”
Arlaith gave him a short smile. “We all know how strongly you feel on matters of the law, Lord Goodman,” he said. Eamon glared at him. “However, you cannot deny that families are influential in such matters.”
Eamon stared at him. Why should he not let Fort be breached? It would show the truth, and at no danger to himself.
But breaching was a tool of the throned, and if Tramist had anything to do with it, it would mean prolonged agony. Eamon swore angrily in his mind. Advocating on Fort’s behalf would have been easier if he had not such a keen dislike for the man. Yet Eamon had already made a fool of himself before his enemies on Fort’s behalf – what more could be expected of him?
He drew a deep breath. Fort had been made the plaything of Hands who cared nothing for justice. Eamon could not let them breach him.
A thought leapt to his mind and he seized it.
“A family’s influence works both ways. I forbid you to breach Mr Fort.”
Arlaith scoffed. “On what basis?”
“The law,” Eamon replied with quiet resolve.
“The law? It is the very law of which you speak that requires this man be breached!” Cathair exclaimed.
Eamon swallowed in a dry throat. “A nobleman of Dunthruik is exempt from the prospect of being breached unless it is expressly commanded by the Master.”
“Pah! Fort is no more noble than a rat!” Tramist sneered. “Men like him wind up dead in ditches, covered in their own stinking blood every day.”
“What might you be thinking, Lord Goodman?” Cathair asked, an interested look on his face.
“If it were found that one of Fort’s kinsmen was of noble blood, loyal to the Master, then Fort would by extension also have noble blood and be exempt from breaching,” Eamon answered.
Arlaith nodded firmly. “I think we would agree with that, Lord Goodman,” he said with a little smile.
“And yourselves, my lords?” Eamon asked. “Would proof of such a relation content you?”
Cathair assented, but Tramist threw his head back with a wild laugh.
“Are you a magician, Lord Goodman?” he asked. “It is impossible to do as you suggest. Let me breach the man and let matters be concluded with that.”
“Lord Tramist,” Eamon answered quietly. “I can produce this proof.”
A triumphant, almost ecstatic, look passed over Arlaith’s face. It was a trap. Arlaith had prepared it well. Eamon knew it, and had taken the bait like a fool. But he dared not back down.
Tramist leaned forward with mocking interest. “Really?” he snickered. “Well, then, where is it, Lord Goodman?” He peered over Eamon’s shoulder as though he expected patents of nobility to be produced by some parlour trick from the folds of Eamon’s cloak.
Eamon met his gaze. “He stands before you, Lord Tramist,” he answered quietly.
There was silence.
Suddenly Cathair laughed, and laughed so hard he had to clutch his sides in mirth while tears rimmed his green eyes.
“I had forgotten, in my long and dreary abstinence from your company, how amusing you can be at times, Lord Goodman!” he cried.
“This is not one of them,” Eamon answered. “By right of my title as Right Hand to the Master, I am a noble of Dunthruik. Alleana Tiller was my mother. And Mr Fort is the son of my mother’s uncle.”
Cathair fell silent and stared. Tramist did similarly. But the surprise on Arlaith’s face was feigned.
“Well, Lord Goodman,” Arlaith said. “It would seem that parlour tricks are a hidden forté of yours.” Eamon fixed him with an appalled gaze, but Arlaith smiled.
Tramist gaped at him. “What power in the River Realm saw fit for you to join the Gauntlet!” he yelled at last.
Eamon rounded darkly on him. “You would question my allegiance?”
“You!” Tramist cried again. “The son of a wayfaring whore!”
Eamon could have struck him. “You will ask such questions of Captain Belaal, or of Lord Cathair, who was long my guardian and mentor,” he seethed; Cathair squirmed. “Or you will ask it of the Master himself. You will not ask it of me, and you will not,” he added, “speak of me in such a way again. If you do, you will answer for it.”
