Heirs of the Blade Read Online Free PDF

his fealtors to the west mostly. However, let us sup, and then we can present ourselves – and at least let the castle staff know that a dignitary from Collegium is here.’
    The drink tasted mostly like some sort of soup, surprisingly rich and savoury. ‘Kadith,’ Galltree explained. ‘Very popular with the nobility. Each breeds his own, you see, with different herbs and grasses. It’s quite a commodity for barter between provinces.’ Seeing her frown he hooked out his little bundle. ‘The larvae build their little homes from what plants are given them, you see, so the flavour varies from pond to pond.’
    ‘Oh, caddis ,’ she declared, as sudden understanding came to her. The strangeness of it was lost in the fact that the drink was so good. She had the errant thought, We should import this to Collegium , before she reminded herself that she was not going back there.
    They passed amongst the dispersed buildings of Suon Ren, the locals breezing past, but ignoring her, and barely acknowledging Galltree himself. Tynisa had a sense of their contentment, everything around them part of a grand and changeless pattern that had endured for centuries – a pattern she had yet to earn a place in. An echo of Salma glittered and danced amongst them, teasing her memory for once without drawing blood. The Commonwealers walked, meditated or wrote, practised their archery or took off into the sky on shimmering wings. There was precious little talk at all between them, as though everything worth saying had already been thoroughly discussed by their grandparents’ parents. Aside from a single man hammering away at a forge on the edge of town, the loudest thing in Suon Ren was the younger children, who chased about between the buildings in some game that involved tagging one another and then running away. Tynisa smiled to watch them, until she heard one child cry out, while tagging another, ‘You’re the Wasp! You’re the Wasp!’
    ‘The war never came this far, did it?’ she asked Galltree, realizing, as she did, that her knowledge of Commonweal geography was almost entirely lacking.
    ‘No indeed,’ he replied, ‘but many of Prince Felipe’s people travelled to meet it.’
    Then they were ascending the rise that led to the castle, and Tynisa began to appreciate what a bizarre folly the place truly was. The structure seemed to make do with half the walls of any other building – not that whole sides of it were open but, instead, great sections of its exterior, at various heights, had simply been omitted, allowing both sight and access into the building’s interior. Much that was there was strewn with green, a profusion of vines tumbling in a verdant mane from some manner of roof garden, and other gardens within, also, to merge seamlessly with the outside. There were inner walls, too, but they were no more complete than the outer, so that, looking into the heart of the castle, Tynisa experienced a feeling not unlike vertigo – finding her Lowlander sense of boundaries and borders constantly violated.
    Gramo stopped abruptly, and for a moment she could not work out why. Only after a moment’s reflection did she guess that a few more steps would actually have brought them notion-ally within , a separate space whose limits were entirely invisible to her.
    ‘Do we . . . Is there a bell we ring?’ she asked.
    ‘We wait,’ Gramo advised. ‘You must realize, the Commonwealers do not have that sense of urgency you may recall from Collegium.’
    She could see people further within, who she guessed were servants busy about the tasks of maintaining the place, but none of them seemed to see her. The unseen walls of this place evidently blocked her from their notice.
    With a little creaking of joints, Gramo seated himself. ‘Ah, but there is no such thing as idle time in the Commonweal. This is a time to reflect and to meditate upon one’s life.’
    The idea brought a sour taste to Tynisa’s mouth. I have no more need of that