by Anna Thayer
Eamon swallowed. “With deepest respect, sir – neither does yours.”
Waite smiled again, a long, slow smile. He went through some papers on his desk.
“So it would appear that you are a man of principles, Mr Goodman,” he said. “Mr Manners has always been an excellent cadet; he narrowly missed appointment to the Ravens himself. He is capable and quick-witted. He does not need so generous a champion as you.” When he spoke again his tone was harsher. “When Manners goes to the borders – to Galithia, or to Singsward or Scarmost; when he is in a bloody fight in the Olborough Straits, or caught unawares in the marshes between there and Rothfort, will the bastard he’s fighting stay down and politely invite his sword? In your experience, Mr Goodman, does your enemy fawn at your feet because you beat him fairly?”
“No, sir,” Eamon answered. His own memories of service on the border provinces flitted through his mind. They had been bloody times. “Ideally, he does not have the chance to fawn. But the Third Ravens are not Manners’ enemy and Manners had no cause to do more than bring his opponent to the ground.” Waite watched him, seemingly unmoved. “For the Gauntlet to go from strength to strength, sir,” Eamon continued passionately, “it needs to be based on trust. Trust breeds respect and the man with respect has loyalty; the man with loyalty and courage can lead men to places where they would not otherwise go. Mr Alben’s methods are divisive.”
“Yet men follow him, Mr Goodman,” Waite answered. “Cadet Manners will grow thicker skin, and he will survive.”
Eamon fell silent. He had kept his promise to Manners but he did not wish to set himself on the wrong side of Waite. It was time to cede the argument to his captain. “Yes, sir.”
“I had a request yesterday, Mr Goodman,” Waite added after a brief pause. “A request for a warding.”
Eamon nodded. Wardings had not been common in Edesfield but he imagined that they were an everyday occurrence in Dunthruik. The sons of those nobles too minor to be made knights who enrolled in Gauntlet colleges were often assigned to experienced officers in the scheme, which was part-shadowing and part-mentoring. The cadet became the officer’s ward, a kind of apprentice. After a year or so in such a post the cadet might be transferred to another officer or, if he had excelled himself enough, promoted. Officers in the Gauntlet often competed to become warders as it gave a good gloss to a man’s record.
“A warding request is not unusual,” Waite continued. “I receive dozens every month. Mark this well, Mr Goodman: the bane of being a Dunthruik captain is this tedious paperwork!” Waite slapped a pile of paper on his desk. “But what was unusual about this request, Mr Goodman, was not that it was made by the young man himself rather than by some doting relative, but that he asked to be warded to you.”
Waite leaned over the desk. Eamon swallowed; being a warder would seriously limit his freedom to move in Dunthruik.
“Might I ask who has made this request, sir?”
“Cadet Mathaiah Grahaven,” Waite answered, “the younger son of Baron Dolos Grahaven. The baron is a minor noble with some lands near Edesfield.”
Eamon nearly burst out laughing. Mathaiah warded – to him? He felt a wash of pride. The cadet had thought well.
“Of course,” Waite continued, “from a paperwork point of view there is no issue: it had been decided that Mr Grahaven was to be assigned to this college and that he was to go to the Third Banners, who are a couple of men down at present. He is perfectly entitled to request and obtain a warding and will have it, if you are willing. What I found myself asking myself, Mr Goodman – and I am not a man of little intelligence – was why should he choose you? What is it about you that inspires this cadet’s evident awe?” Waite smiled. “Would you believe it, but I had no answer?”
The captain pulled out a piece of paper. Eamon saw that it was Manners’ file. He watched as Waite began carefully scribing a note on it.
“Before our conversation, Mr Goodman, I was still asking myself that question. But now I think I have answered it.” The smile returned to his face. “If you are willing, Mr Grahaven will be warded to you this afternoon after your meeting. He is quite recovered, it seems.”
“I’m willing, sir,” Eamon answered. Then, catching up with what Waite had said: “Forgive me, sir, if I have been idle of hearing – what meeting?”
