The King's Hand (50 page)

Slater quailed. “Your office, my lord.”

Eamon did not wait for a further word. With his cloak thick on his shoulders, he turned and made his way down the halls to his office. His blood pounded through him. He felt none of the fear that he knew he should feel in going to an unexpected meeting with the Right Hand.

The door to his office was closed. Eamon boldly cast it back.

The tall lamps in his room had been lit, casting a steady light that rebounded from windows and shelves.

Lord Arlaith was there. He sat, with his hands folded on Eamon's desk and his dark cloak draped tenebrously about him. As Eamon entered, the Right Hand looked up and the light shadowed forth a terrifyingly pale, quiet face.

“Close the door, Goodman.”

Eamon matched his gaze.

“I have a title but little less than your own,” he replied. “You will use it when you address me, Lord Arlaith.”

“I came here as a courtesy to you,” Arlaith replied. “You will answer to me by whatever name I give you.” As he spoke, he rose to his feet and surged forward like a dark tide until he stood before Eamon, his thunderous eyes flashing. In that moment, Eamon felt the first tremor of fear run through him – but his anger was still the greater.

“Close the door,
boy
.” Arlaith's voice was grim and terrible, but Eamon did not shrink back from him.

“What kind of courtesy is it, Lord Arlaith, that brings you into my household to strike and breach my servants?” he demanded.

Arlaith gave a clipped laugh. “Your serving wench may count herself lucky that my business precluded rendering to her the punishment that she deserved for her reticence,” he spat.

“My household deserves no punishment.”

“Do not contradict me.” the Right Hand appeared hideously tall; the sight stole Eamon's breath. He knew that he should keep silent, but he could not still his tongue.

“If you spoke truth, Lord Arlaith,” he retorted, “you would not find it a contradiction.”

“Did you enjoy your dinner, Lord Goodman?” the Right Hand asked.

Eamon was chilled to the very bone. The Right Hand's face was an impenetrable mask that betrayed nothing. It was that total absence that struck deep into Eamon's heart. How had Lord Arlaith known where he had been?

“What did you eat?” Arlaith continued genteelly. “Stewed rat? Wilted cabbage? Was there wine, or did the Grennils have only vinegar to offer you?”

Eamon floundered. “I –”

“Yes, you are none other than Eamon Goodman, the helping Hand who eats in the charnel houses of his quarter, places fit only for the breeding of vermin,” the Right Hand said. As he spoke, Arlaith's talon-like fingers held Eamon's ring, thieved from his bedchamber. Noting Eamon's gaze, Arlaith closed his fist around it and stared down at him. “Do you truly see no peril in your defiance?”

“It is not defiance,” Eamon replied, tearing his eyes from the caged ring. “Who are you to cry defiance at me? My allegiance is not to you.”

“Do you know what you are?” Arlaith replied, his voice so quiet that it was more terrifying than the most thunderous rage. “You are nothing but an insolent, blood-licking cur from mud-sodden streets – streets which served only to bear witness to the Serpent's screeching howls as he went down in the dust and died.”

Eamon's breath grew short with fear as the Right Hand held him in his black gaze. Arlaith had not laid a single finger on him, and yet Eamon felt contained within an iron grip. It was a grip that hated him, that would brook no more of him, and could crush him at a single thought.

Eamon steeled himself against it. “I am sworn to the Master,” he said.

“There is an inn in your quarter that bears your name,” Arlaith told him. “There are ensigns in the West Quarter, and men in the East, who arrogantly call themselves by it – the ‘Good Men'! They would do well to fear for their lives. There are men and women in this city who tell tales of ‘the people's Hand'.”

“I do nothing but what I have been charged to do,” Eamon replied hotly. “I am the Master's servant, and if you would take fault with me you will take it to him.”

“My bane is with you, Goodman,” Arlaith answered him. “You dare to abase yourself before these people? Very well! They shall be repaid according to your errors.” Turning to stare out of the open door into the corridor, the Right Hand raised his voice. “Slater!”

Slowly, trembling such that he could barely stand, Slater appeared in the shadows of the passage. He bowed and did not rise. Eamon wondered how much the man had heard.

“Yes, Lord Arlaith?”