Tramist stared at him, open-mouthed. “You would not dare –”
It was then that Arlaith stepped forward. “I am satisfied,” he said. “Lord Goodman, I am more than willing to let Fort go with a full pardon, and to let this matter drop. Your allegiance is utterly unassailable and I am sure that Lord Cathair and Lord Tramist will concur with my assessment.”
The other Hands murmured their assent. Eamon did not trust them, but there seemed little else to do but accept their words. Feeling wearied as with a century of toil, he nodded.
“I am glad that we have resolved this matter. To his glory,” he added.
“His glory.”
Eamon left the office. The Hands stared after him and no doubt they spoke as soon as the door shut behind him, but he did not stay to hear it. He did not wish to know.
Anderas waited a little further down the corridor. Fort sat in a small chair beside him, his head hung pitifully between his bound hands. As Eamon looked at them he felt a pang of ire in his breast. Had he sacrificed himself to Arlaith for such a man?
Eamon. The other voice, so silent in the days since he had become Right Hand, washed through him in an instant. For him, or any other.
Eamon drew a deep breath and tucked his shaking hands inside his cloak. It was then that Fort heard his approach. He rose to his feet at once and bowed.
“Lord Goodman –”
“You shall go free, Mr Fort,” Eamon told him heavily. Anderas watched him. How desperately he wanted to speak to the captain! But they could only exchange a glance. “The charges have been dropped.”
Fort’s face lit up with joy and he fell to his knees, clasping at the hem of Eamon’s cloak. “My lord, you work miracles!” he cried. “How can I repay you?”
Eamon stooped and raised the man to his feet. He quietly met his gaze. “I would be grateful, Mr Fort,” he answered softly, “if despite all that you have suffered for her actions, you would forgive your cousin, for her son has secured your release.”
Silence met his words. It tore palpably across Fort’s face. Both Fort and Anderas stared at him, the former warily, the latter astonished.
Slowly, Eamon drew the bindings from Fort’s hands. The man looked at him again. A sliver of disgust touched Fort’s erstwhile jubilant face.
“Yes, my lord,” he said.
Eamon drew a deep breath. “To his glory, Mr Fort,” he said.
Fort bowed. “To his glory, Lord Goodman.” The words were coldly given.
Without waiting for Fort to rise, Eamon passed on down the corridor.
He came back into the Ashen where the bright sun stung his eyes. The square was full of people who bowed as he emerged. Eamon imagined that the crowds had seen him riding to the Handquarter and wondered at the wrath on his face.
At his command the stable hands swiftly brought him his horse. Eamon came down the steps to meet them. With curt words of thanks he climbed into the saddle and was about to spur Sahu on when a voice came after him. “Lord Goodman,” it called. “Did you know, when you joined the Gauntlet, that your mother was a wayfarer?”
Eamon felt as though a more terrible silence had never fallen. The press of shocked faces all around him was like talons sinking into his flesh.
Slowly, he turned. Cathair stood about a stone’s throw away. The Hand’s face was creased in a scowl.
“Will you not answer?” Cathair called again. His green eyes flashed and the Lord of the West Quarter surveyed the Right Hand as though he
had been made the victim of dire treachery. “The woman who bore you worked foully against the Master and against his glory and so I ask you, my lord Right Hand: did you know it when you took your oaths?”
Eamon received both words and look without flinching. The whole city hung dead in the air around him.
“I did not,” he answered. “I was a child, Lord Cathair. I was told that my mother was killed for her purse.”
“By your father?”
“Yes, Lord Cathair.”
“It would seem that he lied to you, Lord Goodman.”
“Perhaps he did not know the truth,” Eamon answered, “or perhaps he sought to protect me from it.” A wave of sadness washed through Eamon. He wondered whether his father had known the history of the name he had borne. “But as for my own oaths, Lord Cathair,” he said gently, “they stand as they were made.”
Cathair held his gaze for a moment and Eamon wondered whether the Hand’s expression softened.
“The decisions a man makes for his house are binding, my lord, and must be well considered,” he answered at last, “as I am sure yours are.”
Eamon nodded once towards him. “To his glory, Lord Cathair,” he said.
