Penance Square was buzzing with activity. Everywhere, hawkers were setting up routes through the gathering crowd, guardsmen were forming up at the gates to the court’s grounds. Obviously word had spread further than expected, which should be much less of a surprise than it was.
“Why is everyone so excited?” Kintere asked, staring with wonder at the sea of faces before them as the quartet entered the square proper.
“They think there’s going to be a war,” Thryche answered in a growl.
“Does no one recall the last one,” Rhayd wondered quietly, barely loud enough to be heard above the din. “Don’t they realize that glory implies that you’re going to die for someone else’s cause?”
“There aren’t too many people who understand that they’re doing anything for anyone other than themselves,” Mireya countered. “Why should dying be any different?”
“I knew there was a reason I brought you, girl,” Thryche laughed. “Come, let’s away. Court won’t wait too long for me any more.”
Lying to with his cane once more, Edvard led the quartet through the throng, batting away hawkers with sour words and the heavy stone pommel of his walking stick. The whole ordeal took surprisingly little time, in fact. Through the yard and in between the gates and their rows of guards with naught but a nod from the elderly teacher.
“They know me here,” he explained when Rhayd pressed him for how they had passed the line of security with such ease. “And we’re expected in any case.”
As if that was any kind of useful answer.
The court’s yard itself was completely empty. A huge, sprawling garden seeded with tall, wide wrywood trees and alder groves; the yard on its own could have encompassed the major portion of Kintere’s clan fastness, not even considering the palace behind it. Soaring marble columns and deep cloisters led from the edge of the perfectly manicured garden down a wide avenue toward the central entryway of the palace of Ckuien Penance.
“I expect even Duke Torean will be attending this session of the court,” Thryche mused as the party slowed upon changing from grass pathway to flagstone avenue. “He doesn’t get out much any longer, poor fellow, but the chance to see these historic proceedings will likely draw him from bed.”
“You mean we’ll be meeting the royals?” Mireya whispered, hugging herself with apparent fright.
“No, not likely, only the Duke,” Edvard explained. “His wife passed two weeks ago – not much news reaches the lower city, I’m afraid. And their sons are both away at Attensah being schooled in the Ways of the Mists. House Etamtulima itself is in somewhat of a sorry state, I’m afraid. If the fighting in the south heats up and the boys are needed at the front, it could die off completely. Torean Etamtulima may be the last Duke of his line here in Penance.”
“Wouldn’t that be a shame,” Rhayd sneered, glaring at the walls of the cloistered walkway as if they were the walls of a prison. “One less set of fops dictating to the rest of the world.”
Thryche whirled on the young man, planting the slim end of his cane squarely in the centre of Rhayd’s chest.
“That’s quite a heady statement coming from you, young nobleman.”
“Noble no more, Edvard. Father fled Keen Rimmor in the midst of the last war, forsaking his lands and title in the process.”
“There is more to nobility than lands and title, Lord Khalenn,” Thryche returned, jabbing the young noble with his cane and turning to continue on toward the palace proper. “Like as you might to hide in Maran’s public house, your heritage follows you wherever you go. As it does for all of us.”
Something about that made Kintere more than a little unsettled. He thought of himself as an exile, but had never realised Rhayd was in the same position he was.
“Perhaps there’s a little exile in all of us,” he said aloud, drawing strange looks from both Rhayd and Mireya. Uneasy, the big man pursed his lips and held his silence until they reached the foot of the entryway to the palace.
It was huge. Bigger than huge. Even looking from a distance as they had been while coming up the avenue, the gargantuan doors to the palace had been dominating, but now standing under them directly, Kintere felt very small for the first time in a long while.
“These doors were built to mimic ones found at the base of a mountain high in the jungle,” Edvard noted, pausing and resting on his cane. “I am told that the architecture of the entire palace was based upon their style, which is why it stands out against the whole of the city so starkly. When Prince Uru the First founded the monarchy here nearly seven centuries ago this place was built to the likeness of those he claimed came before. Four hundred years ago, during the Unification when the monarchy was transfigured into the current Dukedom, then-Prince Alka the Fourth made improvements to the palace grounds, including the Grand Avenue which we just traversed, and expanded the Gateway. See, there, near the top where the wear patterns change? That is the addition. Nearly doubled the size of the gates. Alka’s engineers had to devise a completely new system by which to draw the doors open just to handle the added weight.”
As if summoned in evidence of his oration, the doors shuddered and let off a whine like steel on granite. The sounds of mechanisms within the walls made its way over the small group cowering in the shadow of the great edifice and Kintere thought he could see lights within the hinge-wells. Those disappeared almost instantly, as light from the hall beyond took over where the sun left off. Edvard began making his way in even as the doors open, beckoning for the others to follow.
If the doors were daunting, the hall beyond was downright frightening. The roof was little more than a dark blue shadow just out of reach of light shed from dozens of glowing blue and green stone lanterns of the kind used in the more well to do pubs, but infinitely more impressive. Along the expanse of the hall, every pillar had a set of eight circling it at three times the height of a man, and at the far end where the stairs up to the next rooms was a single gargantuan light-stone straining to rise skyward against the giant brass harness holding it to the top of a low, wide fountain.
“This is traditionally used as a reception hall for public audience. We won’t be staying here,” Edvard said redundantly. “Just beyond the Fountain of Light is the court theatre. That’s where we’re headed.”
About Ian
