The Traitor's Heir (32 page)

“I will, thank you.”

Bowing, the servant went towards Lord Cathair's buildings.

Eamon dismissed the cadets and went swiftly to the hall, his thoughts tumbling one over another. Surely there was nobody in Dunthruik who could have any cause to send him messages?

He stopped in the hallway and allowed his sight to adjust to the shadowed entrance. Through the gates he could see the busy Dunthruik streets and hear a good deal of bustle. Preparations were underway for the majesty. With the Royal Plaza just along the Coll, a great number of artisans and Gauntlet were beginning to gather, either to go about their own work or survey the work of others.

A small figure sat on a bench under Waite's Hand-board. Assuming this to be his messenger, Eamon stepped forward and then stopped in surprise. The messenger was the maidservant whom he had seen at the palace that night. What business could she possibly have at a Gauntlet college?

The girl rose and curtseyed impeccably.

“Lieutenant Goodman?”

Eamon nodded dumbly.

“I have an invitation for you from Lady Turnholt.” She offered him a sealed parchment. He opened it and cast his eyes over the curling script, trying to force them to focus on the words:

Lady Alessia Turnholt kindly requests the presence of Lieutenant Eamon Goodman at supper, a gesture of thanks for his service.

Eamon had to read the letter three or four times before he could look at the maid again. “This is for me?” He suddenly felt very warm.

The maid nodded. “Will you come, sir? I must take back an answer.”

“Yes,” Eamon said unthinkingly. Then: “If my captain will allow it.”

“Lady Turnholt will expect you this evening, at Turnholt House on Candeller's Way,” the maid told him. “Please send word if you cannot attend.”

“Of course.” Eamon felt lightheaded and the parchment burned in his hand.

The maid bowed to him and then began to leave. Suddenly regaining his senses Eamon called after her: “Miss!”

“Sir?”

Eamon paused. “I wish to thank you for your trouble, Miss…?”

“Miss Hollenwell.”

“Miss Lillabeth Hollenwell?” How many Lady Alessia Turnholts, and accompanying maids, could there be in Dunthruik?

“Your servant, sir,” she answered, curtseying again.

“A friend spoke highly of you and of your service,” Eamon told her quietly. After a pause he saw her nod faintly, his meaning understood.

“Thank you, sir.” The girl curtseyed and left the college, drawing her cloak about herself as she stepped into the Brand.

Eamon watched her go, his heart beating hard. Beneath her tacit servility Lillabeth Hollenwell was a wayfarer, and his means of reaching the King. Both comforted him.

Lady Alessia Turnholt kindly requests the presence of Lieutenant Eamon Goodman at supper…
Eamon read it again just to make sure. It seemed unreal. He breathed in the perfume of the lady – the page seemed suffused with it. What interest could she have in him?

All at once he remembered that Captain Waite was waiting for him. He turned to hurry towards the captain's office and nearly stopped again. There, in the shadow of an arch, was First Lieutenant Alben. The man's watching face was murderous.

Eamon tucked the parchment into his jacket. “Mr Alben,” he acknowledged, and went straight past. Alben could storm; they would settle their differences later.

Eamon followed the corridor to Captain Waite's office. The door stood open and at Waite's gesture he stepped inside.

“Mr Goodman,” Waite greeted him with a brief smile. Another lieutenant was in the office and Waite dismissed him.

“A good morning?” he asked.

“Thank you, sir,” Eamon answered. “Yes. But not, I'm afraid, for Cadet Manners.”

Waite raised an eyebrow and Eamon quickly explained what had happened.

“I would like Manners' achievement noted on his record, sir. He gave a very impressive performance. Mr Alben's response was, in my opinion, as unsatisfactory as the behaviour of his own cadet.”

“You want to lodge an official complaint?” Waite asked tactfully.

“No, sir,” Eamon answered carefully. “I merely felt that you should be informed. Such behaviour hardly seems to befit a man of Mr Alben's standing.”

“Hmm,” Waite grunted, steepling his fingers together. “I am aware that Mr Alben's methods can be a little unorthodox, Mr Goodman, but he is my college's first lieutenant and there is good reason in that appointment. You do not question that, I hope?”

“No, sir.”

