The King's Hand (27 page)

“He said that was why they called this the East Quarter, even though it isn't quite
geographically
east. After the Master took the city,” Anderas added, “the other quarters had their names based on the compass because of that; their original names were very different.”

Eamon looked at Anderas. “Is your tour of the quarter going to be full of such ruminations?”

“I am no real authority on the matter, my lord,” Anderas answered, “but I fear that I cannot always help myself.”

“You are too modest, Captain Anderas,” Eamon laughed. “Besides which,” he added, “there is no shame in knowing where we came from or what the world was like before us. So much of what we are, and where we go, depends on that.”

“So, for the benefit of those for whom we will constitute ‘history', we must do rightly in our own days?” A look of mock concern passed over Anderas's face. “Does breakfast usually make you so philosophical, my lord?”

“Occasionally,” Eamon confessed.

“Then I'm afraid that tomorrow's breakfast will be a meagre affair, if it is permitted at all.”

Eamon laughed and invited Anderas to lead the way.

The East Quarter College had a wide gateway, similar in many ways to that of Waite's college. There was a long line of men outside the college wall, who either sat or stood, and who bore nervous looks. They were mostly young men, and as Eamon and Anderas passed they bowed hastily.

“Who are they?” Eamon asked.

“We're still short on quarter numbers. This afternoon there is a Gauntlet admittance. They will have come for that.”

“But it is barely the second hour!”

“They are keen,” Anderas replied, “and hope that standing there all day will show it.”

“It does.”

Two Gauntlet ensigns, their red jackets bright in the morning light, guarded the doorway into the college. Faint trees had been worked into the stonework at the door, their limbs reaching delicately up to a crown marked into the keystone. Eamon climbed the college steps and watched as the ensigns snapped to sharp attention. They raised their hands to their faces in a formal sword salute. Eamon greeted them cordially and passed through into the hall.

Anderas showed him the way through the wide passageways and out into the college parade yard. As he stepped out into that space, nostalgia overcame him. How many times – in Edesfield, and even in the West Quarter – had he marched into a college square for parade? As he looked, he yearned after the camaraderie of new cadets, the lessons in River Realm law and geography, and the weapons and formation practices. In that moment even the course held a peculiar, rose-tinted charm for him.

At the front of the parade square was a small wooden platform, with a few steps leading up to it. It was these steps that Anderas climbed, and Eamon followed him, his pace forgetting that he was a lord of Dunthruik – for a moment, he was just a simple Glove.

The speaking platform had a small podium on which Anderas laid the list of names. The square still empty, Eamon leaned against the stand and studied them. At the top of the list were the draybants and then the officers, some of whom he knew: Greenwood, Smith, Taine…

“Do you wish to speak to them, Lord Goodman?”

Eamon looked up. In his heart his thoughts had gone that far. Indeed, he knew that he needed to speak to the men to redress whatever damage he had done. But what could he say? The men who would fill the square were not kitchen servants or stablehands; they were Gauntlet, men of prowess and pride.

“Yes,” he forced himself to answer before he could reconsider the matter. “I will speak to them.”

Anderas nodded. A moment later the sound of men approached. The East Quarter College was coming to parade.

Eamon half expected to see Manners or Ford among the men who marched neatly into the parade ground, but soon enough remembered he was no longer in his old quarter. The men were resplendent in uniform, the officers and ensigns smartly polished. Among them, Eamon caught sight of the lieutenant who had been drunk the previous evening – he seemed not much recovered. What was his name?

Eamon quietly turned to the list, scouring it for a name that seemed vaguely familiar. It only then occurred to him that most of the names would seem vaguely familiar. A quiet curse passed his lips. Either Anderas didn't hear it, or he chose to ignore it.

Eamon looked back up to survey the entering men. As the lines formed into ranks they saw him, and he saw their faces turning pale. Eamon watched them with interest but did not signal anything to them. His heart beat faster. What did he possibly think he could say to them?

The last men fell into their ranks, and all gave the formal salute. A breeze stirred the silent square.

Anderas turned to Eamon. “Would you inspect the lines, my lord?”

“Thank you, captain,” Eamon answered, grateful that it was necessary – and would give him a much-needed chance to think.

He stepped down and made his way to the lines. He had seen Waite do it a hundred times and had sometimes dreamed he would do it himself. Now he did, but he was robed in black and the men did not know him – they knew only a broken shadow of who and what he was. Eamon understood that his task was immense; he saw it from the strange mix of fear and contempt in the eyes that watched him.

The lines were, as Eamon had expected, impeccable. Ashway and Anderas had crafted tight ranks.

After completing his circuit of the lines he returned to the head of the square. The men's eyes were on him, and he looked back at them. There was silence. Eamon knew that he had to speak. He had to do it before the silence grew too loud.

“East Quarter, I congratulate you. Rarely have I seen a smarter college,” he said. “It speaks highly of you indeed. I have had but little opportunity to see you at your work, but I look forward to doing so.”

He saw some of the cadets exchange glances. He had already spoken far more than they were accustomed to hearing. Eamon wondered whether he should continue. Had he not said enough? He had complimented them as befitted a Hand…

He was more than a Hand.

A seemingly interminable silence loomed over the courtyard. Eamon pressed himself to speak once more.

“I have been honoured in being named the lord of this quarter.” As he spoke he felt the persona of Quarter Hand drop from him, leaving only himself behind. The men heard it in his changing voice, and watched him with bewilderment and anxiety as he continued. “It is an honour which, in the last week, I have been scarcely worthy of bearing. I dare say that you have all known such times. You will know also that a man's strength returns to him, as mine has to me.”

He looked at them for a long moment, trying to gauge their reaction. Their faces were clouded. What had they spoken of him after Pinewood? What had they spoken of him in the past week?

