The King's Hand

by Anna Thayer

  “Please pass my congratulations on to the whole household,” Eamon added, “and let a glass of wine go to everyone with it.”

  Slater bowed, awkwardly this time, and left. Eamon thought he saw a trace of red on the man’s face; whether it was from pride or embarrassment was difficult to tell.

  About mid-morning, Anderas came to see him again. The captain bore a confused but pleased look on his face and a large collection of papers under his arm.

  “Lord Goodman.”

  “Captain,” Eamon answered, setting aside the pile of papers that he had finished dealing with – mostly regulations on how much could be traded and brought into the quarter. “You look bemused,” he added.

  “I am.”

  “Yet you seemed very lucid earlier this morning.”

  “I was very lucid this morning,” Anderas told him.

  “And what has bemused you, captain?”

  “This,” Anderas replied, setting the papers down. “A dispatch that Draybant Greenwood and I received this morning.”

  “After the ride?” Eamon asked.

  “Most definitely. Indeed, these papers surprised me so much that I decided to come to you myself on the matter.”

  Eamon looked at the papers; they bore the symbol of the Crown Office and were marked with Rose’s seal. Eamon flicked through the pages and then, seeing the signature that he expected at the end of the long document, he smiled.

  “The chief architect, one Mr Lorentide, has been doing some work for me,” he answered. He had not expected it to be done so swiftly.

  “I understand Mr Kentigern’s comments from last night a little more clearly now, my lord,” Anderas told him, gesturing to the papers.

  “Do you share his objections?” Eamon asked.

  “Not at all,” Anderas grinned.

  Eamon took the papers in hand and looked again at the topmost sheet. He only needed to sign it to authorize the new pecking order for the reconstruction and renovation of the quarter.

  He did so with a smile and a flourish, and then passed the papers across to his captain.

  “Thank you, my lord.”

  “How are the people from Tailor’s Turn?”

  “Still in Crown Office care, but once the architects set to work – which should be today or tomorrow – we should be able to get them properly re-housed until repairs are complete.”

  “Good.”

  “There is another matter that needs your attention, my lord,” Anderas said as he scooped the papers back into his arm. “Several arrests of suspected wayfarers were conducted yesterday on Mead Road.”

  Eamon’s heart sank – more men and, more likely, entire families for the pyres.

  “One of them insists that it is his right to plead his innocence before you.”

  Eamon looked at the captain in surprise. “That was bold of him!”

  “It is a very unusual request,” Anderas answered, “which is why I mention it. The law of appeal hasn’t been invoked in living memory.”

  “Because it was abolished long before living memory.” Eamon remembered reading about the law when he had been studying at the college in Edesfield. The law had given that any arrested man had the right to appeal before the highest authority available to him. Eamon suspected that the law had been abolished to enable and facilitate just the kind of cull that the Master was currently conducting.

  He looked quietly at Anderas. “I cannot – and will not – see him under the law of appeal,” he said. It would be an affront to the throned, and a dangerous one. “But I will see him. You may bring him to me.”

  “Yes, Lord Goodman.”

  Not long later, a servant arrived to announce that the quarter’s draybant of law had come to see him. He was the man who dealt with the more problematic aspects of the Master’s law in the quarter. Eamon granted him entrance and was not surprised to see that the draybant and several ensigns accompanied a man whose wrists were heavily bound. The prisoner was not young, but he did not seem old either. Though flanked by the ensigns, the man tried to hold his head high. As Eamon rose from the desk, the draybant bowed and the prisoner did also. The ensigns followed suit.

  Eamon strode forward and stood before the prisoner. The man remained bowed low.

  “My lord,” he said, “may you show the Master’s glory in all you do.”

  “Rise,” Eamon told him. The man did so.

  “My lord.” The draybant handed a collection of papers across to him, and Eamon read them swiftly, enough to gain the man’s name and the reasons for his arrest.

  “Mr Fort,” he said, addressing the prisoner, “there are some serious charges against you. You stand accused of plotting with wayfarers against the city and the Master. And I am told that you refute this charge.” He paused seriously. “What have you to say?”

