The Broken Blade (10 page)

“Do not lie to me,” Eamon thundered. “You gave no report to Anderas; he would have brought it to me.” Arlaith stilled a little. “Now speak clearly,” Eamon growled, “else your tongue will be the next thing served in this hall.”

Arlaith looked at him with amusement. “You have grown bold, Lord Goodman.” A smile darkened his face. “You would dare to threaten me?”

“I will not fear a Left Hand,” Eamon retorted bitterly; the words almost knocked Arlaith's composure. “Now speak!”

“Very well, if you insist upon it…” Arlaith paused, looked once across the gardens towards the Hands' Hall as though pondering for a moment where to begin, and then shrugged. “I was clearing out some very unseemly and untidy corners of the East Quarter College – no reflection, I am sure, on their previous keeper – when I stumbled on some grain. Imagine my surprise!” he added. “Well, the people had been plaining for food and so I asked myself: what would Lord Goodman do? I had to think but for a moment to find the answer.” Arlaith spread his arms with a laugh. “Tonight, the East sups at last.”

Eamon glared at him; he could not argue against the Hand's flattering insolence.

“Why did you not come first to me?” he demanded.

“You knew of this?” Arlaith asked innocently, then his eyes widened. “Ah! Perhaps that is what the draybant meant, before he was…” He looked up with horror. “Oh
dear
, Lord Goodman.” And the horror on his face became once more his accustomed and mocking smile.

“Speak plainly,” Eamon cried, “or I swear –”

“Do not swear, Lord Goodman,” Arlaith retorted. “You are not very good at it.”

“The grain was stored under my orders,” Eamon hissed, “to be kept until my orders released it.”

“There was no paperwork to that effect,” Arlaith replied. “Obviously, without paperwork to sanction their actions, the men who resisted my release of the grain could not be taken at their word.”

The words froze Eamon to the core. “Resisted?” he repeated.

“Their actions were against the state – deeds of treachery, no less – without papers to sanction them,” Arlaith answered. “I had letters delivered to their families this afternoon. They were classed as wayfarers and sent to the pyres.”

“Even in the letters?” Eamon gaped. A family could endure no greater dishonour than to have their menfolk branded traitors.

“Even so,” Arlaith answered steadily.

“Who?” he whispered.

“There were several injuries, among them Cadets Grey, Locke, and Bellis – they have been remanded in the brig – and three fatalities. Two ensigns whose names escape me, and Draybant Greenwood.”

Eamon sank back against the stonework in horror. Greenwood, dead? The grain was wasted and Greenwood was dead.

It was the price, his wretched heart cried at him, to be paid for serving the King.

Wrathful, bitter tears sprang up into his blinded eyes. He rounded on Arlaith.

“You bastard!” he yelled. “You know full well what you did!”

“You injure me, Lord Goodman!” Arlaith replied. “I acted in the interest of the East Quart –”

“The grain was stored in the interest of the East Quarter!” Eamon raged. “You went against my commands and you killed men loyal to the Master!”

“I knew of no commands, Lord Goodman,” Arlaith told him, “and I took no arms against these men of yours.”

Eamon turned and gripped the stone. He might be Right Hand but he could not touch Arlaith; he could bring down no vengeance on him. Tiny twists of law and bureaucracy kept him safe.

“It distresses me to see you thus, Lord Goodman,” Arlaith said at last. “Are you well?”

“Get away from me!” Eamon spat.

“As you command, my lord.” Bowing slickly, Arlaith left.

Eamon shook. Was he so powerless? He was Right Hand, but he could not protect those whom he loved. So many men were dead, and more would follow. He could not save the city. He had been foolish to try. He had tried. He had tried to hold…

Suddenly footsteps came across the balcony towards him.

“Lord Goodman?” It was Fletcher's voice, and it trembled as it spoke.

Eamon did not turn to face him. “What is it, Fletcher?” His eyes burnt with tears that he could not weep before his lieutenant.

