The King's Hand (47 page)

“Rumours may go abroad that this grain is being kept for private use – let it. Speak no word in my defence if you hear words against me. This quarter is already on its knees from months of hunger, from the cull, from fear of the snakes that skirmish in the fields. I do not want the fear of a siege, and an even keener hunger, to take hold of the people here. Every time a grain ship comes in, Mr Greenwood will take a group of you to the port to take as much of the grain as can reasonably be taken. It will be brought here; this door will be guarded. Both of these orders will stand until I countermand them.”

Silence fell. The faces watched him still, but they were men who understood what they had been asked to do. They were loyal to him.

“Yes, Lord Goodman,” they answered.

Eamon nodded once to Greenwood, who urged the young men back to their work. As Eamon left the courtyard, Anderas joined him.

“They're good men, captain.”

“They have a good lord.”

 

The grain prices rose, but it did not stop the growing number of requests for entry into the East Quarter, and over the next week Eamon was pleased to see a good amount of grain stored in the cavern. The guards were diligent young men, and although some rumours as to the location of the missing grain abounded, and the East Quarter's logistics draybant decided to bring in some extra supplies at an exorbitant price from the minuscule South Quarter surplus, there was no widespread civil unrest. Eamon, for one, was glad of it, and hoped that his precaution would go a long way to helping the people whom he was coming to view as his own.

The Crown Office, spearheaded by Lorentide's new list, continued their work, and Eamon was delighted to see construction and renovation taking place throughout the quarter. That week he also received a deliriously eloquent letter of apology from Ensign Curtis. It was inscrutably worded, and Eamon imagined that it had been forced unwillingly from the man's hand, probably under Belaal's watchful eye, for the captain's reputation would have been damaged by the event.

That week he took another walk through the quarter and again inspected the streets. It had grown hot and his cloak was more troublesome than usual. He had begun routinely forgoing his black jacket when he dressed.

He walked past the Horse and Cart inn and was brought up short, for it had been completely reworked. The windows glistened and people moved about inside. Perhaps, more than this, it was the inn's new name that caught his eye: The Good Man. It was written in bold red, and emblems of the quarter stood beneath it.

He stood there in astonishment, then movement caught his eye: the innkeeper opened the door for a leaving guest. He caught sight of Eamon and fell into a deep bow.

“Good day, my lord!”

“And to you, good keeper,” Eamon replied. He did not know what else to say. It was then that he recognized the person leaving the inn – the wife of the vendor from across the road.

“Lord Goodman!” she breathed, and curtseyed.

“Good day to you,” he said.

“Lord Goodman,” she began, before her words vanished in a stammer as she nervously lowered her eyes.

“Do speak,” Eamon encouraged her.

She raised her eyes again. “I wanted to thank you for helping my husband,” she said quietly. “How may I?”

“Serve the lord of the city,” Eamon answered her. “Serve him with all your heart.” The woman and the innkeeper gazed at him, and he nodded carefully at them. “To his glory,” he said.

“To his glory.”

The streets were quiet as the heat of the sun rolled past. Eamon took refuge in the shade on Coronet Rise, near one of the reconstruction works. Workmen rested there, some of them sipping water from thick flasks, but they were some of the few who braved the unusual heat.

As Eamon approached they leapt to their feet one by one, but Eamon gestured to them to sit again. They did so, reluctantly, and as they returned to their water Eamon examined the stonework. It was being well set, and he drew off one glove and gently laid his hand to the stone to inspect the joins. He gasped as a piece of stone snagged against his hand, and a thin line of blood marked his palm. Instinctively he set it to his mouth.

“Did you hurt yourself?” a young voice said.

Eamon looked down in surprise to see a small boy looking up at him. He did not know from where the child had come.

“Did you?” the boy insisted again.

Eamon nodded. “Yes, I did, but not badly –”

Barely had the words left his mouth when the little boy reached up with a determined hand and took hold of Eamon's own. The child began an interested inspection of the wound, shuffling Eamon's fingers out flat so as to look at his palm more clearly. His fingers fumbled over Eamon's ring for a moment. “I like your ring. There's an owl on it.”