  “Produce the plot, my lord,” the man answered steadily.

  “You are bold, Mr Fort,” Eamon told him.

  “If what I hear of you is true, my lord, and if my words are true, then I have nothing to fear in being so.”

  Eamon blinked hard. Had not Ladomer said that his stunt at Tailor’s Turn had called his sanity into question?

  The man before him did not seem to be of that opinion. Heartened by Eamon’s attention, he spoke again. “My lord, my family has no part with the wayfarers. We are all loyal to the Master. Our taxes are paid, our work is done, my own son serves with the Gauntlet – he is posted to the south-western borders under Captain Iset. My daughter is married to Lieutenant Malter of the South Quarter. My wife, while she lived, was a woman who served the Master with her whole heart all the days of her life. Now I am told that I have a part in a wayfarer plot, but the truth is that I am envied!”

  “According to these notes, Mr Fort, you were seen ‘meeting at strange hours with wayfarers’.”

  “I work in fishing,” Fort answered, exasperated. “I often meet men at dawn or dusk. These men were not wayfarers. If they had been, why weren’t we all arrested whilst meeting? This is nothing more than an anonymous report delivered by an envious competitor, intended to harm me and my trade.”

  Eamon watched him for a moment. “Mr Wilson,” he said, turning to the draybant of law, “what other evidences are there against Mr Fort?”

  “Allegations of previous family involvement with wayfarers, my lord,” Wilson replied.

  Eamon looked back at the man before him. At the draybant’s statement he rolled his eyes and flexed his hands in their bonds.

  “I have been cleared of that!” he cried. “Lord Ashway investigated the matter years ago. Will you shame my children for that?”

  “I would hear of this thing from you,” Eamon told him. He did not make it a request.

  The prisoner took a deep breath and closed his eyes, as though steeling himself against a bitter memory. “The alleged traitor was my cousin. She exhibited wayfarer sympathies from her youth. She held little respect for the Master; in that she disdained her name, and my family’s generations-long tradition of service.”

  “And what did she do?” Eamon asked.

  “She married a man from outside the city,” Fort answered. “It was suspected that he was a wayfarer, though that was not known when she married him. My uncle would never have permitted their union, otherwise. He always wanted her to be loyal to the Master, as he was and I am still.”

  “To the point, Mr Fort.”

  “The Master began a purge of wayfarers in the city about fifteen years ago, when rumours of some ‘Serpent’s heir’ started reaching Dunthruik.” His tone was derogatory. “During that cull, many suspected wayfarers disappeared from the city before they could be apprehended. My cousin and her husband were implicated. When the Gauntlet tried to apprehend them there was a skirmish and all three of them – wife, husband, and son – were killed and sent to the pyres, to the Master’s glory. Lord Ashway cleared me of any connection to her and her filthy work,” he continued, “and had my family change its name to avoid being tarnished. We dutifully did
so, and we should not pay the price for her treachery now!”

  “Calm yourself, Mr Fort,” Eamon told him firmly. “You will not answer for what you have not done.” Fort fell silent in surprise, and Eamon looked at the papers again. The thought crossed his mind that he might well be expected to breach the man to verify his story, but as it occurred to him he reviled it. Breaching was a tool of the throned’s mark; he would not do it.

  “Mr Wilson, is there any other evidence against this man?”

  The draybant shook his head. “No, my lord, bar this single report.”

  Eamon paused for a moment. “In the absence of other evidence and of an accuser to bring this charge, Mr Wilson, please intercept the notices of arrest going to Mr Fort and to Mrs Malter.”

  “You will release me?” Fort gaped.

  “Mr Fort, the Master has no delight in a falsely imprisoned man,” Eamon answered, “just as he has no delight in being betrayed by a man to whom he has shown grace.” Fort watched him carefully. Eamon gestured to the ensigns to unbind him. “You shall go free, Mr Fort – I will not even breach you – and no shame will fall on your family. But if it is found that you have been treacherous, then no mercy will be shown to you; less still will the Master show to your children.”

