The Broken Blade

by Anna Thayer

  “Is it nearly as feeble-looking as it appears from here, Lord Goodman?” he asked.

  “Hardly,” Eamon replied. He discerned an odd excitement in Arlaith’s eyes as their gazes met.

  “It will go down in flames, Lord Goodman,” Arlaith told him, then laughed. “Flames.”

  Eamon repressed a shudder.

  “How was the Serpent?” Arlaith added, with mock politeness.

  “He rejected the terms,” Eamon replied.

  Arlaith laughed. “That I know, Lord Goodman! How seemed he to you?”

  Wary of the glint in the Hand’s eye, Eamon carefully matched his look. “What kind of answer would you have me make, Lord Arlaith?” he asked. “I delivered terms which he rejected. I am in no position to detail his state of mind to you.”

  “My apologies, Lord Goodman,” Arlaith said and bowed gracefully. “I meant no disrespect to you.”

  Eamon looked at him, feeling and then quelling a streak of suspicion. “Your eagerness is commendable,” he replied. Turning, he looked back over the city and stood for a moment, listening to its work.

  “How stand the preparations?” Arlaith asked.

  “Lord Febian wishes to ride with the Hands tomorrow,” Eamon answered. “I have said that he may.”

  “He is not comfortable with so newly won an accolade at such a time,” Arlaith mused. “A quarter is not an easy burden to bear.”

  “No. But he has prepared the West; Captain Farleigh will have charge of it. The North is prepared.”

  “As is the East,” Arlaith nodded. “How is the South?”

  “The captain advises me that all is ready.”

  “You did not see Lord Tramist?” Arlaith asked curiously.

  “No,” Eamon replied. “He was not there. The captain believes him to be out in the quarter, single-handedly inspecting every blade to be used on the field tomorrow.”

  “Lord Tramist is very particular about such things,” Arlaith agreed. “I am led to understand that he was a fine soldier.”

  “Yet he does not ride?” Eamon asked.

  “To ride in a time of peace and in a time of war are, as I am sure you will appreciate, very different matters,” Arlaith replied. “Lord Tramist was also accomplished in the latter, in his youth, but I would not now force him to a bellicose saddle.”

  “I will heed your advice.”

  For a long moment Eamon was silent. As he stared across the plain at the pontoon bridge, Hughan’s words suddenly rushed into his mind: “She was held and tortured by the Right Hand…”

  His look snapped back to Arlaith. The Hand’s smiling face was also turned towards the south and the bridge, and perhaps his mind toyed with visions of it aflame.

  “Do all the knights of Dunthruik ride out?” Eamon asked quietly. He had a sudden thought he wished to pursue.

  “Yes.”

  “Then I presume the knight Fleance will ride among them?”

  Arlaith’s brow furrowed. “Fleance… Fleance… The name does not seem familiar, but if he is a knight, he will be here with the others of course. How else, my lord, could he ride with the knights if he were not?” Arlaith asked with a small laugh.

  “Surely you remember Fleance? The one for whom Lady Turnholt abandoned and betrayed me?”

  Arlaith looked slowly at him. For a long moment he was silent. His face became utterly unreadable.

  Eamon matched Arlaith’s look. His own hardened.

  “What would you say if I were to order Fleance to ride out at the fore of our armies where he would surely be slain by the enemy?”

  Arlaith bit his lip. “I should not think it prudent, my lord.”

  “Prudence has nothing to do with it,” Eamon snapped back. “It would be an act of revenge. Of spite, if you will, to take from her what she has taken from me.”

  Arlaith paled slightly. “It would be your right, my lord, but I should not advise it.”

  “Indeed? Then I shall give the order… unless, of course, you have other information concerning Lady Turnholt’s circumstance?”

  Arlaith wrung his hands and looked once more out across the plain.

  “What happened to Lady Turnholt?” Eamon said bluntly. He fixed Arlaith with a piercing stare. “I will be answered.”

  “It was a delicate matter, Lord Goodman,” Arlaith answered, “and one with which you should not trouble yourself.”

  “Why should I not trouble myself, Lord Arlaith?” Eamon returned crisply. “This is the second time that I have asked; do not make me ask again.”

