Silver May Tarnish Read Online Free PDF

be used. The gratitude of my House be upon you and yours and your heirs. We live long and do not quickly forget.’” Berond broke off and I stared at him.
    â€œWhat has this to do with the coin you brought me? Is it from—them?”
    Berond nodded, saw my awed look, and grinned. “Aye, lad. While the Lord of the Hills accepted the offer of the unneeded coin, he returned it as I have said. Erondale made hiding-places in the keep into which they placed portions of the wealth. Over the years they changed much of it to ordinary silver where and as they could. There is a goodly amount of it remaining which lies hidden. This bag was held aside should it ever be that one fleeing should have need of an amount they could carry easily and hide well.”

    I closed my fingers about the bag, from where I had placed it on a thong about my neck, weighing it in my hand. The coins were gold, the gems good quality. In my single hand in that bag I held wealth enough to buy a warhorse, a pack pony, full mail, a fine sword, and have coin enough to live fat for many months. I hefted the bag. I was not quite thirteen. As yet I had no need of such wealth. Best I let the bag’s contents lie. I said as much to Berond and he agreed.
    â€œAye, spend it at a whim and it shall not be there when there is great need.” He glanced at the dark hills around and lowered his voice. “Then, too, there is more where that came from. It is weighty, being mainly silver, but there is enough to re-build a keep should the one who spends waste none of it. In times to come the dales will be poor, and coin such as that will be a great prize when this war is done. See that none guess what you have about your neck, nor that there is more where it came from.” I heeded well that wisdom as I had listened to my father’s words in the past.
    Berond was gone for three months after that, but when he returned we went hunting again and I asked him a question which weighed on me. This was, should I give a share of the gold to Paltendale, which had taken us in? Berond shook his head.
    â€œI think not. The lord may be fair most times, but he is a hard man. He will say that you are only a boy and that you are kin-bound to his House, therefore what you have is his to take; and take it he will. He would not see that as wrong or unjust. Nor has he done so badly by opening his gates to the two of us. I have fought well for him these past years. Faslane tells me you have hunted and brought in to the kitchen many times more than you would have eaten. No, we have repaid. Let be. If there comes a time when you should share what you have, I think that you will know it.”
    So I took his advice and kept silent upon the matter. I wore the bag on the long thong so it lay on my breast
within my clothing and none saw. Moreover, I was cunning. I made an apparent charm bag using a scrap of cloth to cover the bag Berond had given me. That empty bag I had blessed by the Hold’s wise woman, and into it I later tipped again the gold coins and gems in the privacy of my room. Any seeing the bag would know it for a charm and few would wish to meddle with one of those. It pleased me to have thought of this, and I hugged my secret to me because I had little else that was mine.
    Six months later sorrow fell on me once more, so that I grieved deeply in secret—not wishing to appear unmanly before the keep’s fighters—for a long time. It seemed as if everyone I had ever cared for was taken from me and I was always left alone. I wondered, as I mourned, if Berond had given me the gold and told me all he knew because he had forseen his death? He was slain in a battle unlooked for, but now that I am older I think that it was the wisdom of an experienced warrior. Berond was no young man and he must have known that his muscles stiffened, his speed in battle slowed.
    So it was that, as he battled one enemy fighter, a second came against him and Berond fell.