The Traitor's Heir (23 page)

Eamon looked once more at Hughan. “What would you have me do?” he asked.

“Keep your promise to the Hands. Go with them to Dunthruik and there, First Knight, in the very heart of my enemy's stronghold, I would ask you to serve me.”

Eamon came away from the chamber in a daze, his ears ringing. He heard raised voices behind him:

“He will betray us, sire!”

“It is a fool's errand, sending a Glove to do the work of a King's man, and a fool that entrusts it to him!”

“Do not address the King thus!”

Eamon walked away. He did not want to hear any more.

His steps led him to the Hidden Hall's entrance. The guards paid him little heed as they stood at their posts. Slowly he walked towards the great window; the stone eye gazed over the village, smouldering against the darkened sky. Drawing a deep breath he tried to think.

The throned had bound him to serve as Gauntlet in his city. The King had called him to do the same, as First Knight. He had sworn to do both, but could he do either?

Footsteps approached him from behind. Mathaiah stepped up to his side, wrapped in a blanket that he wore about his shoulders like a cloak. His face was pale with lack of sleep but he was focused and alert.

“Is everything all right, sir?”

“I hardly think you need call me ‘sir',” Eamon answered. “Didn't you see me today, Mathaiah? I made an oath to the King. I denied any allegiance to the throned when I did that. I am no longer permitted to wear the uniform in which I so diligently came here, and no longer entitled to your ‘sir's or service.”

“Yes, sir.”

Eamon looked at him and realized that he did not know what his young friend – if they were still friends – thought about the whole affair. He sighed, and rubbed one hand awkwardly through his hair. It was greasy and smelled of smoke.

“What will you do?” he asked.

Mathaiah was gazing out of the long window. “I don't know,” he said at last. “In theory I have no oath, no mark of any colour. I can go where I please…” His voice was strained and bore no hint of whimsy. Eamon suspected that the boy had spent too long weighing up his choices.

“As a cadet, you have set yourself on a path that leads to an eagled palm,” Eamon cast a glance at his own. “If you would hear my advice, I would not in good faith counsel you to continue in it.”

“Even if I promised not to, I don't think I would get back to Edesfield,” Mathaiah answered. “Giles doesn't trust me, sir, and I can't think that he would trust me not to talk. I cannot go home and tell my father that I have met the man who killed his eldest son and left the Gauntlet. He is old and frail. But I can't stay here either; I do not think that most of these men, however noble, would ever really trust me.”

Eamon felt a rush of compassion. “I am so very sorry, Mathaiah, that I brought you into this with me –”

The cadet laughed. “I'd be dead if you hadn't, sir, and I'm not sure that would be much better! Anyway, for a part I brought myself. Since I saw you at Belaal's office I've felt that there is something different about you. You weren't like him or like any of the other Gauntlet officers that I saw – Kentigern, Spencing, Ellis… You are different to all of them. There is something left underneath your uniform – something bold, something that they say doesn't belong in the Gauntlet. I suppose that drew me to you, because whatever it is you seem so much richer, so much more, with it, than those without it.”

The words cut at Eamon's heart. “I wanted to know what made you like that, sir. Now perhaps I do. You may bear his mark but I don't think that you ever truly served the throned. If you had you could not have given any promise to the King.”

Stunned, Eamon stared.

“I'm sorry, sir, if I spoke out of turn –”

“I… don't think you did.”

“What did they say to you?” Mathaiah added, looking to the hall.

“They've asked if I will spy on the throned in Dunthruik.” Eamon tried to make light of it.

“Did they give you a picnic basket, too?” Mathaiah inquired.

Unable to contain a smile, Eamon burst into laughter.

“I'll take that as a no, sir,” Mathaiah smiled.

Eamon looked at the cadet. The boy had come with him from Edesfield, saved him from death, pleaded for him against Giles. Now that he had given an oath to the King, the cadet still followed him.

“Mathaiah,” he said quietly, “are you with me or against me?”

“Sir?”