  “With due reverence to you, I do not believe that you should ask, Lord Goodman,” Arlaith replied. “The eve of battle is not the best time for such questions.”

  “You would defy me?” Eamon asked coldly.

  Arlaith turned a sorrowful gaze upon him. “Please, Lord Goodman,” he said quietly. “Do not insist upon the matter.”

  “She did not go with Fleance,” Eamon told him, his voice growing in anger as he spoke. “Her house was disbanded and I have learned that you held her. Another question I will ask, Lord Arlaith, and you will answer it. What did you do with her?”

  Arlaith held his look uncomfortably for a moment. “When you left to seek the head of the Easter lord,” he said at last, “she was arrested for questioning; her loyalty had proven troublesome. She was allied to the enemy. At the Master’s will I held her. Some information she gave up willingly, some had to be obtained from her…” Arlaith’s voice trailed away and he lowered his gaze. “Lord Goodman,” he said quietly, looking up with a pleading look, “I have no wish to –”

  “Answer me!” Eamon demanded.

  “She hated the Master,” Arlaith told him, shaking his head at the recollection. “How she hated him! But her hatred of him, Lord Goodman, was as nothing compared to her hatred of you.”

  Eamon recoiled. Alessia hated him… The knowledge of it fortified his anger.

  “How great the bitterness and rage she bore against you!” Arlaith whispered. “I had never seen its like, and hope never to see it again.”

  Eamon turned his gaze towards the plain. She had hated him, yet even now she was under the King’s protection. He closed his eyes hard, to clear his thought. Hughan had forgiven her… How could Hughan have forgiven someone who so hated his First Knight?

  He felt Arlaith’s sharp gaze upon him.

  “This lady wanted nothing more than to strike against you,” the Hand told him quietly. “I was too late to stop her, Lord Goodman, but I would have done, had it lain within my power.”

  “To stop her from what?” he asked, turning to Arlaith at last.

  Arlaith looked at him with deep pity. “She tore out of herself your unborn child, my lord.”

  Eamon could not even gasp. Shock and witless horror froze his very being, fixing his eyes on Arlaith’s sorry face. As he stared, he willed the Hand to smile, or laugh, or somehow prove that what he had spoken was untrue – but Arlaith’s eyes remained upon his own, grieved by the news that he had delivered.

  “You lie,” Eamon whispered. Why should he believe Arlaith? They had long been enemies. Suddenly his voice grew to a yell. “You lie!”

  Arlaith did not speak. Eamon searched his face. “Admit that you lie!” But rather than the forceful command Eamon intended, his accusation emerged like the imploring whimper of a child.

  Slowly, the Lord of the East Quarter shook his head.

  “I speak truth.”

  “Swear it! Swear that you speak true, or I’ll throw you from these parapets myself,” Eamon hissed through clenched teeth.

  Arlaith raised his hands in submission and took a step back. “What could I swear upon that you would believe…? The Nightholt, perhaps?” He lowered his left hand but kept his right raised. “I, Lord Arlaith, do solemnly swear upon the Nightholt that I speak truly. I would as soon lie to the Master himself as to you.”

  Grief took hold of him, digging in its talons so deep he gripped his arms across his aching breast lest it should rupture.

>   Gently, Arlaith reached across and touched his shoulder. “I am sorry, Lord Goodman.”

  Eamon rounded on him. “Had I a child? Had I a child, and she –?”

  “She murdered it. She did so in cold blood, crying down curses and vengeance on you with her bloody tongue. How could I bring that news to you?” Arlaith asked, his face rent with pity. “How could I lay such sorrow upon you? Yet you commanded me, and as a faithful servant, I obeyed.”

  Eamon barely heard him. Had Hughan known of this? Had Hughan known and not spoken of it? His mind filled with Alessia’s face, her touch, and he shuddered with hatred and revulsion.

  Arlaith reached across and took him firmly by the shoulders.

  “Lord Goodman, you must bear it like a man.”

  “Bear it?” Eamon howled, trying to tear away, but Arlaith held him. “How can I bear what she would not?” He drove his hands to his head, pressing them violently against his brow, but he could not still the terrifying thoughts that dwelt within him. “It was a child, Arlaith! A babe… and it was mine!”

