The King's Hand (14 page)

“You shall be the talk of the whole city tonight, Lord Goodman,” said a voice.

Eamon felt joy wash over him.

“Anderas!”

The East Quarter captain was still pale, but able to walk once again. He bore no stick and no aid.

“Of course, I was expecting you to come at sunset, just as they had lined us up.” Anderas's blue eyes twinkled mischievously. “I was half hoping that you would burst in, framed by the setting sun, and thunderously cry ‘
Stop!
' just as they were setting sword to the first man.” He laughed. “That is how they'll tell it in a hundred inns throughout the city tonight. It would have been very much in your style.”

Eamon smiled broadly. “Some things cannot be left to style, captain.”

“That is precisely where your style lies, lord,” Anderas replied. The blue eyes watched Eamon for a moment. He wished suddenly that he could tell the captain everything that had befallen him in the last seven days: if only Anderas knew the King!

Anderas reached out and clasped hands with him like a brother. “Welcome home, Lord Goodman.”

Home
. The word no longer seemed strange to him. Yes, Dunthruik was home, and Eamon knew at last that he could live in the city and serve the King.

“Thank you, captain,” he said.

C
HAPTER
VIII

T
he day of his triumphant return to Dunthruik was a day that Eamon knew he would never forget. Every man, woman, and child answered his look with open-mouthed stares of awe. He was the man who had been made a lieutenant on the whim of a captain, surrendered his sword and escaped the wayfarers, become a first lieutenant in the West Quarter in three days, and a Hand in months. Now, he had brought back the head of the throned's enemy and saved the lives of many. The people called his name in jubilation, for in all he did, he brought glory to the Master who ruled the city of Dunthruik. They shared in his triumph.

And yet, in moments of quiet, Eamon wondered what the city's wayfarers would think when they heard the news. They would not rejoice. They would weep. He was sure that Cathair would use the beheading of Feltumadas to sour the minds of the King's men held in the Pit.

The Right Hand granted him the remainder of the day to rest and to reorient himself. He was grateful for it, but found himself at a loss. He wandered, basking in praise from every quarter. On that day every man knew his name.

It was about mid-afternoon when a familiar voice greeted him as he passed the Brand.

“Hail, wanderer returned!”

Eamon smiled. “Ladomer,” he answered, catching his breath as his friend embraced him enthusiastically.

“I can't believe that you did it!” Ladomer cried, slapping Eamon's shoulder so hard that Eamon had to take a moment to recover.

“I see being a paper carrier hasn't dulled your arm!”

“If I had to spar you now, like we used to in Edesfield, I'd still beat you in about three seconds,” Ladomer told him with a friendly wink.

“I believe it!”

“And I really can't believe that you did what you've done,” Ladomer replied with a reckless grin. “I was there when Cathair brought the head into the Hands' Hall. Ratbag, you should have
seen
his face! He was
fuming.
”

“He was looking forward to killing them?”

“Yes.” Ladomer shrugged. “Lord Cathair is disgusted with you, but the Master…” He gave a low whistle, smiled, and jogged Eamon's arm. “He is impressed.”

A chill ran down Eamon's spine. “He is?” “He
is
. You forget that you address the one, only, and
impeccably
dressed servant of the Right Hand. He confides many things to me, Lord Goodman.”

What kind of things
? Eamon wondered.

Ladomer grinned. “Cathair sent the head down to the Blind Gate to be hung up. The Right Hand had a meeting with the Master so told me that I could be spared for an hour. I want to see it,” Ladomer enthused, catching Eamon's arm with a great-lunged laugh. “And, when I look at it, I want the man who brought it from the Serpent's grasp to stand beside me and tell me how it came to be there.”

“Ladomer,” Eamon began, “I haven't given any official testimony of that to anyone. I don't think it would be –”

“Then you can tell me all the parts that you intend to omit!” he added greedily.

Eamon allowed himself to be convinced to return down the Coll to the Blind Gate. People hollered his name as he passed, congratulating him on his service to the city. Eamon smiled, suddenly uncomfortable under the collar of his thick cloak. There had been a time when this kind of praise had been the very substance on which he lived. Now, they praised him for striking a blow against their enemy, not knowing he had struck against the one who now dealt in dark counsels with the Right Hand.

