The Broken Blade (2 page)

“To his glory,” Anderas called, a cry echoed by the men all around him.

“To his glory!”

It curdled Eamon's blood.

As the cries filled the square, Arlaith turned to him. The man's hatred was drawn into one long glare. Wrath writhed in every facet of Arlaith's being.

“Enjoy your little coup, Lord Goodman,” Arlaith hissed. “While it lasts.”

Was he not the Right Hand? As calls to the Master's glory filled the air, Eamon matched Arlaith's gaze.

“Speak to me in such a way again, Lord Arlaith, and it will go ill with you.”

Arlaith raised one dark eyebrow. The chilling familiarity – and utter otherness – of the man pierced Eamon as never before.

“You would threaten me, Lord Goodman?”

“I make no threats, Lord Arlaith: I am a man of my word.”

“So you are,” Arlaith sneered. He glanced at the assembled college and at the doors to the East's Handquarter. Slater stood ready to welcome the new master of the house.

Arlaith looked at Eamon but said nothing. No smile or scowl or grimace crossed his face. He bowed once and then virulently crossed the Ashen.

Eamon watched him go, feeling oddly alone. Anderas stepped forward to greet Arlaith and presented himself faultlessly; the captain never once met Eamon's gaze. He could not.

“Lord Goodman.”

A man stood by him. Gauntlet. He held his low bow.

“Rise,” Eamon said quietly. In the corner of his eye Arlaith was speaking with Anderas. Weariness assailed him.

The man rose. He had a lean face, dark eyes, and a smile that Eamon disliked for no reason that he could place. The man had two flames at his collar.

“Your name, lieutenant?”

“Lieutenant Fletcher, my lord,” the man answered. “Formerly of the South Quarter. I have been afforded the great honour of standing as the lieutenant to your office, while it is pleasing to the Master.”

The words came as a blow to Eamon. “Congratulations on your appointment, Mr Fletcher. I am sure you will perform it well.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

“And what of Mr Kentigern?”

The man inclined his head respectfully. “I understand that he took ship this morning for Etraia. He will serve the Master in
another fashion, henceforth, and I am sure he will serve well. He was very likeable.”

Eamon reeled: Ladomer was gone.

He rounded on the lieutenant. “It is not your place to speak of your likes and dislikes to me.”

Why had he not sought Ladomer out and spoken to him? He feared that his friend's prediction – that they would not see each other again – would turn true.

Fletcher bowed swiftly. “Forgive me, my lord.”

Eamon blinked, forcing back the tears biting at his eyes. Perhaps it was his own mind, and his own grief, that made it so; the lieutenant's words sounded insincere to him.

“Mr Kentigern and I were close of late,” Fletcher advised him. “He taught me my duties thoroughly. I will serve you to the fullness of my strength, to the Master's glory, Lord Goodman.”

Eamon nodded once. He wished that there were someone who could do him the same service. “My first service to you is to be that of showing you your quarters in the palace.”

“Then we shall return to the palace.”

Fletcher bowed again. “I will procure you a horse, my lord.”

“Procure it from the Handquarter stables,” Eamon told him suddenly. “Ask the stablehands for my horse. It is a loyal beast, and I love it well. I will take it with me.”

“Of course, my lord.” Rising from his bow, Fletcher turned and moved across the Ashen.

Eamon stood alone. The Gauntlet filed from the Ashen and returned to their various duties. Lord Arlaith stood upon the Handquarter steps. Eamon looked at him. The Lord of the East Quarter gazed back. In that moment before he turned to enter his house, Arlaith met Eamon's look and smiled.

Eamon felt, but scarcely heard, his footsteps as he walked through the palace halls into the East Wing; banners and faces whirled past him in a daze, and no man spoke a word to him. He recognized some of the passages; they threw his mind back many months to a cool September day when he and Mathaiah had followed Cathair and Ashway into the palace's ancient bowels, seeking Ellenswell.

Mathaiah was dead. Now, Eamon followed Lieutenant Fletcher.

As they passed through the passageways the clear light of that morning – the last morning in April – touched his flesh. He pressed it from his eyes.

Fletcher led him up an elaborately panelled stairwell in the East Wing into one of the highest parts of the palace. Following, Eamon paused to glance through a window; it gazed, like an eye, down over the complex of the Hands' Hall and across the long throes of the palace buildings and grounds. Wind played through the aperture. A flight of swallows wheeled past, their voices caught high in the air.

They passed on and the stairs spilt out into a wide landing. Two Hands stood at the stairwell, solemn in their black. They bowed low and did not rise until he commanded it.

The landing was thickly paved in red-veined marble, each streak flowing into the seamless joins of the stone. The walls that bound the hall were clad with elegantly grained wood and interspersed with arched windows that looked over the palace gardens. Great curtains hung to either side of these openings and sunlight struck through them to cast further traces of red into the high hallway.

