Shadow Over Kiriath (6 page)
Behind him, Tersius spoke again.
“You have entered into the function of your destiny, Abramm. Are you willing to go forward from here? To be conformed to my image and so become a true witness of my Father’s power and grace?”
Of course I am, my Lord.
“Consider well. The road ahead will be more difficult than anything you have yet faced, though its blessings are beyond anything you can imagine. Is this what you want?”
Abramm hesitated.
More difficult than what I’ve already experienced?
“And gloriously better. But the choice is yours.”
And if I choose not to go forward?
“Then, for a time things will go easier for you.”
Abramm looked over the hall filled with people staring back at him, at Trap in the front row, Philip beside him, then their father and mother. Across the aisle from Trap, the Mataians glared more fiercely than ever, the fire from their amulets lighting up eyes clogged with the curd of the sarotis.
Sarotis? How can they have sarotis? They are not Terstan!
But the thought was lost as he saw straight through their skulls to brains entwined and squeezed by ropes of scarlet fire. He felt their pain, their bondage, their misery . . . and their rock-hard resolution to fight him, no matter what.
His gaze lifted to the people in the stairstepping ranks of pews behind them. His people. His calling. His realm.
My Lord, I owe you everything. I am nothing without you, as you have shown me yet again. Whatever you will for me, that is what I want.
“Very well, then.”
At that moment, as if he had realized his chance was slipping away, High Father Bonafil leaped to his feet, jabbed an arm at Abramm, and shouted out his denunciation. He had not even finished speaking when the Light rushed through Abramm in a great storm of power. Every piece of the regalia blazed with it, and all around him men flinched back in awe. Except in that front row, where Bonafil’s Mataian brethren had leaped up beside their leader, originally to support him in his denunciation but now to flee screaming up the long aisle.
As they disappeared beneath the balcony, the orb swelled in Abramm’s hand, brightening to an unendurable brilliance that exploded in a firework of white sparks. They sailed out in every direction, drifting down over the vast audience: tiny stars of life for those who saw and knew and wanted. . . .
Their light grew brighter, filling all his vision and expanding his awareness. Multiple images assailed him: a great army beneath the combined banners of Chesedh and Kiriath; a woman veiled in white, facing him, the Light flowing strongly through their clasped hands; a dark cave filled with the rush of churning waves and a pungent salt-seaweed aroma; a pair of Esurhite galleys moored in the cove below Graymeer’s Fortress, dark-tunicked soldiers racing out of the opening at the cliff base to board them as shouts rang out from the ramparts above; more galleys streamed away from a cluster of fog-veiled islands to the south; while to the north, a great dark cloud alive with baleful flickerings hung low over the borderlands and crept slowly southward. . . .
He focused on the woman but could not see her face through the veil. Then a shadow passing over them drew his gaze upward to where soared a massive dragon so huge it seemed impossible the thing could hold itself in the air. Its golden eye fixed upon him as it wheeled majestically against a fogbound sky, and he shuddered with the cold dispassion of its regard. Perhaps one day it would come for him, if he became troublesome enough. . . . But not today.
At the end of its circuit, it veered away, long wings flapping languidly as it disappeared into the southern distance.
The vision faded, and he stood again in the Hall of Kings, upon the very granite where his namesake Avramm had been crowned. He stared at the people before him, all of whom were on their feet. Their eyes were wide, their mouths agape. He could see the Light reflecting in their faces and off the gold Receiving Throne atop its dais before him, and even off the struts of a ceiling suddenly free of shadows. It was Eidon’s own Light, and it was coming only from Abramm, from the regalia that he wore.
And as he watched in wonder, all the hundreds in that vast audience dropped to their knees before him.
As the brilliance of the Light dimmed, Captain Eltrap Meridon stared up in wonder at his king, chills zinging over his body. The robe shimmered like water around Abramm’s tall, straight form, the crown afire on his brow, its light bleaching the scars on his face so they almost disappeared. His lips were firm, his jaw resolute as his gaze swept the crowd of stunned onlookers.