Eamon could neither alter nor control what had been said about him – he feared even to imagine it. But he could show these men the shape of the hope that had been in him when he woke that morning.

What would he have them say of him that day?

“I have a vision for this quarter,” he called. As he spoke, his whole heart came forth in his words. “I have a vision of the glory of Dunthruik, epitomized by the men and women who live and serve in these streets. They will be streets that do not fear the Serpent, streets running with devotion. In the way that we uphold the law; in the way that we speak; in the way that we trade and eat; in the way we lay ourselves down at night and rise in the morning; in all this we will bring honour and glory to the Master, and this city will speak of us with praise. This is my vision for this quarter.” He said, more quietly: “I see it clearly now that my strength returns to me.

“Some men say that they have heard of me. I would rather have all men say that they have heard of
you
, and how you serve the Master.”

He fell silent. He heard his heart beating rapidly in his breast. Now that he had spoken, he could barely remember the words that had left his lips. All he saw were the watching faces, unsure how to take the man before them.

He tried to steel himself against the discouragement welling in his thoughts.

Anderas stepped up and looked out across the gathered men. “Lord Goodman calls you on to service and glory.”

Eamon's stomach churned as he looked at the myriad faces. They could either accept or reject him. How they spoke to him now would mark whether or not he could save himself and the quarter. He resisted the urge to close his eyes.

“How will you answer?” the captain called.

The college's swords, lowered during Eamon's inspection of the ranks, rose high.

“To his glory!”

The words came back as one voice. Eamon felt them wash over him and looked at the sea of faces. Some looked sceptical, others afraid. But some, not too few of them, looked at him with renewed eyes. It gave him cause to hope.

“Lord Goodman,” Anderas said, “the East Quarter is for you. It will follow you.”

Eamon looked at the captain and the assembled men. “No, captain,” he answered. As he looked back to the long ranks of men he glimpsed a puzzled look on Anderas's face. “No,” Eamon said again, loud enough for all to hear. “I am for the East Quarter. I will serve it
.
”

The silence that followed was deafening.

Anderas turned to the men. “To your duties, gentlemen.”

Eamon watched as the men filed out of the grounds, each to their different tasks. He wondered what they would do. He remembered walking in such lines, remembered Mathaiah walking by him, his smile. It pricked his heart, but he drew breath and steadied himself.

“Will they trust me?”

He had not intended to speak aloud and was surprised when Anderas answered him.

“If a manner such as yours could be bought, Lord Goodman, it would be the most highly sought commodity in all the River Realm,” Anderas laughed, “and those who possessed it would go out of their way to boast of it at their feasts and banquets!”

“Are you going to speak of my particularity to me once again, captain?”

“You'll note that I carefully refrained from doing so.” Anderas paused, then spoke more seriously. “They are good men, fiercely loyal. I have every confidence that they will see they can fiercely serve you. It will take some time to win them all, Lord Goodman, but I know them. I can already tell you that they have seen what I saw when I first met you.”

Eamon hesitated. “Dare I ask?”

Anderas looked at him, and Eamon saw the captain searching for the right words. At length he shrugged, content to speak what came to mind.

“You are not like other men,” he said simply. “There is something deeper to you than can be found in many – something truer. What the root of that might be, I do not know, but it is there.”

Eamon looked at him. His whole being sang the King's name, but he held back; now was not the time to speak it out.

Anderas shook his head as his words failed him. “You are in Dunthruik, Lord Goodman, but you are not of it. And yet you love it.”

Eamon gaped. The words humbled him and he could not answer.

The captain stepped down from the platform and gestured towards the college gates with a smile. “We will walk the quarter, my lord.”

 

It was about the third hour when they stepped into the Ashen. The sunlight, strengthening both with the hour and the season, bathed the stones in gold. The line of men waiting outside the college had grown with the dawn.

The Ashen lay off Coronet Rise and was set back towards the heart of the quarter. Towards the North Gate were the Crown Offices, which dealt with a large amount of the city's paperwork and publicized any edicts made by the Lord of the East Quarter or the throned. Eamon remembered going to those offices when he had arrested Lorentide – the wayfarer who had been smuggling others out of the city with forged papers. Eamon had condemned both the man and his son to flames. He shuddered with the remembrance. He wondered whether any of the Lorentides' neighbours were still there. Would they recognize him? Had Lorentide's wife found safety, or had she also been captured in the months following her husband's death? It shamed him that he did not know.

Deeper in towards the city wall were large storehouses, intended to hold grain for the winter. They were under the charge of the quarter's logistics draybant and were mostly empty after a hard winter and a poor preceding harvest. There were small stalls near these well-guarded houses, selling some of the grain that was kept there. Eamon heard the sellers call out their prices – they were high.

The East Quarter had its fair share of inns and dozens of bakers and fishmongers. Now that the sea was becoming passable again, men from the city dared to seine the fickle waters to bring in as much as they could. Some fruits and vegetables were also available, drawn in from the mire of fields and farmland just outside the walls; some houses in the city had small plots of land where they also grew food, and those, at least, were faring well with the recent rains.

Many of the buildings in the East Quarter were in need of repair, the stonework bare, often falling away from rotting timbers. The roads leading into the deeper parts of the quarter were in desperate need of attention.

Wherever they walked, Eamon was aware of men and women watching him. It was not the open watching of people who marvelled at the man who had brought back an Easter's head; it was quiet, fearful, discreet – out of the corner of an eye or from a turned head.

They went on a little farther until a ragged building on Eamon's left caught his attention. A faded sign hung over its door. The place was an inn – or at least had been. Its windows were twisted and broken and the door was half-collapsed upon itself, while shattered chairs and broken, empty bottles lay outside it in the dust.

Eamon looked at the sign. The inn's name was no longer legible and there was no man to be seen. “What happened here?”