Shadow Games: The Fourth Chronicles of the Black Company: First Book of the South Read Online Free PDF Page B

issuing decrees or signing proclamations. Next thing I
     knew I had been brought to bay by a pack of tailors. They fitted me out with a
     complete imperial wardrobe. Never will I unravel the significance of all the
     piping, badges, buttons, medals, doodads, and gewgaws. I felt silly wearing all
     that clutter.
    I didn’t need much time to see some possibilities, though, in what at first I
     interpreted as an elaborate practical joke.
    She does have that kind of sense of humor, not always taking this great
     dreadfully humorless empire of hers seriously.
    I am sure she saw the possibilities long before I did.
    Anyway, we were talking the Gardens in Opal, and the Camelia Grotto there, the
     acme of that city’s society see-and-be-seen. “I’ll take my evening meal there,”
    I told her. “You’re welcome to join me.”
    Hints of hidden things tugged at her face. She said, “All right. If I’m in
     town.”
    It was one of those moments in which I become very uncomfortable. One of those
     times when nothing you say can be right, and almost anything you do say is
     wrong. I could see no answer but the classic Croaker approach.
    I began to back away.
    That is how I handle my women. Duck for cover when they get distressed.
    I almost made it to the door.
    She could move when she wanted. She crossed the gap and put her arms around me,
    rested a cheek against my chest.
    And that is how they handle me, the sentimental fool. The closet romantic. I
     mean, I don’t even have to know them. They can work that one on me. When they
     really want to drill me they turn on the water.
    I held her till she was ready to be let go. We did not look at one another as I
     turned and went away. So. She hadn’t gone for the heavy artillery.
    She played fair, mostly. Give her that. Even when she was the Lady. Slick,
    tricky, but more or less fair.
    The job of legate comes with all sorts of rights to subinfeudation and plunder
     of the treasury. I had drafted that pack of tailors and turned them loose on the
     men. I handed out commissions. I waved my magic wand and One-Eye and Goblin
     became colonels. Hagop and Otto turned into captains. I even cast a glamor on
     Murgen, so that he looked like a lieutenant. I drew us all three months’ pay in
     advance. It all boggled the others. I think one reason One-Eye was anxious to
     get moving was an eagerness to get off somewhere where he could abuse his
     newfound privileges. For the time being, though, he mostly bickered with Goblin
     about whose commission carried the greater seniority. Those two never once
     questioned our shift in fortunes.
    The weirdest part was when she called me in to present my commissions, and
     insisted on a real name to enter into the record. It took me a while to remember
     what my name was.
    We rode out as threatened. Only we did not do it as the ragged band that rode
     in.
    I travelled in a black iron coach drawn by six raging black stallions, with
     Murgen driving and Otto and Hagop riding as guards. With a string of saddle
     horses trailing behind. One-Eye and Goblin, disdaining the coach, rode before
     and behind upon mounts as fey and magnificent as the beasts which pulled the
     coach. With twenty-six Horse Guards as escort.
    The horses she gave us were of a wild and wonderful breed, hitherto given only
     to the greatest champions of her empire. I had ridden one once, long ago, during
     the Battle at Charm, when she and I had chased down Soulcatcher. They could run
     forever without tiring. They were magical beasts. They constituted a gift
     precious beyond belief.
    How do these weird things happen to me?
    A year earlier I was living in a hole in the ground, under that boil on the butt
     of the world, the Plain of Fear, with fifty other men, constantly afraid we
     would be discovered by the empire. I had not had new or clean clothing in a
     decade, and baths and shaves were as rare and dear as diamonds.
    Lying opposite me in that coach was a black bow, the first gift