by Anna Thayer
“What was your vote?” he asked.
“For a comedy,” Ilenia admitted, “but a less well-known one.”
“If it is less well known, how is it in your repertoire?” Eamon countered.
“It was in the repertoire of another company; I heard it, once.”
“Which comedy?” Eamon asked curiously.
“Brothers in Law.”
Eamon paused for a moment. “I don’t know it,” he said at last.
“It’s the work of an unknown playwright,” Ilenia told him, “a little earlier than the River Poet, and perhaps an influence on him. There are also fragments of a play thought to have been written by him, based on the Edelred Cycle. Brothers in Law is the only surviving comedy he wrote, though.”
“What is it about?”
“Two brothers,” Ilenia answered. “One dark, the other fair. They are both Crown officials in a small town up River. The town itself is never named, but several references are made to a tower. Players enjoy speculating which town it might be set in.”
“Then I shall refrain from the like,” Eamon laughed. “What happens?”
“Most of the town is part of an estate governed by a rich knight. At the beginning of the play this knight wills the estate to his only daughter and to her future spouse. She tells her father that she is in love with the fair brother and he with her in return. Pleased with his daughter’s choice, the knight makes a bond with the fair brother. The brother must perform a duty for the knight in a distant province and, in return, will receive the hand of the daughter in marriage. Two copies of this bond are made, one kept by the knight and the second by the fair brother, who then goes on his journey.” Ilenia paused to allow a servant to refill her goblet, nodding graciously to him by way of thanks. Taking a sip, she continued.
“While the fair brother is away the knight falls ill and dies. The knight’s servant shows the remaining copy of the bond to the dark brother – who is also in love with the daughter – and incites his envy. In a fit of fury, the dark brother destroys the bond and the knight’s will and is tricked by the servant into helping him to write a new will and bond.
“Of course, the servant nominates himself as the lord of the estate. He hires a group of men (the text seems confused as to whether there are three or four of them) to carry out his orders on the estate, binding them to himself by means of his will-bond. There is only one copy of this document.”
Eamon set down his fork in surprise. “One copy?”
Ilenia smiled. “This, of course, means that he can alter the terms of the bond as much as he likes without being accountable to anyone. He does so, playing his men against one another and using them to intimidate the town and estate – they are comic characters, dull-witted and easily fooled.
“The servant announces that he will marry the knight’s daughter. Hearing this, the dark brother finally protests and is evicted from the house. As he leaves he warns the servant to be wary of the fair brother. The servant becomes anxious that the fair brother will return with the surviving copy of the knight’s original bond, and sends out some of his men in an attempt to stop him.
“The daughter happens to overhear the dark brother’s warnings and realizes that she must stall the wedding. She and her nurse come up with various ways of doing this, which become progressively infuriating to the servant.
“During one of these attempts to delay her marriage the daughter meets the dark brother, who is living on the estate in disguise, trying to find a way to bring down the servant. Recognizing the daughter, he confesses to her how he helped the servant to deface the original bond and begs for her forgiveness. It is an interesting speech,” Ilenia observed.
“How so?” Eamon asked.
Ilenia paused pensively. As she did so, the servants began to clear dishes from their table. “‘All this my hands have done,’” she began. “‘Mine alone is the fault, for it is I who tore the bond and went against your father’s will. Nothing but fire remains to me, who have betrayed my brother and bound his estate to blood and darkness…’” Ilenia stopped with a frown. “That is not quite how it goes,” she said, “and I do not remember the rest now – it has been a long time since the play was performed! – but the speech as a whole would work much better in a tragedy. It is full of remorse and grief – though very much out of tone with the rest of the play. I find it most moving.”
“One tragic speech was not enough to convince Mr Shoreham?” Eamon grinned.
“Not quite.”
“How does the play end?”
“The servant discovers that the daughter is stalling, and despite the dark brother’s best efforts to help her, a date is set for the wedding. That is, of course, the very same day that the fair brother returns, bringing with him a copy of the original bond. He arrives during the wedding ceremony and is challenged by the servant, who claims that the fair brother cannot prove the validity of the bond. The people of the estate are uncertain which of the two to believe. This is the point where the dark brother, who is attending the wedding in disguise, reveals himself and denounces the servant’s treachery. He highlights that there is only one copy of the servant’s will-bond and that this makes it void. The fair brother (who is also able to produce evidence of the knight’s original will) breaks the servant’s bond, stating it to be unlawful, and the estate supports him. The servant is exiled while his lackeys are released from his service and kept on to work the estate. The fair brother weds the daughter, becoming lord of the estate, and the two brothers are reconciled.”
Eamon blinked hard. “That sounds terribly complex,” he said.
“The best comedies are,” Ilenia smiled. “I have omitted a few details, but you get the idea.” Eamon nodded dumbly. “Of course, this play has the mercy of not making the two brothers twins, which is comic-law.”
“A mercy indeed!” Eamon laughed. “It sounds like a good play. Do you think Mr Shoreham will be convinced to try it?”
“Sadly, no,” Ilenia smiled. “Mr Shoreham wants to commission a new one.”
