Knight's Shadow

by Sebastien de Castell

  He waved a hand at me and I shut up and we sat like that for a while, the King standing staring out of the window while I sat silently a few feet away. The King hadn’t dismissed me, and after a while I decided to presume on our friendship. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘I asked, what did you do?’ If one of the other Greatcoats had been sent on a mission from which they weren’t going to return, I wanted to know. ‘You’ve clearly done something that’s weighing on your conscience. Who did you send?’

  He shook his head. ‘No one you know.’

  For some reason, the answer surprised me. The Greatcoats were the most capable duellists in the country and in those days I knew every one of them by name. To send someone who wasn’t as able seemed . . . callous. ‘If the mission was so important, then why not send one of us?’

  ‘Because I needed someone who could be corrupted.’ He turned back to me. ‘And I needed to hope that they could overcome such corruption as would destroy any man’s soul.’

  ‘How would—?’

  ‘That’s enough,’ Paelis said. ‘I’m tired of your questions, Falcio. I’m tired of having you sit there and look at me like . . .’

  He crumpled the note in his hand and let it drop to the floor. ‘The hells for your faith, Falcio.’ He walked through the open door and back across the grass towards the castle, leaving me there with the food and the wine and my notes on the property case. After a few minutes I reached down and picked up the crumpled note. I straightened it out and read it.

  On a single line, in a feminine hand, were the words: I am lost.

  *

  On the morning of the ninth day I no longer cared about pain, nor for my life, nor even my soul. The Dashini had lost that much power over me at least.

  Dariana, Heryn and two other Dashini remained. On one side of the clearing was Valiana, bound hand and foot, sitting on the ground. On the other side, the Bardatti, one living, one very dead – Colwyn’s body had begun to stink so badly that even I could smell him – were still tied to the trees. Nehra watched me, as always. The gag was still covering her mouth. I felt guilty under her gaze.

  They needed the troubadour to witness what they did to me and to spread the story of my death, but they would kill Valiana, for she had no value to them. She was just a small, ugly piece of my death.

  Even through my agonising exhaustion I could see the irony in the situation. At first I blamed the healer. Why had Firensi let her go? She’d taken a sword-thrust to the chest; surely he should have bound her to a bed for a month? So I tried to curse him, but I found I couldn’t muster the will.

  Valiana had been trying to get herself killed since she first put on that damned coat to prove to the world that heroism could be found in anyone. I’m Valiana val Mond, damn it. I’m going to make that count. And it would count. They would use her to make my death just a little worse, so instead of inspiring others, her contribution to history would be showing once and for all that there is no such thing as a noble death.

  Heryn was in excellent spirits this morning. ‘Do you know how many times your feckless King tried to send men to infiltrate our order, Falcio?’

  ‘One too few?’ I suggested. But no, I hadn’t actually said that. I thought I had, but what actually came from my lips was a whimpered, ‘Please . . .’

  ‘Twelve. Twelve times he sent Greatcoats to try to join the order.’ He pulled out a small cloth from his coat. ‘I kept souvenirs.’ He opened the bag and revealed a jumble of finger-bones. ‘Twelve men. Twelve little fingers.’

  I suppose Heryn wanted me to feel terror at that moment, or anger for my fallen comrades, but the sight of the fingers only made me wonder about their families. Each of those dead Greatcoats must have had someone who had cared about them, who had wondered where they were. Those people had nothing left of their loved ones.

  Absurdly, momentarily forgetting my bonds, I reached out to take the little bones from him, but by the time I realised I hadn’t moved I saw that Heryn was kneeling by his black leather roll, setting out the needles and bottles.

  Something harsh and vaguely clever came to my mind, but yet again the words from my lips were a betrayal: ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘please. Please. Now.’ I wondered if it would help if I called him master.

  Heryn looked up at me and grinned. ‘Oh no, this needle isn’t for you. It would hardly be very elegant, would it, if in the end we just killed you with a piece of steel jammed into your skull? No, no: have you not understood yet? The whole point of the Lament is that you die from grief, First Cantor. It’s in the name, don’t you see?’