“The Master asks why you will not come and dance, and join the festivities?” Fletcher sounded terrified, as though he feared to bring the message and feared the answer that he would have to take back.

“Tell the Master that I excuse myself most humbly, and that I am exceedingly grateful for this great feast he has given for me,” Eamon replied. His hands shook violently. “But I cannot go in. I am not well.”

“Shall I fetch a doctor, Lord Goodman?”

“No!” Eamon yelled, turning to him at last. Seeing his face, Fletcher blanched. Eamon rubbed a hand over his brow; it was covered with sweat. “I will go to my quarters,” he said. “The Master may seek me there, if he desires it.”

“Very well, Lord Goodman.”

Eamon stormed away along the balcony. The light from the feasting hall coloured his skin as he went.

Rage caught in his throat as he flung open the doors that led into his quarters. He slammed them shut behind him but he could still hear the music. With a cry he turned and stalked from his bedroom to his entrance hall. As his chest heaved he felt the weight of the stone, and with a great cry of wrath he tore the heavy chain from
him. This he hurled across the room, and after it he cast Eben's dagger. Both came to rest by the mantelpiece and lay, whole and unscathed, in the glinting firelight. Shuddering, Eamon pressed his back, hard, against the wall, and shook.

“My lord?” spoke a timid voice.

Eamon looked up and saw Cartwright standing in the doorway to one of the other chambers, a taper in his hands.

“My lord, are you well –?”

Eamon looked up at him through a veil of tears. He could not hear, could not think.

“I told you not to speak of her, Cartwright!” he thundered, and as he lay against the stone he wrung his hands together in grief. “I told you not to bring that treacherous whore before me!”

Cartwright's face grew grey. “My lord,” he whispered, “I did not speak of Lady Turnholt.”

Eamon felt Alessia's soft face in his hands; the name convulsed through him, releasing a torrent of memory and hurt which he had long sought to hide.

“Do not name her!” he yelled. “Perfidious, lying whore!”

His outcry was too much for her servant.

“You repay her with such names?” Cartwright asked incredulously. “She loved you.”

“Loved me?” Eamon stared at him. “She betrayed me; may she reap all reward of that from Fleance's curséd couch!”

“You
believe
that story?” Cartwright gaped.

“It is the truth!”

“Forgive me, my lord, but it is not.” Cartwright stepped angrily towards him. “I served her house, Lord Goodman, and I knew her well, long before you did. Alessia Turnholt went to no man's court and no man courted her after you deserted her. You did not know her at all if you believe these lies of her.”

“It is the truth!” Eamon howled. He knew it was the truth; Ladomer had told him so. And Mathaiah had died because of her.
That
was unforgiveable. “She betrayed me!”

“If she had gone with Fleance with the Master's favour would her house have been disbanded? Would it not have gone with her? Would not I have gone? Would I be here in your hall if her house had
not
been disbanded?” The servant's face was flushed with anger; only death could await a servant who dared to raise his voice against the Right Hand, but Cartwright courted it. “You are an intelligent man, my lord, and you can answer these questions as well as I can.”

Eamon could bear it no longer. He surged to his feet and forward, bearing down on his servant with the wrath of storm-torn skies.

“You snake!” he screamed. “Lying snake! Get out!” His voice and hands rose as though to strike the man and then shook with inconsolable rage. He could not. “Get out!” he bawled. “Out!”

With shaking hands Cartwright fled the room.

Eamon heard the door close behind him. He sank down to his knees, his head pounding with the pressure of lost loves and mixed loyalties, of lies and betrayals, hatred and longing. He had been harrowed and harried and feasted on by grief, and now it broiled deep within him. Death and blood and flame; he was mired by them, with no way of escape, and nothing to cling to, except the indulgence of the Master for whom he must fawn and prance like a witless puppet.

Perhaps that was all he was.

“Cartwright?” Eamon croaked. His voice sounded pitiful between the caverns of the drapes. No answer came. “Cartwright!” he called again, trying to sit up. He could not.

“Lie still, my lord.”

He fell back against the deep bed. It was warm and damp.