Eidon had revealed his choice. Whatever doubts people had regarding Abramm’s kingship earlier, they were gone. The Mataians’ empty bench stood in powerful refutation of their vicious claims, and Trap would forever cherish the memory of them fleeing up the aisle in screaming disarray. He loved knowing that after all the rhu’ema had done to make this day a disaster, they had been chased off as ignominiously as their human puppets.
As for himself, he could only laugh at his foolishness for indulging in that torment of guilt and worry last night over his dire words to Abramm. Foolish words they were, for he did not know if they were even true, and it would have been better never to have uttered them, but hindsight always trumped foresight.
The crown continued to dim, gradually revealing its changed shape. Only a few charred strips remained of the ermine-trimmed cap, while the heavy gold base with its two transverse arches had been reduced to sagging silver filigree. The massive pearl listed dully atop them, the gemstones faded and opaque, rendered insignificant against the plaited circlet—the original crown, perhaps?—shimmering beneath the ruined base.
At last the herald recalled his job. With a gasp, he stiffened his spine, threw back his shoulders, and let his clarion voice ring out in the silence, formally introducing Abramm as the thirty-sixth king of Kiriath, “confirmed before us this day by Eidon’s own hand.”
As if to make up for their former reluctance, the people bounded to their feet, shouting acclamation in a tumult of sound that drowned both trumpets and choir. Numerous calls of “Long live King Abramm!” raised themselves above the din, and Abramm stood there, letting it all roll over him, a half smile touching his lips.
Philip leaned against Trap and shouted into his ear, “You still think that arm won’t come back, brother?”
He’d been furious with Trap for telling Abramm he was crippled, vigorously taking his older brother to task for making predictions he had no business making.
Now Trap could only smile and shrug in reply. Whether Abramm recovered use of his arm or not was up to Eidon. But if he didn’t, it wouldn’t matter, for his true strength had always lain with Eidon. This just made it more obvious.
The cheering went on and on until Abramm gave up waiting for it to stop. Indeed, the cries intensified as he strode to the side of the stage and down the stair, then back across the forestage to climb the five-step dais of the receiving throne. His limp was barely noticeable, his shoulders straight, chin high, just as a king’s should be.
As he settled onto the throne, Trap’s eye caught on sudden activity in the royal box beyond him. In the second row, Lords Foxton and Whitethorne were discreetly hauling a dazed and disheveled Byron Blackwell back to his feet. Nor was he the only one. Several of the ladies farther up in the box were also being fanned back to consciousness, and even Lady Madeleine, standing in the front row with her brother, seemed to have succumbed. Knowing her link with Abramm through the Light, Trap wasn’t too surprised. She did not, however, seem terribly debilitated, pushing away from Prince Leyton’s supporting arm as Simon now stepped past them to begin the offering of public fealty.
As the others in the box jostled into line at his back, Simon descended the stair to the forestage, where he was the first to kneel at the foot of the Receiving Throne dais and offer his public oath of fealty. Then he returned to his seat in the box as one by one the others did likewise, a process that took almost two hours to complete.
Then it was time for the ceremonies of elevation. As the first name rang out, Trap’s stomach twisted itself into a hard and breathless knot. Suddenly he recalled just why he was sitting in this honored first space of the first bench, his brother and parents beside him, and all four of his sisters with their husbands on the bench behind: today the swordmaster’s son would be made a duke.
He had not believed it would actually happen, despite the fact he had known Abramm’s intentions for months and had rehearsed this part of the ceremony for days. For one, he’d not been sure Abramm would make it through his coronation without disaster. For another, it was one of those unthinkable developments only Eidon could conceive and Trap himself had never quite been able to get his mind around. Even the act of arguing that it was far too high a rank to bestow on a commoner—and Trap had argued that—had seemed surreal.
Now as the first man knelt on the upper levels of the receiving dais, Trap thought of the oath he’d sworn to Raynen more than six years ago to go with Abramm into exile. He’d believed it a death sentence for both of them. Instead, here they were, Abramm a king and Trap about to be elevated to the highest hereditary rank in the peerage. Not only was it unbelievable, he wasn’t sure he even wanted it.
He watched as Abramm parceled out to his own men the lands he had confiscated from Gillard and his supporters. Then, before Trap knew it, the herald was calling his name and he was kneeling before his sovereign.
