The Broken Blade (46 page)

“Edelred's law,” Leon replied.

“Apart from money to acquit our so-called guilt,” Waite said, “what else will this council require of us?”

“Nothing,” Hughan answered, “bar the laying down of arms. The Gauntlet will be disbanded, its insignia burnt, its men released from their oaths. They shall then be free to establish themselves in this land as men renewed, settling according to their desires and with my blessing.”

“Will your blessing protect a man who once wore red from a knife in the dark?” Fletcher asked.

“Ungrateful cur,” Feltumadas spat, almost rising from the table. “He has already offered you more than you deserve.”

“Lord Feltumadas,” Hughan cautioned. His voice gripped the
hall at once. “These men have come in peace and at my bidding.”

“Yes, Star,” Feltumadas answered, casting a final glower at Fletcher.

Hughan looked back to Fletcher. “I will do everything in my power to protect those who once wore red.”

“The Gauntlet cannot idyllically return to hoes and fields,” Waite said, “nor even to trades, even if they knew them before.”

“Not all of them,” Hughan agreed. “It is my hope, general, that after a time some of them may take another colour.”

A shocked silence fell.

It was Anastasius who first spoke. “With due reverence, Star,” he said, turning quietly to Hughan, “these men were bound to Edelred. How can you propose binding them to yourself?”

“They are fit for the gallows and precious little else,” Feltumadas fumed. “There is not a man among them who can truly clear his name or hands by paying. Their guilt cannot be expunged so easily and it is no mercy to pretend that it can.”

Suddenly Eamon found his voice on his lips. “You cannot know, Lord Feltumadas, what these men have endured.” All the eyes in the room turned to him and his voice grew in anger as he spoke. “How many of these men knew what it meant to bend their knee to Edelred when they received marks on their palms? How many of them understood, when they strove against wayfarers or Easters, the battles that they fought? How many of them ever thought of a King, a true King, as more than a figment of a childhood imagining or a diseased mind? Maybe none of them. Should they be outcast and hounded for that, or for a colour that they donned when they knew no better?”

Feltumadas looked grimly at him. “I think you paint them with too simple a brush, First Knight.”

Eamon saw Hughan raise an eyebrow. As their gazes met, the King nodded. Eamon turned to answer Feltumadas.

“Only one thing about the Gauntlet is simple, Lord Feltumadas: they are men. They gave service, unto their lives, for Edelred. Is it
wrong that they should be afforded the chance to do the same for the King, and in better heart? There is honour, courage, and loyalty among them no less than among the King's own. You do these men wrong to call down curses on them, to denounce them and revile them. I have walked where these men walk. I know what they know and I tell you, Feltumadas, that red is also a noble colour.”

“Red is no more noble than black,” Feltumadas said spitefully. Then his face suddenly grew grey as he realized what he had said, and to whom.

Eamon looked at him with anger. “Both are noble.”

There was a pause in which Eamon felt the room stare at him. Perhaps the greyest faces of all were those of the Gauntlet, who could not comprehend that the man who wore blue and sat beside the King spoke for them.

Hughan's hand alighted on his shoulder.

Drawing a deep breath, Eamon tried to calm himself. “I say to the council that many of the Gauntlet are noble men, with skilled hands and able hearts. If a man turns to the King he should be welcomed with joy. Why should it matter, when he turns, whether that man once wore red, or black?”

“Of course it matters!” Feltumadas answered.

Eamon looked at him. “If you would cast out a man that has worn red or black then you must cast me out also,” he returned fiercely, “for I have worn them both.”

“I know you to be the Star's from what you have done,” Feltumadas answered, looking only a little cowed. “These men will have done nothing.”

“Except turn to me,” Hughan interjected calmly.

The Easter seemed taken aback. “Forgive me, Star. But if they do not turn?”

Caught up in his fury, Eamon did not allow Hughan to answer. “They are still men enough to take up arms!” he cried. “You demean them and slander them, and yourself, to make that worthless, which you do when you speak of sending them to the dogs like…”

“Like a Hand?” Feltumadas snorted and shook his head.

