Icebound Land Read Online Free PDF Page A

acquiescence should anyone ever find out what was going on.
    “I have it on good authority,” the Ranger continued, almost jovially now, “that good King Duncan is not the lawful occupant of the throne. I’ve heard it said that he is, in fact, the son of a drunken privy cleaner. Another rumor has it that he was the result of his father’s fascination with a traveling hatcha-hatcha dancer. Take your pick. Either way, it is hardly the correct lineage for a king, is it?”
    A small sigh of concern passed from someone’s lips. This was becoming more and more dangerous by the moment. The tavern keeper shifted nervously behind the bar, saw a movement in the back room and moved to get a clearer view through the doorway. His wife, on her way into the taproom with a plate of pies for the bar, had stopped as she heard the Ranger’s last statement. She stood white-faced, her eyes meeting her husband’s in an unspoken question.
    He glanced quickly at the Ranger, but the other man’s attention was now focused on a wagoner who was trying to make himself inconspicuous at the far end of the bar. “Don’t you agree, sir…you in the yellow jerkin with most of yesterday’s breakfast spilled upon it…that such a person doesn’t deserve to be king of this fair land?” he asked. The wagoner mumbled and shifted in his seat, unwilling to make eye contact.
    The tavern keeper jerked his head almost imperceptibly toward the back entrance of the building. His wife looked away to it, then back to him, her eyebrows raised in a query. “The Watch,” he mouthed carefully, and saw understanding dawn in her eyes. Stepping quietly, and still out of the Ranger’s line of sight, she crossed the back room and let herself out the rear door, closing it behind her as silently as she could manage.
    For all her care, the latch made a slight click as it fell into place behind her. The Ranger’s eyes snapped around to the tavern keeper, suspicious and questioning.
    “What was that?” he demanded, and the tavern keeper shrugged, rubbing damp palms on his stained apron. He didn’t try to speak. He knew his throat was far too dry to form words.
    For a fleeting moment, he thought he saw a flash of satisfaction in the other man’s expression, but he dismissed the thought as ridiculous.
    As the minutes dragged by, the Ranger’s insults and slandering of King Duncan grew more vivid and more outrageous. The landlord swallowed nervously. His wife had been gone ten minutes now. Surely she must have found a detachment of the Watch? Surely they should be arriving here any minute, to remove this dangerous man and stop this treasonous talk?
    And, even as he framed the thought, the front door banged back on its hinges and a squad of five men, led by a corporal, forced their way into the dimly lit room. Each of them was armed with a long sword and a short, heavy-headed club hanging at his belt, and each wore a round buckler slung across his back.
    The corporal appraised the room as his men fanned out behind him. His eyes narrowed as they made out the figure hunched at the table.
    “What’s going on here?” he demanded, and the Ranger smiled. It was a smile that never reached his eyes, the tavern keeper noticed.
    “We were talking politics,” he said, his words laden with sarcasm.
    “Not what I heard,” the corporal replied, thin-lipped. “I heard you were talking treason.”
    The Ranger’s mouth formed an incredulous O and his eyebrows arched in mock surprise. “Treason?” he repeated, then looked curiously around the room. “Has someone here been telling tales out of school, then? Is someone here a tell-tale tit, whose tongue should be…split!”
    It happened so quickly that the tavern keeper barely had time to throw himself flat behind the bar. As the Ranger spat out the last word, he had somehow scooped up the longbow from behind him and nocked and fired an arrow. It slammed into the wall behind the spot where the tavern keeper had been standing