Book 5 - With Mercy Toward None Read Online Free PDF

fat boy smiled. He always bought the hard rolls because the old man had bad teeth.
    "Thieving, I'll warrant!" Sajac staggered up. "I'll teach you, you little pimple... "
    The fat boy hadn't the strength to run. He whimpered. The old man plied his cane.
    Something had to be done.
    Once his persecutor tired, the fat boy whined, "Master, was man to see you hour passing."
    The time had come.
    "What man? I didn't see anyone."
    "Came while Master meditated. Was great man of city. Offered obols thirty for guaranteed divination of chicken entrail, to choose between suitors of daughter. One poor, one rich. Man prefers rich, girl loves poor. To keep secret from daughter, same said come by midnight. Self, told same Master was in possession of sovereign specific to overcome love, same being available for obols twenty extra."
    "Liar!" But the cane fell without force. "Twenty and thirty? At midnight?" That was a lot of wine, a lot of forgetfulness.
    "Truth told, Master."
    "Where?"
    "On High Street. By Front Road, near Fadem. Will leave gate open."
    "Fifty obols?" Sajac chuckled evilly. "Get me my potions. I'll mix him something fit to grow hair on a frog."
    The fat boy, generally, could sleep under the worst conditions. But he could not doze while awaiting midnight.
    The rains came, as always, an hour after nightfall. The old man huddled in his cloak, the fat boy in his rags. The time came to confess his lie or go on.
    He went on.
    He put the Master astride the mangy donkey, led the animal through silent streets, up hills and down, by back ways, making turns for confusion's sake. Neither robbers nor watchmen bothered them.
    Their course took them past the seat of the Fadema's government, the Fadem. Still no one challenged them.
    Finally they came to the place the fat boy had chosen.
    Argon sits on a triangular island, connected to other delta islands by floating causeways. The apex of the triangle points upriver, and it is there that the girdling streams are narrowest. It is there that the ancient engineers built the walls their tallest, with their feet in the river itself.
    A hundred feet below, and a quarter mile south, lay one of the pontoons. It linked Argon with suburbs on a neighboring island. Beyond, in the deeper darkness, lay fertile rice islands, the foundation of Argon's wealth.
    The fat boy did not care. Economics meant nothing to him.
    "Is necessary to walk from here," he said. "Great Lord say bring no beast to mess garden."
    The old man grumbled, but let the boy help him down.
    "Is this way." He took Sajac's arm.
    "Damn you!" the old man snarled a minute later, rising from a rainwater pool nearly tour inches deep. "That's twice."
Whack!
"You did it on purpose."
Whack!
"Next time go around."
    "Am humblest apologizer, Master. Promise. Will be more careful." A grin tore at the corners of his mouth.
    "Woe! Is pool across path again."
    "Go around."
    "Is impossible of accomplishment. Is flowerbeds on sides. Great Lord would be angered." He paused. "Ah. Is only four feet wide. Self, will jump across. Will catch Master when same jumps after." He positioned the old man carefully, grunted prodigiously.
    He cast his voice to say, "Hai! Was easy, Master. But jump hard to make sure."
    The old man cursed and thrashed the air with his cane.
    "Come, Master. Please? Great Lord will be angry if augurs come late. Jump. Self will catch."
    The fat boy's heart hammered. His blood pounded in his ears. Surely the old man would hear their infantry-tramp thundering...
    Sajac mouthed a final curse, crouched, hurled himself forward.
    He did not begin screaming till he had fallen halfway to the river.
    The tension broke. The fat boy flung his arms into the air and danced...
    "Here! What's going on up there?"
    A police watchman was hurrying up the cline to the ramparts. The fat boy ran to the donkey. But the animal would not move.
    He would have to brazen it out.
    The watchman walked into a storm of tears. "Woe!" the fat boy cried. "Am foolishest of