“The Fourth Order once offered healing only to those who were true adherents of the Faith but now they open their arms to all, even the unfaithful, and so they grow strong and confident in the knowledge that they may plot against us and we will still heal them.

“My own Order once kept records of Denier sects and practices going back centuries, but not more than three months ago they were destroyed to make yet more room for the Royal accounts we are now required to keep. I know what I say may anger or shock many in this chamber, but believe me brothers and sisters, we have tied the Faith too closely to the Realm and the Crown. And that is why we were attacked, because our enemies see our weakness if we do not.”

The silence was palpable, broken only by the choked rage of Aspect Dendrish who managed to gasp, “You come before us spouting this… this heresy and still expect to be made Aspect?”

“I come before you to speak the truth in the hope our Faith will return to its true path. As for your approval, I do not require it. I am the choice of my Order. My election was unopposed and no other will come before you. The articles of the Faith state you must be consulted before my ascension, that is all. Am I not correct, Aspect Silla?”

The aged Aspect nodded his grey head stiffly, either too shocked or too outraged to speak.

“Then we have consulted and I thank you all for your attention. I pray you will all heed my words. Now I must return to my Order, for I have much to do.” He bowed and turned to walk briskly from the chamber.

The Conclave exploded with rage, the assembly rising to their feet, shouting their anger at Al Forne’s retreating back, the words “heretic” and “traitor” loudest amongst the cries. Al Forne didn’t turn, leaving the chamber without breaking stride or sparing a backward glance. The tumult continued unabated, calls for action rising above the clamour, some masters imploring Aspect Arlyn to seize Al Forne and take him to the Blackhold. Aspect Arlyn however sat in silence throughout it all.

Vaelin noticed Caenis had used up his supply of parchment and was feverishly searching his pockets for more. “Has this ever happened before?” he asked him, finding he had to shout to be heard.

“Never,” Caenis replied, finding a scrap of parchment he began to write again, quickly covering it in script. “Not ever in the history of the Faith.”

Chapter 7

Autumn brought the Test of the Bow. Once again all the novice brothers passed. Predictably Caenis, Nortah and Dentos excelled themselves whilst Barkus and Vaelin proved only adequate, at least by the standards of the Order. They were rewarded with permission to attend the Summertide Fair, delayed for two months due to the riots.

Both Vaelin and Nortah opted to remain behind. There were rumours that the Crows continued to nurse their grievance and it seemed pointless to invite retribution at the scene of their humiliation. Besides, Nortah had no wish to revisit an event synonymous with his father’s execution. They spent the day hunting in the woods with Scratch, the slave-hound’s nose quickly leading them to a deer. Nortah put an arrow through the animal’s neck from fifty paces. Instead of carrying the carcass back to the kitchens they decided to butcher it on the spot and camp out for the night. It was a pleasant evening in the woods, the leaves of early autumn laying a greenish bronze blanket on the forest floor and shafts of sunlight streaming through the thinning branches.

“There are worse places to be,” Vaelin observed, cutting a slice from the haunch of venison spitted over their camp fire.

“Reminds me of home,” Nortah said, tossing a slice of meat to Scratch.

Vaelin hid his surprise. Since his father’s execution Nortah rarely spoke of his life before the Order. “Where is it? Your home.”

“In the south, three hundred acres of land bordered by the Hebril river. My father’s house was set on the shores of Lake Rihl. It had been a castle when he was a boy but he’d made many changes. We had over sixty rooms and a stable for forty horses. We’d often go riding in the woods, when he wasn’t at Varinshold on the King’s business.”

“Did he tell you what he did for the King?”

“Many times, he wanted me to learn. He said one day I would serve Prince Malcius the same way he served King Janus. It was the duty of our family to be the King’s closest advisors.” He gave a short, bitter laugh.

“Did he ever tell you about the war with the Meldeneans?”

Nortah gave him a sidelong glance. “When your father burned their city you mean? He only mentioned it once. He said the Meldeneans couldn’t hate us any more than they already did. Besides they’d had ample warning of what would happen if they didn’t leave our ships and our coast in peace. My father was a very pragmatic man, burning their city didn’t seem to concern him greatly.”

