The King's Hand (2 page)

Eamon realizes that Lillabeth is in danger and smuggles her out of the city. The following day Arlaith takes retribution by ordering a decimation of all those who have served under Eamon. Eamon defies him by leaping to take another man's place in the line, and demands to see the Master.

Eamon is taken before the Master. Edelred gives him seven days to leave the city and return with the head of one of Hughan's allies. If he succeeds his men will have their honour restored – if he fails, they will all be killed.

Eamon goes to the Pit where Mathaiah is imprisoned and asks for his friend's forgiveness. It is granted. With this as his only comfort, and with the lives of men that he loves resting on him, Eamon leaves Dunthruik.

Dread now seemed all his yesterdays,
Grave folly each tomorrow;
Yet courage on that blackened field
Sought he, and still he followed.

The Edelred Cycle

P
ROLOGUE

T
he chill, grey sea was to the west, its waves rolling to meet the outpour at the River's mouth. Cold drove against his face and whipped his cloak behind him. Upward glances showed him the eerie half-light, and he knew that the sun loured behind the swell of the horizon.

He cursed it.

He clung to the dark. It fled from him, unheeding. The stars, caught high in the fading black, were as faint as his hope.

A day had passed since he had challenged the command of the Master's Right Hand. Just a single day since he had seen the Lord of Dunthruik shatter the heart of the King and set him on this desperate task.

Was it really a day since he had seen the Pit riven with light?

He rode on. He could not think of rest.

It was the twentieth of February. The day pressed against his heart with the keenness of a blade.

Seven alone remained.

C
HAPTER
I

A
grim dawn was already dunning the sky when he found himself crossing the River by ferry and then following one of its tributaries to the south. If only he could fly down the valley – ride with the force of tempests, striking clods and stones with the speed of lightning, leaving dust fulminating in his furious wake… then his task would not be so forlorn.

Ladomer had always been the rider… Why wasn't he swift and strong, like Ladomer?

Why had he been so foolish?

With soft words and a tug at the reins, Eamon bade his horse stop and then dismounted. Fatigue coursing through his limbs, he leaned for a moment against the patient creature's side. It indulged him in his weary moans.

How could he ever hope to find Hughan in time?

Eamon pressed his eyes shut. Faces lurched before his mind – of militiamen, cadets, ensigns, officers, and a dear captain…

They had all been placed in his hands by the Master, to be impossibly bartered for the head of the King's ally.

He paced, trying to force blood back into frozen limbs. He had to go on – he had to find the King.

And if he did – what then?

Hughan could never grant him the head of an ally; Eamon could not save his men without it. His task was as farcical as it was hopeless – and the Master knew it.

Groggily, Eamon took his bearings. Crossing the River he had come down into the province of Southdael. Ashford Ridge was in the heart of the region, farther south. Though Dunthruik lay a hard ride behind him, the Master's shadow was still his saddle-mate.

Eamon stared at the struggling sun, haunted by his thoughts. His failure was certain – but his return? If he did not return… he would never have to face the deaths of his men – or what Cathair left of their corpses.

He pressed his hands into his eyes as though to drive away a mist. There was no question of not returning. He had given his word, to Anderas, Manners, Mathaiah – and the throned.

He drew a deep breath. The Master's glory was forged from such things.

Quivering, he strode to the nearby stream. The smell of the Pit, dire and fetid, clung to him. As his horse watched him quizzically, he removed everything that he wore and then threw himself into the water before he could change his mind. A thousand needles pierced his skin.

His whole body pulsed with the pain of submersion, but when he came up he at last felt some touch of the sun.

The morning was not old when he set off once more. Eamon saw the sea, though more distantly, to the west. He used it as a bearing as he pressed south towards Ashford Ridge, where the King's camp had once stood. He wondered whether the King's ill-fated harriers had stalked him through these same valleys.

He rode throughout the day, stopping more regularly than he would have liked. Further south groups of fallen men, some Gauntlet, others wayfarers, littered the roadside.

