Knight's Shadow

by Sebastien de Castell

  ‘How so?’ Kest asked.

  Brasti picked up Intemperance and set a black arrow to her string. He turned briefly to the rest of us and announced, ‘A thousand armoured Knights are coming for us.’ Then he aimed the arrow high into the air, pulled back the bowstring and released.

  We watched as the arrow rose high up into the sky, as if it were trying to reach towards the sun, then slowly turned into its tight elliptical arc, making its inexorable way back to earth, some five hundred yards from where we stood.

  Too late the Knights realised what was happening and a few scrambled to get out of the way as the two-foot-long shaft came towards them, but they were too tightly packed and when the arrow finally reached them it lanced straight through a metal helm, instantly killing the man wearing it.

  Brasti turned back to us. ‘One down. Nine hundred and ninety-nine to go.’

  One of the commanders barked an order and the Knights began to charge in earnest. They would be upon us within moments.

  ‘I suppose if we have to die it’s nice to have made a statement,’ Kest said, holding his warsword in his left hand.

  Brasti snorted. ‘Still with the swords? Haven’t I shown you the superiority of the bow?’

  ‘Unless you can do that again nine hundred and ninety-nine times in the next couple of minutes, I don’t think it much matters now, does it?’

  He smiled. He was looking altogether too cocky for a man facing imminent death. ‘Watch this.’

  The Knights had covered half the distance between us, passing between the thick rows of hedges that lined the gauntlet on either side, when suddenly arrows flew from those hedges, arching through the air and cutting into the front lines of the Knights’ charge. Men and horses fell screaming, and the horses behind them stumbled onto the fallen in front of them. There must have been a hundred arrows in that first flight, and a few seconds later, a hundred more.

  I had had no idea there were men hiding in the trees and hedges, let alone enough to send volley after volley of steel-tipped arrows down on the Knights.

  ‘How—?’ I was as near speechless as I’d ever been.

  Brasti had always been too handsome for his own good, too much in love with looking clever and being wanted. He’d never looked beyond the night’s carousing – or the most recent pretty girl – in all the years I’d known him. Now he looked at me with a different smile on his face, one I’d never seen before, and there was a very different look in his eyes.

  ‘I call them “Brasti’s Bastards” he said proudly.

  ‘“The world needs more bastards”,’ Kest said, his voice full of awe.

  Brasti mounted his horse.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

  He placed Intemperance in her holder below the saddle and drew Insult, his horsebow. ‘Why, I’m adding insult to injury, of course.’

  With that he took off and began firing arrows at those few Knights who were managing to get through the crossfire his men were creating. Valiana and Dariana chased after him, songs and war cries on their lips.

  Ethalia took Aline and began pulling medicines from her bag.

  Kest and I just leaned on each other for support.

  ‘Gods. What has he done?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s broken them,’ Kest said. ‘He’s broken the Knighthood. They’ll never be the same.’

  No more Knights.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  The Concord

  ‘You know what I find amusing?’ Brasti asked.

  I opened my eyes to find only darkness waiting for me and I panicked. I’m paralysed – Gods, no, not now! You can’t do this to me, not again – not after all I’ve been through—

  ‘It’s all right,’ I heard Ethalia say gently. ‘It’s just dark.’

  I had fallen asleep on one of the long benches in the wide hallway outside the throne room of Aramor with my head in her lap. I felt the warmth of her hand against my cheek and took a deep breath, and only then did I hear a guitar playing softly, the notes echoing from wall to wall.

  ‘Nehra?’ I asked.

  ‘Over here, Trattari,’ she answered. ‘You’ve given me the beginnings of a fine story to tell, but it’ll need the right melody to accompany it.’

  ‘What time is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Late,’ Dariana replied. She was sitting on the floor running a whetstone back and forth against the blade of her sword. ‘I would guess we’re two hours from sunrise. No one bothered to light torches for us. I fear you and your Greatcoats are just as beloved now as you were before this whole thing started.’

  I peered through the darkness, trying to find Kest, and made out his vague outline across the hall. Just for an instant I could have sworn he flickered red, as if he were standing in front of a fire, but a moment later everything was dark again.