What happened after that passed in a haze, blurred by the sudden intense self-consciousness Trap experienced at being the focus of hundreds of pairs of eyes. Abramm was thorough in enumerating his reasons for granting this exceptional degree of elevation, relating all the story of their journey together, and finally coming to the end.
“If it weren’t for this man’s devotion, I would not be here today. If anyone deserves this highest accolade, it is Eltrap Meridon, son of Larrick, defender of Raynen, Captain of the King’s Guard, the White Pretender’s Infidel, the Dorsaddi’s Lord Deliverer, and henceforth, by my hand and sword”—he touched the tip of the Sword of State first to Trap’s right shoulder, then to his left—“Duke of Northille.”
The sword tip touched the top of Trap’s head and released a burst of Light, its warmth shooting down through his bent knee and the soles of his feet.
Only as it faded away and the sword’s touch withdrew did he breathe again. And then he was offering his own sworn oath of fealty, already given once in the stern cabin of
Wanderer
en route to Kiriath some nine months ago, now offered publicly, the oath of a duke and not a simple armsman. After that he stood, and the Officers of Ceremony came to lay across his chest the red ribbon and gold chains of his new rank. Then, at last, he turned to face the audience behind him as the herald called out his new name to the assembled multitude, and chills washed over his body yet again.
I am a lord. I am a duke. . . . I am a swordmaster’s son, for pity’s sake!
Philip was grinning up at him, looking ready to burst. His father was worse and his mother’s cheeks were wet. Behind them, in the second row, his sisters and their husbands sat gape-mouthed, for they had never believed he would amount to anything—he was still unmarried, was he not?
After standing for what seemed far too long, he turned back to the king to drop a deep bow, then back-stepped to his seat. As he sat down, Philip punched his arm and Father reached across to take his hand and squeeze it, tears glittering in his eyes.
Abramm retired briefly to a side chamber and reemerged in the long, purple Robe of State. He was supposed to have replaced the heavy Crown of State with the lighter Crown of Rule, but had apparently chosen to retain the original. Stripped of the ruined arches, base, and jewels, its pale plaiting still shimmered against his brow with its own light, echoes of its earlier fire. He’d also retained the jewel-hilted Sword of State, as well as scepter and orb, though in the case of the latter two, he was supposed to.
As the musicians played a majestic recessional and all the audience stood again, Abramm strode up the center aisle toward the top of the hall. Trap turned with the others to watch him go, glimpsing now for the first time the many cravats lying untied about their owners’ necks, doublets and shirts unbuttoned to reveal the golden shields that only hours ago had been burnished into the chests beneath. Tens of them. Maybe even hundreds. Just like had happened at the Valley of the Seven Peaks after Abramm had slain the morwhol.
As the king passed beneath the temporary balcony and out of sight, Carissa exited the royal box to start the recessional. Leyton and Madeleine, Simon and Oswain Nott—the other two of Kiriath’s three dukes—followed after her, keeping a respectful distance between themselves. Trap waited until the gray-wigged Nott had ascended halfway, then stepped out behind him and joined the recessional himself, walking a gauntlet of cheering onlookers and enjoying, for the first time in his life, the privileges that came with being the Duke of Northille.
Outside, bright, warm sunlight poured from a cloudless midday sky, the slushy morning snow long since melted and evaporated, leaving the streets dry beneath the feet of those who crowded them.
This will be a good omen,
he thought as he descended the stairway toward the carriage waiting to bring him to the palace and the coronation banquet still to come. Then he smiled.
Though after what you’ve done today, my Lord, I can’t think why anyone would still be looking for omens
.
He was nearly to the carriage when he realized the footman holding its door open was his brother, Philip.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, pausing before the open door. “I thought you were coming out with Mother and Father.”
“Channon pulled me out right after the king left, my lord
duke,
” Philip said, emphasizing the last word with a smile like to break his jaw. “Seems I’ve got some prisoners to interrogate.” He gestured toward the carriage seat as he glanced back at the door where the new Count of Strafford, Lord Foxton, and his wife would soon emerge from the hall to board their own carriage now waiting in line behind Trap’s.
