Authors: Anthony Ryan
“Faith!” the sergeant sighed in exasperation. He came out to fix Vaelin with a fierce glare. “You know a man could find himself flogged for giving a false name to an officer of the King’s Guard?”
A younger guardsman appeared behind the sergeant, staring at Vaelin with a disconcertingly awed expression. “Uh, Sarge…”
“But it’s late and I’m in a good mood.” The sergeant was advancing on Vaelin with balled fists, his grizzled face tensed with impending violence. “So it’ll just be a beating before I send you on your way.”
“Sarge!” the younger man said urgently, catching hold of his arm. “It’s him.”
The sergeant's gaze swung to the younger man then back to Vaelin, looking him up and down. “You sure?”
“Was on duty at the Circle this morning wasn’t I? It’s really him.”
The sergeant’s fists uncurled but he didn’t appear any happier. “What’s your business with the King?”
“For him alone. He’ll see me if he’s told I’m here. And I’m sure he’ll be displeased if he hears I have been turned away.”
An accomplished lie,
he congratulated himself. In truth he had no certainty the king would see him at all.
The sergeant thought it over. His scars told of a lifetime of hard service and Vaelin realised he must resent any intrusion into what was no doubt a comfortable billet in which to await his pension. “My compliments and apologies to the Captain,” the sergeant told the younger guardsman. “Wake him and tell him about our visitor.”
They stood regarding each other in wary silence after the guardsman had scampered off, hastily unlocking a small door set into the huge oak wood gate and disappearing inside.
“Heard you killed five Denier assassins the night of the Aspect massacre,” the sergeant grunted eventually.
“It was fifty.”
It seemed an age before the door reopened and the young guardsman emerged followed by a trim young man, impeccably dressed in the uniform of a Captain in the King’s Horse Guard. He gave Vaelin a brief look of appraisal before offering his hand. “Brother Vaelin,” he said in a slight Renfaelin accent. “Captain Nirka Smolen, at your service.”
“Apologies for waking you Captain,” Vaelin said, slightly distracted by the neatness of the young man’s attire. Everything from the shine of his boots to the precise trim of his moustache spoke of a remarkable attention to detail. He certainly didn’t appear to be a man just woken from his bed.
“Not at all.” Captain Smolen, gestured at the open door. “Shall we?”
Vaelin’s boyhood memories of gleaming opulence were not matched by the interior of the eastern wing of the palace. After crossing a small courtyard he was led into a warren of corridors crammed with a variety of dust covered chests and cloth wrapped paintings.
“This wing is used mostly for storage,” Captain Smolen explained seeing his bemused expression. “The King receives many gifts.”
He followed the captain through a series of corridors and chambers until they came to a large room with a chequered floor and several grand paintings on the wall. He found his attention immediately drawn to the paintings, each was at least seven feet across and depicted a battle. The setting changed with each painting but the same figure was at the centre of every one; a handsome, flame haired man astride a white charger, sword held high above his head.
King Janus
. Though Vaelin’s memory of the king was dim he didn’t remember his jaw being quite so square or his shoulders quite so broad.
“The six battles that united the Realm,” Captain Smolen said. “Painted by Master Benril Lenial. It took him over three years.”
Vaelin remembered Master Benril’s drawings in Aspect Elera’s rooms, the fine detail with which each was rendered, the way the exposed viscera seemed to come out of the parchment. He saw none of the same clarity now. The colours were bright but not vibrant, the battling warriors clearly depicted but stilted somehow, not as if they were fighting at all, simply standing in a pose.
“Not his best is it?” Captain Smolen commented. “He was commanded to it, you see. I suspect he had little love for his subject. Have you ever seen his fresco in the Great Library commemorating the victims of the Red Hand? It’s quite breath-taking.”
“I’ve never seen the Great Library,” Vaelin replied, thinking Captain Smolen would probably find much in common with Caenis.
“You should, it’s a credit to the Realm. I’ll need your weapons.”
Vaelin unclipped his cloak with the four throwing knives secured within its folds, unbuckled his sword, unhooked his hunting knife from his belt and removed the narrow bladed dagger from his left boot.
“Nice,” Captain Smolen admired the dagger. “Alpiran?”