  ‘Would you please stop doing that?’ Brasti asked from a few feet to my right. ‘Either be the Saint of Swords or don’t, but make up your bloody mind.’

  ‘It’s not something I can control,’ Kest replied plaintively.

  ‘Your hand,’ I said, lifting my head from Ethalia’s lap and instantly regretting the decision, ‘is it—?’

  The shadow of Kest’s head nodded. ‘A healer treated the wound with some kind of acid to prevent infection and bandaged me up so I won’t bleed to death. The pain is . . . significant.’

  He flickered again, a brief flash of red against the blackness of the unlit room.

  Brasti coughed. ‘As I was saying, do you know what I find amusing?’

  ‘Hang on,’ I said, ‘how long have we been waiting here?’

  ‘Several hours,’ Kest replied. ‘The Dukes have been meeting continuously since the battle ended. One of their retainers came out an hour ago to “remind us” to stay here.’

  ‘Ducal Concords have very strict protocols,’ Valiana said. Her voice came from the deep shadows on the other side of the room.

  ‘Where’s Aline?’

  ‘She’s in there with them.’

  I started to rise, but Kest stepped out of the shadows and stopped me. ‘They assured me that regardless of the outcome of their deliberations, they would not harm her. I did my best to explain what would happen to them if they did.’

  ‘We should be in there with her,’ I said.

  I heard the soft sound of Valiana’s footsteps. ‘They won’t harm her, Falcio. I was trained in Concord protocol and I can promise you: the rules are clear and the safety of the participants is inviolate. The process is complex – even if you were in there, I doubt you’d understand what was happening.’

  I let pass the fact that she’d just told me I was too stupid to understand affairs of state. ‘Then you should be in there – you know how all this works. You could look out for her interests.’

  ‘I’m not a Duchess, Falcio – I’m not even a noble. I’m no one of consequence.’

  ‘You’re as good as any Duke or Duchess, pretty bird. Better, from what I’ve seen of them,’ Dariana said, and for once I agreed with her.

  ‘No one of consequence? You might just be the only noble person in this whole sorry affair.’

  ‘Look,’ Brasti shouted, ‘is anyone going to ask me what I find amusing?’

  I turned in the general direction of where he was sitting, across the hallway from me, and said, ‘Fine. Brasti, what is it that you find so desperately amusing?’

  ‘This castle.’

  ‘You find the castle amusing?’ Kest asked.

  ‘Well, not the castle so much as the fact that there are cobwebs all over it.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said. I wasn’t just humouring him; I really didn’t.

  Brasti rose and spread his arms. ‘Look at this place: it’s Castle Aramor, for Saints’ sake. It’s the seat of power for Tristia and yet it’s been sitting here completely empty for more than five years. The Dukes took it from the King – and then they just left it. No one’s even entered the place until now.’

  ‘It had to be kept empty,’ Valia
na said, as if the reason was obvious. ‘If one of the Dukes had come here it would have been seen as an act of war against the others.’

  ‘I know, but here’s the thing, see? Castle Aramor is the single most defensible fortress in all of Tristia. You could probably hold the thing with – how many, Kest?’

  ‘Fifty soldiers,’ Kest replied.

  ‘Fifty soldiers. So with fifty soldiers and enough supplies, you could hold this place for a year.’

  ‘What’s your point?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m just saying, all these intrigues and really the best way to take over the country would’ve been for Trin to just come here with her Knights and declare herself Queen. I’m surprised some goat-herder didn’t just move in with forty-nine of his friends and nominate himself Emperor!’

  Despite myself, I started thinking about the men at the Inn at the End of the World sitting at a table contemplating making themselves rulers of the country. King Jost. I started to laugh uncontrollably.

  ‘I’m not sure it was that funny,’ Kest said.

  ‘It’s not that,’ I said, holding my ribs and trying to stop laughing because it hurt too much. ‘I’m thinking the next time we run into this problem of the lack of a ruler I’m going straight into the nearest village and the first man or woman who can sign their name can come back here to the castle and be crowned monarch.’

