The Books of the South: Tales of the Black Company (Chronicles of the Black Company) Read Online Free PDF

having fought against her for so many years.
    “We ride out in the morning,” I said. “My apologies. I was elected to lead the Company, not just Croaker. Forgive me for losing sight of that.”
    Crafty old Croaker. One-Eye and Goblin looked properly abashed. I grinned. “So go get packed. We’re gone with the morning sun.”
    *   *   *
    She wakened me in the night. For a moment I thought …
    I saw her face. She had heard.
    She begged me to stay just one more day. Or two, at the most. She did not want to be here any more than we did, surrounded and taunted by all that she had lost. She wanted to go away, to go with us, to remain with me, the only friend she’d ever had—
    She broke my heart.
    It sounds sappy when you write it down in words, but a man has to do what a man has to do. In a way I was proud of me. I did not give an inch.
    “There is no end to it,” I told her. “There’ll always be just one more thing that has to be done. Khatovar gets no closer while I wait. Death does. I value you, too. I don’t want to leave … Death lurks in every shadow in this place. It writhes in the heart of every man who resents my influence.” It was that kind of empire too, and in the past few days a lot of old imperials were given cause to resent me deeply.
    “You promised me dinner at the Gardens in Opal.”
    I promised you a lot more than that, my heart said. Aloud, I replied, “So I did. And the offer still stands. But I have to get my men out of here.”
    I turned reflective while she turned uncharacteristically nervous. I saw the fires of schemes flickering behind her eyes, being rejected. There were ways she could manipulate me. We both knew that. But she never used the personal to gain political ends. Not with me, anyway.
    I guess each of us, at some time, finds one person with whom we are compelled toward absolute honesty, one person whose good opinion of us becomes a substitute for the broader opinion of the world. And that opinion becomes more important than all our sneaky, sleazy schemes of greed, lust, self-aggrandizement, whatever we are up to while lying the world into believing we are just plain nice folks. I was her truth object, and she was mine.
    There was only one thing we hid from one another, and that was because we were afraid that if it came into the open it would reshape everything else and maybe shatter that broader honesty.
    Are lovers ever honest?
    “I figure it’ll take us three weeks to reach Opal. It’ll take another week to find a trustworthy shipmaster and to work One-Eye up to crossing the Sea of Torments. So twenty-five days from today I’ll go to the Gardens. I’ll have the Camelia Grotto reserved for the evening.” I patted the lump next to my heart. That lump was a beautifully tooled leather wallet containing papers commissioning me a general in the imperial armed forces and naming me a diplomatic legate answerable only to the Lady herself.
    Precious, precious. And one good reason some longtime imperials had a big hate on for me.
    I am not sure just how that came about. Some banter during one of those rare hours when she was not 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