Fairs' Point Read Online Free PDF

pay once his family’s affairs were settled. According to sober tongues, there had been more spectacular bankruptcies in Astreiant, and it was also whispered that Malfiliatre could have paid her brother’s way if she’d chosen to do so, but, coming hard on the heels of the winter’s follies, not just the conspiracy but the corms traded at a hundred times their proper value, the matter commanded a certain morbid fascination. The broadsheets were about evenly divided between condemnation and relief, though a fair number seemed to agree with Rathe that this was going to hurt some of the small-holders.
    Eslingen glanced around wincing as the kennel’s-worth of dogs confined in the most distant arch of the arcade set up another shrill round of barking. They were basket terriers, he’d been told, racing dogs who might be worth a great deal more—or less—in a moon-month’s time, after the Dog Moon ended the spring meets, but he found it hard to imagine. He’d taken a good look at them, peering dubiously over the woven fencing that contained them, and they were short-legged, short-bodied little dogs, nothing like the nort hern coursing dogs with which he was most familiar. But of course in the League, we race horses, he thought. How would I know what fares best in this sport?
    His eyes strayed to the next few arches. De Calior had had hor ses, too, a couple of nice hacks and a particularly dark and showy bay that thrust a disdainful head over the temporary barrier and tried to snatch the plume from the hat of a harassed-looking merchant. An equally harassed-looking groom in the court’s livery hauled on the shank and made apologetic noises, and Eslingen moved closer, hoping to deflect the merchant’s anger if necessary. But the woman had already moved on, and the groom gave him a wary look.
    “Careful, sir, he’s a handful.”
    “A beauty, though,” Eslingen answered. Closer to, the horse was exactly the sort he’d always loved, tall and well-muscled, with heavy hocks that spoke of both strength and speed.
    “And doesn’t he know it.” The groom shook the shank again in a vain attempt to pull the animal’s head back to his side of the barr ier.
    “Biter?” Eslingen asked.
    “No.” The groom made two syllables of the word.
    He has plenty of other bad habits, then , Eslingen thought. The creature was too beautiful to be well-mannered. It had been a long time since Eslingen owned a horse. He reached for the horse’s nose, and the bay dipped his head obediently, but there was a look in his eyes that Eslingen didn’t trust.
    “ What’s his name?” Eslingen twisted his hand away as the horse made a grab for the button that secured his coat’s cuff.
    “ King of Thieves,” the groom answered, with some bitterness.
    A new voice spoke over Eslingen’s shoulder. “How singularly appropriate.”
    He hadn’t heard that voice since midwinter, and hadn’t e xpected to hear it here, so that for an instant his mind rejected the connection, and he turned half expecting a stranger. But indeed it was Coindarel, the Prince-Marshal himself in all his glory, leaning on an ebony stick bound with silver-embroidered ribbons that frothed over his unpainted hand. Trust Coindarel not to adopt a fashion that wouldn’t flatter him, Eslingen thought, and made a bow that encompassed both the Prince-Marshal and the entourage that followed him. He recognized Coindarel’s leman, the Major-Sergeant Patric Estradere, but the others were strangers, as were the blue-and-silver ribbons in their hats and threaded through the buttonholes of their coats: a unit token, but not one he knew.
    “ Lieutenant vaan Esling,” Coindarel said, rolling name and title on his tongue, and Eslingen hoped the dim light hid his blush. Coindarel knew—few better—how precariously claimed both had been, and it was a kindness to acknowledge them so publicly. Eslingen bowed again, more deeply, and Coindarel gave him a private smile. “I wouldn’t have