The mire ghouls swarmed over the tip of the Finger, grey and spider-like, swift and silent. Kai ripped his short sword from its scabbard. It felt heavier than lead. The numbness was in his fingers already and the sword fell from his clumsy grasp.
A storms coming.
1
I failed my brother. I hung in the thorns and let him die and the world has been wrong since that night. I failed him, and though Ive let many brothers die since, that first pain has not diminished. The best part of me still hangs there, on those thorns. Life can tear away whats vital to a man, hook it from him, one scrap at a time, leaving him empty-handed and beggared by the years. Every man has his thorns, not of him, but in him, deep as bones. The scars of the briar mark me, a calligraphy of violence, a message blood-writ, requiring a lifetime to translate.
The Gilden Guard always arrive on my birthday. They came for me when I turned sixteen, they came to my father and to my uncle the day I reached twelve. I rode with the brothers at that time and we saw the guard troop headed for Ancrath along the Great West Road. When I turned eight I saw them first hand, clattering through the gates of the Tall Castle on their white stallions. Will and I had watched in awe.
Today I watched them with Miana at my side. Queen Miana. They came clattering through a different set of gates into a different castle, but the effect was much the same, a golden tide. I wondered if the Haunt would hold them all.
Captain Harran! I called down. Good of you to come. Will you have an ale? I waved toward the trestle tables set out before him. Id had our thrones brought onto the balcony so we could watch the arrival.
Harran swung himself from the saddle, dazzling in his fire-gilt steel. Behind him guardsmen continued to pour into the courtyard. Hundreds of them. Seven troops of fifty to be exact. One troop for each of my lands. When they had come four years before, I warranted just a single troop, but Harran had been leading it then as now.
My thanks, King Jorg, he called up. But we must ride before noon. The roads to Vyene are worse than expected. We will be hard pushed to reach the Gate by Congression.
Surely you wont rush a king from his birthday celebrations just for Congression? I sipped my ale and held the goblet aloft. I claim my twentieth year today, you know.
Harran made an apologetic shrug and turned to review his troops. More than two hundred were already crowded in. I would be impressed if he managed to file the whole contingent of three hundred and fifty into the Haunt. Even after extension during the reconstruction, the front courtyard wasnt what one would call capacious.
I leaned toward Miana and placed a hand on her fat belly. Hes worried if I dont go there might be another hung vote.
She smiled at that. The last vote that was even close to a decision had been at the second Congression the thirty-third wasnt likely to be any nearer to setting an emperor on the throne than the previous thirty.
Makin came through the gates at the rear of the guard column with a dozen or so of my knights, having escorted Harran through the Highlands. A purely symbolic escort since none in their right mind, and few even in their wrong mind, would get in the way of a Gilden Guard troop, let alone seven massed together.
So Miana, you can see why I have to leave you, even if my son is about to fight his way out into the world. I felt him kick under my hand. Miana shifted in her throne. I cant really say no to seven troops.
One of those troops is for Lord Kennick, you know, she said.
Who? I asked it only to tease her.
Sometimes I think you regret turning Makin into my lord of Kennick. She gave me that quick scowl of hers.
I think he regrets it too. He cant have spent more than a month there in the last two years. Hes had the good furniture from the Barons Hall moved to his rooms here.
We fell silent, watching the guard marshal their numbers within the tight confines of the courtyard. Their discipline put all other troops to shame. Even Grandfathers Horse Coast cavalry looked a rabble next to the Gilden Guard. I had once marvelled at the quality of Orrin of Arrows travel guard, but these men stood a class apart. Not one of the hundreds didnt gleam in the sun, the gilt on their armour showing no sign of dirt or wear. The last emperor had deep pockets and his personal guard continued to dip into them close on two centuries after his death.
I should go down. I made to get up, but didnt. I liked the comfort. Three weeks hard riding held little appeal.
You should. Miana chewed on a pepper. Her tastes had veered from one extreme to another in past months. Of late shed returned to the scalding flavours of her homeland on the Horse Coast. It made her kisses quite an adventure. I should give you your present first though.
I raised a brow at that and tapped her belly. Hes cooked and ready?
Miana flicked my hand away and waved to a servant in the shadows of the hall. At times she still looked like the child whod arrived to find the Haunt all but encircled, all but doomed. At a month shy of fifteen the most petite of serving girls still dwarfed her, but at least pregnancy had added some curves, filled her chest out, put some colour in her cheeks.
Hamlar came out with something under a silk cloth, long and thin, but not long enough for a sword. He offered it to me with a slight bow. Hed served my uncle for twenty years but had never shown me a sour glance since I put an end to his old employment. I twitched the cloth away.
