Sebastian Darke: Prince of Fools Read Free

quickly here, and packs of wild lupers crossed the length and breadth of these plains, so it made sense to keep a decent campfire. Furthermore, they were approaching what must have been one of the only clumps of bushes he had seen on these flatlands. They were stunted and withered but would at least offer a little shelter. 'We'll stop over there for the night,' he told Max.
     
'Good thinking. My hooves are killing me!' Max expertly manoeuvred the caravan in beside the bushes. Sebastian jumped down from the seat and unhitched the harness. Max made a big show of shrugging his shoulders and stretching his legs. 'Ah, that's a relief,' he said. 'It's no easy task pulling that caravan all day.' He glanced at Sebastian hopefully. 'And what delights have we for supper then?'
     
'Dried mulch for you,' said Sebastian, trying to sound positive. 'And elvish black bread for me.'
     
'No, no, too much – you'll spoil me,' said Max dolefully.
     
Sebastian ignored him. He went round to the back of the caravan and retrieved Max's nosebag, into which he threw a couple of handfuls of the dried food he had purchased in Jerabim. It smelled stale and unappetizing, but was probably preferable to the rock-hard chunk of bread that he had to look forward to. He carried the mulch round to Max, who sniffed at it disdainfully.
     
'My compliments to the chef,' he said grimly.
     
Sebastian gestured to the nearby bushes. 'You could always supplement your diet with those,' he said. 'Provided you leave us a little bit of cover.'
     
Max looked downright offended by the very suggestion. 'Good idea,' he said. 'A bout of dysentery is just what we need right now.'
     
'You won't get dysentery,' Sebastian told him; but then thought that Max was awkward enough to go down with it just to spite him.
     
He slung the nosebag around Max's ears and went back to the caravan for some of the dry kindling he had collected on his way through the forest. He had accumulated quite a pile in the back – enough, he hoped, to see them through a couple of nights on the plain.
     
'Go easy with that stuff,' Max warned him, his voice muffled by the nosebag. 'We don't want to run out.'
     
'We can always resort to the bag of dried buffalope chips,' said Sebastian cheerfully, though he really hoped it wouldn't come to that. They were hard to light and gave off a dreadful stench when they finally got going.
     
'Burning dung,' said Max quietly. 'Oh goody. I can hardly wait.'
     

CHAPTER 3
DINNER IS SERVED

     
Sebastian had the fire burning by nightfall and was soon sitting on his bedroll, toasting a hunk of black bread over the flames in the vain hope of making it a bit more palatable. Max lay slumped nearby, staring gloomily into the fire, the reflection of the flames dancing like tiny devils in his large brown eyes. Every so often he arched his back slightly and let out a prodigious gust of wind.
     
'Excuse me,' he said, each time it happened. 'It's the mulch.'
     
'No, it's you,' Sebastian corrected him. 'Can't you try and exercise a bit of control?'
     
'Well, we'll see how you fare after you've downed that bread. Honestly, are you sure it's safe to eat?'
     
'No, I'm not, but the only alternative is to eat nothing, so if I can force it down without choking on it, I shall do so.'
     
Max sighed. 'Look at us,' he said. 'Reduced to this! Why, I remember when your father would bring me out a bucket of Sargan grain drenched in wild bee's gold. And if I'd been working particularly hard, there'd be a couple of ripe pommers on the side . . . maybe even a yellow sweet fruit.'
     
'That's all history now,' said Sebastian.
     
'And what about you? Many's the time I've looked through the window of the house and seen you and your parents dining on succulent roast swamp fowl, with heaps of fried taties and thick, black mushrungers—'
     
'Could we talk about something else?' snapped Sebastian. 'You're making my stomach rumble.' He could wait no longer, so he lifted the steaming hunk