  He came over and flicked one of the needles he had left in my chest and the sudden burst of pain made me stiffen, which made all the other needles feel like they were breaking off inside of me.

  ‘All of these are just to prepare your body, Falcio. Do you know that even now, even with all the pain you’ve experienced, you could still live? You stand at the very edge of death’s door – you need to pass through it by yourself.’

  He walked over to Valiana. His mere presence roused her and she began squirming. Dariana knelt down and held Valiana in place as Heryn very carefully inserted the needle into her cheek, just below her eye. She sucked in a breath and tried to scream, but she couldn’t. I could see her eyes flooding with tears as she moaned, and her agony was so acute that I could feel it myself: a new pain, and one from which neither my broken body nor my broken heart could shield me.

  So this was how they wanted me to die. This was the Greatcoat’s Lament. My mind turned not to words of anger, nor to the acts of violence I so desired to inflict on Heryn and Dariana; instead all I could think of was how much I wanted to be dead. I wanted to bash my head back against the post to knock myself unconscious, or swallow my tongue so that I could choke. I wanted to walk through death’s door, right then and there.

  Do what you want to her, but let me die rather than see it, I thought, but that wasn’t what came from my lips.

  ‘Stop,’ I said, the treasonous word forcing its way between my clenched teeth. ‘Stop now.’

  Heryn’s grin widened. ‘You’ve found your voice again? Excellent.’ He twisted the needle, and Valiana’s body began to spasm.

  ‘Stop,’ I repeated, straining against my bonds, feeling the knotted cords push deeper into the pressure points in my flesh.

  Dariana was looking at me, her eyes troubled, but Heryn wasn’t paying attention. ‘Don’t die now, Falcio, I still have—’

  Dariana glanced around. ‘Someone comes,’ she said.

  Heryn was annoyed. ‘I hear no one.’

  ‘Regardless of what you hear, someone comes.’

  ‘Very well.’ Heryn turned to the other two Unblooded. ‘Go – find whomever it is and kill them. Dariana and I will complete the ritual.’ He turned to me, his hand still on the needle in Valiana’s cheek. ‘Imagine, Falcio: imagine that someone is coming to save you. Let hope enter your heart, just for a moment – it will make the final fall all the sweeter.’

  His Unblooded left, but despite Heryn’s urging, I felt no hope. I knew Kest wasn’t there. I knew Brasti hadn’t miraculously come back for me. I was completely alone.

  I expected the thought to make me despair, but somehow, it did the opposite: the equation was so simple that I wondered why I had lacked this clarity every day of my life.

  I was alone.

  Valiana was being killed.

  I could not allow it.

  It is so simple. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? I would simply break free from my bonds and kill the Unblooded and then she would be safe.

  Simple.

  An eight-year-old boy shakes his fist at the sky and earth and vows, My name is Falcio val Mond and I am going to be a Greatcoat. The boy has nothing, though. His father is gone and his mother is slowly withering away from solitude. He doesn’t know how to fight, or how to swing a sword. And yet.

  And yet there’s something inside him.

  It’s in you, too
, he says to me. It’s the one thing we never lost. It’s the thing they can’t take from us.

  What is it? I ask.

  The boy Falcio looks at me like I’m a fool. You want a word for it? What will giving it a name do?

  I don’t know. Something. Names mean something.

  Fine, he says, and he looks down at his palm. There’s something written there. After a moment he looks up at me and grins. There is a word for it. Imagine that!

  So what’s the word? I ask.

  I don’t know. I haven’t learned to read yet, stupid.

  Show me, I say, and he thinks about it for a while, as if maybe he wants to keep it his secret, but finally he holds up his palm.

  Can you read it for me? he asks.

  The boy’s hand is blurry, as is the world around him, but the word isn’t. The word is clear. Yes, I say. Yes. I can read it.

  It’s the only thing we have left, isn’t it? It’s the thing they can’t take from us.

  Yes, I agree, it’s the one thing they can’t take. Do you want me to tell you the word?

  He shakes his head. No. It’s not something that needs to be said. It’s something that needs to be shown. You need to show them the word.