“Hands are a different case to the Gauntlet, First Knight,” Ithel put in quietly, leaning slightly across the table towards him.

“I would agree, Lord Ithel,” affirmed Hughan. Their eyes turned to Feltumadas.

The incensed Easter gave Eamon a curt look. “You may speak for the Gauntlet as much as you like, First Knight, and perhaps I shall cede to you, but you cannot speak for the Hands, nor can you claim suffrage with them or intercede for them.”

“The Hands are not beyond the King's mercy,” Eamon told him. “Have you not heard what Febian did, or of the lives that he saved?”

“We know of the lives he took,” Leon put in.

“That was long before those he saved,” Eamon replied. “Why is it so hard to believe that a Hand might change? Did you never hear of Lord Ashway?”

“Lord Ashway?” Feltumadas gaped. Confused looks passed about the table. Feltumadas laughed unpleasantly.

Hughan watched him appraisingly. “Why do you laugh, Lord Feltumadas?” he asked. His voice was calm, but Eamon guessed that the King's patience for the Easter's outbursts was practised, and perhaps waning.

“Star, even I know that he was there at the beginning, when Ede was slain! His hands were steeped in blood from the beginning.
From the beginning!
” Feltumadas shook his head bitterly. “Never could Ashway have been received by you.”

“Were you with him at the end?” Eamon retorted. In his mind, Eamon saw the Hand, bound and weeping: “
I will say nothing to him of you…”

Eamon glared at the Easter, tears in his own eyes. “At his end Ashway knowingly defended a King's man from Edelred, at the cost of his life.”

“How would you know that?” Feltumadas demanded.

Eamon looked straight at him. “Because I was with him at the end, and I am the man that he saved.”

There was a long silence. Apart from the King every man in the room gaped like a fish out of water. Anderas's face went wide with realization, as if he finally understood what he had witnessed in the East Quarter the night that Ashway had lost his life. Longroad and Fletcher both stared at him. Rocell's face was twisted in an odd mixture of awe and fear. Only Waite seemed little moved.

Eamon drew a deep breath. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter. “Neither you nor I, Lord Feltumadas, can speak as to whether the King will accept a man into his service. But I do not believe that any man, if he truly turns, is beyond it.”

Quelled at last, Feltumadas sat back in his chair. “Of the former you have the right of the matter, First Knight,” he said. “I earnestly hope that I shall live to say the same of the latter.”

Eamon felt a light touch on his arm. He turned and Hughan nodded to him. Silent and shaking, Eamon sat.

“I will welcome any man who would serve me,” Hughan said firmly, looking at the men before him. “Any man, be he Gauntlet or Hand, thresholder or knight. But let him first wrest his heart from old oaths.”

“What of the knights?” Rocell asked. “Are they to be stripped of their titles and their lands?”

“No,” Hughan answered. “Any man still living who held land will hold some still, though in the months to come what they hold will change. The knights and nobles will be required to pay, just as the Gauntlet – they too took oaths to Edelred, although not as binding. From them the sum shall be fifty crowns.”

Rocell nodded quietly then looked up. “It will be done,” he said.

“Thank you, General Sir Rocell,” Hughan answered him, then looked to Waite. “Will the Gauntlet accept also?”

Waite sat silent for a long moment. Eamon felt the general's eyes on him, and perhaps he saw a look of pride touch the general's face.

“We have laid down our arms. These terms also will we accept,” Waite said. “We will pay, and we will disband.”

“Are you all in agreement?” Hughan asked, looking at the others.

“Yes,” the captains and lieutenants answered in turn.

“Thank you,” Hughan answered.

They proceeded to discuss the arrangements as to how the money was to be gathered and paid, but Eamon heard only parts of it. His blood still pounded with his stirred passion.

Shortly the meeting concluded. The Gauntlet officers were escorted from the room. At the King's dismissal, men rose from the table all around Eamon. Standing himself, if somewhat unsteadily, he crossed the room to Feltumadas. The Easter lord finished exchanging a few quiet words with Ithel. He laughed a little as Eamon approached.