“To his glory, my lord.”
As Eamon turned to urge his horse from the Ashen, the onlookers bowed once again. He could not see their faces, nor could he fathom what they now made of the Master’s Right Hand. He knew then that the nature of his lineage would be all over the city within the hour.
What would the Master say? He could not think on it. All he could think, and that bitterly, was that he had held to the King. He had held, and sacrificed himself, for his mother’s worm-like cousin. In the long day that followed, Eamon could barely lift his head to meet the gaze of any that enquired after him. His own household, Fletcher, Cartwright, and the maids whom he saw in his quarters, said nothing of his lineage to him, but it did not encourage him. Other men watched him sidelong as he moved through palace halls, and Hands hushed their conversations as he passed, and bowed with over-formality.
Most terrifying of all, the Master said nothing about Fort; he only watched Eamon with his keen gaze and spoke of other things. But Eamon felt his disapproval and it cowed him into silence. He fully expected rebuke and knew that when it came it would be crushing.
It came the next morning. As the servants wove and moved in the silent dance of their service and Eamon took his chair to breakfast, the throned fixed him with a penetrating glare.
“A day, Eben’s son, yet still you do not deem to speak?” The Master’s voice was fierce and quiet.
Eamon painfully drew his eyes up from his hands. “Master,” he began, “I –”
“You believed that I should learn it from Lord Arlaith, or from palace gossip?” Edelred spat. “Should not my Right Hand speak out such things to me the very moment that they occur?” The voice became a menacing roar. “You have dishonoured me, Eben’s son.”
Eamon felt as though a blade turned in his chest. “Master, I meant no dishonour –”
“Still you brought it.”
“I cannot hide my roots, Master!” Eamon cried. “My mother’s choices were not of my making!”
The throned laughed, that soft and indulgent laugh that Eamon both basked in and feared.
“Eben’s son!” he cried. “Do you not think I know your heritage? Do you not think I have known it since before your mother bore you?” Eamon trembled. “I know every twisted root and branch, every fruit and stone, of the trees that led to you. It is not your blood that dishonours me; it is your silence.”
Eamon could not look at him. Blood and roots; did not everything go back to those? Was it not in deeds and words that blood and roots were either cursed or exulted? Had he not added further perjury to the curses that clung to his own? He knew he had; yet in his heart dwelt the sick hope that he might somehow receive the Master’s forgiveness.
The throned took a long look at him. “Tonight, Eben’s son, there will be a feast at the palace. I will be there, as will you, at my side.”
Eamon gazed at him in terror. “But the whole city despises me, Master,” he cried, “I cannot –”
“I am the city, son of Eben.” His voice was like thunder. “And I delight in you.” Eamon’s head spun as the Master’s smile touched him. “Even so, do not be so foolish again.”
Eamon left the hall awash with fatigue and gruelling fear. He was but a plaything in the Master’s hands, to be built up and cast down at any moment. Now he had to go to a feast and sit at the throned’s right hand while Tramist, Cathair, and Arlaith pierced him with their venomous gazes. He would endure their stares and those of all the lords and ladies of the city. He had to, for the Master he loved commanded it.
The thought drew him up short. Did he love the throned?
He went to inspect the Blind Gate, its wide lanes lined with the severed heads of Dunthruik’s enemies in various stages of rot and decay. He searched the rotting faces in vain, seeking one face in particular: Rendolet’s, the shapeshifting Hand. Rendolet, who had taken the shape of the Master’s sworn enemy, the Easter, Feltumadas. Rendolet, whose shapeshifted head Eamon had brought back to Dunthruik as “proof” of Feltumadas’s demise. But the head was missing.
Later that day he learned of a fire in the East Quarter that had destroyed the Horse and Cart and several buildings near it. The innkeeper, his family, guests, and neighbours had all been killed.
When Eamon returned to his quarters that evening he found robes set out for him. They were the robes that he had worn at the majesty, bearing the design of the Right Hand’s eagle on their breast. He could barely stand the sight of them.