He continued more cautiously then, fearful of encounter. If he did not meet the wayfarers, how would he find the King?

In the agony of his thought, he rode on.

 

It was nearing evening when a dark line materialized before him. Eamon made out the spires of a forest over a ridge. He recognized it, and the particular glint of the River behind him. He remembered Overbrook, lying in his own blood, and Giles, writhing.

He shivered.

As he approached the eaves he began weaving a slow path through the trees that guarded the hollow beyond. The trees soon grew too thick to ride through, and he dismounted. He took hold of his mount's bridle and laboriously picked his way towards the edge of the ridge. The disappearing sun elongated his shadow until it melted into the forest floor.

His horse snorted, disapproving of the terrain. Murmuring encouragement, Eamon urged it on.

They reached the ridgeline. Eamon gazed into the twilit hollow below. It took him a few moments to register what he saw. His hope fell, stillborn.

The camp was gone.

The shadowed hollow stared vacantly at the sky. It was not entirely empty. Where standards had blown but two weeks before, a long line of turned earth lay. Above it was a pole carrying a length of blue cloth, a meagre memorial to the men who had lost their lives there.

He wished he could feel sorrow at the death of men who served the King, or joy that some had lived to bury their dead in honour. But he felt only despair.

He only had seven days to return to Dunthruik. And Hughan was gone.

Trembling, Eamon led his horse down a small path on the hillside. It wound unsteadily to the hollow. As he went, the graves became clearer. Spoiled prints of man and beast, wagon and cart, were everywhere. The tracks led to the hollow's southern entrance, where Eamon had seen Easter banners joining the encampment.

In that narrow mouth were other shadows. He walked towards them.

More colours – a torn red tabard hung against a tree.

Looking beyond, Eamon saw what easily numbered a hundred mounds of earth, many more than had lain beneath the King's colour. His heart churned.

He knew that the Gauntlet had tried, and failed, to take the King's camp – he had never stopped to think of the dead. Perhaps it was a mercy that the commander of this wreckage had been killed. Cathair would have taken more than the man's head in vengeance for the humiliating defeat.

A dark copse marked the far edge of the valley. More shadows lay by it. Eamon realized that there was no turned earth there. Beneath the trees was a group of ruthlessly discarded bodies, rotting. They wore black.

The ground beneath him seemed to churn. His reeling thought conjured the cries of the dying in the gloom.

He ran his hands over his eyes and shivered. Hughan could never forgive him for the evil he had done in Dunthruik – all that he could be worthy to receive from the King was a death sentence. How could he have thought otherwise? He had been a fool to imagine that he and Hughan could be reconciled just because he had gone to Mathaiah in the Pit. His place was among the sable corpses: bruised, bloodied, broken, and with no standard to mark it.

He shook his head. Whatever Hughan might do to him when they met, his task remained that of finding the King.

But Eamon could not track the camp. It had rained, leaving the ground changed and muddy. No man could track in the sodden sludge.

Eamon looked to the trees as though they might be able to aid him. The ridges and darkening skies watched him in silence, just as the throned had watched him.

He took hold of the pouch at his neck. The heart of the King lay hidden there, the broken shards silent beneath his touch.

There had to be something he could do.

He had failed.

“I have not failed.” His voice sounded frail in the grey stillness.

He had failed before he had even begun.

Eamon drew a deep breath. There was a way; there
had
to be a way.

He strode back into the hollow, back to the banner of the fallen King's men. The cloth stirred in the breeze, the impaled star rippling against the darkening sky.

Suddenly Eamon lifted his head to the silent ridges.

“I know you see me!”

His horse started but he persisted, raising his voice to reach the distant heavens. The stars threw his words back at him.

“I know you hear me! My name is Goodman. I would go before the King!”

He heard his voice echoing up the ridge.

The hills were silent. The trees glowered back at him.

He laid his hand against his horse's neck as the long echoes of his voice faded away.