“The Gauntlet has a fierce champion.”

“Lord Feltumadas –” Eamon began, but Feltumadas stopped him.

“I must ask your pardon, First Knight,” he said. “This is not my court and I should not have spoken to you as I did.”

Eamon looked at him in surprise. “I will be frank, Lord Feltumadas: I did not expect an apology from you.” Feltumadas laughed. “I wanted to offer you an apology of my own.”

Now it was the Easter's turn to look surprised. “I shall hear it, but only out of curiosity.”

“I do not retract a word of what I said,” Eamon told him, “but I perhaps could have expressed myself more calmly. Like me, you spoke out of the heat of your heart, and it was not wrong of you to do so.”

“The Gauntlet and the Hands will be the object of much hatred and scorn in the months and years to come,” Feltumadas answered. “Many will speak against them as I do; it is right that someone should also speak for them.” He smiled. “They could not have chosen a better defender.”

“Thank you,” Eamon replied. Feltumadas bowed once to him and took his leave. Eamon gazed after him.

As men left the room Eamon found the King at his side. “Did I dishonour you?” he asked.

“Dishonour me?” Hughan repeated. He seemed surprised.

“I grew angry.”

“With reason,” Hughan replied. “You spoke fearlessly and well. The Gauntlet have long been the arm of a man who cared nothing for them. To know that the First Knight himself pleads for them, braving the wrath of the Easters and many wayfarers, will give them hope.”

Eamon paused before he spoke.

“I too will pay,” he said. “I should pay more than any other man – I was Gauntlet, and a Hand, and a Right Hand, and many were the times that I shed blood that should not have been shed. Worse than that, I shed it having given my oath to you.”

Hughan nodded. “It would be a valiant act – and a right one.”

They stood together for a moment, the silence of the hall all around them.

“What happens now?” Eamon asked quietly.

“The Gauntlet will disband, renouncing their oaths,” Hughan answered. “We will destroy the Nightholt, committing it and its Master to the flames. There will be a procession in two days' time; the announcements have already gone forth.” He paused and looked up. “When that is done, First Knight, we can set this city and this land on the long road to peace.”

Peace. The word hung in the air like longed-for birdsong on a distant hill. The battles had been fought, and won, but peace was still far away. It would have to be made, and kept. Eamon's heart shrank before the thought of the countless meetings, the petty wars and trade disputes, the rebuilding of cities and towns, and strengthening of infrastructure, the swaying of men's hearts… These things and many more lay on the road about which the King spoke.

And then there was Alessia.

“
Neither peace nor righteousness can be yours, Eben's son.”

The voice had died with Edelred, but the remembered words shocked through him like a blow. Pain drove through his shoulder and he drew a sharp breath.

“Eamon.”

Blinking hard, he looked up. His mind whirled. How could he ever be a man of peace? He could not even make peace with the woman he loved. How could he then serve the King?

Hughan's keen eyes watched Eamon's face with concern, but Eamon resisted his desire to speak aloud what troubled him. Had the King not been burdened enough with his First Knight for one day?

“It is nothing,” he said distractedly.

Hughan looked long and hard at him. “Lying will never protect me, Eamon,” he said, “and it will not help you.”

Eamon was horrified. “Hughan, I never meant to…” he faltered.

“Then do not,” Hughan replied simply. His gaze softened. “What ails you is not nothing. You have borne much, First Knight, and there is much still to bear. You see the days of mourning, you carry the burden alone, and you ask, when will comfort come? For you do not see it.”

Eamon felt as though he gazed upon the radiance of a living star. The King's face was loving and resolute, undaunted by the road ahead.

“But comfort will come. Courage, Eamon,” Hughan told him, “for you will know peace, and you will live to see peace restored, and I tell you that you will live to see it become an inheritance even of your own house. Look to that, Eamon, and take heart.”

Eamon met the King's gaze and his courage returned to him. He knew that the King spoke the truth. He knew also that though the road ahead was long, he had chosen to return so that he might walk it.

“I followed you to war, Hughan,” he whispered at last. “I will follow you to peace.”

