by Anna Thayer
“Yes,” Hughan replied, “but he has so far refused to come out of holding. He is one of the few Hands in the realm – and the only Hand in the entire city – that surrendered,” he added.
“He must be afraid. May I speak with him?”
“Whenever you wish,” Hughan answered.
CHAPTER XXVI
That evening Eamon left the palace. He returned to the West Quarter College, where his officers were based, to brief them on the latest news from the other quarters. After dismissing them, he called for Manners.
“Mr Manners?”
“Sir,” Manners answered. The young man had proved himself a very able hand in the quarter’s affairs, and had swiftly won the approval of the King’s men with whom he worked.
“I understand from Giles that you are the fount of all West Quarter knowledge,” Eamon began.
Manners smiled. “So he calls me, sir, in moments of what I am sure are utmost sincerity.”
Eamon laughed. “Can you tell me where Waite resides?”
“With his sister, Lady Alben,” Manners answered. “She has a house not far from here – Caulders’ Way, I think.” Manners looked at Eamon carefully. “You’re going to see him, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Would you give him my best?”
“Of course.”
Eamon left the college and took himself out onto the Coll. The scent of high summer was all about him.
The house was down a quiet cobbled side street, which led south from the Coll. Grateful for the evening light, Eamon threaded his way past the doorways, and under the hanging balconies. He had done the same on that bright morning when he and the hobilars had come through the city, claiming the streets for the King.
Now he walked alone, and though he knew that many people still had much to mourn, the air about him seemed at peace. It was a feeling he had not often felt in Dunthruik, and for a long moment he stopped to let it fill his senses.
The Albens’ house was well sized and well kept. A small flight of steps led from the street up to its door. Lights shone within. He knocked.
For a long moment there was no answer. Then he heard a voice on the other side of the door.
“Who is there?” it called.
“Eamon Goodman.”
The door drew open and the light fell on Eamon’s face. Waite stood in the threshold, keeping the door only narrowly open. Lady Alben stood behind him, her face pale and worry-creased.
“What would you, First Knight?” Waite asked, his voice crushingly formal. His limp right arm was still bound in a sling.
“I have not come as the First Knight,” Eamon answered quietly. “I am sorry, Lady Alben, to intrude on your house. I hope you and your husband are well.”
“Her husband fell on the field,” Waite replied harshly.
Eamon looked at the frightened lady and his heart turned in remorse. “I am so sorry, Lady Alben.”
“It was not your doing, sir, any more than my son’s death was,” the woman answered.
Waite looked at Eamon but Eamon did not meet the gaze.
Lady Alben drew a shuddering breath and looked at him again. “I thank you for your kind words,” she said, “but I am sure you did not come to speak with me.”
“In truth, I came to speak with your brother,” Eamon replied, then met her gaze again. “I am sorry, Lady Alben, for what you have suffered, and hope that you may find comfort and kindness in the days ahead.”
The lady watched him for a moment, then bowed her head. “Thank you,” she said, then looked at Waite. The man still held the door defensively in one hand. His gaze was filled with anger. “Let him in, Alduin,” Lady Alben said quietly.
Silently Waite drew back the door and stepped aside, leaving just enough room for Eamon to pass. Climbing the last of the steps, Eamon did so. The door closed heavily behind him.
Lady Alben led them both to a small side room. There were some chairs in it on a broad, faded carpet.
“You may speak in here. You will not be disturbed.”
“Thank you for your kindness, Lady Alben,” Eamon told her.
A faint smile passed over her face. She looked once to her brother and then withdrew, closing the door.
For a moment, Waite and Eamon stood and watched each other. The piercing quality of Waite’s gaze pricked at Eamon, and in it he felt the hurt that the man bore.
“Mr Manners asked me to convey to you his best and warmest wishes.”
At last, the former general drew breath. “Please thank him.” He looked at Eamon with a guarded gaze. “You have come as a guest into my sister’s house. Do sit, First Knight.”
Feeling awkward, Eamon took the chair offered to him. Waite sat heavily down across from him, and held his gaze in the long silence. Eamon found that he could not speak.
After a time Waite gave a snapping laugh. “Is it possible that the Star’s First Knight has become dumb since he entered this room? You have been many things, Eamon Goodman, but you have never been dumb, nor have you yet borne the appearance of it.”
“The King told me that you mean to leave the city.”
Waite bitterly threw back his head. “I cannot believe that you would come here about that!”
“Of course you can.”
Waite stared at him. “My sister doesn’t believe that you had any part in her husband’s death,” he said, an unpleasant glint to his eye.
“I didn’t,” Eamon answered levelly. “Lives slain on the battlefield cannot be counted in the same way as lives lost away from it. You know that.”
“And her son?” Waite countered viciously.
Eamon looked at him through pained eyes. “For that I have paid,” he replied. “His was not the only life I regret taking.”
Waite looked at him silently, then shook his head in disgust. “He was sent against you,” he said, the bitterness in his voice increasing. “For that – for you – he lost his life.”
“I know. I regret that many who were dear to you have died because of me,” Eamon told him.