The evening wore on until the sky became thick and dark. Eamon had no idea what time it was when he dismissed the servants for the evening, and even less idea of the time when he finally felt sleep fill his limbs.
“It is late,” he said at last.
“Yes.” Ilenia had fallen quite still and her tone, so free while she discussed the play, had grown distanced and formal.
“Is something amiss?” Eamon asked.
Ilenia folded her hands into her lap. “I am to stay, my lord?” she asked quietly.
For a moment Eamon merely stared at her. His thought flew suddenly back to the Master’s words in the Round Hall, and he understood.
He looked back at her. “Madam,” he said, “the Master’s pleasure was that you lend me company tonight. That you have done, and I have been better than well answered by it. Nonetheless, it would do me great honour if you would stay, and breakfast with me in the morning.”
Ilenia lowered her gaze. “Yes, my lord.”
“Mrs Roe.”
The singer looked up, startled.
“I will sleep in my hall tonight,” Eamon told her. “My bed shall be yours, and yours alone.”
Ilenia stared.
“When you are asked if you slept in the bed of the Right Hand,” Eamon said gently, “you shall be able to give a good answer.”
Ilenia searched his face. Then she smiled. “Thank you, my lord.”
Eamon rose and took her from where they had dined, through his quarters and to his own room. Between the open curtains at the broad embrasure he saw the reddened balcony opposite his own. As he stepped into the room he thought that he glimpsed a figure on that balcony, looking back at him.
Ilenia hung back while he strode to the curtains and drew them firmly across. Then he turned to her.
“I am afraid that I have dismissed my servants for the evening,” he apologized. “If you require anything, wake me and I will serve you.”
Ileni
a gazed at him in wonder. “Thank you, my lord.”
“Good night, madam.”
Ilenia curtseyed. “Good night, Lord Goodman.”
He left the room, pulling the door closed behind him. As he did so, he breathed out deeply.
He made his way across his darkened hall to the long, dark couch that stood in one of its corners. It had half a dozen thick cushions, which he diligently piled together at one end so as to pillow his head. Then he pulled off his cloak and lay down, drawing it over him. It was more than enough cover on such a night. As he settled down his eyes drifted to the closed door of his bedroom.
He did not know what his servants would think if they came in and found him sleeping in the hall in the morning. He resolved to wake before them.
As he lay there, he drifted into thought, reflecting on the play that Ilenia had described to him. Comedies written at about the River Poet’s time usually ended with the marriage of the protagonists, and Brothers in Law was no exception to that rule. If Mr Shoreham truly did have a penchant for tragedy then Eamon could see why he would have turned down the work; the kind of comic plot that Ilenia had described tended to rely on word-play and on a good amount of physical humour – likely provided, for the most part, by the servant’s men. Eamon imagined that the plot involving the knight’s daughter and her attempts to stall the wedding was also a good source of comedy, no doubt with her twisting words and situations to double meanings and perhaps playing the servant’s men to her best advantage as well. He wondered, though, whether there might not be tragic notes there: the daughter would surely be aware that, once her stalling was unveiled, she would be forced to marry the servant?
Eamon tried re-imagining a different version of the final scene; one where the fair brother did not return in time and the daughter was married to the servant. The story would have been very different – indeed, it occurred to him that at that point the daughter would have become a tragic heroine. What would she have done? Would she have taken the servant’s life – or her own? Would the fair brother have returned just in time to hold the body of the woman who should have been his wife? Would he have returned at all?
He shook the thoughts aside with a shudder, feeling an odd relief that the outcome of the play was as it should be – the marriage of the daughter and the fair brother. Even so, the tragic outcome simmered just below the surface.
It seemed to Eamon that the tragic element in the play was maintained the most by the dark brother. Ilenia had said as much when she described his speech. Perhaps that was his role – to balance the likely comic outcome against the tragic alternative. Eamon had seen plays where other characters did similar things and knew that it took a very skilful playwright to correctly hold the two outcomes in tension. He tried picturing the dark brother in his mind. The character’s story was certainly a distressing one: tricked into betraying brother, the knight’s daughter, and estate into the hands of the servant. It was little wonder that his speech was tragic!
How had it gone? Eamon drew Ilenia’s words back into his mind: “Nothing but fire remains to me, who have betrayed my brother and bound his estate to blood and darkness.”
Eamon paused. Of course the dark brother’s speech was stricken – he had bound the estate to the servant – but fire, blood, and darkness?
As Eamon considered the dark brother’s words empathy engulfed him. How often had he felt exactly the same – that only fire, blood, and darkness remained to him? Ever since he had sworn his oath and discovered the history of his house he had grappled with the anguish of blood, fire, and dark. Such was the hideous weight of treachery – one that even Arlaith, sitting by him in the Crown when he had returned from Pinewood, had acknowledged. That same burden – of knowing that he had betrayed the rightful holder of the estate – moved the dark brother in the play.
Had Eben Goodman felt it?
The thought came at Eamon like an unexpected blow. Blood, fire, and darkness – if Eamon felt the clawing press of them, then surely Eben had? Like the dark brother, Eben had betrayed one dear to him – perhaps as dear as a brother – and he had unlawfully helped to set another in that man’s place. Indeed, the dark brother’s words might almost have come from Eben’s own mouth.
