by Anna Thayer
Edelred waited for Hughan.
CHAPTER XI
Eamon did not sleep that night.
As traces of light touched first the sky and then the dim walls of his hall he heard the faintest sounds of his servants moving about on their morning errands. After the long, waking dark, those sounds were sweet to him indeed.
It was not long before the servants’ door opened and he heard footsteps approach. Belatedly he remembered that he was lying on the chaise longue rather than in his bed and that the servants should not know it, but even as he sat up, he realized that it was too late.
Cartwright passed through the hall towards the dining room. He carried a breakfast tray. As Eamon came upright, the servant froze in his tracks and stared in surprise at the Right Hand, whose cloak was still wrapped about him like a blanket.
“Good morning, Mr Cartwright,” Eamon managed.
“My lord,” Cartwright answered. “I have brought breakfast for you and your guest, my lord.”
“Thank you,” Eamon replied. “Please do continue.”
Cartwright bowed and went on into the dining room to his work. With a deep breath Eamon rose and followed him. He watched as the servant set everything upon the table: a bowl and goblet for the Right Hand, another for his guest. Cartwright moved swiftly. Though he said nothing, Eamon knew the thoughts of Alessia’s former servant were on the closed bedchamber door.
“Mr Cartwright,” Eamon said softly. “I have need of your discretion.”
Cartwright nodded silently.
“None must know that you found me sleeping this morning in my hall,” Eamon told him. “There are some expectations of me that I will not keep, but which I cannot openly defy.”
Cartwright hesitated.
“She is a married woman, Mr Cartwright,” Eamon answered, “and I am not her husband.”
There was a moment of silence. “Yes, Lord Goodman.” Cartwright finished laying down what he had brought.
“Thank you,” Eamon said.
Cartwright bowed then gathered his tray under his arm. He returned to the hall and, setting the tray down a moment, turned his attention to the chair where Eamon had lain during the night. He tidied it with swift, expert hands, and then beat the creases out of Eamon’s cloak before setting it firmly over the Right Hand’s shoulders. No word passed between them as he worked. As Cartwright stepped back, Eamon heard the sound of movement from the bedchamber.
“Thank you, Mr Cartwright,” Eamon said quietly.
Cartwright bowed once. “My lord,” he said, and left by the servants’ stair.
Ilenia appeared in the bedchamber’s doorway. She came gracefully down into the grey hall towards him.
“Good morning,” he greeted her.
“Good morning, my lord.” She curtseyed deeply.
“Did you sleep well?”
“Yes, thank you. And you?”
“Well enough,” Eamon answered. He wasn’t sure whether she believed him or not; her face remained pleasantly unreadable. “Will you join me for breakfast?” he added, gesturing towards the dining room.
Ilenia’s eyes followed his hand to the breakfast table. She smiled. “It is not even dawn, Lord Goodman,” she laughed. “Why is it that we are both awake and thinking of breakfast?”
“In fairness to my house, it is not I who thought of commanding breakfast at such an hour,” Eamon offered. “But I seem to be more of an eagle of the day than an owl of the night.” He looked at her. “So, you see, I can explain my waking. And you, madam?”
“I heard you speaking,” Ilenia answered.
“I am sorry if I woke you.” Eamon wondered how much she had heard.
“I do not mind it, my lord.”
Eamon smiled. “That is gracious of you,” he told her. So saying, he led her to the table in the dining hall and invited her to sit. Taking a seat beside her, he poured her a glass of wine. His hand shook slightly, for the Nightholt still dwelt in his thought.
Ilenia watched him. “You are tired, Lord Goodman,” she said quietly. “Perhaps, my lord, you are also troubled?”
Eamon set the jug down. “Yes,” he murmured. “I am troubled. But I may not speak of it.”
He dearly wanted to. As his desire to speak strove with his need for silence, his thought turned to Alessia. She had been such a comfort to him…
He felt a sudden touch on his hand and gasped, for when he looked up the touch was real. But it was not Alessia’s – it was Ilenia’s.