Though the stones and streets of Dunthruik rang to the beat of rain during the next day and all of its night, the early hours that followed brought with them fresh skies and birdsong that reached up towards fading stars. It was the twentieth of May.

In those grey hours before the dawn, the city stirred. From every street and every house, the men and women of Dunthruik came forth, their shoulders covered against the pre-dawn chill with cloaks or shawls. In the quiet, each one turned their steps through the streets towards the Four Quarters. From the colleges and from buildings made into hospitals or holding areas, from every quarter and every gate came the Gauntlet and the knights, the thresholders and the militia. Like the people of Dunthruik, they too turned towards the city's heart.

Even as they walked, a procession left the palace. It passed quietly from the gates, bearing no torch in the grey light, and went silently along the Coll. It was formed of sombre men in blue. The King went at its head and before its load.

Eamon went at his side, feeling the stillness and quiet of the city all around them. He thought of the hundreds of times that he had walked the Coll or seen the streets and alleys of Dunthruik. Long before the grey light revealed them, he knew the roof of the theatre and the shapes of the houses running along to the gates, and he knew also the Blind Gate and the mountains which loomed behind them, masses on the horizon cloaked by the half-light.

He had walked the Coll as a lieutenant, a first lieutenant, a Hand, a Right Hand, a King's man, and even a First Knight. That
day he walked it as a witness – one who went with the great palls being brought down from the palace gates.

The procession wound down the road towards the Four Quarters. Eamon saw the tall statues up ahead, and between each quarter the shape of the buildings and roads. Gaps in the buildings looked east to the plain, north to the hills, west to the sea, and south to the River. The Four Quarters were the heart of the city. Eamon wondered whether the whole of the River Realm might not have its heart there.

Traffic did not move through the quarters that day, nor did battle roll across its stones. That day the Four Quarters were filled with people – men and women, young and old, noble and servant, Gauntlet and King's man. The procession came before them into the quarters and they watched it in silence and in awe.

A platform had been raised in the centre of the quarters. To this Hughan made his way. The two long palls borne by the procession came after him. A great red banner covered one; the other was shrouded in black. Dunthruik saw them, and was silent.

Eamon watched as the palls were set upon the platform and the King stepped up between them. With the still twilight all about him and the silver coronet on his head, the King stood upon the bank of an ancient shore, like a man from time forgotten.

Hughan Brenuin looked towards the east, and towards the watching city.

“People of Dunthruik,” he said, “the city in which you live, which you have served and which you love, had of old another name. Its name was Allera, a name given to it by the first of the house of Kings. To that same house, the people of the River and of this city gave loving allegiance.

“That house was the house of Brenuin, a house of stars, of swords undrawn, and promise. To it had been given the kingship of the River and its lands. The house pledged itself to keep them in prosperity and peace. That pledge was made by the first Brenuin, between himself and the people of the River; in return, the people swore service to his house. He was given lordship over the land, as
had been promised to him, and the pledge that he made became known as the King's Covenant. For many years it was kept and this land prevailed against many evils.

“Becoming sure and reckless in their strength and in the Kings who governed them, the hearts of the people of the River Realm changed, and the promises made to them, promises bound in the King's Covenant, were forgotten or abused. In place of courage and goodness came arrogance, weakness, and oath-breaking.”

The crowd fell utterly still.

“It was in that time that an Easter, Aras, son of Amar, learned of the King's Covenant. He was a learned man and he was keen of wit. He understood that the protection over the River Realm had grown weak, as the laws on which it was founded had fallen by the wayside, and he understood also how he might gain from that weakness.

“He came to the River Realm's borders openly, but with a hidden heart. Into Allera he came, and by deceit he took the King's Covenant and in its place he wrote his own, seeking to bind land and people to his will by words of his own devising. No promise had been made to him; he had made no pledge with the people nor had any lands been given into his hands, and yet he desired them. So he claimed that by the ending of the house of Kings, and the destruction of the King's Covenant, his own house would take their place.