Eamon glanced uncertainly back towards the palace as they moved down the Coll.

“A sight for sore eyes, isn't it, Ratbag?”

“What do they do?” Eamon asked suddenly.

“What do you mean?” Ladomer quizzically cocked his head.

“The Master and the Right Hand,” Eamon answered slowly. It was a strange question he asked. “I understand that there is much work to be done in governing the River Realm, and I don't doubt that much of it is beyond what I can understand, but…”

“They rule,” Ladomer answered, as though that were enough.

“Then what of the city?” Eamon asked, deciding to change tack. “Tell me, O most impeccably dressed! What has been happening here while I was away?”

“You missed not a thing. Some noble or other challenged another to a duel at a state function. You'd have liked it,” he added with a cheeky grin. “It was over the honour of a woman. They were both drunk, of course, and the challenger withdrew the next morning when, as I understand it, his lady wife had been kind enough to tell him exactly whom he could and could not duel for!”

They paused at the Four Quarters to allow some traffic to pass by. Eamon's eyes turned east. He wondered where Anderas was.

The traffic quelled, and as they passed the city wall the Blind Gate came into view. “The cull has continued very successfully,” Ladomer continued.

“Yes?” Eamon prompted, feeling his heart sink.

“Oh yes, some excellent work has been done, especially by that captain… I can't think of his name… East Quarter…” He waved wildly east with his arm, as though to aid his flailing memory.

“Anderas?” Eamon's sunken heart grew heavy. Anderas was a man who did his duty. Eamon could not fault him for that. And yet…

“Anderas! That's him. Oh, he's filled whole pyres by himself. A slight exaggeration, I'll confess, but all founded in truth, I assure you. Did you know his first name is
Andreas
? Cruellest parents on the River, if you ask me!” Eamon was grateful that his friend laughed so hard that his own discomfort was hidden.

Anderas has lead the cull? It was abhorrent to him; a splintering wound lodged in his chest.

“In other news,” Ladomer said, lowering his voice, “there's been a bit of gossip flying about concerning that Turnholt woman of yours.”

“Lady Turnholt,” Eamon told him, surprised by his own ferocity.

“
Lady
Turnholt,” Ladomer corrected himself. Eamon noted a careful look to his friend's eye. “Did something happen between the two of you?”

Eamon didn't answer.

“They're saying that she's gone back to her father's lands, to the north. The Master himself bade her farewell – who knows what new service the house gave to afford such honour!”

“The Right Hand didn't tell you?”

“He told me that she left bearing a message to her ailing father and that she was in the company of Lord Fleance,” Ladomer replied, “whose lands adjoin his. There was talk of…” He fixed Eamon strangely. “No,” he said at last, a touch of sorrow to him. He took Eamon's shoulder. “Perhaps you needn't know it all.”

Eamon stared. He understood.

All her words and pleas, tearfully given as she knelt before him… she had promised – nay,
sworn
– that she loved him,
him and no other
, and that she always would. She had no ailing father. No – she had left the city with another.

She had lied to him.

“Something did happen, didn't it?” Ladomer looked carefully at him. “Are you all right? Eamon?”

Eamon drew a deep breath and walked on. Ladomer followed him.

They continued to the Blind Gate. After a few minutes of silence, Ladomer spoke again. “I heard something just after you left,” he said. Eamon felt his friend's keen, almost baiting, interest. “Something about the Pit.”

Eamon went cold. He tried not to show any trace of emotion as he met Ladomer's gaze.

“What about it?”

“I should rephrase that.” Ladomer spoke more quietly this time. He fixed Eamon firmly in his gaze. “I saw the Pit – what was left of it.”

Eamon met his look unflinchingly. His friend searched his eyes; Eamon thought that he saw a trace of fear in Ladomer's face.

“They say it happened while you were there. That there was a storm of light… The Pit certainly suffered for it! What happened, Eamon?”

