by Anna Thayer
For most, dreams of the Gauntlet were enough. Many young men sought to realize them, and Cadet Eamon Goodman of Edesfield was no exception. He had joined the Gauntlet later than most others, and at twenty-three he was one of the oldest cadets that hoped to take their oath that day in Edesfield province.
But as he sat in the yard of the smithy where he lived, Eamon despaired of it. He had sold his hope in a futile act the night before. He had lost everything with it. How could he have been such a fool?
“Eamon?”
A young woman was passing the yard. She had auburn hair, pulled back in loose tresses. As he met her gaze her look grew worried. He realized that his pale face was stained with tears.
“Good morning,” he tried, hoping that his tone might mask what his face could not, but his voice sounded frail and hopeless even to himself. He rubbed a dirty hand across aching eyes.
“I’ve been looking for you since last night.” His friend sat down on the wall beside him. As she cocked her head at him her hair flashed like gold in the light. “Have you slept at all?”
“No.” He fell silent, staring angrily at his dagger.
“Eamon?” she prompted. “What happened?”
“What happened?” He looked at her, unable to form words. “I ruined everything, Aeryn!” he spat at last. “That’s what happened!” He flung the dagger aside, willing it to disintegrate.
Aeryn didn’t flinch. “I don’t believe that.”
Eamon looked at her incredulously. “They’re not going to let me swear!”
His words hung in the air. “That’s not the drying of the River,” Aeryn replied gently.
“Not the drying of the River?” Eamon could only stare at her. “How can you say that? You know how much this means to me!” he cried, pointing to his uniform, its distinctive Gauntlet red barely visible between rips and mud. Eamon let out a cry of disgust.
“I know what you think joining the Gauntlet means,” Aeryn told him.
“Do you? Put yourself in my place for a moment, Aeryn!”
“Eamon –”
“You know this is all I’ve ever wanted!”
Aeryn pursed her lips. “That’s not true, Eamon. I’ve lost count of the number of times that you told me your mother wanted you to go to the university.”
“Don’t bring her into this, Aeryn!” Eamon snapped. “She’s been dead for more than a decade; if she was alive I’d still be in Dunthruik, not this forsaken backwater!”
“I’m just saying that it hasn’t always been your dream,” Aeryn placated.
Eamon glared at her. “How would you know? How could I go to the Gauntlet when my father was alone? How could I even talk about it?” He gripped his dagger hard. “He needed me. He wanted me to learn his trade. And we got by without dreams.”
Aeryn laughed. “You more than got by, Eamon! You loved it. The smell and the feel of the books, the taste of story on your tongue? Your father practically had to force you to come and play with other children; all you ever wanted to do was read! That was how I first met you – sobbing, because he had taken your books away and sent you outside.” Her eyes shone. “Don’t you remember?”
Eamon did not answer her. He remembered. The books had seemed his only comfort in a world that had shorn him of home and mother in a night. He had loved them. He had loved sharing them with his father.
“Yes, I loved it. I loved being the bookbinder’s son – even after my father died. I was still a boy, but I scraped by. Perhaps I would have been happy binding books all my days, despite my struggle to buy bread. But the fire finished it all.”
She looked at him sadly. “I know –”
“No, Aeryn,” he retorted. “You don’t. My father and his books were all that I had left. Everything I loved, everything I had worked for, my home and my livelihood…”
Aeryn touched his hand. “You still had hope.”
Eamon scoffed angrily. “Being taken in by a kind-hearted smith and given work isn’t hope, Aeryn. The Gauntlet was my hope – a chance to do something better, be someone better. A chance to start again. It’s been taken from me, just like everything else.” He could not meet her gaze. “I’ve been forbidden to swear.”
Aeryn watched him hard for a moment. “What happened last night?”
He paused, and suddenly he was pushing through the trees, the smell of blood and fire in his nostrils.