“You were to be on patrol duty this afternoon, but Lord Cathair has asked that I send you instead to take what you recovered from the snakes to the Hands’ Hall,” Waite answered. “Everything will be explained there.”
Eamon ate his lunch swiftly, his appetite driven by the energy of his nervous mind.
Waite had given him permission to attend Lady Turnholt’s meal that evening, provided that he presented himself in a condition fit for the keeping of the second watch thereafter. The thought of an evening with the bewitching lady would have been enough to put him in turmoil. But what concerned him the most was his summons to the Hands’ Hall. Presenting himself before the Hands would be no simple affair, and he knew only too well that it would be an occasion for wit and caution.
He rubbed anxiously at his palm. If the Hands learned of his purpose then he would not even make it to Serpentine Avenue. He reminded himself sternly that he was a King’s man and the First Knight. Would he not be protected, should the worst come to pass?
He wolfed the end of his meal and left the mess, aware that Alben had watched him unforgivingly throughout. Eamon ignored it and hurried to the main hall.
He found Cathair already there, speaking with Waite in lowered tones. As Eamon emerged he saw Cathair’s pale face break into a grin while he clapped Waite on the back. Both laughed and then Lord Cathair raised a cordial hand towards Eamon in greeting. Eamon bowed.
“Mr Goodman! I shall be your escort.” The Hand looked once more to the captain. “A pleasure, captain, as always.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Waite answered.
Eamon fell into step with the Hand and they left the college, turning down the steps into the Brand and then onto the Coll. Stalls had appeared down the myriad side streets and people threaded through them, bartering wares. The sun rolled low, and a chill breeze from the port sent ripples through blankets and mats that hung from windows and balconies.
The paved road to the palace seemed longer than it had the previous day. Eamon looked at the palace gates where pennons snapped and fanfares played as nobles and knights rode out together. Amid the sounds of the busy city Lord Cathair’s continued silence was unsettling. Eamon had grown accustomed to the Hand’s banter.
Lord Cathair took him into the palace through the side gate and then to the Hands’ Hall. He escorted him through a sequence of stone-guarded doors to the central courtyard where stood another building. Writing was engraved on the door in strange, unfamiliar letters. The rigid and incisive script made Eamon shudder.
A second door, dark as obsidian, lay beyond the first. Wind moved against Eamon’s face as it yawned open.
Cathair gestured for him to step inside. “You will be seen very shortly.” Nodding, Eamon stepped over the threshold. The door shut fast behind him.
He found himself in an oval room fashioned from the same black stones as the door and threshold. The hall was wide and open. Five chairs stood at its far end, four level and the fifth higher and grander than the others. Each chair had shapes etched on it – he distinguished birds and trees – while the strange writing that he had seen on the doors was everywhere. Narrow windows let in slits of light.
Suddenly five Hands were in the room with him. One was Lord Cathair. Eamon did not recognize the other four. He didn’t know how they had entered or how long they had been there. They seated themselves before him, four in the lower. Startled, he understood that they were Dunthruik’s Quarter Hands.
The Hands’ black garb was rimmed with gold. One bore a red stone about his neck: a black eagle was marked upon it. It was this Hand who took the highest chair. Eamon realized with grinding horror that it could only be the Right Ha
nd.
He bowed low at once. Against the light and the stone he could not see any of their faces; they were carved figures issuing from the surrounding stone.
“Lieutenant Goodman.” It was one of the lesser Hands who spoke. His voice was rich and affluent; it wasn’t Cathair. “Come forward into the circle.”
For a moment Eamon was too terrified to move. Then he forced his limbs to the circle in the central part of the hall. The space before the chairs was lit by the windows, and red stones marked where he should stand. It unnerved him, reminding him of the stones over the doors to the hall. What powers might these hold? Unwillingly, he stepped into their embrace.
Fire rushed in his palm. Closing his fingers he dropped down to one knee.
“My lords,” he breathed, wishing to be very far from there.
“Lord Cathair and Captain Waite have spoken much of you,” the speaker continued. “The Master wished to meet with you himself but that must wait for the present. Know that we, his Hands, act in his name and with his authority.”
“His glory,” Eamon answered.
