A Man Betrayed Read Free Page A

lip curled into well-worn lines
of contempt at the very sight of him.
    He simply could
not allow Maybor to reach Bren alive. As king's envoy, the man was actually
superior to him! The queen had pulled a dirty trick with that particular
appointment. He, king's chancellor, the very person who was instrumental
in bringing about the match between Prince Kylock and Catherine, should have
had preeminence in Bren. Instead the queen had appointed him prince's envoy,
and in doing so had made him subservient to Maybor.
    He could not and
would not endure such an indignity. The duke of Bren and his fair daughter were
his concern. Maybor had no business bringing his pot to this fire. Baralis was
aware of the politics of both appointments, but the queen would find all her
cleverness unrewarded when news of Maybor's demise reached the kingdoms.
    There was no doubt
about it. Today, this chill and frosty noon, with the north wind blowing like a
siren from the abyss, Maybor would meet his death.
    Melli knew better
than to open the shuttered window. There was a gale coming, and the scant
stretch of wood was the only thing between them and its ravages. As it was she
wasn't sure the latch would hold. Still, she suspected it might-she had always
been lucky that way. The famous Maybor luck had served her family well through
the centuries. Or more accurately, it had served the Maybor men well, as they
seemed to drain all the luck from their women.
    Not her, though.
She was the first female of her family to be endowed with that most capricious
of gifts.
    Melli put her eye
to the knot hole and peered out onto the northern plains of Halcus. Almost
dazzled by the brilliance of the snow, it took her a moment before she could discern
any details of the land. The wind had picked up since she'd last looked and was
carrying the snow in its thrall. There was little to be seen: white land
against white sky. The snowy expanse was probably grazing pasture in the
spring, but for now it was laid out defenseless for winter to take its toll.
    The bite of the
cold grew too much for her eyes and Melli withdrew her gaze inward. With a
scrap of dirty oilcloth she plugged the knot hole. Turning, she caught Jack
looking at her, and for some reason her face flushed. Almost against her will,
her hand smoothed her hair. It was foolish, she thought, that after being away
from the court and its customs for so long she still had the instincts of a
court beauty. The women of Castle Harvell had so many rules to live by: rules
of conduct, rules of dress, rules of form. Now that Melli had distanced herself
from the great court, she realized all the rules could be summed up in one: a
woman must at all times strive to please a man.
    Even now, after
experiencing things that a court beauty could only guess at, Melli found
herself falling into the old habits of femininity, most particularly the habit
of wanting to look nice for a man.
    She smiled at her
own folly. Jack, catching the mood of her smile, grinned in response. His keen
and' handsome face, made all the more appealing by his winter color, caused
Melli to feel unaccountably happy. Suddenly she was laughing: bright and high
and merry as a tinker. Then Jack joined in. They stood at opposite ends of the
small but that had once been a chicken coop and laughed with each other.
    She didn't know
why Jack laughed, didn't even know why she herself laughed, she only knew it
felt good to do so. And for so long now there had been so little that felt
good.
    The weather had been
against them from the start. Once they crossed into Halcus territory it had
become even worse. They had no knowledge of the land and had quickly lost their
bearings. That, together with the necessity of changing their course whenever
they spotted another human being, had caused them to lose their way. Melli had
read tales in her childhood of people taking long journeys guided only by the
sun and the stars, but the reality was much different. What the tales failed