“You want to know what happened to me?” he said. “I was sent to hunt for a man in the woods and I disobeyed an order to search in groups. I found the fugitive and I lost him. He got away from me and nobody caught him. And because I brought the news of his escape to Captain Belaal and Lord Penrith, and lost my dagger in the process – thus making an idiot of myself – they won’t let me swear.” His hands began to shake. “I’ve made a fool of myself and I’ve lost everything,” he said bitterly, “as I always do.”
Gently, Aeryn reached across and touched his arm. “You’re not a fool, Eamon,” she said. “If Hughan were here, he’d say the same.”
“How do you know what he would say?” Eamon retorted.
“You used to listen to him,” Aeryn answered.
“Yes,” Eamon said, and fresh, wrathful tears leapt into his eyes. “But Hughan’s been dead for eight years! For Master’s sake, Aeryn!”
Aeryn looked at him strangely. “Don’t swear by him.”
“Don’t start with that,” Eamon snapped.
“Hughan never thought the Gauntlet was where you should be,” Aeryn said quietly.
“Hughan’s dead!” Eamon cried, and then fell silent. The memory of Hughan stung at him in the long quiet. He pressed his hands into his eyes. “Ladomer thought I could do it,” he whispered. “He told me I could do it…”
“Ladomer is a Gauntlet officer,” Aeryn pointed out. “Isn’t it possible that his opinion is biased?”
“He was my friend long before he was my officer,” Eamon answered. It had been Ladomer who had finally convinced him that it was not too late to try for the Gauntlet, and Ladomer who had encouraged him, guiding him through every part of his difficult training. “Ladomer knows me, Aeryn.”
“So do I.”
As Eamon looked across at her injured face, some of his anger ebbed away.
“I’m sorry, Aeryn,” he said at last. “I didn’t mean to get so angry with you. It’s just…”
There was a pause. “I know what you’ve been through, Eamon,” Aeryn told him, “and I know how much you have longed for this day, and how much of your hope you’ve set on it. But I don’t believe for a moment that you are lost if you don’t swear. Something greater might come of it.”
“Like what?”
Aeryn shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said, “but something will come. It always has before.”
Eamon drew a deep breath. He looked down at the patches of black beneath the caked layers of mud on his boots, then back to Aeryn. He wondered whether she might be right.
“I expect I look like a beast,” he exhaled miserably, though not quite as miserably as before.
Aeryn brushed some of the dirt from his sleeves. “Red isn’t your colour,” she said with a smile.
“Maybe,” Eamon murmured.
They sat together in silence, the sun just peeking over the walls of the yard. The air chimed with the sound of the smith at work.
Eamon heard approaching footsteps. He blinked against the light. It wasn’t until the man stopped right in front of him that Eamon recognized him.
“I wasn’t sure whether you’d be here or still playing at wraith in the woods,” the man said.
“I’m here,” Eamon answered, somewhat wistfully.
“To judge by the colour of you, I reckon that you’d make a good wraith.”
“Thank you, sir,” he said sarcastically.
“You found it?”
Eamon nodded and pointed to the muddy thing on the ground. With a laugh, Ladomer picked up the discarded blade.
“I’m impressed,” he said, flickin
g it pensively back and forth across his hands. He smiled. “Very impressed, and glad, too; I won’t have to lend you mine.”
“Lend me yours?” Eamon looked at him, confused. “Why would you want to do that?”
“Because I wouldn’t want you to go and see the captain without one.”
Eamon glanced at Aeryn; she shook her head blankly.
“You know far too well that I’m not going to see the captain,” Eamon told him.
Ladomer sighed and shook his head. “Eamon, Eamon! When are you going to learn that I know a good many more things than you do?” With a small grin Ladomer came and perched on the wall at Eamon’s other side. “Captain Belaal has asked to see you.”
“Asked to see me?” Eamon snorted bitterly. “And why might that be? So that he can dress me down a little more?”
“Whence all this discouragement?” Ladomer laughed, laying his hand grandly on Eamon’s shoulder. “Anyone would think that you weren’t going to swear today!”
