Oath of Fealty Read Online Free PDF

For a full hand of days, the city had been in turmoil as city militia, nobles of the realm, and Marshals of Gird sought to find and destroy Liart’s followers.
    He and his friends had wanted to take part, prove their courage, in those raids on the city’s underground lairs. Their elders had refused to risk them despite their protests. Instead, his friends had been kept at home to guard their families, while he and his younger brother had been confined to the palace, closely guarded. They’d all been told to stay close, be careful, be alert, report anything suspicious.
    But finally the city quieted, and the High Marshals had declared it safe enough to relax some restrictions. Once more his friends were together, sharing a meal, as they had so often before. When the door opened, Mikeli expected servants to bring in the next course, but instead saw one of the palace guards escorting a man in Girdish blue and gray, a yeoman by his tunic, travel-stained and obviously near exhaustion.
    “My lord prince,” the yeoman said, his voice hoarse with cold. “I bear urgent news.” He glanced around the table, as if uncertain which was the prince, then dug into a pouch and produced a crumpled scroll.
    “Here,” Mikeli said. The man handed him the scroll and he unrolled and began reading. The words
“well-armed troops … refused your order … Pargunese … magery … treason”
sprang out at him. “Treason!” The word escaped before he could stop it; he heard the surprise, the horror, in his own voice. He forced himself to silence, and looked up, scanning the room. The startled faces of his dinner companions, their mouths open, stared back at him. Juris Marrakai, Rothlin Mahieran, Rolyan Serrostin, all dukes’ sons whose fathers sat on his Regency Council. Manthar Kostvan and Belin Destvaorn, counts’ sons whose fathers were also on the Council. He glanced at the messenger, noting the air of suppressed alarm.
    “Treason?” That was Juris Marrakai, quick-eared and quick-witted as always. “Whose? Not Phelan’s, surely?”
    “No.” Mikeli caught his imagination by the scruff of the neck, mastered his tongue, and tried to think how to say it. If he could say it at all to these, the friends he’d asked in for a quiet supper. The guilty party was also on his Regency Council.
    “Not Phelan’s,” he said, this time more calmly. “Someone else, against us and against him. He was ambushed, but survived. The paladin reached him in time.” To the messenger: “Sir, your name, if you please?”
    “Piter, my lord,” the messenger said. “Yeoman-marshal of Blackhedge.”
    “Were you a witness to this?” Mikeli tapped the scroll.
    “No, my lord. To make haste, it was passed hand to hand, like. But the Marshal, he had it from the other Marshal, who was there, and he told me some. It’s Gird’s grace—”
    Mikeli held up his hand and the man fell silent. “Gentlemen,” he said to his friends, “this is grave news, and I must meet with those senior in the realm, your fathers among them. I must go at once—”
    Juris Marrakai pushed back from the table. “Sir—Your Highness—if it is treason, you must not go unguarded—”
    Mikeli tried for an easy laugh; it came out more as a cough. “I am hardly unguarded. The palace guard—”
    “We are your friends,” Juris said. “You can’t leave us out; you can trust us—”
    But could he? If a councilor could turn traitor, anyone might. He looked again at the papers—for now he saw there were two. One from Ammerlin, commander of the Royal Guard unit he had sent with Phelan, and one from Phelan himself. He held up his hand, and his guests stayed where they were, silent.
    The second note, in Phelan’s clear, even script, said much the same, more briefly and pointedly.
    And I beg you, sire, that you take all precautions. A man who will so disobey your express order at the margin of your realm will have designs on your reign. I have seen this too often in Aarenis to