“He didn’t tell you why he sent you here, did he?”

Nortah shook his head. The hour was growing late and the glow of the fire shone brightly in his eyes, his handsome face sombre in shadow. “He said I was his son and it was his wish that I join the Sixth Order. I remember he had argued with my mother the night before, which was strange because they never argued, in fact they rarely spoke at all. In the morning she wasn’t at breakfast and I wasn’t allowed to say goodbye when the cart came for me. I haven’t seen her since.”

They lapsed into silence, Vaelin’s line of thought leading him to questions he felt were best unasked.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Nortah said.

“I wasn’t thinking…”

“Yes you were. And you’re right. My father sent me to the Order because you were sent here by your father. I told you they were rivals but I didn’t tell you all of it. My father hated the Battle Lord, loathed him. For a while it seemed all he could talk about was how his position was constantly undermined by a gutter born butcher. It irked him greatly that your father was so popular with the people, a thing my father could never achieve. He wasn’t one of them, he was high born, but your father was a commoner, risen to greatness on his own merits. When he sent you here it was a great symbol of devotion to the Faith and the Realm, a public sacrifice that could only be matched one way.”

“I’m sorry…”

“Don’t apologise. You are as much a victim of your father as I am of mine. It took me years to reckon it, why he had done it, one day it just popped into my head. He gave me up to better his position at Court.” He gave a wry, humourless smile. “Our dear King, it seems, cared little for his gesture.”

I am not my father’s victim, Vaelin thought. My mother sent me here, to protect me. He left the thought unsaid, suspecting Nortah would find it difficult to accept.

“It’s ironic don’t you think?” Nortah asked after a moment. “If we’d never been given to the Order most likely we’d have become enemies, like our fathers. And our sons would have been enemies, maybe even their sons, and on and on it would have gone. At least this way it ends before it could begin.”

“You sound almost content to be in the Order.”

“Content? No, just accepting. This is my life now. Who can say what the future will bring?”

Scratch yawned, his teeth gleaming in the firelight, then moved to Vaelin’s side, snuggling close before settling down to sleep. Vaelin patted his flank and lay back on his bed roll, looking for shapes in the vast array of stars above and waiting for sleep to claim him.

“I… feel I owe you a debt, brother,” Nortah said.

“A debt?”

“For my life.”

Vaelin realised Nortah was trying to thank him, in the only way Nortah could thank anyone. Not for the first time he wondered what kind of man Nortah would have been had his father not sent him here. A future First Minister? A Sword of the Realm? Battle Lord even? But he doubted he would have been the kind of man who gave his son away just to better his rival.

“I don’t know what the future will bring,” he told his brother eventually. “But I suspect you’ll have many chances to repay the debt.”

It was a curious fact of life in the Order that the older they got the harder their training became. It seemed their skills had to be raised ever higher, honed like a sword blade. And so as autumn became winter their sword practice doubled, then tripled until it seemed it was all they did. Master Sollis became their only master, the others now distant figures preoccupied with younger charges. The sword became their life. Why was no mystery. Next year would bring the Test of the Sword when they would face three condemned men, sword in hand, and triumph or die.

Sword practice began after the seventh hour and continued for the rest of the day with a brief interlude for food and the relief of a short re-acquaintance with the bow or their horses. In the morning Master Sollis would show them a sword scale, flashing through the dance of thrusts, parries and strokes in the space of a few heartbeats before commanding them to copy it. Failure to repeat the scale exactly earned a full pelt run around the practice ground. Afternoons saw them swap their swords for wooden replicas and assail each other in contests that left them all with an increasingly spectacular collection of bruises.

Vaelin knew himself to be the best swordsman among them. Dentos was master of the bow, Barkus unarmed combat, Nortah the finest rider and Caenis knew the wild like a wolf, but the sword was his. He could never explain the feeling it gave him, the sense that the blade was part of him, an extension of his arm, his closeness to it accentuating his perception in combat, reading an opponent’s moves before they were made, parrying blows that would have felled another, finding a way past defences that should have baffled him. It wasn’t long before Master Sollis stopped matching him against the others.