Waite looked at him suspiciously for a moment. “My cadets.” Waite bore the look of an outraged father on his face. “Long before the battle many of my boys lost their lives because of you.”
“The deaths of ‘the good men’ was Arlaith’s doing.”
Waite stared at him. “You implied, after you killed him, that Lord Cathair was the author of those deaths.”
“I believe that he was,” Eamon answered, “and that he was working with Arlaith. Both of them hated me.”
“Why would Arlaith –?” Waite began.
“I had taken his place,” Eamon answered.
“They were not men as petty as that,” Waite answered, shaking his head.
“Not as petty?” Eamon had to take a moment to recover himself. “Don’t you remember when they meant to decimate my men after Pinewood? They did that to strike at me. They would willingly have killed every single man.” Waite remained silent. “But they were not just petty. Though Cathair did not know it, Arlaith meant to challenge Edelred.”
Waite laughed. “Don’t be absurd!”
“Arlaith took the Nightholt and withheld it from Edelred because he wanted it for himself,” Eamon told him. “Tramist was a conspirator with him, and Ashway, too. When I became Right Hand I became a threat to him and his plans.” Eamon paused. “It was not the only reason he had to revile me.”
“Knew about your Star, did he?” Waite griped angrily.
“Whether he knew or not, he killed your cadets to strike me.”
“He killed them?” Waite shook his head with a snarl. “No, Goodman, you did. You betrayed the Gauntlet: you killed them.”
Eamon stared. “I never betrayed the Gauntlet.”
“How was it not betrayal,” Waite yelled, “to lead them onto the field and then leave them there?”
“I did not leave you,” Eamon answered. “I did everything that I could to save you.”
“Is that what Anderas thought he was
doing?” Waite asked, his voice quieter but bitter still. “Is that why you’ve come now?” He laughed. “To save me?”
Eamon measured his gaze unhappily. “I came to ask you to change your mind, and stay.”
Waite gave a grunting, resentful laugh. “Stay? For what?” he asked. “To kneel before Hughan Brenuin?” He spat the name viciously.
“He is the King,” Eamon replied.
“And I am an old man,” Waite replied, his voice growing louder and more wrathful as he went on. “My years of service were spent beneath your King’s enemy. Your Star has taken every badge of my honour and burnt it, on a pyre, as though it were testimony of felony and I were worth little more than a dog!”
Eamon stared at him. “The King has never treated you as less than the man of honour and worth that you are. The Gauntlet was never ignoble for serving Edelred. All the same, it is now that the Gauntlet has its nobility to win.”
“I heard you speak at the meeting,” Waite interrupted. Eamon fell silent and watched as the former general sat, touching at the palm of his limp right hand with his left. “I know your view. You spoke well.” He looked up suddenly, and laughed. “Since you first came to Dunthruik, Mr Goodman, you have spoken well, and men have spoken well of you. Sometimes I wondered why there were so many snakes in the West, in my quarter. There were many – Grahaven, Manners, probably half of the cadets who died were, too.”
“They were not,” Eamon answered, “but, whatever their colour, I loved each of them no less than you.”
Waite paused for a long moment, pressing at his mark-less hand. “On the battlefield I understood that the number of snakes was not my doing; it was yours. You were always a King’s man, but I never saw it and I never stopped you. That shames me, Mr Goodman. Because had I seen and stopped you, this story would have been very different.”
“You would not have turned me,” Eamon told him quietly.
“Maybe not,” Waite answered ambivalently. “I always liked you and have been at times prouder of you than of any other man.” His gaze hardened. “But, for all my fondness, I would have struck you down had I known what you meant for this city. It is only my shame, and that old care, which keeps me from doing so even now.”
Eamon measured his gaze. “And your arm,” he said quietly.
Waite arranged how the limp limb hung in the bandage. “It might have been better if it had been amputated,” he mused. “I shall not use it again.”
“Will you…” Eamon faltered. “Would you let me heal it?”
Waite drew a deep breath and laughed bitterly. “No, Mr Goodman,” he said. “I shall bear this arm away with me and retire with my shame. Both shall be the prizes of my stupidity, the fruit of my service.”
“You bear no shame.”
There was a long silence. Waite held his gaze. “You would have me go and bend my knee to your King? You would have me add that to what already lies on me? I will not; I cannot. Do not look so alarmed,” he said, laughing at the expression on Eamon’s face. “Be assured that I will do as I have promised and has been commanded of me. I will take up no arms against your Star and I will advise any who ask me that they would do well to pay their blood money and go free. These things I will do; but I will not humble or humiliate myself before your King. I did not turn you,” he said, “and you shall not turn me.”
Eamon watched him for a moment. Waite matched his gaze evenly, and Eamon understood at last that he could not be swayed.
Slowly he rose to his feet. “I am sorry to have troubled you, and your sister, with my coming,” he said. “I would say but one thing more.” Waite raised a derisive eyebrow at him. Eamon steeled himself against it. All the words that he had hoped he might say to the man before him – a man whom he had served and loved – he now knew would likely always go unsaid. But still, he spoke.
“It was an honour to serve under you, sir.”
