Book 2 - An Ill Fate Marshalling Read Free

had every kind of woman there is. White women. Black women. Brown women. Every kind there is. Yeah. That's no lie. I got five different women right now. Right here in Vorgreberg. I've got one, she's fifty-eight years old."
    Someone catcalled. Everyone laughed. A passing palace guard leaned in the doorway. „Hey! Gales! Fifty-eight? What's she do when she goes down? Gum you to death?"
    The group howled. Gales flung his arms into the air. He let out a great wail of mirth. He stomped and shouted back, „Fifty-eight years old. Yeah. That's right. I'm not lying."
    „You didn't answer the question, Gales. What's she do?"
    The sergeant went into contortions. He evaded answer ing.
    Ragnarson dropped his chicken. He was laughing too hard to hang on.
    „Low humor," the cook growled. „The lowest," Bragi agreed. „Straight out of the gutter. So how come you can't wipe that grin off your face?" „If it was anybody but Gales... ." The sergeant's audience trampled his protests. They bur ied him in questions about his elderly friend. He reddened incredibly. He bounced around, roaring with laughter, vain ly trying to regain control of the group. „Tell us the truth, Gales," they insisted.
    Bragi shook his head and murmured, „He's a wonder. He loves it. I couldn't stand it." Soberly, the cook asked, „But what's he good for?" „A laugh." Bragi stifled a chuckle. It was a sound question. Inger's dowry-men had proven useful, but he often wondered what their presence signified. They were not loyal to himself or Kavelin. And Inger remained an Itaskian at heart. That might prove troublesome one day.
    He munched chicken and watched Gales. His military adjutant came in.
    As always, Dahl Haas looked freshly scrubbed and shaved. He belonged to that strange fraternity who could walk through a coal mine in white and come out spotless. „They're ready in the privy audience chamber, Sire." He stood as rigid as a pike. His gaze darted to Gales. Disgust flickered across his face. Bragi did not understand. Dahl's father had followed him for decades. The man had been as earthy as Gales.
    „Be there in a minute, Dahl. Ask them to be patient."
    The soldier strode out as though he had a board nailed to his back. Second generation, Ragnarson thought. The others were gone. Dahl was the last.
    Palmisano had claimed many old friends, his only broth er, and his son Ragnar. Kavelin was a hungry little bitch goddess of a kingdom, eager for sacrifices. He sometimes wondered if it didn't demand too much, if he hadn't made the biggest mistake of his life when he had allowed himself to be made King.
    He was a soldier. Just a soldier. He had no business ruling.
    Vorgreberg shivered with gentle excitement. It was not the great dread-excitement foreshadowing dire events, it was the small, eager excitement that courses before good things about to unfold.
    There had been a messenger from the east. His tidings would touch the life of every citizen.
    The magnates of the mercantile houses sent boys to loiter by the gates of Castle Krief. The youths had strict instruc tions to keep their ears open. The traders were poised like runners in the blocks, awaiting the right word.
    Kavelin, and especially Vorgreberg, had long reaped the benefits of being astride the primary route connecting west and east. But for several years now there had been little exchange of goods. Only the boldest smugglers dared the watchful eyes of Shinsan's soldiers, who occupied the near east.
    There had been two years of war, then three of peace occasionally interrupted by furious border skirmishes. East erner and westerner perpetually faced one another in the Savernake Gap, the only commercially viable pass through the Mountains of M'Hand. Neither garrison permitted travellers past their checkpoints.
    Merchants on both sides of the mountains railed against the neverending, knife-edged state of confrontation.
    Rumor said King Bragi had sent another emissary to Lord Hsung, the Tervola proconsul at