Silently he buried his head against his horse's warm throat. What use was it? He was lost. He would never find the King in time. Why had he interfered with the Right Hand's decimation? What had he honestly thought he could save? If he had only kept still and quiet, as Cathair had told him, at least some of his men would have lived. Why had he spoken? He could have saved them better by his silence, and done so without humiliating himself. Now his men would die, and he had made himself the Right Hand's enemy. That was the price for his idiotic high-mindedness.

Suddenly his horse snorted. Eamon looked up, then gasped.

A ring of men stood around them. They were darkly dressed, with heavy hoods and masks.

Eamon's hand moved instinctively to his sword hilt. “Who are you?”

“Your name is Goodman?” The voice was indistinct.

“Yes.”

“Then we will take you before the King.”

Eamon stared. Was it possible?

The man who had spoken held out one hand.

“You will surrender both your sword and dagger, Goodman.”

Eamon took a deep breath, then unslung sword and dagger and held them towards the hooded man. He passed it to one of his companions. Another came and took the horse's reins. The beast tossed its head nervously.

“Do not harm him,” Eamon said.

“It is not the creature's fault whom it serves. It will not suffer for that.”

The man held a length of cloth. One of his fellows carried a rope.

“Am I to be a prisoner?”

“You will agree to be bound and blindfolded?”

What choice did he have?

Eamon held out his hands, trembling in the half-light. The man who tied him knew his business. The rope was taut, the knots firm. When the cloth was brought to his face, its thickness forced his eyes closed.

“You will lead me truly?”

“We will lead you to the King.”

Someone took his arm. He walked forward unsteadily.

They led him a short distance and then, beneath the eaves, they helped him mount his horse. He was secured to the saddle. He heard other horses in the darkness near him. His reins were taken and the men led him away.

They pressed on hard throughout the night and much of the next day. He did not know where or how far they went. He was aware only of the tireless speed of his horse and the silence of his guides; they did not speak, either to him or to each other. His world shrank to the sounds beyond his darkened eyes.

The cold wind tore at him as they left the shelter of the ridges. From there, they passed trees that scratched Eamon's face as skeletal branches knocked overhead.

The land was mostly level, though they went through a couple of small valleys, Eamon gripping his bound hands to the saddle pommel as they went up and down. He did not know where they were, but guessed that they were still on the West Bank.

They paused from time to time. Twice he was offered food, which he ate gratefully. When they stopped, he heard other horses and then voices speaking together. After the long silence every noise seemed as loud as thunder and startled him as much. He thought that he heard his name mentioned.

Then they were moving on again, first over earth and then over a swaying bridge. Loud water ran beneath it, but it was not wide enough to be the River itself. Perhaps they had crossed a tributary.

The wind confused and distorted the sounds around him. More horses. Tent cloth? Astonished murmurs.

A voice commanded him to dismount; other hands helped him. The men led him on as he stumbled repeatedly.

The wind stopped. He heard tent cloth drawn aside, felt the warmth of a brazier. In the sudden sheltered silence, he knew that eyes, whose gazes he could not return, stared at him.

His wrists throbbed beneath bonds that suddenly felt tight.

The man who had led him let go of his arm. Blinded, bound, and unaided, Eamon stood giddy and afraid.

“Who is this?” asked a fierce voice. Its accent was Easter. He remembered the dark-haired, clear-eyed man whom he had seen at Pinewood and shuddered.

“A Hand that surrendered to us.” It was the man who had spoken to him at Ashford.

“A rare occurrence!” the first voice scoffed.

Eamon's hands were clammy with sweat.

“His name is Goodman. He asked to be brought before the King.”

“This was no way to lead him.”

His heart leapt joyfully into his throat: he knew that voice. It was great and stern, but kind and compassionate. While the throned assumed authority this man bore it of his own accord, of his very blood and nature. But even as Eamon rejoiced he felt shame kindling fear: for every treachery he had wilfully committed, this man could lay claim to his very life.