Vergence Read Free Page B

clothes, brushing away a few stray pieces of straw and horse hair. Now standing nearly a head taller than the average man, Ebryn wore dark grey riding trousers, three-quarter length boots, and a white shirt of heavy linen with leather reinforced doublet.
    Good enough, he decided, curiosity getting the upper hand. Better to risk appearing inappropriately dressed than keep a visitor waiting.
    Ebryn raced down the path to catch up with Ezo. The gardener had been ancient for as long as he could remember. Short and spectrally thin, with a face like the knot in a tree, the old man had more white hairs growing in wispy tufts from his ears than on top of his head. He wore ill-fitting shapeless russet clothes, a long green gardening apron, with oversized boots smelling vaguely of damp soil and wood smoke.
    Ebryn slowed down and fell into step just as he reached the entrance to the orchard. “Who is it? Is it someone from the village?”
    Ezo continued to stare directly ahead, not looking at Ebryn. The response took so long Ebryn was starting to wonder if Ezo had heard him.
    “Dunno … stranger.”
    As always Ezo seemed uncomfortable in his company, something Ebryn attributed to his youthful efforts in the vegetable plots.
    Growing plants was something Ebryn had proved extraordinarily skilled at — producing huge quantities of nearly perfect insect-free courgettes, tomatoes, and herbs. As the growing season progressed and the abundance of Ebryn's small section of vegetable patch become obvious, Ezo had become increasingly distant. Confused and uncomfortable at this unexpected outcome, Ebryn made no further attempts at helping in the garden, but the old gardener hadn't softened in all the years since.
    A short way into the orchard, Ezo peeled off, mumbling something about plums, pushing his wheelbarrow doggedly across the bumpy ground between two rows of trees.
    The nearest entrance to the manor house went through the kitchens. Inside he found Fidela, the housekeeper, cutting up vegetables with a very large knife. Her mouth was pulled into a thin line, and the knife slammed into the chopping board with each cut.
    As angry as she appeared, she still looked up to check the state of his boots as he walked in. Ebryn wondered whether, in her never-ending quest to find the one she could mould into the perfect cleaning maid, one of the village girls had upset her again, or perhaps one of the young stablemen had used a word she didn't like hearing.
    “Ezo told me there's someone here to see me,” Ebryn said.
    The knife hit the board so hard it sent the head of a carrot skittering across the table onto the floor.
    “He's in the library. With Lord Conant.”
    Ebryn slowed at the door. “Why is Lord—”
    “It's rude to keep people waiting.”
    “Yes, sorry,” Ebryn said hurriedly as she took a deep breath for what looked like a lengthy tirade.
    He walked quickly along the passageway and entered the library, stopping just inside the door, feeling suddenly awkward.
    He'd spent a great deal of his time in here alone, reading through the extensive book collection, and thought of this space as his own. The last time he'd been in here with another person it had been his final lesson with master Yale.
    Two men sat in chairs on a slightly raised dais on the other side of the room, next to a large window. The first, Lord Conant, he recognised, although a number of years had passed since Ebryn had last seen him, but his eyes were drawn to the second man, clearly foreign, who sat on the edge of a high-backed chair.
    He had a head that seemed to be too large for his body with a semi-circle of short hair surrounding a large pale bald patch on top, dressed in a long dark robe of midnight blue fastened with a familiar ornate silver clasp.
    Ebryn felt a rush of anticipation. Despite his peculiar looking dome and sallow skin, which combined with his dark robes to give the disconcerting impression that his head was somehow detached and floating loosely