Eamon shook Ladomer’s hand away. “Were you even listening when Lord Penrith raked me?” he asked belligerently.
“Yes.”
“Then you already know that I’m not going to swear!”
“Were you even listening when your lieutenant said that he knows more than you do?”
“Yes –”
“Captain Belaal wants to see you,” Ladomer told him, “and he’s going to ask you if you’re prepared to swear.”
Eamon gaped. “What?”
“Wake up, Ratbag!” Ladomer laughed, tapping Eamon’s forehead like a door. “They want you to swear!”
“But –” Eamon stared at him. “But Lord Penrith –”
“– has clearly changed his mind.”
“I don’t understand –”
“Nothing new there! Do you honestly think you’re the only cadet who has ever been threatened with revoked swearing?” Ladomer asked. “You’re just the kind of man the Gauntlet wants: able and keen to serve! At least that is what I, biased as I am, think. Captain Belaal seems to think so, too, because he said that he wanted to see you in an hour. Of course,” he added, pressing the dagger into Eamon’s hands, “it has taken me a quarter of an hour to find you, which doesn’t leave you much time to get cleaned up.”
The thought snapped Eamon out of his trance like a thunderclap. “It doesn’t!” he yelped, and leapt to his feet.
CHAPTER II
With Ladomer’s help, enthusiasm, and a spare jacket filched on the quiet from the college vestry, Eamon found himself walking into the college on the stroke of Belaal’s hour. Edesfield’s Gauntlet college was small in comparison to those in other regions but, being the province’s key college, merited a captain of its own. Eamon had heard it said that the captaincy of Edesfield was thought of as an ornamental one, but Captain Belaal was by no means an ornamental man. He was harsh and blunt, quicker to condemn than to praise.
The captain’s offices were in the central part of the college. Eamon’s pulse raced as he went quickly through the corridors. There were a lot of other cadets going to and fro, and some ensigns, too. The single flame pinned to their jackets distinguished them as the men who had already proven that they were worthy of the Gauntlet and taken their oaths to the Master.
Would he be counted among their number by the end of the day?
A fierce lieutenant guarded Belaal’s office, greeting Eamon with a crushing look.
“Oh, it’s you.”
Eamon wondered what rumours about him had flown through the college during the night. Not that it would have made much difference; the captain’s lieutenant had never liked him.
“Captain Belaal sent for me, sir,” Eamon answered, saluting before discreetly straightening his jacket. The lieutenant snorted as if no amount of tidying or straightening could redeem so hopeless a case.
“Yes,” he said. “Wait here.”
Eamon waited anxiously while the lieutenant disappeared into Belaal’s door. He tried to distract himself by listening to the cadets and ensigns going about their business, and watching the central courtyard through the window. Dozens of Gauntlet were busily arranging a platform for the swearing ceremony; behind the tall stage a couple of young cadets were struggling to hang Edesfield’s red banner, showing four golden lions, on a wall. They japed merrily about how lopsided it was until their officer came and chastened them.
The lieutenant returned. “The captain will see you now, Mr Goodman.”
“Thank you, sir,” Eamon answered. Drawing a tense breath he went as crisply and smartly as he could into Belaal’s office. The lieutenant followed him, papers in hand.
The office was small but primly kept; a smaller version of Edesfield’s banner hung within, a great crown stitched into one corner. Belaal was standing near it, his large hands clasped behind his back, admiring the courtyard preparations through his own window.
“Cadet Goodman, sir,” Eamon said, drawing himself to formal attention.
“Ah yes,” Belaal laughed. He turned from the window, a broad smile on his face. “Quite an adventure we had yesterday evening, Mr Goodman.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You in particular.”
“Yes, sir.” Eamon tried not to sound nervous as Belaal’s dark eyes assessed him.
“I have had a formal report from Ensign Spencing. His opinion of your actions is, needless to say, not altogether agreeable.”
Eamon quelled a feeling of growing alarm. “Sir.”
“Report, Mr Goodman.”