An odd stillness fell.
What if Eben had said them?
For a moment he didn’t move, scarcely dared to think. The dark of the Right Hand’s eyrie hung silently around him.
Breathing deeply, he tried to reason with himself. If the play had been written by an author writing only a little earlier than the River Poet, then it would have been written in the decades shortly following the fall of the house of Brenuin. It was conceivable that such an author had seen the fall of Allera and the founding of Dunthruik. Eamon knew that writers and poets at the time had tended to move either within or at the edges of the court’s circles – and so it was just possible that the unknown writer had known Eben. If that was the case…
Was it possible that the dark brother represented Eben Goodman?
He turned his mind to the play and its characters again, testing what he had been told about the dark brother against what he knew of Eben. He thought at once of Ilenia’s assertion that the dark brother had helped the servant to destroy the knight’s bond before lending his hand to the creation of the replacement will-bond.
“… who have betrayed my brother and bound his estate to blood and darkness.”
Eamon let out a long breath. The dark brother had betrayed the fair, just as Eben had betrayed Ede. If the fair brother represented Ede…
If the fair brother represented Ede – or perhaps the house of Brenuin – then the daughter and estate given to him by the knight’s bond had to hold another meaning. Eamon’s mind whirled. The estate seemed obvious – the lands stood for the land, for the River Realm. But why should they be willed to the daughter? In marrying her, the fair brother took lawful possession of the estate. Perhaps, then, the daughter somehow symbolized the right to govern that land. Perhaps she stood for the kingship itself.
It was the daughter and estate that the servant wanted and what he had deceived the dark brother to attain.
The servant stood for the Master.
A creeping chill settled in Eamon’s bones, for suddenly the allegory seemed terrifyingly obvious to him. Brothers in Law was no comedy – it was a play about Edelred’s rise to power.
He turned back to the story again and again, trying to wring some other meaning from it, but the interpretation he had reached would not loose its hold upon his racing thought. What else could it possibly mean?
Then he remembered the lackeys with whom the servant had drawn up a second bond and used to control the estate.
“So shall all those who are marked be bound in body, blade, and blood.”
The line Eamon had read in Arlaith’s papers flitted suddenly across his mind and he held it for a moment. How could he not have thought it before? The servant’s men were bound to him, and the Gauntlet and Hands were bound to the throned. They were bound by the marks that they had received when they had sworn body, blade, and blood to him. In the play, the bond was ratified by the falsified will.
He quietly traced the mark on his palm with his fingers. It was dull beneath his touch. By what were the mark and fire in his flesh ratified? If the play’s logic was to be followed then Eamon’s own oath to the throned – signified by the lackeys’ bond – was tied into some grander “will” of the servant’s design. The servant used the same will to grant himself authority over the estate.
And in his hand aloft – Dark Tome!
Great covenant to claim the throne!
Eamon’s blood curdled in his veins. He remembered the dire wrath with which the Master had struck him when he had given name to the long-sought Nightholt. He remembered the dreadful eagerness with which the throned had taken that same book into his hands when, bloodied and worn, Eamon had borne it to him from Cathair’s lair.
There was only one Nightholt.
He
lost his breath. Of course there was only one: why else would the Master have grown so angry losing, or spent so long seeking, it? Usurped though it was, Edelred’s right to mastery was in that book. It was one that no other man could gainsay, for there was but one copy. By that tome, Eamon knew, the “Serpent’s right” had been “made to yield”.
He drew a deep breath. The Nightholt, then, was both the servant’s will and bond. But in the play the will had been written to replace the bond by which the knight had granted his daughter and estate to the fair brother. In the same way, Edelred’s Nightholt had to be an attempt to undo or invalidate some older bond – the “Serpent’s right” spoken of by the Edelred Cycle.
Eamon frowned. It was clear that, in the play’s terms, the knight’s will remained uncontested, being greater than either the bond he had drawn up with the fair brother or the will-bond subsequently forged by the servant. In fact, the original will was the basis for both. Who, then, was the knight?
He silently searched the deepest parts of his thought and tried to summon forth some explanation, but none could be found. He did not understand who the knight might be or what exactly his will represented, but he understood that first will could not be overruled.
Even so, the servant had perversely mimicked it with his will-bond, and Edelred had done the same with the Nightholt.
Eamon understood then why Eben had sought so desperately to hide it and why Edelred had rejoiced so much to have it returned to him. He shivered. Everything came back to the Nightholt.
Troubled, he shook his head. If the Nightholt was a mockery of whatever was signified by the knight’s will – by whatever truly granted power and kingship – then surely it could not hold? Or did it hold only so long as it could not be disproved and undone?
“We await only the Serpent. I am ready, Eben’s son…”
There was sweat on his brow. Feverishly, Eamon brushed it away.
Dunthruik was fortified and prepared. The throned held his Nightholt, the book by which he had claimed and bound his stolen power. Since Ede’s death that same tome had kept the Master’s mark over the whole of the River Realm. There was only one thing left that could break it.