“You cannot serve two masters. Perhaps you should not follow a man who has embroiled himself with two.”

Mathaiah remained silent. Eamon held his breath. He desperately wanted the boy to throw his lot in with Hughan and be saved from the flesh-devouring eagle. But as desperately as he wanted it, it was a choice that he could neither make nor force.

At last Mathaiah drew breath. “Sir, I have seen what the Gauntlet can do. For many men there is power and renown to be gained from the oaths that they take. The red uniform is admired and feared, and the black is unassailable.” A quiver stole into his voice. “But this King, he shows but a little power, and I am awed by him. He shows less than a little kindness and all other kindnesses wither away. I see why he has your service.”

Eamon regarded him gently. He saw the cadet's turmoil and he understood it.

“I have seen, Mr Grahaven, the strength of your sword and the courage of your heart,” he said. “Your faith is yours to pledge where you choose.”

A faint smile appeared on Mathaiah's lips. “Don't knights have squires, sir?”

Eamon was touched to the core. “Mathaiah, you don't have to come with me.”

“I know, sir,” Mathaiah answered. As he spoke a weight seemed to fall from his shoulders. “But I want to. Seeing you make your choice somehow gives me the courage to make mine. I want to go with you, and serve the one you serve.”

“We could both be killed,” Eamon said, trying to sound grave – but a great smile had worked its way into every corner of his face.

“It seems to me,” the cadet replied, “that I would rather give my life for the King than bind it to the Eagle.”

Far over in the east the first traces of light were appearing. Eamon felt his resolve strengthening with them.

Mathaiah yawned. “What day is it tomorrow, sir?”

“You mean today?” Eamon paused, counting. “The seventeenth of September. We should get some sleep,” he added.

“Sounds like a good way to start the morning, sir.”

They made their way silently back to the side-chamber where Eamon had been rested before. He tiptoed round dormant figures to reach his blankets and settled down at last between two strangers. Mathaiah found a space a little distance away and did likewise.

Eamon curved his arms over his chest and rolled onto his side. Sleep came with sudden gentleness to his brow, encouraged by the peace that his new oath granted him.

But as he drifted and was borne away by the welcome, drowsy tide he felt fire lingering on his palm.

C
HAPTER
X

A
eryn sat in the light next to him. Her arms were folded across her breast against the cold. He reached out and touched her hand, pressing her icy fingers between his own. She tried to smile. No word was exchanged.

The day passed quickly. He spent much of it with Hughan, filling his head with all the details and specifics pertinent to his task. Anything that he could learn would be of value, but he had to know how to get it back to the King.

“We do have some people in Dunthruik,” Hughan explained. “Most of them won't take a stand against the throned until they see him losing ground. Of those who are bolder none of them are deep enough in the court to have a chance of learning his plans. There is a lady at the court, Alessia Turnholt by name. She hails from one of Dunthruik's most ancient and respected families.”

“She is with us?” Eamon asked, surprised.

“No,” Hughan said with a small smile, “but her maidservant is. Her name is Lillabeth Hollenwell. Pass anything that you learn on to Lilly, if you can. She will get it to me. I won't burden you with the names of any other wayfarers, in case something goes wrong.”

Eamon nodded. It was a wise precaution.

“This next part is very important, Eamon, and I want you to listen carefully.” Hughan fixed him with a stern gaze. “Remember that, for whatever reason, the throned has an interest in you. That will hinder you as much as it may help you at times. If you feel that you have been compromised or discovered, or feel yourself to be in desperate danger of your life, don't have a fit of heroics; just leave. There is an inn on Serpentine Avenue in the South Quarter. Speak to the bartender and he will hide you until we can get you out.”

“Is he –?”

“He has no love of the throned and will do all that he can for you.” Eamon nodded again. He felt as though his brain could not quite take everything in. “If you are in the city when we decide to make our move, we will tell you what to do,” Hughan added, “but it won't be before the spring in any case. Is Mathaiah going with you?”

“Yes,” Eamon answered.

