The Broken Blade (9 page)

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 aside 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:

“The Lord of Dunthruik and Master of the River Realm.”

The Master stepped forward. Drawn by some terrifying magnetism, Eamon followed him.

“To his glory!” called the crier.

“To his glory!” answered the hall; Dunthruik's greatest bowed down before them.

The Master stepped forward and raised his head. A crown of flames twined his brow.

“My glory is not bound by shores or walls, or by earth or heaven,” he called, “yet it is shown in men who rise above the weakness of their blood and glorify me.” Eamon froze. The eyes of the hall were upon him and upon the Master. In particular, it was to the Quarter Hands that his eyes turned; their gazes made a fearsome spectrum of ambivalence, disgust, hatred, and pity.

“It is such a man,” the Master continued, “whom you shall honour this night. This feast is given for my Right Hand.”

There could be no hesitation; Eamon felt the Master's hand on his shoulder. As it alighted, he faced the throned, then dropped down to one knee before him. He pressed the Master's hand feverishly against his brow.

“Your glory ever and above all things, Master,” he whispered.

The hall watched in silence, amazed by the sight of a Right Hand on his knee. Then the hall erupted into an ocean of wild applause.

The throned smiled. “Rise, son of Eben,” he said.

The music began again in earnest, but it could not drown the clapping. The throned led Eamon to the high table. There, servants seated the lords of Dunthruik, Eamon among their number, a bewildered lamb among wolves. He sat alongside the Master at the head of the table; the other Hands sat to either side, their faces turned in varying shades of disdain. Eamon wondered if there was not a touch of jealousy to Arlaith's grim brow.

The Master sat. The assembled guests did likewise and the feast began. Eamon had never witnessed its like. As each service was brought to the table, the nobles and knights, the ladies and courtiers, the Hands and visiting merchants, the Gauntlet captains and their assistants, raised their glasses towards the high table and gave out cries to the Master's glory and to his Right Hand. With each cry the faces of the Quarter Hands grew progressively darker, all save Dehelt's, who raised his cup with a smile.

At length the meal concluded and the throned invited the hall to make use of the floor to dance; the hanging lights and standing candles summoned fire from the paving stones and the lords and ladies danced to hymns which spoke of the Master's glory. Eamon recognized some of the words and realized that they had been drawn from the Edelred Cycle.

The Master smiled and began a circle of the hall to greet his many guests and accept their praise and flattery. Eamon supposed that many of them never saw the Master except at such times. He stayed behind and watched.

As the high table rose, Arlaith descended the hall and met nobles from the East. They greeted him warmly; Sir Patagon bowed deeply before seizing Arlaith's hand and clasping it with profound affection.

“How fare you, Lord Goodman?” asked a voice.

Eamon turned to see Lord Dehelt standing by him. He wondered what to make of Dehelt's pleasantries. If he scratched beneath the surface, would Dehelt prove just as malicious and virulent as the others?

“Why are they so warm with him?” Eamon asked, gesturing with a discreet nod towards Arlaith.

“He has done the quarter great service,” Dehelt replied, “or so rumour would have it. He speaks but little of his doings to me,” he explained. “It ill beseems a neighbour.”

“What service?” Eamon asked.

“Grain prices in the East have been substantially higher than elsewhere for some time,” Dehelt answered carefully. “It had started driving up the price throughout the city, though the South seemed to have some to spare. Lord Arlaith has now alleviated this problem, I understand.”

Eamon felt a tremor of horrified presentiment. “How so?”

“He released a great deal of grain back into the city this morning.”

Eamon's blood curdled. “He did not buy it?”

“No, my lord,” Dehelt answered. “He found it – throne alone knows where.”

But Eamon knew. He stared down the length of the hall at Arlaith with utter hatred.

“If you will excuse me, Lord Dehelt.”

Dehelt began to reply, but Eamon never heard it. He swept down the hall to where Arlaith stood, surrounded by fawning nobles in their feckless gaiety. Eamon, draped in black and a wrathful heart, surged forward like a murderous tide.

“Lord Goodman,” the nobles chimed as he approached.

“His glory,” Eamon answered thickly. They watched him with wariness. In that moment he did not care. Part of him wanted to
seize Arlaith by the throat there and then, drive the man up against the wall and call fire and fury down upon him. But he knew he could not; Arlaith also knew it.

“Lord Arlaith,” he said grimly, “I would speak with you.”

“Your wits are evidently befuddled with Raven's brew,” Arlaith laughed cheerfully, “for it seems to me that you do just that, Lord Goodman!”

“I will speak with you now,” Eamon said, “and in private.”

Arlaith raised an insolent eyebrow, then turned to the nobles who stood by them.

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said and imposed his cup upon one of them. “As you see, the Hands never cease in working for you.”

“Hear!” called the nobles, and laughed.

Arlaith turned to Eamon, who would have killed the lord with a look if he could. Instead, he gestured to the south balcony. Some of Edelred's own guards stood there.

It was to the balcony and its guards that Eamon led Arlaith. “None bar the Master are to disturb us,” Eamon told the men as they passed. The guards bowed deeply.

Eamon strode onto the wide stone ledge. Arlaith sauntered after him. As soon as the red drapes fell behind them and the sound of revelry became but as a distant dream, Arlaith smiled – the deadly, insincere smile that he had always borne as Right Hand.

“I see you have become well accomplished in giving commands, Lord Goodman. I congratulate you.”

Eamon rounded on him. “Where did it come from, Arlaith?” he demanded.

“There is no need to raise your voice, Lord Goodman,” Arlaith told him with a click of his tongue.

“Do not bandy with me!” Eamon snapped. “Answer! Where did it come from?”

Arlaith feigned surprise. “Perhaps you have not seen the report? That would be strange indeed. I entrusted it to Captain Anderas to bring to you. You spoke highly of him, as a man of infinite
reliability and character.” He shook his head sadly. “Perhaps you were misled…”