“Yes, there is,” Eamon replied. The boy didn't seem to understand what the owl tokened – either that or he was too busy looking at the cut.

“I like owls.”

Eamon crouched down beside the child as the boy's fingers tapped lightly at his cut.

“Does it hurt a lot?” the boy asked.

“Only a little,” Eamon told him. “I'm sure it will be –”

He fell silent as the boy set his fingers against the cut and faintly, so faintly that he almost could not see it – so faintly that he hoped he alone could see it – Eamon saw the tiniest flicker of light. Blue light.

The little boy handed Eamon's palm back to him and smiled. “There,” he pronounced. The cut was gone.

“Thank you,” Eamon answered. He tried not to look alarmed. “What's your name, young man?”

“Damien.”

“Damien,” Eamon repeated. This child was kind but in grave danger; if anyone saw him, he and his family would go straight to the pyre. “Damien, where do you live?”

The child pulled a confused face. “Stone Way,” he answered, looking up at the road where he was. His face creased into a frown. “But I'm not sure…”

“Let me take you,” Eamon told him. He rose quietly to his feet. “Follow me, Damien.”

 

Stone Way was a road that ran from the East Quarter down towards the South Quarter. Eamon encouraged the boy to walk by him and spoke quietly with him as they went. He was grateful that the heat of the sun was such that many were indoors, and the time of day meant that they ate or slept. Few saw them as they passed.

“Damien,” he asked, “what you did for me, do you do it often?”

“Sometimes.”

“And your parents – do they know about it?”

Damien looked at him as though this were a silly question. “Yes.”

“What do they say about it?”

“That I shouldn't.” The boy pulled a face. “But I don't understand why not –”

“Damien,” Eamon told him, “there's something you need to know –”

“My brother says that there are lots of things I need to know!”

“What you can do is a good thing,” Eamon told him gently, “and one day it will be recognized as a good thing, and on that day you will be able to do it freely.”

“When?”

“I don't know exactly what day it will be, but I know that you will know it when it comes, and so will your parents.” Eamon paused as they passed a small group of shops, then spoke again as they stepped into the shadows of Stone Way. “But until that day, Damien, what you can do frightens people.”

“It makes them better!” the boy protested.

“Sometimes the things that are best for us are frightening,” Eamon answered. “Sometimes, when people are frightened, they do terrible things to whatever frightens them. That is why you must listen to your parents. What you did for me was kind, and I thank you for it. At the same time, Damien, I charge you not to do it again, unless the time and place is truly desperate, until the right day comes.” He fixed the little boy with a firm gaze and saw that the child's face had grown very serious.

“Are you an important person, sir?” The young brown eyes assessed Eamon with renewed interest.

“Some people say so,” Eamon answered. “But whether I am or not does not change what I have said. You must promise me that you will do as I have asked, and that you will tell no one of what I have said. Your parents don't want to see you hurt, and neither do I.”

Damien looked down at his small hands, and chewed at his lip. Flexing his fingers he looked up again. “I suppose I could wait until that day you told me about,” he said.

Eamon nodded and smiled. “I think you could.”

They had come a few hundred yards down Stone Way and Eamon looked at the child again. “Which house is yours?” he asked. Damien looked across the street with narrowed eyes, shielding them against a glint of sun, then grinned and pointed wildly across the cobbles.

“That one!” he cried. “Come and see!”

He seized Eamon's hand and tugged him across the road to a building nestled by a gnarled tree. Damien led him past the front entrance and round the side of the building towards the back. As they approached the back door, Eamon heard anxious voices inside, though he could not make out what they said.

“Is that your mother?” he asked. Damien paused on the path, listening, then nodded, his face a little distressed.

“Yes,” he said, then looked up in concern. “She's crying.”