Slowly he drew open his aching eyes – they felt swollen and heavy, and it took time to work them – then started in surprise. A man wearing the uniform of the Master's servants stood nearby, peering at him. As he focused, Eamon made out Fletcher standing behind the first man; the lieutenant's uniform was like a continuation of the drapes that the first man pushed as he leant close.

Drapes… Eamon gasped sharply and sat up. He was in the bed of the Right Hand; he had never dared lie in it before. He had never wanted to.

“How did I get here?” he demanded. As he spoke, he realized that he was naked beneath the covers. He became acutely aware of the scars on his back and settled firmly against the pillow. “Well?” he barked.

“You were found on the floor in your hall, my lord.” The servant reached out and took Eamon by the wrist; he held the pulse and counted a short while before he continued. “You were moved.”

“Moved?” he queried.

“By the Master's servants and myself, Lord Goodman,” Fletcher answered. The first man continued his strange count, beating the pulse absent-mindedly against the bed. “I was sent to ascertain in what way you were unwell.”

Eamon shivered.
“The Master may seek me in my quarters…”
So, like a fool, he had told Fletcher before he fled the ball, and the Master – or, at least, his servants – had come. How had the Right Hand been found? Senseless on the floor, wracked with wrath and grief; Arlaith would have enjoyed the sight, had he the opportunity.

He shuddered, wondering what words had been spoken over him and who had undressed him and laid him in the bed, and whether they had laughed or looked on him with pity. He did not know; he remembered none of it.

As he tormented himself with those thoughts he returned at last to what he did remember – his servant, and his waking.

“Where is Cartwright?”

“Who is this Cartwright?” the counting man asked.

“A servant,” Fletcher answered, then stepped forward to the bedside. “I have not seen him yet this morning, my lord.” Fletcher did not look concerned. “Shall I send for him?”

Eamon winced. How could he ask for the man after what he had said? He sighed and leaned back heavily into the pillow.

“No,” he said at last. The counting man set Eamon's wrist down and examined him thoughtfully, marking his breathing. Fletcher watched in silence for a while and then turned officiously to the other man.

“What news shall I send to the Master?” he asked.

“That the Right Hand is awake, Mr Fletcher,” the man answered, “and perhaps in need of leech craft to calm his somewhat over-excited blood.”

“What!” Eamon exclaimed. “I need no leeches!” he added hotly.

The servant raised an eyebrow at him. “If I say that you need leeches, Lord Goodman,” he told Eamon severely, “then you need leeches.”

“Who are you?” Eamon demanded.

“This is Mr Doveton. He is the Master's physician, my lord,” Fletcher told him quickly. “He has come to you at the Master's personal request and is an expert in his trade.”

“I will have no leeches,” Eamon persisted. The thought of them made his stomach turn.

“Unless your temperament makes startling improvement before I am a minute older, Lord Goodman, there shall be leeches all over you within the hour,” the doctor replied.

Eamon glared at him but knew that he had no sway over a servant serving him at the Master's behest. It was a disconcerting realization.

“I apologize,” he said quietly. The doctor looked utterly taken aback. “But I am not overly fond of the idea, besides which fact there is nothing wrong with me; I was tired and overcome with emotion.”

“I beg your pardon?” the doctor breathed. He looked astounded.

“I said,” Eamon began again, as calmly as he could, “that I was overwhelmed by emotion and that this led to my collapse.”

“No, my lord,” the man said, shaking his head. “I beg your pardon, I meant the first part.”

“My apology?”

“Yes,” the doctor said with an air of amazement. He looked to Fletcher, then shook himself as though to clear his head. “My recommendation will be that you allow me to monitor you for a few days, Lord Goodman,” he said. “If you improve, my leeches shall go hungry.”

“You'll forgive me if I feel no compassion for them,” Eamon answered. The doctor blinked again, then laughed.

“The Master asks if you will come to breakfast, my lord,” Fletcher interrupted.

