Knight's Shadow (45 page)

Finally Trin stepped back. ‘I think he’s ready for your ninth death,’ she said, her eyes still on me. She looked genuinely surprised.

‘Why do you say that?’ Heryn asked.

‘Because he just keeps saying “kill me, kill me” over and over again.’

Chapter Forty

The King’s Patience

‘Are you going to tell me what it says?’ I asked.

King Paelis and I were having lunch in the solarium that he’d had built on one of the great lawns outside the walls of Castle Aramor. We were discussing a recent property dispute. The weather was pleasant, with a few clouds in the sky, ‘just enough for decoration’, as my mother used to say. One of the royal retainers had come out with a note, and as soon as the King had opened it his face had gone pale and for the next several minutes he’d just sat there staring at it.

‘I did something, Falcio,’ he said finally. His hands were trembling as he picked up the silver wine goblet and brought it to his lips.

‘Your Majesty?’

‘It was . . .’ He took a sip, then stopped and carefully put the goblet back down, almost as if he felt he didn’t have the right to drink the wine. He rose from his chair and walked over to the tall windows with the stained-glass arches that looked out at the courtyard where the Greatcoats trained. ‘Kings
use
people, Falcio.’

I wasn’t sure what to say to that so I tried to make light of it. ‘Is that not the function of Kings? Those who can, do; those who can’t, rule?’

But he didn’t rise to the bait, nor did he laugh. ‘It’s necessary,’ he said, as if it needed explaining. ‘Sometimes you know you have to send people to fight, and likely to die. I can live with that. But there are other times when you spend someone’s life not on a certainty – not on the assured right thing to do – but on a probability . . . not even that. A bet. A whim, even.’

I didn’t understand what he was going on about. The King hated violence; he hated taking risks with our lives. We all knew that.

‘We volunteer,’ I said. ‘None of us Greatcoats are conscripted. It’s not like the Dukes—’

‘The Knights aren’t conscripted either,’ he said.

I nearly spat – in those days, any mention of Knights was enough to set me off. ‘Forgive me, your Majesty, but Knights take up arms to satisfy their egos, believing that their wealth and training and armour and Gods-know-what-else make them too important to die. When a Knight is killed in battle, it’s always with a look of surprise on his face.’

‘And the Greatcoats?’

‘We spend our lives in service of a just country – a just
world
.’

The King gave a rueful laugh. ‘We are a very small country, Falcio. One day you will set foot outside our borders and discover just how small we are.’

‘Well, I’ll start by spreading justice here and get round to those other countries when I have a bit more time.’

He turned and looked at me with that sideways smile of his. ‘You are very sure of yourself, First Cantor.’

‘No. I’m very sure of you.’

His face settled into a flatter, sadder expression and he turned away. ‘There are days, Falcio, when the weight of your faith is almost more than I can bear.’

‘I—’

He waved a hand at me and I shut up and we sat like that for a while, the King standing staring out of the window while I sat silently a few feet away. The King hadn’t dismissed me, and after a while I decided to presume on our friendship. ‘What did you do?’

‘Hmm?’

‘I asked, what did you do?’ If one of the other Greatcoats had been sent on a mission from which they weren’t going to return, I wanted to know. ‘You’ve clearly done something that’s weighing on your conscience. Who did you send?’

He shook his head. ‘No one you know.’

For some reason, the answer surprised me. The Greatcoats were the most capable duellists in the country and in those days I knew every one of them by name. To send someone who wasn’t as able seemed . . . callous. ‘If the mission was so important, then why not send one of us?’

‘Because I needed someone who could be corrupted.’ He turned back to me. ‘And I needed to hope that they could overcome such corruption as would destroy any man’s soul.’

‘How would—?’

‘That’s enough,’ Paelis said. ‘I’m tired of your questions, Falcio. I’m tired of having you sit there and look at me like . . .’

He crumpled the note in his hand and let it drop to the floor. ‘The hells for your faith, Falcio.’ He walked through the open door and back across the grass towards the castle, leaving me there with the food and the wine and my notes on the property case. After a few minutes I reached down and picked up the crumpled note. I straightened it out and read it.

On a single line, in a feminine hand, were the words:
I am lost
.

*

On the morning of the ninth day I no longer cared about pain, nor for my life, nor even my soul. The Dashini had lost that much power over me at least.

Dariana, Heryn and two other Dashini remained. On one side of the clearing was Valiana, bound hand and foot, sitting on the ground. On the other side, the Bardatti, one living, one very dead – Colwyn’s body had begun to stink so badly that even I could smell him – were still tied to the trees. Nehra watched me, as always. The gag was still covering her mouth. I felt guilty under her gaze.

They needed the troubadour to witness what they did to me and to spread the story of my death, but they would kill Valiana, for she had no value to them. She was just a small, ugly piece of my death.

Even through my agonising exhaustion I could see the irony in the situation. At first I blamed the healer. Why had Firensi let her go? She’d taken a sword-thrust to the chest; surely he should have bound her to a bed for a month? So I tried to curse him, but I found I couldn’t muster the will.

Valiana had been trying to get herself killed since she first put on that damned coat to prove to the world that heroism could be found in anyone.
I’m Valiana val Mond, damn it. I’m going to make that count
. And it would count. They would use her to make my death just a little worse, so instead of inspiring others, her contribution to history would be showing once and for all that there is no such thing as a noble death.

Heryn was in excellent spirits this morning. ‘Do you know how many times your feckless King tried to send men to infiltrate our order, Falcio?’

‘One too few?’ I suggested. But no, I hadn’t actually said that. I thought I had, but what actually came from my lips was a whimpered, ‘
Please . . .
’

‘Twelve. Twelve times he sent Greatcoats to try to join the order.’ He pulled out a small cloth from his coat. ‘I kept souvenirs.’ He opened the bag and revealed a jumble of finger-bones. ‘Twelve men. Twelve little fingers.’

I suppose Heryn wanted me to feel terror at that moment, or anger for my fallen comrades, but the sight of the fingers only made me wonder about their families. Each of those dead Greatcoats must have had someone who had cared about them, who had wondered where they were. Those people had nothing left of their loved ones.

Absurdly, momentarily forgetting my bonds, I reached out to take the little bones from him, but by the time I realised I hadn’t moved I saw that Heryn was kneeling by his black leather roll, setting out the needles and bottles.

Something harsh and vaguely clever came to my mind, but yet again the words from my lips were a betrayal: ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘please. Please. Now.’ I wondered if it would help if I called him master.

Heryn looked up at me and grinned. ‘Oh no, this needle isn’t for you. It would hardly be very elegant, would it, if in the end we just killed you with a piece of steel jammed into your skull? No, no: have you not understood yet? The whole
point
of the Lament is that you die from grief, First Cantor. It’s in the
name
, don’t you see?’

He came over and flicked one of the needles he had left in my chest and the sudden burst of pain made me stiffen, which made all the other needles feel like they were breaking off inside of me.

‘All of these are just to prepare your body, Falcio. Do you know that even now, even with all the pain you’ve experienced, you could still live? You stand at the very edge of death’s door – you need to pass through it by yourself.’

He walked over to Valiana. His mere presence roused her and she began squirming. Dariana knelt down and held Valiana in place as Heryn very carefully inserted the needle into her cheek, just below her eye. She sucked in a breath and tried to scream, but she couldn’t. I could see her eyes flooding with tears as she moaned, and her agony was so acute that I could feel it myself: a new pain, and one from which neither my broken body nor my broken heart could shield me.

So this was how they wanted me to die.
This
was the Greatcoat’s Lament. My mind turned not to words of anger, nor to the acts of violence I so desired to inflict on Heryn and Dariana; instead all I could think of was how much I wanted to be dead. I wanted to bash my head back against the post to knock myself unconscious, or swallow my tongue so that I could choke. I wanted to walk through death’s door, right then and there.

Do what you want to her, but let me die rather than see it
, I thought, but that wasn’t what came from my lips.

‘Stop,’ I said, the treasonous word forcing its way between my clenched teeth. ‘Stop now.’

Heryn’s grin widened. ‘You’ve found your voice again? Excellent.’ He twisted the needle, and Valiana’s body began to spasm.

‘Stop,’ I repeated, straining against my bonds, feeling the knotted cords push deeper into the pressure points in my flesh.

Dariana was looking at me, her eyes troubled, but Heryn wasn’t paying attention. ‘Don’t die now, Falcio, I still have—’

Dariana glanced around. ‘Someone comes,’ she said.

Heryn was annoyed. ‘I hear no one.’

‘Regardless of what you hear, someone comes.’

‘Very well.’ Heryn turned to the other two Unblooded. ‘Go – find whomever it is and kill them. Dariana and I will complete the ritual.’ He turned to me, his hand still on the needle in Valiana’s cheek. ‘Imagine, Falcio: imagine that someone is coming to save you. Let hope enter your heart, just for a moment – it will make the final fall all the sweeter.’

His Unblooded left, but despite Heryn’s urging, I felt no hope. I knew Kest wasn’t there. I knew Brasti hadn’t miraculously come back for me. I was completely alone.

I expected the thought to make me despair, but somehow, it did the opposite: the equation was so simple that I wondered why I had lacked this clarity every day of my life.

I was alone.

Valiana was being killed.

I could not allow it.

It is so simple
. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? I would simply break free from my bonds and kill the Unblooded and then she would be safe.

Simple
.

An eight-year-old boy shakes his fist at the sky and earth and vows,
My name is Falcio val Mond and I am going to be a Greatcoat
. The boy has nothing, though. His father is gone and his mother is slowly withering away from solitude. He doesn’t know how to fight, or how to swing a sword.
And yet.

And yet there’s something inside him.

It’s in you, too
, he says to me.
It’s the one thing we never lost. It’s the thing they can’t take from us.

What is it?
I ask.

The boy Falcio looks at me like I’m a fool.
You want a word for it? What will giving it a name do?

I don’t know. Something. Names
mean
something.

Fine
, he says, and he looks down at his palm. There’s something written there. After a moment he looks up at me and grins.
There
is
a word for it. Imagine that!

So what’s the word?
I ask.

I don’t know. I haven’t learned to read yet, stupid.

Show me
, I say, and he thinks about it for a while, as if maybe he wants to keep it his secret, but finally he holds up his palm.

Can you read it for me?
he asks.

The boy’s hand is blurry, as is the world around him, but the word isn’t. The word is clear.
Yes
, I say.
Yes. I can read it.

It’s the only thing we have left, isn’t it? It’s the thing they can’t take from us.

Yes
, I agree,
it’s the one thing they can’t take. Do you want me to tell you the word?

He shakes his head.
No. It’s not something that needs to be said. It’s something that needs to be
shown.
You need to show them the word.

All right
, I say.
But I want to say the word anyway.

Will it make a difference?
the boy asks.

It will to me
, I reply.
Words
matter.
Without words you can’t have stories and without stories we would never have heard of the Greatcoats.

Fine
, he says,
tell me the word, but hurry up. It’s time to show them what’s inside us, underneath all the stupid stuff.

I hesitate for just a moment, both because I’m scared and because I want to make him ask again.

What’s the word?
he asks impatiently.

‘Valour. The word is valour.’

The boy smiles.
That’s a good word
, he says.
Can you forget a word like that?

Yes
, I say.
You shouldn’t, but I think I might have forgotten it for a while.

You won’t forget it again, right?

Never. I’ll never forget it again. They’ll never break us again.

So show them
, he urges me now.
Show them what valour looks like.

The boy wants me to break free of the bonds and duel with Heryn. He still thinks like a boy.
That’s really not how it works
, I want to tell him, but I don’t want to disappoint him so I keep that to myself.

‘Remarkable,’ I hear Heryn say as he and Dariana come close. ‘Look at him. He should be completely paralysed. He can’t feel his arms or his legs or anything except the pain emanating from his broken nerves, and yet look how he strains against the bonds. I think he might even break free if he had time.’