by Anna Thayer
Eamon wondered suddenly why that same power hadn’t saved Telo. Hadn’t he been a King’s man, too?
The cobbles wound to the River. The western docks were restricted almost entirely to Gauntlet use. Several river vessels were moored there and bobbed gently in the broad water, sails hanging loose in the dead wind like drooping leaves. Men on the runners called to one another; behind them other craft passed. The water mostly carried barges and small fishing boats heading out for a catch in the River’s even wider stretches. These craft bore lanterns on their prows, and traces of net hung over their sides. Small boys battled with their oars, trying to learn their fathers’ trade.
The ship bound for Dunthruik was mid-sized and intended for a small but able crew. Including the Gauntlet cadets, ensigns, and officers, there were to be perhaps thirty men on board. Like most of the River’s holks, the ship had a below deck. Traders generally used this lower deck to store their goods, but the holks that served the Gauntlet usually adapted much of the space into low-ceilinged sleeping quarters. Shipwrights in the Dunway and Eastport regions had first pioneered such holks, but hostility on the northern borders had seriously impeded the shipyards there – much to the delight of their competitors in the southern regions.
As the cart drew near to the ship’s sides Eamon saw barrels and sacks being taken on board, the gangplank bowing a little under the weight. A flag crowned the mast. It needed none to tell what emblem flew there.
Eamon thanked the cart driver for his services and paid him a small coin. The other ensigns climbed down, jostling Aeryn between them as they marched her up the gangplank and into the belly of the ship.
As Eamon boarded the vessel he heard a voice along the deck laugh sharply.
“I didn’t know that we were taking rats on board!” it said.
“Good evening, Mr Spencing,” he answered.
“There is a notion that one can have too much of a good thing on board, Goodman.”
Eamon glared. “I’d be obliged if you’d address me as Mr Goodman, Mr Spencing.”
“I’d be obliged if you would cast yourself off the side, preferably the starboard one, and drown,” Spencing retorted, and smiled archly. “Perhaps we should each oblige the other, Mr Goodman?”
Eamon didn’t answer him; a call from the ship’s captain drew him away from Spencing’s baiting.
“Lieutenant Goodman?”
“Yes?”
The man smiled warmly at him. “I’m Captain Farlewe. Welcome aboard.”
Eamon thanked him. “Is she a good ship?” he asked. He couldn’t help but cast an uncertain look across the deck.
Farlewe smiled. “You don’t like River travel, Mr Goodman?”
“My experience with it is rather limited,” Eamon confessed.
“You may set your mind at ease,” the captain laughed. “My Lark’s a good one; she’s been sailing the River for fifteen years, and I’ve been her captain for ten of those. She was made by the Dunway wrights – none of this Okeford nonsense. They couldn’t caulk or pitch if their lives depended on it!”
“I should avoid Okeford holks?” Eamon asked.
“You should – troublesome affairs,” the captain added ominously. He paused for a moment, and Eamon wondered what terrible things Okeford holks had done to merit the man’s professional cynicism.
“I’ve already spoken with Mr Spencing,” Farlewe told him. “There are quarters below. Ensigns and cadets go in the iron hold.” Eamon looked at him in confusion. “We used to do the iron runs from Escherbruck to Dunthruik,” the captain explained. “That’s where we stored it. It’s the biggest quarter. It’s tight, but that doesn’t bother a sleeping man too much.”
“No.”
“There’s a smaller quarter next to it which you and Mr Spencing can use,” Farlewe continued, “and the ship’s doctor has a quarter by that. Prisoners are stowed in the narrow hold, so that’s where yours is now.”
Mention of prisoners made Eamon uncomfortable. “How long will it take us to reach Dunthruik?”
“My Lark can do the run from Edesfield in just under four days, on a light load and a good wind,” Farlewe told him. “So, with the training stops for your cadets, I imagine we’ll make the city in five. Almost a relaxing voyage,” he smiled.
Eamon grimaced. He was to spend five days as Aeryn’s jailer.