Waite’s gaze seemed to soften a little. “I mean you very little offence, Mr Goodman,” he said, “when I ask you to go.”
Eamon left.
Eamon lay awake for a long time that night. His dreams, when he slept, came upon him like blows. But he could not remember them when he started awake, searching for her hand; all he felt then was the moonlight streaming through the window onto his clammy face.
When the morning came at last he took himself down through the palace to the East Wing holding areas. They had been designated as detention rooms for some of the higher-ranking knights and officers. A series of storerooms had been converted for the purpose. In one such room Febian was kept.
The guards at the door bowed to Eamon.
“Good morning, First Knight,” one said as he rose.
“I’ve come to speak with Febian.”
The guard raised an eyebrow. “He is no longer here, sir.”
“Oh. Can you tell me where he is?”
“No, sir. When the duty went down to deliver him food this morning, they found him fled.”
Eamon couldn’t mask his surprise. “I thought he was refusing to come out?”
“Yes, sir. He did leave a letter, sir; it’s addressed to you.”
Astonished, Eamon took the guard’s direction to Febian’s former quarters. He found a small but reasonable room, well tended and lit.
The letter lay on the bed, its markings those of a man who had written in a hurry. As Eamon unfolded it, something chinked to the ground. Light from the high windows helped him to locate its whereabouts: a small silver ring.
Eamon tightened his hand about it. He knew the ring. He had once taken it from under the eyes of the throned himself to return it to its keeper. He had last held it in the Pit. Had Febian come by it there?
He looked then to the letter. Its lines were rushed, but their fluidity marked a man of no little learning:
Lord Goodman,
I know the price that will be demanded of me for my service now that your colours hold sway: I cannot pay it. That I leave this city with my life is all I can hope for.
This ring was given to me by one in the Pit – he asked me to give it to you. I trust that you know its meaning.
Febian.
Eamon sighed. He had hoped to come to Febian and be reconciled, perhaps even to call the man who might be Dunthruik’s last Hand to serve the King. He did not know what haven the man would find outside the city.
He tucked the letter inside his jacket. Perhaps once coronation and wedding had been solemnized and the city set back in order, he would look for Febian. And then they could have peace.
CHAPTER XXVII
Passing through palace corridors, Eamon found his heart darkened. Waite was still a shadow, fluttering darkly at the back of his mind. Like Febian, he had made Waite a pawn.
He, too, knew that pain.
He drove the thought of Arlaith down deep into the pit of his mind, hoping to cage it there. He would never have had Ladomer’s apology even if he had lived; Ladomer had meant every part of what he had done.
They could never have had peace.
Would he ever have peace with Alessia?
He walked swiftly to the Round Hall. The hall had many passages leading from it, and a group of men waited at its centre, Anderas and Giles among them. Anderas’s head was tilted back as he gazed at the ceiling and its paintings. As Eamon approached, Anderas gestured to a part of the painting up in a distant corner of the ceiling, a smile on his face. The wayfarers about him, however, looked no more enlightened.
Eamon threaded his way past the other moving people to reach those that waited for him. He was glad to see that Anderas could still be relied upon for interesting architectural and artistic comment.
“What am I missing?” he asked, turning his own gaze upwards for a moment.
“Not much,” Anderas answered brightly. “Just an example of an oft-maligned style of –”
“Good morning, First Knight,” interjected a wayfarer.
“Good morning each,” Eamon replied, looking at the men in turn. “I’m sorr
y to have kept you waiting.”
“We weren’t waiting long,” Giles answered.
“I am glad of it, else you would all have been experts in oft-maligned art styles long before me,” Eamon replied. “Shall we go up?”
The group moved across the hall. Eamon looked about the palace again: it chimed to the melody of King’s men working. His heart cheered to witness it.
As they made to leave the hall, Eamon caught sight of a group of women passing along its far side. He paused for a moment, for a group of women in the palace was a strange and delightful sight. Aeryn walked at the head of the group; a few of Hughan’s guards followed her. She spoke with a woman to her right, and then the group stopped for a moment while Aeryn spoke to one of the guards.
It was then Eamon noticed another face that he knew – how well he knew it! He knew its every contour, knew how a hundred shades of joy, sorrow, kindness and fear could move across the fair skin. That face looked up and caught his gaze across the crowded hall, and pierced through him like a blade.
It was Alessia.
For the briefest of moments what he had seen in Arlaith’s mind flashed before him – Alessia, kneeling and weeping wretchedly before the Right Hand – and grief and remorse welled in him. Had he not seen what Arlaith had done to her – what she had endured for him?
He longed then to race across the hall, to wrap her in his embrace. Whatever else might pass between them, she needed to know that he knew everything she had done for him.
Their eyes met. The look froze him. He felt himself flush red with shame. How could he have treated her as he had done?
She lowered her eyes; her face darkened. It was as if she could not bear to look at him. The injury he took from it was keener than any he had received from Ladomer.
Would she not even give him a chance?
He began to quake. Haltingly, almost imperceptibly, he tried to step towards her. Surely she would at least hear him, even if she could not look at him? Her name bubbled to his lips.