“I don’t know, I took it from a dead man.”
“These will be waiting for you here.” Smolen laid his weapons out on a nearby table. “No-one will touch them.” With that he moved to a bare patch of wall and pushed, a section of the wall swinging inwards revealing a dark stairwell. “Follow the stairs to the top.”
“He’s in there?” Vaelin asked. He had expected to be led to a throne room or audience chamber.
“He is indeed. Best not keep him waiting.”
Vaelin nodded his thanks and entered the stairwell. Oil lamps set into the wall cast a dim light on the steps, the gloom deepening when Smolen closed the door behind him. As instructed he climbed the stairs, the fall of his boots on the stone steps loud in the confined space. The door at the top was slightly ajar, outlined in bright lamplight from the room beyond. It creaked loudly when Vaelin pushed it open but the man seated at the desk before him didn’t look up. He sat crouched over a roll of parchment, his quill scratching over it, leaving a spidery script in its wake. The man was old, in his sixties, but still broad in the shoulder, his long hair hung over his face, once red it was now grey but still had a faint tinge of copper. He wore a plain shirt of white linen, the sleeves stained with ink, his only adornment a gold signet ring on the third finger of his right hand, a signet ring bearing the symbol of a rearing horse.
“Highness-” Vaelin began, sinking to one knee.
The King raised his left hand, motioning for him to rise then pointing at a nearby chair. His quill didn’t stop on the parchment. Vaelin moved to the chair, finding it piled high with books and scrolls. He hesitated then carefully gathered them together and placed them on the floor before sitting down.
He waited.
The only sound in the room came from the scratch of the King’s quill. Vaelin wondered if he should speak again but something told him it was best to keep silent. Instead he surveyed the room. He had thought Aspect Elera’s room to have been the most book filled space he had ever seen but the King’s room put it to shame. They lined the walls in great stacks rising nearly to the ceiling. In between the stacks were boxes of scrolls, some flaked and withered with age. The only decoration in the room was a large map of the Realm above the fireplace, its surface partly covered with short notations in a spidery script. Oddly some of the notations were written in red ink and others black. Down one edge of the map was a list of some kind, each item had been written in black but crossed through in red. It was a long list.
“You have your father’s face but your mother’s way of looking at things.”
Vaelin’s gaze snapped back to the King. He had laid his quill aside and reclined in his chair. His green eyes were bright and shrewd in his craggy, weathered face. Vaelin found he couldn’t stop his eyes straying to the livid red scars on the King’s neck, the legacy of his childhood brush with the Red Hand.
“Highness?” he stammered.
“Your father was clever in the ways of war but in most other things I have to say he was as dumb as a rock. Your mother on the other hand was clever in almost everything. You had her look just now, when you were looking at my map.”
“I’m sure she would have been gratified to know you held such a high opinion of her, Highness.”
The King raised an eyebrow. “Don’t flatter me, boy. I have servants aplenty for that. Besides, you’re no good at it. In that, at least, you are like your father.”
Vaelin felt himself flush and bit back an apology.
He’s right, I’m no courtier.
“Forgive my intrusion, Highness. I have come to ask for your help.”
“Most people who come before me do. Although, usually with obscenely expensive gifts and several hours worth of grovelling. Will you grovel for me, young brother?” The King’s mouth had curved in a small, humourless smile.
“No.” Vaelin found his trepidation was quickly disappearing in the face of a cold anger. “No, Highness. I will not.”
“And yet you come here at this forsaken hour and demand favours.”
“I demand nothing.”
“But you do want something. What is it, I wonder? Money? I doubt it. It meant little to your parents, I daresay it means little to you. Help with a marriage proposal perhaps? Got your eye on some wench but her father doesn’t want a penniless Order boy for a son-in-law?” The King angled his head, studying Vaelin closely. “Oh no, hardly that. So what can it be?”
“Justice,” Vaelin said. “Justice for a murdered man, justice for his family.”
“Murdered eh? By whom?”
“By me, Highness. Today I killed a man in the Test of the Sword. He was innocent, a victim of a false conviction brought simply to make him face me in the test.”