Eamon glanced across at the balcony window. The idea made him feel sick, but he had no choice. “Yes, Mr Fletcher,” he answered, rising from his bed. “I will go. You may tell him so.”

Fletcher bowed and withdrew. The lieutenant's footsteps retreated across the hall and the doors opened – then closed – behind him. The doctor drew to his feet and gathered up the few things he had brought with him, among them smelling salts and other bottles.
Eamon saw that one of them had been opened. He wondered what it was and whether it had been used.

He eyed the doctor carefully for a moment. The man met his gaze.

“I will help you to dress, Lord Goodman,” the doctor told him. “Your own house has been asked to stay away for the present, so that I might treat you.”

Eamon froze. The doctor looked down at him. “My lord, does that trouble you?”

“I do not care for unknown eyes… prying.”

“I assure you, you suffered no indignity under my supervision.”

“That is not it… I – I carry marks from my past that I should prefer remain hidden. A man of my station has enough rumours surrounding him without adding to them.”

“You speak of your scars?” said the doctor.

Eamon nodded. “How many others saw them?” he asked quietly.

“Some of the Master's house,” the doctor replied. “But none who can speak of it.” Eamon felt sudden and guilty relief that the servants were mute.

“My lieutenant?”

“Was not present when the servants laid you in your bed, my lord.”

“You will speak of it to no one,” Eamon told him.

“No… except the Master, my lord,” the doctor replied. He watched Eamon for another moment, then stretched out his hand. “Come, my lord. You may dress and go to breakfast.”

 

Once dressed Eamon made his way across the balcony towards the Master's dining room. As he walked he dwelt on what must have happened the previous night. The more he pondered it, the more humiliated he felt. This time he had needed no assistance; he had betrayed himself. A fine figure he had made, the Right Hand who had collapsed on the night of his own celebration; and so his anger increased.

The doorkeeper greeted him impeccably and admitted him to the throned's company. The servants within bowed; Eamon
wondered how many of their silent faces now knew what he had so long endeavoured to keep hidden.

The Master sat at the table, his taster at his side. As Eamon approached, the Master appraised him critically.

“How fare you, Eben's son?” he asked, though there seemed little concern in his voice, merely cold interest. It shredded Eamon's heart.

“Well, Master,” Eamon answered. Did he want the Master's pity? He drew a deep breath. “Forgive me,” he said. “I was not myself last night. I hope only that I did not anger you.”

“Anger me?” The throned laughed. “Yes, Right Hand, you did.” The Master fixed him with a piercing glare; Eamon would rather have been pinned with a hundred daggers than endure that look. “I asked you to come in, Eben's son, and you refused me.”

Eamon swallowed. How could he explain why he had acted as he did? As he felt the glint of the Master's eye upon him he realized that he must.

“I received ill news, Master,” he said quietly, “and I received it badly.”

“What news?” the Master asked, and gestured for food to be laid before himself. Eamon remained standing. He had not been invited to sit.

“When I was Lord of the East Quarter, Master, I took it upon myself to set aside a store of grain.”

“Indeed?” The Master did not sound interested, but his keen eye roved across Eamon's face like a hunter seeking a hare hidden in the bush.

“This store, Master, I made for the quarter; I hoped that were the Serpent ever to come to our walls and lay siege to our city, the East would live.”

“This is an initiative, son of Eben, which was not discussed with me,” the Master told him.

“I was afraid to speak of it, Master,” Eamon answered, “because such provisions might lengthen a siege, should one come. I therefore did not know how the measure would be received. My
heart was to have the people of this city kept safe.” He paused, hoping that the Master might somehow encourage or berate him; but the man remained silent, his concentration seemingly on what he ate and drank.

Chilled, he saw no choice but to continue. “The news I received last night touched on this,” Eamon said. “I learned that Lord Arlaith had taken this store and distributed it to the people of the quarter.”

“And this made you sick, Eben's son?”