Slowly he pulled his hand away.
“Have I offended you, my lord?” Ilenia asked into the following silence.
“No,” Eamon answered, earnestly meeting her gaze. “You have done nothing but delight me since I met you.” He fell silent again. He could not guess where she was that morning, nor how she broke her fast, nor with whom, nor what she would rise to wear and do and say that day.
How he missed her.
“I remind you of someone,” Ilenia guessed.
The words drew him out of himself. When he looked up, the singer searched his face; he could not guess how much she saw or read there.
He closed his eyes. “She is gone,” he whispered.
“No.” Ilenia’s dark gaze assessed his face. “Forgive me, my lord. She is with you still. And you are grieved.”
An angry furrow marred his brow. “She betrayed me,” he said, “and not me alone.” Alessia had betrayed Mathaiah. How could he forget it?
Ilenia still watched him carefully. “Did she speak to you of it?”
“When the hurt was done,” Eamon answered bitterly.
“And did you hear her?”
Eamon stared at her. “I let her speak,” he retorted, his bitterness increasing. “She could not undo the wrong that she had done me by mere words and tears.”
Ilenia held his gaze for a moment. “Two hearts, Lord Goodman,” she said quietly.
Eamon fell silent. His rage at Alessia fed on him.
He sat in silence for a long time then reached for his goblet and drank. Thoughts of the long night returned to him. They crossed in dark waves across his face.
“If I might be so bold, Lord Goodman, I wonder whether you lied to me before.”
Eamon gaped. “You are bold indeed!”
“You said that you slept well enough,” Ilenia explained. “I think that you did not sleep.”
Eamon looked at her. He knew that she spoke the truth.
“If I slept badly, madam, that was not your doing,” he told her. “The Serpent is coming,” he added at last. “It troubles me.”
“It troubles many.”
“But I am not simply troubled, madam,” he answered. “I am afraid.” The confession seemed strange, but she received it.
“Why are you afraid, my lord?”
For a long time, he did not answer.
“When the day of battle comes,” he breathed, “and the Serpent unfurls his banner on the field, I must keep the gate of this city.” In his mind he saw the sword and star raised over the plains and groves and vines of Dunthruik, set against the Master’s and the city’s eagles. He shivered. “I fear that, on that day, all the things for which I have striven will come undone.”
Ilenia gave him a compassionate look. “Why should they?”
Eamon met her gaze uncomfortably. “Mine is blood that has undone this city before. Perhaps,” he whispered, “I have already undone it.”
For a moment, Ilenia watched him in thoughtful silence. “Forgive me, Lord Goodman,” she said, “for a second time, I fear that I must gainsay you.”
Eamon looked at her curiously.
Ilenia was undeterred by his silence. “You are a noble man of great heart – so much is clear. I do not doubt that some things have been given to you to do, or to undo.” She paused and her eyes searched his face. When she spoke again, her voice was quiet, but determined. “Though you may have the task of watching at the gate, the saving or undoing of this city is not your charge.”
Eamon gaped, astonis
hed. “How do you reach that?” he breathed.
“You are a watchman, Lord Goodman,” she told him, “and you have been preparing this city for when the Serpent comes. Then your time of watching will be at an end.”
Tears blinded him briefly. He blinked them away. She was right, and it terrified him.
“When all my watching is done,” he whispered, “what will be left to me?”
Ilenia matched his gaze. “The test of your heart,” she told him. “For then, you must come down from the watchtower and draw your sword beneath the banner that you serve.”
There was a long silence.
“Where did you learn to see the hearts of men so keenly?” Eamon asked.
“It is your heart that I see, Lord Goodman,” she answered. “Take courage. Take breakfast, too,” she added, and lifted the basket of breads towards him.
Eamon stared dumbly.
“Thank you,” he breathed at last.
For a few minutes they ate and drank together in silence. The sounds about them were those of the palace rising to another day, and the sun continued climbing beyond the rim of the world.
Eamon looked at Ilenia again. “You will remember what I said to you yesterday evening?” he said. “If any man asks after your company?”