A stick? My dear, you shouldnt have. I pursed my lips at it. A nice enough stick it had to be said. I didnt recognize the wood.
Hamlar set the stick on the table between the thrones and departed.
Its a rod, Miana said. Lignum Vitae, hard, and heavy enough to sink in water.
A stick that could drown me
She waved again and Hamlar returned with a large tome from my library held before him, opened to a page marked with an ivory spacer.
It says there that the Lord of Orlanth won the hereditary right to bear his rod of office at the Congressional. She set a finger to the appropriate passage.
I picked the rod up with renewed interest. It felt like an iron bar in my hand. As King of the Highlands, Arrow, Belpan, Conaught, Normardy, and Orlanth, not to mention overlord of Kennick, it seemed that I now held royal charter to carry a wooden stick where all others must walk unarmed. And thanks to my pixie-faced, rosy-cheeked little queen, my stick would be an iron-wood rod that could brain a man in a pot-helm.
Thank you, I said. Ive never been one for affection or sentiment, but I liked to think we understood each other well enough for her to know when something pleased me.
I gave the rod an experimental swish and found myself sufficient inspiration to leave my throne. Ill look in on Coddin on the way down.
Coddins nurses had anticipated me. The door to his chambers stood open, the window shutters wide, musk sticks lit. Even so the stench of his wound hung in the air. Soon it would be two years since the arrow struck him and still the wound festered and gaped beneath the physicians dressings.
Jorg. He waved to me from his bed, made up by the window and raised so he too could see the guard arrive.
Coddin. The old sense of unfocused guilt folded around me.
Did you say goodbye to her?
Miana? Of course. Well
Shes going to have your child, Jorg. Alone. Whilst youre off riding.
Shell hardly be alone. She has no end of maids and ladies-in-waiting. Damned if I know their names or recognize half of them. Seems to be a new one every day.
You played your part in this, Jorg. She will know youre absent when the time comes and it will be harder on her. You should at least make a proper goodbye.
Only Coddin could lecture me so.
I said thank you. I twirled my new stick into view. A present.
When youre done here go back up. Say the right things.
I gave the nod that means perhaps. It seemed to be enough for him.
I never tire of watching those boys at horse, he said, glancing once more at the gleaming ranks below.
Practice makes perfect. Theyd do better to practise war though. Being able to back a horse into a tight corner makes a pretty show but-
So enjoy the show! He shook his head, tried to hide a grimace, then looked at me. What can I do for you, my king?
As always, I said. Advice.
You hardly need it. Ive never even seen Vyene, not even been close. I havent got anything that will help you in the Holy City. Sharp wits and all that book learning should serve you well enough. You survived the last Congression, didnt you?
I let that memory tug a bleak smile from me. Ive got some measure of cleverness perhaps, old man, but what I need from you is wisdom. I know youve had my library brought through this chamber one book at a time. The men bring you tales and rumour from all corners. Where do my interests lie in Vyene? Where shall I drop my seven votes?
I stepped closer, across the bare stones. Coddin was ever the soldier: no rugs or rushes for him even as an invalid.
You dont want to hear my wisdom, Jorg. If thats what it is. Coddin turned to the window again, the sun catching his age, and catching the lines that pain had etched into him.
I had hoped youd changed your mind, I said. There are hard paths and there are the hardest paths.
The stench of his wound came stronger now I stood close. Corruption is nibbling at our heels from the hour were born. The stink of rot just reminds us where our feet are leading us, whichever direction they point in.
Vote with your father. Be at peace with him.
Good medicines often taste foul, but some pills are too bitter to swallow. I paused to take the anger from my voice. Its been nearly more than I can do not to march my armies into Ancrath and lay waste. If its a struggle to keep from open war how can there be peace?
You two are alike. Your father perhaps a touch colder, more stern and with less ambition, but you fell from the same tree and similar evils forged you.
Only Coddin could tell me I was my fathers son and live. Only a man who had already died in my employ and lay rotting in my service still, out of duty, only such a man could speak that truth.
I dont need him, I said.
Didnt this ghost of yours, this Builder, tell you two Ancraths together would end the power of the hidden hands? Think, Jorg! Sageous set your uncle against you. Sageous wanted you and your brother in the ground. And failing that he drove a wedge between father and son. And what would end the power of men like Sageous, of the Silent Sister, Skilfar, and all their ilk? Peace! An emperor on the throne. A single voice of command. Two Ancraths! You think your father has been idle all this time, the years that grew you, and the years before? He may not have your arching ambition, but he is not without his own measure. King Olidan has influence in many courts. I wont say he has friends, but he commands loyalty, respect, and fear in equal measures. Olidan knows secrets.