by Anna Thayer
“Eamon Goodman, First Knight to Hughan Brenuin.” The Gauntlet officers stared at him as he said it.
“Thank you all, and welcome,” Hughan said. He gestured to the chairs about the table. “Please be seated.”
As with one motion, all those in the room sat. A couple of the Easters – Feltumadas in particular – eyed the Gauntlet officers with distrust.
“Let the council be advised,” Hughan began, “that these officers have come on behalf of many, and that their surrenders have already been accepted. As such, they will be treated with respect.” The King’s gaze took in the whole table. “This meeting,” he added, “will discuss the expiating of guilt and disbanding of the Gauntlet.”
A heavy silence fell on the room. Disbanding the Gauntlet was necessary – Eamon knew that perhaps better than any of them – but as the words were spoken, he looked at the red uniforms that the officers bore, and the thought saddened him. In that moment the red jackets had about them a tragic grandeur.
“The Gauntlet is guilty of nothing more than following its orders,” Waite said. His voice was firm but tired.
“The Gauntlet was bound to Edelred in foul oaths,” Leon countered. “It bears his mark and his guilt, and killed all those who stood against it.”
“Haven’t you done the same?” Waite asked, his eyes flashing angrily. “More men of ours than yours lie dead upon the field.”
“Any of your men would have been better left to the dogs than the earth’s embraces,” Feltumadas retorted. “And so they would have been, had matters been left in my hands.”
“Then I thank the house of Brenuin that it saw fitter than to follow your suggestion,” Waite replied, his eyes passing to the King. “But I shall thank it for little else.”
Eamon’s heart churned. Could the general not see that the King was true, truer than any other man?
Waite’s gaze passed over his. The general’s expression grew harder. It was an unpleasant blow and Eamon bore it in silence.
“The Gauntlet and the knights committed atrocities in Edelred’s name,” Hughan said quietly, “and not only in times of war. They have long been agents of torment and oppression against the people of this realm. The blood that has been spilled must be answered for.”
“Did you not guarantee us our lives, Star of Brenuin?” Waite asked. “Or is your mercy in going back on your word?”
“My word holds. This city has seen too many culls and too much bloodshed,” Hughan continued, squarely matching Waite’s gaze. “In place of blood for blood, I would have the Gauntlet answer for what has been done in coin, as was done in times long before Edelred took the throne. The Gauntlet’s payment will be used to repair the city and to assist the people of the River Realm. Some will go to the Easter lords.”
“Blood money,” Waite said quietly. For a moment his face was caught between an expression of disgust and relief. “Tell me, O Star: how much are we to pay?”
“Each serving man shall pay sixty crowns.”
Eamon blinked – it was half a year’s wages for most Gauntlet. Though it would not be impossible for them to pay, it would be difficult.
“That is a harsh sum,” Waite replied.
“It is no recompense for the sons of my land that have been slain,” Anastasius answered grimly, “nor can it ever answer for those lives lost in the Pit, or the lives of your own people.”
“Not every life lost to the hands of the Gauntlet was lost unfairly.” It was Anderas who spoke. “Not every man killed by the Gauntlet was a servant of the King, and not every man killed was innocent. Some were thieves and murderers who cared nothing either for Edelred or for the house of Brenuin. Those men we dealt with also. Do not forget that the Gauntlet has been an instrument of the law.”
“Edelred’s law,” Leon replied.
“Apart from money to acquit our so-called guilt,” Waite said, “what else will this council require of us?”
“Nothing,” Hughan answered, “bar the laying down of arms. The Gauntlet will be disbanded, its insignia burnt, its men released from their oaths. They shall then be free to establish themselves in this land as men renewed, settling according to their desires and with my blessing.”
“Will your blessing protect a man who once wore red from a knife in the dark?” Fletcher asked.
“Ungrateful cur,” Feltumadas spat, almost rising from the table. “He has already offered you more than you deserve.”
“Lord Feltumadas,” Hughan cautioned. His voice gripped the hall at once. “These men have come in peace and at my bidding.”