“Yes, my lord,” Ilenia answered. “Thank you.”
“It is the very least that I can do.”
Eamon paused to drink. As he set his goblet down, the doors to the hall opened. Seconds later a man burst into the room.
“Mr Fletcher,” Eamon said in surprise. His lieutenant looked pale.
“Your pardon, my lord,” Fletcher garbled breathlessly, throwing himself into an untidy bow, “but you must come at once.”
“What has happened?” Eamon asked.
“The port,” Fletcher cried, gesturing towards it. “It’s under attack!”
Eamon sprang to his feet. “Cartwright!” he yelled.
Cartwright appeared at once. “My lord?”
“Have Madam Ilenia escorted home. Madam,” he added, turning to her, “please accept my apologies.”
He did not wait for either of them to answer. Stopping only to seize his scabbard and sword, he rushed through the door.
Eamon and Fletcher tore wordlessly down the steps and into the plaza. The stable hands were already there; Sahu was saddled and waiting. Fletcher’s horse stood beside, flanks quivering from the ride it had already made.
Right Hand and lieutenant leapt into their saddles. Eamon grabbed Sahu’s reins and wheeled towards the palace gates. The cobbles shuddered through the limbs of both horse and rider as Eamon drove his steed into a gallop, Fletcher close behind him. Men fled from their path.
They raced up the Coll towards the Sea Gate. Before they reached the quay stones Eamon heard the cries of battle and the smell of smoke thick in the air. They bolted through the gate onto the waterfront. There, Eamon drew his horse to a sharp halt and stared.
The port was a churning lake of fire.
The quarters’ storehouses on the dockside poured violent, billowing smoke and leering flame into the harbour and the air. As the fire guttered, the South Quarter storehouses crumbled. The flames engulfed the wares awaiting transport. Almost half the city’s cogs and a dozen smaller vessels burned; masts withered and prows buckled as voracious flame devoured them. One ship was deeply staggered in the water at the harbour mouth, men pouring over its sides in terror, some only to be caught and drowned by hissing wreckage. Long slicks lay on the water and these also burned, giving out choking smoke. Walls of fire enclosed the port, trapping those within.
Just beyond the flame of the dying ships in the harbour mouth were three ships and half a dozen small holks, much like the one which had borne him from Edesfield. The ship nearest the mouth was a great cog. In that whole terrifying expanse of fire and water it was to the cog’s mast, and to its flag, that Eamon’s eyes were drawn.
The flag was blue.
There were men on the harbour walls: attackers dressed in browns and greys and armed with flaming bows, shooting at ships, men, and wares. The waterfront, which had been filled with traders and civilians with the breaking of the day, was a mass of terror.
As Eamon threw himself down from his horse, reinforcements arrived. Uniformed Gauntlet raced into the port and onto the walls while the attackers harried the Master’s fleet. Men from the North Quarter charged along the length of the harbour’s north wall, and the attackers, seeing their danger, turned their bows from red-sailed ships to red-shirted men. One man fell as, with a wrathful hiss, the arrows loosed. Screams of warning were answered by anguished cries.
Having loosed their charge, the wayfarers retreated along the wall. Reaching its end, they scrambled into a waiting boat. The wounded Gauntlet prepared to follow them. One man in grey was struck by a bolt and tumbled from the wall into the churning water.
More cries sounded from the south wall. West Quarter troops charged the length of the wall towards the enemy. The wayfarers fell back rapidly before them. Struck by an arrow, a Gauntlet man toppled into the water. Encouraged by the retreat, the Gauntlet pressed on, but suddenly the air above them was riven with a volley of flaming arrows from beyond the harbour wall. Men stumbled with cries of pain.
As the remaining Gauntlet pursued their quarry, the wayfarers piled back into their boats and withdrew. The largest cog, itself surrounded by the remains of flailing, flaming ships and treacherous fire slicks, retreated from the harbour mouth to the open sea. Another hail of arrows flew from the south, pinning the Gauntlet behind the walls.