  Eamon began to sob.

  Arlaith pressed his shoulders. “You will have a time for vengeance and for anger, Lord Goodman. But the eve of battle is no place for them.” Eamon felt Arlaith’s grip on his shoulders growing as he shook, and tried to control his crippling tears.

  “Take your hatred to the field tomorrow,” Arlaith continued, “and work out her treachery on those she loved. Pay back the blood she spilled, more precious than any other, in unnumbered bloody corpses on the field.”

  Arlaith’s words slunk into Eamon’s flesh, stoking his anger.

  How could Alessia have dared to take the life of his child? His child! What had given her that right? What cruelty had he ever done her, compared with hers to him, that she would think to do such a thing?

  How had Hughan seen fit to forgive her?

  “Lord Goodman.” Arlaith’s quiet voice drew him from his thought. Eamon looked up at him, feeling the sore red of tears about his eyes. Arlaith watched him with concern. “I must return to the East,” he said. “Will you be well, Lord Goodman?”

  “I will be well.” Eamon’s tone and voice seemed fell in his ears and on his lips as he spoke.

  Arlaith held his gaze a moment more, then bowed deeply. “By your leave, Lord Goodman.”

  Eamon did not watch him go. Driving his arms deep into his cloak, he turned and stared out at the plain. Had one betrayal not been enough for her?

  Eamon.

  As the gentle voice washed through him, he shook with fear, for it forced him from his vengeful thoughts and showed him how dark they were. He shuddered to see them in its light.

  How could he know that Arlaith had told him the truth? Why would Arlaith tell him the truth about such a thing?

  Arlaith had said he had not lied… and Hughan had not spoken of a child. No; Hughan had told him that Alessia loved him still! Twice, then, Alessia had lied to the King, and Hughan had been fooled.

  How could the King be fooled?

  Eamon shook his head and tried to reason with himself. It could be a lie. Alessia might not even have been with child…

  But even as he sought that comfort, whether from a vision sent by the King, or another of the Master’s premonitions sent to torment him, Eamon knew the truth of Arlaith’s words: Alessia Turnholt had been bearing a child in her womb – his child – and it was dead. His hands ached at the thought of the tiny babe that he would never hold – or even see.

  He pressed his hands to the walls as his limbs shook. The city was behind him and the battle before him, but as the sun sank into the western sky, Eamon could only grieve for what he had never known, and unknowingly had lost.

  A heavy darkness fell on the city that night. The lights of the Serpent’s camp across the River gave back bright answer to Dunthruik’s grim walls.

  The throne room was long and empty when Eamon knelt wearily in it. He hid his grief as well as he could, but he wondered whether, as they watched him, the Master’s eyes discerned it.

  “Rise, son of Eben.”

  Eamon rose. “The city is ready, Master. It will deploy at dawn.”

  “It is a long-awaited watch that comes this night, Eben’s son,” the throned told him, and then looked at him. He rose and crossed the dais to where Eamon stood before reaching out to touch his face. “You, too, were long-awaited.”

  Eamon searched the Master’s face in confusion. Smiling softly, Edelred leaned forward and powerfully kissed his brow.

  “Rest, Eben’s son,” he said. “Much will be accomplished with the dawn.”

  So it was that, as the moon rose, Eamon returned to his quarters. Supper had been laid for him but he could not face it. With all that he had lived through that day his heart felt terrible and empty, and all his efforts vain. His very self seemed lost in that vacuum and, as he gazed at the table before him, the weight of his long months in Dunthruik came to rest heavily on his shoulders.

  Cartwright came to clear the table and started when he found the food untouched. He looked at Eamon with concern. “My lord?”

  “I cannot eat.” Eamon drove his hands over his eyes and then gazed accusingly at his servant. “Did you know it?” he demanded.

  Cartwright blinked. “Know what, my lord?”

  “Did you know that your lady Alessia was with child?”

  Cartwright remained very still for a moment and his face paled.

  “I did not know it,” the servant said, “but I would believe it.”