Waite laughed. “You have a good sense of self-preservation, Mr Goodman.”

Eamon reddened; the remark carried the slur of cowardice. “With respect, sir, if I feel that Mr Alben oversteps the mark I will not hesitate to call him to account for it –”

“You'd duel him, lieutenant?” Waite asked, eyebrows raised.

“– through the appropriate channels, sir,” Eamon finished firmly. He met the captain's look. “Notwithstanding such channels, sir, duelling has its place.”

“Ah yes!” Waite commented airily. “Where the honour of women is involved!”

“Mr Alben's rank does not license him to do everything that he desires.”

The captain fixed him with an interested gaze. “And what of mine, Mr Goodman?”

Eamon swallowed. “With deepest respect, sir – neither does yours.”

Waite smiled again, a long, slow smile. He went through some papers on his desk.

“So it would appear that you are a man of principles, Mr Goodman,” he said. “Mr Manners has always been an excellent cadet; he narrowly missed appointment to the Ravens himself. He is capable and quick-witted. He does not need so generous a champion as you.” When he spoke again his tone was harsher. “When Manners goes to the borders – to Galithia, or to Singsward or Scarmost; when he is in a bloody fight in the Olborough Straits, or caught unawares in the marshes between there and Rothfort, will the bastard he's fighting stay down and politely invite his sword? In your experience, Mr Goodman, does your enemy fawn at your feet because you beat him fairly?”

“No, sir,” Eamon answered. His own memories of service on the border provinces flitted through his mind. They had been bloody times. “Ideally, he does not have the chance to fawn. But the Third Ravens are not Manners' enemy and Manners had no cause to do more than bring his opponent to the ground.” Waite watched him, seemingly unmoved. “For the Gauntlet to go from strength to strength, sir,” Eamon continued passionately, “it needs to be based on trust. Trust breeds respect and the man with respect has loyalty; the man with loyalty and courage can lead men to places where they would not otherwise go. Mr Alben's methods are divisive.”

“Yet men follow him, Mr Goodman,” Waite answered. “Cadet Manners will grow thicker skin, and he will survive.”

Eamon fell silent. He had kept his promise to Manners but he did not wish to set himself on the wrong side of Waite. It was time to cede the argument to his captain. “Yes, sir.”

“I had a request yesterday, Mr Goodman,” Waite added after a brief pause. “A request for a warding.”

Eamon nodded. Wardings had not been common in Edesfield but he imagined that they were an everyday occurrence in Dunthruik. The sons of those nobles too minor to be made knights who enrolled in Gauntlet colleges were often assigned to experienced officers in the scheme, which was part-shadowing and part-mentoring. The cadet became the officer's ward, a kind of apprentice. After a year or so in such a post the cadet might be transferred to another officer or, if he had excelled himself enough, promoted. Officers in the Gauntlet often competed to become warders as it gave a good gloss to a man's record.

“A warding request is not unusual,” Waite continued. “I receive dozens every month. Mark this well, Mr Goodman: the bane of being a Dunthruik captain is this tedious paperwork!” Waite slapped a pile of paper on his desk. “But what was unusual about this request, Mr Goodman, was not that it was made by the young man himself rather than by some doting relative, but that he asked to be warded to you.”

Waite leaned over the desk. Eamon swallowed; being a warder would seriously limit his freedom to move in Dunthruik.

“Might I ask who has made this request, sir?”

“Cadet Mathaiah Grahaven,” Waite answered, “the younger son of Baron Dolos Grahaven. The baron is a minor noble with some lands near Edesfield.”

Eamon nearly burst out laughing. Mathaiah warded – to him? He felt a wash of pride. The cadet had thought well.

“Of course,” Waite continued, “from a paperwork point of view there is no issue: it had been decided that Mr Grahaven was to be assigned to this college and that he was to go to the Third Banners, who are a couple of men down at present. He is perfectly entitled to request and obtain a warding and will have it, if you are willing. What I found myself asking myself, Mr Goodman – and I am not a man of little intelligence – was why should he choose
you
? What is it about you that inspires this cadet's evident awe?” Waite smiled. “Would you believe it, but I had no answer?”

The captain pulled out a piece of paper. Eamon saw that it was Manners' file. He watched as Waite began carefully scribing a note on it.