The speaker descended from his chair and strode to where Eamon stood. He had brown, hollow eyes in a face so pale that it stole Eamon’s breath. In comparison to this man, Cathair beamed with health.
“I am Ashway, Lord of the East Quarter. Show me the papers.”
Not daring to rise, Eamon handed them to Lord Ashway.
He’s a seer. Eamon’s blood ran cold as Waite’s words ran through him. His hand burned. What would happen to him if Ashway discerned that the papers were false? Would it not surely be wiser to confess now, and live?
Words were bubbling to his lips but he somehow held his tongue. Ashway’s eyes danced swiftly across the words before he laid his hand over them: the mark on his palm began glowing through the parchment. Eamon held his breath. When their gazes met, the man’s face was unreadable.
“The stone, Lieutenant Goodman.”
Eamon bowed his head so as to pull the chain up over it. The heart of the King came out from his jacket. It blazed a brilliant blue.
Ashway set his fingers to it and fell still. An expectant silence waited on him. Eamon tried to still his throbbing heart. At last, the Lord of the East Quarter turned to the Right Hand.
“It is the stone, my lord.” His voice seemed breathless.
The Right Hand nodded once. Eamon had barely had time to take in the gesture when a spectral face flashed past him and fingers clasped his brow. The Hand’s touch was lightning.
Searing pain drove into his head. His vision changed.
He saw the plain – but now the sky was blackened. He found that he still knelt and that he was bitterly cold. Pressure and pain beat in every part of his head and he could not fend it off. His hand roared with flames and the eagle rose on his palm, pulsing in his living flesh. All about him seemed fire – all but the heart of the King. It lay against his breast, a beacon.
Eamon clenched his fist in alarm. It stopped neither burning nor pain nor light. He forced himself to look up and saw that visions moved in the rushing wind, fleeting impressions of places and people he knew. They were his impressions, his own memories.
He was being breached.
Striving, Eamon rose to his feet. A figure was in front of him. The face was pale, its eyes aflame, and the figure’s black robes guttered in the driving wind. The shape before him was all he could discern.
“My lord,” he quivered. “What would you know?”
“Whether you are true.” The Hand’s voice shuddered in his ears. “Show me the holk.”
Suddenly they stood on the holk, or in his memory of it. Eamon saw himself speaking with the captain. He could not stop it. The Hand watched, unmoving, as events unfolded.
Eamon saw at once how this breaching would end: with his secrets revealed and his incarceration, torture, and grisly death. All this was likely to be followed by the chilling testimony of his severed head impaled on a pike over the Blind Gate. Driven by fear he tried to tear away.
A rush of pain as the Hand wrenched his memory in another direction. Recoiling, Eamon gaped.
He had not been prepared for this – what could he do? He could wait as much as he wanted for the King’s grace to save him, as it had saved Aeryn, but that would reveal him as effectively as any breaching. The Quarter Hand had to be the city’s greatest breacher. How could he hope to hold against such a man? There was no escape. Was he to fail before he had even begun?
Desperate, Eamon stared at the shadowy figure. The Hand’s eyes were transfixed by the memories unfolding at increasing speed before them. He saw everything. Eamon’s whole mind lay open.
Was it a two-way process?
The thought snapped through his pain. Forcing focus, Eamon stared earnestly at his assailant. A memory appeared – not one of his own. He caught a glimpse of the Quarter Hand, his fingers gripped about Mathaiah’s forehead and his powers frustrated by something that he did not understand. This Hand had tried – and failed – to breach Mathaiah.
Scarcely daring to breathe, Eamon glanced at the Hand again. His incursion seemed to have gone unnoticed.
He looked back to his own memory and saw himself rushing onto the deck of the Lark to face Giles. In only moments his healing of Mathaiah would be shown and all would be lost. He had to do something. Eamon drew together the tangled thoughts about them, fixed on them with all his heart and willed another vision.