“Take the serving wench out into the Ashen, and have her flogged,” Arlaith commanded.

Slater paled, but did not dare to look to Eamon.

“She will take twenty lashes.”

“You cannot!” Eamon yelled.

Slowly, Arlaith rounded on him. “
Cannot
, Lord Goodman?” he repeated, his words deathly quiet.

Eamon heard the warning tone in the Right Hand's voice, but in his anger he did not heed it. “You do not have the right to –”

“She will take fifty lashes.”

Eamon stared at him and fell back a pace, aghast. “The law permits no more than –”

“One hundred lashes, Slater,” Arlaith told the shaking servant, “and make sure ‘Miss Cara' knows who she has to thank for them.”

Eamon gaped at him in horror. With wild eyes he looked up again at the Right Hand. “Lord Arlaith –”

“Is one hundred lashes not enough, Lord Goodman?” Arlaith asked. “Very well; we shall make it one hundred and thirty. Perhaps you would have me flog her young brother, too?” Eamon was staggered. There was nothing he could do to stop it. Nothing at all. The Right Hand knew it, and smiled.

Slowly, not caring that Slater stood there watching him, not caring that the door to his chamber stood wide open and that any number of people might see him, not caring that he was the Lord of the East Quarter, he lowered himself down to his knees. He shook as he knelt upon the hard ground.

“Please, Lord Arlaith,” he whispered. Arlaith looked at him with crooked and perverse delight. “Please, be merciful.”

“You make a pitiful and wretched display, Goodman,” Arlaith sneered. “You would beg for the back of a servant? Do you bed her after she makes your bed?”

Eamon closed his burning eyes against the temptation to further rage. “Be merciful, Lord Arlaith.”

“Mercy ill befits a Hand, Lord Goodman.” Arlaith's voice was chilling.

“Please.” Eamon could do no other: he prostrated himself utterly before the Right Hand. “I beg it of you.”

There was a clatter on the stones by his ear. Looking up, Eamon saw his ring glinting at him. He did not dare to meet Arlaith's gaze.

“Mr Slater,” the Right Hand said at last, “the wench will take twenty-five lashes, and will count me gracious. Go and prepare her for it.”

“Yes, Lord Arlaith,” Slater answered.

Eamon heard footsteps retreating as his servant returned down the hallway. This latest news would be of sore comfort to her.

As he lay on the ground, the Right Hand moved by him, sending a quiver of fear in his wake.

“This is the nature of my courtesy, Lord Goodman,” he said, “and that – among the dirt and the stones – is your place. Be mindful of it.”

Eamon bit the inside of his cheek as the Right Hand spoke. “Yes, Lord Arlaith.”

The Right Hand turned from him and left. Eamon knew that the man went out into the Ashen where, in moments, his whole household would be gathered to witness the flogging of an undeserving girl.

What a grand trophy you shall have this day, Eben's son! A girl's blood upon the stones of your hall. It is your doing.

Eamon lay on the ground. Grief and anger churned together in his breast. As the voice tormented him, he laid his forehead against the cold stone floor; salty tears passed down his face. The owl gazed up at him from between the paving slabs. For a long moment he wanted nothing but to remain there. How could he stand and watch? And yet if he did not go, he knew that Arlaith's grace would grow the less.

Rise, Eamon. Be not afraid.

Choking back a sob, he brought himself to his feet. Taking the fallen ring in his hand, he staggered to the doorway, forcing himself down the passageway and out into the Ashen.

C
HAPTER
XXVI

T
he Ashen felt unusually bright to Eamon's burning eyes. Extra torches lit the edges and centre of the square, casting twisted shadows up into the overhanging trees as they swayed in the night breeze.

Eamon's whole household tumbled out of the Handquarters into the alleviated darkness. The servants looked pale and frightened. Some of them were half-asleep, but they knew at whose command they had been summoned and so they formed a silent and orderly line near the Handquarter steps.

Several Gauntlet officers, no doubt commanded from their watch duties by the Right Hand, set up the flogging frame near the steps to the Handquarters. They raised and fixed the beams and hanging ropes to hold Cara's arms spread-eagled. As Eamon watched them, his heart and back wrenched with remembered pain and fresh horror.