  Fort paled. “I am loyal to the Master.”

  “Then go free, Mr Fort.”

  The bindings fell away from the man’s hands and he rubbed briskly at his wrists. Eamon wished that the man were loyal to the King, as his cousin had been. He wondered what the woman’s name had been.

  Fort bowed low to him. “You truly glorify the Master, Lord Goodman.”

  “Do the same,” Eamon answered. “You may go, Mr Fort.”

  Fort turned, and the ensigns left the room with him. Eamon looked across at the draybant before handing the papers to him. “Thank you, Mr Wilson. You may tell Captain Anderas that Mr Fort has been dealt with.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” Wilson nodded. “I will make the necessary notes in quarter records.”

  “Thank you. Mr Wilson,” Eamon added as the draybant prepared to leave, “who was this woman whom Mr Fort mentioned?”

  “Her name is not known to me, my lord,” Wilson replied. “It will be in the records. I can look for it. Captain Anderas might also know of it – he was close to Captain Etchell, who was serving under Lord Ashway at the time of the incident.”

  “Very well, I shall speak with Captain Anderas,” Eamon answered. “If I have no luck there I shall send word to you. Thank you, Mr Wilson.”

  “My lord.” Wilson bowed low and left. Feeling confused by something that he felt to be just beyond his reach, Eamon returned to work.

  Later that morning messages came to remind him of the swearing to which he was invited that afternoon. He was grateful for the reminder, but the thought of Manners kneeling and setting his hand to the Master’s pommel chilled him.

  Anderas came to him again before lunch. The captain walked swiftly, and his face bore a similar look to the one it had borne that morning.

  “Do you, or do you not, have a lieutenant with the express task of running messages to me?” Eamon asked as the captain rose from his bow.

  “I do,” Anderas replied. “‘Lieutenant Lackey’, the college fondly calls him. A traditional name, handed down from man to man, whatever his own might be.”

  Eamon laughed. All Gauntlet college captains were assisted by a lieutenant who was (after the captain) usually the next best source of college information. The man currently serving the East Quarter College in that capacity was called Lancer.

  “Having such an aide, why didn’t you send Mr Lancer to me?”

  “Due to my perplexion,” the captain answered. “There is a man at the stables,” he continued, his brow increasingly furrowed. “Actually, there are two men. I left Mr Lancer with them. They say that they have asked all over the city for Lord Goodman, and that they were sent here. When they asked for you at the college they were sent to Lancer, and then to me.”

  “That isn’t perplexing in the slightest.”

  “No,” Anderas agreed, “but they have brought a very fine horse with them.”

  Eamon looked up in surprise, an enormous smile breaking on his face. “A horse?”

  “They are asking to see you.”

  “Then I think we should go to the stables.”

  “Very good, Lord Goodman.”

  They went to the stables. Eamon went as swiftly as he could, barely able to contain the grin on his face. He knew who would be waiting for him.

  As he arrived he saw three men and a few stablehands. One of them was Lancer, and the lieutenant looked only a little less confused than his captain. The second man was younger than Eamon, and had a crop of thick, black hair. At his side was a man whom Eamon recognized, and by him stood a beautiful black charger with a small, white pattern on its nose.

  Eamon stopped before the group, still smiling. Seeing the ring on Eamon’s hand the man who led the horse paled.

  “Lord… Lord Goodman?”

  “The very same,” Eamon answered. “Perhaps I am difficult to recognize when I am not covered in rain and mud?”

  “But you are a Quarter Hand –”

  “I am one now, and a delighted one at that,” Eamon interrupted, and laughed. “You have brought back to me a sorely missed friend of long adventures!”

  “That was my promise, my lord.”

  “And you have kept it well, Mr Bellis.”

  The man gasped, amazed that his name should be remembered. Eamon stepped forward and set his hands to the horse’s muzzle in contentment. To his delight, the horse pressed against him fondly.

