The Traitor's Heir (38 page)

“Do take a drop, sir. You'll find it an excellent Ravensill vintage,” cooed Fields. Eamon reviewed his drawn face, remembering how the man had joined Alben in laughing at the new lieutenant. Now Fields was fawning at Eamon's feet, like a beast quelled by a superior master. “A very excellent vintage.”

“Thank you, Mr Fields.” The wine was a deep red, the same colour as his uniform. Sipping it, he found it cool and rounded with fruits. It went well with the fine cut of meat which had been presented to him. Fields stood at his elbow ready, like a serving man, to see to his every whim, and the whole mess watched him as though he were the most important thing in the world.

Slowly, enjoying the attention, Eamon ate and drank. When he spoke they listened to his every word, and when he joked they laughed. Even though he knew that more than most of it was artifice, he liked it.

“More wine, Mr Goodman?”

Eamon raised his glass. It was a wine that had first been laid in casks twenty-five years ago and could easily have cost as much as a month's wages for a single bottle. Fields said that such bottles were saved to welcome notable men, and the whole mess agreed with him. It was a token of their respect for him and was but a taster of what he should receive when he became Right Hand, as Ashway had promised. The wines would be finer, the attention sweeter, and all men would fawn at his feet as Fields did then.

The wine filled his mouth and Eamon revelled in it. He would never have drunk its like in Edesfield. At the Star, ale had been enough for him.

The sudden thought of home and the weight of wine in his unusually full stomach brought him up short. He thought of Aeryn, Ladomer, and Telo, and the way they had all sat together under the summer stars. He remembered Aeryn's laughter, a beautiful sound, and Ladomer's fine singing.

He did not finish his drink.

He left the mess feeling lightheaded. Alone again, his thoughts tumbled back to Alben.

He saw Mathaiah coming across the yard towards him, accompanied by a smaller figure – Alessia's maid. The young woman was cloaked against the cool night air.

“Good evening, Miss.” All thought of Alben vanished. Eamon's heart leapt to his throat – what message could the girl be bringing this time?

“Good evening, Mr Goodman,” she answered, bowing low. “I have a message for you, sir. Mr Grahaven was good enough to escort me from the hall so that I could deliver it myself.”

“Thank you for bringing it,” Eamon answered. Perhaps it would be news from Hughan?

“There is to be a masque at the palace tomorrow night, sir,” Lillabeth said, holding out a piece of parchment. Eamon could already smell the perfume of the lady who fascinated him. He tried to keep his hands from shaking. “Lady Alessia asks if you would be her escort.”

“Of course,” Eamon answered rather too quickly. “If my captain will allow it.” He unfolded the paper and drank in the curling script, relishing every flourish. Alessia invited him to be “creative” in his costuming efforts, teasing that he would have to match her. What would she wear? He found himself imagining a thousand dresses but she looked just as beautiful in each and every one. Her lips were always pulled in that knowing smile that he already believed was kept only for him.

Eamon looked up, his heart beating. “Costuming?” he queried.

“The Right Hand is giving the occasion in honour of the majesty next week,” Lillabeth said. “It is a traditional precursor to the September festivities. There is a prize for the most lavish or interesting costume. Lady Alessia advises that you will have to see to your own costume, sir, and that she wishes to be impressed.”

Eamon grimaced. He was not a rich man, and though his wages had increased a little with his new position he could never afford something to make him rank alongside Dunthruik's dearest. He had seen their gaudy grandeur and silken sensibilities going to and fro through the palace gates, men and women alike doused in bright dyes from the east and expensive gems from the south and west.

“I'll try not to disappoint,” he said, hiding his darker thought. He tucked the letter into his jacket. “Please thank Lady Alessia for her invitation.”

“My lady advises that she will send a coach for you tomorrow evening.”

“Thank you.” That left him his free hours of the following afternoon to scour the streets of Dunthruik for something that wouldn't destroy his purse as well as his reputation.

Lillabeth curtseyed and made to leave.