“Yes, Star,” Feltumadas answered, casting a final glower at Fletcher.
Hughan looked back to Fletcher. “I will do everything in my power to protect those who once wore red.”
“The Gauntlet cannot idyllically return to hoes and fields,” Waite said, “nor even to trades, even if they knew them before.”
“Not all of them,” Hughan agreed. “It is my hope, general, that after a time some of them may take another colour.”
A shocked silence fell.
It was Anastasius who first spoke. “With due reverence, Star,” he said, turning quietly to Hughan, “these men were bound to Edelred. How can you propose binding them to yourself?”
“They are fit for the gallows and precious little else,” Feltumadas fumed. “There is not a man among them who can truly clear his name or hands by paying. Their guilt cannot be expunged so easily and it is no mercy to pretend that it can.”
Suddenly Eamon found his voice on his lips. “You cannot know, Lord Feltumadas, what these men have endured.” All the eyes in the room turned to him and his voice grew in anger as he spoke. “How many of these men knew what it meant to bend their knee to Edelred when they received marks on their palms? How many of them understood, when they strove against wayfarers or Easters, the battles that they fought? How many of them ever thought of a King, a true King, as more than a figment of a childhood imagining or a diseased mind? Maybe none of them. Should they be outcast and hounded for that, or for a colour that they donned when they knew no better?”
Feltumadas looked grimly at him. “I think you paint them with too simple a brush, First Knight.”
Eamon saw Hughan raise an eyebrow. As their gazes met, the King nodded. Eamon turned to answer Feltumadas.
“Only one thing about the Gauntlet is simple, Lord Feltumadas: they are men. They gave service, unto their lives, for Edelred. Is it wrong that they should be afforded the chance to do the same for the King, and in better heart? There is honour, courage, and loyalty among them no less than among the King’s own. You do these men wrong to call down curses on them, to denounce them and revile them. I have walked where these men walk. I know what they know and I tell you, Feltumadas, that red is also a noble colour.”
“Red is no more noble than black,” Feltumadas said spitefully. Then his face suddenly grew grey as he realized what he had said, and to whom.
Eamon looked at him with anger. “Both are noble.”
There was a pause in which Eamon felt the room stare at him. Perhaps the greyest faces of all were those of the Gauntlet, who could not comprehend that the man who wore blue and sat beside the King spoke for them.
Hughan’s hand alighted on his shoulder.
Drawing a deep breath, Eamon tried to calm himself. “I say to the council that many of the Gauntlet are noble men, with skilled hands and able hearts. If a man turns to the King he should be welcomed with joy. Why should it matter, when he turns, whether that man once wore red, or black?”
“Of course it matters!” Feltumadas answered.
Eamon looked at him. “If you would cast out a man that has worn red or black then you must cast me out also,” he returned fiercely, “for I have worn them both.”
“I know you to be the Star’s from what you have done,” Feltumadas answered, looking only a little cowed. “These men will have done nothing.”
“Except turn to me,” Hughan interjected calmly.
The Easter seemed taken aback. “Forgive me, Star. But if they do not turn?”
Caught up in his fury, Eamon did not allow Hughan to answer. “They are still men enough to take up arms!” he cried. “You demean them and slander them, and yourself, to make that worthless, which you do when you speak of sending them to the dogs like…”
“Like a Hand?” Feltumadas snorted and shook his head.
“Hands are a different case to the Gauntlet, First Knight,” Ithel put in quietly, leaning slightly across the table towards him.
“I would agree, Lord Ithel,” affirmed Hughan. Their eyes turned to Feltumadas.
The incensed Easter gave Eamon a curt look. “You may speak for the Gauntlet as much as you like, First Knight, and perhaps I shall cede to you, but you cannot speak for the Hands, nor can you claim suffrage with them or intercede for them.”
“The Hands are not beyond the King’s mercy,” Eamon told him. “Have you not heard what Febian did, or of the lives that he saved?”
“We know of the lives he took,” Leon put in.
“That was long before those he saved,” Eamon replied. “Why is it so hard to believe that a Hand might change? Did you never hear of Lord Ashway?”
