‘I will delay you no longer, Finadd.’
Brys nodded, turned and strode from the office.
A part of him longed for the days of old, when he was just an officer in the Palace Guard. When he carried little political weight, and the presence of the king was always at a distance, with Brys and his fellow guardsmen standing at attention along one wall at official audiences and engagements. Then again, he reconsidered as he walked down the corridor, the First Eunuch had called him because of his blood, not his new role as King’s Champion.
Hull Beddict. Like a restless ghost, a presence cursed to haunt him no matter where he went, no matter what he did. Brys remembered seeing his eldest brother, resplendent in the garb of Sentinel, the King’s Reed at his belt. A last and lasting vision for the young, impressionable boy he had been all those years ago. That moment remained with him, a tableau frozen in time that he wandered into in his dreams, or at reflective moments like these. A painted image. Brothers, man and child, the two of them cracked and yellowed beneath the dust. And he would stand witness, like a stranger, to the boy’s wide-eyed, adoring expression, and would follow that uplifted gaze and then shift his own uneasily, suspicious of that uniformed soldier’s pride.
Innocence was a blade of glory, yet it could blind on both sides.
He’d told Nifadas he did not understand Hull. But he did. All too well.
He understood Tehol, too, though perhaps marginally less well. The rewards of wealth beyond measure had proved cold; only the hungry desire for that wealth hissed with heat. And that truth belonged to the world of the Letherii, the brittle flaw at the core of the golden sword. Tehol had thrown himself on that sword, and seemed content to bleed to death, slowly and with amiable aplomb. Whatever final message he sought in his death was a waste of time, since no-one would look his way when that day came. No-one dared. Which is why, I suspect, he’s smiling .
His brothers had ascended their peaks long ago – too early, it turned out – and now slid down their particular paths to dissolution and death. And what of me, then? I have been named King’s Champion. Judged the finest swordsman in the kingdom. I believe I stand, here and now, upon the highest reach . There was no need to take that thought further.
He reached a T-intersection and swung right. Ten paces ahead a side door spilled light into the corridor. As he came opposite it a voice called to him from the chamber within.
‘Finadd! Come quick.’