The Tattered Banner

by Duncan M. Hamilton

  With a feeling of cheerful excitement, he walked across the city to Carlujko’s. When he arrived he was brought directly to a small room that was laid out to display weapons to their prospective owners. He waited for a few minutes before Carlujko bustled into the room carrying a long package wrapped in oilcloth.

  ‘Good afternoon, sir, I trust you are well!’ Carlujko said. He didn’t extend a hand to shake, which was proper etiquette when addressing a banneret. Instead he placed the package down on the red felt covered table against the wall. He unwrapped it with what was almost reverence, revealing the physical manifestation of the sketch that Soren had seen the last time he had been there.

  The steel glistened with an oily sheen and the lines of the blade were perfect in every respect. The pommel was a perfect disc with a slightly concave surface and the quillions of the crossguard flared at their curved ends. The knuckle guard curved back elegantly from the cross guard, stopping by the pommel, but not connecting to it, its end mirroring the curved edge of the pommel. The entire hilt, while simple in its physical design, was covered with beautifully elaborate etching that appeared black on the surface of the steel. The dagger was a smaller copy of the sword, the etching on its hilt slightly less elaborate, but it was still the perfect match for the sword. Carlujko gestured for him to pick the sword up.

  He did, and instantly it felt perfect. The balance was better than any other sword he had ever held. It felt as though his hand had merged with the grip and the sword became an extension of his arm. There was no movement or pressure points, and he had to resist the urge to swing it in the confined space of the room. Carlujko smiled with satisfaction as he watched Soren’s reaction to the weapons.

  ‘How is the balance?’ he asked, in a manner that suggested he already knew what the answer would be.

  ‘Perfect,’ Soren replied distractedly.

  ‘And the grip? How does it feel?’

  ‘Perfect,’ Soren said, a smile breaking out on his face as he looked at Carlujko.

  Carlujko returned the smile with satisfaction. It was clearly a scene he was accustomed to witnessing.

  ‘Telastrian steel is hard to work, but when it has been properly forged, it is second to none. It won’t rust, it will hold its edge far better than ordinary steel and it will give far more flex when it is required! All in all, I feel comfortable stating that these are two of the finest blades I have ever created. The hilts, as we discussed, are simple but elegant, reflective of truly great swordsmanship, I think. Those blades will serve you well, and your son, and his son. They are a truly magnificent possession, and utterly lethal weapons. All that remains is the fee we agreed,’ said Carlujko. If anything, his smile was broader at this point.

  As always seemed to be the case with new experiences, Soren approached the Palace with a degree of trepidation. All of his belongings had fit quite easily in his campaign pack, and he had slung his blades over his shoulder in the oilcloth covering. He would have to have scabbards and a suspension made for them soon. He would probably be able to make do with an old one until he found the time to do so.

  After passing the guards at the gates to the Palace, he went to the guardhouse and reported in. He was expected there and an orderly brought him to his quarters. He had thought he was destined for a bunk in a barracks room, as there was a full regiment stationed between the Palace and the older castle on the cliff overlooking the bay below, but he was brought directly into the Palace itself.

  The interiors of some of the buildings at the Academy had been magnificent and he had been in one or two very impressive mansions, dal Dragonet’s standing out, but none of them came close to the splendour of the Palace, not even the palace in Brixen could match it. The walls and ceilings were a mix of intricate white plasterwork and gilt, while the walls were lined with massive portraits of former dukes and notables of the Duchy. The Palace was enormous, and for the briefest of moments, Soren thought that his quarters were going to be unbelievably luxurious.

  As the guard led him through the Palace and up several flights of stairs, his expectation began to build, and it seemed as though he had landed himself a very cushy number.

  ‘These are the Duke’s personal apartments,’ said the guard, gesturing to ornate double doors in a corridor. He didn’t stop however, instead continuing down the hall to a door that was camouflaged into the plasterwork of the wall and was barely visible. He opened it with a discrete handle, and went through. The décor on the other side of the door was non-existent. It appeared to be part of the warren of service corridors that often existed, invisible in the houses of the rich. He stopped at one of the unadorned doors that lined the corridor.

  ‘This is your room. Once you’ve settled, report back to the guard house.’

  The room reminded him of the one he had in his first year at the Academy. It was spartan, utilitarian and small. It didn’t bother him though. He sat on the bed and began to unpack his belongings. It was then that he noticed a brown paper parcel on the floor beside the chair and small table. He opened it to find that it contained several suits of clothes, those that he had been measured for by dal Dragonet’s aide. They were not particularly stylish, but they were about what he expected from what dal Dragonet had said. He changed into one of them and then unwrapped his blades.

  Every time he looked at them, their austere beauty struck him. They were the weapons of a warrior, not some dandy who strutted self-importantly around the city. Yet despite that there was something captivating about them. He strapped his old suspension on around his waist and put the blades into the scabbards. They were not a perfect fit, a thumbs width of the blade showed above the neck, but they would do for the time being. He would have something made for them as soon as he possibly could.