The humour faded from the King’s face, replaced with something much more serious but otherwise unreadable. “Tell me.”
Vaelin told him all of it, Urlian’s arrest, his wife’s imprisonment in the Blackhold, the names of those responsible: Jentil Al Hilsa, the magistrate who had condemned Urlian, and Mandril Al Unsa and Haris Estian, the two wealthy men who had sought to profit from his death.
“And how do you come by this intelligence?” the King asked when he had finished.
“A man came to me tonight, a man I trust.” Vaelin paused, gathering his will for the risk he knew he had to take. “A man who knows much of the troubles besetting Deniers in the Realm.”
“Ah. For a member of an Order you choose unusual friends.”
“The Faith teaches us that a man’s mind should be open to truth, wherever he finds it.”
“It seems you have your mother’s way with words as well.” The King pulled a fresh piece of parchment from a stack on his desk, dipped his quill in a bottle of black ink and wrote a short passage. He then wiped the quill on his shirt sleeve, dipped it in a pot of red ink and wrote a list below the black text. He completed the document with an elaborate signature, then took a candle and a block of sealing wax, touching the flame to the wax to melt a droplet onto the bottom of the parchment. He blew softly on the wax for a moment then pressed his signet ring into it.
“Every time I sign my name to one of these,” he said putting his quill aside, “I have to amend my map.” Vaelin turned back to the chart on the wall, looking again at the list, black words crossed through with red.
Names,
he realised.
Names of men he’s killed. Nortah’s father must be there somewhere.
“I’ll execute these men,” the King said. “On the strength of what you’ve told me. There will be no trial, the King’s Word is above all law. Their families will hate me for what I’ve done, but since I intend to confiscate their property and render them penniless it matters not.”
Vaelin met the King’s gaze, trying to decide if this was some kind of bluff, but saw no deception. “A family should not be punished for the crimes of but one of its members.”
“It is how it must be with nobles, leave the family its wealth and they’ll use it against me sooner or later. Besides, I know these men and their families. They’re a vile, greedy lot by and large. Life in the gutter will suit them well.”
“You put much stock in my word, highness. I could be lying…”
“You’re not. Thirty years a King teaches a man how to hear lies.”
A King’s justice is hard indeed,
Vaelin decided. Could he stomach it? Seeing the certainty in the King’s expression he realised he had no choice. The course had already been set as soon as he opened his mouth. “And the man’s wife?”
“Well there we have a problem. She’s an unrepentant Denier. Aspect Tendris will no doubt seek to hang her from the walls in a cage. If she doesn’t die under questioning first, of course.”
“Highness, you are the King of this Realm and the Champion of the Faith. There must be some influence…”
“
Must
there?” The King's expression was a mix of anger and amusement. “I have done what I
must
this night.” He gestured to the death warrant he had written. “It is a King’s duty to dispense justice where he can. I will kill these men because they have broken the laws of this Realm and deserve their end. As for their victim’s wife, her crimes fall outside my jurisdiction. Therefore, it is not a question of what I must do, but what I may do, if it serves my purpose. So, Vaelin Al Sorna, tell me how saving this woman’s life will serve my purpose. You used your name to get in here, do you have nothing else to say?”
Mother, forgive me.
“I know your Highness had plans for me, before my father sent me to the Order. If it pleases you, I will submit to your plans if you will secure the release of Urlian’s wife.”
The King’s reached for a crystal decanter on his desk and poured a measure of red wine into a glass. “Cumbraelin, ten years old. One of the benefits of Kingship is a well stocked cellar.” He offered the decanter to Vaelin. “Would you care for some?”
Vaelin’s head still ached from his binge in the ale house. “No thank you, Highness.”
“You father wouldn’t drink with me either.” The King sipped his wine slowly. “But then he never sought to bargain with me. I commanded and he followed.”
“Loyalty is our strength.”
“Yes. A fine motto, one of my best. I chose it for him, even chose the hawk as your family crest. It was something of a joke actually. Your father hated hawking, it’s a sport for nobles after all.” He took another sip from his wine, wiping the red stain from his lips with an ink spattered sleeve. “Do you know why he left my service?”
“I had heard there was discord between you over his wish to marry and legitimise my sister.”