Eamon swallowed once to clear his throat; he noticed that the lieutenant had sat down at a small side desk and was already making swift, fluid notes of the conversation.
Eamon looked back to Belaal. “Your orders were to capture the fugitive. Lieutenant Kentigern assigned me to go with Spencing, sir,” he said. “Passing through the trees I heard movement. Mr Spencing was neither of my ear nor my opinion. I went to investigate the noise without him, sir, and I found the fugitive, badly injured in the left arm, hiding in a clearing. I went to take him and was then attacked myself by the fugitive’s allies; I injured one before they overpowered and bound me. They left, moving south, and I took a few minutes to escape and come back to you and Lord Penrith to report.”
Belaal watched him with a sharp expression somewhere between interest and annoyance. “You are aware, Mr Goodman, that we did not catch our man last night?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Would you say that that was your doing, Mr Goodman?”
Eamon tried hard to match the captain’s gaze without flinching. Belaal had always frightened him; it was the kind of disquieting fear that could raise his whole skin to gooseflesh with a glance.
“I did everything in my power to apprehend the man, sir,” he managed. Surely it was obvious that the aided fugitive would have slipped through the search lines regardless of whether or not he had seen them? But Eamon did not express those thoughts to his captain.
“Lord Penrith is more than a little disappointed in last night’s performance,” Belaal said, leaning against the front edge of his desk so as to fix Eamon in a firm gaze. “He had it in mind that the escape could be pinned on you.”
Eamon’s blood started to race. If he was scapegoated then he might never swear: it would become a permanent mark on his Gauntlet record.
Belaal was still watching him. “Lord Penrith, however, is a reasonable man. He has retracted his objection to your swearing, in acknowledgment of your courageous attempt to take the man. It was, after all, your primary objective, and courage is prized highly in the Gauntlet.” A smile flickered on his face. “Mr Goodman, you will be delighted to know that your name, which had been stricken from it, has been marked again on the swearing list.”
Joy flooded through him. “Thank you, sir.”
“You have no duties this morning,” Belaal continued. “You will present yourself at the eighth hour for the ceremony. In the meantime,” he added, “try and resolve yourself to do nothing that might change Lord
Penrith’s mind.”
Eamon nodded firmly. “Yes, sir.”
Captain Belaal dismissed him and Eamon left the office, feeling lightheaded. The noises of the busy college seemed faint in his ears but the great red banner, which now hung proudly (and straight) in the courtyard, seemed bold and bright. That very day he would stand beneath it and take the Gauntlet’s oath.
He left the college, and as he went into the street he felt a friendly hand land on his shoulder.
“So?” Ladomer asked. The lieutenant’s eyes twinkled with anticipation of good news.
Eamon grinned. “I’m going to swear.”
Ladomer flung his arms about Eamon in an overjoyed embrace. For a moment his friend’s jubilance reminded him, sharply and suddenly, of just how close he had come to not swearing; then Eamon was laughing too, and only a little less loudly.
“Well done!” Ladomer cried, laying an almighty slap of congratulation on his shoulder.
“Thank you. Really,” Eamon added more seriously, “thank you, Ladomer. I would never have become a cadet if it wasn’t for you; my oath today is your doing.”
Ladomer smiled. “My dear Ratbag,” he said, treating Eamon to a contortedly elegant bow. “You are most welcome.”
They took a deep breath, inhaling the precious moment. Ladomer looked at him again.
“Aeryn asked whether you and I wanted to join her at the Star to eat something,” he said. “I said that we would.”
“You mean that?” Eamon asked. “You don’t have to go running off on some errand, or to some other unit in a far-flung corner of the Realm?” In his role as a lieutenant, and a gifted one at that, Ladomer was away from Edesfield more often than he was home. “You actually have time to sit and eat with us?” Eamon couldn’t remember when they had last had that chance.
Ladomer smiled and clapped him about the shoulders again. “My dear Eamon,” he said, “today of all days, my time is for you.”
Eamon beamed. “Sounds perfect.”