“She's probably worried about you,” Eamon told him. Damien looked at him as though this was a strange idea and slowly his face grew more anxious.

“She'll be angry with me,” he said, twisting the bottom of his shirt in his hands.

Eamon crouched down by him. “She'll be angry because she loves you and she doesn't want you to come to harm. My own mother was the same.”

“She got cross with you?”

“Very often. I was a very naughty boy.”

The boy didn't look convinced. Eamon touched his arm in encouragement. “Damien, it's very warm,” he said. “Let me take this heavy cloak off, and we'll go inside. Then we can see your mother together.”

Damien nodded his approval, and Eamon carefully removed his cloak. Immensely grateful that there was nobody else on the street, he folded it and laid it between two barrels that stood by the door, then slipped the ring from his finger and tucked it into the pouch at his waist. He held his hand out to the boy.

“Shall we go in?” he asked. Taking his hand, Damien moved towards the door, and pushed it open.

They entered a small kitchen area with a table and a couple of chairs stacked to one side. The walls were whitewashed and bore some shelves with various utensils, while a fire burned low in a corner grate. A boy, probably no older than fourteen, opened tall cupboards in the manner of a searcher. Hearing the door latch, he looked up.

“Hello,” Damien offered cheerfully.

The boy stared at him, then at Eamon, and then called into the next room. “Ma!” he shouted. “Damien's here.” Eamon heard a pause.

“Damien,” called a woman's voice, “we've told you a hundred times that hiding and making us worried is not a good game!”

“Ma –”

“Don't defend your brother, Neithan,” the woman called crossly as she approached. “You know perfectly well –”

“Ma, there's someone with him.”

The woman reached the kitchen doorway and stopped there, her face caught in surprise. Damien gripped Eamon's hand.

“Hello, Ma,” the boy whispered. The child ducked behind Eamon a little, but his mother's attention was focused not on the boy but on Eamon. Her eyes fell on his sword; it marked him as a Gauntlet officer, for he had never exchanged it for the more distinctive blades borne by the Hands.

“Good afternoon, madam,” Eamon said kindly.

“Good afternoon, Mr…?”

“Tiller,” he answered after a moment's hesitation. “Madam, I was passing by and came across this young man. His exploratory spirit is highly commendable, though he seems to have left home without his map today. Fortunately, I was able to help him chart a course back.”

“Thank you, Mr Tiller.”

“I'm sorry if I worried you, Ma,” Damien said quietly. “Truly I am.” He edged forward from his hiding place. His mother came from the doorway and dropped to one knee before him, throwing her arms wide. Damien ran to them and his mother caught him into a warm embrace.

“I am so sorry if he caused you any trouble, Mr Tiller,” she said.

“None at all, madam,” Eamon answered. “He is a very amicable young man, and I am sure he is a credit to your family.”

“Yes,” the woman answered. She rose to her feet with Damien gathered in her arms. “Mr Tiller, how can we thank you for bringing him home?”

“No thanks are necessary,” Eamon replied kindly.

“Please, let us give you something,” the woman insisted.

“Please allow me to decline,” Eamon told her. “I would not take anything from you when your need is doubtless more than my own.”

“Then will you let us do something?” the woman asked. “Will you be our guest to dinner?”

Eamon looked at her. It was unheard of for a Hand to dine with a family in his quarter. But this woman could not know that he was a Hand and he could not tell her now. Apart from that, the woman's earnest desire to thank him touched his heart. He delighted in the thought of setting aside all the trappings of his office to enjoy a meal with ordinary people… It had been so long since he had done so.

He met the woman's gaze again. “Madam –”

“Mrs Grennil,” the woman answered. Eamon smiled.

“Mrs Grennil,” he said, “I would be deeply honoured to take a seat at your table.”

“Tonight?”

“I'm afraid that my duties prevent me from joining you this evening. But I could sup with you…” He paused, considering his appointments over the next day or two. “In two days' time, I believe.”

Mrs Grennil curtsied. “Then we shall welcome you then, Mr Tiller!”