Ice and Fire Read Online Free PDF

stomach. Gosse’s hands were steady now, his eyes glazed. Time slowed. Then, quite abruptly, it changed. There was a sudden, violent movement in Gosse’s face – a movement somewhere between ecstasy and extreme agony – and then his hands were thrusting the blade deep into his belly. With what seemed superhuman strength and control he drew the short sword to the left, then back to the right, his intestines spilling out onto the cobbles. For a moment his face held its expression of ecstatic agony, then it crumpled and his eyes looked down, widening, horrified by what he had done.
    Rosten brought the sword down sharply.
    Gosse knelt a moment longer. Then his headless body fell and lay there, motionless, next to Wolfe’s.
    Ben heard a moan behind him and turned. Meg was squatting at the top of the stairs, her hands clutching the third and fourth struts tightly, her eyes wide, filled with fright.
    ‘ Go up! ’ he hissed anxiously, hoping he’d not be heard; horrified that she had been witness to Gosse’s death. He saw her turn and look at him, for a moment barely recognizing him or understanding what he had said to her. Dear gods, he thought, how much did she see?
    ‘ Go up! ’ he hissed again. ‘ For heaven’s sake go up! ’
    It was dark on the river, the moon obscured behind the Wall’s north-western edge. Ben jumped ashore and tied the rowboat up to the small, wooden jetty, then turned to give a hand to Peng Yu-wei who stood there, cradling a sleeping Meg in one arm.
    He let the teacher go ahead, reluctant to go in, wanting to keep the blanket of darkness and silence about him a moment longer.
    There was a small rectangle of land beside the jetty, surrounded on three sides by steep clay walls. A set of old, wooden steps had been cut into one side. Ben climbed them slowly, tired from the long row back. Then he was in the garden, the broad swathe of neat-trimmed grass climbing steadily to the thatched cottage a hundred yards distant.
    ‘Ben!’
    His mother stood in the low back doorway, framed by the light, an apron over her long dress. He waved, acknowledging her. Ahead of him, Peng Yu-wei strode purposefully up the path, his long legs showing no sign of human frailty.
    He felt strangely separate from things. As if he had let go of oars and rudder and now drifted on the dark current of events. On the long row back he had traced the logic of the thing time and again. He knew he had caused their deaths. From his discovery things had followed an inexorable path, like the water’s tight spiral down into the whirlpool’s mouth. They had died because of him.
    No. Not because of him. Because of his discovery. He was not to blame for their deaths. They had killed themselves. Their greed had killed them. That and their stupidity.
    He was not to blame; yet he felt their deaths quite heavily. If he had said nothing. If he had simply burned the rabbit as Meg had suggested…
    It would have solved nothing. The sickness would have spread; the discovery would have been made. Eventually. And then the two soldiers would have died.
    It was not his fault. Not his fault.
    His mother met him at the back door. She knelt down and took his hands. Are you okay, Ben? You look troubled. Has something happened?’
    He shook his head. ‘No. I…’
    The door to the right of the broad, low-ceilinged passage-way opened and his father came out, closing the door behind him. He smiled at Ben, then came across.
    ‘Our guest is here, Ben. He’s been here all afternoon. I know I said earlier that you would be eating alone tonight, but he says he’d like to meet you. So I thought that maybe you could eat with us after all.’
    Ben was used to his father’s guests and had never minded taking his evening meal in his room, but this was unusual. He had never been asked to sit at table with a guest before.
    ‘Who is it?’
    His father smiled enigmatically. ‘Wash your hands, then come through. I’ll introduce you. But, Ben… be on your best