The King's Hand
Authors: Anna Thayer
Â
Â
Â
Â
To
The City of Palermo
Â
Â
Text copyright © 2014 Anna Thayer
This edition copyright © 2014 Lion Hudson
The right of Anna Thayer to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Published by Lion Fiction
an imprint of
Lion Hudson plc
Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Road
Oxford OX2 8DR, England
www.lionhudson.com/fiction
ISBN 978 1 78264 077 6
e-ISBN 978 1 78264 078 3
This edition 2014
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Cover illustration by Jacey: www.jacey.com
C
ONTENTS
Map of the River Realm and its World
Map of the River Realm Towns and Provinces
A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
Just as with its fellow, the publication of this book would not have been possible without the support of a great many people.
Thank you to Peter Gladwin, for helping to get me in touch with the right people at the right time. A real kairos moment!
I am particularly indebted to Tony, Jessica, and Julie at Lion Hudson; for their overwhelming enthusiasm for Eamon and his world, and the countless hours they have spent in the final labour of love that is editing a book (let alone three!) for publication.
Colleagues and students have for years been a source of immense encouragement, and I am grateful to them for helping to keep me going on what has, at times, been a daunting endeavour. Special mention has to go to the “Tardis crew” who, despite their changing faces, have been the best colleagues that a teacher, writer, and new mother could ask for.
Finally, I wish to thank my wonderful husband, Justin, and my son, Leopoldo â the one for his tireless dedication to reading, re-reading, thrice reading, and editorial input, and the other for sleeping just enough to let me finish the manuscripts. The discerning reader may decide which thanks goes to which gentleman!
T
HE
S
TORY
S
O
F
AR
I
t is the 532nd year of the Master's throne. The Master is lord over the River Realm, ruling in unassailable might from his capital, Dunthruik, and asserting his authority by means of his army â the Gauntlet â and his elite servants, the Hands.
But things were not always this way. There are rumours of wayfarers up and down the River â pernicious snakes who claim that their leader is the descendent of the ancient House of Brenuin, and rightful heir to a throne stolen by the Master.
Since the death of his parents, Eamon Goodman has always longed to swear his allegiance to the Gauntlet â to dedicate his life to protecting and serving the people of the River. Living in the small town of Edesfield, his hopes for greatness â of going to Dunthruik and becoming a Hand â seem slim.
Everything changes on the day that he swears his oath to the Master. He finds his flesh marked with a fiery eagle, and his mind filled with a voice that commands his thought. Worse, Telo, the father of his childhood friend Aeryn, is revealed to be a wayfarer â as is his daughter. After Eamon has been forced to burn Telo at the stake, Aeryn reveals to him her true nature â and is captured by the Gauntlet. Compelled by his captain to interrogate her, Eamon discovers that the mark on his palm has granted him a strange new ability â that of breaching a person's mind, entering it and tearing through it to reveal their inmost thoughts and secrets. But he also discovers that Aeryn is protected from him by a mysterious blue light â a light that she attributes to her devotion to the King.
For his service in capturing wayfarers in the town, Eamon is promoted from cadet to lieutenant and sent on a holk downriver to Dunthruik to deliver his prisoner â Aeryn â to the city's greatest breachers. Torn between his friendship and his oath, Eamon attempts to discharge his duty â but finds himself troubled by Aeryn's allegiance.
On board the holk a young cadet under Eamon's command, Mathaiah Grahaven, miscarries his duty, allowing Aeryn a chance at escape. Rather than see the young man suffer, Eamon volunteers to take the punishment â a flogging â in his place, creating a strong bond between them.
Just before the holk reaches Dunthruik, it is overrun in a nighttime attack by wayfarers intent on rescuing Aeryn. These men, led by a man called Giles, refuse Eamon's offer of surrender and furiously butcher all on board. Mathaiah takes a killing blow in Eamon's place, and, as Eamon cradles the dying cadet, he finds blue light in his own hands. He uses it to heal the young man, unwittingly saving his own life in the process â this light is the mark of a King's man.
Sole survivors of the holk's crew, Eamon and Mathaiah are taken back to the wayfarers' camp where Eamon makes a series of startling realizations: there is a King, Hughan Brenuin, a childhood friend of Eamon's whom he thought dead in a wayfarer attack. Hughan reveals that Eamon's ability to be both sworn to the Master and carry the blue light is an inheritance of his house â that Eben Goodman was once First Knight to the last Brenuin King, and the man who betrayed the King to the Master. Hughan invites Eamon to become First Knight once more.
Tormented by his oath to the Master and his desire to give fealty to Hughan, Eamon swears to serve the King: as part of his new oath, he will go to Dunthruik and act as Hughan's spy in the city. He concocts a subterfuge with Hughan: he returns to the city with a group of Hands who have come seeking Aeryn, carrying with him forged papers and an ancient stone, to prove his “loyalty” to the Master. Mathaiah â who has also sworn an oath to serve the King â travels with him.
Doubly sworn, Eamon arrives in Dunthruik and is assigned to the city's West Quarter college under the leadership of Captain Waite. Persistently baited by Hands and officers, Eamon struggles to remain true to his oath to Hughan. His temptation to become a Master's man is made stronger when he is promoted to first lieutenant and becomes the lover of one of the city's most powerful women, Alessia Turnholt.
Using the stone he has brought from Hughan, Eamon leads a group of Hands into the city's ancient library. There, he and Mathaiah recover a book known as the Nightholt â one which Mathaiah feels certain he can read, despite its arcane script â and give it over to the Hands. It is a deed which fills Eamon with misgiving. He and Mathaiah arrange to send news to Hughan via their contact, Alessia's serving-girl Lillabeth.
Eamon is nominated to become a Hand; spurred on by his captain, his lover, and the Master's Right Hand, Eamon begins working against Hughan, capturing and torturing wayfarers and doing everything in his power to be formally recognized as one of the Master's elite. Mathaiah warns him that he is being baited and pulled from his true oath of service, and that Alessia is in the Master's pay. Angered and incited further by the voice which increasingly holds sway over him, Eamon shuns Mathaiah utterly.
Eamon turns his back on the King, aspiring instead to become Right Hand â a desire which he confides to Ladomer, an old friend who has won a position in Dunthruik as lieutenant to the Master's second.
After a winter of working to the Master's glory, Eamon is taken on a mission by Lord Cathair to see if rumours of an amassing wayfarer army have any truth to them. They discover that Hughan has garnered many allies. On this mission, one of Eamon's cadets is killed by Giles. The man confronts Eamon with the extent of his treachery to Hughan. Furious, Eamon violently breaches Giles, learning the location of the King's army and many details pertaining to its logistical support and allies. It is when he sees Giles broken by his hand that Eamon realizes what he has become. Unhinged with shame and guilt, Eamon returns to the city and confesses everything to Alessia. He resolves that he should become a King's man once more.
The sensitive information that Eamon acquires from Giles clinches the decision to make him a Hand. He is given command of a mission to halt one of the King's supply convoy. What should be an easy mission ends disastrously and Eamon leads his men back to Dunthruik in disgrace.
Back in the city, Alessia invites Eamon to the theatre where the Right Hand, Arlaith, joins them unexpectedly to espouse his views on how betrayal should be answered. Alessia reveals to Eamon that she was ordered to court him by Arlaith, she has been breached, and now the Hands know everything. When she tells Eamon that Mathaiah is being arrested he spurns her and rushes to try to save his friend, but arrives too late.