It was that simple. He watched with delight as Aeryn leapt forward and healed Mathaiah in his stead. The Hand looked across at him and a sharp twist of agony ran through him, but Eamon did not falter. He wove his design subtly through his own memories, showing them as they needed to be seen. As Mathaiah had done in his telling of their capture, Eamon was careful to highlight Giles and the man’s brutality towards him. It was not hard to do. What damage would twisting and changing do? He did not know and he had no choice. Every thought and word, every single moment was vetted until they reached the present. He trembled with the effort.
The sweeping visions disappeared. There was a final pulse of pain before his own sight was restored. The brain-grinding pressure left his head and he collapsed to his knees, crippled with fatigue. His eyes seemed dark and he could barely think.
The breaching Hand returned to his seat. He seemed to speak to the others but Eamon could not hear them. He was sensate only of the Right Hand’s gaze. The Hands’ forms flickered around him, brushed by an unseen wind.
“Lord Cathair will see you to your warding.” Crawling across his shaking flesh was the voice that belonged to the Right Hand. “Keep the stone for the present, Mr Goodman. Use will be made of it and you very shortly.”
“Thank you, my lords,” Eamon managed.
He staggered to his feet and bowed, blinking feverishly in an attempt to clear his vision. Leaving the hall, light burned his eyes. He flinched from it with a miserable groan.
His sight slowly returned to him. The first thing he saw was Lord Cathair, surveying him with piercing interest.
“‘Any kind of man bear I, save he whose skill is like to mine’.”
Cathair laughed at Eamon’s obvious shock. “It would seem that a promising breacher does not relish encounters with his own kind?”
Eamon shook his head. He couldn’t speak.
“Not every man is breached by Lord Tramist on his second day in Dunthruik, Mr Goodman,” Cathair told him. “I trust that you found the experience informative.”
Eamon shivered. He realized then that the Hand who had breached him was the same man to whom Belaal had meant to send Aeryn.
Cathair smiled. “Come with me, Mr Goodman.”
Lord Cathair led him back to the West Quarter College and to its raven-marked buildings. They passed through the well-lit entrance hall and into a pillared corridor to another set of rooms. Despite being in a Hand’s quarters these doors were not marked with the strange red stones. Through one open door he caught a glimpse of an achingly large library.
&nb
sp; They came to a corridor lined with marble benches. Mathaiah, resplendent in a new uniform, sat quietly on one of them. The cadet fidgeted with the sleeve of his jacket, and every now and then glanced at the door in front of him. Eamon thought that he could hear Waite’s voice inside.
As they approached, Mathaiah leapt at once to his feet and bowed low. “His glory, my lord.”
Cathair treated the cadet to a round smile. “I will go and prepare for you, gentlemen.”
The Lord of the West Quarter disappeared into the doorway, pulling the door closed behind him. Soon his voice mingled with Waite’s. After listening to the indistinct sounds for a few moments, Eamon sat carefully next to Mathaiah.
“Cadet,” he acknowledged warmly.
“Sir,” Mathaiah smiled.
Eamon looked at him, wondering what he could possibly say. “Are you feeling better?”
“Much restored, thank you.”
Cathair reappeared and gestured for them to follow him.
“There’s just a small formality, gentlemen,” he advised, “and a disproportionate amount of paperwork.”
The room held a desk and a few rows of chairs. A notary was behind the desk, shuffling his quill and papers. Several other Gauntlet officers were also in the room, among them Captain Waite and the West Quarter College’s draybant, Mr Farleigh – distinguished by his four flames.
Lord Cathair led Eamon and Mathaiah to the desk where the notary was seated.
“We will begin.”
The notary began to write.
“Gentlemen, you are here to ratify and witness the assignment of Cadet Mathaiah Grahaven as ward to Lieutenant Eamon Goodman. Captain Waite,” Cathair continued, “do you confirm that Lieutenant Goodman is under your command?”
“I do, my lord.” Waite’s voice was grave enough but had the manner of one who had been through the ceremony a thousand times.
“And do you pledge as to the competence of Mr Goodman?”
“I do, my lord.”
“Lastly, will you pledge as to his good faith and service?”
Waite smiled. “I do, my lord,” he answered confidently. Eamon’s gut twisted guiltily. “To all these I pledge my word.”