At the far end of the hall stood a tall threshold. This, too, was flanked by Hands and by two tapestries, woven from the richest threads that Eamon had ever seen. Both showed the Master in battle dress, his flaming hair about his blazing face. In one hand he held aloft a book from whose open pages red light spilled. In the other he bore a sword. He was framed in clear skies and serpents crawled beneath his feet; they were bloody as they fled his might. The images chilled Eamon's blood.

Between the tapestries stood dark doors, richly crafted. Birds sat solemnly on the panels, their eyes fashioned from red jewels. Brass eagles in flight adorned the handles whilst a further obsidian eagle stood guardian over the doors themselves. Its sable feet gripped a scroll on which ran the same letters on the blade that now hung at Eamon's side:
Scarcely realizing that he did so he halted and gaped upwards, agog.

“What is this?” he breathed. The letters gripped him; he felt the Nightholt in his hands. The script stood openly before him and yet he could not read it, nor could he hope to. The archly formed words tormented him.

Fletcher seemed to take no notice of either the letters or his tone.

“This is the eyrie of the Right Hand, Lord Goodman,” he replied. So saying, he turned and bowed to the two Hands at either side of the doors. Like sweeping harbingers, they drew the portals aside to reveal the quarters of the Right Hand.

“My lord,” Fletcher said, and this time as he bowed he gestured to the open doorway with a grandiose undulation of his arm. Eamon nodded curtly to him and stepped forward.

The doors could never have prepared him for what lay inside. Before his eyes lay one of the most enormous rooms he had ever seen in private use. It was like Cathair's reception hall in the Hands' Hall, only larger, and its bounds went on and on.

The initial, circular entrance hall, its walls panelled in dark wood, spread back towards other doors. Mantelpieces, laced with intricate masonry, stood among the panels, and shields, bearing the black eagle of the Right Hand, stood above them. Gathered in the centre of the hall were a series of chaise longues, while behind these a group of steps led back to a raised platform, and to other sets of doors.

Eamon went up to each in turn. Through one he saw a study, large and neatly formed. Behind another was a room for washing and dressing. Behind a third, a room with a long dining table, and behind the last, a room showing itself to be a grand bedroom. The bed within – easily double the size of that in the East Quarter – was draped in black, and eagles flew at the posts and headboard. Red curtains embroidered with eagles sloped down from the posts. There was a balcony in the room also; it overlooked the palace gardens.

Returning to the circular entrance hall, Eamon saw another door, small and discreet, leading off from the side of the mantelpiece. He
knew at once that it was the servants' door, connected to whatever stairs and corridors the palace held for those men and women who served the Right Hand.

He stopped and stared about the quarters –
his
quarters – in a daze. He stood in silence for a long time.

“Lord Goodman?”

Fletcher's voice stirred him. Silently he nodded, granting the man permission to speak.

“There is breakfast for you on the table.”

At the words, Eamon looked once more to the dining room and its long table. Fletcher was right: there was a tray on the table. Breads, hams and cheeses covered it, while beside it stood an elaborate flagon whose handle was formed by eagle's wings.

“Whatever your command for your servants, whatever your commands for the city,” Fletcher told him, “you need only speak to me, and I shall see them done.”

Startled, Eamon realized then how powerful Ladomer had been.

“That is, of course, unless you wish to see to them yourself,” Fletcher finished. “Lord Arlaith was, I understand, sometimes of that approach.”

“I will eat.”

“I will send some of your servants to attend you.”

“I wish to be alone at present. You may send the servants when I have finished.”

Fletcher did not look surprised. He bowed again. “Of course, my lord. You will not be disturbed.”

“In an hour you will return,” Eamon added. “We will go to each of the quarters. I will have reports from each of the Quarter Hands, detailing their readiness.”

“With reverence, my lord,” Fletcher began, “you need not trouble yourself with such a thing. I can easily send for them. They will come to you.”

Eamon looked at him. For a moment, the thought tantalized him. He could have each Quarter Hand come to him, one black
specimen after another, and they would answer him as he had been forced to answer to them. He could be rash and unforgiving, if he so chose it.

“I will go,” he said quietly. “Send messages to them, advising them of my coming. I wish to meet with them and inspect their readiness in person. I will have their most recent reports, on Gauntlet and militia capacity, logistical flexibility, thresholder readiness. I will also survey the state of the city walls and the work that has been in progress on them.”

Fletcher nodded. “Very well, my lord; it shall be as you command. By your leave, my lord.”

“Mr Fletcher.”

Fletcher bowed neatly and left. A strange quiet settled; once the doors were closed it was impossible to hear beyond them.

Drawing a deep breath, Eamon tried to relax. It was difficult.

Slowly he moved about the rooms, touching posts and lintels and feeling the smooth texture of the wood beneath his fingers. Every available space was decked with finery. From every quarter, the black eagle of the Right Hand stared back at him.

He stepped into his bedchamber and walked about the bed, trying to comprehend just how big it was. He wondered what use Arlaith might have put it to, and shuddered.