“Lord Ashway?” Feltumadas gaped. Confused looks passed about the table. Feltumadas laughed unpleasantly.
Hughan watched him appraisingly. “Why do you laugh, Lord Feltumadas?” he asked. His voice was calm, but Eamon guessed that the King’s patience for the Easter’s outbursts was practised, and perhaps waning.
“Star, even I know that he was there at the beginning, when Ede was slain! His hands were steeped in blood from the beginning. From the beginning!” Feltumadas shook his head bitterly. “Never could Ashway have been received by you.”
“Were you with him at the end?” Eamon retorted. In his mind, Eamon saw the Hand, bound and weeping: “I will say nothing to him of you…”
Eamon glared at the Easter, tears in his own eyes. “At his end Ashway knowingly defended a King’s man from Edelred, at the cost of his life.”
“How would you know that?” Feltumadas demanded.
Eamon looked straight at him. “Because I was with him at the end, and I am the man that he saved.”
There was a long silence. Apart from the King every man in the room gaped like a fish out of water. Anderas’s face went wide with realization, as if he finally understood what he had witnessed in the East Quarter the night that Ashway had lost his life. Longroad and Fletcher both stared at him. Rocell’s face was twisted in an odd mixture of awe and fear. Only Waite seemed little moved.
Eamon drew a deep breath. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter. “Neither you nor I, Lord Feltumadas, can speak as to whether the King will accept a man into his service. But I do not believe that any man, if he truly turns, is beyond it.”
Quelled at last, Feltumadas sat back in his chair. “Of the former you have the right of the matter, First Knight,” he said. “I earnestly hope that I shall live to say the same of the latter.”
Eamon felt a light touch on his arm. He turned and Hughan nodded to him. Silent and shaking, Eamon sat.
“I will welcome any man who would serve me,” Hughan said firmly, looking at the men before him. “Any man, be he Gauntlet or Hand, thresholder or knight. But let him first wrest his heart from old oaths.”
“What of the knights?” Rocell asked. “Are they to be stripped of their titles and their lands?”
“No,” Hughan answered. “Any man still living who held land will hold some still, though in the months to come what they hold will change. The knights and nobles will be required to pay, just as the Gauntlet – they too took oaths to Edelred, although not as binding. From them the sum shall be fifty crowns.”
Rocell nodded quietly then looked up. “It will be done,” he said.
“Thank you, General Sir Rocell,” Hughan answered him, then looked to Waite. “Will the Gauntlet accept also?”
Waite sat silent for a long moment. Eamon felt the general’s eyes on him, and perhaps he saw a look of pride touch the general’s face.
“We have laid down our arms. These terms also will we accept,” Waite said. “We will pay, and we will disband.”
“Are you all in agreement?” Hughan asked, looking at the others.
“Yes,” the captains and lieutenants answered in turn.
“Thank you,” Hughan answered.
They proceeded to discuss the arrangements as to how the money was to be gathered and paid, but Eamon heard only parts of it. His blood still pounded with his stirred passion.
Shortly the meeting concluded. The Gauntlet officers were escorted from the room. At the King’s dismissal, men rose from the table all around Eamon. Standing himself, if somewhat unsteadily, he crossed the room to Feltumadas. The Easter lord finished exchanging a few quiet words with Ithel. He laughed a little as Eamon approached.
“The Gauntlet has a fierce champion.”
“Lord Feltumadas –” Eamon began, but Feltumadas stopped him.
“I must ask your pardon, First Knight,” he said. “This is not my court and I should not have spoken to you as I did.”
Eamon looked at him in surprise. “I will be frank, Lord Feltumadas: I did not expect an apology from you.” Feltumadas laughed. “I wanted to offer you an apology of my own.”
Now it was the Easter’s turn to look surprised. “I shall hear it, but only out of curiosity.”
“I do not retract a word of what I said,” Eamon told him, “but I perhaps could have expressed myself more calmly. Like me, you spoke out of the heat of your heart, and it was not wrong of you to do so.”
