The Tattered Banner (Society of the Sword Volume 1) (53 page)

A PLACE AT COURT

‘B
anneret Captain Soren, pleased to meet you. I’m Edwart dal Gawan, Banneret of the Blue.’

He was dressed in the dark blue uniform of an infantry officer, but he wore no rank or regimental insignia. He had the slightly fairer complexion of those who come from the northern parts of Ostia and was clean shaven, contrary to the prevailing fashion at the time. He gestured to a chair and Soren sat.

‘I’ve been tasked with the command of the Duke’s new bodyguard,’ said dal Gawan. ‘Our duties are simple. We will be with the Duke at all times when he is outside of the Palace compound. While he is at the Palace, the responsibility for his safety will rest with the Guard, leaving us to our own devices. I fear overcoming boredom may become our greatest challenge, so I intend to put together a rigorous training regime for us, but otherwise you will be free to enjoy life here, which I think you will,’ he said, with a smile.

Soren’s first meeting with his new commander was promising. While he was an aristocrat, he had outlined his extensive résumé of operational experience and coupled with his brusque military manner it was obvious that he had spent as much time on drill squares as he had on ballroom dance floors.

He found the first few days of life at the Palace to be tedious as dal Gawan had hinted they might be. There seemed to be a banquet or a ball almost every night, and as a banneret, and a member of the Duke’s retinue he was expected to be present. He had never felt comfortable with high society, even though at some level it represented the life he was striving to live. He hadn’t grown up with these people, didn’t know them and didn’t much care for the things that they seemed to enjoy doing. He had quickly noticed, while at the Academy, that a bond existed between those who had grown up in the same circle that could never be fully achieved by a blow-in like Soren. As a result, he knew he would always be an outsider to some degree.

It seemed that the other members of the new bodyguard were of a similar mind. With the exception of dal Gawan, none of them were members of the nobility. They were all men who were lucky enough to get into the Academy, and from there had worked hard and fought to carve out their career. They were all older than him, and for most of them this was the pinnacle of their career.

Dal Gawan was the only one of them that truly belonged there. He was an aristocrat, but nobody could criticise his credentials. Being a Banneret of the Blue was testimony to his ability. When he had introduced himself, Soren felt a vague pang of regret that he had chosen not to remain at the Academy and complete his studies. He supposed there was always the possibility of returning there to complete the training at a later date.

While Soren and the others sat at their table at the banquets, not really talking, dal Gawan moved between the groups of other aristocrats, chatting, dancing and fully taking part in the evening. It occurred to Soren that they must have seemed like outcasts, but he had never enjoyed this kind of activity after its initial novelty value wore off and he did not expect that to change.

The Duke was always the centre of attention at these gatherings. It occurred to him that he had never actually seen the Duke before, other than in profile on one side of a one crown coin. He had assumed that he would be an older man, probably corpulent and decrepit, but in actuality he was a young man, as the numismatic depiction suggested, not much over thirty, and in good physical condition. He was still unmarried and was clearly considered attractive by the noble ladies of the Duchy. He came from one of the preeminent families of the Duchy, the elector counts, and had been elected as duke a decade or so before. It surprised Soren that such a young man would have been elected, but he did not pretend that he even began to understand the complex political machinations of the Duchy. All he knew was that once the scion of a family had served as a duke, no member of that family could be eligible for election for the next two generations. The system was designed to ensure that no one family could establish itself as a ruling dynasty and it had been successful in this aim since the founding of the Duchy, the better part of a thousand years before.

At the second banquet he attended, Soren had spotted Amero. In such company he had known that it was only a matter of time before their paths crossed once again, but it had put him into a black mood for the rest of the evening nonetheless. Amero spotted him and held Soren’s gaze with no expression on his face for a moment before he returned to laughing with his companions. Soren looked around to see if Emeric was there. Amero’s lap dog never strayed far from his master. It occurred to him that the same could now be said for him, but in the service of the Duke.

It came as a relief when the call finally came for them to escort the Duke out in to the city. The Duke rode in his carriage, with two of his New Guard as they were now being called, while the rest, including Soren, followed behind. The Duke was headed to the Cathedral. Despite having spent his childhood in a Cathedral orphanage, the religious liturgies taught had never established themselves in Soren’s memory and he had never actually been inside the Cathedral itself. It seemed likely that a declaration of war against Ruripathia was coming any day, and the Duke wanted a blessing on any future military endeavours.