Eamon heard the mocking tone of the Master's voice. It pricked anger in the place of his grief. “Lord Arlaith did this not for your glory, Master, nor even for his own.” Eamon thought of Greenwood's body being taken to the pyres, just as Mathaiah's had been, and suddenly his rage grew greater. He abandoned all effort to hide it. “Arlaith did this to spite me, to bait me, and weaken me. In so doing he killed, and branded as traitors, men who were nothing but loyal to you and to your glory.”

Silence followed his outburst. Still the Master ate, and the servants stood.

The Master took a long draught of his drink. He looked up at Eamon.

“Tell me, Eben's son,” he said. “What is it that you have done that Arlaith would bait you so?”

Eamon tried to match his gaze. He felt like a child.

“I have done nothing to him, Master.”

“And, following news of the release of your grain store, you returned to your quarters and fainted?”

Eamon lowered his eyes; the Master's tone shamed him. “Yes.”

“Son of Eben! Is so little a thing enough to cast you down?”

Eamon did not answer him.

The Master laughed, and a whimsical smile rolled across his face. “You are yet young and fragile, son of Eben. You will grow, and such small matters will not burden you.” The Master surveyed him a moment more. “I understand that you have many scars on your back, Right Hand,” he said quietly. “How came you by them?”

Eamon looked up in surprise, but the Master's face was unreadable.

“Did…” he faltered. Edelred watched him in the silence. “Master,” Eamon breathed. “Did Lord Arlaith not speak of them to you?”

“I speak with you, son of Eben,” the Master answered, “not with Arlaith.”

Eamon swallowed. Arlaith had known that he had been flogged; was it possible that the Master had not known it before the previous night? “I… I was flogged, Master.”

“For what trespass?” The Master's tone was deceptively neutral.

“My own,” Eamon answered quietly. For a moment Mathaiah's face flashed across his mind, along with those of the other two cadets. In horror, he realized that he no longer remembered their names. He closed his eyes. “I was flogged for a failure in my command, Master. I keep it hidden. It is shameful to me.”

The Master did not speak, but seemed deep in thought.

“Sit and eat,” he commanded, gesturing to the plate which the taster had sampled before laying it at the table. He did not know whether this was done for his safety or the Master's amusement. “Your strength is needed, Eben's son.”

Eamon bowed and took his place at the table. His strength? He had no strength left; it had been stolen from him in thrusts and jabs, by dinners and ceremonies, in every moment since he had become Right Hand.

His plate was filled with food and his goblet with fine wine. The idea of eating seemed abhorrent to him, but he took bread, dipped it into his goblet, and ate. The whole hall watched him.

 

He left the hall at the Master's bidding, his stomach heavy and unwell, but he had no freedom to refuse the throned. He wondered if he had ever had.

As he crossed the south balcony he looked down upon the gardens. Unlike the palace's grim and endless corridors, the gardens were green and clear. Eamon ached to be in them.

He passed through his quarters and sought out one of the many stairs that led down to the ground level of the palace. Once there he took a door into the gardens. The Hands' Hall stood like a blemish upon the green, but beyond it, paths wound in and out of hedges and blossoms that spiralled up after the spring light.

He went past them all, past the blossoms and the hall. His steps carried him towards the palace's southern-most garden. There, not far from the palace wall, he found a fountain at the centre of the broad courtyard. He paused there, watching the light leaping from the water up onto the stony eagles that stood guard over it. The light flecked them with shimmering plumage.

There was a small path beyond the fountain. He paused to look at it and saw that it was well kept. Yet it seemed older and wilder than the neat stones of the eagled fountain.

Eamon turned and followed it. Trees lined the path. Behind him, Eamon caught glimpses of the high palace arches and chambers, framed by thick green.

The path opened out into a small space from which Eamon could neither see nor hear the noises of the palace. Tall, delicate frames, painted white, wove round it, and twisted into these frames were climbing plants which spun gracefully about the wood. Caught up among them were roses, red as blood, as large as his fist, and as beautiful as he had ever seen them. In the silence of the courtyard they had their own song, but he could not grasp it. He almost reached out to touch the petals of the flowers, but he did not dare; they were beyond his ken in beauty and in sorrow.