“Sir, may I have permission to escort Miss Hollenwell back?” Mathaiah asked suddenly. Eamon thought little of it and supposed that the previous night's incident and Lillabeth's importance made the precaution wise. Awkward questions could be allayed easily enough: it was not unusual for Gauntlet to form attachments to young women in the towns and cities where they lived and worked.

“Please do, Mr Grahaven.”

The cadet smiled broadly and then bowed to Lillabeth. “Your servant, Miss!” he said. She laughed and Eamon thought he saw her blush. Folding his arms behind his back in a most gentlemanly manner, Mathaiah began walking with Lillabeth back towards the college hall. It reminded Eamon that the cadet was the son of gentry, and for a moment the thought left a bitter taste in his mouth. He thought of the wine that he had drunk that evening. If he had been born the son of a nobleman, even a minor one like Mathaiah…

Astonished at the direction of his thought, for it dwelt on women and on power, he shook his head and tried to concentrate on the cool night air. The wine churned uncomfortably in his stomach. He had had a long day and the next would bring new problems.

“I think you're being too fastidious, sir.”

Such was Mathaiah's verdict after several hours of wandering through Dunthruik had produced little to solve Eamon's costume dilemma.

“I know it,” Eamon answered. “I'm just not good at choosing, Mathaiah.”

“I've noticed!”

Dunthruik had an odd beauty in the afternoon light. The sun ricocheted down the city's tall buildings, casting enchanting shadows across the crowded streets. Many roads were dedicated to a single trade where every man was in competition with his neighbour. Eamon had thought that beginning in the drapers' area might have helped, and had sincerely hoped to find just the right thing in his first search. But the small shops, often lit by a single hanging light that filled the room with smoke, were disarrayed, and vendors pushed and bartered, sensing a stranger, though of course they always maintained a level of respect once they saw the glistening flames of a first lieutenant at his throat.

The search had been difficult. Going through the darker, narrower alleyways – routes less often trod by the Gauntlet – they had come across foul lanes and broken buildings. Rats ran in many of these streets, trailing cess and filth behind them, and lame, blistered dogs wandered the blackened road ends. Beaten beggars lay on some corners, and in marked places bodies were piled high, waiting for transportation to the city's pyres. They passed dour buildings where grotesquely painted women plied their own trade to any who would pay. It was a side to the city that Eamon had never seen before, and wished he had not seen at all.

Eventually they had found a small street in the South Quarter filled with dressmakers, some of whom served the most lavish levels of the city's gentry. They had tried looking through the tangled web of garments in the back of the shops – for those robes on display near the window cost more than Eamon could ever have afforded in a year – but nothing was right. Things were too big, too tight, or too expensive.

“Fastidious.” Mathaiah repeated his diagnosis with a doleful shake of his head. “You can wear something that's too tight for one evening, sir.”

“I don't want to,” was Eamon's petulant reply.

“People do it all the time,” Mathaiah told him. “Especially in courtly circles.”

“I suppose you know all about that,” Eamon muttered, more viciously than he meant. He had spent the night in unpleasant dreams that reminded him of his less than illustrious roots. While his father had been a bookbinder from Edesfield province, his mother had been the second daughter of a quiet city merchant. Mathaiah, on the other hand, had been born to rank and privilege. Like many minor noblemen's sons, Mathaiah had been assigned to the principal Gauntlet college in his region. Mathaiah said that his father had done this so that his son, who was not quite of a rank enough to be made a knight, would be kept out of trouble, and laughed. Eamon marvelled at his seeming lightheartedness. He had not yet asked how it was that the young man, spying in the deepest heart of enemy territory and living every day under the threat of discovery, could be so content.

But Mathaiah had not yet had to kill for his colours.

“They used to make me wear breeches that were very much smaller than I was,” Mathaiah continued. “They called it ‘fashion', sir. Mother disapproved but my father said that it was proper, especially when we had to attend meals. Berehem and I just put up with it, he better than I.” Mathaiah smiled at the recollection of his older brother and Eamon was glad of it. Since Giles's revelation that he had killed the older Grahaven Mathaiah had been reticent to mention him, but in the last few days this wound seemed to have healed a little. There was no ostensible motive for this melting of attitude. “You can't tell me that you never had to endure the wiles of fashion, sir!”

