Nobody's Son Read Online Free PDF Page A

familiar…
    … But if he had seen her face before, it was across the moat, on the other side of dream, where he could not find it. Here the past went back no farther than the water’s edge, and dawn might as well be the end of the world, so distant was the future.
    He had to do something with Her Majesty now . “Two pigs safe in poke,” he said, holding up another span of rope.
    She gasped in outrage. “You cannot mean to—Hast tha no respect for the sacred person of a Queen? For duty, or for thine own honour?”
    “‘Honour buys no bread,’ we say at home.”
    The Queen looked at him with infinite contempt. “Aye, an’ it were clear tha never gentle wast, when tha kicked thy foe. Churlish were it; only baseborn duel thus.”
    “We weren’t duelling, we were fighting,” Mark snapped. “I saved your life, damn your eyes. Doesn’t that count a brass button to a Queen?”
    Slowly she nodded. “Aye… Aye: for thy timely rescue, much thanks.”
    “Why did they want to kill you?”
    The Queen sighed. “Of late my son has roosted oft in yonder Tower; but never hath he suffered me to enter there. My heart’s-dread evil whispers. Arts there are, as black as yonder moat, as fell as graves, to which a colt might turn, a-chafing at his master’s bit. He has for many moons been smithing on a darkling thing, a dagger all acreep with dread, of iron cold as the Devil’s heart.”
    Mark nodded, feeling a quick burst of triumph. Now we’re getting somewhere. A dagger, then, lies at bottom of this enchanted Keep, a dagger the son means to use upon his father .
    He felt quick, shrewd, planful. “We both need this boat, if we want to flee this place. But—afore I go, there’s summat I must do within,” Mark said, trying to speak as the Queen did. “Marry, an I choose not to bind or beat tha, will you give your word not to call out the guards or take the boat yourself and leave me behind?”
    Slowly the Queen nodded. “Aye.”
    “How can I trust you?”
    The Queen stared at Mark with contempt. “A Lady am I, and a Queen, boy. My word must truer be than gold or blood or colour-glass.”
    “Oh. Right.” ‘ Art tha not cloddish, in sooth ?’ “Look, is there someplace we can hide the boat, in case someone else wanders by here?”
    “Beneath yon Tower a tangle is, of rushes and of sallows. There might I with the coracle crouch,” the Queen said, with a strange, rueful smile, “—and tarry for my prideful champion.” She bent to grasp the boat’s prow, then stopped, drew herself up to her full height, and held out a fair hand encrusted with rings. “Arina’s Regina’s Testibon’s Royal Lerelil.”
    Awkwardly Mark bowed. The hand he kissed was smooth as milk and smelled of rosewater. “Shielder’s Mark,” he said. “Honoured.”
    “Tha’rt meant to say, ‘Thy thrall,’ but tha dost not know, I wis.” And with that Queen Lerelil began walking along the edge of the greensward, pulling the little rowboat beside her.
    Mark stood a moment and watched her go. Will she wait? A noble’s promise to a common man is about as good as an oath sworn to a cow , he thought sourly. Still, surely she won’t betray the jack who just saved her skin !
    Anyway, he wasn’t going to club anyone else on the head. And looking at the Tower, he didn’t think he had much rope to spare for tying up stray royalty.
    He started off toward the Tower, stooping to pat Donkle as he passed. He walked in the shadow of the walls, even though he’d seen no sentries.
    Now that was odd. No one on the walls. No lights lit in the Tower either. No voices eddying from the great hall, no lovers strolling through the cherry orchards, no horses whinnying from the stables. The Queen and her guards were the only people he had seen.
    No soul had lived in the Ghostwood for fifty generations. But here, tonight, a Queen ruled, a son plotted, guards schemed in this nightmare country he remembered from his childhood, where trees hissed secrets to the