  The others began laughing too, and we spent the next hour expanding on the virtues of choosing a King through random selection, until the great double doors of the throne room opened and one of the Ducal retainers came out. He pointed to Kest and Brasti and finally me.

  ‘The Dukes are ready for the three of you now,’ he said importantly. ‘The others must wait here.’

  I squeezed Ethalia’s hand and rose. ‘Come on then,’ I said to the others. Valiana didn’t move, so I took her firmly by the hand and began leading her in.

  ‘The girl’s presence is not required,’ the retainer started.

  ‘It’s required by me,’ I replied, and we all walked past him and into the throne room.

  *

  The Dukes were sitting around a large dining table someone had placed a discreet distance from the throne. It had been five years or more since I’d been in the throne room of Castle Aramor, and weirdly, it felt smaller than I remembered, and the Tristian seat of power itself much less ornate than the thrones used by the Dukes in their own castles.

  Food had been served, and most of the people around the table had plates in front of them. A multitude of servants in assorted livery representing the various duchies were busy refilling goblets of wine.

  They brought more servants with them than guardsmen. I shouldn’t have been shocked, but somehow I was.

  Aline was sitting on a chair a short distance away from the table, her hands resting on her knees, a small plate of food, barely touched, sitting on her lap. The Dukes themselves, occupied with eating and drinking, paid no attention to the four of us.

  ‘Anything left for us?’ Brasti asked casually.

  I felt Valiana tense next to me, no doubt expecting, as I did, a scathing retort from either the Dukes or the retainers who stood around them – after all, Dukes do not eat with commoners. To my surprise, Duke Meillard of Pertine grunted, ‘There’s some chicken left. It’s dry and I can’t speak to its provenance, but you might as well eat as stand there looking like fools.’

  Some of the others looked shocked, which comforted me somewhat, but after a moment Duke Jillard signalled to one of the retainers, who brought out plates and placed them in front of empty chairs at the far end of the table. Not knowing quite what else to do, I sat down, and the others joined me.

  When a leg of chicken was placed on my plate I very nearly passed out from the smell. I’d forgotten how long it had been since I’d eaten, let alone sat down to a proper meal at a table. However mediocre Duke Meillard might have found it, to me that chicken was the most succulent flesh I could ever remember tasting. A silver goblet was placed near my right hand and wine was poured into it.

  ‘Could I trouble you for some water?’ I asked the retainer. It wouldn’t do to drink now, not when I was so tired and hurty and there was dangerous business to deal with.

  Brasti had no such concerns. ‘See, now, this is nice,’ Brasti said, placing his already empty goblet back on the table and motioning for the retainer carrying the jug of wine to return. ‘We should do this more often, you know, have dinner together and sort out our problems like gentlemen.’

  ‘Brasti, shut up,’ Kest said.

  Duke Meillard stood. ‘All right, so let’s call this open session of the Ducal Concord back to order. Let it be noted that we have agreed to continue despite the lack of representation from the Duchies of Orison, Luth and Aramor, as well as from the Duchess of Hervor.’

  The Duchess of Hervor?

  ‘Um, excuse me,’ I said, ‘but—’

  Meillard held up a hand. ‘First, Trattari, you’ll speak only when recognised by the head of the Concord, which is me. Second, to answer your unspoken question, Trin is, despite the current disputes, still the lawful Duchess of Hervor.’

  ‘Might I be recognised, then?’ I asked.

  ‘Hells. Fine. What do you want to say?’

  I rose. ‘Well, first of all, I’d like to say that this is excellent chicken.’

  ‘So noted. Moving on now—’

  ‘Second, my friend Brasti seems to be out of wine again.’

  Hadiermo, the Iron Duke of Domaris, slammed his fist down on the table. ‘This is the Ducal Concord, not some country wedding. Do you think this is a joke, Trattari?’

  ‘I think it must be. A few hours ago most of you were cowering by the front door waiting to be slaughtered by your own men while Shuran was preparing to take over the entire Kingdom. You yourself, Duke Hadiermo – you gave up the battle against Trin’s forces after – what? A week of fighting?’

