The Traitor's Heir (46 page)

Eamon steadied himself against the board.

The burning had been done that night. While three wayfarers had writhed and screamed and met their brutal deaths in the Brand, he himself had been… How could he? But she had been beautiful and he had been her joy!

A deserved joy, son of Eben. Just as they earned suffering through their treachery so you earned pleasure by your service. All that you reaped, you merited.

The memory of the night returned to him with force. With the voice driving him, Eamon glutted upon it, his heart lusting after the time when night would come again and he might return to her. A tremor of passion seized his limbs and he turned his back upon the gutted, blackened ligaments. What were they to him?

A loud crack reached his ears.

Lifting his heel, Eamon saw a small wooden soldier, its red coat marked with a golden crown. It was snapped at the heart.

For a long time Eamon stared, held captive by the broken form. The thought of himself and Alessia caught up together was cast aside by that of a little boy, running from his house, calling for his father with joy.

“There you are!”

Eamon dashed back his tears. Soot and smoke, bile and passion clung to him.

Mathaiah approached. His ward had drawn in a lung-full of smoke when he called and was coughing.

“Mr Grahaven,” Eamon tremored.

The cadet came to a halt before him. He was pale. “I have been looking for you half the night. It's about the book, sir.”

“The book?” Eamon repeated the word dumbly.

“The… Nightholt.” The word came haltingly from Mathaiah's lips. He swallowed hard. “I was dreaming, sir… I saw it. I can…”

“What?”

“I can understand it, or most of it. I can read it. They were terrible dreams, sir,” he whispered. “That's why I was… why I needed… where were you?”

“I…”

Alessia, flushed and radiant. He shuddered, unable to drive her from his thought. How could the First Knight recount that he had spent the night in the arms of Alessia Turnholt while King's men burnt to death?

“I'll not tell you,” he said suddenly.

The answer jarred Mathaiah. As their eyes met, Eamon saw concern replaced by injury; he squirmed as the young man's face coloured in the following silence. His ward had guessed, and guessed rightly, where he had been that night.

He judges you, son of Eben! He judges and reviles you. See how it is written on his face!

Eamon glared. “My business is my own, Mr Grahaven,” he spat.

Stunned, Mathaiah stared. “Sir –”

“I'll not have you judge my doings, cadet,” Eamon growled. “They are my affairs, and mine alone.”

“With respect, sir,” Mathaiah answered quietly, “that isn't true. You are not your own.”

Will you have him disdain you, son of Eben, and call you liar?

“You would have me answer to you, whimpering child of a Backwater lordling? A boy who weeps because he has bad dreams?”

Mathaiah seemed taken aback. Eamon didn't care. “I would have you answer to another,” Mathaiah replied.

You answer to me alone, son of Eben.

“I have no answer to give you,” Eamon retorted.

Mathaiah stared at him. “Did
she
teach you to speak like this?”

He envies you your joy, Eben's son.

“She taught me things you do not know, cadet,” Eamon answered snidely.

“Then she has served her purpose well.”

“Purpose! What do you know about her purpose?”

“Are you so blind, sir?” he cried. “Look at yourself!
Listen
to yourself! See what she has done to you! She has waylaid you, just as they meant her to, and is trapping you so that you will betray your promise. That is her purpose. She is a honeyed jar.”

“Then why not speak before, cadet? I will tell you why: you have a jealous tongue.”

“You… you cannot think that of me,” Mathaiah breathed.

It was his own fault; the boy was bringing it on himself. “You have taught me what to think of you, Mr Grahaven.”

See how things stand, son of Eben? You cannot trust him. What can he understand of so rich a man as you? My glory and her touch are all that can enfold you. They are all that you need. Cast this child aside: scorn him utterly.

Eamon's rage was hot and there were traces of fire on his palm.

“I was a fool to entrust friendship to a mere boy. Be sure that I will not do so again.”

Mathaiah recoiled; a look of unutterable hurt passed over his face. In the silence that followed, the young man gaped, appalled.

Eamon looked down at him. He felt no remorse. The boy deserved it. He was nothing but jealousy and judgment. What did he know? “It's time for parade, cadet.”

That night Eamon returned to Alessia. He had spent the whole day thinking of her until his heart could bear it no more. With her and in her embrace, he told himself, his thoughts would be his own.

She was in the hallway when he arrived and stood as though she had been expecting him. Perhaps she had. Eamon cared nothing for the servants, who saw him as he came in, or for Lillabeth, who watched him as she served them an evening meal. His lady spoke sweetly to him and fuelled Eamon's passion.

When they had eaten she led him upstairs once more, as he had hoped she would, to her chamber. No sooner had she closed the door but he fell on her, lavishing her face and neck with kisses. She laughed, and caressed his cheeks.

“Eamon, Eamon,” she said softly, “has it been so long since we last met?”

“It has been an eternity to me.”

But he did not tell her that the power behind his passion was born in Mathaiah's words against her, nor, as she returned it, that his exultation came from his certainty that her kisses disproved all that his ward had said.

With October a harsh winter settled on the city. The icy wind drove in from the north and the harbour was besieged by waves so tall that they struck through into the harbour mouth, damaging wintering ships. The breakwaters had to be reinforced, a task in which many men lost their lives to the dun waters.

Eamon went to Alessia on many of those long, autumn evenings. With every night that they passed together he became more and more convinced of her love for him and of his for her, and so he grew in his belief that he had to rely on her alone. During those cold nights a fire always burnt at the grate in her chamber and Eamon loved to watch her undressing in its glow, and to allow her delicate hands to undress him also.

One dark evening she laid her hands on the heart of the King at his breast and asked him what it was.

“An old trinket,” he answered carelessly. “A relic of days long past.”

So she took the heart of the King from his breast, as she had done so many times before. But when he came to dress the following morning he did not place it back around his neck.

As the months turned on, through November and December into January, supplies of food began to dwindle, though in the palace fires roared and those dearest to the Master feasted upon meat and wines from Ravensill.

The pyres outside the city burned constantly. Fever was rife, especially in the South Quarter, and tales spread of physicians murdered for refusing service to those who could not pay. As the winter drove on, the tally of the fever's victims increased. At the end of December traffic moving in and out of the city ceased entirely. On clear days the mountains to the north-east could be seen under a perpetual cap of snow. The roads beyond Dunthruik's sphere turned treacherously muddy, and ice fretted parts of the River. Driven by hunger and a desire for warmth, dozens of young men applied to join the Gauntlet, where a daily ration of food was provided. These men replaced those who were lost to the fever or in the increasing number of skirmishes with wayfarers. Some of the men who survived such encounters returned with rumours of an amassing Serpent army to the north and east, and of grim battles in the frozen fortress towns in the provinces of Singsward, Orlestone, and Haselune.

Eamon grew greatly in reputation during those months: his cadets were among the best in the college and, together with Draybant Farleigh, Eamon helped to run the college efficiently. He interviewed young men wishing to enlist and saw in their eager faces the enthusiasm that he had once thought lost, but now found renewed with every morning. He helped Captain Waite with his paperwork and oversaw several wardings. Each time he witnessed them Mathaiah came to his mind, and each time he resolutely drove the thoughts away.

Eamon accorded well with Dunthruik. His reputation, his position, and his lover all went before him; each was a source of joy to him. When he encountered Lillabeth on the stairs of Alessia's home he did not falter, but walked past her proudly. What concern was it of hers what he did? And what did he care if she spoke of him to Mathaiah, as he was sure she did?

During December, Cadet Overbrook was among those to fall ill with the fever and be confined to quarters. The word among the cadets was that the young man, never renowned for stamina, would not last the winter.

Despite being advised not to approach those struck down with the fever, Eamon went to see the cadet. He found the young man in a room with darkened windows that already bore an air of death. Remembering Overbrook's loves, Eamon later returned there, taking with him a number of books. He set the young man the task of locating some quotes, the majority of which he had dredged out of memories of his own reading.

“I'd be particularly interested if you can find this one,” he added at the last, repeating the roundel that Cathair had first spoken to him in September. Overbrook smiled weakly.

“I'll try, sir.”

“Good man.”

To this work Overbrook set himself with relish and, when he was not quote-hunting, he drew detailed maps based on some geographical volumes. These he showed to Eamon, and Eamon brought them to the attention of Captain Waite. The cadet's work was impressive and, as a result, new field maps for several regions were commissioned. As Overbrook began returning to strength, the college cadets, who had seen how Eamon had worked to keep the young man focused on something other than impending death, grew more fond of their first lieutenant. Yet even as the college rang to Eamon's praise Mathaiah Grahaven kept a cautious distance from him. Eamon found that it was no fatigue to scorn and ignore the cadet. He had long since ceased giving news for Hughan.

Indeed the King very nearly slipped from his mind, except for those few nights when, unable to be in Alessia's bed, he rested in his own. There the heart of the King, closeted away many weeks before, shimmered, casting an eerie glow over his room and pervading his dreams. On those nights he covered the light with blankets, and huddled alone in the cold.

It was also during this time that Eamon came to know the Hands who held each quarter: Lord Cathair, the West; Lord Ashway, the East; Lord Dehelt, the North; and Lord Tramist, the South. With their characteristic pale faces and piercing eyes, it was a chilling business to see all four discussing city policies. Eamon met on several occasions with the Right Hand, who commended his progress, and continued to promise that the Master would meet him soon.

In the new year Lord Cathair took to showing Eamon about the Hands' Hall and palace, demonstrating their hidden nooks and crannies. The Hand had ceased chanting oddments of poetry at him. Eamon came to know the city very well, and was able to chart swift and complex routes across it. He was charged with capturing any suspected snakes – a task to which he initially responded with reluctance. Yet Lord Cathair's praise and the Right Hand's compliments made it increasingly easy to commit men and women to the care of the Hands. He was present when his prisoners were tortured and soon began setting his hands to the instruments to effect it, putting into practice the theoretical training he had so despised in Edesfield. It was not difficult, and their blood was easily washed from him. But of Lillabeth he did not breathe a word; Alessia was fond of her.

From time to time Lord Cathair entrusted him into the care of Lord Tramist. A powerful breacher, the Lord of the South Quarter was capable of extracting much from those he interviewed. Eamon was coached in how to pressure and bend a mind into revealing what its keeper would rather hide. He began to learn the workings of the far-off plain, and just how much pain to inflict on men so that they would open, but not break. Lord Tramist conservatively lauded his impressive skills.

But sometimes, when he tried to breach a wayfarer, the searing brilliance of the blue light intervened. Against it neither he nor Lord Tramist could press, and those too protected by it were killed or cast into the Pit. Eamon found satisfaction in seeing such men hurled into the choking blackness. It was all they deserved for rejecting the Master. How could he ever have considered doing as they did?

But sometimes the blue light haunted his dreams. On such nights Alessia's kisses barely served to free him from his thought and, seeing his burden, she would take his face between her hands and hush him. Then he would bury himself in her, forgetting his troubles; yet when at last they would lie still and sleep, the light would return to him, and call on him by a name he was trying to forget.

So the winter went on. As the months passed, the time that he spent at the college decreased substantially. If he wasn't with Lord Cathair or Alessia, he was often on duty at the palace, aiding in inventories or inspecting the West Quarter Gauntlet on duty there.

In those months Ladomer, who had been officially instated in his role as lieutenant to the Right Hand, also came frequently to visit him. They spent much time together in a nearby inn, talking about the Master's policies and their own hopes for the future. Eamon found that his heart turned more and more towards that accolade which had always been before him: that of the Right Hand.

This was the thought that occupied his mind one grey day when he met Ladomer for their usual drink.