Summers at Castle Auburn Read Free

six-year-old that I was. But he had been right about that; Jaxon was right about many things. Following that first visit to the castle, where the royal family and their retainers lived, I had returned every summer. I could not exactly say I had been welcomed into this most sophisticated of societies, but everyone except Greta was at least civil to me. I looked forward to the visits, for I was infatuated with Bryan and I worshipped my sister and my days there were filled with pageantry and color. But I never forgot where I belonged. I never forgot that I was a bastard’s bastard, a wise woman’s apprentice, nobody special. Exciting though my days at the castle were, I knew that my own story would be a placid one.
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    W E RODE FOR three hours through the gentle green countryside that was so lush and so fertile that it made Auburn the richest of theeight provinces. Close to the castle were a number of small towns designed to cater to the gentry traveling toward the court, but farther out most of the land was privately owned. Acres and acres of abundant farmland would surround some majestic stone mansion, barely visible from the road. Such sights always amazed me. Cotteswold, where I lived most of the year, had few such noble estates. It was a poor country of hardworking farmers who would stare, as I did, at such wealth belonging to a few men.
    Eventually we left the main road that would have taken us to Faelyn Market if we followed it the next hundred miles straight north. Instead, we turned in a northwesterly direction along a badly kept track, and headed toward the forested lands on the borders of Auburn, Faelyn, and Tregonia.
    Bryan was the one who demanded a halt, which I knew Damien and I both appreciated. I was determined not to be the one to slow the party down, so I had not volunteered the information that I was thirsty and in need of some private moments behind a bush. But I was not in as sad a case as Damien, who was unused to traveling. Bryan himself rarely ventured beyond the castle for an overnight expedition; when he did, he traveled in luxury, and Damien rode along in the coach. The rest of us were more used to the saddle.
    â€œWe’ll have a few bites to eat, then, while we’re stopped,” Jaxon said, and passed around hard rolls fresh from the kitchens. Damien took a small bite from Bryan’s bread at least ten minutes before Bryan would touch it; since he did not clutch his belly and fall to the ground, Bryan ate the rest of it.
    Jaxon watched this with interest. “At the formal meals—yes, I understand that any number of people could pour poison into your food,” he said to the prince. “But here? We’re in the middle of the wilderness! No one around for miles!”
    â€œCooks in the kitchen have been traitors before this,” Bryan said darkly. “And everyone in the castle knew we planned to set out today. Anyone could have snuck into the bakery to fold poison into my bread.”
    Kent had flung his long thin body to the ground, and now he lounged on the fading summer grasses. “And you yourself havecarried the food around in your saddlebag all day,” he observed to Jaxon. “Plenty of opportunity there to do away with your future king.”
    Bryan scowled at his cousin. “I didn’t mean to say Jaxon —”
    â€œOh, why not? I’m as likely as the next man to murder you,” Jaxon said cheerfully. “I just didn’t realize you suspected.”
    Bryan’s frown grew blacker. “It’s not funny ,” he insisted. “Do you know how many kings and princes have been done away with by treachery? My own father had a taster every day of his life—”
    â€œAnd died when an edgy stallion threw him, so where’s the moral there?” Jaxon asked. “He’d have done better to worry less about spies in the kitchen and more about how to hold on to his horse.”
    Bryan was furious now.