“Only occasionally.” Eamon's own memories of smart meals involved dinner at his grandfather's, when his mother had tucked him into smart shirts and stuffy jackets, and his grandfather had proudly placed him on his knee and announced, to the gathered company, that his grandson was “a great man born of a Goodman”. He remembered the smell of sweet wine caught in his grandfather's beard.

“Still,” Mathaiah told him, “there are times when it has to be done.”

“Such as?”

“Now, for a start. And you'll have to wear something uncomfortable when you marry, sir.”

“When I marry?”

“It just occurred to me, that's all!” Mathaiah protested, reddening.

Eamon shook his head. “The oddest things occur to you! I shall console myself with the knowledge that the same dismal law will apply to you, Mr Grahaven!”

“I think no less of you for it, sir,” Mathaiah grinned.

A couple of passing women stopped to stare at them and then hurried by. Eamon noticed it, just as he had noticed the way that people now watched him: with fear. He was a man of standing. Though he didn't want to admit it any more than he wanted to tell Mathaiah of his feelings in the officers' mess, he liked it.

They stopped at the end of a street. A well stood in the dilapidated square, overgrown with ivy that had begun tearing the stonework apart. Small children huddled by it, watching Gauntlet and gentlemen go marching or riding by on the main road just beyond the street mouth.

Eamon saw another draper's shop. An old man sat outside. Their eyes met and Eamon saw a mocking glint in them, as though the man saw straight through his smart uniform to his fraudulent core. It shamed him.

“Let's try over there.” Mathaiah gestured to the shop and its stolid guardian.

“I don't think we'll find anything there.”

“Do you, or do you not, have to make an appearance at a Dunthruik masque in a couple of hours? I'll warrant that you don't even know what you're looking for.”

Eamon remained silent. Mathaiah was right; he hadn't the faintest clue.

Mathaiah led the way and the old man watched them with an unfaltering gaze. A tough wooden sign hung over the doorway and a cart of disused fabrics stood by the old man's chair. Some women were rifling through it but when they saw Eamon approaching they gathered up their things and hurried away.

The old man said nothing as they reached the door.

“Good afternoon, sir,” Mathaiah greeted politely. Eamon risked an uncomfortable glance. The man's gaze pierced him. He shied away.

“How can I help you, gentlemen?” His tone was frigid.

“Mr Goodman is in need of a costume, sir,” Mathaiah answered, gesturing once to Eamon. “Might we trouble you to look here?”

“Be my guests, gentlemen.” His voice was gruff but Eamon thought he had seen raised eyebrows at the mention of his name.

They stepped inside. A smoky lantern burned unattended in one corner. Racks were loosely bound to the wall and from them hung dozens of cloths and clothes. Several baskets sat nearby, each one brimming with vestments of every size and colour, except blue. There was no blue anywhere in the city.

Eamon turned his hand nervously to one of the baskets and began looking through the clothes hidden there. Most of them were gaudily coloured, bright bodies with outrageous limbs, dresses emblazoned with bold patterns. He did not imagine that he could possibly find what he needed there – unless he wanted to go dressed as a court jester.

“There's nothing here,” he whispered. He did not want the proprietor to overhear them.

“What are you so worried about?”

“Nothing,” Eamon lied.

“Persevere a little longer, sir.”

Eamon sighed, keeping his thoughts to himself. Mathaiah continued his merry churning through another one of the baskets and at length moved to a third one. Eamon tried to look as busy.

“Perhaps you should try the rack, Mr Goodman,” called the old man.

Something about his tone caused Eamon to follow the suggestion. Slightly more elegant things were hung there, most of them dresses. He found his thought turning to what Alessia might – or might not – be wearing, and reddened.

Suddenly his hand touched something cool and smooth. He pulled it out from its hiding place between flowing, crimson gowns, and held it in his hand for a moment.

On a splintered hanger was a dark pair of trousers with a thin silvered stripe running down the seam. With it hung a pale blue shirt, thinning in the sleeves. It had a dark blue cloak with a high collar. But it was the shirt that caught Eamon's eye, for on it were the faded remains of a stitched sword and star.