Tales of the Dragon's Bard, Volume 1: Eventide Read Online Free PDF

them more than fine . . . but not all . . . but they’re nothing compared to . . . well, just her green eyes alone . . . and her hair, and . . . well, you know . . . well, you don’t know . . . and if you ever laid a hand on her . . . which you wouldn’t because I’d . . .”
    Edvard put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, which somehow managed to make his mouth come to an abrupt halt. The Dragon’s Bard gazed into Jarod’s eyes with all the earnest intensity he could muster. “So, I take it that you’ve explained your feelings to her in just these words, then?” he intoned.
    Jarod and the Bard were sitting facing each other from high-backed benches on opposite sides of a table near the stained-glass window of the Inn. Abel sat behind them, enjoying the company of his pack while he continued to listen to the conversation and write.
    “It’s hopeless,” Jarod said. “I try to talk to her, but every time I do, my mouth opens and no sound comes out. My jaw works up and down, and for all the world I must look like a fish that’s just been pulled out of the river and is flopping around on the stones.”
    “And what does she do?” Edvard asked.
    “She just looks at me with those wonderful, big green eyes and then takes pity on me, I guess, and goes away to relieve me of my suffering,” Jarod moaned. He leaned forward. “I tried writing sonnets, but then I wasn’t sure whether she could read or not. I thought of trying to get someone else to read them to her, but I would be too embarrassed to ask another girl to read them out loud, and if I asked another fellow to do it, she might mistake my sonnets as coming from him, and that would be awful. Then, what if she could read and thought that my sonnets were crude or stupid? I composed a ballad, but how could I possibly sing to her when I can’t even speak two words in her direction?”
    Jarod dropped his head heavily down on the table.
    “She is so wonderful,” Jarod mumbled into the table. “And I’m only Jarod Klum.”
    Jarod felt the jarring of boots swinging up onto the table. He looked up. The Dragon’s Bard was leaning back on his bench with a broad smile on his face.
    “Perhaps I can help,” Edvard said with a twinkle in his eye. “Have you ever considered becoming someone else? ”

• Chapter 3 •
    Farmer Bennis
     
    How can I be someone else?” Jarod asked, his warm breath billowing out in front of him in the chill air. He glanced at the charred sundial as they passed it in the middle of the square and wondered if its curse were about to extend to him personally.
    “We’re all trying to be someone else,” Edvard mused as they walked back across the bridge to Trader’s Square. “That, my friend, is the very essence of the theatrical experience! The ability to enlarge oneself above the mundane and the ordinary and to become the ideal . . . the stuff of true heroes! I have no small experience in this, Master Jarod. I should be delighted to be of service to you in your conquest of the fair Caprice.”
    Jarod was not altogether sure he understood what the Dragon’s Bard was saying—and what he thought he understood he did not like hearing. “If you lay one finger on her, I swear I’ll—”
    The Dragon’s Bard gripped Jarod by his shoulders, stopping him in mid-stride and turning him around so as to face him. “No! It is for you that we shall create such an air of mystery, such a cloud of desire, such a glorious haze of allurement that your fair Caprice shall be powerless to resist you! You shall woo her as I have said, and win her with both heart and head. Then to her you shall soon be wed . . . and take her to your warm soft bed!”
    Jarod flushed in the bright winter afternoon.
    Abel struggled along behind them, trying to write; his orders apparently included capturing in print every immortal word that fell from the lips of his master. The pack filled with his belongings occasionally slipped off his shoulders,