“He drew men away from the King, making them his servants, promising them strength and power, and binding them to him. Among these men he also drew the King's First Knight, through treachery and deceit. When the last battle between Aras and King Ede was joined, it was the First Knight who brought the first strike against his King. Betrayed, King Ede was killed.”

Some gasped – perhaps they had not known the story. Eamon inhaled deeply, wondering if their eyes turned to him. Then he exhaled: he was no longer bound by the fate of his forebears.

The King once more took up his tale: “The King's Covenant was destroyed and the King lay dead. Aras took another name – Edelred – and Ede's First Knight became Edelred's Right Hand.
Those men who had followed Edelred witnessed the raising of the tome in which Edelred had set his will for the land. He deemed that it should serve him in body and in blood, receiving nothing in return. This covenant was one of blood and suffering, holding dark and hidden things, the fruit of Edelred's own thought. He called it the
tierrascuro
; his closest, who would be called his Hands, named it the Nightholt, and none could see it or change it but he alone.

“Edelred marched to Allera in the power of his will and waged war against the city until it was taken and its people were laid to waste. Edelred claimed sole hold of the city, renaming it Dunthruik, and an eagle was set over the River Realm.

“The men who had served Edelred on the field of battle became known as the Gauntlet. Along with the Hands, they received the power which had been promised to them, for it was marked into their flesh with fire.” In the crowd, some rubbed at palms or tucked hands away. “By that mark they worked Edelred's will, and receiving it, they feared him, for he bound their own blood to his power. The River bowed, and trembled.

“Edelred's power was in the Nightholt, and Edelred was secure as long as none could gainsay him. To this end he sought to blot out the last of the royal line. But the First Knight remembered his vow and saved Elaina Brenuin, last of her house, from the Eagle's grasp.

“It is from that last daughter of the house of Brenuin that I descend. I have come to take up again the rights of my house and to undo the bonds of the Nightholt, to which this land and its people have been unlawfully bound.”

Eamon listened to the King's words as though under a spell. Suddenly Hughan's eyes were upon him.

Gathering all his courage, he stepped out from among the King's men. The men and women in the quarters stared at him as he moved like a shadow across the square. He knew that many of them would recognize him; they knew who he had been, and now they knew the story of his house. As he went forward, garbed in the cloth of a King's man, they could also see who he had become.

Slowly he climbed the steps of the platform where the King stood. Behind him the long swell of the Coll led west to the sea caught up between the tall posts of the Sea Gate. To either side of the King lay the two draped hearses; the sight of them cooled Eamon's blood.

There was a bag in his hands – his blood money. In the moment of silence as he met Hughan's gaze, it felt heavy.

“Let this stand against the blood that I have unjustly shed,” Eamon said. He pronounced the words loudly, though his voice shook. “By it, let peace come between me and the people of the River Realm.”

In silence he held the bag out towards Hughan. It was everything he had, but he relinquished it into the King's hands without a second thought. The King set the bag aside on a broad dish. By it was another, filled with water.

Hughan looked back to Eamon. As he did so, Eamon spoke again.

“I, Eamon Goodman, who was Lord of the East and Right Hand to Edelred, do hereby renounce all bonds between himself and me. His will is not my own, and shall no longer hold over mine.” He struggled to keep his voice steady. “As it is for me,” he said at last, “so let it be for the Hands.”

Looking up he found that the King watched him keenly.

“Hold up your hand, Eamon.”

For a moment Eamon looked at him in confusion. Then, not daring to guess or to hope at what might follow, he silently lifted his right hand and held it out towards Hughan. It shook in the growing light. Hughan took hold of his palm. The King gently pressed his own fingers against Eamon's hand. Light appeared about them – light that felt as cool and clear as a mountain spring. Eamon gazed on in wonder. Hughan drew his finger in a firm gesture over Eamon's palm, striking through the mark of Edelred. Then he took Eamon's hand and gently set it in the basin of water. The King cupped water in his own hand, and with it he washed Eamon's forehead. Eamon was unable to breathe for sheer wonder.

The King raised Eamon's hands from the basin and brushed the last drops of water from his brow. The mark of Edelred, and all its lingering fire, went with them.