  All right, I say. But I want to say the word anyway.

  Will it make a difference? the boy asks.

  It will to me, I reply. Words matter. Without words you can’t have stories and without stories we would never have heard of the Greatcoats.

  Fine, he says, tell me the word, but hurry up. It’s time to show them what’s inside us, underneath all the stupid stuff.

  I hesitate for just a moment, both because I’m scared and because I want to make him ask again.

  What’s the word? he asks impatiently.

  ‘Valour. The word is valour.’

  The boy smiles. That’s a good word, he says. Can you forget a word like that?

  Yes, I say. You shouldn’t, but I think I might have forgotten it for a while.

  You won’t forget it again, right?

  Never. I’ll never forget it again. They’ll never break us again.

  So show them, he urges me now. Show them what valour looks like.

  The boy wants me to break free of the bonds and duel with Heryn. He still thinks like a boy. That’s really not how it works, I want to tell him, but I don’t want to disappoint him so I keep that to myself.

  ‘Remarkable,’ I hear Heryn say as he and Dariana come close. ‘Look at him. He should be completely paralysed. He can’t feel his arms or his legs or anything except the pain emanating from his broken nerves, and yet look how he strains against the bonds. I think he might even break free if he had time.’

  Dariana’s face is troubled. ‘Is that even possible?’

  Of course it is, you fool. There are things stronger than hate and more deadly than fear, and this is one of them. The world demands a response to corruption and decay.

  Heryn is silent, his eyes narrowed, but then suddenly he smiles. ‘Ah, the neatha – it’s the neatha.’

  ‘Shouldn’t that make it worse?’ Dariana asks.

  ‘You would think, but it looks like it’s harder for our toxins to bind to his nerves. I suspect the two poisons are fighting each other inside him. All the same, the pain and grief alone should mean he can’t move – so why does he continue?’ he wondered aloud.

  Dariana looks at me for a long time. Her eyes are strange. Sad. ‘For her,’ she says at last.

  Heryn glances back at Valiana. ‘The girl?’

  Dariana nods, and her voice breaks, just a little. ‘There is no pain he will not experience to stop us from hurting her.’

  ‘Such folly. He still thinks himself one of those heroes woven into old tapestries,’ he says, waving a hand airily. ‘If he could see himself, so pathetic and broken, he would not dream of moving. He would simply await the ninth death with what little dignity is left him.’

  Inside me, the boy is holding up his hand, as if he can force them to see the word written there.

  ‘He has no dignity,’ Dariana says, ‘only valour. This is what valour looks like.’ She pauses. ‘It isn’t like in the stories at all.’

  ‘You sound sentimental.’ Heryn laughs, but behind his sneer, I see fear.

  ‘I . . .’

  The sound of their voices drifts in and out as blood and fire rush through my ears. I feel the bonds begin to give way, but only to the slightest degree. Another year or two, I tell myself, and I’d break out of here and really show them something.

  ‘Enough,’ Heryn says at last. ‘You disappoint me, Falcio val Mond. Your heart is broken, your spirit fades, and yet this empty shell still fights on.’ He motions to Dariana and says, ‘However, we have run out of time and are needed elsewhere. Bring me the last needle. We will use simpler means to usher the First Cantor to his final death.’ He looks at me. ‘Take what consolation you can from this, Falcio val Mond; you have thwarted us, if only in the slightest degree.’

  Dariana hesitates, and I wonder why. She has stood by and watched as Heryn inflicted on me every torment the world has ever seen. She hasn’t spoken out for mercy, not once. If my hands were free I would probably kill her first. Vengeance isn’t bravery, I think. Or do I hear it? Was it something Aline said? No, she didn’t speak in pronouncements. Paelis – the King – he said that once. To me? No, I remember now. Patience, he said. Vengeance isn’t bravery. Patience is what is needed now. Even a King needs patience. A King needs patience above all. When had I heard him saying that? It was ten – no, not ten, twelve years ago, shortly after Shanilla had been killed by the Dashini. There was a girl there too. I saw her running from the room.

  I look into Dariana’s eyes, deeper than she would ever want, and in that moment I finally understand.

