Sorcerer of the North Read Free Page B

sleeping rough and constant vigilance—had traded his own Silver Oakleaf for the gold of retirement. He had been reassigned to the Corps headquarters at Castle Araluen, where he was working in the archives section, compiling the history of the Corps.
    Will smiled briefly. He had grown to like Bartell, a well-read and amazingly knowledgeable man, in spite of the fact that their first few meetings had been occasions of distinct discomfort for Will. Bartell had been expert at devising tests for the apprentice that were calculated to make the young man's life miserable. Will had since come to value the tough questions and difficult problems that Bartell had posed for him. They had all helped prepare him for the difficult life of a Ranger.
    That life itself was the other chief compensation for the solitary nature of the Ranger's day-to-day existence. There was a deep satisfaction and an irresistible allure to being part of an elite band that knew the inner workings and the political secrets of the whole kingdom. Ranger apprentices were recruited for their physical skills—coordination, nimbleness, speed of hand and eye—but even more so for their natural curiosity. A Ranger sought always to know more, to ask more and to find out more about what went on around him. As a youngster, before Halt had recruited him, that restless curiosity, and the precociousness that stemmed from it, had caused Will more than his share of troubles.
    He was entering the small village now and more people were observing him. Most of them wouldn't make eye contact, and the few who did dropped their gaze when he nodded to them—pleasantly enough, he thought. They saluted, with a clumsy movement of hand to brow, and moved aside to let him pass—quite needlessly, in fact, as there was plenty of room in the broad village street. He made out the symbols for the usual trades that could be found in any village: blacksmith, carpenter, cobbler.
    At the end of the single street was a larger building. It was the only two-story structure in the village and it had a wide verandah at the front and the symbol of a tankard hanging above the door. The inn, he realized. It looked clean and well kept, the shutters of the upstairs bedroom windows freshly painted and the mud walls whitewashed. As he watched, one of the upstairs windows opened and a girl's head appeared at the opening. She looked to be about nineteen or twenty, with dark, close-cropped hair and wide-set green eyes. She had a clear complexion and was remarkably pretty. What was more, alone among the people of the village, she continued to meet his gaze as he looked at her. In fact, she went so far as to smile at him and, when she did, the face transformed from pretty to breathtaking.
    Will, unsettled by the reluctance of people to meet his gaze, was even more unsettled now by the girl's undisguised interest in him. So you're the new Ranger, he imagined her thinking. You look awfully young for the job, don't you?
    As he rode under the window, he realized uncomfortably that as he had raised his head to watch her, his mouth had gaped a little. He snapped it shut and nodded at the girl, stern and unsmiling. Her grin grew wider and it was he who broke the eye contact first.
    He had planned to stop for a quick meal at the inn but the disconcerting presence of the girl made him change his mind. He recalled the written directions he had been given. His own cabin would be some three hundred meters beyond the village, on the road to the castle and sheltered by a small grove of trees. He could see the grove now and he touched his heels to Tug's side, letting the little horse break into a trot as they left the village behind. He could sense twenty or thirty pairs of eyes boring curiously into his back as he rode. He wondered if the green eyes from the upper room of the inn were among them, then shrugged the thought aside.
    The cabin was a typical Ranger's house, built of logs with large flat river stones for roofing.