“He's a stubborn one,” Hughan observed with a laugh. “But if my eyes see at all I think he will be of help to you. If there is too much trouble send him back via the inn. I will put him under my protection.”

“Thank you. Hughan,” Eamon added after a moment, “I don't think that they believed me.”

“The Hands?”

“Yes.” Eamon was surprised at the agility with which Hughan followed his thought. “It's been troubling me. If they didn't believe me then I am walking straight into a trap of their design. I don't like that.”

“There are none who would,” Hughan agreed.

“Supposing…” Eamon ventured, a little more reluctantly. “Supposing I tell them that I lied and then offer them proof of my allegiance…”

“Did you have anything in mind?”

“No,” he admitted. “It would have to be something that would be valuable to them but of no loss to you.”

Hughan looked at him pensively. “I'll have some dispatches made up. Fake ones, of course,” he added with a smile. “A collection of missives giving indication of the existence and location of other Hidden Halls. I'll write the missives myself and include some detail on our movements as a whole that the throned will be hard-pressed to dispute, and too intrigued to ignore. By the time he has combed through the missives and the false halls he'll have expended a lot of resources for very little, which is always of help to us. We may even be able to surprise him and ambush those whom he sends to investigate.” The King's smile faded and he grew serious again. “But perhaps we can do more than that, and even play it to our advantage. Have you heard of Ellenswell?”

A memory of his distant youth came to Eamon's mind. He saw his father working upon the binding of an elegant edition of the River Poet's works. He remembered how he had sat, enthralled, by the tale that his father had told of a place called Ellenswell and the many, many books that had been there. More books, his father had insisted, than could be imagined. Books upon books, hundreds upon hundreds, every corner and every nook of every alcove filled with parchment, leather, and scroll. He had seen the delight in his father's eyes at the telling of it – Ellenswell had been the envy of the city. Eamon remembered his father's sadness as he had told what had befallen it.

“There was a quake in the early days of Dunthruik,” Eamon recalled. “It started a fire. The library was lost.”

Hughan smiled again. “Not quite,” he answered. “Ellenswell was once known as ‘Elaina's Well'.”

“Elaina?” Eamon repeated in surprise. “Ede's sister was quite a scholar in her days and spent years collecting books from all over the River Realm and from all its allies. It took her a long time to find a place to store her collection, which she had intended to one day make public.”

“Where did she put them?”

“Some say that she emptied the palace cellars, including the best years laid down by her father, and distributed the bottles to her brother's court so as to obtain a keeping place. Even in those days the city had a rich wine trade. Though Ede seems to have approved of her actions I do not think that either her husband or the palace kitchens quite concurred with it.” Eamon chuckled at the thought. “At any rate,” Hughan continued, “the cellars certainly survived the quake – how else would the palace still be standing? It is the same structure now as it was then, if a little modified. The throned wanted to get into Ellenswell but found it blocked. The flames associated with the quake story were of his making.”

“Why would he want to go into the library?” The grey-eyed man Eamon had seen in his mind did not seem to be a man of letters.

“Truthfully, I do not know,” Hughan answered. “That is probably a question for the bookkeepers.”

Eamon's head spun with the deluge of information. “I'm sorry that I keep asking questions. Who are the bookkeepers?”

“Much that was in the library was removed before the throned cemented his grasp on Dunthruik,” Hughan answered. “The bookkeepers were close counsellors to Ede and took charge of much of Elaina's collection. They keep it even now, in a Hidden Hall at Stonemead. For men of letters,” he added, “the bookkeepers are a fierce bundle.”

“Have you met them?”

“Yes. They know and keep record of many things that the people of the River have forgotten. It was the bookkeepers who explained to me much of the history that I have told you. I was taken to them after I left Edesfield.”

Eamon wondered at the revelation it must have been when the bookkeepers had explained the nature of his heritage to Hughan. By the look on Hughan's face he imagined that it was still a strong memory.

“Did they manage to get all of the books when they emptied the library?” Eamon asked.