Murder in LaMut Read Online Free PDF

Lord Verheyen would countenance such a thing. He’s hot-blooded and hot-headed, of a certainty. But suborning murder? That doesn’t sound like him.’ He shook his head.
    Vandros’s father had appointed Morray as the LaMutian Military Bursar at the beginning of the war, and Vandros had ratified his father’s choice when he inherited the title two years earlier, since the man was good at the job. And as Earl, Vandros knew better than most that both an earldom–particularly during wartime–and an army, lived on gold and silver as much as on meat and grain.
    If Steven Argent had had his way, the Earl would have sealed Baron Morray up in the Tower with his books and accounts and moneybags until every last Tsurani was driven from Midkemia, but that wasn’t politically possible, and even keeping him resident in the City of LaMut was starting to look like a bad idea.
    Time to get him out of town, at least for a while.
    ‘It could be a coincidence. But there’s an old saying, my lord,’ the Swordmaster said. ‘“The first time is happenstance; the second time is remarkable coincidence; the third time is a conspiracy.”’
    Vandros grinned. ‘I think my father should have chosen a good LaMutian as Swordmaster rather than some effete Easterner. Rillanon may be a good place to learn the fine points of swordsmanship, but I think that there is something about the Court that breeds not only conspiracy, but the suspicion of conspiracy, whether one exists or not.’
    ‘There are always conspiracies, my lord, somewhere.’
    Vandros’s face darkened for a moment, and even though it remained unspoken, Argent knew what had passed through his mind. The rift between the King and the Prince of Krondor probably threatened the Kingdom in the long run every bit as much as the Rift through which the Tsurani had invaded. Rumours were running rampant: that the King had ordered his uncle the Prince imprisoned; that Guy du Bas-Tyra’s viceroyalty of the city was simply a pretext to install Guy as the next Prince of Krondor; and lately, that Prince Erland was in fact dead at Guy’s hand.
    All official communication between the Armies of the West and Krondor passed through Brucal and Borric’s hands, and Vandros knew only what he was told, and as a matter of policy didn’t believe the half of it.
    At least that is what he had told his swordmaster. Steven Argent didn’t know whether or not to entirely accept the Earl’s scepticism, although he knew better than to voice any doubts. After all, rumours were often the first harbinger of uncomfortable truth. But that was not something that the young Earl would want to admit, openly or otherwise. Bad blood was the way of the nobility, particularly in such unsettled times, when an heir apparent–to a barony or a duchy–might well die in battle, leaving the succession unclear. Steven Argent had seen it when hunting wolves: when you killed the leader of the pack, the lesser males would spend the next few weeks fighting over dominance while you hunted them down. But that was not a comparison that would have much appeal to Earl Vandros, despite the wolf’s head on his family’s crest. And bringing up matters of succession even in a general way would probably irritate the Earl, given that he was unaccountably touchy on matters concerning his own likely future as Duke of Yabon, once he finally married Duke Brucal’s daughter, Felina.
    So Steven Argent changed the subject. ‘I think those of you in the West–’
    ‘You have served my father–and now me–for more than a dozen years, and to you still it’s “those of you in the West”?’ Vandros interrupted with a laugh.
    ‘–those of you in the West tend to underrate Easterners. We have our share of able soldiers and more than a few exceptional fighters, as well, for that matter.’
    ‘Perhaps.’ Vandros appeared unpersuaded. He was playfully taunting the Swordmaster. There had always been a rivalry between the Eastern and Western