Bloodheir Read Online Free PDF

this newcomer had none of Aewult’s crude energy or ostentation. He was poised, handsome and wore not armour but a luxuriant woollen cape decorated in red and gold. Instead of warriors he brought with him a band of well-dressed officials and attendants.
    “Who is it?” Orisian asked, and guessed the answer in the same moment.
    “The Shadowhand,” Roaric said, his voice laden with contempt. “I didn’t know we were to be cursed with his presence as well.”
    Mordyn Jerain, Chancellor to Gryvan oc Haig: Orisian knew of him only by rumour, and all those rumours said that he, more than any other, kept the Haig Blood secure in its mastery of all the others.
    Amongst those who resented Gryvan’s rule, Mordyn Jerain was the man most often blamed for the worst of its excesses.
    Seeing the famous Shadowhand for the first time, Orisian was struck by how unobtrusively he came riding up in Aewult’s wake. There was no sign of arrogance; just a quiet man who looked around with a calm smile. His gaze met Orisian’s and held it. Orisian could not imagine that the mighty Chancellor would know who he was by sight, yet there was a slight widening of that smile, a fractional inclination of the head. Orisian looked down at his feet.
    “He’s marked you already,” Taim whispered. “He guesses who you are, by my presence at your side.”
    The notion that the Shadowhand should take an interest in him left Orisian craving nothing but anonymity and the insignificance that the last few weeks had stolen away from him.
    Slightly too late, grooms had hurried to soothe Aewult’s horse. The Bloodheir dismounted with a flourish. He hauled off his long leather gauntlets and took Lheanor oc Kilkry-Haig’s hand in his own.
    “How long do you suppose we have to stay?” Orisian wondered aloud. “Before we can leave without causing offence, I mean.”
    By the time the greetings and hollow pleasantries were done, and the Haig Bloodheir had been ushered into the Tower of Thrones, Orisian had slipped away with Rothe. He left Taim Narran to attend upon Lheanor oc Kilkry-Haig. Taim, Orisian knew, could represent the Lannis Blood amongst the great and the powerful more ably than he could himself. Neither Lheanor nor any of his family would be offended; if others felt differently, Orisian was not in the mood to care. At this moment, the mere thought of making the closer acquaintance of either Aewult or his father’s Chancellor was almost horrifying to him. There were places he would much prefer to be.
    One of them was the small house attached to the town garrison’s barracks, just beyond the wall that ringed the Tower of Thrones and its gardens. Orisian approached it with a hurried, almost eager stride, a grumbling Rothe close behind him.
    “They’re not going anywhere,” the shieldman muttered. “Do we have to rush so?”
    “You confess you’re too weary to keep up with me, then?” Orisian asked over his shoulder.
    “No. It’s my arm’s a bit sorry for itself, not my legs.”
    There were Lannis guards posted outside the house. They snapped into alert postures as their young Thane drew near. Taim Narran had set them here at Orisian’s request: two of his best men, survivors of the campaign against Igryn oc Dargannan-Haig and the carnage at An Caman fort.
    “Any problems?” Orisian asked the guards.
    “No, sire,” replied one. “They’ve been quiet as the dead, and no one’s tried to get in.”
    Orisian climbed the stairs quickly. He was aware of his own eagerness, and half of him thought it a touch childish, unworthy of a Thane. The other half of him savoured the pleasure of anticipation: it was something he felt little and seldom these days.
    Ess’yr and Varryn were in the bedchamber at the top of the stairs. To Orisian’s surprise, his sister Anyara was there as well.
    “I heard the serving girls complaining that all the food they brought here was getting turned away,” she explained, her brow bunched into a knot of