by C. S. Pacat
The captain rode ahead, her expression forbidding. Leda, the others had called her. The discipline in her bearing reminded him of Justice and was echoed by the others in the procession. But she lacked Justice’s warmth, her eyes impassive on the marsh ahead.
Cyprian was too perfect, riding straight-backed in garments that seemed to repel the mud of the marsh. He was one of two Stewards who were younger than the others – Will’s age – and he and the girl were dressed differently too. Their surcoats were silvery grey instead of white, and their armour was simpler, like that of a Steward in training. Novitiate, the captain had called him.
Will’s tension rose as they rode through the night. His mother’s old servant Matthew had told him to come here, but what if Matthew had been wrong? What did he really know about these knights who rode white horses and called themselves Stewards? Will wanted to believe that he was riding towards answers, but he felt as if were travelling to a strange, unknown country, leaving everything he knew behind.
As they rode in a long column, Will could hear all the night sounds of the marsh, the rhythmic creak of frogs, the soft, distant splashes of small creatures, and the wind over the grassy water, its gusting sound like the roll of ocean waves. The occasional calls of ‘All clear!’ and ‘Ride on!’ rang out from the Steward captain at the head of the column.
And then he saw it with a shock, rising out of darkness in the thin moonlight.
‘Hold formation and stay close,’ said the captain, halting for a moment as they crested a grassy slope. ‘We’re taking him across.’ She urged her horse forward.
The gate, Justice had said.
A broken arch, standing alone on the ruined moor – it was a gate to nowhere, lit by the moon. It stood out starkly against the sky. A few tumbled stones might have formed part of a long-ago wall, but had long since fallen into the water.
Will’s skin prickled with the strangest sense of recognition as the line of white-clad Stewards rode towards it through the dark. He felt like he knew it – like he had been here before – but how could he?
‘What is this place?’ he said.
‘This is the Hall of the Stewards,’ said the captain, but there was no Hall, just a lone arch on the vast, empty marsh. It made him shiver that they were riding towards a Hall that didn’t exist, or that had long since crumbled to ruins, with only a single archway left.
Something had stood here once, long ago—
Before he was ready, the captain was driving her horse forward. At the head of the column, she was the first to pass through the arch, and to Will’s utter shock, she didn’t emerge on the other side. Instead, she vanished.
‘What’s happening?’ Will’s heart was pounding at the impossibility of what he had just seen. A pair of Stewards disappeared through the arch, and the column was still moving forward. Will was seized by the dizzy feeling that there was something important through that arch that was just out of his reach. Another pair of Stewards vanished, and Will was certain that he could hear the sound of hooves striking stone, echoing as if from a tunnel or chamber. But how could that be when there wasn’t any chamber, just the grass and mud and wide-open sky?
Wait, he wanted to say, but in the next moment, he was riding under the arch himself.
He felt a lurch, and a momentary prick of panic when he didn’t come out onto the marsh on the other side – instead he found himself riding under fragments of ancient stone and giant pieces of masonry. Disembodied, they scattered the earth and filled him with awe.
And then he looked up, and caught his breath at what he saw.
An ancient citadel, gleaming with a thousand lights. It was monumental and very old, like the huge pieces of stone around him. Ancient battlements stood high, a second arch over an immense gateway, and behind that soaring towers. Parts of it were a ruin, but that only increased its strange, aching beauty. It was like glimpsing a wonder that had passed from the world and that – once this citadel was gone – would be lost forever.
The feeling that he knew this place swept over him again, though he had never seen it before. The Hall of the Stewards … The words rang like a bell that made something in him tremble.
‘No outsider has ever passed through our gates,’ he heard a Steward say behind him, jolting him out of his reverie. ‘I hope the captain knows what she’s doing, bringing you here.’
He looked back and saw the others riding in single file. Behind them he could still see the marsh on the other side of the arch, covered in grasses. He blinked, the ordinary patch of marsh at odds with the extraordinary sight in front of him.
Is this what Justice meant? An ancient world that was destroyed, except for remnants …
High above the citadel, a giant flame burned like a shining beacon that defied the night. It was set atop the walls, lighting the gates and showing off the splendour of the citadel. And if the walls were old, the flame was new, leaping like young gold. The bright star holds, thought Will, and the trembling sensation grew stronger.
‘Open the gates!’ came the call, and on the walls above, two Stewards on either side of the gate began pulling the chain rope – not with a crank or a lever, but with their own unnatural strength – and the huge portcullis began to rise.
Passing through the gates, Will felt dwarfed by the size and wonder of the place. He saw a vast courtyard of ancient stonework, four enormous columns each broken at the top, reaching up into the empty sky. The great staircase leading to the first of the buildings was intact, stone steps rising from the courtyard to a set of immense doors. It must have been a place of great wonder at its height, and even now it was still beautiful, as the bones of a ruined cathedral are beautiful, conjuring its past in elegant remnants of stone.
And then he became aware of the stares, the shocked reactions as the Stewards on the walls saw him. Whole groups of Stewards in the courtyard stopped and stared. In their old-fashioned white livery, the Stewards suited this ancient place as monks suited a monastery. Will felt like an intrusion in his muddy clothes, an ordinary boy on a black horse. Every eye was on him.
The Steward captain ignored them, dismounting in a smooth motion.
‘Cut him down,’ she said, and Cyprian pulled a knife from his belt and slashed the rope that bound Will’s ankles, so that he could be yanked off his horse. This time when Will hit the ground he kept to his feet, though his bound hands unsettled his balance and he stumbled a little.
‘Take the horses,’ the captain told the others, and they dismounted and took up the horses’ reins with the deference of squires, leading them away.
Will’s horse screamed, showing the whites of his eyes and rearing up out of reach as a Steward tried to take his bridle. He was refusing to leave Will. ‘Easy. Easy, boy,’ Will said, his heart feeling tight as the horse that had carried him so bravely now fought to stay with him. ‘You have to go with her.’ He felt his horse’s warm breath and the velvet brush of its muzzle as it hesitated uncertainly. He wanted to put his arms around its neck and hold it close, but couldn’t, his wrists tied. ‘Go,’ he said with a pang of loss. He watched the Steward finally lead his horse away, and felt utterly alone.
Pale in the moonlight, the citadel rose before him in giant arches and immense white stone. Looking at it, Will felt as if every great human building was just an echo of this splendid form, trying to re-create something half-remembered, with tools and methods too crude to ever capture its beauty. Once those walls were fully manned, he thought. And the citadel blazed with light. And then he shivered, not knowing where the thought had come from.
A pair of Stewards were coming towards him; in their white tunics they had the look of monks on their way to speak with the abbot, though Captain Leda in her silver armour looked more like an ancient painting of a celestial knight.
‘Captain, we were not informed that a new Steward had been Called—’ The Steward who spoke was a man of perhaps twenty-five years, his red hair worn in the Steward style.
‘The boy is not a new Stewar
d.’ The captain spoke brusquely. ‘He does not have Steward blood. We found him on the marsh, being chased by Simon’s men.’
‘An outsider?’ The red-haired Steward’s face whitened in shock. ‘You have brought an outsider through the gate? Captain—’
‘Call everyone into the great hall,’ said the captain, as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘Now, Brescia. Do not tarry.’
Brescia, the red-haired Steward, had no choice but to obey. But Will could see the fear and disbelief in his eyes, as around them the shock rippled outward. ‘An outsider?’ he heard. ‘An outsider in the Hall?’
It made his skin prickle. He’d wanted answers, but hadn’t had the first idea of the enormity of all he might encounter, and he hadn’t realised how radical Justice had been in sending him here.
‘You will be brought before the Elder Steward,’ the captain said to Will. ‘It is she who will decide your fate. I go now to prepare a way for you. Cyprian, hold our prisoner in the north antechamber until I give the signal to bring him into the great hall.’
Cyprian’s look was challenging. ‘My father will not like this. You know our rules. Only those of Steward blood are allowed inside our walls.’
‘I will deal with the High Janissary,’ said the captain.
Cyprian did not seem pleased by that, but his obedience was immediate. ‘Yes, Captain.’
A grip closed on Will’s arm, hard as a tourniquet, as Cyprian took hold of him and propelled him towards the wide steps of the main entry.
To his surprise, Cyprian did not seem to possess the supernatural strength of the other Stewards. He was strong, but it was the normal strength of a young man. Will remembered the captain calling Cyprian novitiate. Did that mean the Stewards were not born with their strength, but gained it later?
Three pairs of Stewards accompanied them inside. They walked in perfect unison, precise and graceful. Roped between them, Will felt like a mud lark flanked by pairs of white swans. With his hands tied behind his back and still weak from the ship and two days without food, he wasn’t a threat, but the Stewards had spears drawn as if he were dangerous. He suddenly felt that he had stepped into a world that was much bigger than he was, full of practices that he didn’t understand.
They brought him into an antechamber with a high arched ceiling. The Stewards took up positions, two at each of the chamber’s two doors, while the other two stayed close to him with Cyprian.
‘The great hall is ahead,’ Cyprian said. ‘We wait here until Leda gives the signal.’
But as time dragged on, the tight knot of Will’s concern wasn’t just for what lay ahead; it was for Justice and Violet, who were still out there somewhere with those men in their strange pieces of armour and their dozens of dark hounds. By now the Remnants would be all the way back to London, and Justice and Violet might be anywhere.
‘What about my friends?’
It was the wrong thing to ask. Cyprian stared back at him with the hauteur of a young knight. His olive skin and dark hair were paired with high cheekbones and green eyes. He had the kind of Mediterranean looks that might have come from anywhere from Egypt to Sicily, and a Steward’s nobility, combined with an almost too-perfect posture and livery.
But his green eyes had turned utterly cold.
‘Your friend Justice is the reason my brother is missing.’
‘Your brother?’ said Will.
‘Marcus,’ said Cyprian.
Marcus? Will’s eyes widened in recognition of the name, but before he could ask about it, the call came from the far end of the antechamber, summoning him at long last into the great hall.
Huge double doors opened on a hall of columns that seemed to stretch forever. Dressed in white and silver, pairs of ceremonial Stewards guarded the doors, their armour polished to a gleaming shine. Entering at spear point, Will looked up and caught his breath at the scale of it, conjuring up structures he had seen only in paintings or book engravings. Like the Great Pyramid at Giza, it was an ancient place so monumental it had outlasted the civilisation that had built it.
He felt very small as he was brought forward, his footsteps echoing, the magnitude of the hall overwhelming him. The ceremonial Stewards arrayed in their dress armour seemed too few, filling only a tiny portion of the space. Awe slowed his steps as he approached the centre.
Rising from the dais at the end of the hall, there were four towering thrones of pure white marble. Beautiful and old, they seemed to glow in the reflected light. They were made for figures greater than any human king or queen, in command of ancient armies and grand, forgotten courts. Will could almost see the majestic figures moving back and forth, bringing their business before their rulers in this hall.
But the thrones were empty.
Below them, on a small wooden stool, sat an old woman with long white hair. She was the oldest person in the great hall, her olive skin wrinkled as a nectarine stone, her eyes filmy with age. Her clothing was a simple white tunic, her white hair tied back in the Steward style. A man who Captain Leda addressed as High Janissary stood beside her, dressed in blue, not white, a heavy silver seal visible around his neck. He was flanked by two dozen Stewards in silver armour with worked star detailing, bearing short capes over white surcoats.
And a muddied figure was kneeling in front of them.
Will’s heart leaped. It was Justice, his livery stained, his forearm resting on his bent knee, his head bowed. And Violet – Violet was with him, held between two Stewards, with her hands tied in front of her. She was splashed with mud up to the waist; likely their journey over the marsh had been on foot.