  The clothes fit as well as any clothes he had worn before, and they suited him, he thought, with satisfaction. He checked himself over quickly, and then returned to the guardhouse by the way he had come.

  C h a p t e r 5 3

  A PLACE AT COURT

  ‘Banneret Captain Soren, pleased to meet you. I’m Edwart dal Gawan, Banneret of the Blue.’

  He was dressed in the dark blue uniform of an infantry officer, but he wore no rank or regimental insignia. He had the slightly fairer complexion of those who come from the northern parts of Ostia and was clean shaven, contrary to the prevailing fashion at the time. He gestured to a chair and Soren sat.

  ‘I’ve been tasked with the command of the Duke’s new bodyguard,’ said dal Gawan. ‘Our duties are simple. We will be with the Duke at all times when he is outside of the Palace compound. While he is at the Palace, the responsibility for his safety will rest with the Guard, leaving us to our own devices. I fear overcoming boredom may become our greatest challenge, so I intend to put together a rigorous training regime for us, but otherwise you will be free to enjoy life here, which I think you will,’ he said, with a smile.

  Soren’s first meeting with his new commander was promising. While he was an aristocrat, he had outlined his extensive résumé of operational experience and coupled with his brusque military manner it was obvious that he had spent as much time on drill squares as he had on ballroom dance floors.

  He found the first few days of life at the Palace to be tedious as dal Gawan had hinted they might be. There seemed to be a banquet or a ball almost every night, and as a banneret, and a member of the Duke’s retinue he was expected to be present. He had never felt comfortable with high society, even though at some level it represented the life he was striving to live. He hadn’t grown up with these people, didn’t know them and didn’t much care for the things that they seemed to enjoy doing. He had quickly noticed, while at the Academy, that a bond existed between those who had grown up in the same circle that could never be fully achieved by a blow-in like Soren. As a result, he knew he would always be an outsider to some degree.

  It seemed that the other members of the new bodyguard were of a similar mind. With the exception of dal Gawan, none of them were member
s of the nobility. They were all men who were lucky enough to get into the Academy, and from there had worked hard and fought to carve out their career. They were all older than him, and for most of them this was the pinnacle of their career.

  Dal Gawan was the only one of them that truly belonged there. He was an aristocrat, but nobody could criticise his credentials. Being a Banneret of the Blue was testimony to his ability. When he had introduced himself, Soren felt a vague pang of regret that he had chosen not to remain at the Academy and complete his studies. He supposed there was always the possibility of returning there to complete the training at a later date.

  While Soren and the others sat at their table at the banquets, not really talking, dal Gawan moved between the groups of other aristocrats, chatting, dancing and fully taking part in the evening. It occurred to Soren that they must have seemed like outcasts, but he had never enjoyed this kind of activity after its initial novelty value wore off and he did not expect that to change.

  The Duke was always the centre of attention at these gatherings. It occurred to him that he had never actually seen the Duke before, other than in profile on one side of a one crown coin. He had assumed that he would be an older man, probably corpulent and decrepit, but in actuality he was a young man, as the numismatic depiction suggested, not much over thirty, and in good physical condition. He was still unmarried and was clearly considered attractive by the noble ladies of the Duchy. He came from one of the preeminent families of the Duchy, the elector counts, and had been elected as duke a decade or so before. It surprised Soren that such a young man would have been elected, but he did not pretend that he even began to understand the complex political machinations of the Duchy. All he knew was that once the scion of a family had served as a duke, no member of that family could be eligible for election for the next two generations. The system was designed to ensure that no one family could establish itself as a ruling dynasty and it had been successful in this aim since the founding of the Duchy, the better part of a thousand years before.

  At the second banquet he attended, Soren had spotted Amero. In such company he had known that it was only a matter of time before their paths crossed once again, but it had put him into a black mood for the rest of the evening nonetheless. Amero spotted him and held Soren’s gaze with no expression on his face for a moment before he returned to laughing with his companions. Soren looked around to see if Emeric was there. Amero’s lap dog never strayed far from his master. It occurred to him that the same could now be said for him, but in the service of the Duke.

  It came as a relief when the call finally came for them to escort the Duke out in to the city. The Duke rode in his carriage, with two of his New Guard as they were now being called, while the rest, including Soren, followed behind. The Duke was headed to the Cathedral. Despite having spent his childhood in a Cathedral orphanage, the religious liturgies taught had never established themselves in Soren’s memory and he had never actually been inside the Cathedral itself. It seemed likely that a declaration of war against Ruripathia was coming any day, and the Duke wanted a blessing on any future military endeavours.

  The carriages rattled along the cobbles of the streets with forerunners clearing the way until they passed out of the tight streets, and the rows of tall buildings fell away to the vast open space of Crossways. The square was, as always, crowded. For the first time Soren felt a twinge of apprehension at the prospect of the job ahead. In a wide-open space, with large crowds, there were any number of ways someone could attack the Duke. By bow from a rooftop would be impossible to head off; all they could hope to do was provide an adequate screen, which would mean that one of the bodyguards would take the arrow. That wasn’t a solution Soren found particularly attractive but he supposed that was part of the job.

