To The Princess Bound Read Free Page A

limp, ivory-white strands, much like a morbid wad of spaghetti.
    Brigamond grunted.  “Worms, huh?”  He looked up at Dragomir, and for a split second, Dragomir thought he would try to give the money back.  Then the curmudgeony old farmer shook his head and tossed the elderberries and bark he had gathered aside.  “ Knew I didn’t need to come all the way up here.  Good breedstock, my ass.”  He gave a disgusted snort and started to turn.  Then, to Dragomir’s frustration, the old man hesitated and turned back.  His cloudy old eyes fixed again on the door that Dragomir had pulled shut behind him.  “You ain’t gotta be alone up here, Emp.”
    Immediately, Dragomir bristled.  “I’m fine alone.”
    “My daughter’s looking for a husband.  She knows the ways of a farm.”
    Dragomir could barely suppress a snarl when he said, “I’m not looking for another wife.”
    The old man laughed.  “What, you’re just gonna sulk up here, waiting for the next girl of your dreams to what, wander through your front door?  Handed to you on a silver platter?  You gotta go look , boy.  You ain’t been lookin ’.  You been up here mopin’.  Like that halfbreed was the only fish in the sea.” 
    Dragomir felt every muscle in his body stiffen at the word ‘next,’ but the last made his anger rise.  “Brigamond,” he said stiffly, “get off my property.”
    “Leslie’s of good original stock,” Brigamond insisted.  “All the Borers are.  She ain’t too smart, and she ain’t got no problem with chores.  She can cook, she can sew—”
    “She can pluck a chicken in like a minute flat,” one of the man’s boys laughed.  “Have it on the table in two.”
    Brigamond nodded.  “She’d bear you strong babes, unlike that barren half-Imperial weakling you marrie—”
    Dragomir, whose rage had been rising over the course of the conversation, grabbed Brigamond by the throat and lifted him off the ground with enough force that the old man was almost at eye-level with him, standing on his tiptoes.  “ Never ,” Dragomir whispered, lowering his face to meet Brigamond’s, “assume I want your opinion.  Ever.  Again.  If you don’t get off my property, now , I’m going to cut a few gi lines and leave you pissing yourself every time a rooster crows. ”
    Brigamond’s eyes widened and Dragomir shoved him backwards, away from him.
    “ Boys !” Brigamond cried, stumbling backwards, deathly pale.  His two sons were standing nervously beside the horse-patty, wide eyes on Dragomir, the worms forgotten.  “We’ve got lambs to shear.  We’re going.  C’mon!”  Then he was backing away from Dragomir, one hand clutching his throat.  His boys fell in beside him and the three of them put distance between themselves and Dragomir, looking pale. 
    “The offer’s open, Shipborn,” the man called, from a good fifty feet away.  “All alone up here…  Seems a real waste, you not passin’ on that genetic.  At least go dally around in the village a bit.  Make a few girls real happy.  You ain’t gettin’ any younger, and the village is gonna need another Emp—” 
    “ Go !” Dragomir roared.
    Brigamond turned and led his boys away at a run.
    Dragomir watched them go, so angry he was shaking.  He’d heard the same argument a thousand times from well-wishers, snoops, and even his own brother:  Go make some bastards to pass on the lines.  Like he was a prize damned stud.
    He waited until the Borers’ backs disappeared down the road back to the village before he turned back to his home and threw the door open again.  Thor was up in the mountains on an ore run.  Gold, tin, copper.  His brother wouldn’t get back until nightfall three days hence.  When he did, he—and all the other idiots in the village—wouldn’t have to feel obligated to tell him to spread his seed. 
    Dragomir slammed the door shut, draping his home in darkness once more.  Without Meggie, it had been a cold