Chance Read Online Free PDF Page B

friend. Moreover, he was afraid to speak ardently of Halimeda. Afraid of what Roddarc might see in his eyes.
    By harvest time, the lady had grown as round as the fruits of the vines, a very emblem of the full lofts. Those golden days were darkened for Chance. A fear was growing in him as the babe grew in the lady, and one evening when the smell of frost hung in the air he spoke plainly to Roddarc.
    â€œIt is time for you to give over this wrath,” he said.
    â€œGive over?” The lord glanced up, his look chill even in the warm light of the hearthfire.
    â€œYes. I know well enough that you love your sister, Rod. You cannot keep on this flinty shell forever. Suppose she dies in the birthing of the child?”
    Chance felt his voice falter, speaking of that fear. But Roddarc’s hard stare did not change. Chance plunged on.
    â€œShe is very young, very slender, it is not unlikely. How will you feel if she dies and you have not made your peace with her?”
    â€œAs I feel now,” Roddarc stated. “That it would be her own foolish fault, for dallying.”
    â€œYou cannot mean that!” Chance whispered, shocked and vehement. No use, any longer, trying to hide his vehemence.
    â€œI do mean it,” the lord said, all too evenly. “No one made her conceive a child. It is not as if she were wed.”
    â€œRoddarc of Wirralmark,” Chance shouted at him, “for whatever goes wrong, the blame will be on your head if you send her to childbed grieving!”
    â€œIs it not fitting,” the lord said with icy calm, “that a sorrow child should be born amid tears?”
    â€œDoes it mean nothing to you that she is your beloved sister?” Chance was on his feet now, raging. “Lord Roddarc, you are blind, locked like a felon in a dungeon of your own digging, as bad as your father Riol at his very worst, for all that you give yourself airs of kindness!”
    That stung. “Speak not to me of Riol,” Roddarc snapped, and the lash of the words brought him to his feet in his turn.
    â€œI will speak what you need to hear! My lady Halimeda was wise not to confide in you. She knew that you can be as cruel as any tyrant who ever wielded—”
    â€œSpeak no more to me of that wench!” Roddarc thundered. “What, are you besotted with her?”
    â€œYou pledged me once to protect her!” Chance shouted back just as fiercely. “With my life I was to shield her! What, am I to desert her now for the sake of your ill humor? Is she worth less than she was before?”
    â€œShe is worth nothing!”
    â€œShe is worthy of all love,” Chance whispered. But the lord did not hear him, ranting on.
    â€œWhat man of rank would have her? There is no noble in the land who will take such a sullied bride, be her dower far richer than I can afford. Once I had thought there would be perhaps a prince for her, but now—”
    â€œI would take her in an instant,” Chance said softly, and this time Roddarc heard him.
    For the space of three breaths there was utter silence. Eyes met in a complicated communication; memory was part of it, memory of a time ten years and more before, of a battlefield. Pain for Roddarc in that memory, and pain angered him.
    Lord Roddarc spoke.
    â€œHow very fitting, how suitable for her. You: a commoner, a bastard, and a castrate.”
    Chance stood as if frozen, unable even to breathe. When he drew breath and moved, it was to stride across his small home and fling open the door.
    â€œGet out,” he said.
    â€œI will go when I please.”
    â€œIt is not fitting that a lord should come so familiarly to the home of a commoner. Out!”
    Roddarc shrugged and ambled out with apparent indifference.
    The next time he went to see Halimeda, Chance found that he was no longer to be admitted to her presence. Nor did Roddarc come any more to his warden’s lodge.
    Autumn waned toward winter. Chill winds and rains