Free Ravens Shadow 02 - Tower Lord by Anthony Ryan

wagon’s shadowed interior, wary of showing himself even in his hood this close to the capital.
Butcher, madman, schemer, invader. Janus earned them all.
    They made for the great expanse of grass where the Summertide Fair made its home every year. A large number of other player caravans had already gathered, along with numerous hawkers and craftsmen come to sell their wares, and a group of carpenters had begun construction of the wooden arena where the Renfaelin Knights would assail each other in the tourney. Vaelin waited for evening before leaving the wagon. He offered Janril his remaining coin, knowing it would be refused, and embraced the minstrel in farewell.
    “You don’t need this place, my lord,” Janril said. His eyes were bright and his smile forced. “Stay with us. The common folk may sing their songs about you but few nobles will relish the sight of your return. There’s only envy and treachery inside those walls.”
    “There are things I must do here, Janril. But I thank you.” He gripped the player’s shoulders a final time, hefted his canvas bundle and walked off towards the city gate. Reva quickly appeared at his side.
    “Well?” she said.
    He kept walking.
    “You may have noticed we’re at Varinshold,” she went on, casting a hand at the city walls. “In accordance with our agreement.”
    “Soon,” he said.
    “Now!”
    He stopped, meeting her gaze squarely, voice soft but precise. “You will have your answer soon. Now, come with me or stay here. I’m sure Janril can use another dancer.”
    She eyed the city gate with a mix of distrust and contempt. “Not even inside yet and it stinks like a fat man’s outhouse,” she grumbled but followed as he walked on.
    ◆ ◆ ◆
    His father’s house had once seemed huge, a mighty castle in his boy’s mind as he raced around hallway and grounds in a tireless frenzy of imagined heroism, his wooden sword a terror to servants and livestock alike. The great oak that stretched its branches over the slanted roof had been his arch-enemy, a giant, come to tear down the castle walls. Childhood fickleness sometimes made a friend of the giant, and he would nestle in his thick arms as he watched his father put a warhorse through its paces on the acre and a half of grass between the stables and the riverbank.
    It never seemed strange to him that he had no real friends, that the only children he knew were the sons and daughters of the servants with whom he was permitted only the briefest playtime before his mother shooed them away, kind but firm. “Don’t bother them, Vaelin. They’ve better things to do.” He realised later she deliberately kept him from other children, forming a true friendship would only make it harder when the time came for him to join the Order.
    The house had shrunk in the many years since, and not only to his adult eye. The roof sagged and had sore need of a slater, the walls dull and grey with aged whitewash. At least half the windows were boarded up, and those free of boards lacked more than a few panes. Even the branches of the great oak were drooping, the giant was getting old. He could see a fire burning in one of the windows, just one flicker of warmth in the whole house.
    “You grew up here?” Reva asked in surprise. The rain had come in earnest as they made their way through the northern quarter to Watcher’s Bend, droplets falling thick from the hem of her hood. “The songs say you are of the common folk, risen from the streets. This is a palace.”
    “No,” he murmured, walking on. “It’s a castle.”
    He stopped in front of the main door. The quality door, one of the maids had called it, a jovial plump woman he was ashamed to find he could no longer name.
Quality door for quality people.
Looking at the bell, tarnished and dull, the rope threadbare, he wondered how many quality people had been through it recently. He watched the rope sway in the rain as Reva gave a loud and deliberate sniff. He drew a breath and