The Eyes of a King Read Online Free PDF

not put food on the table.”
    “It’s easy for you to say that! My father did none the worse for being clever. How do you put food on the table, then? With the money from his books, that’s how. You do not work.”
    “Would you have me work, Leo?”
    “No. All I’m saying is that you don’t.”
    “I don’t have time, with looking after you and Stirling.”
    “You don’t need to, because you have all the money from my father.”
    “Aye, and we are extremely fortunate that no one has found out. And look what Harold’s cleverness cost him. My only son, fleeing in the night like a criminal, and now—” She stopped and began again. “Your great-uncle—so famous and powerful—his cleverness got him nowhere either. Dead. Is that where you want to end up?”
    “Yes,” I told her. I should have just let it go, but I was tired of her constant lecturing.
    “Yes?” she repeated, her voice rising. “
Yes?
Well, that’s where you are going to end up if you don’t start working. I’m sick of you always complaining about school. Don’t you know how lucky you are?”
    “Lucky?”
    “Don’t you know what some boys would give to have the education you are getting? Don’t you know how fortunate you are to be able to become a soldier? And you are so ungrateful as to say—”
    “What’s ungrateful?” I shouted. “What is there to be grateful for? All I said is, I’d rather end up dead. I mean it. I’d rather be dead if it means I don’t have to end up as some bastard soldier. They think they’re so bloody smart—”
    “Leo!” I had not heard her shout so loudly in a long time. “Do not dare to talk to me like that!” I was always in trouble for swearing. “You are the one who thinks he’s smart,” she yelled. “Well, you’ve got a lot to learn! Including some respect.”
    She turned away, breathing heavily. Her face in the glass trembled, yellow with fury, and for a moment I thought I was frightened of her. I suppose I was remembering how I used tobe scared when she shouted, when I was very young. I watched her for a moment. I felt suddenly like laughing at the response I had got so easily. I don’t know why.
    It got darker and darker in the room while I sat there. My grandmother made no move to light the oil lamp on the table. She stood as if she was carved of stone. The only sign that she was not a statue was a circle of mist on the window, getting larger and smaller, and then larger again, as she breathed onto the glass. The room was cold and I wanted to put my overcoat back on, but I was caught in the silence and I could not break it.
    I wished then that I had not shouted at her. She was, after all, quite old, and I should have known better. I was not a little child. I should have made an effort. I vowed to myself that I would try to understand her better. I would try to control my temper. I wondered idly if she would ever move.
    Eventually she turned back to me. The clouds were so dense outside now, and the light so dim, that I could not make out her expression. “Leo, why did you not wait for your brother?” she asked. She was carrying on the conversation, though her voice was shaky. She was still angry, I judged.
    “I tried to wait,” I said, “but Markey caught me.”
    “
Sergeant
Markey,” she said, her voice tighter. “I want you to go back and meet Stirling.”
    “What? I stood there more than an hour before I came home—more like two hours. I’m still cold. It’s below freezing out there.” And it was a long way back to school. But I knew I was going to go.
    “You heard me. It’s not safe for him to walk by himself at six o’clock with the weather dark like this.”
    “All right,” I said. That was it. I was going to try to control my temper. I crossed to the door.
    “Leo.” I turned to her. “Don’t forget your overcoat.”
    I could tell by her voice that her anger was gone. It sounded like an apology. Stupidly, I had to take advantage of it. I reached out at the