Slowly he descended the steps. The whole household watched him as he walked towards the frame, near to Arlaith. Did the servants think he had ordered this flogging himself? Would they expect him to stop it? But they knew as well as he that before Lord Arlaith, he was powerless. Eamon felt sure that it was that same knowledge that gave the Right Hand his long, glinting smile.

As he halted, the sound of feet scraped the steps behind him. Eamon turned to see Slater. The head of his household led Cara, pale and trembling, by the arm. As she came forward into the torchlight at the foot of the steps, Eamon saw that her eyes were red and swollen while half her face was bruised. He felt rage swelling anew in his breast. But rage quickly turned to grief as the murmurs of alarm ran through the gathered household – many of them did not know what had happened that night – and among those voices he heard the cry of Cara's brother.

Guilt swept through him like wildfire. Callum would be made to watch his own sister punished for serving a Hand. What would it teach him?

Cara walked towards the frame where one of the stablehands, a strong, tall man, stood with the lash in his hand. His face was grim. The lash was his duty; he was no more able to defy Arlaith than Eamon.

Eamon looked wildly across at the lines of serving men and women. He was horrified to see Callum pushing his way to the front of them. Once there, the small boy stopped to stare, aghast, at the grisly procession that held his quivering sibling as its centrepiece.

Why had he not thought sooner? Why had he not removed Callum to some other duty to spare him from watching his sister's torture? He could have tried. Or perhaps that small defiance would also have been laid against the serving girl.

Eamon looked back to the line, trying to calm himself. Callum stared at his sister. Then Marilio laid a hand on the boy's shoulder. The man met Eamon's gaze and nodded slightly. It was but small comfort.

Slater led Cara before them. She did not raise her head. Perhaps she could not look up. Indeed, Eamon wondered that she could stand at all. She shuddered and wept quietly.

Arlaith stepped forward and took harsh hold of her face, forcing it up towards his own. She shied back, but could not resist the Hand's grasp.

“See where disobedience leads you?” Arlaith told her quietly.

“Y-yes, my lord,” Cara stammered. The grip on her jaw was tight. Her reddened skin went pale beneath it. Eamon yearned to speak, but he could not.

Arlaith threw the girl's head aside in vague disgust and then turned to the household.

“This servant has been arrogant and disobedient,” he called. “Let this be a lesson to you all as to how such manners are received in Dunthruik.” He turned to Slater. “Bind her to the frame.”

The household could only watch as Slater led Cara to the frame's posts. The girl's arms were spread wide over her head and bound to the beams while Slater, with a shamed and downcast look, tore open the back of Cara's work smock to reveal her trembling back. She wept. The stablehand prepared his lash. Eamon suddenly realized that no protection had been bound round her. It was customary to weave thick cloth about the lower back to keep the ropes from damaging the victim's internal organs. He looked to Arlaith in alarm.

“Lord Arlaith –” he began, his voice shaking.

“Offer to take her place,” Arlaith answered quietly, his voice full of disdain, “and I will have her killed.”

Eamon drew a deep breath. Arlaith knew that he had taken the cadets' place on board the holk. For a moment the thought froze him, but as the stablehand prepared the coil for the first strike, Eamon shook the spell of silence and spoke again.

“They will not count you gracious, my lord, if the cloths are not wound round her,” he said, desperately hoping that his words would not go amiss.

A deathly silence descended. All was still for a moment as Arlaith thought. “Slater,” the Right Hand called, “apply the appropriate bindings.”

A shudder of relief ran through Eamon as the stablehand halted. Slater diligently and willingly took up some thick lengths of leather. He bound the material about Cara's lower back and then took a second length.

Eamon clenched his lips closed and choked back the torrent of abuse that he wanted to hurl indiscriminately at the Right Hand. Arlaith had known full well about the bindings and had fully intended to have them forgotten.

Slater finished his work and then withdrew to solemnly take his place in the servants' line near Marilio, where he spoke quiet words to the trembling Callum.

“Commence,” Arlaith called.

Eamon watched as the stablehand stepped up behind Cara, his lash heavy in his hand. Across the Ashen stood a group of Gauntlet soldiers and their officer. Perhaps beyond the firelight there were other onlookers.