The Tattered Banner (Society of the Sword Volume 1) (54 page)

C h a p t e r   5 4

A CHANCE ENCOUNTER

T
he Duke was something of an incompetent romantic. He was said to be skilled in governance, and respected by the counts and merchants of the Duchy, but when it came to women, he was useless, even by Soren’s standards. He made Soren look like a veritable lothario. The Duke was being pressured both by his advisors and family members to marry. He was already old to be single at his station in life and by all accounts his mother was keen to ensure that their branch of the family continued into the next generation. As such, she regularly arranged for him to lunch with various eligible young ladies of the Duchy. There were constant rumours as to who his potential bride might be and each time he was seen talking with an eligible young lady, the flames of these rumours were fanned once more. Other rumours were less kind about the Duke, and were intended to be injurious to his rule.

On this afternoon, he was walking in his garden with the daughter of the count of somewhere or other. Soren didn’t bother trying to keep track of who they were any more. Soren was with him, maintaining a respectful distance, for what it was worth. There was no danger of eavesdropping as the conversation between them was stilted to the point of being non-existent. It was so uncomfortable that Soren actually felt embarrassed for the Duke.

The gardens were laid out in geometric patterns, with bleached gravel paths between them. It was very restful and an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. It required constant maintenance and at any time there were four or five gardeners tending to the carefully shaped trees and bushes. They were instructed to keep their distance which Soren expected did not make for the most efficient work practices, as they had to keep moving from area to area to keep out of the Duke’s way.

He walked slowly behind the couple, a few yards back, with his hands resting on the hilts of his blades. It was difficult to keep up concentration under the circumstances. Other than the young lady, the gardeners were the only other people visible. To keep his mind active, he started imagining scenarios where each of the gardeners was an assassin. He imagined what they would do to remain outside suspicion until they were ready to make their attack.

He ran through dozens of scenarios, deciding how he would react to each of them. If he was honest with himself, he would have acknowledged that he was bored at the Palace. He had not known what to expect, but in the two weeks he had been there, the Duke had only left the grounds on that one occasion to go to the Cathedral. Otherwise, it was all meetings, balls and banquets. Soren enjoyed being around beautiful women as much as anyone, but Amero and Alessandra were there regularly, which made him uncomfortable. He was beginning to feel as though he was not achieving anything useful, and allowing his abilities to go to waste.

Palace gossip seemed to be more up to date than the news announced by the crier on Crossways everyday, and it seemed that war with Ruripathia was only days away. He thought of Alys with regret. It seemed stupid to be going to war with them, when the potential for friendship was there. He wondered how things had gone so wrong. He had a nagging doubt about the killing of Chancellor Marin, but he could not reconcile in his head what Amero would gain if it had not been done in the best interest of the Duchy. His grandfather had been a duke, so he was ineligible.

The General had ordered him to assassinate three of the most powerful men in Ostenheim, but surely those orders had to have come from the Palace. They were supposedly all men whose power represented a threat to the Duke, but what dal Dragonet had said sowed seeds of doubt in his mind about that. Of course there was no one he could ask. His role in the killings, if they were indeed an attack against the Duke’s reign, however unwitting, was something he did not wish to have discovered.

Something beyond his understanding was going on, and he was beginning to feel that he had played a role in it without his consent. That bothered him greatly.

The Duke’s stroll with the young lady ended, leaving Soren to escort him back to his apartments. They walked in silence initially, the Duke’s tension palpable. Eventually he broke the silence.

‘That really didn’t go at all as I had intended,’ he said.

‘It rarely does, sir, in my experience,’ Soren replied, giving what he hoped came across as a fraternal and conciliatory grimace.

The Duke was speaking at the Barons’ Hall, at the opening ceremony of the Council of Nobles’ term. During the summer and harvest months, most of the nobles would be away on their estates. With the drawing in of winter, they congregated in the city for the six months that their assembly sat. Soren wasn’t exactly sure what it was they did, only the elector counts had a say in the Ducal elections, and once elected the Duke had supreme authority over the Duchy, but he supposed there were other issues in which their input would be required. The edicts that were read out by the city criers at the beginning of each week had their origins in the debates there.

They went out in a procession of two carriages with forerunners clearing the streets ahead of them as usual. Soren stared out of the window of the carriage he was in as it rattled over the cobbled streets, constantly looking for any potential threat.