Suddenly sense returned to Eamon. “Fall back from the walls!” he commanded. He raced towards them to make his call heard. “Fall back!”
The Gauntlet heard and obeyed. As he ran, Eamon looked again to the harbour and saw that the cog had reached the safety of the open water. It left a river of flame and death in its wake.
It was then that a thick whoosh shuddered the air; a burning missile hurtled over the south wall towards another storehouse. The Gauntlet on the wall, retreating with their wounded in tow, saw it too. The air filled with their cries as the missile smashed into the waterside. The building blossomed into a flaming quagmire.
Horrified, Eamon turned to his lieutenant. “Fletcher!”
The lieutenant reached his side. “My lord?” he shouted above the din.
“Form fire-fighting crews – now!”
As Fletcher raced off, one of the nearby storehouses collapsed; Eamon covered his eyes against the barrage of smoke and ash that burst from it. He fled for the south wall. As he ran, he saw a group of bodies lying in the rubble on the blackened quay.
With a sick stomach he raced up to them. They were uniformed in red and pierced with arrows – all but one. He bore traces of black beyond the stinking flesh that hung in brittle flakes from limb and face. What was left of its charred hand bore a ring, unscathed by ash or flame.
Eamon’s face twisted with horror. As smoke and rage caught in his throat, he knew that he could not stop to think on it.
He looked back to the waterside, searching for men amid the fire and wreckage. More troops arrived from the Sea Gate. They ran towards him, an officer among them.
“Lieutenant!” Eamon yelled.
“Lord Dehelt?” The screaming officer struggled to see through the moving columns of smoke. When his eyes at last found Eamon, his face turned pale.
“Dehelt is dead,” Eamon answered. “I am Lord Goodman. Assign your men to fire fighting.” Bodies bobbed face-down in the water. The Master’s ships, and those of his merchant allies, crumbled in hissing pools of timber. “Do it now, lieutenant!” Eamon yelled.
The officer left, barking orders to his men as he went. They soon returned with water and buckets. More Gauntlet staggered down from the north wall covered in smoke.
Eamon looked again at Dehelt. Driving down the bitterness in his heart, he took the man’s ring, turned, and made for the south.
There too men returned from the tatt
ered wall. Ensigns and cadets piled back down to the quay. As Eamon arrived, Febian reached the quayside. The Hand’s face was horror-stricken.
“Febian!” Eamon yelled.
The Hand turned to him. “Lord Goodman,” he answered. His hands shook holding the reins. “What in the Master’s name happened?”
“Call the surgeons!” Eamon retorted. “There are wounded as well as dead.”
Febian snapped out of his shock. He nodded and charged off. Waite and more men from the West Quarter arrived through the Sea Gate.
Eamon reached the men returning from the south wall. “Report!” he yelled.
The nearest man looked up at him. “Eleven lost, at least two injured,” gasped the ensign. “There were caltrops and arrows on the wall.”
Eamon nodded. He was about to turn away when he saw the last ensigns come down from the wall. They bore the body of an injured man. He had an arrow in his side and was marred with blood and grime. Eamon gasped.
It was Manners.
He rushed forward as the ensigns brought Manners’ bleeding body down from the wall. The men carried their lieutenant to a sheltered part of the broken waterfront and laid him down on the stone. Manners erupted into a fit of coughing that brought pools of blood through his lips which splattered his ashen face. His eyes were dull.
“Get a surgeon!” Eamon commanded the nearest ensign. “The rest of you fight the fires!”
The ensigns raced away. The docks filled with shouting men, cracking fires, and the rush of water poured by pump and bucket onto what remained of Dunthruik’s harbour.
Eamon looked down at the lieutenant. “Manners?” he said. He pressed the young man’s hand. “Manners?”
No answer. Eamon looked up desperately. The port was flooded with Gauntlet and militia fighting the fires – and he should be with them, commanding them. As he knelt there, the Gauntlet brought other injured soldiers and laid them next to him.
The surgeons arrived moments later. One looked at Manners, solemnly shook his head, and moved on to the next wounded man.