“Ladomer, sometimes the servants of the Serpent are strong. But faced with the Master, they are less than creatures blinded by dust and wasted with hunger.”

“This Grahaven, your ward… he is a strong one?”

“Yes. He did what you saw.”

“He has paid for it,” Ladomer answered with an arrogant sniff. “He pays for it often.”

Eamon's heart wrenched.

Ladomer laughed nastily. “Between them, Lords Ashway and Cathair have been grinding him down.”

“Good.” Never had a more hateful word left Eamon's lips.

They had reached the far end of the Coll now, the Blind Gate tall before them. Eamon felt the eyes of countless carved eagles glaring down at him. As they approached he caught sight of a group of Gauntlet soldiers atop the gate-tower. The men were setting a head –
the
head – upon a pike. A crowd gathered to watch the work. As the grisly token was raised it was met by a great cheer and clapping.

Ladomer and Eamon watched silently. Ladomer laughed and gestured exultantly at the newly impaled head. “Look at your work, Lord Goodman!”

Eamon looked, wondering how well Lord Rendolet enjoyed his new view of the city.

 

They walked back to the palace together and Ladomer hurried off, eager not to be missing when the Right Hand emerged.

It was early evening. Without orders from the other Hands or from the throned, and without even Ladomer's company, Eamon felt strangely purposeless. His thoughts returned to Hughan, to the preparations that the King would even then be making to protect and reconnect the camp to its Easter allies. He wondered about Leon – would the man forgive him when he learned the truth? And what of Feltumadas – was he safe and well? Had he been told what had happened?

He rehearsed their faces before his mind, fearing that those memories, so powerful while he lived them, would fade. He had not been able to say farewell to Aeryn or Lillabeth, or Giles, or Ma Mendel. He knew that they were far safer with the King than he was in the city.

He took to strolling in the Royal Plaza and then returned to the Coll. The odd passer-by stopped to congratulate him, but the wave of praise died down as the sun slipped away.

He wandered, lost in his thoughts. None bothered him. It was turning dark when at last he emerged from his reverie.

He stood before the gates to Alessia's house. But the doors were shut, the windows barred, and no lights burned in welcome.

It came softly, unbidden: the memory of her touch, of her hand in his – the smell of her hair, lying between them in the bed they had shared. The music of her laughter. The tenderness of her embrace. The sincerity and strength of her hands when she had found him, kneeling, by her fireside, his own blood on his hands. She had bound him, soothed him, cherished him. Surely he had… surely he had loved her?

She was gone.

He felt something burn hot against his face. He struck the tear away.

Hadn't she loved him? Anger in place of sorrow.
Hadn't she?

No; she had whored herself to him, on the whim of another. Her adulation was nothing but falsehood. Now she had whored herself to Fleance. She had been rewarded – Ladomer had seen it with his own eyes – the throned had bid her farewell in person! It was a reward for her treachery, for her beguilement of his weak heart – it had to be. He saw how it would have been, how Ladomer would have seen her – her teasing smile, her lips lingering on Fleance's cheek, her arms twined lithely about another.

No; he would feel no sorrow. She had scorned him. She had betrayed him.

If Lillabeth's child grew never having met its father, it would be Alessia's doing.

He shivered, though he was not cold. He drove his hurt deep inside. She was gone. Part of him had gone with her, shattered and torn as her faith had been.

With a bitter taste in his mouth, he turned and made his way back to the Hands' Hall.

 

He woke long before dawn, to see the throned's banner hanging over him. It seemed a strange guardian. Cold clung to him as he rose, washed, and dressed. His room, still and empty, seemed as unwelcoming as a tomb. He left it swiftly. He was wanted by the Hands that morning.

His footsteps sounded dead in the courtyard as he passed along the colonnade to the Hands' Hall. Its posts framed the pastel sky like an obsidian relic. Their sharply carved letters cut his eyes like knives. He turned from them and went inside.

Cathair was in the atrium. His green eyes flashed, but he remained disturbingly civil.

“Lord Goodman.”

“Lord Cathair.”