The Avengers of Carrig Read Free Page A

Although the screaking of the Bench legs on the flagstones made him wince, Sir Bavis did not move from his high throne.
    Tomorrow …
    There was a sudden sharp pain in his chest—a pain that he could not localize, neither on the surface like a blow, nor from the surface inward like a sword-cut He seemed to be embedded in it; he felt his heart slow and falter, and the hall grew dark. Like a drowning man fighting back to the air, he mastered it and took a desperate new grip on the world, panting.
    He looked around covertly. No one appeared to have noticed. To outward view Sir Bavis was as he had always been—older, of course, and more care-lined about the forehead, but still a strong and burly man. And yet a god’s hand had reached into his body and closed around his heart, warningly.
    Sir Bavis Knole, chief of the Clan Parradile, had ruled now in Carrig for eighteen years, for in all that time no one had slain the king. With every passing year the king had grown huger and stronger and more cunning. It seemed at last to Sir Bavis that he had vaingloriously expected to do the same.
    What plainer warning than the shadow of death in the hall of audience could he seek to prove himself wrong?
    Yes indeed: he had been wrong, and he had
done
wrong. These eighteen years of supremacy that he imagined he had secured by his own scheming, his own efforts—they were after all a loan from the gods. And now his stewardship was over. Useless to rail at it.
    With the admission, the pain eased and his heart resumedits regular rhythm. Oh, the omen was unmistakable! This year, then, let the king-hunt go forward without interference, even though men said that Saikmar of the Clan Twywit was sure to kill the king. Let him! Let the gods’ will be manifest, and put an end to this sorry masquerade.
    Sir Bavis, his head cleared and cooled by making up his mind, rose to his feet and stalked majestically from the hall.
    Heron rode slowly through the crowded streets in the vicinity of the marketplace with the two southern strangers beside him. They wore patronizing expressions, which did not correspond with Belfeor’s professed tolerance for all things human. He wished he could make these two out; they puzzled him. Of course, they hailed from parts he did not ordinarily travel to himself, but these was something about them which rang false—some contradiction, some paradox in their natures …
    He reached a decision, and waited for the right moment to put it into effect.
    Coming now to the marketplace, they found it crowded with the graats from the caravan and their respective owners. Men and beasts milled around randomly as harassed overseers tried to keep track of mercenaries whose contracts called for them to stand guard tonight over valuable merchandise but who kept tending to vanish in the direction of nearby taverns, and innkeepers shouted offers of accommodation, which were eagerly taken up. Naturally, people who had goods to vend tomorrow wanted to lodge as near as they could to the market and ensure an early chance at the best sites for stalls; but those who were merely weary also wanted beds close at hand, rather than having to trudge to the outskirts of the city for the night, and several squabbles were developing.
    Heron lowered himself from his saddle and waddled into the midst of the confusion. With sharp jests and ripe insults he brought some kind of order out of it, and returned at last to Belfeor and Pargetty with a satisfied expression.
    “Well, sirs!” he exclaimed. “What have you in mind to do now?”
    Belfeor shrugged. “To find where we can lodge, I suppose,” he answered.
    “You’ll have no luck dose to the market now; we’ll fill every bed in the middle of town. Besides, most everyone from the district comes to the king-hunt, the greatest festival of Carrig’s year; and though you may find what you think is a decent room, a greedy landlord might very well insist on your sharing with some smelly peasant family toting