Tears ran freely down Eamon's face as the King stepped back from him.

“Thus are you released from all oaths to Edelred,” Hughan said. “As it is with you, so may it be with every Hand.”

“Thank you,” Eamon whispered.

Hughan smiled at him. “Stay here with me.”

Shaking still, Eamon stepped back to one side of the platform. Blinking tears from his eyes, he watched as Waite came forward from the gathered Gauntlet. The general also bore a bag in his hand: coins chinked inside it as the man climbed the platform.

Waite held the King's gaze for a long moment.

“Let this stand against the blood which I have unjustly shed,” he said at last. “As it is with me, so shall it be with the Gauntlet. Let there be peace between the Gauntlet and the people of the River Realm.” Wordlessly, Waite handed the bag to Hughan. The King nodded to him and set it aside. Waite paused for a long moment, and Eamon felt the man's eyes meet his across the platform.

At last Waite spoke. “I, Alduin Waite, who was general of the Gauntlet, do renounce all bonds between Edelred and myself. As it is with me, so let it be for the men under me.”

Hughan reached out and gently touched Waite's hand; light flickered on the King's fingers. Astonished fear swept across Waite's face as the King laid the general's hand in the water and washed it. Eamon understood the man's look: Waite had joined the Gauntlet in his youth and he had borne the throned's mark upon his palm through all the long seasons of his life. Now, the light in Hughan removed it in a moment.

Waite shook as Hughan let go his hand. The King smiled kindly at the trembling man.

“Thus are you, Alduin Waite, released from all oaths to Edelred,” he said. “As it is with you, so let it be with the Gauntlet.”

As he said it, sounds of surprise erupted from the men that watched. Many touched their hands in alarm or astonishment. Some had tears on their faces; others merely stared.

Eamon looked back to Hughan with renewed amazement. At Hughan's words and gestures, the mark had been lifted from the Gauntlet.

Waite stepped back and descended the platform. As he did so, Eamon saw more movement among the King's men. Leon came forward. The King's man also held a bag in his hands.

“Let this stand against the blood which I have unjustly shed,” he said, his voice firm and clear in the morning light. “As it is with me, so shall it be with those who served the King in the long months before open battle. Thus let there be peace between the wayfarers and the people of the River Realm.”

Dunthruik watched in amazement as Leon solemnly handed the bag to the King then bowed low and left the platform.

At a look from Hughan, Eamon went and stood by the King's side. It was then that Anastasius climbed the platform towards them. The Easter had something spread across his hands – a black cloth lay over it. Anastasius halted before the King. Hughan slowly uncovered what the Easter bore.

Eamon's blood chilled as he saw what lay beneath the dark fabric, for he knew it at once. He knew its touch, its feel, its bitter darkness, and the writhing letters wrought upon it.

On the Easter's hands, fell but still in the grey light, lay the Nightholt.

For a moment Eamon could only stare at it, but then he felt Hughan's eyes on him. He understood why the King had asked him to stay.

In silence, Eamon stepped across to Anastasius and took up the book from his outstretched palms. The Easter gave a small sigh of relief as Eamon held the tome in his own hands. Eamon had drawn it out of Ellenswell, he had taken it from Arlaith's treacherous grasp, and he had rendered it into the hands of Edelred himself. Now
Eamon turned, and before the gaze of the whole of Dunthruik, he carried the Nightholt to Hughan.

With the book in his hands, he stood before the King. Then he opened it across his palms so that the tome's very heart and spine lay exposed to Hughan. The weight of the pages writhed against his hands, but Eamon held it resolutely. Though the pages strove against him, there was no longer any mark upon him, and they could harm him no more.

“This is the Nightholt of Edelred,” Eamon said, his voice ringing clearly between the stones of the city's heart. “Hands and Gauntlet both have renounced its bindings as unlawful. To the King we commit it, hoping in the line of Brenuin, and trusting to the grace vested in that house. O King,” he said, going down onto one knee, “let the Nightholt be unbound, and its hold undone.”