“Before our conversation, Mr Goodman, I was still asking myself that question. But now I think I have answered it.” The smile returned to his face. “If you are willing, Mr Grahaven will be warded to you this afternoon after your meeting. He is quite recovered, it seems.”

“I'm willing, sir,” Eamon answered. Then, catching up with what Waite had said: “Forgive me, sir, if I have been idle of hearing – what meeting?”

“You were to be on patrol duty this afternoon, but Lord Cathair has asked that I send you instead to take what you recovered from the snakes to the Hands' Hall,” Waite answered. “Everything will be explained there.”

Eamon ate his lunch swiftly, his appetite driven by the energy of his nervous mind.

Waite had given him permission to attend Lady Turnholt's meal that evening, provided that he presented himself in a condition fit for the keeping of the second watch thereafter. The thought of an evening with the bewitching lady would have been enough to put him in turmoil. But what concerned him the most was his summons to the Hands' Hall. Presenting himself before the Hands would be no simple affair, and he knew only too well that it would be an occasion for wit and caution.

He rubbed anxiously at his palm. If the Hands learned of his purpose then he would not even make it to Serpentine Avenue. He reminded himself sternly that he was a King's man and the First Knight. Would he not be protected, should the worst come to pass?

He wolfed the end of his meal and left the mess, aware that Alben had watched him unforgivingly throughout. Eamon ignored it and hurried to the main hall.

He found Cathair already there, speaking with Waite in lowered tones. As Eamon emerged he saw Cathair's pale face break into a grin while he clapped Waite on the back. Both laughed and then Lord Cathair raised a cordial hand towards Eamon in greeting. Eamon bowed.

“Mr Goodman! I shall be your escort.” The Hand looked once more to the captain. “A pleasure, captain, as always.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Waite answered.

Eamon fell into step with the Hand and they left the college, turning down the steps into the Brand and then onto the Coll. Stalls had appeared down the myriad side streets and people threaded through them, bartering wares. The sun rolled low, and a chill breeze from the port sent ripples through blankets and mats that hung from windows and balconies.

The paved road to the palace seemed longer than it had the previous day. Eamon looked at the palace gates where pennons snapped and fanfares played as nobles and knights rode out together. Amid the sounds of the busy city Lord Cathair's continued silence was unsettling. Eamon had grown accustomed to the Hand's banter.

Lord Cathair took him into the palace through the side gate and then to the Hands' Hall. He escorted him through a sequence of stone-guarded doors to the central courtyard where stood another building. Writing was engraved on the door in strange, unfamiliar letters. The rigid and incisive script made Eamon shudder.

A second door, dark as obsidian, lay beyond the first. Wind moved against Eamon's face as it yawned open.

Cathair gestured for him to step inside. “You will be seen very shortly.” Nodding, Eamon stepped over the threshold. The door shut fast behind him.

He found himself in an oval room fashioned from the same black stones as the door and threshold. The hall was wide and open. Five chairs stood at its far end, four level and the fifth higher and grander than the others. Each chair had shapes etched on it – he distinguished birds and trees – while the strange writing that he had seen on the doors was everywhere. Narrow windows let in slits of light.

Suddenly five Hands were in the room with him. One was Lord Cathair. Eamon did not recognize the other four. He didn't know how they had entered or how long they had been there. They seated themselves before him, four in the lower. Startled, he understood that they were Dunthruik's Quarter Hands.

The Hands' black garb was rimmed with gold. One bore a red stone about his neck: a black eagle was marked upon it. It was this Hand who took the highest chair. Eamon realized with grinding horror that it could only be the Right Hand.

He bowed low at once. Against the light and the stone he could not see any of their faces; they were carved figures issuing from the surrounding stone.

“Lieutenant Goodman.” It was one of the lesser Hands who spoke. His voice was rich and affluent; it wasn't Cathair. “Come forward into the circle.”

For a moment Eamon was too terrified to move. Then he forced his limbs to the circle in the central part of the hall. The space before the chairs was lit by the windows, and red stones marked where he should stand. It unnerved him, reminding him of the stones over the doors to the hall. What powers might these hold? Unwillingly, he stepped into their embrace.