  ‘There were—’

  ‘Silence!’ Brasti said with mock imperiousness. ‘You haven’t been recognised!’

  ‘You do realise we’re outnumbered by a goodly amount, and injured besides, don’t you?’ Kest asked me.

  I kept my attention focused on the nobles seated around the table. ‘The country is teetering on the brink of civil war because the lot of you have not just driven the countryside into rebellion, but you have allowed your Ducal Knights to become renegades.’

  ‘And you think you’re the one to tell us our faults?’ Meillard growled.

  ‘Who else will? The four of us, along with so many others who have given their lives – and that, I should note, despite many of you doing your best to have us killed these past five years – where was I? Oh yes, so we have managed to defeat your enemies and keep you alive: and now you all sit there apparently believing you can set the country in whatever direction suits you while the King’s heir sits in the corner like a scolded schoolgirl. So yes, your Graces, I do believe this must be a joke.’

  The room was silent for a moment and then someone clapped. Unfortunately, it was Jillard, Duke of Rijou. ‘That does sound like a rather substantial amount of upheaval.’

  ‘It is,’ Brasti said, putting both his feet up on the table. ‘And since we saved your worthless lives, we’d expect at least some degree of contrition.’

  ‘Does water still fall downwards when poured from a jug?’ he asked.

  ‘Does what?’ Brasti asked

  ‘Water. When you pour it, does it still fall downwards?’

  ‘I’ve only been pouring wine thus far, your Grace, and that mostly down my gullet, but I expect water behaves in a similar fashion.’

  He smiled and nodded. ‘Good. So in fact the world still functions according to the laws of nature and of the Gods. Understand?’

  ‘Not really,’ Brasti said, ‘but I have had rather a lot to drink in a very short time.’

  ‘He means,’ Kest said, ‘that despite everything that’s happened, the Dukes believe the natural order remains the same: that they are mas
ters of this country and we their servants or their enemies.’

  ‘You show excellent clarity of thought for a Trattari,’ Jillard said.

  ‘Thank you, your Grace,’ I said. ‘And now I believe the four of us should leave. We’ll take Aline with us.’ I reached out a hand for her.

  ‘What’s the meaning of this?’ Meillard demanded.

  ‘I’d like to know that, too,’ Kest said quietly.

  I kept my eyes on the Dukes. ‘We leave here. We bring Brasti’s troops—’

  ‘Brasti’s Bastards!’ Brasti shouted, and then started giggling.

  ‘— and we make war,’ I shouted, my voice echoing through the room. Then more conversationally, I said to Kest, ‘It’s the only thing they understand.’

  ‘You can’t be serious!’ Hadiermo said. ‘You’ve got – what? A hundred country bumpkins with longbows?’

  ‘A hundred country bumpkins just destroyed a thousand Ducal Knights,’ I pointed out. ‘Your Knights. Imagine what happens when that story spreads through the countryside.’

  Ossia, Duchess of Baern, a woman in her sixties who had always been at least a little decent towards the King and his Greatcoats, coughed delicately. ‘I believe we have seen trying times, all of us. Perhaps it is time for us all to withdraw – surely we can pursue this matter over the coming months? And I’m sure we can agree to a cessation of any hostilities while we get our homes in order?’

  I thought about what that would mean: more fear, more uncertainty, more manoeuvring by the Dukes.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Those aren’t the terms.’

  ‘“Terms”?’ Duke Hadiermo asked. ‘Do you think you’re here to negotiate terms with us?’

  ‘No, your Grace,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, was this not clear? I’m here to dictate them.’

  Several people started to rise, but it was my turn to slam my fist on the table. I’d been wanting to do that for ages; shame I hadn’t realised it was going to hurt quite so much. Ah well. ‘You’ve had your way with this country long enough. Since the King’s death, you have taxed the common folk beyond measure. You have allowed the trade routes to fall into disrepair until bandits have become richer than merchants. You have plotted and intrigued and poisoned everything the King tried to build.’