In Winter's Shadow Read Online Free PDF

his grain, asking if it was acceptable. It was too much, and I knew it, but I snapped “Perhaps,” and went back to make arrangements. Cei hung about behind me like a large red thunder cloud, waiting for me to finish.
    When we had fixed on a price—and the price was still too high, since I was in no mood to bargain patiently, and these southern farmers are not to be out-bargained at the best of times—I was further distracted by a petitioner. A boy who had been sitting in one of the carts jumped out and knelt before me.
    “What is it?” I asked wearily.
    “M-most n-noble queen,” he began, then switched to a surprisingly good formal Latin. “Your Grace, I have come here hoping to find a place in the emperor’s service.”
    I had expected some complaint about a neighboring clan, and I looked at the farmer whose cart the boy had been sitting in, surprised. “Isn’t he your son?”
    The farmer shook his head. “No, noble lady. I only gave him a ride from Baddon. He is a good, biddable lad, though; listen to him.”
    I sighed and brushed back a loose strand of my hair. Another petition for service at Camlann. People came all the time, offering to practice any imaginable trade, and many of them we accepted, and many we did not. I did not feel like weighing this boy’s qualifications now, after the letter and with Cei looming behind me. But I reminded myself to be strong, be gracious, and smiled at the boy. Cei snorted impatiently.
    “What manner of place, young man?” I asked, also in Latin, studying him. He looked about thirteen, of average height for that age, with a mass of pale hair above a thin face and a pair of surprisingly dark eyes. He was not a farm lad, I decided. His Latin was too good, and there was a nervous sensitivity to his face which argued some education.
    “I…Your Sacred Kindness, I am willing to do almost anything. But I wish to learn how to be a warrior.”
    Cei snorted again. “Boy, do not trouble the lady. Go back to your family and don’t run away from it in future.”
    The boy flushed deep crimson. “I…I…” he stammered.
    I smiled again to reassure him. “What is your name?” I asked. “And where is your family? You are young to seek service on your own.”
    “They call me Gwyn,” he said. “I don’t know my father’s name. And I have no family, except for my mother, and she is in a convent in Elmet. Your grace, I am willing to do almost anything, if you will let me stay here and train to be a warrior. I know you must train boys to be warriors here. All the sons of the great warriors—like this lord here” (with a nervous, appeasing smile at Cei)—“they must become warriors as well. Surely it would be no trouble for one more to join them?”
    “So he is a nun’s bastard, raised at a nunnery,” said Cei. “My lady, send him away. We have more servants than we can feed already, and don’t need some half-grown dreamer of a nun’s bastard.”
    The boy had gone an even deeper red when Cei began, but went white at the end of his speech. He jumped to his feet, began to stammer a reply, then was quiet, blinking miserably. He evidently was a nun’s bastard, and must be a dreamer, if he wished to be a warrior so badly that he was willing to leave what home he had, alone, and travel to Camlann to offer to do “almost anything” to learn the arts of war.
    “My lady,” Cei began again, going back to the subject which had been his sole concern all the while, “how can I apologize to Rhuawn after his slanders?”
    But I felt sorry for the boy now. “You are too old to learn to be a warrior,” I told him gently, for a moment ignoring Cei and the farmers. “Most boys begin their training between the ages of seven and nine.”
    “But I did start then, noble lady, on my own!” he cried, slipping back into British. “And a monk at the brother foundation to my mother’s convent, he taught me, too—he used to be a warrior, you see. Only I need to know more.”
    “Be