Cartwright helped him to dress; Eamon’s mind was weighted and troubled, in desperate need of ease.
“Cartwright,” he said quietly. Tears pooled in his eyes as the servant’s diligent hands fastened the cloak about his shoulders.
“My lord?”
Eamon faltered. What good could it do?
“Did Lady Turnholt ever speak of me?” he asked at last. He did not know why he asked it, except that her name and thoughts had once been things that rendered him solace.
The hands at his shoulder paused for a moment.
“Forgive me, my lord,” Cartwright replied. “You told me not to speak of her.”
“Did she?” Eamon persisted.
After a long and reluctant pause, his servant nodded. “Often, my lord,” he said. “And dearly.”
Eamon allowed the words to settle on him, trying to take comfort from them.
Suddenly Alessia’s face was in his mind and he heard her weep: “They made me a painted doll, to be dressed and undressed at their leisure…”
The words haunted him and he looked down at the clothes he wore. Was he any more than that? Was he not dressed and undressed, built up and cast down, caressed and struck, just as they desired?
In an instant he wished for her hand and for her shoulder and long, beautiful hair, and he longed to bury his face and sorrows in them both. How truly she had spoken!
But she had betrayed him. How could he forget that?
Slowly he regained himself. “Thank you, Cartwright,” he whispered. “I will go down to the feast.”
“I will await your return, my lord,” Cartwright replied.
Eamon made his way down the corridors towards the sounds of music and laughter. He mused that, apart from lavish breakfasts and his sleepless nights, he seemed to spend little time at the palace. He wondered if such had been the case for Arlaith.
Red stones guarded some passageways but Eamon barely noticed them as he passed beneath the auspices of hanging banners and great paintings. He made his way to the Master’s quarters using the secret links between the East and West Wings of the palace, then took the path from the Master’s quarters to the throne room. The festivities grew ever louder as he approached.
The door to the throne room was small and inconspicuous – a service entrance – but tonight it had been set asid
e for the Master. Eamon approached slowly. He noticed a bent figure stooping to a peephole in the wood. He cleared his throat.
The figure straightened and turned towards him. The doorkeeper. He bowed.
“Lord Goodman,” he said.
“Doorkeeper,” Eamon acknowledged.
The man beamed at him. “You look splendid, my lord!”
“Thank you,” Eamon answered nervously. He resisted the urge to fold his hands and arms deep into his cloak, and tried to stand as a Right Hand would stand.
“My lord,” spoke another voice behind him: Fletcher’s.
“What must I do, Mr Fletcher?” Eamon asked quietly.
“In a moment, the doorkeeper will announce the Master,” Fletcher answered. “You will go in with him.”
“And then?”
Fletcher smiled. “Then, my lord, you will wile the night away in whatever way best pleases you and the Master.”
Eamon swallowed. “Thank you, Mr Fletcher,” he said, doing his best to mask his aversion to the prospect of spending his evening in the Master’s company. He watched light and shadow move across the peephole, and wondered what the doorkeeper saw through the tiny hole.
Then the Master arrived. Those in the room bowed.
“Your glory!” said those assembled. Belatedly, Eamon did the same, for he had never seen the throned look as powerful as in that moment. There were no words that could describe the fire that dwelt that night upon the Master of the River, nor how the tailors had contrived to set it in such costly and stupendous raiment as he now bore.
Eamon bowed low. How drab and dour seemed the colour blue when all the world was aflame.
As he bowed, the Master stepped forward. There was a glimmer of gold as the throned wreathed Eamon’s neck with an opulent chain. From the chain hung the red stone that Eamon had seen on Arlaith the first time that he had seen the Right Hand. Now he wore it. The eagle emblazoned there lay heavily over his heart.
The Master smiled. “Rise, Eben’s son,” he said, “and walk with me.”
Eamon did so and stepped to the Master’s side. The doorkeeper tugged a small cord near the hidden door. A moment later the sounds within dropped away and were reborn as a fanfare in the hall. The door opened as a voice called out:
