All the lessons Sagander delivered to Arathan circled like wolves around weakness, and the proper place of those cursed with it. No, Arathan was not a simpleton. He understood well enough.
And, one day, he would hurt Draconus, in ways not yet imaginable. Father, I believe I am your weakness.
In the meantime, as he hurried along behind Malice, her grip tight on his wrist, he brought up his other hand, and chewed.
Master-at-arms Ivis wiped sweat from his brow while he waited outside the door. The summons had come while he’d been in the smithy, instructing the iron-master on the proper honing of a folded edge. It was said that those with Hust blood knew iron as if they’d suckled its molten stream from their mother’s tit, and Ivis had no doubt in this matter — the smith was a skilled man and a fine maker of weapons, but Ivis possessed Hust blood on his father’s side, and though he counted himself a soldier through and through, he could hear a flawed edge even as a blade was being drawn from its scabbard.
Iron-master Gilal took it well enough, although of course there was no telling. He’d ducked his head and muttered his apologies as befitted his lesser rank, and as Ivis left he heard the huge man bellowing at his apprentices — none of whom was in any way responsible for the flawed edge, since the final stages of blade preparation were always by the iron-master’s own hand. With that tirade Ivis knew that no venom would come back his way from the iron-master.
He told himself now, as he waited outside his lord’s Chamber of Campaigns, that the sweat stinging his eyes was a legacy of the four forges in the smithy, the air wretched with heat and bitter metal, with coal dust and smoke, with the frantic efforts of the workers as they struggled with the day’s demands.
Abyss knew, the smithy was no factory, and yet it had achieved an impressive rate of stock production in the past two months, and not one of the new recruits coming to the Great House was left unarmoured or weaponless for long. Making his task that much easier.
But now the Lord was back, unexpectedly, and Ivis scoured his mind for the possible cause. Draconus was a measured man, not prone to precipitous acts. He had the patience of stone, but all knew the risk of wronging him. Something had brought him back to the Great House, and a night’s hard ride would not have left him in a good mood.
And now a summons, only to be left waiting here outside the door. No, none of this was normal.
A moment later he heard footsteps and the portal clicked open. Ivis found himself staring into the face of the House tutor, Sagander. The old scholar had the look of a man who had been frightened and was still fighting its aftermath. Meeting Ivis’s eyes, he nodded. ‘Captain, the Lord will see you now.’
That, and nothing more. Sagander edged past, made his way down the passageway, walking as if he’d aged a half-dozen years in the last few moments. At the notion, Ivis berated himself. He hardly ever saw the tutor, who overslept every morning and was often the last to make bed at night — there was no reason to imagine Sagander was anything more than disquieted by the early meeting, and perhaps an understandable stiffness as came with the elderly this early in the morning.
Drawing a steadying breath, Ivis strode into the chamber.
The old title of this room was acquiring new significance, but the campaigns of decades past had been conducted against foreign enemies; this time the only enemy was the mutually exclusive ambitions of the Holds and Greater Houses. The Lord’s charnel house smithy was nothing more than reasonable caution these days. Besides, as Mother Dark’s Consort, there was nothing unusual in Draconus bolstering the complement of his Houseblades until it was second only to that of Mother Dark herself. For some reason, other Holds were not as sanguine about the martial expansion of House Dracons.
The politics of the matter held no real interest for Ivis. His task was to train this modest army.
The round table dominating the centre of the room had been cut from the bole of a three-thousand-year-old blackwood. Its rings were bands of red and black beneath the thick, amber varnish. It had been placed in this chamber by the founder of the House half a thousand years ago, to mark her extraordinary rise from Lesser House to Greater House. Since her sudden death ten years past, her adopted son, Draconus, commanded the family holdings; and if Srela’s ambitions had been impressive, they were nothing compared to those of her chosen son.
There were no portraits on the walls, and the heavy wool hangings, undyed and raw, were there for warmth alone, as was the thick rug underfoot.
Draconus was breaking his fast at the table: bread and watered wine. A scatter of scrolls surrounded the pewter plate before him.
When it seemed that Draconus had not noticed his arrival, Ivis said, ‘Lord.’
‘Report on his progress, captain.’
Ivis frowned, resisted wiping at his brow again. Upon reflection, he’d known this was coming. The boy was in his year, after all. ‘He possesses natural skill, Lord, as befits his sire. But his hands are weak yet — that habit of gnawing on his nails has left the pads soft and easily torn.’
‘Is he diligent?’
Still Draconus was yet to look up, intent on his meal.
‘At his exercises, Lord? It is hard to say. There is an air of the effortless about him. For all that I work him, or set the best recruits against him on the sand, he remains… unpressed.’
Draconus grunted. ‘And does that frustrate you, captain?’
‘That I have yet to truly test him, yes, Lord, it does. I do not have as much time with him as I would like, though I understand the necessity for higher tutoring. Still, as a young swordsman, there is much to admire in his ease.’
Finally, the Lord glanced up. ‘Is there, now?’ He leaned back, pushing the plate away with its remnants of crust and drippings. ‘Find him a decent sword, some light chain, gauntlets, vambraces and greaves. And a helm. Then instruct the stables to ready him a solid warhorse — I know, he has not yet learned to ride a charger, so be sure the beast is not wilful.’
Ivis blinked. ‘Lord, every horse is wilful beneath an uncertain rider.’
As if he’d not heard, Draconus continued, ‘A mare, I think, young, eager to fix eye and ear on Calaras.’
Eager? More like terrified.
Perhaps Ivis had given something of his thoughts away in his face, for his lord smiled. ‘Think you I cannot control my mount? Oh, and a spare horse along with the charger. One of the walkers. Make it a gelding.’
Ah, then not returning to Kharkanas. ‘Lord, shall this be a long journey?’
Draconus stood, and only now did Ivis note the shadows under the man’s eyes. ‘Yes,’ and then as if answering a question Ivis had not voiced, ‘and this time, I shall ride with my son.’
Malice pulled him into the corridor leading to the Chamber of Campaigns. Arathan knew it only by name; not once had he ventured into his father’s favoured room. He drew back, stretching the link between himself and his sister.
She twisted round, face darkening — and then she suddenly relaxed, loosening her grip on his wrist. ‘Like a hare in the autumn, you are. Is that what you think he wants to see?’
‘I don’t know what he wants to see,’ Arathan replied. ‘How could I?’
‘Did you see Clawface Ivis leaving? He was just ahead — took the courtyard passage. He’ll have reported on you. He’ll have talked about you. And now Father’s waiting. To see for himself.’
‘Clawface?’
‘Because of his scars-’
‘Those aren’t scars,’ Arathan said, ‘it’s just age. Ivis Yerrthust fought in the Forulkan War. They starved on the retreat — they all did. That’s where those lines on his face came from.’
She was staring at him as if he’d lost his wits. ‘What do you think will happen, Arathan?’
‘About what?’
‘If he doesn’t like what he sees.’
Arathan shrugged. Even this close to his father — thirty paces down a broad corridor and then a door — still he could feel nothing. The air was unchanged, as if power was nothing but an illusion. The notion startled him, but he would not draw close to it, not yet. This was not the time to see where it led.