“We’ll be leaving just as soon as your cadets are all on board,” Farlewe added.
“I had best not detain you from your work. Thank you, Captain Farlewe.”
“Mr Goodman.”
Aeryn had been stowed in a narrow storage hold among various casks, barrels, and crates which were travelling to the city, and would be kept there for the duration of their journey. Trying to get a sense of his river legs Eamon went down to the hold to check that she had been properly bound and to finish organizing the groups of cadets who would watch her. Parts of the below deck were so low Eamon had to duck, and he found the sound of water moving against the ship’s boards all around him disconcerting. The whole lower deck was dark and cold; he was glad that he would only need to sleep there.
When he reached the narrow hold he found that Aeryn sat among the ship’s stores and had been clapped hand and foot in irons. Her gaze met his; he was not sure whether disgust, hatred, or ire made up the greatest part of it.
“Rest yourself,” he said, gesturing to the sacking provided for her. She remained obstinately upright.
Sighing inwardly, Eamon turned his attention to the first of the groups of cadets that were to watch her in shifts. “She is to be guarded at all times.”
A smirk crossed one of the soldier’s faces. Eamon rounded on him.
“Do you have a problem, cadet?”
The cadet paled. “No, sir,” he began.
Eamon stared grimly at them. “No liberties will be taken,” he growled. “If so much as one man among you touches her without my leave, two of you will be flogged. Is that understood?”
The cadets affirmed his order. Eamon saw a strange look pass over Aeryn’s face but shut it from his mind. “In all matters regarding the prisoner, you answer to me. To your posts, gentlemen.”
It was with a heavy heart that Eamon returned above deck. He heard the crew calling to each other and tacking the sails to make best use of the paltry wind. The ship’s captain was up on the deck, speaking cheerfully with his boatswain.
Eamon found himself a spot at the stern and listened to the whistles and odd language of the sailors as they worked; he envied them their evident pride. Currents swirled like strange fish about the ship’s frame.
Soon the mooring ropes were drawn in and Farlewe’s Lark left the docks.
As Eamon watched Edesfield slipping away he saw a faint black figure on the dockside. Wondering if it was Lord Penrith, he shivered.
Aeryn had to be delivered to Dunthruik. He could not help her. How could she ever trust him again after what he’d done? She probably hated him – a thought that chilled him.
As the breeze picked up and filled the sails, he drove his hands into his jacket. His fingers felt the shape of the keys to his prisoner’s chains in his pouch; it did nothing to improve his spirits.
Later that night he passed below deck to check on his charge. A couple of cadets were there, alert and ready. Aeryn lay curled tightly on the sacking, shivering but asleep. The guards spoke softly among themselves and Eamon watched them for a moment, wondering if any of them asked the questions that he asked. Did they think about the Master, about snakes and wayfarers? Or was it he alone, just as it seemed to be he alone who questioned swearing his service to an eagle?
One of the cadets came quietly to him.
“Trouble finding your river legs, sir?” he asked.
It was the young man whom he had met in Belaal’s office earlier that day. Eamon wondered what the boy had done to be labelled an ill-performing cadet, and whether a quick trip down the River and back would really solve the problem.
Nonetheless, the boy’s concer
n brought a small smile to his face. “Only a little, cadet,” he said. “I am well.”
“Worried about your prisoner, sir?”
“She must go to Lord Tramist,” Eamon answered, not because he actually knew who Lord Tramist was, but because he had heard Belaal say it.
The boy smiled. “She’s in good hands with us, sir!”
Eamon wanted to tell the rash young fool that he could not possibly be expected to answer for a snake as dangerous as Aeryn. Instead he held his tongue and looked at her. She had begun shaking violently in the cold.
“It wouldn’t do to have her dead before we get there,” he told the cadet. “See that she’s kept warm.”
The boy smiled brightly. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Goodnight.”
Eamon nodded and drifted back to the deck and the evening air.
CHAPTER V
During the river trip Eamon spent much of his time on deck caught in a waterward vigil. In fact he spent so long there that he began to be an accurate interpreter of the jargon used by the holk’s crew.
