‘Who will your shieldmate be?’ said Violet.
Carver shook his head. ‘I haven’t been told that yet.’
‘You don’t choose?’ said Will. He was surprised that such an important relationship was assigned rather than chosen. ‘I thought it was – a deep connection.’ It didn’t make sense. Wasn’t a shieldmate a partner for life?
‘We’re paired by our elders,’ Carver said to Will. ‘The connection comes later.’
That seemed like a risky way to gain a life partner. What if you didn’t like your shieldmate? The Stewards he saw in the Hall were always in pairs. They bedded down together, ate together, patrolled together. Perhaps Stewards were so dutiful that they accepted any shieldmate. Or perhaps after they were matched together, some kind of bond was formed.
‘I wondered if it might be Cyprian,’ said Carver, ‘but he isn’t testing for another month.’
Will looked over at Cyprian. He was sitting two tables down, with a group of novitiates Will didn’t recognise. Straight-backed and perfectly attired, he had the quality of a Steward about him already. But Cyprian was sixteen, and Carver had said novitiates usually took the test at age twenty—
‘He’s three years younger than you,’ said Will.
Carver nodded. ‘He’ll be the youngest to take the test since the Elder Steward.’
‘So who will get stuck as Cyprian’s shieldmate?’ said Violet, as if she couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to be. But Carver answered her question seriously.
‘Probably Justice.’
‘But – he hates Justice!’ said Violet as Will’s mouth fell open in shock.
‘They’re the best,’ said Carver, as if this explained everything. ‘They assign Stewards of equal strength together.’
Later, Will talked to Violet in his room.
‘The Stewards are preparing for something,’ said Will. ‘A mission. I wonder if it has to do with the object the Elder Steward told me about? The one Simon took.’
The Elder Steward had said Simon had taken possession of an artefact that he would use to return the Dark King. But she had refused to say what it was. Why?
‘You think they’re going to try to retrieve it?’
‘Maybe.’
Violet was sprawled across his bed, still in her training clothes. She had dropped her sword on the floor when she had collapsed down, exhausted after her evening drills with Justice. Will had pushed his own practice to one side when she came in, looking away from the candle and rubbing his tired eyes.
He picked up her sword. It was heavy; the simple act of holding it was difficult. But it took his mind off the unlit candle that he practised with each night, and his failure to make progress. Violet had tried staring at it with him the first night before she gave up. Now he tried one of Violet’s sword movements, and almost lodged her sword in the bedpost.
‘Not like that, thrust up, like it’s going under an armour plate,’ she said, when she had finished wiping her eyes. He shook his head and replaced the sword.
‘Your family worked for Simon. What do you know about him?’
‘He’s rich,’ said Violet. ‘Stupidly rich. My father has done business with his family for almost twenty years. He has offices in London, and a trade empire that stretches all the way across Europe. He also has digs all around the Mediterranean, in Southern Europe, and Northern Africa.’ She paused and thought for a moment. ‘His family estate is in Derbyshire … it’s miles from London. It’s supposed to be very grand, but he hardly ever invites people to visit there.’
Will’s mind fixed on that one detail. ‘He has family?’
Violet shrugged. ‘A father. And a fiancée. I heard she’s beautiful. He’s rich enough to marry whoever he wants.’
Simon. Will tried to picture him. The man he had thought so much about since Bowhill – the man who had changed the course of his whole life. Was he frightening? Commanding? Sinister? Cold? He was the Dark King’s descendant. Was he like the Dark King? Did he look like him? Have his traits? Had something been passed down to him across the years?
‘I’ve never even seen him,’ said Will.
He knew so little about Simon, even after everything that had happened between them. He had only a scattering of impressions: The kind of man who would brand his servants. The kind of man who would order others to kill. The kind of man who wanted to return the past to the present, heir to its terrible king.