The city was in a high state of agitation, and it was clear that the majority of the debate at the House of Nobles would be concerned with the Ruripathian transgressions on the border. Their chief speaker was dead, which was Soren’s doing and there was a lack of political unity and direction as a result. It was the Duke’s hope that he could address the issue and inject some stability with his opening speech. The guilds remained a problem for him however. With Spiro dead, they had been vying with each other to have their candidate fill the vacancy. The problem was exacerbated by the fact that the obvious successors to Grand Burgess Spiro, those next in the hierarchy of the Congress of Guilds, had also been killed around the time that Spiro had. With no clear successor, chaos had descended on the guilds. Violence had already erupted more than once, with several men dead as a result of the last incident. He had heard that the City Watch were becoming increasingly alarmed.

With the increase in random acts of crime, the Watch were under siege. Parts of the city had become no go areas in a matter of days as violence erupted between the criminal gangs. They too had experienced the killings of several of their higher ranking members. With no clear-cut order of succession, there was an intense and violent power struggle spilling over into the streets. While the guild members tended to restrict their violence to broken bones and cracked heads, the criminal gangs were killing with reckless abandon.

Dal Gawan kept a small office at the Palace where he worked when he was not accompanying the Duke or training with the New Guard. He had called Soren in for unknown reasons, so Soren felt a little apprehensive as he entered the room.

‘Soren, thank you for coming. I don’t have much time, so I’ll be brief. You’re efficiency and discretion have caught the Duke’s eye, and he has singled you out for praise. He asked me to make you a small award, so I have given you the rest of the day off and a small financial reward.’ He slid a small coin pouch across his desk. ‘Be back to barracks by eight bells if you would.’

Ten crowns was a tidy sum and the acknowledgement of his work by the Duke was a huge reward in itself. If he continued to gain the Duke’s favour he would do very well indeed. He made straight for the artisans’ district to find a scabbard and suspension that would better fit his sword. He could have one made up, but that would add to the expense and there would be a very good selection to choose from amongst the leatherworking shops there anyway. On campaign they tended not to last long, so he really didn’t see the sense in commissioning one especially and putting himself through that additional expense.

As he walked across the city, he felt good about himself. The approbation of the Duke had far more of an effect on his spirits than he thought it would, and it seemed to give reason to the evenings sitting uncomfortably at balls and the boredom of waiting around the Palace. For the first time it occurred to him that the job was not just about actually keeping the Duke safe, but it was equally about making him feel that he was safe.

He purchased a medium tan coloured scabbard, sheath and suspension at the third leather workers that he visited. It was plain, but of good quality and solid workmanship and he felt it was a worthy accompaniment to his sword.

His last task for the day was to pay a call to the Bannerets’ Hall, where the Emblazoners of Banners kept their office. He still had no idea what he would have on his banner, but had more or less decided to allow the emblazoners to guide him on the matter. He had been putting off having it made for some time, but now that he was part of the Duke’s retinue, not having one had become somewhat conspicuous.

In keeping with custom, the banner would be white, with whatever design he settled on embroidered onto it. Had he completed his studies at the Collegium he would have been entitled to have a blue banner, the colour of Ostenheim and the Academy.

After some thought and discussion with the emblazoner who had been assigned to him, he decided on two belek, standing rampant on either side of a sword, a representation of his greatly prized Telastrian steel blade. The belek had also seemed like an appropriate choice. Having hunted them, killed one and having nearly been killed by it himself, he felt he had more of a connection with them than any of the other beasts, real or mythical, that the emblazoner had suggested.

The chosen colour of the design could not be changed at a future date, so he chose a silver thread for the bulk of the embroidery, which he felt would stand out equally well on either the white cloth he was currently entitled to, or the blue of a Collegium graduate. He had decided that he would return to the Academy to complete his studies as soon as his commitments to the New Guard were satisfied, or as now seemed to be most likely, when the impending war with Ruripathia was over.

The only features of his design not in silver were the tongue, teeth and eyes of the belek, all of which he wanted emphasised, the tongue a brilliant red, the teeth white and the cold blue eyes the shade of a clear winter sky.

The process of having the banner designed and made was free, a gift from the city to those that would serve her. The emblazoner ensured him it would be delivered to him at the Palace as soon as it was ready.

With his errands all complete, he decided to treat himself to a mug of ale and a pie before returning to the barracks. It would pale in comparison to the food he was becoming used to at the Palace, but there was something about ale and pie’s simplicity that appealed to him. It was hearty eating and not too rich, like many of the delicacies served up to him at the Palace. He had a plain palate, and after years of scavenging for every meal, even the simplest of fare seemed like a feast.