As he had seen before, the bedroom opened to a balcony. It adjoined the throne room's south balcony. The balcony spanned the length of that hall, joining East and West Wings of the palace together before ending at last by quarters opposite his own in the West Wing. They too bore an eagle, and Eamon knew at once whose rooms were connected to his own.

He shuddered.

He returned to the entrance hall and closed his eyes, but when he opened them the room was still there. He was still the Right Hand.

Had Hughan meant for this to happen to him? Had the King ever guessed that his First Knight would become Edelred's Right Hand?

Breathing deeply he drew the blade from his side. He rested it across his hands. Its shaft, etched with letters, gazed back at him. The weapon carried a faint red weave, as though it too bore the Master's mark.

Eamon looked at the eagle over the hall's mantelpiece. Its talons had been formed as hooks, so that they might hold a blade. It was the ceremonial hanging place for what he held.

As he looked at the eagle his vision changed.

The room became dark, lit only by the twisted candelabrum that stood in each of its corners. From every window – almost every stone – rang the sound of trumpets, triumphantly unfettered.

A man stood by the eagled mantelpiece. Fire burned in the hearth, flecking clothes and man with red. The man leaned against the mantelpiece's black ledge as he stared at the flames. The firelight revealed the dark sheath that hung at his side.

As the fire crackled, the man looked on. Then the cries of hundreds upon hundreds of ecstatic voices rent the air:

“To his glory! To his glory!”

Agony twisted the man's face. Eben Goodman buried his pale face in black-gowned arms, and wept.

Eamon staggered from the mantelpiece, retreating until his knees touched the edge of a chair. He sank into it.

Eben Goodman had been the last First Knight and the first Right Hand. Eamon wondered then if he did not at last understand some of the terrible grandeur, and power, that had drawn Eben from Ede to Edelred. Yet something had drawn Eben back to his first oath; something had driven him to endure terror and hardship in Dunthruik, to defy the throned and lose his life.

Eamon drew a deep breath. He served the house of Brenuin, just as Eben had done. But he had a hope that Eben, in his final moments, could scarcely have dared to believe: Eamon knew that the King returned. For long months Eamon had served Dunthruik, and he had done it for the King. Edelred was a terrible power, but the King was returning. Whether that day would bring good or ill he did not know, but it would soon arrive.

Suddenly he remembered the night when he had gone down into the Pit, the night when he had spoken freely with Mathaiah for the last time. He remembered the warmth and courage of his friend's embrace, and the young man's final words to him: “
Hold to the King
.”

Whatever came to him from that day forth, of one thing he was certain. Caged by the hatred of the Quarter Hands and the delight of the Master, now, more than ever before, he needed to hold – and hold fast.

He stirred from his thoughts. It could not be long before an hour passed. Setting the blade of the Right Hand back into its scabbard, he rose and passed into the dining room.

 

Fletcher returned promptly just as Eamon finished breakfast. He announced that he had sent messages to the Quarter Hands, or in their absence, their captains, and that Eamon was expected. Eamon thanked him. Not long after, they rode from the palace together.

It was mid-morning when the Right Hand and his lieutenant wound their way through the Four Quarters and down Coronet Rise into the South Quarter. Eamon was grateful for the narrow streets that they took towards the Handquarter. Tomorrow would be the first of May, and if the last day of April was anything by which to judge, the summer would come, sweltering and soon, to Dunthruik's streets. The South Quarter's tall buildings blocked the sun's glare from Eamon's tired eyes.

The South Handquarter was a grand affair carved from white stones which had been detailed in red. Two vast yew trees, not yet bearing their blood-like fruit, stood by the pillars to the hall, and crowns, flanked by birds, were etched into the white steps. Harriers for the South, Eamon recalled. The steps led up into a Handquarter's hall which, in shape and size, would not be unlike the one that Eamon had lost that morning to Arlaith.

Tramist's house expected them. Several servants waited in the cool shadows of the hall. As Eamon and Fletcher neared the
Handquarter's steps, the servants came forward as of one accord to meet him; one laid a mounting block on the ground. Though he did not need it, Eamon set his foot to it and entrusted his horse's reins to the nearest man.

“Where is Lord Tramist?” Eamon asked.

“In the hall,” the servant replied. “He awaits you, my lord.”

Eamon wondered wryly whether perhaps, though not as pale as Cathair, Tramist found strong sun troublesome.

After thanking the servants and bidding Fletcher to wait for him, Eamon swept up the sun-marked steps. The roof of the Handquarter's vaulted hall was painted red. Lord Tramist stood beneath the ceiling's gilded keystone, grim-faced.

“Lord Goodman.” Tramist bowed. His voice was frosty and his eyes glinted. “You have come for some reports?”

“You know that I have,” Eamon answered. To see the Lord of the South Quarter hiding in his hall made him feel more cheerful. “I thought it wise to put myself to work at once.”

“Of course, my lord.” Tramist paused as a couple of servants scurried by with lowered faces. “If you'll come with me to my study, we can speak there.”