“The Gauntlet and the Hands will be the object of much hatred and scorn in the months and years to come,” Feltumadas answered. “Many will speak against them as I do; it is right that someone should also speak for them.” He smiled. “They could not have chosen a better defender.”
“Thank you,” Eamon replied. Feltumadas bowed once to him and took his leave. Eamon gazed after him.
As men left the room Eamon found the King at his side. “Did I dishonour you?” he asked.
“Dishonour me?” Hughan repeated. He seemed surprised.
“I grew angry.”
“With reason,” Hughan replied. “You spoke fearlessly and well. The Gauntlet have long been the arm of a man who cared nothing for them. To know that the First Knight himself pleads for them, braving the wrath of the Easters and many wayfarers, will give them hope.”
Eamon paused before he spoke.
“I too will pay,” he said. “I should pay more than any other man – I was Gauntlet, and a Hand, and a Right Hand, and many were the times that I shed blood that should not have been shed. Worse than that, I shed it having given my oath to you.”
Hughan nodded. “It would be a valiant act – and a right one.”
They stood together for a moment, the silence of the hall all around them.
“What happens now?” Eamon asked quietly.
“The Gauntlet will disband, renouncing their oaths,” Hughan answered. “We will destroy the Nightholt, committing it and its Master to the flames. There will be a procession in two days’ time; the announcements have already gone forth.” He paused and looked up. “When that is done, First Knight, we can set this city and this land on the long road to peace.”
Peace. The word hung in the air like longed-for birdsong on a distant hill. The battles had been fought, and won, but peace was still far away. It would have to be made, and kept. Eamon’s heart shrank before the thought of the countless meetings, the petty wars and trade disputes, the rebuilding of cities and towns, and strengthening of infrastructure, the swaying of men’s hearts… These things and many more lay on the road about which the King spoke.
And then there was Alessia.
“Neither peace nor righteousness can be yours, Eben’s son.”
The voice had died with Edelred, but the remembered words shocked through him like a blow. Pain drove through his s
houlder and he drew a sharp breath.
“Eamon.”
Blinking hard, he looked up. His mind whirled. How could he ever be a man of peace? He could not even make peace with the woman he loved. How could he then serve the King?
Hughan’s keen eyes watched Eamon’s face with concern, but Eamon resisted his desire to speak aloud what troubled him. Had the King not been burdened enough with his First Knight for one day?
“It is nothing,” he said distractedly.
Hughan looked long and hard at him. “Lying will never protect me, Eamon,” he said, “and it will not help you.”
Eamon was horrified. “Hughan, I never meant to…” he faltered.
“Then do not,” Hughan replied simply. His gaze softened. “What ails you is not nothing. You have borne much, First Knight, and there is much still to bear. You see the days of mourning, you carry the burden alone, and you ask, when will comfort come? For you do not see it.”
Eamon felt as though he gazed upon the radiance of a living star. The King’s face was loving and resolute, undaunted by the road ahead.
“But comfort will come. Courage, Eamon,” Hughan told him, “for you will know peace, and you will live to see peace restored, and I tell you that you will live to see it become an inheritance even of your own house. Look to that, Eamon, and take heart.”
Eamon met the King’s gaze and his courage returned to him. He knew that the King spoke the truth. He knew also that though the road ahead was long, he had chosen to return so that he might walk it.
“I followed you to war, Hughan,” he whispered at last. “I will follow you to peace.”
CHAPTER XXV
Though the stones and streets of Dunthruik rang to the beat of rain during the next day and all of its night, the early hours that followed brought with them fresh skies and birdsong that reached up towards fading stars. It was the twentieth of May.
In those grey hours before the dawn, the city stirred. From every street and every house, the men and women of Dunthruik came forth, their shoulders covered against the pre-dawn chill with cloaks or shawls. In the quiet, each one turned their steps through the streets towards the Four Quarters. From the colleges and from buildings made into hospitals or holding areas, from every quarter and every gate came the Gauntlet and the knights, the thresholders and the militia. Like the people of Dunthruik, they too turned towards the city’s heart.