  I’ve done something, Falcio.

  A girl, running from the room.

  A King needs patience above all.

  A crumpled note on the floor: I am lost.

  How could you, my King? Kings use people. Plans within plans: men and women sent far and wide, no one understanding the last command you gave them, but all of them with some greater purpose, some deeper strategy. A King needs patience above all.

  ‘It’s time,’ I say to Dariana.

  For a moment there’s nothing. She looks confused, uncertain, as if she’d heard a voice but wasn’t sure whose it was. How had this been done to her? How had the King locked her knowledge of who she was inside her? How deeply buried was she?

  ‘I am Falcio val Mond of Pertine, First Cantor of the King’s Greatcoats,’ I say to her, my voice a hoarse whisper. I take in a little breath, because this next part is everything. ‘And I am the King’s Heart.’

  Heryn is annoyed. ‘Do you think we don’t know who you are? Do you think we did not know the name of everyone your weak little King sent to be captured by us? To be killed by us? The King’s Eye was the first. The King’s Mace suffered magnificently. Shall I tell you what we did to the King’s Laughter? We cut out his—’

  I turn my attention to Heryn, just for a moment. ‘How many men did you say the King sent to infiltrate the Dashini?’ I ask.

  ‘Twelve. Would you like to count their finger-bones again?’

  ‘Twelve men,’ Dariana echoes, her voice at once that of a grown woman but also that of a young girl.

  Heryn turns to look at her. Too late.

  ‘And then he got smart,’ she says, ‘and he sent a woman.’

  She drives the needle straight into the centre of Heryn’s forehead. The point passes so cleanly and perfectly into his brow that only a single drop of blood emerges at the place where it enters. Heryn’s mouth opens wide, but the only sound that escapes is a soft hiss. Then it opens wider still, as if what Heryn wants to say is too big to come from so small an opening.

  His hands begin to move up towards his face and I see his fingertips twitching. He brings them up along his cheeks and towards his brow as they seek out the needle in his forehead. Only then do I realise he can’t see.
Somehow Heryn’s legs are keeping him upright, and he stands there, eyes wide, dying but not yet dead. After a few moments, his hands slowly drop to his sides again and he gives a long sigh.

  Just before he falls backwards, Dariana grabs him by the lapels of his coat and holds him up. ‘I am Dariana, daughter of Shanilla, Thirteenth Cantor of the Greatcoats,’ she says. ‘And I am the King’s Patience.’

  Chapter Forty-One

  Fragments

  At first, the world is made only of dust. Tiny specks of light, of sound. The briefest flicker of sunshine reflecting off the blade of a small knife. The scratch of thin strands of rope resisting and then giving way. The sensation of falling . . .

  Voices.

  ‘. . . needs . . .’

  ‘. . . no time . . .’

  ‘. . . he’ll die . . .’

  ‘. . . anyway . . .’

  The dust begins to disappear, replaced by a seamless grey that goes on for ever and ever. This absence of sights and sounds and sensations has a name. Sleep. I think I like sleep. I want to hang onto it, but I can’t.

  The world becomes slivers: sharp, nasty seconds that cut through the peaceful grey.

  ‘Stay away from him! You don’t touch him or me again!’

  ‘I’m . . . little bird, I swear, I’m so sor . . .’ The word melts into a single heartrending sob. And that too dissolves, replaced with iron. ‘We don’t have a choice, damn you! We can’t fight them all at once. If they catch him—’

  Cold, and wet. Something against my neck and back. Messy. Dirt. Pressure against my arms and shoulders. I’m sinking, but not very far, just a few inches. I know what ‘inches’ are. Something sprays on my chest, my face, into my mouth. Dirt.

  Oh Gods, don’t bury me.

  Don’t. Just. Don’t.

  Grey. Sleep.

  The world is made of shards, broken bits of smells and tastes; of coughing and choking, of water, of crying, of something soft, like silk – no, not silk, hair. Hair on my face. Valiana’s, I think. Her head is on my chest. Is she listening to my heart? Or sleeping?

  Sleep. Grey.

  *

  The world is a single cold and callous voice.