Hierarchy on the vessel was straightforward: the captain had overall charge of the craft, the sailors answering to him, while the Gauntlet lieutenants had charge of the cadets, ensigns, and prisoner on board. The ship’s captain often discussed details of the route to Dunthruik with Eamon and Spencing, though the latter was sparingly polite in his attention to the captain.
As the days went on, Eamon found himself disliking Spencing, and the two ensigns who clung especially to him, more and more. The ensigns had been in the swearing line with Eamon in Edesfield what seemed like years before: Ensign Ilwaine (quiet and reserved) and Ensign Hill (wasp-tongued and agitated). Lieutenant Spencing was arrogant and unamiable, and Eamon couldn’t understand why the two ensigns had such an attachment to him.
These three men, and Eamon himself, formed a significant part of the group who would disembark at Dunthruik together and who presumably also comprised the finest of Edesfield’s new ensigns and officers.
Eamon kept his distance from Aeryn. Was he not a sworn man? And yet, when he lay in his bunk at night, rocking with the swaying of the Lark, he thought that he would have braved the road to hell for a good glance – but Aeryn never deigned to grant him so much as a bad one. All he received from her was, at best, fury, and at worst, indifference.
It left him caught between two equally unpleasant desires. The first was to somehow rescue Aeryn and free her before they reached Dunthruik. Once they arrived the Hands would be her escort, and though he could protect her from cadets and ensigns, he could not protect her from them.
His other desire, which grew stronger as the days passed, was to simply do what was asked of him: take Aeryn to Dunthruik and hand her over. Whispers in his mind told him that once in the city he might be made a Hand himself as a reward and come into the confidences of the Master. From there his power would be unlimited. Then Aeryn would beg for his help.
Was that what he wanted?
During his first day on board Eamon had watched the changing landscape and grown increasingly uncomfortable as the hills and valleys that he knew became thick, forbidding forests. The brooding trees huddled darkly along the distant banks, full of ghostly shimmers in the moonless night.
It was those woods and banks that made it an unexpected comfort to share the small quarter with Spencing. Since Eamon had taken responsibility for the prisoner, Spencing had never spoken a kind word to him. Still, in the dead of night with the cold gnawing at him and shadowy fears creeping along the hull, Eamon was glad to hear the breathing of another soul, even one as detestable as Spencing’s.
One thing that Eamon did enjoy was drilling the cadets and ensigns. There wasn’t much room on the deck, so the Lark stopped for several hours every day to allow the Gauntlet to drill on their own turf. Though there was nothing special about most of the lads, Eamon didn’t see in them any lack of enthusiasm or any reason why they should have been sent down the River to have their heads cleared. Once he and his charge had been deposited at Dunthruik most of them would be going straight back to Edesfield to continue training, and perhaps some of them would be posted out to the borders. Despite the sour words with which Spencing often treated them, the cadets and ensigns did not hesitate to spar or do one more lap of the banks with a double-weighted pack. They were determined young men and the thought of even one lapel pin struck fire into their eyes.
During the drill on the second morning, while the crew was taking water on board, Eamon observed the cadets finish their exercises. His thoughts were far away – so much so that he didn’t see one of the cadets approaching him until the boy was drawing himself up for a smart salute.
“Sir!”
Eamon looked up to see the beaming face of the young man whom he had first met in the swearing line. It made him feel old.
“Cadet,” he acknowledged. The cadets and ensigns had been dismissed and were returning to the holk. Eamon was acutely aware of Spencing and his ensign lackeys laughing unpleasantly, most likely at him, just over their breath.
The boy did not seem to notice. “I know it isn’t really my place, sir.” He held out his hand; in it was a small golden fruit, still wet with dew. “But I wanted to give you this.”
Eamon looked at it, dumbly. Then, at the cadet’s urging, he took it. The fruit gleamed in his palm like cool fire.
He looked back at the young man in astonishment.
