“He is indeed. Best not keep him waiting.”
Vaelin nodded his thanks and entered the stairwell. Oil lamps set into the wall cast a dim light on the steps, the gloom deepening when Smolen closed the door behind him. As instructed he climbed the stairs, the fall of his boots on the stone steps loud in the confined space. The door at the top was slightly ajar, outlined in bright lamplight from the room beyond. It creaked loudly when Vaelin pushed it open but the man seated at the desk before him didn’t look up. He sat crouched over a roll of parchment, his quill scratching over it, leaving a spidery script in its wake. The man was old, in his sixties, but still broad in the shoulder, his long hair hung over his face, once red it was now grey but still had a faint tinge of copper. He wore a plain shirt of white linen, the sleeves stained with ink, his only adornment a gold signet ring on the third finger of his right hand, a signet ring bearing the symbol of a rearing horse.
“Highness-” Vaelin began, sinking to one knee.
The King raised his left hand, motioning for him to rise then pointing at a nearby chair. His quill didn’t stop on the parchment. Vaelin moved to the chair, finding it piled high with books and scrolls. He hesitated then carefully gathered them together and placed them on the floor before sitting down.
He waited.
The only sound in the room came from the scratch of the King’s quill. Vaelin wondered if he should speak again but something told him it was best to keep silent. Instead he surveyed the room. He had thought Aspect Elera’s room to have been the most book filled space he had ever seen but the King’s room put it to shame. They lined the walls in great stacks rising nearly to the ceiling. In between the stacks were boxes of scrolls, some flaked and withered with age. The only decoration in the room was a large map of the Realm above the fireplace, its surface partly covered with short notations in a spidery script. Oddly some of the notations were written in red ink and others black. Down one edge of the map was a list of some kind, each item had been written in black but crossed through in red. It was a long list.
“You have your father’s face but your mother’s way of looking at things.”
Vaelin’s gaze snapped back to the King. He had laid his quill aside and reclined in his chair. His green eyes were bright and shrewd in his craggy, weathered face. Vaelin found he couldn’t stop his eyes straying to the livid red scars on the King’s neck, the legacy of his childhood brush with the Red Hand.
“Highness?” he stammered.
“Your father was clever in the ways of war but in most other things I have to say he was as dumb as a rock. Your mother on the other hand was clever in almost everything. You had her look just now, when you were looking at my map.”
“I’m sure she would have been gratified to know you held such a high opinion of her, Highness.”
The King raised an eyebrow. “Don’t flatter me, boy. I have servants aplenty for that. Besides, you’re no good at it. In that, at least, you are like your father.”
Vaelin felt himself flush and bit back an apology. He’s right, I’m no courtier. “Forgive my intrusion, Highness. I have come to ask for your help.”
“Most people who come before me do. Although, usually with obscenely expensive gifts and several hours worth of grovelling. Will you grovel for me, young brother?” The King’s mouth had curved in a small, humourless smile.
“No.” Vaelin found his trepidation was quickly disappearing in the face of a cold anger. “No, Highness. I will not.”
“And yet you come here at this forsaken hour and demand favours.”
“I demand nothing.”
“But you do want something. What is it, I wonder? Money? I doubt it. It meant little to your parents, I daresay it means little to you. Help with a marriage proposal perhaps? Got your eye on some wench but her father doesn’t want a penniless Order boy for a son-in-law?” The King angled his head, studying Vaelin closely. “Oh no, hardly that. So what can it be?”
“Justice,” Vaelin said. “Justice for a murdered man, justice for his family.”
“Murdered eh? By whom?”
“By me, Highness. Today I killed a man in the Test of the Sword. He was innocent, a victim of a false conviction brought simply to make him face me in the test.”
The humour faded from the King’s face, replaced with something much more serious but otherwise unreadable. “Tell me.”
Vaelin told him all of it, Urlian’s arrest, his wife’s imprisonment in the Blackhold, the names of those responsible: Jentil Al Hilsa, the magistrate who had condemned Urlian, and Mandril Al Unsa and Haris Estian, the two wealthy men who had sought to profit from his death.
“And how do you come by this intelligence?” the King asked when he had finished.