The carriages rattled along the cobbles of the streets with forerunners clearing the way until they passed out of the tight streets, and the rows of tall buildings fell away to the vast open space of Crossways. The square was, as always, crowded. For the first time Soren felt a twinge of apprehension at the prospect of the job ahead. In a wide-open space, with large crowds, there were any number of ways someone could attack the Duke. By bow from a rooftop would be impossible to head off; all they could hope to do was provide an adequate screen, which would mean that one of the bodyguards would take the arrow. That wasn’t a solution Soren found particularly attractive but he supposed that was part of the job.

A direct attack would be easier to deal with. It would be easier to spot, and Soren was comfortable that no one would get past him. He hadn’t seen much of the other members of the New Guard yet, other than a little in practice sparring sessions, but they all seemed to be well able to handle themselves. You could never tell though, not until the true test came.

They took position around the carriage and waited for the Duke to exit. One of his attendants exited first, then the Duke and another of his aides. Soren scanned the crowd, his eyes moving slowly back and forth. Their arrival was generating little, if any interest. People kept about their business, some casting a brief glance at the ornate carriage. As the Duke walked toward the Cathedral and up its steps, Soren and the New Guard walked with him in a loose ring around him and his attendants.

Weapons were forbidden in the Cathedral, which made the bodyguard all but useless. Those that followed the rules often left themselves vulnerable, and Soren knew that if he were planning to assassinate the Duke, he would wait inside the Cathedral, with all the weapons necessary to complete the job. Screened off from too many eyes, there were plenty of places to hide in wait; it really was a very attractive option for a potential assassin. The only question that remained was if anyone was blasphemous enough to shed blood in the Cathedral. It wouldn’t have been a problem for him.

He actually gasped in awe when he went into the Cathedral. It was the largest enclosed space he had ever been in. The training hall at the Academy had been vast, its ceiling was dizzyingly high and every sound echoed around it when it was empty. The Cathedral was at least twice the size, if not more. But where the training hall had been austere and functional, the Cathedral was magnificent. Great banners hung from poles sticking out from the walls running down either side of the nave, which led to the altar at the front, some one hundred paces distant. The banners were those of heroes of Ostenheim, there as a mark of respect to honour their service to the city. Soren wondered if his as yet unmade banner would ever hang there. When he looked to the ceiling, he felt a little dizzy, so high above him were its graceful vaults.

Dal Gawan told them to wait by the doors, close to their weapons, which in one sense was comforting to Soren, but in another, it bothered him that they would be too far from the Duke to be of any use to him. It wouldn’t do his career any good to have the Duke assassinated on their first proper day out.

In the end he need not have worried. The Duke conferred with the Lord Bishop for half an hour, prayed for about the same length of time, and then they were all back in their carriages returning to the Palace. Soren felt a mixture of relief and disappointment that nothing of interest had occurred. Hopefully it would not be so long until their next outing, because until then it would be little more than vapid parties, banquets and boredom.

The relationship between the members of the New Guard began to thaw with the passage of time. It took a few days, but gradually they all came to the conclusion that they were all outsiders there, all there to do a specific job, and they were all more than qualified. The initial efforts to maintain a tough, distant air dissipated and the chat at their table behind the Duke’s became more congenial. Technically they were not on duty during the parties, where there were enough guards to put off any would be assassin. Nonetheless they were all aware of how important their jobs were and how good an opportunity they had, and with this in mind, they could never fully relax or consider themselves completely off duty. All of them carried at least their daggers and none took more than furtive sips of wine, their eyes always keen, their expressions always alert.

Soren felt physically ill when he saw Alessandra come into the banqueting hall one evening on the arm of an elderly aristocrat. He was stuffed into an immaculate military uniform, and his hair and moustache were clearly dyed. The lines on his face betrayed his age though. She looked radiant, as she always had. The already bright room seemed to brighten with her presence. He looked away as soon as he saw her and felt himself shrinking into his seat. He didn’t want her to see him. The next time he saw her, he wanted to have been ennobled, wealthy, a great hero and famous swordsman. Not just a journeyman on retainer.