“We wondered if you might appreciate a change to the ship’s rations, sir.”
Eamon resisted the urge to raise his eyebrows in surprise.
He realized that other cadets were watching his exchange with the boy. “Is this gesture on your initiative, cadet?” he asked.
“Mostly mine, sir,” the young man confessed. “And I wanted to thank you for offering to help me at Belaal’s office the other day. I’m sorry I didn’t get to thank you at the time. But I can now. It was good of you, sir.”
“It was no trouble,” Eamon told him, glancing at the fruit. He was touched by the boy’s kindness; kindness he had not felt since he had sworn. Had the throned already taken so much from him?
Service to the Master was worth any price.
“What’s your name, cadet?”
“Cadet Mathaiah Grahaven, sir.”
“And is this the kind of gesture that granted you a place on this ship, Cadet Grahaven?”
The boy grinned. “Honestly, sir, I think it was tearing the college’s divisional banner on swearing day.”
“You tore the college banner?” Eamon laughed.
“Only a little, sir,” the cadet answered. “It slipped when I was hanging it; came clean off the pole, sir.”
“Is it possible for a ‘little’ tear to bring a banner clean off its pole?”
“Lieutenant Kentigern said something of that ilk, sir. He also assured me that Captain Belaal had no stomach for my breed of carelessness. He was right about that, sir,” he added wistfully.
“I trust that you are finding yourself less careless since you began this voyage, Mr Grahaven?”
The boy nodded. “I am, sir,” he said eagerly.
Eamon looked at the fruit. “Thank you, Mr Grahaven, to you and your fellows,” he said. “I will endeavour to pull no further faces at lunch or, at the very least, to pull them where you and your colleagues cannot see them.”
Cadet Grahaven smiled. “Yes, sir.”
Saluting again, the boy hurried off to join the watching cadets. He was evidently just in time to catch a good joke; they began roaring with laughter.
“Keep yourselves together!” Spencing barked as the boys boarded.
Eamon watched them leadenly. He realized that he had seen the young man on many other occasions at the college: Cadet Grahaven had joined the Gauntlet a year after Eamon himself, though was perhaps as much as four or five years younger. In a couple of months, Mathaiah Grahaven would be sworn.
Spencing interrupted his thought. The lieutenant slid up to him and snatched the fruit.
&
nbsp; “Taking bribes, are we, Mr Goodman? Or maybe,” he added with a leer, “accepting favours? Well, each to his own!”
Eamon glared. He was struggling to find a suitable retort and Spencing knew it.
Laughing at his hesitance, the lieutenant held the captured fruit up to the sunlight, admiring it. “As for me,” he said, “your charge is a creature much more to my liking…”
“You will not touch her,” Eamon growled.
Spencing smiled. “I wouldn’t dream of it, Mr Goodman,” he said, pressing the fruit back into Eamon’s hand. The skin burst and flesh and juice smeared everywhere, including down the front of Eamon’s jacket.
“I am so sorry!” Spencing cried in an ingratiating manner. “Let me help you with that, Mr Goodman.” Before Eamon could stop him Spencing had mockingly smeared sticky mess across his uniform. Eamon seized his wrist.
“Sir?”
Hill was a few paces away; the ensign watched the two lieutenants uncertainly.
“The captain says we’re ready to loose moorings.”
Spencing’s eyes never left Eamon’s face. “Thank you, ensign.”
With a smile, Spencing primly pulled his wrist free and then straightened Eamon’s jacket.
“One must lead by example, Mr Goodman,” he said.
That night, despite the gentle rocking of the holk, Eamon couldn’t sleep. It made him irritable and as his irritation grew so, it seemed, did the volume of the creaking beams, the snoring sleepers in the iron hold, and the occasional call over deck. As he tossed over onto his other side with a grimace, he realized that sleeping in a hammock was well when one had spent the morning stringing it between two trees with one’s father and all the sleeping that needed to be done was that of a lazy afternoon. Sleeping in holks’ hammocks was as far removed from his fond childhood memories as it was possible to be.