  “Would you also believe, Mr Cartwright, that she…” Eamon’s tongue stuck in his throat as fresh rage ran through him. “You were right, Mr Cartwright,” he managed at last. “She stayed in this city. She was held by the Right Hand, and she…” He thought of her pale, beautiful flesh, prone before the torments of a Right Hand.

  “What happened, my lord?” Cartwright whispered.

  Eamon looked at him. The thoughts were too terrible for him to bear. His jaw quivered. Desperately he struggled with his violent tongue but he could not hold it.

  “She killed it to injure me!”

  With a cry of vile rage he tore up to his feet. He seized the table, and setting against it every force of muscle and of limb, he hurled it down. With a tremendous crack, all that was on the table was cast asunder and the stones of the Right Hand’s chamber rang with a splintering roar.

  Eamon did not hear it. His tongue, stirred past all endurance, fell to curses. To think of her, laid open before the Right Hand…

  His curses dwindled to wrathful sobs and his knees lost their strength. Sinking back upon his chair, he laid his head in his hands and wept.

  If she had been tortured, she had deserved it. All that she had done, she had done to spite him. It was to spite him that she had slaughtered his child.

  “My lord,” Cartwright dared at last.

  Eamon scarcely heard him.

  “My lord, I cannot imagine how this weighs on you, but I am sorry.”

  Cartwright’s gentle words fell on him with a chill. Eamon struggled to recover his senses.

  “It was not your doing,” he answered at last.

  Cartwright stood nearby. He held an elegant black napkin, which he had rescued from the floor. Wordlessly, the servant extended it to Eamon. Eamon used it to wipe his stinging eyes and face.

  “Thank you.”

  Cartwright nodded.

  “I am sorry,” Eamon added, gesturing to the broken table.

  “I will clear it.” Cartwright began to gather debris from the floor. As Cartwright worked, Eamon’s thought turned to what the morning would bring.

  “Mr Cartwright.”

  Cartwright paused and looked at him. “My lord?”

  “If the Master fails tomorrow –”

  “My lord!”

  “If the Master fails tomorrow, and the Serpent enters the city, I want you to gather my house. You will go to a room somewhere in the palace and shut yourselves inside. And, should the enemy find you, you will tell t
hem that you serve me.” He paused. “Refer to me by name.”

  “My lord?”

  “Do not question my instruction. Only swear to me that you will do this.”

  He did not look convinced, but the servant nodded. “Yes, my lord.” He continued gathering the fallen meal and then looked up to Eamon. “Will the Serpent come, my lord?”

  “Yes,” Eamon replied. “He will come.”

  “Then you, my lord, must eat,” Cartwright said quietly, “for this city’s hopes are pinned on you.”

  Caught between growing terror and the embers of his anguished rage, Eamon shuddered.

  “Yes,” he whispered.

  It was long that night before Eamon retired to his bedchambersand lay down to rest. For a while he heard the servants tidying the dining hall. When even that noise stopped, he was left alone with the rustling sound of the drapes moving in the evening air.

  He lay through the scant hours of darkness, trying to rest. But he could not sleep; his eyes were haunted and his thought was tainted, and when he tried to distract himself by watching the drapes about him, he saw shadows as terrifying as those that dwelt within.

  For a moment, however brief, he had not been the last of his house, but before it had even been born, his child had been cursed by his blood. It was repayment for his broken oaths.

  So much had happened to him since the day when he had begun taking and breaking oaths. It had not been even a year, yet it felt as though he had lived a hundred. With the dawn, he would face that for which he had fought and suffered.

  All over the city men lay down to sleepless rest, or restless sleep. Dunthruik lay on the land like a hideous beast, ready by labours and groans to birth an army through the Blind Gate. The fighting would begin before most of that army had reached the field, and the field would be covered in blood before the sun had reached the third hour.

  And all for what – a book and a crown? Would men die for that? Would he die for it?

  He searched his heart. First Knight they called him, and Right Hand, and Raven’s Bane, and Eben’s son. He had so many names that he scarcely knew who he was or what he was to do. When he rode before the divisions and lines of men, before the whole city of Dunthruik, its first son and triumph of its Master, and spoke of his allegiance… would he not betray them all?