He was so relieved to see her – to see both of them – that he almost forgot what was happening around him, but the prick of a spear driving him forward brought him sharply to attention.
‘This is the boy you sent to us,’ the High Janissary said to Justice. ‘Violating our every rule and selfishly endangering our Hall.’
‘He’s more than just a boy,’ said Justice. ‘There’s a reason Simon wants him.’
‘So you claim,’ said the High Janissary.
Will’s stomach flipped. He felt like he was on trial, but he didn’t know why or what for. He could feel the attention of every Steward on him as the four empty thrones stared down at him like empty eye sockets.
‘So I saw,’ said Justice. ‘He sheathed the Corrupted Blade. He called it to his hand and put out the black flame.’
‘That isn’t possible,’ said the High Janissary as the Stewards broke out into a ripple of comment. ‘Nothing can survive once the Blade is drawn.’
Will shivered, because those words felt true. A single sliver of the Blade peeking from its sheath had been enough to destroy Simon’s ship. Will remembered the instinct he’d had to re-sheathe it, knowing somehow that if it got free, it would kill everyone on board.
‘Simon had the boy chained and under heavy guard,’ said Justice. ‘When I saw him take up the Blade, I guessed at why. But I didn’t know for certain until I saw what he wore around his neck.’
‘Around his neck?’ said the High Janissary.
Justice looked up. ‘Will. Show them.’
Slowly, Will opened his torn shirt and drew out the medallion.
He didn’t understand its importance; he only knew that giving it to him had been the last thing his mother’s old servant Matthew had done. Will held it out, no more than a dull, warped piece of metal, once shaped like a five-petalled flower.
Not everyone in the Hall seemed to recognise it, but the High Janissary’s face whitened. ‘The hawthorn flower,’ said the High Janissary. ‘The Lady’s medallion.’ At that, there were shocked cries from the Stewards lining the Hall.
‘Marcus always believed the boy survived,’ said Justice.
‘Anyone can put on a necklace,’ said the High Janissary.
Before anyone else could speak, Leda knelt swiftly at the dais, her head bowed and her right hand held as a fist over her heart. She mirrored Justice’s posture, and she seemed to add her voice to his
.
‘High Janissary. Simon’s Remnants were riding with two dozen hounds over the marsh, chasing the boy into our territory. Simon wanted him enough to risk sending the Remnants deep into Steward lands.’ She drew in a breath. ‘This may be the boy we’ve been searching for.’ There were gasps at that.
‘Simon would like nothing more than to infiltrate our Hall,’ said the High Janissary, his mouth thinned. ‘That is the way of the Dark, is it not? They worm their way in, taking the guise of a friend. Simon probably gave this boy the medallion and told him to show it to us.’
Justice was shaking his head. ‘There have been rumours that Simon had resumed his search, believing the boy was alive—’
‘Rumours planted by Simon. This boy you have plucked from the docks is a spy, or worse. And you have let him inside our walls—’
‘Come here, my boy.’
The old woman on the stool spoke to him in a kind, conversational voice. Her eyes were on him, her face framed by her long white hair. Will stepped forward hesitantly, aware of the others falling silent as she indicated for him to take a seat on a small three-legged stool alongside her.
Up close, he could feel her presence, which seemed warm, steadfast and wise. She spoke as if the hall had disappeared and they were sitting comfortably together in front of a small hearth fire. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Will,’ he said. ‘Will Kempen.’
He felt a reaction from the Stewards behind him, but the only reaction that seemed to matter was from the old woman.
‘Eleanor Kempen’s son,’ she said.
All the hairs rose on his body. ‘You knew my mother?’ And suddenly he remembered being in the White Hart with Justice and Violet and feeling seen. His heart was beating rapidly.
‘I knew her. She was brave. I think she would have fought until the end.’ And Will, who had been there at the end, felt a tremor begin deep in his body that he had to clamp down hard to still.