  A direct attack would be easier to deal with. It would be easier to spot, and Soren was comfortable that no one would get past him. He hadn’t seen much of the other members of the New Guard yet, other than a little in practice sparring sessions, but they all seemed to be well able to handle themselves. You could never tell though, not until the true test came.

  They took position around the carriage and waited for the Duke to exit. One of his attendants exited first, then the Duke and another of his aides. Soren scanned the crowd, his eyes moving slowly back and forth. Their arrival was generating little, if any interest. People kept about their business, some casting a brief glance at the ornate carriage. As the Duke walked toward the Cathedral and up its steps, Soren and the New Guard walked with him in a loose ring around him and his attendants.

  Weapons were forbidden in the Cathedral, which made the bodyguard all but useless. Those that followed the rules often left themselves vulnerable, and Soren knew that if he were planning to assassinate the Duke, he would wait inside the Cathedral, with all the weapons necessary to complete the job. Screened off from too many eyes, there were plenty of places to hide in wait; it really was a very attractive option for a potential assassin. The only question that remained was if anyone was blasphemous enough to shed blood in the Cathedral. It wouldn’t have been a problem for him.

  He actually gasped in awe when he went into the Cathedral. It was the largest enclosed space he had ever been in. The training hall at the Academy had been vast, its ceiling was dizzyingly high and every sound echoed around it when it was empty. The Cathedral was at least twice the size, if not more. But where the training hall had been austere and functional, the Cathedral was magnificent. Great banners hung from poles sticking out from the walls running down either side of the nave, which led to the altar at the front, some one hundred paces distant. The banners were those of heroes of Ostenheim, there as a mark of respect to honour their service to the city. Soren wondered if his as yet unmade banner would ever hang there. When he looked to the ceiling, he felt a little dizzy, so high above him were its graceful vaults.

  Dal Gawan told them to wait by the doors, close to their weapons, which in one sense was comforting to Soren, but in another, it bothered him that they would be too far from the Duke to be of any use to him. It wouldn’t do his career any good to have the Duke assassinated on their first proper day out.

  In the end he need not have worried. The Duke conferred with the Lord Bishop for half an hour, prayed for about the same length of time, and then they were all back in their carriages returning to the Palace. Soren felt a mixture of relief and disappointment that nothing of interest had occurred. Hopefully it would not be so long until their next outing, because until then it would be little more than vapid parties, banquets and boredom.

  The relationship between the members of the New Guard began to thaw with the passage of time. It took a few days, but gradually they all came to the conclusion that they were all outsiders there, all there to do a specific job, and they were all more than qualified. The initial efforts to maintain a tough, distant air dissipated and the chat at their table behind the Duke’s became more congenial. Technically they were not on duty during the parties, where there were enough guards to put off any would be assassin. Nonetheless they were all aware of how important their jobs were and how good an opportunity they had, and with this in mind, they could never fully relax or consider themselves completely off duty. All of them carried at least their daggers and none took more than furtive sips of wine, their eyes always keen, their expressions always alert.

  Soren felt physically ill when he saw Alessandra come into the banqueting hall one evening on the arm of an elderly aristocrat. He was stuffed into an immaculate military uniform, and his hair and moustache were clearly dyed. The lines on his face betrayed his age though. She looked radiant, as she always had. The already bright room seemed to brighten with her presence. He looked away as soon as he saw her and felt himself shrinking into his seat. He didn’t want her to see him. The next time he saw her, he wanted to have been ennobled, wealthy, a great hero and famous swordsman. Not just a journeyman on retainer.

  C h a p t e r 5 4

  A CHANCE ENCOUNTERr />
  The Duke was something of an incompetent romantic. He was said to be skilled in governance, and respected by the counts and merchants of the Duchy, but when it came to women, he was useless, even by Soren’s standards. He made Soren look like a veritable lothario. The Duke was being pressured both by his advisors and family members to marry. He was already old to be single at his station in life and by all accounts his mother was keen to ensure that their branch of the family continued into the next generation. As such, she regularly arranged for him to lunch with various eligible young ladies of the Duchy. There were constant rumours as to who his potential bride might be and each time he was seen talking with an eligible young lady, the flames of these rumours were fanned once more. Other rumours were less kind about the Duke, and were intended to be injurious to his rule.

  On this afternoon, he was walking in his garden with the daughter of the count of somewhere or other. Soren didn’t bother trying to keep track of who they were any more. Soren was with him, maintaining a respectful distance, for what it was worth. There was no danger of eavesdropping as the conversation between them was stilted to the point of being non-existent. It was so uncomfortable that Soren actually felt embarrassed for the Duke.

  The gardens were laid out in geometric patterns, with bleached gravel paths between them. It was very restful and an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. It required constant maintenance and at any time there were four or five gardeners tending to the carefully shaped trees and bushes. They were instructed to keep their distance which Soren expected did not make for the most efficient work practices, as they had to keep moving from area to area to keep out of the Duke’s way.