Kings of the North Read Online Free PDF Page B

relaxed. Not so the peers, other than Kirgan Marrakai and Duke Serrostin; the others’ glances were brief and ranged from anxious to hostile. The palace servants, too, as they helped the peers change from riding boots to court shoes, avoided her gaze. The same tiring maid who had giggled while adjusting Dorrin’s court dress that morning now seemed terrified of her. No doubt the woman had heard that Dorrin was one of the dreaded magelords. Dorrin longed to get away, but law and custom decreed she must attend the coronation banquet.
    In the anteroom of the banquet hall, she was surprised to see Duke Marrakai slouched in a chair; she’d assumed he was still in bed, under a physician’s care. Dorrin, uneasily aware of the Marshal-General’s displeasure and the fears of some of the other peers, stepped aside to let the others talk to him first, but he gestured to her.
    “Come closer,” he said. “You were Phelan’s captain; I hold no grudge against you for your name.”
    “You are kind, my lord,” Dorrin said, wondering why he said nothing about the attack in the courtyard. “But how do you feel?”
    “They tell me I fell and hit my head—what a thing to happen on a coronation day, eh? But a head as hard as mine does not crack easily, whatever the physician says. I have a headache, that’s all. Anyone might.”
    Dorrin looked at him closely, concerned. Despite his words, he looked the color of new cheese, and his gaze wavered. She leaned close. “My lord duke, with no intent to argue, I have seen soldiers take such a blow, who wore helmets. They needed to lie quiet; our physicians insisted on it. By your leave, I would have you obey the physician; you are not yet well.”
    “It is the coronation banquet—my last, I am sure, for Mikeli is young and will long outlive me. I do not wish to miss it.” He gave her a crooked smile. “If I die now, no one will blame you. You had nothing to do with it.”
    So he remembered nothing of it; that in itself could be expectedwith a blow to the head, but as for the rest—if that were all, he should look better than he did. Dorrin looked around; the other peers, out of courtesy or nervousness, had left a little space for her and Duke Marrakai to talk, but the Marshal-General stood not far away, watching. Dorrin caught her gaze and nodded. The Marshal-General moved nearer.
    “My lords,” the Marshal-General said, her tone edged. “How may I serve you?”
    “Tell Verrakai you do not blame her,” Marrakai said. “She is worried about my health, but I am as hale as any man of my years. It was but a knock on the head from falling.”
    The Marshal-General looked closely at his face. This time her voice was gentler. “My lord duke, I understand her worry. Such blows are not always harmless; I believe yours did more damage than you know. Will you not retire?”
    “No!” Marrakai’s voice was loud enough to turn heads. More quietly he repeated what he had told Dorrin. “And I won’t go off to bed like some errant boy who’s displeased his tutor!”
    This vehemence convinced Dorrin—and, she saw, the Marshal-General as well—that his injury was still affecting him and perhaps worsening. “Marshals have healing powers, do they not?” Dorrin said to the Marshal-General.
    “So, it is said, did magelords once,” the Marshal-General said, looking Dorrin in the eye. “Are you unwilling to use your powers that way?”
    “Not unwilling but unskilled,” Dorrin said. “Healing was the rarest of the gifts, and there was no one to teach me. All I’ve healed so far is a well.”
    “A well?”
    Dorrin shook her head. “Too long a story for now. If you have the ability, Marshal-General, or know someone …”
    Marrakai slumped in his chair, his head falling forward; his eyes had not quite closed, but when the Marshal-General called his name, he mumbled something they could not understand. Now the other peers crowded in, including Kirgan Marrakai.
    “What did she do this