  “You remember me, don’t you?” he said. The horse responded with a soft neigh. Perhaps, even for the horse, he had been difficult to forget.

  Eamon looked back to Marilio Bellis. “How is he?”

  “Well healed, my lord,” Marilio answered, “for which my son is responsible. He has a doctor’s skill in him.”

  Eamon looked across at the younger man, who threw himself at once into a hasty bow. “What’s your name, young man?” Eamon asked.

  “Wilhelm Bellis, my lord.”

  “Wilhelm, I am indebted to you,” Eamon told him, “for this creature is a steed indeed, far more witting, I fear, than its master.”

  “Sahu is a bright one, my lord,” Wilhelm replied.

  “Sahu?”

  “That is the name my son gave him, my lord,” Marilio explained quickly. “If it does you offence –”

  “It sounds a good name.”

  “It is an old name out of the south,” Anderas mused with interest. “Something to do with the brightness of the stars, I believe. Or perhaps the Great Constellation?”

  The captain’s face creased with the effort of chasing after what eluded him, before the expression soon gave way to veiled annoyance. Eamon laughed heartily.

  “A fine name indeed!” he cried, turning warmly to the father and son before him. “Wilhelm Bellis, you have succeeded in flummoxing a man who is both a recognized fount of knowledge and a very fine captain. It is a feat too little achieved, and I congratulate you!”

  At his praise, a flash of delight lit Wilhelm’s face. He bowed.

  “Thank you, my lord.”

  “Mr Bellis and Mr Bellis, you both have my thanks once again,” Eamon continued. Such men as these, he thought, were few. “Is there anything that I might offer you in return?”

  “Serving you, Lord Goodman, is reward enough,” Marilio answered with a bow.

  “Then that, if you wish it, is precisely what I shall grant you.”

  Marilio looked up, startled. “You mean that, my lord?”

  “Yes,” Eamon answered, and he looked at them both sincerely. “Marilio, if you wish it you may serve me in my household, and your son appears to have some skill in healing. If he desires it, he may join the Gauntlet.” Marilio’s eyes went wide. “If these things do not accord with you both, then you shall rest here some days, and th
en I will send you both home to Eastport.”

  He paused and looked at Anderas; the captain nodded to him. Eamon turned back to the two men before him. “What would you, Mr Bellis?”

  Marilio and his son exchanged glances, and then the dark-haired man met Eamon’s gaze. “There are many others who may see to the ferries, my lord,” he said, “and the East Road is not as safe as once it was. If it is to be my choice, then I would serve you.”

  CHAPTER XXII

  The afternoon came on swiftly, and Eamon felt as though no time at all had passed before another knock came at his door.

  “You must find it very taxing, captain, coming through this office every few hours,” he told Anderas as the man entered.

  “I can hardly avoid it, my lord. I wanted to catch you before you went to the swearing.”

  “Yes.”

  “Had you forgotten it?”

  “No.” How could he?

  “We received some entry papers that need signing,” Anderas continued, laying them on Eamon’s desk.

  “Entry papers?” Eamon was so accustomed to denying exit papers that he sat up in surprise.

  “Yes, Lord Goodman,” Anderas answered. “I thought that you might enjoy the novelty. A few families from the South Quarter want permission to come into the East.”

  “I’ll sign them,” Eamon answered. “Have they got family here, or work?”

  “I don’t think so, my lord.”

  “Then why come?”

  “I believe it may have something to do with the latest story about the Lord of the East Quarter,” Anderas answered quietly.

  Eamon looked up in astonishment. “Latest story?”

  “My ensigns and patrols – who bring back to me the word from the city streets – have started reporting what is being told. They report it with pride. The people near Tailor’s Turn have been speaking to their neighbours. It goes about that the man who put his life on the line for the Gauntlet set it into a pit for the people of his quarter.” Anderas met his gaze seriously. “They praise the Master in every part of this quarter, my lord, because he made you lord over it.”

  Eamon was utterly stunned.